8-27-2024 WCSD Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees

e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right everybody we are ready to go all right all right team are we good oh who is am I doing or are you doing roll call you're doing call okay all right everybody it is 20:05 p.m. on this Tuesday August 27th 20124 regular meeting of the waso County School District Board of Trustees and today uh JJ would you mind doing item 1.02 roll call trusty Church trusty Mayberry here trusty Nicolet good afternoon trusty Rodriguez is absent trusty weslake here trusty Woodley here president Smith here student representative Annie bavia you have a COR well thank you so much I guess that's a really good point to now clarify is it bavia or bavia bavia okay like New York well while we're on the topic of you let's roll right into item 1.03 so for those who may have noticed we have a wonderful new face with us and that is our new student trustee Annie bavia and before we go to the pledge I'd like to tell you a little bit about Annie so one of the things I'm really proud of about our school district well before we were all trustees here was that we are one of the only boards here in the state of Nevada that has a student trustee and the reason why we have a student trustee is because you Annie and all the trustees the student trustees before you bring a certain knowledge and insight and accuracy to what's happening in your school day and so we're so very grateful to have you so Annie is the captain of her golf team at her school she is a senior at McQueen high school she has two younger sisters and her family and her sisters push her to be better every day and she enjoys them so much she's also the student body president and we are incredibly honored to have you sit with us and help guide the decisions that we make for you and all of the children here in our district so Annie would you please lead us in the pledge States of America and to the which it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all all right and now I will move on to item 1.04 our land acknowledgement every Community owes its existence and vitality to Generations from around the world who contributed their hopes dreams and energy to making the history that led to this moment some were brought here against their will some were drawn to leave their distant homes in the hope of a better life and some have lived on this land for more Generations than can be counted truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of Heritage and difference We Begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth we acknowledge that some of our educational structures are situated in the traditional homelands of the wasu Washo NMU Northern pyute niwi western shishoni and nwu southern Pou peoples we pay respect to their Elders past and present these lands continue to be a Gathering Place for indigenous peoples and we recognize their connection to these places we extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn in their territory and that closes section one in its entirety and moves us on now to section two our consent agenda items and for today's consent agenda we have items 2.02 to 2.19 and I was wondering if there are any trustees that would want to pull any of those items I have nothing to pull I just just want to comment on 2.19 okay very good we'll seeing no other lights on before we go to public comment uh trusty Church feel free to take it away thank you very much uh 2.99 is a um consent agenda item for applications for the safe and healthy schools commission um listing Christopher Smith as the finalist uh I requested and reive the name correction the applications redacted of the other applicants uh having reviewed those I'm prepared to uh not pull this and to go ahead and support the the application but I want to put on the record that in the future it is my opinion that we should be given the names of the applicants because they are not deliberative in nature and that um that's consistent with open meeting law the AG's current manual page 17 and omo decision 29-2 so I do want to put on the record that I think we should get the names including the public getting the names of all the applicants but that said uh I did receive the redacted applications and I'm okay going ahead with this without pulling it thank you thank you very much trusty Church JJ do we have any public comment for items 2.02 to 2.19 I have no cards for consent all right I see uh dueling lights on I'll go to my vice president ready make a motion go ahead and move to approve the consent item item 2.02 through 2.19 a second all right we have a motion by vice president Mayberry seconded by trusty Woodley I see no lights on for the motion all those in favor please say I I I all those oppose nay all right motion carries 6 to zero thank you so much colleagues and now we will move on to section three these are our items for presentation discussion information Andor action and we welcome first item 3.01 this is a presentation and discussion to provide the Board of Trustees an overview of Washo County School District two-way and dual language programming this is an item for presentation and discussion only and we have in front of us our associate chief of specialized instruction Jennifer van Tres and our director of English language development Megan W thank you so much for being here great thank you so much for having us good afternoon president Smith superintendent nurse members of the board I am Jennifer vaness I'm the associate chief of specialized instruction and with me today I have Megan W who is our director of the Department of English language development and then in the audience who will be joining us soon I have uh Dr Mike Paul associate chief for elementary I have Miss Chrissy Brown the principal of Mount Rose School of languages and our amazing student Miss Eva Garcia from Mount Rose School of language as well they'll be joining us during our presentation okay good afternoon president Smith superintendent Ernst and trustees I am Megan W director of the Department of English language development for the record um this slide just provides a little bit of context behind a dual language or two-way immersion um programming model so as it implies in the name name it is a program that uses two languages um that we teach in typically it's English with along with a partner language which in was County School District for our schools that is Spanish um dual language or two-way immersion is a language instruction educational program model meaning that the origin behind it is for um English acquisition so for students who are learning English as a second language um as I described it does combine student students who are native English speakers as well as students who are native to um the partner language in our case Spanish and most models should include an equal number of native English speakers with um English language Learners so in wasow County School District we do have two schools currently um who have had a dual language or two-way immersion programs in them for quite some time uh Jessie Beck elementary is a K5 school they utilize a model which we call 5050 which is 50% of the content in their classrooms is taught in English and 50% is taught in Spanish um one unique feature of our Jessie Beck elementary school is that they do have a very robust um parental organization they call that their uh dual language action committee they are amazing advocates for their program and Jesse Beck was our actual our first school that started a dual language program in 2008 and 2009 with Principal Brown um the other school is Mount Rose School of languages this is a K8 model so our first Middle School um to adopt a dual language program uh Mount Rose utilizes what we call a 9010 model so they start in kindergarten with 90% of the content being taught in Spanish or the partner language and then they slowly increas increase the English um content and decrease the Spanish until they reach about 5050 which is what um the sixth seventh and eighth grades have um very unique to Mount Rose is that their eighth graders actually take the AP Spanish classes which provides um the Seal of biliteracy as well as some college credits and um Mount Rose's program began in the 200920 school year so on that I'm going to jump in all right Principal Brown this is just so you know I'm going to give you a little bit of warning because you never toot your own horn so when you come up I do want you to share your story about how this all happened because I know you probably wouldn't offer that yourself but you've played a really big role in our school district achieving what we have now my question for right now is can you explain a little bit more about what that 50/50 model looks like does that look like one day social studies is in English and one day it's in Spanish or does it look like the same curriculum day being taught both ways can you can you expand on that so people following along or even me I've never been in a 5050 classroom like this can you help us understand what that looks like yes so that is every day so for example in kindergarten um the language arts at at jessc the language arts and the social studies is taught in English and then the um sorry I have to look at my notes the science math and then the Spanish language arts is taught in Spanish so that's every day so students get both all day long and then in first grade they increase to um they they go back to math being taught or their number Corner in their math program being taught in English along with social studies and Ela and then they maintain a Spanish language arts program as well as more math additional math and science so you can see that they just balance each school um each year they progress but it stays about 5050 half of the day is taught in English and half of the day is taught in Spanish and I I promise these will all make sense when I get to where I'm going in a little bit which is also why it's so important that when cohorts come in by all means a student can come in partway through in second grade join the program if there's space in availability but what you're talking about with the advancement of the program year-to year it's also one of the reasons why when you look at the linear of the cohort starting together in kindergarten and then finishing up through their programs they get that year difference from their yeah okay yes absolutely in both models that's very important our next slide uh turn yours than we get feedback um on this slide we just wanted to touch base on a little bit of our data regarding our dual language and two-way immersion programs this data is actually based on the 2324 school year just to give you guys a a a point of reference so at Jessie Beck we have 112 students participating in the program which is about 25% of the overall School enrollment at Mount Rose uh School of languages and the elementary side bless you so remember that the ele for Mount Rose we have an elementary side and we have the Middle School side on the elementary SK side we have just over 50% participating in the uh in the program and then 100% of the middle school students are participating in the um the program um the below that you'll see the program enrollment so just to kind of make some points of clarification 24% are uh what we call ever English language Learners so those are students that have typically come in not speaking English or have minimal English those are our Spanish speaking students and our not English language Learners are the 75% so those are the students that are have have the experience with the language uh with English and are coming in to um to model back and forth with um with the Spanish and the English um overall our both elementary schools had a 73% uh passing rates in ela on this SBA the smarter balanced assessment and in math was a 62% and those were well above District averages of 29% for ELA and 22% for math the elementary access AGP so this means that our English language Learners are getting are increasing their Proficiency in English uh overall we had a 61% growth and their access their understanding and use of of English which was an 11% increase over the 2223 school year and a 21% above the district average on our access assessments oh we're going to stay there for a minute so what this slide shows me for the families and the students where