001[Music] good evening i now call the november twenty second meeting of the walleye swarthmore school board to order in opening if you're willing and able please rise and drive [Music] of the united states all right thank you um i'd like to start by asking mrs here sure [Music] all right thank you mr burra uh so we will as usual start with our student representative report we have a little bit of room thanksgiving isn't just a small way to take a class and relax it's about getting back to the community and recognizing our research i saw a lot of that over this past month it even helped [Music] it was amazing to see everyone coming together to give back to the community [Music] moving on to the district championships the championship game will happen this friday
002at ruston make sure to cheer on the panthers also congratulations to the cast and crew of tartu i got to see the show on saturday and it was incredible the set was beautifully designed and the actors were absolutely phenomenal our school is filled with so many talented people and this thanksgiving i'm grateful for all my peers who are always there for each other and our community for the teachers and staff that cultivate our learning and the school board for making all of this possible thank you so much for that great message um so let me hand the baton over to dr marseille for our superintendent's report this evening i do want to share since uh our student rep uh supreasia made reference i do want to thank um our student body for um the love
003and support that they've reached out to um my lower marian family and the passing of a very good friend and colleague of mine and it's been tough and i really appreciate that as neighbors we extend our hand in friendship uh during these uh during these difficult times and it speaks to who we are as as a community and um the the type of students and and faculty that that we have here uh speaks to uh speaks to that so thank you for for sharing that um and thank you to um my new family who's providing a tremendous amount of support um i want to share um something with you before i get started um and that's if my clicker will work but i don't need it um so normally i share with you my first
004slide which i've accustomed to sharing uh which is uh our mission envision statement right um which out of all the days doesn't want to show um but in that particular mission and vision that we constantly see that i want individuals to pay particular attention to and many of you probably breeze past this because we breeze it through it very quickly to tell you that we want to remind the community that some time ago all of us committed to [Music] those words that this board is committed to seeing the action and what is the evidence of that um respect for self and others and leadership in a global community i pulled those two out this evening because it was a gross violation by an individual or individuals when our faculty and staff hopefully not students had
005to arrive uh to work had to arrive to school with a racial epithet that for me was deliberate and intentional now i don't know if this person or persons are black or african-american i don't know if they're white i don't know if they're asian i don't know if they're american indian i don't know if they're [Music] multi-racial i don't know if they click on other doesn't matter what matters to me though we are conducting an investigation and um as many video cameras as you have it's so disappointing that they're always at the wrong angle right to see clearly but see some things enough um [Music] and when and so as we're investigating this i'm deeply concerned about what were the conditions that led this individual to write that regardless of age we don't know right
006could be someone within our community it could be someone outside our community we just don't know um but what we do know is they brought it to our front steps that's what we do know what we do know is that it doesn't represent this community there's an individual or individuals who believe that may be the case but absolutely is false and that word was chosen to incite trauma and anger because why else would they choose that particular word they could have chosen any other word to write though those words are inappropriate too i'm assuming with the limited vocabulary so you know i had a conversation with mr savage and reflecting upon this um and thinking through and um and members of my team and i appreciate as soon as we found out um every person
007i contacted came to my office immediately and tried to put a perspective and additional insight right because it's extremely important um that as these situations occur that you bring in team members to reflect on um what our next steps right and hopefully those are the right next steps right but at the end of the day there'll always be someone who will share with me um you should have done more you should have done this you should have done that i get it so um i was talking to my colleagues on my left and to my right and i shared this wonderful documentary if you have not seen it and i encourage everyone to see it um and it's um by a haitian filmmaker uh and it is a 2016 documentary and it's called i am
008not your negro uh for those who don't know the literary works of james baldwin will begin to be one of my favorite authors which i have found much later in life um and um civil rights icon in his own right which many people do not know of that aspect of his work or his literature which i um would recommend that be part of reading before an individual receives a diploma from this district um i've been to some high caliber school system both public and private um where that is a staple in terms of understanding the perspective of different civil rights uh leaders um and i don't want to spoil it for you but it's um it's a powerful documentary and it's really about uh um unfinished work prior to james baldwin's death in 87. and
