WSSD Board Meeting 08/16/2021

001here you have six members present all right one two three seven members present six right six i was like the first time six six voting members okay um so let me start out with a couple quick board announcements uh and then we'll move on to um our superintendent's report for this evening um uh the first is just um i'm sure everyone knows and i can tell from looking in the audience that the district surpassed the county rates for covid that require universal masking in the district so we do ask everyone in attendance this evening uh to please wear a mask um and observe the policies of the district um the second announcement i have is to share um that ms samino who's unable to attend this evening she's traveling and out of district will actually

002be permanently moving out of the district and thus needs to vacate her seat early um and so ms samino is actually resigning from the board effective today and she again was unable to pee her this evening but asked if i could read a short note so let me just read that for you all seven years ago i was asked to run for school board and while that had never been in my plans as soon as i was asked i knew there was only one right answer i first moved to this district in 1997 for the schools which was three years before my first child was born both my daughters received the most excellent education here and our family will always be exceedingly grateful to everyone who had a role in making that possible for them

003but they have graduated and gone on to college and the time has come for me to move on as well and so with gratitude for the chance to serve the wallingford swarthmore school district working alongside countless excellent school personnel fellow board members and community members i write to let you know that my resignation will be effective as of tonight's meeting i wish everyone involved with this district only the best in the years to come yours truly shaping this mean so sad to share that news chapin's been a um a valuable member of this board contributing over the years um but it's certainly understandable now that she's uh moving out of the district that she has to move on from this role um so we will again post information about filling this seat to the school

004district website the last board announcement is to mention that the board met in executive session prior to this meeting to discuss personnel and so i think that takes us to our uh superintendent's report dr marseille thank you um dr vaughn um thank you for attending uh tonight um a couple of items that i wanna i wanna share um one is um how quickly time flies um and that we are actually days away from our teacher induction um which normally happens next week and that is um the new hires that we are fortunate to have in the district so they'll be coming in seven days from now and they'll go through a number of orientation sessions as well after a couple days after that our teachers arrive and soon after that we have um our our

005students who will be joining us on on september uh september 9th so um i did uh share with my team uh that this is uh somewhat the last lap uh if you will or the last leg of the race as we anticipate on uh welcoming everyone everyone back um with that i want to share with you a couple things um last time i had shared with you where we were with our high school secured entrance project and wanted to share that things are progressing uh well um we are slated there was some logistics in terms of uh getting our supplies in there was a supply chain uh challenge uh so that um but we are still slated for august 25th um those to take place if you probably don't recall the um the last slide

006last month but there's been significant improvement with the walls going up there's cabinets there as well you can see the frame of the vestibule with respects to uh respects to that process and our director of operations and his team are doing a fantastic job in securing that particular area i also want to remind uh families that our last day for registration for the virtual schools august 18th we will ask that you go visit our website with the parent portal because there's some important information for annual authorization forms in the parent order that we need to do that dr wheeler our director of instructional technology has done a uh great job in terms of getting together uh and troubleshooting areas on our website and she's gonna do a handbook for families in order to get through

007is there any way to crop that video so that it shows appropriately because the slides are cut off well i know what they say i just know i don't think the audience knows all right well if not we'll um we'll move on there's let me share um with with the board and members of the public with regards to our health and safety plan as it relates to the mitigation factors we're putting into place for lunch there's been a significant amount of conversation about how we are going to facilitate that uh that process and as you were aware last calendar year and this is a a schematic of a elementary cafeteria where we had to spread students out six feet apart in order to safely provide uh meals for uh for our students um where our

008current plan that calls for uh three feet to the grid system possible so that we can ensure that we have in-person instruction in addition to [Music] indoor seating what we are going to do is to provide outdoor seating for for our students that will significantly open up the cafeteria um that will provide many of the families are concerned that three feet is not enough um that we can spread students out a little bit more in the cafeteria as a result of outdoor seating so the picture you're looking at um the principals and i and the director of operations took a a walk-through of obviously the building um we're familiar with that but in terms of where we could place an outdoor seating area uh the top two pictures um you're looking at are npe and

009that blacktop area to to my left right um we are going to um also uh purchase tents so they will be covered uh to sit out there um the bottom picture that you see is that um blacktop play area where um wes is going to have a seating area as well that allows for both of those schools which we're doing a good job with the seating arrangements anyway a lot more latitude in terms of moving students a little bit further apart than uh than the three feet so we're excited we're able to do that um we also uh took a look at srs and um those who've been on the srs campus know that real estate is good there so we're able to find a lot of places to sit outside unfortunately the other schools

