Gordon Clay
Brookings, OR

This is Bully Prevention Month and today is national Unity Day where schools and students around the country are wearing orange shirts signify their support of bully prevention. I haven't heard of any programs or activities planned for this year in our district but I would hope that, number one there are some and number two they are reported in the press so that those who have been bullied and haven't seen a change will know that the new administration is going to deal with reported situations immediately.

For those who know Noah Charlton last year and what he went through, remember the "No blood no foul" incident? Know that he and his brothers have returned to the Midwest with their professional parents. Here is his prom picture. He's busy and he's happy and they even have him on the cross-country track team.

I've reviewed many reports over the past three years like Noah's who felt the district hadn't protected their children. I received a report last night about another bullying incident. This person had successfully, uh unsuccessfully reported bullying incidents in the past. This year they wrote a three page complaint and I am pleased to report that the complaint was dealt with immediately and the complainant is pleased with the outcome. Thank-you for your support Superintendent Gallaghar.

Speaking of reports, I've reviewed the Brookings, Gold Beach and Port Orford report cards for 2014/15 including a five-year trend. As I reported on the school rankings in the state last month, we didn't fair well. One of the reasons might be that a quarter of our students don't make it to class 90% of the time.

We fell below the average Oregon school in all 9 categories and behind like schools in all but 11th grade science class while Gold beach exceeded state averages in 5 of 9 and Port Orford in 7 of 9 categories. But this will give us a base line to start looking at the future.

The district had a significant increase in the proficiency of teachers from 75% to 98%. Suspensions are up and represent over 16% of our student population. The district spends less per student than state average and over $3,000 less than Gold Beach and almost, and Port Orford spends almost twice as much as we do in Brookings. The state says we should be spending around $12,000 per student and if we did that, we'd increase in our budget of over $3 million.

I want to acknowledge Sue Chambers for bringing "The Buck Stops Here" plaque as a reminder that these five board members that have the responsibility to direct this school district to excellence. Bring back the plaque. I ask you all to bring back the plaque. Put that on the inside of your name tag and ah know that there need to be no excuses. And it's your responssibility to turn this school around.

I want to talk about the pol oh and I did have a note here By the way, great student art in the district office. Fantastic. Go look at it. Bother the hell out of the district.

On the policies. There were 104 words of policies. I reviewed all of them and gave all the board members my comments on uh 12 of them.

Policy # 1 I recommend that uh you what we did in the last session community or uh committee is really look at all the policies and try to get things working together. The new policy on protected class that the OSBA recommended is different and it doesn't include everything that we've included in the past but what I'd like to see we include that policy and then the add ons they have and we change those in the other categories. In the OSBA version um, well I'll leave that for you guys reading.

And the second one there are all kinds of discrepencies. If you took the second one and the 23rd and look at them, they're both basic procedures. And in one it's working days the other school days. In one it's oral and written compaints and the other is only written complaints. It's. Unless there's a law that says you can't do it that way. And one was 5 days and one was 10 days for response. I think we ought to look at that and get it together.

It also talked about a minimalist complaint form and um I think that we ought to get as much information like the complaint form we have now so that if there for review by the superintendent and by the priinciple and you can, and they can look at the information and really uh get the questions before they have their meeting. uh

4, 14, 20, and 21 I recommend that you include uh "official school bus stops". It's important to protect our students every where in the district that we have the responsibility for their safety.

Also the cross references at the bottom should reflect the name of the policy. And they reflect only the name of the old policy. Uh

On uh 5 all 15 pages look... have a different policy name and talk about AR (2)  when it's actually AR (1) policy. Um

8, 2, A 1 OSBA addition here makes no sense. If you can figure it out I don't think an English teacher can figure it out.

22 The outcome of the various AR changes might affect the complaint form column on KL for EHA and KL Uh They didn't get, you know when we're looking at two policies uh they've got too many people looking at different policies. If they had one person looking at them they would catch these these problems. But these are the things that I reommend get changed before you uh do your first reading.

In the packet um oh and I agree with the... some of the board members that the packet um it would help if those in the community had the packet before noon on Monday. If we had it for the weekend because there were 104 pages I went through on the policies, 95 on the uh uh job descriptions and another 200 on the rest of the documents. So, uh, it would be nice to at least have the weekend to work with those.

And here is the five-year trend data on the uh uh student uh district report card. Thank you.

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 What the minutes say

Gordon Clay: Stated that this is Bully Prevention Month and that he is in hopes that the district will have activities in support of this and that they are reported to the press. Gordon Clay commented on the district handling a complaint this year that was dealt with immediately and he thanked the superintendent for the support. Gordon Clay stated he reviewed the report card and suggested that the low results may be in part due to students not attending school. Gordon Clay commented on the great student art in the district. Gordon Clay gave his recommendations on the policies that were in the packet for a first reading. Gordon Clay also suggested that the community be able to have the weekend to review the board packet.