009uh james baldwin was collecting a number of manuscripts that he was writing and he wanted to think about the civil rights movement through the lens of three pivotal assassinations um medgar evers right um it's one name we know as we study civil rights uh malcolm x and martin luther king and it's a two-hour documentary at least it felt like that for me i was lost in it um [Music] and there's a piece in there that speaks to this moment about this word and why it was constructed and that uh that word is not our word that's why the title is i am not your negro right someone had to develop that word they needed that word right because it says more about them than it does about the per than the individual yet you're throwing
010it at so as we develop and strengthen our community i want to say that the reason why i have spent some time reflecting because if you're going to do something you better do it right and individuals who've been knocking at my door about this work which i respect is that and this is why i want everyone at the table so this is why when i heard my when i had my first um dei diversity equity and inclusion meeting which we have a committee which i've shared publicly unapologetically that this work should never be reserved for 30 to 40 people what it should be is the work of everyone hence the reason why i encouraged and said the structure of the organization needs to significantly change and that if you're going to have these conversations everyone
011should be having these conversations if you're going to have strategy everyone should be involved in strategy hence the reason why that my proposal though those may who not like it about developing cultural proficiency equity leaders in each of our buildings having teachers who are ready willing to participate and lead that conversation some who are ready to do that others we will provide the training for that and have periodic meetings where you invite members of your community not just 10 that somehow like to fill out an application no disrespect intended but i've done this work long enough to know that everyone needs to be part of it and that's the collective solution it is not a wagner marseille fix it is not border school director's fix right we're part of this entire equation so is everyone
012who is in this audience and those who are watching hence the need for it to be developed in each and every building and you need the appropriate infrastructure in order for it to be sustainable to be viable what i would hate to see is in my transition whenever that is not building a strong enough structure as soon as there's a administrative shift at the highest level of his own priorities shift and they and i want to tell you i've seen that happen in a number of districts we can't i can't allow that to take place which is why i'm trying to be intentional in developing those individuals identifying those individuals and bringing everyone to the conversation but it's also important as we're building cultural proficiency equity leaders teacher leaders in our buildings um is that
013we develop students as well and what we wanna i wanna be very clear with parents that we're trying to help under uh help your child understand what it means to live in an inclusive community what it means to disagree respectfully what does it mean to learn about other individuals with different perspectives different practices you don't have to adopt it right get this idea about indoctrination i don't know where that's coming from not my cup of tea don't know where that word is right um i want my daughter to understand that there are children who don't look like her who come from different backgrounds and that she needs to understand to some extent those backgrounds and be okay with that sid because we said we want respect for self and others that's what we said we
014also said we want leaders in a global community that's what we said so there are fundamental things that have to be done if we are to live up to those particular ideas and it's not that the other two active engagement and learning and the pursuit of excellence don't apply here i'm pulling out those two as it relates to this particular moment so we will not get deterred it's unfortunate it's not the first time i've been here since july first i have been made aware of particular languages that are used this is the most egregious because this person is not whether i said it i didn't say it i only said it to one person so you can't it's my word versus this person's word investigation is like okay what really happened like you went out
015and intentionally took a marker and you wanted the public to see it it's not like you wrote in your diary dear diary and you closed it up so it goes to the state of mind of that particular individual or individuals and it just doubles really my result for me and for this board and for the work that we're going to do um during the time that i am here uh that you are here uh so i wanted to convey that uh message to uh our community um to this audience that the road is a long one but one that we will travel together and we're going to execute this better than it done before whatever that looked like prior so let me quickly go through if i may um apologize for taking so much time
016at the meeting i want to talk about our health and safety plan a little bit and i know that there's been a lot of back and forth with regards to who has the authority who doesn't have the authority mass mandates the governor pa court system what does that mean for our institution what does it mean for a health and safety plan and i want to tell you that as this makes its way through obviously continues to make its way to the court system that this administration plans to follow our health and safety plan long before the mass mandates came into place which required a particular metrics now we all know things have changed and we all know that there has to be an offering uh and uh i understand that but i want to do
