Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Equity Committee Meeting, Thursday, December 5, 2024

Date: Thursday, December 5, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 48m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1036573948?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Good evening. It is 5 30 and in terms of protecting our time we'd like to get started. I called the the December 5th equity committee meeting to order. Do we have any public comment? Ms. Reeves

[00:00:29] will you look to your left and see if this okay? We have one person for public comment and we will give that person two minutes. Who's going to time it for me? Will you time it? Oh okay. Okay. Thank you thank you we have the timer going okay can we you know the rules do i have to read that all

[00:00:58] those all those words thank you it's not working jeff will you help me thank you so much i don't

[00:01:33] think i have ever spoken to the equity committee to advocate for myself but today i speak as a person of jewish heritage who is uncomfortable in her place of employment it has become too easy perhaps even fashionable, to be anti-Semitic. Please know that it is possible to want justice for Palestinians without being anti-Semitic. Palestinians and Israelis are both human,

[00:02:03] and we do not celebrate death. It is important to realize, though, that much has turned into anti-Semitism and I have a handout for you that discusses the three D's of anti-Semitism and as you listen to both speakers tonight I hope you keep it in mind. One particularly that you need to ask is if the speaker does not believe Israel should be a country. Other than North Korea and

[00:02:37] South Korea, there are very few countries that don't recognize other countries. And there are at least two dozen countries, most of them Arab, who do not recognize Israel. If the speaker who is advocating does not recognize Israel as a nation, that is going to be coming from an anti-Semitic lens, and please keep that in mind. Additionally, I know I only have two minutes,

[00:03:08] okay. Additionally, it is important to remember you can criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. I am one of Israel's biggest critics. You can criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic, But it is important to remember that you cannot claim that Israel is not a country and not be anti-Semitic.

[00:03:43] Thank you. Black Lives Matter. Thank you. I would not like for you to hand out, give any handouts since I didn't have them ahead of time. And please do not distribute.

[00:04:02] Thank you.

[00:04:26] Okay. the meeting we will move forward in the meeting and you if you will see um 3.01 approval of draft minutes for november 7th 2024 which was our last meeting and they were sent to you electronically ahead of time um do i hear a motion to approve the minutes from november 7th motion to approve the minutes from november 7th thank you do i hear a second a correction okay it's very

[00:05:04] minor on page two delegate read it's reid not reed okay do i hear a second with the referenced correction for the minutes thank you so we have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from november 7th all in favor aye all who oppose nay and if i had heard some nays i would do a count

[00:05:43] but I did not so we will move forward. I do want to share because we've had some emails asking what happened to the um I'm sorry the priorities that you came up with when we first started in January and we have those priorities and Dr. Daniel Smith came and there was no objection to his presentation where he presented that each of those priorities were assigned to different committees of the

[00:06:21] school board and that any remaining concerns that we had would be addressed by this committee after the new charter was formed and at the time that he presented there was no one who objected so that's the direction that we're going so but before we have those subcommittee reports we are going to have two information items we have two information items and we're going to do that because several of you have said to me that you would need to leave early. So we're

[00:07:00] going to have the information items now so that the speakers can move on with that night. I know one of them has a has a play to attend. So first we have the representative from the Jewish Community Relations Council, Director of Educational Programs and Services, Mrs. Sarah Winkleman.

[00:07:31] Mr. Syed has his daughter's performance. I feel like that's even more important than my play. But we're okay. I think we're both okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Deans, for inviting me to come and speak. I'm honored to be speaking along with Mr. Syed.

[00:07:50] I want to start by saying that 10 minutes is not enough time to talk about anti-Semitism. But I want to do my best to talk about how it's impacting students in the school. I also want to just call out to Nikki Corson who is the JCRC rep on the committee because she's a great resource.

[00:08:13] She's a teacher in law and she's Jewish and you can definitely use her down the road. So I just want to quickly say, so I work at the Jewish Community Relations Council and for those of you that aren't familiar with, we're sort of the public face of the Jewish community to the general community.

[00:08:29] We work in the whole DMV area. My role as the Director of Education Programs and Services is really to work with all the school systems in the area to help them understand the Jewish community, Jewish students, what's anti-Semitism, and how can we best serve our students within the school system.