a program like this works for them because this is not something that all families or that all students would work with but for the students in these programs whether they be a student who is not a native English speaker um or a native English speaker that's acquiring Spanish I'm seeing performance that is markedly higher in almost all categories so there is clearly I mean jump in here there is clearly something that for the students and parents who choose it this is working for them correct the data definitely shows that we have some successes with these with the programs at Beck and Mount Rose and I know that we don't want to get too specific but one of the questions that I had asked in the trustee questions was a little bit of um I don't know if it's graduated or the proficiency but among the ever ever English language Learners they're also uh performing very well in graduating out or demonstrating demonstrating the acquisition of the English language in addition to what we have here with the AGP right well that's that's what the AGP measures yeah is exactly what you just described so that's showing that they are improving on their um English learning thank you okay so we do have some opportunities for support and even some expansion which is really exciting for our school district um so first of all for support um as you are aware we were able to do some restructuring of our ELD Department which included the addition of four English language coordinators and 35 English language facilitators which are onsite coaches um with that some of those amazing English language facilitators and coordinators are working directly with both schools and the ones who do work directly with both schools have extensive um history in dual language programs um for several years now our district has been able to offer the opportunity for our teachers to earn what we call their elad or English language endorsement which they would need to hold in order to be an El teacher we have now expanded that to where we are able to offer an actual bilingual Indo endorsement cohort and the bilingual endorsement is what's required to teach in an actual dual language instructional program so that's very exciting um so we are um able to do that we provide different levels of professional learning including conference um attendance we have some amazing Mount Rose staff members who will be speaking at a national conference this fall um we provide the curriculum that they need in Spanish so that our students continually have access to that the um AAP assessment is the assessment that students take in high school to gain their seal of biliteracy um and it's also part of our continual AP Spanish assessment programs and because we know that language needs to be captured at the very earliest levels or um years in school we are starting to have a focus on our prek programs and really looking at different ways of language acquisition and supporting the the L1 or the first language of our students in the prek program as well as providing that English language support too all right on that I so I'm going to add to something and this was something that we didn't uh pass for the funding this year but I want my colleagues and the public to be aware it was on the things that we would consider in the next budget and so I do plan on championing the second part of the Dual language learning which is a dedicated coordin coordinator role so in the last budget cycle which began this July 1st we did stabilize some funding for dual language learning and I am really pleased with the expansion for the English language coordinators and the facilitators I do believe though that dual language learning is different um and I do believe that there should be coordination at a District level we have wonderful programs several of which we're going to hear about today but I do believe that we've reached a point in the growth and we'll hear more about what the other schools are doing I do believe that it would be worthwhile so that we actually have Confluence and synchronicity across the programs they've all been individual based on site-based leadership obviously District leadership has had oversight with that too but I believe that we're at a critical point in the growth where a dedicated role would be very helpful to it and I know all the people performing in these roles now are highly qualified and they're really wonderful but it is still inherently different than a coordinator over dual language learning to support all the site based leaders and the direction of the district so that's something that I'll be looking for here and then I would also like to see um as we move forward how do we take those AP opportunities that we're about to hear from Mount Rose and maybe offer that to other schools like I know we do have programs at vaugh um in other places so I think that this is really important work but when I did see this slide it did not have the coordinator on it so I did raise that and I did share that so no one was caught off guard that I did plan on addressing it today because when I think of opportunities for support and expansion I believe we need somebody at a district level that's actually watching all these programs grow thank you and and I would concur with that how many language is uh do we encounter in wasel County School District throughout our schools currently our enrollment we have3 different languages which includes English language and that's of course a variety of dialects yes majority of which is Spanish um but we have a variety very yeah yeah so Spanish yes I mean to me that's that's very self-evident what are the discussions behind the scenes or or in front right now about including other languages in our programs so we do have a history in was County School District of this um at one point I think it was echol loader had a Mandarin language program um so you know as with most things when we're trying to launch Etc there are certain barriers that we do come across um so not for saying that that wouldn't be possible I think that we would just need to do a tremendous amount of research look at different models Across the Nation um and really kind of hone in on the needs and the support that we can provide here at was County one last thought into a question um the continuity and consistency of this programming is exemplary so what have been the lessons learned the secrets to hiring and retaining qualified teachers as she laughs you take no might be a question for Principal Brown um I do know that both principal uh laye and Principal Brown really do a lot of of hard work in trying to recruit and and maintain um teachers at this caliber so I again I I would probably defer more to them for that because it is not an easy feat by any means but I do know that Principal Brown is a huge champion an advocate for the programs that we have here in was County and she goes out when she's at these conferences Etc um she's really working in that recruitment role as well thank you and that hearkens to president Smith's desire hope wish fingers crossed to have a a a districtwide coordination for this programming thank you thanks and if I can for a minute so we know going through the Strategic plan process um and I speak for myself individually and I'll look for head nods around um but when I'm out in the community and in our strategic plan process we talked with thousands of Staff members parents students community members we heard loud and clear that our families are looking for opportunities in a few different areas including CTE which I think we're doing really great in for dual credit and advanced work which I also think we're doing really well in and for me the third one in that category that I hear consistent ly is dual language learning and by the way we do that very very well but it is one of those areas where I believe we're on the cusp of truly embracing into that next chapter and I would like to see that because so many families are looking for that opportunity and so those are the three things that I hear most often and again I'm pretty sure that the data showed us in the Strategic plan process that that's also what our families are asking for too obviously more than the three three things but those were three very common themes trusty church thank you yeah thank you Miss wall um this brought back memories of being a newly mentioned trustee back in January of 2021 and the agenda I actually just pulled it up where we as a board voted for uh an English language model uh e ELD Development Department New policies how does this relate to that how does it support it interact with it how does that work um yes thank you for your question truste church that was actually kind of the precursor to the model that we have now so if I'm um remembering correctly that was probably the meeting um when um Mrs jany and Kelly was the director of of the department and we were really looking at that what we call at that time the site facilitator model uh which introduces the language coaching aspect um in our schools so that's where it has started and now um we have merged it to where every school now has a language support coach so that we're continually building the capacity of embedding specific supports and strategies in our everyday instruction for all of our Learners and as one of the foreign language speakers on the board I remember how difficult it was for me to learn some aspects of it and I I wonder um I know we debated it back and forth and there's no perfect answer but do we need to change our policy to or to update what we're now kind of transitioning into I think that's something that we can certainly look at um we are currently working to um update our guide books for both we have one for DL our dual language and we also have H one for English language so um definitely something that that I will look into oh yeah just because we have as a board you know we voted it's a published policy so if we're going to if somebody wants to read it we need to make sure it's consistent with what we're morphing into but thank you very much and I do believe I did an edit of that recently like within the last two years I I did did look into the policy so and now this is a very exciting thing um that that we get to share with you is that we have have now done an expansion into woster high school um principal worked tirelessly last year through research and um and and has done an outstanding job of outlining what the new woster bilingual program will look like um this is kind of worcester's kind of The Perfect Storm for this um given that they do have their extensive IB program and they're also what we call a newcomer programming site so they so the two now can meet um wster is currently offering um maths math classes that are taught Almost 100% in Spanish as well as some of what we call the the middlee program um individual and societies class which is like a social studies class that is taught about 90 to 95% of the time in Spanish um and then as much like what we had to do with with um elementary school as the cohort grows and as the years progresses more more and more classes will be um implemented in Spanish so that's very very exciting um and just really speaks to the amazing work that principal kitchen did and principal kitchen is in our audience today uh if you have any specific questions we would like to we wanted to make sure he had the opportunity to hear from you directly all right principal kitchen I know you're here I try to never like pull people out of the audience but this is a really exciting program would you mind I know well I say would you mind I'm the one with the mic and I'm inviting you and it's how are you really going to say no which would be fine if you did um but would you mind coming up and sharing a little bit I I know some of where this began because I was doing a site visit last year and I was visiting as trusty do in their schools and you said to me oh president Smith we're gonna do something really exciting here and I was like tell me all about it and since then you have built something that I think is the start of that next chapter that I was alluding to would you mind expanding for the public yes would you just general overview of how we've started this year is that what you're looking for well you're you well like when you came up to me that day when we were outside you had an inspiration there were things you were