December 8th was the first and only school board meeting for this month. It was hosted online in a Zoom Meeting. 

A school board meeting is when the school board comes together to discuss certain issues, problems, current events, school budgets, and other stuff that has to do with schools.

Usually, there are two meetings per month, but due to the Winter Break, they only hosted one for December. 

One of the very first things that were discussed during the meeting was the land agreements. They are talking about and recognizing the Native people that lived here before us. Jeanie Schulz, the newly elected director (more on that later) tells about the land agreements. 

“As we build and grow around understanding different cultures, school districts around the state are honoring the tribes upon which land we now occupy,” Schulz said. 

After the recognition of the Native people to this land, next on the agenda was electing members to certain spots, such as a new President and Vice President. 

“The board always reorganizes once a year, typically in late November or early December,” Schulz said.

Basically, how the elections work is that the position that was gonna be voted for was announced, then someone could be nominated. If more than one person gets nominated, then they must vote. How the vote works is that they would go around and say the name of different board members, and when the name was called, the board member would say Aye if they wanted that person to be elected to that position. Schulz was able to win the position of president. 

After elections, the next thing on the list was the discussion of the removal of a poster with LGBTQ messages from an elementary school classroom, and the removal of a book called gender queer from a library at a middle school. They were talking about bringing back the poster and the book because they weren’t rightly removed. 

“..and within that procedure, there is a process to view any complaints from a community member regarding a book that might have been selected for the library,” Schulz said. “When we made the decision to pull the book out of the library that procedure was not followed.”