[00:08:49] I started in this job six years ago with this amazing program where I bring Jewish teens into school to talk about what it means to be a Jewish teen today. It's this great program, super fun, and then anti-Semitism kind of exploded, And sort of spend a lot more time not talking about the fun stuff.

[00:09:06] I think I just want to start by defining anti-Semitism. It is not like no definition is perfect. This is a commonly used one. Is that anti-Semitism is a hatred, discrimination, fear, and prejudice directed toward Jews as individuals or as a group.

[00:09:26] Anti-Semitism is based on age-old stereotypes and myths that target Jews because of the religious belief, religious and cultural practices, identity as a people or connection, whether real or perceived, to the state of Israel. So, and I know my job is to talk about how it impacts students in Loudoun, and I'm going to get to that.

[00:09:47] The last thing I just want to share before I get to that is about the statistics. So the last decade, we've seen a huge rise in anti-Semitism in America, as well as globally. The Anti-Defamation League, which collects statistics on this, after October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel, there was a 400% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in America the three months afterwards.

[00:10:12] We have not really seen that subside in the next year and a half. The FBI statistics say around 60% of religious-based hate crimes are against Jews. This number continues to go upward, and we are only 2% of the population in America.

[00:10:31] And I'm guessing it's probably around that in Loudoun County. So what does this mean for our Jewish students? I'm going to share what I'm seeing in schools, some of it I'm sort of compiling stories together for a lack of time, but I want to start with sort of the microaggressions, like the small things that Jewish kids are experiencing.

[00:10:54] Last week we had a town hall at a synagogue with local Virginia legislators because they had asked us, they wanted to hear from people about anti-Semitism that people are experiencing. It wasn't only schools, but a Loudoun student stood up and she talked about their many swastikas, Nazi swastikas in the bathroom, and that even when she reported it, the administration did nothing.

[00:11:18] And then she also said that one of her friends who she described as looking more Jewish than her, walked out of the bathroom and said, and a kid said up, she was lucky she hadn't been gassed in the bathroom. So again, nothing was done. And we know from our students that most students don't even bother reporting. They just see this as either background noise, like this is just what happens and it's the school, nobody's going to do anything about it. So I'm just, I mean, I think this is probably common for a lot of people that experience a lot of hate, that they just, it's just noise and they're not going to report it or do anything. There's also, though, a lot of

[00:11:57] Jewish students right now, and I'm going to talk more about this, who just are afraid. Like they don't want to say anything. They don't want anyone to know that they're Jewish. So they tuck in their Jewish star. They don't wear anything outwardly Jewish and go about their day. There was a middle school. I mean, just to give you sort of how pervasive this is, a middle school student came home to her mom. She was reading a book just like for pleasure. It was a Holocaust book. I don't know if that's for pleasure. But she was just reading like a Holocaust book. It wasn't for school.

[00:12:36] And she pulled it out of her backpack. And the girl sitting next to her said, you need to put that book away because it's triggering me because it had a Jewish star on the front. And the girl just put the book away. And she came home to her mom and said, I don't want you to say anything. I know that girl. She's pro-Palestinian. She thinks it's like a statement, even though it's just about the Holocaust. And if you say something, it's just going to make my life worse. So the mother called me, like, what do I do? I mean, I can't answer that for families have to decide what's best, but I just want to sort of sense of what people are experiencing. A Jewish student

[00:13:11] union student flat out refused to be shown in the Hanukkah video that the Jewish student group, I think this was actually Nikki, that they were making for their school. At a different school, there was one of the school counselors knew there was a small Jewish community. I don't remember if she was Jewish or just an ally. And so she decided to make a little Hanukkah display in the consular's office. And so she made this really nice little Hanukkah display with all this Hanukkah stuff. And she put an Israeli and a American flag and she was told she had to take it down. And it's not clear. She ended up taking the whole thing down because she felt like it was

[00:13:49] unsafe to keep it down rather than, you know, so that it's just, and then that kid that was so excited that the school counselor had done that, like went home and was like, you see, mom, this is why I don't want to tell people I'm Jewish. I want to mention the pro-Palestinian walkouts.

[00:14:11] I love our country. I'm glad that we have free speech, but I hope that we can figure out a way to use our schools, and I want to say overall, Loudon did a really good job with this, and I know they worked hard to do this, to help educate our kids to talk about these issues without denigrating other groups and and I think that that's like if we can't teach them now and they're in our roof like how do we expect them to go out to be adults to contribute to the society and I think just and many times people are using anti-semitic tropes that they may not even realize are

[00:14:47] problematic and so this is why education is so important so like for example when Loudon learned that for the Jewish community when someone says from the river to the sea Palestine will free I I understand that many people that say it either don't understand why it's problematic or they see it differently, but for that is the state of Israel.