017that safely and i think that the time is nearing for us to begin thinking differently uh about the direction which we're gonna go we are very fortunate for those um who do espouse and believe and that's fine if you don't um you're still my brother you're still my sister with regards to the impact of vaccination and seeing how that is uh is helping and that now vaccination uh is readily available uh that as we move into the december month and open in the new year i do want to come back to this board and to this public at our next legislative meeting before we go to our winter break and i want to share my team wants to share what we like to propose to come into the new year uh i think we'll be
018in a very different place than we were before but it's much more of a gradual release and i look forward to the dialogue i look forward to the questions in terms of our thinking but we do want to be clear that we're in a position where we can begin to think differently because we have sets of information that is very different today than we had uh previously so i will be bringing that um to the board to the community for reflection some uh traditional numbers that we've shown before this is just um are uh reminders of where we we are oh talk about reminders i'm gonna be i unders i'm getting a lot i'm getting emails i want to respond to them uh so i hope you're listening because i know somewhere your email is
019buried so i hope you are listening right i told my uh um my colleagues please if you need something pick up the phone and call me right so i tell my parents call me getting an email is there's like 10 000 of them right um and when i spend saturday and sunday thinking that caught up there's another load waiting for me that that monday um but i want to um share with um parents who have have emailed me uh with regards to their concerns and let them know that we are being deliberate and intentional and trying to find ways to move uh in a healthy direction as everyone is is really tired right for a number of a number of reasons um so here's our vaccination percentages you see that it keeps moving a little
020bit where we're hopeful that when we have those who are willing to get vaccinated it's extremely important that we get up-to-date information i want to respond to those who've been having difficulty with power school and loading that we don't want that to be a barrier there are multiple ways in which we'd like for you to if you're willing to provide us with that information because we're gonna have up-to-date uh uh records so if you are able absolutely we'd love for you to come in person and give that to us we also if you can scan it take a picture of that and feel comfortable sending it via that median we will accept that as well and for those who are brave enough and have found success because we we have people who found success um
021using powerschool um please make sure that is but either or we encourage you that if you're having challenges please contact either our lead nurse deb sweeney or your child's nurse and they will find ways in which to accommodate you in order to get that information available to us so we can have the most up-to-date records as possible and of course our continued partnership with springfield pharmacy uh on the 29th uh the 20th and the 12th as i was coming in late this evening i went to grab a bite to eat and came back uh there were actually parents outside saying can we go in and get vaccinated and i said my apologies i'm sorry if we sent out the wrong date but it is not tonight and i shared with that parent um that jade
022um there was a child there he goes was this for nothing [Laughter] and dad said no no no it wasn't we'll come back next time right so the humor that only children can bring uh to uh to a situation so we wanted to share that with you and our commitment to there we also want to remind you about our upcoming educational affairs meeting we have been uh this board has been very intentional in responding to ongoing conversation especially with my leadership around accessibility making sure that the public is aware of meetings and encourage you to please attend if you can't attend tag a friend and say can you show up for me tonight and have your voices fielded through that as well it's extremely important so we have uh um our educational affairs meeting tonight
023we have educational affairs calendar part two it may be part three and part four but you never know all right but we wanna have that conversation and i've shared this before as we try to juxtapose between a district calendar and a culturally proficient religious calendar and how do we balance those and we have some ideas some that will be accepted others will think we're not going too far and we'll just keep building on that every single year right i tell cheyenne um we had parent-teacher conferences and of course i was late i'm sorry um but the teachers were absolutely wonderful and it's all about growth right when cheyenne walked into this building in early september share with me how she's grown until now right those numerical things that come attached to the side of the
024name uh that will come all right for mommy and daddy we're concerned about um have you grown and have we seen that evolution though it may not uh be reflected in a quantitative typical score or should i say a typical wildland first workforce school district score right everyone's so competitive here everything i love it um so we're happy with that so it is a growth process we want to make sure that um you come out and give your voice for those particular meetings we also have a meeting tomorrow night and it's our first policy meeting and i'm really excited about that and um please join us there's a number of policies this took a little bit longer than i anticipated because there was so much information i need to find out on the back end