noticing about the school you things were noticing about the students and talent that you felt you could tap into if you reached them a different way and that was through language yes so I know I'm reminding you of a conversation that took place nearly a year ago um but if you could share that with us happy to thank you president Smith and superintendent erns Board of Trustees um so I was an important piece of this puzzle as I was new to wster high school last year so was very familiar with IB I formerly was actually a principal of an IB World School in Mexico and so knew that um IB was something I was excited to get back into uh did not when I started at wster fully understand um the compatibility with what was going on there with the possibility for bilingual education so I do have three children I have a daughter who's in the Jesse Beck twe program or dual language program two sons who are with Principal Brown at in middle school at Mount Rose um so I had some familiar familiarity familiar I can't say that word apparently um some knowledge of dual language education um and what I did not know until I started at woster is that we had just the year prior graduated our first IB bilingual diploma student so there was a lot of work going on that was already in place um and so as we dug in one of the things that's unique about IB in both our feeder middle school and at woster is that students who are in the middle years program are required to be engaged with the second language every year so we have students coming to woster high school with a higher level of academic exposure to Spanish whether that was the small number of students coming from Mount Rose or the students coming out of the nyp program at v um who were going into literacy 56 classes which are classes designed for Native Spanish speakers and so a lot of that was already in place um so what we decided to do and I think the that went off for me is I was sitting I mean man this would must have been the first month of school and I was sitting next to a student in a geometry class and this young lady had two years prior been a newcomer student so brand new to Country um brand new to was County School District and she had worked so hard to learn English was getting as's and B's in all of her classes and was just struggling in geometry and I'm sitting right next to her and she's telling me what's going on and she's struggling with the vocabulary and I'm like this is a young lady who academically totally has the math skills but language is a barrier and so that was I think the light bul moment for me of I I'm sure she's not the only one in that boat how can we do more to celebrate the natural talents of our students that already exist at wer high school so we started exploring how we could launch a bilingual education program going into the school year um I'll brag our three Math teachers are all products of was County School District so they are all students who grew up in bilingual families and now are teachers at wer High School all very excited to be doing this work and they are actually part of that bilingual education cohort that Miss W was describing earlier um so yeah it were 10 days into it so it's brand new but very excited about the work that's happening so really quick um approximate number roughly how many students this year are taking at least one subject in in um that dual language format miss van trust do you have a number for us uh well if we look at our nth grade nth graders that are taking the algebra class there were 38 students in that freshman algebra Spanish class so if you think about it just the same way as we started with kindergarten with our other programs as this grows we will continue to see uh more uh more coursework Etc so I'll add on to that our our full cohort is our ninth grade cooh report so we have that individuals and societies class it's an miip class it's part of our n9th grade seminar that all students take at woster so there is a group of 30s something kids in that class who are all kind of launching our cohort um not all of those students have chosen to also take math in Spanish so that's where the numbers get a little fuzzy we have two sections of algebra currently taught in Spanish um two sections of geometry and then a section of formal geometry so we have 10th graders engaged we also have newcomers who are throughout the school year if they're academically ready to be in a math class we'll plug them in um so probably n9th and 10th grade if it's kids who are taking three classes or just one class um 120 something kids thank you so much absolutely thank you all right at this point are there any questions about our district level um El programs dual language twe programs if not I'm ready to turn the mic over to our Spotlight all right well thank you very much I'm going to turn this over to Dr Mike Paul who will be uh presenting for our Mount Rose school thank you for the question getting to back to families and and engaging them involving them in this beautiful programming what do we do to involve them directly and I'm really thinking about parents that want to learn along with their child and so program specific both Mount Rose um K8 and Jessie Beck as I mentioned have really strong parent support and and parent groups um in terms of districtwide um we work a alongside our um our office of family and school Partnerships to really engage and work with our families um we do have a lot of families who want to learn alongside their their students so we work with other sources like um Rise Academy to offer English courses um we do have the Literacy Council also that offers courses or English classes for adults um so I think we look at two different things we at that educational component that we're working to continually grow and expand for for our families but then also the engagement in the school itself and um when it comes to the engagement in the school itself I know that both of these schools do a tremendous job in really engaging their families in in the programs and um you know with the culture around both of these schools is outstanding thank you and that's good that's lovely to hear and maybe someday we can have a dual graduation ceremony I'd like to know who's going to speak the Dual language part on that Dr D I will put it but Jessie Beck does um I know Jessie Beck does do a an advancement ceremony for their fifth graders that that complete the Tweet program so thank you for um for coming up as well have I do have a followup I think you said it early just want to clarify and thank you for uh your your continued on this it's this is a amazing work uh I'm uh it's it's a unique model that clearly uh there's there's a demand for uh I'm wondering can you again for the record just state for those that want to attend the program at at Beck and and Mount Rose uh this goes beyond the Zone schools I mean is there a lottery system how can how can families participate thank you for the question uh this is Al part of our school choice so families would like to participate when we open up our next for the 2526 school year which will be this fall uh families May apply at that time and really quick before we have Principal Brown come up it's a little different but to um also partially address what trusty Nicollette mentioned our very own superintendent when he was the principal at Anderson Elementary School made arrangements for English language learning classes for the parents of his students that they held onsite there at Anderson in the evenings that's correct it was a a really nice collaboration thank you president Smith it was a really nice collaboration with TMCC College we had uh instructors come in and work with our families and again to the to the point of it when we have our families our students and our schools working together we can make great things happen for our students thank you and and just to clarify when I said due language graduation I meant adults and students welcome Dr Paul okay good afternoon president Smith superintendent hers and Board of Trustees it is my plan Mike Paul associate Chief with Elementary education it is my pleasure at this time in the presentation to introduce our Spotlight school today as you have just heard Mount Rose K8 School of languages is our only K8 School in our district to offer a two-way imersion program and they have a very strong record of success as you can see here up on the current slide um several of the last school years they have had a four or five star rating with the Nevada school performance framework and you as you can see just in this last school year overall math proficiency at Mount Rose is up into 72% proficiency and with Ela up to 81% proficiency so outstanding performance from Mount Rose school and with this I don't want to take any more time away from our Spotlight guests here I would like to introduce principal Chrissy Brown and also Spotlight student Eva Garcia so they can let you know of all of the great things that make Mount Rose such a special place to be thank you so much Dr Paul welcome Principal Brown and Ava thank you so much for having us good afternoon president Smith superintendent Ernst and members of the board I'm Chrissy Brown the principal of Mount Rose K8 super excited to be here today and appreciate the opportunity um yes and her name looks like Eva but it's Ava so I know inside she's like it's Ava but um she'll be speaking next but we're very proud to be here and talk about our awesome school and to be spotlighted so we appreciate it um we're proud of our scores and everything that we have done I in the audience I know a couple of people came it was early and we were we were appreciative of that AA was happy to get out early I know she was like yes let's go but we have our board president here here with us and a couple of our PTA members that were able to come so you know I cannot do this alone and it's never if this is my 15th year at Mount Rose believe it or not but it's gone by very fast and I also have key helpers with me in the audience I have my assistant principal and Christy Fernandez I think you're back there yes but um parents and some kids so we didn't want to make it a huge deal but they did come for support because it is a community and that's one thing that has made Mount Rose successful is it truly is a family like we consider ourselves a family and when we were preparing for this which we didn't get much time Ava and I on the way here were like did you practice no did you no we're just going to wing it but when we were talking about it we both said that we both said it's we're like a family and I think that what that's what makes us so special is our culture and the family that we have created at Mount Rose when we look at like the pillars and all of them just not a and C but AB C and D I looked at all of them and we really do have that at Mount Rose um some of the things every year are are not just the leadership in our staff and students and community and myself but I think I put myself further and further down on the leadership poll because they take over and I I honestly say that we had um my kathern Cortez masto came and I said kids you're doing it all you're taking over and they led her around and showed her our school I didn't have to give them any guidance and I said this is what it's all about like I have done my job because they I feel like some days I don't have to be there like they can truly lead our school so that's what I feel is special about Mount Rose and that I have done my job that they can be the leaders um we do as far as standards um and I think that's what has helped us have strong test scores and I'm not a huge proponent of tests but I think it it just comes naturally with the culture is that there's we are standards based so we teach the standards but the teachers have a lot of leeway in how they teach them I treat them as professionals and I tell them you're professionals you teach the standards how you want to teach them I mean I know the standards inside and out and so do my all of my strong leadership team and they can teach them how they want to teach them and they have the flexibility to do that because they're professionals um the instruction is rigorous aan I were also talking about this and I said what do you think is special about Mount Rose and she'll tell you but the first thing she said is it's flexibility and she gets to take risks and do