[00:15:07] So for the Jewish people, that's a very hard thing to hear because most, I guess I should qualify this with most Jewish people in America want there to be Palestinians to have the right to self-determination, just like the Jews have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

[00:15:24] So it's a very complicated because we have two nationalities struggling over the same piece of land. And this ends up playing out in America in a very different way than it does in other places. So I guess I also need to add that 80% of the Jewish community, according to the Pew study, feels a connection to the land as part of their Jewish identity. They are connected to the land of Israel. On the other hand, so it's both we are connected, but also sometimes like kids will be people will make assumptions about Jewish kids and their connection to Israel even though like

[00:16:03] they pray towards it and they know about it but they may never have been there they don't and and then they'll get attacked because they're Jewish so I think it's complicated I think I know personally I really appreciate the work that Loudon has done on that piece on the walk-out but I I felt like I needed to mention because it is a lot of where the complicated pieces land and I think I just want to sort of also talk about sort of the both sides of it so that there's these kids sort of struggling with the how do I manage the pro-Palestinian walkout and still feel like I'm

[00:16:37] part of the school and I'm safe here and then they're also getting like sort of this white nationalist group that's you know coming up to the kids and being like Heil Hitler and you should have died in the gas chambers and all kinds of so they're sort of feeling like they're kind of getting pushed on both sides, and they're both hiding their identity and feeling very unsure of who they are as a Jewish person in the world in America in a way that I don't think happened five or ten years ago.

[00:17:13] And it's not just limited to students. I think for Jewish teachers and staff, you know, we talked about the 2%, which is, you know, I think in the DMV in general, by the way, it's like 10 or 15% Jewish. It's much larger Jewish community, but in Laudan, it's much smaller, probably 2%.

[00:17:28] So last week, I heard from a teacher. He thinks he's the only Jewish teacher in his school. There might be one or two others. I don't know. He doesn't know for sure. And he had like an anti-Semitic threat against his life by a student. Not identified.

[00:17:45] It was like in writing in a desk. So it wasn't identified. And he was really upset and didn't know what to do. And in conversations with him, you know, they were never going to be able to figure out who did it.

[00:18:02] Most best practices, and I don't know, maybe Dr. Williams can speak to it, is that a lot of times schools will send out a letter that will say, like, what happened. It was a racist incident, it was a homophobic incident, it was an anti-Semitic incident. Like, they'll name the hate. But the teacher's like, I don't want a note to go home that I had an anti-Semitic threat against me because everyone's going to know it's me.

[00:18:25] And then I feel even less safe than I feel now. So what do I tell that parent? I mean, and what does the school tell the parent? I mean, the school took it seriously. I don't want to say the school didn't take it seriously, but we're in this situation where there is a lot of fear and a lot of hurt.

[00:18:44] And I hope that sort of gives you a sense of where the Jewish students, Jewish faculty, Jewish teachers are. And I'm happy to take questions if there's time. I don't know what. Nope, there's no time for questions. Do you want me to turn it over to Dr. Saez?

[00:18:59] I sure appreciate your coming. However, I do want to say that those examples that you gave were not all in Loudoun County. You were just giving general examples? Okay, okay.

[00:19:21] But we do have processes in Loudoun to handle those if those individuals are allowed to follow through with... Okay, but I know that we have processes that would take it forward if it were to get to the right people.

[00:19:52] And this is something I wanted to give you, the Office of the Ombuds, you might give that to a student for the student to have it to follow through the correct channels so that that student can get some response. Loughton County Public Schools has someone at all levels to take care of it.

[00:20:10] So I wanted to share that with you, and I shared that with the public speaker as well, okay? So that we will have some thoughts on different sides.

[00:20:27] We have a representative from the Adams Center, which is the All-Dulles Area Muslim Society Educational Service. And not only is he coming to speak with you tonight, but he's also going to join the Equity Committee as a member of the Equity Committee for the Adams Center.

[00:20:49] So we have now Fahan Syed. Did I get it halfway right? Oh, okay. Thank you.