010didn't have the same amount of real estate so part of that is working with the fire marshal and determining how much of that we can occupy the extent in which when vehicles are coming through and if there was ever an emergency we don't want that whole entire area there um but we are going to make efforts to make sure that uh the students are safe and secure in that process so we're going to have outdoor tents as well um in that particular area for uh students and we can definitely have more kids sitting outside and not necessarily be restricted to that uh distance um and if you uh this current building um there are seating outside as well a lot more students eating in the cafeteria in the middle school so it's going to require

011a lot more area and surface area to spread out students as as possible so that little if you're familiar with that little corridor there we're going to have outdoor seating we're going to have tents as well for for covering and the outside area as as well we also took uh took a look at the high school and we walked in we tried to figure out what additional spacing we could have that would allow greater flexibility for students if you have not been to our high school or during lunch it is a very busy crowded place um but um just go back to your high school experience and you can think about what lunch looks like when you're a freshman or a senior it's it's packed it really is um but the ability for existing places

012to be converted to outdoor seating was extremely important so we identified four areas um where we are going to be able to put tents for students to sit outside so that we can spread that space out um in indoors that part of that parking lot is going to be huge area where we are going to put a large tent there that's going to provide additional seating for our students and what we wanted to do was um to alleviate the student spacing that was there though we know that we in inclement weather is going to be challenged we still will have three feet indoors [Music] but won't be able to use the outdoor facility when the weather gets really really bad the good thing is is we have the tents that will help in terms of

013rain that will help but when the weather starts dropping significantly then it's going to be a challenge and obviously we we have particular uh protocols and policies that navigate um how feasible it is for our students to to go outside so um it wasn't a matter of if we were gonna have uh outdoor eating we were gonna have outdoor eating um my job is really easy my job is to uh get the principles the materials they need in order to facilitate that the hard part which is why i'm not doing it is creating a schedule to determine how that rotation is going to work right that's why they're the principles uh because they can they can do that type of thinking um so i shared with them you tell me what you need and we'll

014put that in place you have a hard part of working out the logistics um and tell me what additional items that you need so what you will begin to learn about me as i grow into this role and into this community is i'm very particular about campus safety i'm probably a little bit more sensitive than i should be um but that's my lens and i'm very mindful about especially young children eyes on young children at all times um so we wanted to make sure that if we're going to have additional students outside we had additional staff to support that i know that the principals really uh work really hard to look within their own staffing schedule to try to find individuals i know they did that last year where they did a lot of rotations

015um a lot of tricks to help mitigate that i appreciate um the fact that they were being budget-conscious in terms of that um but um i'm too budget-conscious but i really do want to make sure that they have the individuals on the ground and when i asked besides um the tents besides the tables besides the cones besides the barriers besides the signage right because we want to make sure as individuals are outside that we mitigate any type of traffic that is coming through that uh that particular area and um very particular talk about the type of uh barriers that are there maybe nobody in this room i've seen a lot of parents drive through my cones i don't know where they're going but they're driving through my cones um so i figured well i'm just

016gonna put something that you can't drive through right maybe it costs a little bit more but sometimes i too have adults who are having difficulty reading the signs when it says 5 miles an hour and please do not drive through the cones so i'm very particular about that so we can get that but we need eyes on the ground and when i asked the principals what do you need and they said we need additional staffing i said we'll make that happen and obviously as our schools are larger in size we need additional staffing as it will be in two separate areas the middle school requires additional staff as well the high school has four separate outdoor seating areas so we are going to need eyes out there also to manage everything else and obviously eyes

017indoor as well so we're happy that we're able to uh support that uh and i'll be sharing um with the community relatively soon at a subsequent uh finance meeting uh the way in which um esser dollars are allocated to support those expenditures um with as it relates to covid uh kova 19. um also i want to share with you that i i spoke to mr clancy um our athletic director uh about our athletic plan and what that really means and he's done a phenomenal job of putting together a plan that meets the current guidelines of our health and safety plan the challenge was not necessarily about outdoor sports it was volleyball and how do we manage that as the team is playing indoors and the way in which we are going to ask students to

018be masked while they're inside um but then understand that in heavy competition uh that masking might not be a viable option but when on the sidelines uh absolutely so i want to thank him and his team for putting that together and we'll uh and we'll push that out um to the rest of the community as it relates to more so not about the process outdoors because really comfortable with how that works it's really about the volleyball that's inside as well and i also and i i want to finish by sharing with you and sharing um with uh with the board that where we were august 2nd is not where we are now with regards to positivity incident rates um in the state and in our in our region i believe where we are today is