what she wants which is awesome and that's what I love too and I'm because that's what I love about my teachers and so that leads to pillar C which they are treated like professionals we don't have a lot of turnover at Mount Rose they're happy when I first came to Mount Rose 15 years ago I remember telling my secretary like I just want kids happy I want them to be there I want if I could make it like Disneyland that's what I would want it to be like like I want it to be like Disneyland how can we make it like Disneyland like have them come and want to come every day and be happy and obviously we did something right cuz our chronic absenteeism is like really low you know even the kids you don't want to come come all the time just kidding you do want them to come but yeah they they come all the time which is awesome and we're very proud of that so um our mission statement is to create a community of global leaders and we really try to do that U Megan was saying there's 103 languages Mount Rose is the perfect little bubble right in downtown Reno which is probably one of the most diverse schools we have so many languages there about probably 10 years ago we had and we have like a multicultural night every year but we had like all the kids who spoke different languages come up and share their languages and we must have had do you remember that Eva yeah you were little but we had we had so many like Russian polish I mean it was and I was like oh my gosh this is crazy so it's like a it's like in the Melting Pot of downtown Reno and it's very special all different cultures and and we really try to celebrate that and appreciate that and I think that's very special about our school so so and principal remember cuz I warned you I was going to do this really fast I know we're going to be honoring um IA here in a moment you are a pollinator of knowledge here in the school district and for this community can you take us back very very briefly before 2008 can you explain how dual language learning came to Washo County and then how it went from Jessie back over to Mount Rose can you just give a little bit of that history so that we can appreciate we we just heard how it grew from the schools we have now which also includes V over to Wooster and that work had been happening but can you take us back a little bit to where it began just very briefly sure and we had just decided um like in 2007 to try it at Jessie Beck um and that was with our director at that time with Maryann Robinson and we had to research because no one was doing it so we re we went to Miami at that time to look at the schools back then at Coral Way the K through eight that was back there and so it was just a trial and error and um we did we researched started in kindergarten in 2008 at Jessie Beck it was um it was not taken well it was crazy it was way back then we I bought a big um sign for the fence that said um two languages two wordss of opportunity and it literally got tagged twice and it said go back to your own country my it wasn't taken well in Reno I still have the newspaper articles and we couldn't get people to join the program that was crazy it was 2008 because they didn't want another language being taught because we were doing um all Spanish and my teacher at that time hella Daniel who has taught with me forever and then became a Dean at hug and then is now retired just last year we tell the story all the time and and we told the story with Leah kusher who's um she's I think she's here I saw her but whose daughter now goes to my school too it's just how it has grown now and then anyway so it became popular after a while and then in 2010 when Heath Morrison was here um Mount Rose had a population of 200 100 kids and he I had only been at Jessie Beck for like three years it was going to be my fourth year and he had just asked cuz the two-way mergin program had gotten so popular at Mount Rose by that time within four years and he had asked if I would come over to Jessie back and I was like no I'm happy I don't want to I don't want to transfer and so then I I said okay I'll think about it because it was kind of I was kind of all and told we want you to go over there so it was a um they only had a population of 200 kids and they were going to tear Mount Rose down do you guys do you remember that when it was talked about Joe yeah was they were thinking about um tearing it down and I'm like that's not going to go over good in Reno I'm like a native nevadan and I don't think it's going to go good but I'll try something to increase the population so I thought about it and had researched tons of stuff and I was really a dual emersion Advocate and um I said how about if I try a K8 eventually to get more kids there because it's a neighborhood school so I was researching that whole time brought the Dual emersion program there and then it took me three years so I started the K8 in 2013 and Deborah Byers dorf was my area Superintendent at that time and she was on board and it was um the board approved and I researched went to California schools and it you know how hard it is now like with you guys in Incline and stuff but it it was taken well with the dual immersion program so they've tried it and now it's really popular and it was we had a lot of buyin and it it's doing great was the vertical alignment is amazing but I know it's a lot smaller scale so it's different than like the big scale that you guys are doing but that's how it came well thank you so much thank you for being a Visionary and for pushing through and I I think it's very interesting to see how the initial response was and now we have more families than we can even accommodate in these program so thank you so much and I know we have a phenomenal student here as well too yes this is awesome Ava Garcia she's been at Mount Rose she's an eighth grader she's been at Mount Rose since kindergarten so I've been lucky enough to be her principal for nine years and she's going to talk about what makes Mount Rose special also yes thank you thank you Miss Brown and thank you president Smith and superintendent Ernst and board members for having us here today um as you stated before um Mount Rose is basically one big family uh it's where people can express ourselves and like um they can safely take risks and explore kind of am trying to like sorry I lost my spot um but yeah so I've been there for nine years and I felt very safe um the two-way immersion program also has helped me um develop bilingual skills and biliterate skills um I personally believe this will help me in my future career and with all students who have graduated and are yet to graduate um and can help like communicate with more people in the world um I'm pretty sure that Spanish is one of the top five languages spoken in the US um and personally um it helped it has helped me communicate more with my grandmother who can only speak Spanish so I'm very grateful for Mount Rose's program um the staff also they are very amazing I I really enjoy my time at my M Rose and I love to be there um and I would like I when I was younger I would never want to miss school CU I love my teachers and my friends and the community that we've built there um and finally um my favorite portrait quality is that Mount Rose allows you to take risks um and encourages you to express yourself and with are like leadership and problem solving opportunities um personally in middle school there's this leadership program and it allows us to do a lot of the things with our younger students um and when I was younger I looked up on the leadership kids and now I am one so it's kind of cute that is amazing and you are one and you're here right now doing something that so many adults are nervous with doing but you've done absolutely so well and um before I turn it over to superintendent erns because we do have a special recognition for Ava do any of my colleagues have any additional questions because once I turn it over to superintendent Ernst after that we're going to celebrate Ava so uh thank you uh Madam president I just want to make a comment um Miss Brown thank you April for coming uh we're very proud of you and it takes a lot of courage to come up here so you did very very well thank you Miss Brown um I agree with you you have made it a a Place uh to feel like family I don't know if you remember many years ago I came and visited you as a representative of the community and didn't have a meeting and I just asked to meet with the with the principal didn't know much about dual learning but um you gave me a lot of time and you explained everything to me and I really appreciate how warm and kind you were and how you listened to my questions and I was there on behalf of another family representing the City of Reno and uh you made me feel like family so I appreciate it you're doing a great job thank you thank you I do remember Alex and it I sometimes think that's old school but I always say just come in because I don't even know my voicemail number I'm like don't call me because I don't even know the number to check my voicemail just come in I'll always talk to you I'll make the time thank you president Smith um Chrissy I wanted to just uh extend a big thank you on behalf of was County School District um your commitment to dual language programming uh as demonstrated by the presentation and all of your work um has been exemplary and uh very much appreciated uh from our whole school district having had an opportunity to visit your school a couple times recently when when you describe the culture in your building you may not even be describing it at the levels that are so tangible when we visit your building um from students to staff to uh family the culture that you create in your building um is really uh an Exemplar for all of our schools in the culture that we're working to build and so before we we move on I I really wanted to just make sure that we had a chance to thank you for your leadership in this area and helping us grow du language programming to the levels that we have so very heartfelt thank you to you Mrs [Applause] Brown and then I would like to acknowledge Ava uh Ava thank you for being here today um it is as trusty Woodley said U not always the easiest thing to speak in front of all of these adults looking at you in front of this venue but you came up and you carried yourself with the class that it looks like that you always do and when you described um the when you were a younger student over at Mount Rose and the giving back and the paying forward that occurs with our seventh and eighth grade middle schoolers back to the elementary school students having had that for yourself and now having the opportunity to give that back that's a really special component at Mount Road and we appreciate you doing that and and so as Mrs Brown has said um you are a wonderful student and we appreciate you being here the work that you're doing and with that we wanted to recognize you today as being our wasel County student Superstar award so thank you for being here and we're going to come and share this award with you [Applause] e e e e all right everybody we're GNA bring it back here to the de here we go yeah very gently we're gonna but this was this was a wonderful conversation and I appreciate it very much so thank you all so much all right that closes item 3.01 and we'll move on now to item 3.02 this is the discussion and possible action to provide preliminary approval of board policy 5720 hazing prohibited and initiation of the 13-day public review and comment period this is an item for possible action and presenting with us today we have Judy pretzman our director Department of Civil Rights compliance and then also our chief general counsel Neil romardo thank you so much for being here thank you and good afternoon president Smith superintendent erns and members of the board Judy pretzman director of civil rights compliance and this proposed board policy 5720 would demonstrate the commitment of the Board of Trustees and the waso County School District to provide safe and respectful environments free from hazing within its schools buses and other facilities and at all district sponsored events hazing is currently identified as prohibited conduct within the district's athletic manuals however this proposed policy specifies in the definition of hazing that hazing would be prohibited with regard to any student organization including Athletics this