[00:21:07] Excuse me. Thank you. Good evening. With me is Subba Baig, who is the outgoing Adams Rep for the Equity Committee. First of all, I just want to thank Dr. Deans for inviting me to speak about Islamophobia. I also want to thank Sarah here as well for an excellent presentation on what anti-Semitism is.

[00:21:27] My talk is going to be on Islamophobia, but I do want to make it clear, very explicitly clear, that both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia can be mutually exclusive, in the sense that anti-Semitism can exist without there being Islamophobia, as well as Islamophobia can exist without anti-Semitism.

[00:21:48] So I just want to make sure we're clear about that. Now, with respect to Islamophobia, it's basically an irrational fear and prejudice that's against Islam and Muslims. It's been a growing concern over the last 25 years, really after 9/11, but even prior to that, in the 80s and whatnot, regarding political Islam. It's rooted in stereotypes and misinformation that leads to moralization and discrimination

[00:22:19] of Muslims or Muslim ethnic individuals. This prejudice is fueled by negative media stereotypes, political rhetoric, and misrepresentation of Islamic belief and practices. As a result, Muslims may face systematic discrimination, social exclusion, acts of violence, or harassment in their various spheres of life, including public space, workplace, and also in schools.

[00:22:45] With respect to schools, Islamophobia manifests in several harmful ways that affects the students' academic and social experience. One example is bullying of Muslim students, for example, with the recent refugees from Afghanistan that came over they were politically persecuted and so when they came over there they disseminated throughout the country not necessarily speaking about Loudoun County but throughout the nation you had a lot of Afghan children's that don the hijab the headscarf they were basically scars

[00:23:23] were taken off of them or they were you know at other point in time ridiculed for having a terroristic belief or terroristic faith even though they themselves were politically persecuted by the government that was there. Sometimes these students, they're mocked, ridiculed for their faith, leading to feeling of isolation and distress.

[00:23:43] Muslim students, they are also subject to the biased assumptions about their beliefs and practices, such as that, again, as I said, that they're labeled as extremists or terrorists because that's what they see on the television. And then that permeates to schools as well.

[00:24:01] Another thing is with respect to Islam and the exclusion of Islam within the school curriculum. Unfortunately, some of the things that are in the current curriculum, they're not necessarily representative of Islam and what it's all about.

[00:24:16] And so there needs to be proper educational materials that can perpetuate the positive experience of what Islam really teaches and what Muslim students are about. And so with that, we want to foster a sense of feeling of pride of being Muslims.

[00:24:34] Now, with respect to Loudoun County specifically, I just want to say regarding the walkouts, actually my daughter was part of a group that coordinated the walkout. And my wife and I, we sat down with her. We were very explicit, and we also sat down with the principal as to what is acceptable, what's not, specifically because of the work that I'm involved in with the interfaith, especially within the Jewish community.

[00:24:58] Like, what is anti-Semitic and what is not anti-Semitic? And so it was, we agreed that to have a walkout, but it would be a moment of silence. So anyone that wanted to participate in it, were able to participate in it. And it ended up being the largest walkout in Lowndon County. It was very peaceful. It didn't appear to be any issues.

[00:25:17] But that's not to say that someone couldn't have been offended by it. But, again, I'm sure there are processes and procedures in place for that to happen and to take place. with that, I think I can conclude, and did you want to add anything to it, or? Okay. All right, so I actually, I wanted to speak up, because, you know, I have four kids, and one of them has graduated from the Loudoun County School System, and I have three that are currently there, and just between even my own children, have they faced anti-Muslim rhetoric? Absolutely. My son

[00:25:52] was playing lacrosse, and while he was playing lacrosse, he was called a camel jockey, and I asked him, I said, did you say anything to your coach? And he said, no. I said, why not? And he said, because I don't want to make this into an issue. And I think this is something that many children experience where there are Jewish students, Muslim students, Hindu students, you know, children of all faith, like this is something that's difficult for them to speak up about, right? My own daughter, she played for her high school basketball team. And when we went to one of the high schools in Loudoun County, one of the referees, you know, had an issue with her

[00:26:27] hijab and how it wasn't matching the shirt and really like that's a little bit challenging for us you know I mean to be honest right but like it was like a navy blue black issue but she wasn't allowed to play over this and again right like to me I look at that and I'm like that's not okay right but again you know she took it in stride her team absolutely stood up for her the coach said something you know and then you know again another daughter same thing something happened in class, whether it was talks about the Middle East and whatnot. So I'm just saying even between my