025about what was done before the process um and uh i have tasked my hr director to lead uh policy uh meetings um obviously i'm at all of our committee meetings as well um but um since uh dr um uh dr ethernet glitter just started uh well i will be leading the next couple of policy meetings i'll give him an opportunity to kind of learn the delay of the land for like a better term and then i'll pass over the baton and dr sandberg will co-chair uh with him as well in terms of supporting that so we encourage you if you're able uh to come tomorrow night to uh to that meeting uh and then a number of updates uh around what's happening important calendar reminders and this is the season and this is my favorite
026um holiday break i am uh i've appointed myself as as the chef in the family i don't know if anybody else has appointed me but i am so this idea about prepping um and getting ready for a feast is absolutely phenomenal reminds me as a little kid when um my mother would put us in a corner and um we would have to like take out the dry beans and wipe them out and rinse them you know it's part of the haitian culture kids do all the manual labor um all right so uh cheyenne doesn't believe in that she does not believe in that one bit right so um some wonderful activities but i wanted to share that in terms of the spirit that exists and continues this year in terms of how we are thinking
027uh more than just about ourselves but our but our neighbors who are near and far in terms of some of the activities are taking uh that are taking place so i do want to wish up a really safe uh really safe holiday [Music] and then and enjoy the family and uh and friends that concludes my report thank you all right thank you dr marseille um for those words uh including uh your words at the beginning uh about this incident that we experienced as a district um i think our board stand behind stands behind those ideals um that are in our mission and look forward to doing this work with you um i did want to under board announcements today um say a few words i have one specific announcement and then a few other comments
028but the board did meet an executive session prior to this meeting to discuss specific personnel but i did want to just take a few moments to piggyback on some comments from dr marseille this evening this is our last meeting as a board before annual reorganization meeting in early december and so i did want to share a few messages and thoughts first is that we will soon say goodbye to two of our board members amy caruso and matt sullivan and i just want to take this time to thank both of you for your service you both have made incredible contributions to the board and we really are deeply appreciative of that and i've said before at meetings the district truly needs people who are willing to to volunteer to serve in these roles and we certainly
029owe you a debt of gratitude for stepping forward to do that so thank you thank you second um yeah i wanted to mention as we move to our reorganization meeting it is a time when we start to think about planning for the next calendar year it's a time when we determine new roles on the board and we'll welcome a couple new board members at the time and i would like to just share a thought with our board here and our community as we plan our meeting calendar for next year so as dr marseigh just mentioned we've moved toward a much more robust committee structure we have our standing committees of finance facilities policy educational affairs are all now meeting on a monthly basis and these committees are the place where the board is doing a
030great deal of our work and the heavy lifting as it relates to work with the administration it is a time when the board can deeply engage in that work with the administration these legislative meetings like we are having tonight i would like the board to think about shifting these meetings to once a month now that we are you know again having all of our committees meeting on a monthly basis with opportunities for the public to engage in those meetings that is the model that most other districts follow we are somewhat unusual in the sense that we have two of these legislative meetings a month and so we're not there's nothing to take action on this evening but i did want to to bring that up um you know that we might consider that in the
031future um i think it would bring a lot of efficiency to the work of the board i think it would help foster again a lot of the things we're trying to do with doing work in committees and creating ample opportunities for the public to engage with that work the next thing i wanted to mention is just to again piggyback some comments about the health and safety plan and um you know again we're not going to take any action on that this evening but again i just want to offer a few thoughts i know our students and families have diverse views about how fast or slow we should go in terms of making changes to our health and self-safety plan as we get closer and closer to pre-covert times i do think we've made enormous progress
032this year our students are experiencing school in a way that is much closer to pre-combat times but we're obviously not all the way there yet and i know one of the questions is when will masks become optional especially in light of the state mandate ending in mid-january it's not an easy question to answer but i do want to offer a few thoughts again we're not taking any action on this question this evening but in my view you know we have several goals in mind as we we look ahead to modifications i think first and foremost the thing that we've said all along is that our number one goal is to keep kids in school for in-person learning and whatever we do we certainly don't want to compromise that goal at all on the other hand