policy incorporates the definition of hazing uh that you would find in the University of Nevada Reno's hazing and also language from a sample anti-hazing policy that was developed veled by the national Foundation of State High School associations the policy on page two contemplates that an administrative regulation will be adopted to implement and maintain the purpose of this board policy and so we are looking for preliminary approval and to move this policy to the public review and comment period yeah so the reason why we were bringing this forward now is um we felt this was an opportunity for the board to show its commitment to make sure that our schools have a safe respectful learning environment um unfortunately hazing is far too often seen as boys will be boys girls will be girls and that it's kind of has some quasi acceptance and uh that needs to end and given recent National issues last year local issues we thought it was time to address this and for the board to take a true stance on this issue uh number one so the admin regg would then come back to for public review as well thank you for the question trustee church that's right the administrative regulation would be a new administrative regulation subject to all the usual public review periods and then I I have a question it looks good overall but uh it's number c on page two which is under definitions and if you could kind of explain to me um and I'm going to cut out part of it but any situation which adversely affects the mental health or Dignity of the individual who decides that um my concern is that people act completely legitimately but the individual says oh that affects my mental what you know I'm not comfortable with it well if if the people that are making them uncomfortable are acting legally appropriately nicely but the individual feels slighted where do you draw the line how do you define that thank you for that question trusty Church to clarify are you asking about subsections see on page one page two page two under definitions am I it's page one oh I'm sorry list page two yeah um okay so under definition subsection 1 C so all of these definitions which are meant to identify what hazing would be considered would be reviewed um it's contemplated that these would be reviewed by the individual who would be investigating any reports of hazing and so um under on page two one of the items that would be addressed in the administrative regulation uh there under subsection 4 C states that um one of the things addressed in the regulation would be um I'm sorry for B is that there would be guidance for School site administrators including bullying investigation requirements and procedures so to answer your question I think um it would be up to the investigator to apply our uh bullying criteria and also look at the definition contained in this policy to determine whether or not hazing has actually occurred so it's it's of course a case by casee situation you know I I caught this at the end and I'm not comfortable with this and maybe I'm being Haz I just humor humor but um it it do I'm looking for we want to avoid the investigation we want this policy is supposed to provide guidance to the reader the employee whatever followed by the Admin R and this is so vague as anybody could violate it for anything and then I'm subject to an invest not me personally but one is subject to an investigation and then one is found guilty for something they didn't even know they did did because the investigator determines that the individual's mental health was hurt I I mean I really I mean you know physical activity whipping beating branding Force calisthenics I get that but you get down to number c any situation look at the word any situation that subjects the individual to extreme stress I get the sleep deprivation I get all that but um anything that affects their Mental Health I mean I I can just probably picture a number of examples where you simply make a nice comment to somebody um or an opinion on something you know like oh I I hope I hope someone so wins the uh the foot race oh I'm being hazed because you don't want me to win so um I guess I've said enough um if I well let may I weigh and um so the the first of all this was was adopted by uh we cop we used borrowed several universities including UNR to develop this policy as well as other National universities um and the purpose is to not avoid the investigation because we owe our students du process so the purpose is to have a process and this is the process and the RS will be adopted once this is done according to our bullying process in effect but bullying doesn't Define hazing as part of bullying and so this is again the opportunity for this board to have hazing and it's not as simple as a mere allegation uh substantial evidence is required and if you look at burden of proof substantial evidence is more than preponderance of evidence which is what you need to prove a Civil Trial it is um it is less than clear and convincing so it's less than the criminal standard but it's more than the Civil standard so you have to have substantial evidence it's not just a simple as somebody saying I have subjective harm and the process for investigations is a multistep process somebody submits to uh the administrative investigation division a complaint and this already exists in regulation and this is uh regulation um 9160 and or 5180 I think um anyway so what happens is a complaint is submitted the complt is reviewed and looked at and determined whether or not on its face it even meets the level of any of this and if it doesn't meet the level of it then it's sarily dismissed so that's why you do a policy like this and that's why there's an attached regulation so that everyone is protected and it's not just somebody throwing out an allegation um because the last thing we want to do is unfairly discipline our students for uh without having some process for them so um that's that's what this is laying out and that's how this works with the other regulation policies that exist and then there will be need to be a regulation on point related to this one as well uh thank you Council and just um from my perspective is reading this because this is my job as enforcing policy I read this section c in its entirety so as I read it it states any situation which subjects the individual to extreme stress such as sleep deprivation forced inclusion from social contact or forced conduct which produces pain physical discomfort or adversely affects the mental health or Dignity of an individual so I read this as the forced conduct which produces pain physical discomfort or adversely affects the mental health or Dignity of an individual that for me is efficient thank you thank you um I appreciate the work on this um I I think it is High time I see this as the 50,000 F foot view I think to use a trit saying the devil will be in the details and that's the administrative regulation which I am going to assume because I know the strength of this leadership team will include uh reflection on confidentiality of reporting structure also training because there will need to be a way to help employees students families understand uh how this is developed and what it means two more comments real quick so number one I I noticed that under purpose the purpose isn't to investigate the purpose is the board is committed to providing safe and respectful environment free from hazing within its schools Etc so I see that as the purpose and I think I'm okay with it but I just also want to address um under under definitions number one this seems to be limited to only those situations that are involving an initiation or affiliation with a student organization so can you confirm that this wouldn't be uh somebody outside of a student organization expressing an opinion that wouldn't be covered under this for be covered under different policy am I on the right track yes thank you for the question so hazing really by definition does typically include initiation or affiliation with a group it is typically done by a group towards a group um not always but that is typically and so I think the other individual conduct that you might be referring to would be the type of conduct that is currently addressed under board policy 5700 which is our more General safe and respectful learning environment board policy thank you president Smith hi so in looking at this and and I appreciate this because I really feel we need to protect students that this is occurring too but I'm also kind of concerned with especially when I read the part there about the the lwd yeah um definitions D lude conduct I'd really like us to see what is causing some of these students to act in this way there has to be something underlying going on in their lives and I I feel like we need to have as much as we need to protect the kids that hazing or bullying is happening to I feel like we've got to get something in place to really delve in and to get the supports counseling whatever for the students that are engaging in this um and in that way I think we become Health but I mean maybe that's for a different policy altoe or while these investigations are going on that is looked into for these students that are doing the behavior to others cuz I just can't help but think somewhere along the line things are being done to these students or have been done to these students thank you um JJ do we have any public comment I have no cards for this item yeah um vice president mayy before you go I'm going to invite a chief legal counsel to jump in and maybe offer some thoughts on uh what trusty Westlake just shared well I'll weigh in on a couple different things if I may um first of all with regard to confidentiality uh it's already written in our policy that'll be confidential and that's uh I missed it by one number 571 and um then the other part is uh training uh Judy Miss pretzman trains coaches she trains teachers she trains admin every year in fact she's already completed her training for civil rights bullying for this year so everyone's ready to go for the new school year and this will be integrated into those trainings that's our intent once this is up and running uh and then with regard to students who might be the perpetrator for lack of a better phrase we work with kathern Laden's team very very closely and they provide supports for those people as well so what would happen in the circumstances Let's Pretend an organization has an issue four or five students are picking on one student um there would be a safety plan put in place and there would be some type of protections put in place but if there was an issue as you suggest then uh Miss lowden's team would work with both sides and try to make sure that issues are addressed and that's how we handle it with bullying as well so I hope that helps okay uh Madam president I move uh to approve propos propos B board policy 5720 hazing prohibited and initiate the 13-day public review and comment period second all right I have a motion by vice president Mayberry seconded by Tristy nicholet um Tristy Woodley okay seeing no lights on for further discussion for the motion all those in favor please say I I I all those opposed nay all right motion carries 6 to zero thank you so much colleagues and that closes is section three in its entirety and brings us now to section four our reports and we will begin with our student representative Annie bavia hi um this week we've kind of been busy with student voice so we had our Retreat last Friday um we got to miss school for it which was pretty fun but we met at the Sparks Library um and talked about what we want to focus on this year and last year we had focused on three kind of committees we called ourselves and there're just three big issues that we felt we wanted to discuss throughout the year rather than picking each month we'll talk about something so I think we're going to continue that this year and some of the things that we decided we want to look more into was um postsecondary resources inclusion for all and then inclusion SL representation so we'll probably work on that again tonight because there's another student voice meeting which I'm not able to attend but it's at McQueen High School um and that will be the district's um student voice meeting and we're rotating in location so everyone can come cuz I know incline it's really hard to get there um and we had previously met a hug so we're