[00:27:03] own children, they've experienced this, right? But I also want to talk about the positive experiences that we've had. And I really will say that for us, Loudoun County, what I have seen when we get admin and leadership involved, we have only had positive experiences. My daughter did organize a walkout at her high school, and it was the most successful walkout in Loudoun County. It was 350 students that showed up, right? And yes, did we have a talk with her, explained to her what she should be doing beforehand to make sure things weren't said, but that wasn't a walkout because she wasn't being pro-Palestine. Just to be fair, she was concerned, and she said to me, Mama, I want

[00:27:42] to do this because it's breaking my heart to see these children that are dying in Palestine, and so it wasn't about Palestine. It was about kids that she saw that were dying, and I said, you know what, is that something that you're concerned about and that's something that upsets you, you have the right to do this because that is a part of what the freedoms, right, that they are entitled to have as long as they are not being disrespectful or hateful or anything of that sort, right? But again, I applaud our principal at Independence High School for allowing this to happen, for guiding her through the process, right? And even the prayer issue, like I presented that issue to you all last

[00:28:22] year and the way this committee responded and the way that the division the DEIA responded it was amazing like they asked me questions that I'll be honest I was born and raised in this country things that people have probably never thought about right I they asked me about you know girls that wear the hijab and how that may affect you know the time that they need to go pray and believe it or not it's a very small thing right it may appear like a small thing but it's a big thing for me it's a big thing to understand that people have empathy right so for me what I bring this down to is, in my experiences in life, what I have found is the more that

[00:28:59] we get to know one another and the more opportunities we give to get to know one another, the less those barriers are there, the more we realize how much we have in common. And I just hope for any people that are, anyone that is here that is an educator in the school has a direct role to facilitate that, right? To facilitate those conversations, those difficult, painful conversations but can lead to so much good because mostly we have fear of the unknown and if we allow for opportunities to get to know one another that fear dissipates so that is what

[00:29:33] I leave with today thank you to both of you I really appreciate it and if you need to leave I understand but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming so that we could have both both groups represented thank you have a good night and I'll talk with you on the phone

[00:30:15] okay what we're going to do at this point is we're going to go to 4. 0 um I'm sorry 4. 4. 03 we're going to have the subcommittee a brief report from the subcommittee on policy and because I have a person from that committee who is going to have to leave um momentarily so if you're going present for the policy group come will you come forward if you're going to present for the policy

[00:30:48] group uh so the uh subcommittee for policy review met last month we reviewed two policies one of which is uh draft policy 7308 which is provision of professional references or assistance and this covers basically uh the policies around how references are given for uh school staff um that

[00:31:20] are seeking employment in other areas. And we had just one concern. There is one portion of the policy a list of information that should not be disclosed. And of course, any list is automatically not inclusive because you can't include everything in a list. So knowing that just striking the list entirely is is pretty unlikely we made a recommendation that uh after line 46 i'm sorry at line 46 after the word age that we would add gender citizenship and immigration status

[00:31:57] so that that section now would read care should be taken to ensure references do not disclose confidential personal information and contain no discriminatory information related to race ancestry color sex pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions marital status age gender citizenship immigration status religion national origin disability genetic information or any leave protected by federal or virginia law that was the only recommendation that we had on that one on the second policy that we reviewed which was draft policy 7301 which regards the

[00:32:36] licensure of staff that's basically a recitation of vdoe and virginia law so we had no recommendations on any changes to that particular policy do you want us to vote on that as a committee or how would you like to proceed with that okay i just want to share that it was so um pleasing to when the

[00:33:14] school boards get the policies they get the recommendations from the different committees and it was so pleasing to have all of the recommendations. We always get recommendations from MSAC. We always get recommendations from SEAC. And to have the equity committee's recommendations included, that's a place where all of you can have impact.

[00:33:39] It doesn't have to come through our subcommittee. You can do it as an individual citizen in Loudoun County. So I just want you to know that even the school board members have, Oh, Linda, the Equity Committee has some recommendations. So I just want you to know that that was a positive input.

[00:33:58] And that was where Dr. Daniel Smith, when he came, he talked about us taking the policies and taking a look at them and giving our recommendations because every different eye that sees the policy may see something different, and it is positive for the staff to get those recommendations from you and from the other committees as well.