033we should move toward relaxing measures as soon as feasible and safe so the school experience can get back even closer to pre-covet times and find ways to gradually make that transition but we do need to prevent uncontrolled surges that could create severe health issues among our students and families in our schools and in our community at some point mass will become optional the very difficult question that dr marseille mentioned is exactly deciding when when that should be we do need off-ramps mass can't stay on forever back in our original hilton safety plan we had a trigger for masking based on the cdc's cutoff for substantial transmission that rate is 50 per hundred thousand over a seven day period we've been a little more than double that for quite some time this fall um in my
034mind there you know dr marcia mentioned some things have shifted um since august one is that the relationship between case counts and hospitalization and death rates has changed as vaccines have become more widely available vaccines have had a dramatic impact on the likelihood of severe disease so if a given case count now leads to far fewer cases of severe illness it means we might think about changing the thresholds to relax certain requirements or change thresholds or metrics altogether now that we do have widespread access to vaccines for all of our students this could change how we might think about our move toward relaxing some of our requirements since again vaccines are so protective against severe disease for those that choose to get vaccinated and then there is hope that um there are some new treatments
035for covid on the horizon i don't know how many people have followed that in the news but there are two promising treatments that may be approved by the end of this year um and the question is how quickly those will become available that that's not known yet but that too has a big impact on how we think about moving forward uh over the course of the pandemic but like all coveted conversations are a few factors that like we should pause about too and make us not want to go too fast in making change masking in the classroom is currently what prevents closed contacts from needing to quarantine and missing valuable in-person days in school our vaccinated students don't need to quarantine but our unvaccinated students either do or they need to be in the test
036to stay program in order to keep coming to school and so we can't overwhelm our test to stay program so that suddenly we can't manage to test all the kids that are in the test to stay program if masks come down and we have enough covert circulating that we have a lot of people who turn into close contacts and that would again compromise our goal of keeping kids in school and then lastly unlike many other illnesses a student that gets coveted typically misses over a week of school and so we have to think about that as as well there's really no way that we're going to eradicate coven public health experts do agree that we're moving toward covid gradually becoming a more endemic illness the idea at the beginning of the pandemic that we could
037achieve zero covid is not something people believe is is really likely at this point eventually mass will come off or at least become optional again the question is when i think many of the parents that i've spoken to fear this scenario where there's a huge spike in cases this winter covets running rampant through the community and right at that time we allow mass to become optional i understand that view but we will have to again begin to think about all of these factors as we wrestle with when to make the change i do think regardless and i think dr marseille's timeline is consistent with this you know that we're not making any changes until all of our students have had a chance to get fully vaccinated and so you know i think that takes us
038into into january around the expiration of the governor's order um you know i think we we set a trigger in place back in august um that was based on k through 6 not having access to vaccines but 7 through 12 so at a minimum we ought to be thinking about consistency across all grade levels i really appreciate the administration doubling down on trying to get us the most up-to-date vaccination status information on our students i think that helps with this conversation as well and giving parents many different opportunities of how to share that information with us and lastly you know i think that we have some time and to continue to get input from some of the experts at chop and the state and those advice in the county as we think about whether we
039shift metrics in some way and shift timelines you know again i know everyone is very tired of covid people are tired of all of our efforts to beat back covet i know they're varying views on how much we should be concerned about it but i do think we have to be prepared as a district for implementing some off-ramps as dr marseille mentioned what we need to avoid though is a large number of students becoming quarantined or isolated and missing school in the face of a large winter surge i hope that search does not come so you know i think my message to the board is we'll certainly look forward to talking more about this uh in december um my message for our families is to you know understand that we're going to start having this
040conversation and the best way to prepare is to get vaccinated get your kids vaccinated again as we get closer to december and january we'll revisit the discussion we're certainly again not making any changes today but we do have to again start start considering our next step so anyway thank you very much for listening i know this is a little longer than usual comments uh during this time during the board agenda but i think it was important to share some of those messages with the full board as well as the full community so that takes us to our part of the agenda for audience recognition for response to items that are on the agenda this evening again this is a time for public comment uh for things we are voting on this evening we'll have time