019going to be vastly different than where we are opening day and i believe that trajectory um based on the analytics is just going to continue to rise um so i want to share with the board uh even though we are in this phase that i do believe and anticipate that we will open the school year under universal masking and i believe that we will be in this phase all the way through september and probably most through october as we get through this process to see where where we are in addition to that we are exploring other mitigation factors so we are sitting down with uh union leadership to talk about the manner in which we can support faculty with vaccination um though there's uh and mr uh vermin can uh correct me if i'm wrong

020the extent in which i can mandate vaccination i'm not sure what i can do is come up with a system that if you're not vaccinated we will implement weekly testing for uh for our staff in terms of that in terms of that process to help ensure as much as we can the um negative impact of what happens if we have a significant amount of transmission and that leads into what we don't want obviously unhealthy individuals but also a break in the in-person instruction we do not want to keep going back and forth in and out of models and i think that the manner in which uh believe that we're going to start the calendar school year under that is going to help us get a better sense of of where we are and the added

021uh mitigation strategies that we're going to put uh into place um so that concludes my uh superintendent uh report on dr founder all right thank you dr marseille um and i'll i'll give the board a chance to ask any questions they may have i will say that you know i think that your i think parents are looking for clear direction as to how the school year will start i think the beginning of school year is so close and the rates are have gone up and they're almost twice the trigger that we put into place and so i support the idea that we just communicate now to parents that that is how the school year will start and then obviously we have um opportunities to revisit what are the off-ramps to these policies down the road

022as we see how the first month of school plays out hopefully we learn more about what the timeline looks like for vaccine eligibility for our students that are in k-6 who are under 12 as we get more updates from the fda in that regard which i think will influence particularly how we think about k-6 as well and then of course we'll have the experience of school being underway uh in some parts of the country um school's already underway and then we'll have the experience more locally and in our own district but let me ask other board members if they have any questions for for dr marseille um uh dr mercedes thank you um for the update uh one one question that we've been asked um a lot since our last board meeting has to do

023with masking of teachers k to six and the updates that we did to the health and safety plan that require the masking irrespective of a trigger for students and i'm curious about your thinking with respect to extending that requirement to teachers regardless of covert rates well we will extend that requirement um as part of opening under universal landscape so we'll be opening under universal masking because we trip the trigger um irrespective of the trigger let's say we it comes back down at the point that it comes back down and there are no vaccinations still available it's not approved yet for k-6 is it your position that we would mandate that teachers remain masked it is the opposition correct thank you to be clear dr marseille you would require a change to the health and safety

024plan if that were the case yes thank you any other questions comments okay um thank you dr merced um so that takes us to uh our time for audience recognition for items for action on the agenda um so just as a reminder we have this section for public comment for things that we're voting on tonight and then we have a section later on in the agenda uh for things that we're not voting on tonight but might come before the board uh in the future um we typically um and have done so for quite some time allocate an hour and 15 minutes for this time period and a half hour for items not on the agenda i recognize that probably there's a lot of our health and safety plan is not on the agenda tonight but

025i recognize that there's probably heightened interest in that topic so i would like to extend the amount of time we have available for comment later in the meeting to items not on the agenda to equal the amount of time we have for items that are on the agenda so that's an hour and 15 minutes um is there any concerns with making that modification mr berman if you think it's reasonable you can make that modification i think it's reasonable okay um so i i do want to again just introduce public comment um to remind uh everyone in attendance that it is a time for residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the border may come before the board and it's really a time for the board to listen and

026hear perspectives and experiences from our community and while we can't answer questions at the meeting there's always an opportunity to follow up afterwards if there are specific questions but i would also like to offer a few other thoughts before we begin and to say that again i know that there are many decisions that are related to covid that have led to division in our community and and all i ask is that we try our best to have an understanding for one another i really believe that people who who come to this meeting uh and people who are watching people who have kids in the district are really have their kids at heart we have our kids at heart in terms of what's on our mind with every single decision we make and you know people

027will draw different conclusions about what they think is right what they think is best what is safe what is necessary i've tried my best all through this to really try to balance the many factors in in helping to think about our path forward uh during this time period um but what i know everyone agrees on is we need to do everything possible to assure our students that they'll have a full-time in-person instruction yard to the greatest extent possible and that is what we are planning that's what all of our efforts are focused on and you know our kids need to be in school and that's what all of this is ultimately about and you know so i know dr marseille has all hands on deck to do that accomplish that goal and to really try