moving it and moving it all around and they're probably discussing that now um yeah I think with school starting we're all kind of getting dialed in and things are getting back into order well thank you so much Annie all right that closes item 4.01 and brings us now to item 4.0 to our board reports Tristy Wesley will you kick us off thank you it's going to be short and sweet um so I have a couple of pictures see which comes up first this is Mr Luke Hobson he is an Olympian and and we got to hear from Luke at Reno High School where he went back to talk to the students of Reno High graduated there three years ago and I just I have to say I think it's amazing that these young adults go back and give back to their communities I I just think it is such um it's a such a growing experience for the kids at Reno high school and for Luke to go and give back to his community I actually watched him uh on the relay team when uh silver for the United States um when I was over in Paris uh the 4x2 200 meter and just a remarkable young man and I am so appreciative of these young people that do that and then the Las Vegas Raiders I got to go to hug high school and where they gave the football players uh dry shirt dry shirts and receiver gloves and a $5,000 check and you know it just sticks in my mind as we were leaving um one of the coaches said that you know maybe our football players will be able to go to a football Camp next year we weren't able to afford it this year and um thank you Las Vegas Raiders for giving them the opportunity to do that if that's how they choose to spend that money um it's very much appreciated and then I just want to give my apologies um to the children's cabinet um and to Sun Valley elementary school on Friday I missed both events due to a migraine um I was going to go to um the welcoming parents Sun Valley Elementary School a elementary school dear to my heart and the children's cabinet that does such incredible work in our community for families and children amazing things that they do but my friend Michelle Anderson became Colleen that evening and she she repped it well thank you so much awesome thank you madam president U mine's going to be short as well it was a short week since our last meeting um I did have the opportunity to um go to a couple football games what stood out for me was uh the Lancers McQueen High School um I had a photo but I didn't submit it in time so I will be bringing it next uh next meeting but I got to see um Varsity play and I got to see a coach one of the coaches Ralph Rodriguez who was joined by his brother uh Nick Shepard and they were both coaching and they got to see Ralph's son n Rodriguez number seven running back um he got a touchdown so that was beautiful to see and I did get a photo of all three of them so I'll be bringing that next for next meeting um I also got the opportunity to attend the um NAACP Freedom fund banquet dinner um I know our president was there as well representing our district um this is a a once once a year the biggest fundraiser predominantly they fund F raised for scholarships and youth oriented programs so I was um happy to participate in that then this week I got another couple football games that I'm going to be attending for um freshman and JV in Varsity so I look forward to that and uh oh one last thing I was invited to be a judge at the rip cook off as a school board trustee I almost forgot I'll be there Saturday you can't make it than you I want to know how you got invited I like to eat so uh so basically um I was on a great vacation across the great state of Nevada but uh I wanted to pass on that they are looking for judges for a debate tournament I believe it's open to any independent members of the community September 16th and 17th um I won't be able to be there but if you want to reach out to me I can put you in touch with the coordinator for that but they are looking for judges for debate I did it once before fantastic these kids are just incredible um and what they do and and and you learn so much in the debate so I do have that information on request uh I'll also app very briefly some of our spack scores are out some of our testing scores more are going to be out in mid September um I predicted that we would continue a decline and I was wrong we've leveled off that's good that's bad we're not improving but we're not decreasing very much uh our ACT scores are still last in the nation wasel county is below the state average so we have a brand new superintendent we've talked about it and uh a lot of work ahead of us and in my remaining time as a trustee I look forward to being a part of that um that we we just have to do better we much do must do better so I I just hope that we pay laser focused on our strategic plan and focusing on quality of Education along those lines other than that I could share lots of pictures of my vacation elely and ghost towning along the way it was incredible but good learning experience for Nevada history but I guess that's enough for now thank you thank you uh since our last may have had the pleasure of attending a couple of our community uh fundraisers for two very important nonprofit organizations one is the art of childhood event that's a big uh event for the children's cabinet critical important partner for the school district and that evening I believe they raised about a million dollars um the community uh Health Alliance was uh held the following night they had a fundraiser that's and that uh another very important organization it's dedicated to creating a lot of positive Health outcomes and uh in many cases for affable health comes Health outcomes or free um Health Care uh for those that they can't afford it so uh I I appreciate both organizations very much this is a picture of visit at the Academy of Arts and careers and Technology uh where students are enrolled in the second year fire science program and they were simulating uh an auto extrication where they were cutting up uh a vehicle you can go to the next slide as well uh so that was uh a lot of fun and um I'll say too that I understand more good news is coming out of a act soon in terms of a CTE program and I'll let the district make that announcement I'll just say that uh the sky is no longer the limit there um and last week I had an opportunity to uh visit Esther Bennett Elementary with principal Diaz and uh speaking of the esac scores they're making some great strides in their esack scores as well um a wonderful School uh on a hill in Sun Valley and I appreciate their dedication to our students thank you I too attended the art of childhood and yes they raised $947,000 I mean we have a very generous Community um and that money is having worked for the cabinet many years ago I can attest to the fact that that money every scent of that money um is used wisely to support our children families and people in our community and it's such a fun event wow they really know how to put on a party it it it's fun and it's worthy uh I attended the public safety center ribbon cutting and my tour guide if you will was wcsd Chief Tracy Moore and it I will say that that public safety center truly is a a public Center they have um areas for the public to be comfortable they have areas for children to be comfortable they have training areas they have everything and they're not done that's the cool part um this Center is is truly um an an Exemplar for the state of Nevada and and they're just getting started this is going to be so wonderful for our peacekeepers um a a a nice place to call home to disperse from to come back to they will have everything they need to uh have their their their vehicles their every all of their tools maintained and cared for it's just a beautiful facility and chief Nance um did an excellent job of of speaking to us and for the community and she has a lovely sense of humor um oh I had the pleasure of being recognized with some other colleagues from trucky Meadows Community College it it was an ameritus type of Affair and it was it was Legacy ameriti which means I'm retired and I've moved on and I'm not young anymore which I'm okay with um it was a wonderful event I had several colleagues that were not there that I wish were there that I spent a good 20 years um working alongside their picture was there there they were not there but it was so it was it was just a lovely event and thank you trucky Meadows Community College and Tommy guy uh for for uh making that happen I attended the Consortium of independent public charter schools uh snacks High Desert Mariposa and Honors Academy of literature were there and I learned a lot more about our uh at least four of our waso County School District sponsored Charter schools I'm very glad I attended they're working very hard making good things happen for their families uh and their students and their employees and and I thank them for the invitation thank you all right I'm going to start off with a congratulations so our very own K9 Officer Astro was in National and international news being recognized as one of the gun detection dogs out there and also a special congratulations to our deputy chief Baker and officer Bowers who were also in that article so that was really exciting um and also proud to know that we're on the Leading Edge of that and he's not with us today but I never miss an opportunity to show honor and appreciation for clerk Rodriguez who was one of the strong voices that led us to that as well I attended the ribbon cutting of the city of Reno's Public Safety Center which trusty Nicollet also mentioned at the location of the old rgj building and I loved when Chief Katherine Nance did a shout out for trusty Woodley although in his daytime job capacities so that was always great I had a wonderful time with superintendent erns vice president Mayberry and trusty Nicollet at the Children's cabinet art of childhood event and then also the community health alliance's annual fundraiser offer their free and lowcost medical and mental health services for our communities and was very glad to share that with several trustees who were also there in attendance and also learned some exciting news that the City of Reno has pledged five million to helping them expand their services so congratulations I love seeing when our community works together for benefit like that um I took a meeting with the Renown Health foundation and their leaders about the health care needs of our students and their families and what we're facing as a community I met with Richard Meyer from the rotary about his Read Between the Lions program which is very exciting and it's not about the reading itself it's about training your eyes and how you look at information on a page and I thought that that was really exciting exciting I did participate and attend the NAACP Freedom fund Gala also attended by trusty Woodley feel like we were at a lot of things together and then finally I'd like to also bring attention um that it is National be smart week and so be smart as a national and local non-political organization whose goal it is to keep kids classrooms and communi safe from violence and that's through emphasizing and raising awareness for safe and secure guns storage and so smart stands for secure model ask recognize tell and it's something that we're all responsible for as adults and so I want to say thank you um for everybody being here today and for the exciting start of school and that brings me to the end of my board report and closes item 4.02 in its entirety and brings us now to item 4.03 our superintendence report thank you president Smith um so I to uh was able to attend the children's cabinet Gayla and what I walk away with was again how terrific our community is in support of our students to raise nearly a million dollars for students that that maybe need a little extra help is a testimony to our community and and as I've said I think uh Us in education working with our Community Partners there's a lot of interest and I think together we can still do a lot of great things for our students had the chance chance to also visit the uh ribbon cutting at the public safety center again just a wonderful testimony to the community that we live in with with many people that uh uh care about the safety of all of the community uh had a chance to get over to Double Diamond to welcome our kindergarteners back always a special day uh one of my favorite days uh if you've ever had a chance