041later for topics not on the agenda and again as a reminder this comment time is uh for district residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the board or may come before the board it's a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community and again while we can't answer questions at the meeting there's always an opportunity to follow up after the meetings if there's a specific question and again in public comment we ask people to stick to a three-minute time limit and we'll make sure to give you a one-minute warning after two minutes has elapsed elapsed is there anyone who has a comment for an item on the agenda this evening okay so uh seeing none uh we will go to our first item
042for action which is approval of the november eighth regular business meeting minutes and i so move uh do i have a second second thanks matt uh any discussion all right mr mcguire can you please take a roll call miss caruso hi mr henry aye mr cutis hi this is lentz mr sullivan hi miss vogt hi miss walkman hi miss wikowski smith aye dr grandy hi dr grandy the minutes pass with a vote of nine to zero all right thank you miss figueroa um so that takes us to personnel there's 12 items for action in that section are there any items on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest all right so we'll take them all together first we have approval of two resignations as listed in the agenda we
043have the approval of one appointment april uh to keith weiner a social worker at the high school we have approval of six leaves of absence as listed in the agenda with approval of one change of assignment as listed in the agenda we have approval of changes of hours as listed in the agenda these changes of hours reflect uh bus route assignments we have approval of activity advisors as listed in the agenda we have approval of 2021 2022 winter athletic supplement supplementals as listed in the agenda we have approval of 2021-2022 activity supplementals as listed in the agenda we have the approval of a correction to a mentor appointment we have approval of a change in salary status for lori sollenberger we have approval of a stipend for the district lead covert nurse to coordinate and
044perform covid related duties during the 2021-2022 school year and we have approval of an independent contractor to provide live streaming services of music concerts for the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated uh all the items in this section are is attached or described in the agenda uh do i have a motion uh thanks kelly do we have a second second thanks wendy uh any discussion on those items okay mr can you please take a roll call vote mr henry hi mr cutis hi mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi miss vote hi swachman i'm miss witkowski smith hi miss crusoe hi dr grandy hi personnel items pass nine to zero all right thank you mr aguero so we go to student services there's just one item in that section which is approval of 2021 2022 related service
045provider contract so you just want to make a note that the years in there are all correct but the label at the top says 20 20 20 21 should read 21 22. um but this item uh is again attached to the agenda do i have a motion thank you kelly uh do we have a second second thanks mary jo uh any discussion all right miss figure can you please take a roll call though mr cutis aye mrs lynch aye mr sullivan aye ms vote aye swachman aye mr caskey smith crusoe hi mr henry hi dr grandy hi dr granny the vote passes nine to zero all right thanks ms fagura uh and that takes us to finance we have four items for approval are there any on that list that anyone would like to separate
046from the rest yes a a okay all right uh any others okay so we'll take item a first uh which is acknowledgment of receipt of the financial statements um for october do i have a second or do i have a motion sorry so moved thanks kelly do i have a second second thanks wendy uh any discussion yes i just wanted um some clarifications because we do have it says fun 10 for october and just wanted clarification on the other funds that aren't listed yeah i think you have to go to the microphone yeah so we are we have had a backlog of work in the department and we had to come current this month with july august september and october and we focused all of that time on fund 10 because that's where 95 percent
047of the money goes through so for the next reporting meeting we will have those other smaller funds thank you okay any other discussion okay miss figure can you please take a roll call vote on item a chris hi mr sullivan hi miss vote hi miss walkman hi miss wakkowski smith hi miss crusoe hi mr henry hi mr cutis hi dr grandy hi dr granny finance item a passes nine to zero all right thank you miss figura so then we have b c and d uh which we'll take together um which is acknowledgement of the receipt of the treasurer's report for october 2021 approval of payments to vendors as stipulated from october 16 to november 16 2021 and acknowledgement of receipt of the financial statements and treasurer's reports from july through september again as ms martin
048just pointed out these reports were delayed due to staff transitions in the business office but we have them now today so all items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion for items b through d so moved thanks amy uh do i have a second second thanks kelly any discussion on those three items mr sullivan hi miss walkman aye ms witkowski smith hi this is crusoe hi mr henry hi mr cutis hi miss lentz dr grandy hi finance items past nine to zero all right thanks miss figuera so that takes us to audience recognition for response uh to any other topics that are not on the agenda this evening i won't repeat what i just said earlier um is there anyone who would like to speak to