[00:34:23] So I was real pleased to see that, and the school board members were real pleased to see that as well. Is there someone who would like to make a brief presentation for the charter committee? Even if there is, both the policy committee and the charter committee will meet after we release the rest of you.

[00:34:49] And Helen was kind enough to send out a form that all of you could use to give input into the Charter Committee. So if you have that input, who on the Charter Committee would be willing to receive that from every member here?

[00:35:12] Okay, there we go. Will you say your name and let them hear? My name is Nikki Hughes. I'd be happy to receive all of the feedback or suggestions for the Charter.

[00:35:32] And what we're going to do, what we're doing is resetting the charter, because the charter initially was designed for a specific purpose, and as Dr. Smith explained, we are resetting the charter so that your future actions will be in alignment with whichever charter we come up with and vote on.

[00:35:55] So if you have the form that was emailed to you by Helen, you can give it to that committee so that that committee might involve that or include that in their final response to the charter.

[00:36:14] Yes, sir. Question real quick about that. So the top part of that form is like a format of the categories that should be within the charter, but at the bottom of that it looks like somebody's pre-filled in maybe recommendations or ideas.

[00:36:30] What was the stuff at the bottom of that form? I probably copied too much of it. But I copied it and sent it to Helen, but it was sent to me with some recommendations, and I thought I had removed all of those recommendations, and maybe I did not.

[00:36:50] Electronically, I did not. Yeah, no, they're there. I mean, I'm fine with it. I was just curious where they came from. I mean, it's nice to have some at least direction because we're kind of out here just winging it without it, so thanks. They came from someone in this committee because it was sent to me by a member of our equity committee.

[00:37:11] And you don't have to receive that recommendation. You may have a different recommendation. And if you do, write it in and give it to the charter committee. Okay, what we're going to do is take a 15-minute recess for you to have time to give your recommendations to the charter committee and or to the policy committee.

[00:37:36] if you have none then we will see you on january help me eight is it the eighth however the two committees are to remain behind for us to work on on your the night okay the first thursday in

[00:37:58] january would be january 9th i think we're off the first thursday since we're off the first thursday our next meeting may be but we will notify you the first thursday in february because their committee is meeting every night here at this building and if we say we're going to meet on a different thursday we may we would not be able to find the space to meet there's someone in this

[00:38:36] building every every night of the month yes okay so our next meeting meeting will be in february now i would like to ask the charter committee to communicate with me so that in february since we're having an extra month in February we'll have something to present to the to the entire committee can I ask the charter committee to do that for me please I will call you one-on-one and

[00:39:08] get a yes okay we're going to take 15 minutes it's 10 after 6 at 6 25 oh I'm sorry I'm just curious like we're ending so early and that's fine but when we had these two really informative speakers no Q&A was allowed and I'm wondering why that was when all the other presentations that we've had we've had a Q&A period it just seems like there's something that those are both very

[00:39:46] important issues that both of the speakers brought up and us being the equity committee it seems like that should sort of be our job to talk about them we had a speaker last month which was David Reed there was no Q&A. And so we had Q&A with Dr. Daniel Smith because he was talking about the different direction of our committee. But the presentations are just to give you different sides of a topic. At what point on this committee are we actually going to talk about equity?

[00:40:20] I've been on this committee for a year and we haven't done it yet. No, you received, you the committee received Dr. Smith's statement that we are going to stop and deal with policies and the charter. Until the charter is completed, then the equity committee does not have a way forward because the charter is what determines a committee's way forward. And we hope to have that by February for those individuals who are on that subcommittee. And all of you had the opportunity to sign up for

[00:40:53] the subcommittee. And so those who are on it, we are going to have to meet with them and get something to present to you in February. But at this point, we don't have a path forward because we don't have a charter. Yes. Hi, good evening. I just have a clarifying question. So I understand that we don't have a charter right now, so we're working on developing a charter. My question is, once a charter is complete and approved is the intention to continue for with subcommittees or

[00:41:29] since this committee is sort of small would we then revert back to once we have a charter bringing back conversations to the full committee so that when there is a policy up for review since we do have time it could be discussion items that the full committee can discuss when there's a policy up for review we can all share our feedback then or if there's like i since the commute committee is sort of small it just may not be a need to break off into subcommittees we could just do the work and discussions here amongst all of us so is that the plan once we have a charter set