028to minimize disruptions to the school year so i do hope both now later on in the meeting future meetings that we can do everything we can to have respectful conversations and really you know we're here to listen and um you know that is that is our role here and i want to listen to people who come forward with different perspectives and different experiences and different views about what we ought to be doing but i also hope that as people in the audience listen to other people's comments that it's a time that we can all listen to one another as well that we try to refrain from you know cheers and jeers and all those kinds of things that i think make it very hard for members of our community to stand at the podium and

029speak so we want to make it a welcoming environment i think for people to address the board and again we are here to listen so i also want to say that we we do really want to try to give as many people as possible i wish to speak a chance to be heard and that's why we we have a three minute time limit um what we are going to try to do although maybe we don't have our signage worked out do we have signage perfect is i know when you're speaking like three minutes flies by and you don't know your three minutes is like running out um so we're going to give you a little try to wave the sign in the air if we can try to get your attention just so you know

030that it's time to start trying to wrap up any remaining thoughts you have um and then we when we hit that three minute time and i'll just ask if you could please just try to finish that last sentence a reasonable sentence to try to try to wrap up as quickly as possible because at the end of the day again the goal is for people to have a chance to to be heard and making sure that we're affording as many people as possible that opportunity so anyway i know that's a very long introduction to public comment um but my question is is there anyone who would like to make a comment for an item for action this evening okay so just remember everything i said to you later i won't i won't repeat it so um

031that does then take us to our our first items for action uh which is uh approval of the minutes uh and so uh that is the minutes from both the july 19th and august 2nd business meetings and iso move do i have a second second thank you larry any discussion all right mr berman can you take a roll call uh uh which is witkowski smith hi his vote i is lintz hi mr cutis aye ms walkman aye dr grandy aye motion passes all right thank you mr berman all right that takes us to personnel um there are 15 items for action and personnel are there any on the list that anyone would like to separate from the rest okay so let me read those off so first we have approval of two resignations uh as

032listed in the agenda um then we have approval of eight appointments um alex paul a german teacher at the high school danielle bertone a school counselor at the middle school heather philly a financial clerk in the business office ellen yates instructional support at srs dawn mason ovale instructional support at west patricia ward instructional support at the high school gabrielle neri instructional support at srs and diane daly instructional support at the high school next we have the appointment of mary martin business administrator effective september 20th 2021 we have approval of one leave of absence as listed in the agenda we have approval of salary corrections for the summer school program as listed under item e in the agenda we have approval of a change in salary status for christine huxtoger we have approval of changes of

033assignment for judith robert antoinette kozinski kathleen rickers and deborah sweeney we have payment of unused sick days as listed under item h we have approval of a mou to the 2021-2024 agreement with the wallingford swarthmore education association of approval of the wssc director of human resources as the wssc management trustee for the delaware county public schools healthcare trust if approval of 2021 2022 fall athletic supplementals as listed leave approval of 2021 2022 spring curriculum supplementals is listed um we have approval of the bold school ambassadors at the rate of 37 per hour not to exceed 20 hours total in the 2021-2022 school year approval of additional work days for caitlin pacheco at the per diem rate to exceed not to exceed five days during the 2021 summer and we have approval of the staff listed

034in the agenda to work on the 11th grade social studies curriculum at a rate of 37 dollars per hour not to exceed 80 hours total so all of those items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion so moved thanks kelly uh do we have a second second uh thank you wendy uh any discussion on those items what um one comment um dr marseille i um we didn't talk in the um opening remarks about um the nurse on special assignment and i wondered if you could just um comment on that and explain that a little bit and confirm that we're using escrow funds i believe to backfill that also if i'm not mistaken um thank you um you're ahead of me i wanted to um which is

035good um two hires i wanted to to recognize one um if i can start with um mary martin and uh excited for her candidacy it's good to see individuals come back home and while she was with us for a number of years in a very different role did leave to seek greater opportunity that wasn't available here at the time and um the skill sets that she learned here helped uh get that position that she is where she was a business manager um and um everything's full circle and after years of being a business manager in another location i was excited to see her candidacy um obviously not because she knows the organization but obviously her skill sets stand out so i'm really excited about that um and another um position that i'm excited about is

036deborah sweeney so we are going to use um the district's allocated um arp esther dollars to support this position what we want to try to do with miss sweeney in shifting her uh to be our lead nurse for colvin 19 is we want to try to streamline communication as parents are trying to get information as quickly as possible we're looking to create um a a dedicated email so that if you have those related questions not that you couldn't go to your child's nurse but she's able to alleviate a lot of that pressure in the building and support that as well she'll play a pivotal role in streamlining or contact tracing she's going to play a pivotal role in communicating with our families um making sure that um we are uh really getting the up-to-date information