049an item not on the agenda go ahead so just as a reminder name and name of the street that you live on and we'll give you a one minute warning when you get to two minutes uh good evening school board i'm robert cristalli of putnam boulevard in wallingford once again i want to discuss the mass mandate in our schools i was disappointed to see it was not on the agenda for this week's meeting two three weeks ago the pennsylvania commonwealth court ruled the mass mandate was null and void and unenforceable and would terminate and last week they ruled it would terminate on december 4th the courts have made it clear the authority that was wrongfully taken from you will be handed back and now that authority needs to go back to the parents since august
05016th the district has been heavily limited by the 50 per 100 000 case threshold set over two weeks of time as far as i'm aware no science was cited for establishing the threshold so low i did the math and at that threshold even a dozen cases across the county of 600 000 people would mean that we would have to wear a mast in our schools this means we'd be wearing them forever except for philadelphia cova cases in delaware county are the lowest per capita in the entire account entire state i'll be the first to say it covered 19 is now endemic and the pandemic has ended therefore the mass mandate must end and we must accept the endemic risk of coven 19. the only way to never fear covet again is to test positive and
051survive there is almost no risk of death for children and in the last 19 months only 10 to 20 kids without pre-existing conditions have died in the entire country treating of coven treating a children like they are the elderly is not only irresponsible but dangerous to the learning environment dr grandi i think was you a while back that said eventually these restrictions have to come to an end at some point so why not now the motion for universal masking was originally proposed after public comment had ended on august 2nd and the parents were never given the opportunity to comment on that mass mandate which is quite suspicious if you ask me the district cave that night because all the residents of swarthmore said they wanted mass the residents of nether providence said no and almost
052completely the board uh was supposed to be representative of the population cave to a one-party municipality that is smaller in land area and population than other providence finally i don't think the board understands how this feels to parents i'm not a parent but i can imagine how it feels they had a personal medical decision robbed from them without any answers some of you are parents most of you are and how would you feel if somebody just walked into your living room and said i've decided what's best for your children i really like an answer on that one and our district we you we're owed an answer uh secondly and or finally how is this compassionate how is taking a decision that should only be made by parents compassionate to anybody and i guess i'll see
053you all on december 13th and hopefully there's no tricks played that night thank you and good night all right thank you do we have any other comments this evening for items not on the agenda okay um seeing then uh we will move on to uh school board reports um do we have any reports this evening give a report from our finance committee do we have anyone with that report from do you have one not yet should we wait till the next meeting for a formal if we don't have a final um okay yeah we'll just wait are there any other reports any out of district roles oh this is okay all right so let's move on to old business thank you dr grandi um i just wanted to take a minute um we've seen a
054lot of people leave this board at different times during the past two years that's how long i've been on the board so that's that's what i will speak to um but you know tonight we have two people leaving the board and um i want to take a moment it's become kind of a regular thing for us but it's it's a really big deal that we've had two people serving and that when we get together again they're they're not going to be part of our of our um the body of our board and so i just want to take a minute to say that um while it hasn't always been pleasant and it hasn't always been fun um you told me it's been um what makes these two people different than i think everyone else that's
055left before them is that they also signed on to serve while the pandemic was going on excuse me and that's a big deal i'm not so sure i think it's really admirable and i'm not so sure i would have made the same decision based on the climate of our community sorry end of our country so i just want to stop and take a moment to say i've enjoyed working with both of you matt and amy and um i thank you for serving during such difficult times and i wish you luck in whatever you're doing next so thanks a lot and we will miss you thank you and actually i'll follow that just by saying it's really been an honor it's been an honor to serve the community to work with our amazing teachers and our
056dedicated administrators here and a privilege to serve with all of you on this board i'm really proud that my kids get to grow up in this district and attend these schools and i really look forward to seeing where this board and dr marseille take up snaps but thank you thanks matt thank you and i also wanted to thank this particular board for the opportunity to serve the greater community as you know i've been very actively involved in the district for many years and i continue to do so after this next week's official role and i'm looking forward to continued intentionality and public contributions that we can make collectively together so thank you all right thank you again amy and matt any other old business okay do we have any new business right before i bang
057the gavel i just want to again say uh to everyone i hope everyone has a chance to enjoy a happy thanksgiving uh with your families as we heard before during our student report um i think our students are looking forward to a chance to unwind a bit and as i look to my right dr marseille i hope you have a little bit of a chance to unwind as well and have a great thanksgiving holiday as well as everyone else on this board so with that this meeting is adjourned