[00:42:04] then we would just dive into those equity conversations and policy review here yes okay policy review as well as the issues that are presented by those policies or issues that are presented by you your list that you came up with January through June yes however that list that you came up with we actually Dr. Smith went down and took those those priorities and said which committees he was signing assigning them to he assigned some to the different other committees

[00:42:42] one was finance and one was MSAC he went down that list and there was no objection at that time so until we have a charter to move forward then yes but once we have a charter to move forward then the committee itself will have an opportunity to participate in policy the subcommittee did it this time as an example for you and um we gave all of you the where you would find the policies

[00:43:14] and where you would find the form to comment on the policies and we even indicated that you can comment as an individual or as a member of the of the equity committee yes thank you so uh back to dan um dr smith's presentation i believe that was on the september 5th meeting which i indeed missed so i reviewed the minutes for that meeting and he spent a lot of time outlining the policy review process but there was no mention of the reassignment of the priorities in the minutes

[00:43:52] So with that said, can we get a list of the priorities and the reassignments? Because I don't see that anywhere in the minutes, not even that he mentioned that the priorities were going to be reassigned and specifically where they were reassigned to.

[00:44:09] The minutes wouldn't have that detail. But if you listen to, if you choose, you can get us to help you to listen to the entire presentation, and then you will be able to pick up on where he assigned the different priorities.

[00:44:27] Helen and Jerry can help you to listen to the entire process versus just reading the minutes. Our minutes are abbreviated. They are supposed to be by policy. I would certainly agree, but if you read the minutes from September 5th, it goes on ad nauseum, the policy review process.

[00:44:50] But something so critical as our priorities, not being part of the minutes and or where they've been reassigned, not in the minutes, is disturbing. I'll just say that. Okay. I will get you a list.

[00:45:09] You know he has departed. I'll get his secretary to give me that list, and I will share with you. I will share with all of you. Okay, at 625, we'd like the subcommittals to come back to policies on my left and charter on my right.

[00:45:34] Others of you may be dismissed. I can't close the meeting, or we will not continue to be a live meeting or a public meeting. But those who are on the subcommittals are to remain, and those others of you may be dismissed. I just have one last comment.

[00:45:52] When you mentioned that policy review was coming in from other committees like MSAC and SEAC, are those comments to policy coming in as that committee, or are several individuals on MSAC submitting comments?

[00:46:10] They're coming in from that committee because they've gotten to that point. It's just that we had not gotten to that point because we just created the subcommittee. But at some point, the subcommittee will bring the policy to you and get a vote of all of you as to what you want your recommendation to be.

[00:46:29] Okay, thank you. Okay, let's have, at 625, let's reconvene.

[00:49:09] I'm good, how are you? Good, how's the Waterford community? Every time I kind of drive out there, I think about you. It's the Waterford community. It's lovely. Always. It's lovely out there. Yeah, the place is lovely, the people not so much.

[00:49:26] Yeah, you know, I'm going to take the good with the bad, right? Yeah, he's getting along, he's getting better. His teacher this year is a lot better, so he's happier. His grades are still horrible, but he's happy. Yeah, he doesn't want to do school.

[00:49:46] He just rushes through his work. His teacher emailed me, she was like, I got a one on this test. She was like, I don't even think he read the questions. I think he just answered them. and i'm like hmm because it's like how you get him one on the test i said i guess he put his name on the paper she gave him a point for that hey listen happy time will tell yeah where his passions lie i'm trying not to be so hard on him but i'm like man the green so he has an open book test tomorrow i'm like you can get up to four points on this test they go up to four points i was like

[00:50:25] anything less than a three i'm taking the whole gaming system out the room like the monitors the keyboard everything because it's open book there's no excuse even if you don't study or didn't use it's great no excuse yeah but yeah he's happy this year so let me go pick him up from track practice it's like a hundred something kids out there uh they got about 200 now yeah yeah it's growing they got the kids out in the cottages yeah yeah he's in the cottage this year the

[00:51:03] principal said he put the responsible students in the cottage i said did you just call my kid responsible i said you just know he won't do nothing crazy because i'll be on him yeah he was like yeah maybe that too i was like yeah i was like like responsible is not the word right y'all

[00:51:22] have a good night you too have a good break the committee meeting for december the 5th is officially

[01:47:03] ending at 7 18

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