to see our 5-year-olds come on the first day of school along with their parents it's it's an awfully special something had a chance to get up to Incline schools great things happening up at incline schools the high school right now we were led by two wonderful students that that gave us a tour of the building to show all of the tremendous things that are happening the expansion that's occurring at Incline High School uh is really tremendous and will not be just something that benefits the school but it will benefit the entire Community one of my favorite uh visits was over to our nutrition service center it is absolutely amazing work that occurs in our nutrition service um Center uh the amount of meals that are being processed uh all that they are doing for special dietary conditions and just making sure that our students are fed every day uh was tremendous and uh when we talk about strengthening culture uh to see the culture in that building and see the employees working together and their happiness and joy in terms of putting these meals together for our students was really a great site to see I had a chance to go over uh to the uh UNR and speak with the College of Education uh this was a uh first time something with was County School District superintendent where I had the chance to speak and welcome back the entire College of Education and really kind of uh greet them and let them know about the tremendous work that's occurring in wasel County School District so we're really looking forward to continuing that partnership and concluded with um an outstanding visit with chairman Gip uh with the Reno Sparks Indian colony uh very important members of our community and we're always looking for ways of which we can strengthen and help make sure that we're serving the needs of all of our students and so we had a tremendous meeting and I'm looking forward to the work that we have going forward there so that gives you a little little bit about uh about uh the last few days uh of your superintendent it's been tremendous and uh I think our schools are really off to a great start so I'll leave it at that well that's wonderful and uh I like to think I speak for everyone when I say that I'm so excited that you have had your first of hopefully many many many first days of school here with the waso county school district superintendent Joe Ernst all right and that closes section four and brings us now to section five our closing items and we will welcome up our members of the public for the opening of item 5.01 our public comment Kate fluft Hi is that Kate yes oh hi Kate welcome welcome thanks for being with us today hi I want to thank the the um members of the the board and the superintendent for allowing me to comment today and Al and for their potential support of a dual language coordinator position in the district I'm the mother of a sixth grade dual language student and a former board member of the Dual language action committee at Jessie back elementary school as a part of my comment I would like to add to the um already positive port of a student that we' we've seen today um I'm going to add the portrait of my son Oliver when Oliver entered kindergarten at Jessie Beck he in the Dual language program he didn't speak a word of Spanish but he was welcomed not only by the group of wonderful teachers but by um his fellow students some of which didn't speak any um English at all um as my son does not come from a bilingual household his ability to communicate with his friends and their families in Spanish can be attributed to the strengths of the Dual language education that he has received and the friendships he developed along the way one of the secondary benefits of dual language education is that many of our teachers come from other countries and therefore they're able to share their cultures with the students and as such my son has gained a great appreciation for geography and um cultures from around the world last year um when Oliver was completing his time at Jessy Beck he applied for and was accepted at Mount Rose for middle school and while we were excited and appreciate the opportunity for him to continue his education in two languages not all of his student St H sorry his friends were accepted um to attend as Mount Rose is the sole option for dual language education for Middle School in the district there are limited spaces for students um but they do have a positive energy for and an advocacy for Education there which is encouraging for the future of dual language education in the district while I appreciate the current attention to dual language education by the district I would like to emphasize that it is a long overdue dual language education began in the district about 16 years ago meaning that the students that entered this the program the first few years are now graduating college and the district still does not support a k through2 Pathway to education for all of the Dual language students as has been indicated here today there are multiple ways to support expansion but I believe that the voices around this conversation should be Multicultural and not only in English but in Spanish and other languages of interest within the community if open to families of multiple languages we can reach not only the students who benefit from the program and as an enrichment opportunity such as my son thank you so much Kate we appreciate it thank you for being with us Teresa anel hi welcome Teresa thank you for being with us okay good afternoon president Smith superintendent Ernst and the board of trustees my name is Teresa anzell and I'm a mom of two students one of whom is attends desert skies Middle School I come before the board representing a group of families who are in the walk Zone we request our trustee cleen West Lake have the board add to a future agenda a re-evaluation of the Walk zone for our area of the Highland Ranch subdivision I have spoken with leaders of the district Adam cersi and Chris mhar to request an exception be made to have my student bust my request has been denied some of the statements that were made I found troubling one that the public sidewalk is safe two unfortunately we have to draw the boundary somewhere three we have to pick a line and it's two miles and lastly if we make an exception for you we have to make an exception for everyone so here I am public speaking on behalf of a number of people in my neighborhood the first attitude uh I'd like to address is this line has to be drawn somewhere this statement is an example of a closed mindset a black or white thinking and All or Nothing attitude uh emotionally it felt like someone was saying to me too bad so sad you bought a house one tenth of a mile too close to the school a school that wasn't even built in 2005 when we bought our home I was a former licensed substitute teacher for the district for four years and I saw firsthand the time and energy and money the district puts into developing curriculum that will teach our kids to have a growth mindset I believe it reasonable to expect our district and Community leaders to have that same level of a growth mindset a solution orientated attitude not a throw up your hands and shrug your shoulders it is what it is the second statement that Highland Ranch Road is safe because of a sidewalk is fairly distorted point of view and here is why I've walked the road many times and I did a little science experiment on Sunday afternoon and I walked it again and I counted 249 Vehicles passing me in 45 minutes on a Sunday afternoon the sheer volume of traffic makes this a dangerous road for any pedestrian and you'll see two more examples in my handout of why the road is dangerous I'm also curious if it had occurred to anyone that this safe public sidewalk is in fact on the wrong side of the street 50% of the time because if we remember from our driver's ed rules of the road pedestrians should walk facing the traffic so on the way home our students are walking with their back to 250 plus vehicles in conclusion I'd like to revisit this area and I will gladly volunteer to be on the safety solution orientated committee thank you very much we appreciate you being here Teresa Elizabeth Kenny welcome Elizabeth thank you for being with us thank you thank you it's nice to be here hi my name is Elizabeth Kenny I drove here from um Oakland California today to be here my granddaughter goes to Spanish Springs High School here in Wu County my granddaughter has inform me that a male is undressing in front of the girls lock in the girls locker room in front of the girl because he identifies as a female he also gets a front row seat to view naked females every parent should have been notified that the male is invading the girl's locker room irrespective of any law that permits my granddaughter doesn't want to dress in front of him nor does she want to see him undressing gender identity doesn't Trump immutable sex his belief doesn't make him a girl and it's actually brutally unkind for anyone to affirm that he can be a girl because it's not possible regardless of taking hormones or undergoing surgeries the school told me that my granddaughter could get dressed somewhere else if she was uncomfortable this is backwards you are placing male's desires above a female's needs and I choose those words carefully desire versus need the male with the gender confusion should change elsewhere he is one the girls are many moreover gender dysphoria that is a rejection of biological sex is a mental health issue according to the American Psychiatric association the school like so many other Brave schools in the state need to stand up for truth biological truth and protect sex category which is undeniably immutable if this board is afraid of being sued for right and moral for moral do right and moral doing protecting your female students who can be harmed by a boy don't be there are law firms ready to take your case you really should be more afraid of the parents and grandparents and of course the harms that that the harms to see these girls who are you are who you are erasing by claiming that a boy can just say he's a girl and magically get treated as one there are currently seven lawsuits against student districts and the parents and morals teachers are winning par parents are tired and not staying silent look at me I drove three hours to be here you know and I know that females need to be protected from males not the other way around if you want to know more about these law firms please reach out to me in the meantime I have more information right here what this transgender movement is all about be hold be bold be brave and do the right thing get the male out of the female spaces thank you for listening thank you Elizabeth we appreciate it I appreciate you guys Travis Kenny welcome Travis thank you for being with us uh welcome good afternoon I too uh traveled 300 miles because I'm concerned about this issue in my goddaughter's school while I don't live in Nevada my roots in Nevada go back five generations and it's it's scary to see this happening in Nevada in the state of Nevada a miner cannot walk into a casino and put a nickel into a slot machine a miner cannot have a sip of alcohol that's good but in wasu County Schools right now A minor m ale can change in the locker room in front of minor females this is not okay this is concerning and I respectfully ask the board here to make some changes I have nothing against transgender individuals or people that are confused about their gender and can make special accommodations for them but you cannot make the vast majority of normal well adjusted females feel bad or pressured to go into this situation my biggest problem is they they were using psychological Force by making the girls feel like they were the outcast if they didn't want to go into the locker room with boys this is wrong we we need to respect but we need to be right rational here we need to deal with this problem where it doesn't hurt the girls it doesn't hurt women's sports my goddaughter doesn't want to be in this class because of this single issue she wants to participate in sports she wants the rights that females are supposed to have under Title 9 and again I'm respectfully asking the board to make accommodations for the majority not the exception if I can't get anywhere with the board here I'm going to go to the governor and I have a message for Joe Lombardo letting boys into girls locker rooms is not the Nevada way thank you thank you very much Travis we appreciate you being here Cheyenne Kenny hi Cheyenne welcome thank you thank you for listening today I drove up all the way from UC Berkeley in California to talk about the fact that wasu County School District in Nevada is requiring females to share locker rooms private spaces with males my niece attends Spanish Springs High School and she informed me of this she also told me that she was completely uncomfortable with a male being in a women's private space we have learned from a teach teacher at that school that wasu County School District does not allow schools to inform parents that their daughters have to share a dressing space with a mail it seems that school districts do whatever they can to brush off the concerns and input of parents so I'd like to offer another perspective and that's the perspective of gen Z young women and girls do not want men to be in our safe spaces we do not want men to expose themselves in front of us we do not want men to be able to watch us get undressed women deserve to have the protected spaces which we fought so hard for in the 20th century I can tell you that the majority of these girls do not want to be subjected to this but old out of touch politicians will try to claim otherwise if you don't stop promoting a perverse ideology at the expense of women they will start asking to be homeschooled and soon your paychecks will be cut in half I sincerely hope that this boy is told the truth that his biological immutable sex was not a mistake and that there's nothing wrong with who he is until people are brave enough to tell the truth we must prior prioritize the safety of women over the feelings of men thank you for listening thank you very much Cheyenne and the thanks always go to our public commenters it's always nice when you say thank you to us but I do want to remind you that public common is your right and it's our it's our responsibility to listen Roger Edwards welcome Mr Edwards well good afternoon uh Roger Edwards for the record long ter longtime 50-year resident of waso County and I'm telling you I am so tickled today we spent half of this meeting talking about how the success of multi-track Education was at Mount Rose I'm amazed I am totally amazed I can't get up here and say that we're not talking about quality of Education today I I'm just dazzled only one hiccup there's always a butt right um but we didn't talk about how this board is going to take all of that learning from those two schools and and spread it out into the whole system you had the people here in front of you that made it work at those two schools and you could have asked them how how do we spread this how does how does that work for the rest of the district these folks made it work you know so what are you going to do you going to put it back on the schedule and bring them back in or what I mean you had them all right here anyway uh I just got admit I am pleased that we're talking about quality of Education fighing thank you thank you than you very much Mr Edwards and by the way uh you can't hear me if you don't speak in the microphone right the other people you can hear me but the folks behind cannot especially when you have these lovely young people sit back here and talk about how much they're doing whatever they're doing and they're not in the microphone thank you the so de people back here need the microphone of course it's always a good reminder we'll definitely make sure to lean into the microphone so everybody can hear thank you so much Tara Thorton welcome Tara thank you for being with us hello um Tara Thorton I'm co-founder of Freedom Angels we're a human and Civil Rights group working at the local state and federal level to protect children families and freedom and um to the point of the family discussing the the situation in the spark School if the gender identity issue hasn't come to your board yet it's here now and it's in every Town and County of in every state Across the Nation and to give you an idea of the terrain that we're facing a few months ago I spoke to an 11th and 12th grade class in California and one of the topics came up was this issue and after the the multi-hour presentation and and debate a bunch of the kids stayed with me after and wanted to talk about how they had noted that in the last four years suddenly they were under extreme pressure to affirm gender identity and to the point that from their from their classwork to their any interactions at school nothing but full um acceptance of this agenda was allowed and I will tell you these kids love and care about their their their classmates they want to see them supported no matter who they are but what they were really concerned about they said we're okay we we don't like it we're looking forward to be out you know in college and Beyond but what they were worried about were their little brothers and sisters and the kids younger S 8 9 10 because they're seeing them come to them and have questions about gender identity that they themselves never had and one thing we need to be really clear about and it was touched on in the speech by Elizabeth Kenny is that gender identity and sexual orientation are different things and they are also different than immutable sex and what we have right now is a generation and a growing like the iceberg is hasn't even been seen yet of children that are facing gender dysphoria experiencing gender dysphoria which is a mental health condition at an enormously growing rate these CH children I want to bring some solutions these children if they're not already under a 504 plan they qualify for it anything that creates an interference with a major life activity allows for reasonable accommodation for them the same goes though for let's say the girls in a girl's bathroom or a locker room they also qualify for accommodation under a 504 plan so what we're going to have is a landscape of competing 504 um accommodations for children because we need to support them all and the best plan is to look at making just like you have um wheelchair accessible start to make third options for bathrooms changing rooms and then larger Community Sports thank you very much Tara we appreciate it Aon massingale Taylor kessinger hi Taylor oh we are you one of our students yes welcome don't you worry you you take your time we won't start the time until you're ready I'm ready okay thank you um I go to Spanish sprs high school and as you've heard there is there is a biological male changing in our female lock rooms even though this is a touchy subject I would like to raise my concerns and opinion on being asked to change in a locker room with a boy without my parents being notified girls and women's locker rooms have been designed exclusively for people who have female bodies and for good reasons those reasons include biological differences between women and men women's right to privacy and protection from potential male violence against women everyone regardless of their G gender identity deserves to feel safe and respected in private spaces such as locker rooms many girls feel uncomfortable in locker rooms under any circumstances but especially when they have to share this space with someone who is biologically different from them at Birth the discomfort experienced by female students should not be overlooked or underminded as females we are taught to respect our bodies and to speak up and that it is okay to speak up this is me speaking up for myself and all of the other girls who will be finding alternative changing Arrangements it is not okay to put a female and a male child in a room together and expect us to feel comfortable undressing in front of each other no matter how accepting I or any other person can be of transgender individuals there is still a major difference in our natural bodies and I believe in my heart that telling girls to dress out with a boy and then make making them feel like they're excluding somebody or discriminating by speaking up by saying they're uncomfortable cannot be written oh I'm sorry by doing that you are teaching children silence this issue cannot be written off as purely policy when there is so much more happening within the minds of students parents and all parties affected from what has been explained to me the policy allows the biological male student into the biological women's room and does not allow for teachers to speak on the issue or notify parents it also encourages the mindset of staying quiet if a subject is making you uncomfortable not speaking up for your own emotions and body to spare the feelings of another individual is not right in the year 2024 I would have imagined we had come farther far enough to respecting women's rights to their bodies opinions and voice these negative thought processes are being encouraged and is teaching our next generation of mothers grandmothers and aunts to ignore and say nothing when a subject might affect other people poorly thank you thank you Taylor you did a really good job sharing with us Savannah ver hi Savannah welcome um my name is Savannah verdeck I'm a junior at Spanish Springs High School um and today I wanted to address the issue of whether trans women should be allowed in the women's high school bathroom or locker rooms um this is a topic that invokes many strong feelings and I want to highlight some of the concerns that have been raised Nevada crime status states that in 2023 wasow County School District property had 24 arrests 24 arrests were reported violent crimes in which included crimes H criminal homicide rape robbery aggravated assault compared to the 2022 reports a 71% increase in one year TW of 24 arrests 20 of the arrestes fell between the ages of 10 and 17 years old and 21 of the 24 offenders were genetically male there was enough evidence provided by the alleged crimes that waser schools felt the need to detain an individual on campus while these St statistics do not specify location on campus or gender identity 24 arrests from reported crimes are enough to show us that trans women should not be allowed in High School women's locker rooms as a female who is required for a grade to change in a High School women's locker room I would like to offer some of my own concerns which are echoed amongst my peers first off privacy and safety concerns one of the main arguments against allowing trans women in a women's locker room is centered around privacy many individuals particularly young women feel vulnerable in such a situation in such settings they argue that sharing a locker room with someone who is biologically a male can be intrusive and make them uncomfortable able This concerns about privacy is significant as locker rooms are an intim intimate space where individuals expect a certain level of confidentiality and safety furthermore we need to protect the well the mental well-being of all students High School is a formative time when students are grappling with their identity and self-image the addition of trans women in a women's locker room can lead to confusion or anxiety amongst females who may feel there in a situation that doesn't align with their understanding of gender this awkwardness can impact their mental well-being and lead to a less supportive environment for their de de development in conclusion while advocating for the exclusive exclusion of trans women in these spaces we should also emphasize the importance of finding compromises the that respects all of the individuals Alternatives can be created such as a private changing area or a separate space that ensures comfort and privacy on everyone this is a complex issue that deserves thoughtful discussion as we seek Solutions and prioritize the safety and dignity of all involved people have the right to live their lives nobody has the right to impose on others While others may change their identity this does not negate the gender they were born or the this but the freedom that you have to be you is the same freedom for me to be free from you thank you very much Savannah all right everyone thank you very much the board received emails from Kathy daily and Rachel steina all right thank you all so much for our public commenters we appreciate you being with us that closes item 5.01 and now for item 5.02 our next meeting will be held on Tuesday September 10th 2024 and then item 5.03 adjournment of this meeting at 4:08 p.m thank you all so much