037as quickly as possible and processing that um we have some work to do on our website in terms of our kobe dashboard so she's going to help to facilitate that uh as as well uh so she'd be uh she will be working with my office very closely and i'm excited that we're able to shift that uh so that um she can dedicate her time solely to that um which in addition also uh be able to provide a level of service for our nurses on the ground as well so i'm excited that um a um she was amenable to this shift and b that um in tight budgets uh and i have to remind you about our tight budget uh we had a a very long conversation today with members of the leadership team we had

038our first retreat it was the first time i could bring everyone together who was not on vacation because school's about to start and we did talk about um our fiscal responsibility uh and what they needed to do to make sure that um we began to turn a direction in terms of the use of fund balance um what we don't want to do and i know i'm getting sidetracked about double sweeney but it's important that um you're um it's it's me or my wife using cheyenne's college fund to pay for the mortgage that doesn't work out really well um and we need to find other ways though money might be tight and that's the kind of way i look at fund balance is um that yeah it's there but it's served for other purposes and you're

039not using it for ongoing expenditure so um i believe working together it's not uh my business manager will test it it's not a result of one action it's a result of many over a year so i'm excited she's here but i'm excited that um it's not going to be part of our operating budget uh in terms of those particular dollars to offset the cost of that any other discussion okay and i would just like to concur with dr marseille it's exciting to have miss martin on the agenda this evening this is a really important role for every district it's certainly a very important role in our district uh and i'm thrilled that we're able to bring this martin back to the district yeah um okay so uh mr birming can we take a roll call

040though maybe um ms walkman hi mr cutis hi miss lentz hi mrs vogt hi ms wokowski smith hi passes eight to nothing you didn't ask me dr grandy hi so six nothing right yeah six nothing all right six to zero all right that takes us to uh curriculum uh in curriculum we have four items for action are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay first we have approval of 2020 2021 related services provider contracts is stipulated then approval of 2021-2022 related services provider contracts is stipulated with approval of an educational services agreement as listed in the agenda under item c and approval of elizabeth fernandez vina to conduct educational research in the district and her proposal is attached to the agenda under item d so again all items

041are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion so moved thanks kelly uh do i have a second check thank you larry uh any discussion on these items okay mr berman can you take a roll call though all right mr cutis aye ms lentz aye ms vogt aye ms witkowski smith aye ms walkman aye dr grandy hi all right so that's six nothing all right so those items pass six to zero uh that takes us to finance there's five items uh for approval and finance this evening are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay first we have approval of payment of invoices to vendors dated july 14th to august 10th we have approval of acceptance of a grant from the philadelphia foundation and the

042purposes of that grant are are listed in the agenda we have approval of removal of obsolete keyboards from strathaven middle school we have approval of a dell financial services lease proposal for the refresh of the wssd virtualized server network as stipulated and lastly approval of a consulting agreement with deborah crete for writing monitoring and evaluating the emergency connectivity fund this is a grant program that the district is applying to related to the purchase of technology so all all items again in the section are attached or describing the agenda do i have a motion moved thank you wendy uh do i have a second second thanks mary jo uh any discussion of these items okay mr berman all right ms lentz hi ms vogt hi ms witkowski smith hi ms walkman aye mr cutis aye dr

043grandy hi all right that is six zero all right thank you mr berman so that takes us to uh the section on the agenda titled other um there are two items and we're going to take them one at a time so the first item is approval of a mou between dciu's clia and wssd participate in covet testing program that is described in the agenda this is a continuation of the testing program that we had in place last year using the same program with the iu do i have a motion so moved thanks kelly uh do we have a second check thank you larry uh any discussion dr marseille i described that correctly right this is essentially the rapid antigen program that we had last year combined with the some of the follow-up pcr testing that

044we had last year this is a continuation of that same testing absolutely infrastructure okay okay all right uh mr berman can you take a roll call certainly uh ms vote hi ms witkowski smith hi miss walkman aye mr cutis aye ms lentz hi dr grandi hi all right passes six to nothing all right thank you mr berman so that takes us to uh the part of the agenda where we need to fill the vacancy on the board that arose from dr huff's uh early departure from her position when she too also moved out of the district recently um this is a seat on the board that ends this year and so the person that will fill the seat this evening will do so up until our i guess the first meeting in december is the

045reorganization meeting and so we have two individuals who have expressed interest in stepping into this role uh amy caruso and kevin henry [Music] the board has and it's attached to the agenda their letters of interest and their resume and we'll follow the same process that we've done on a couple other early vacancies we'll have each candidate spend a few minutes introducing themselves to the board following each we'll have a short q a period and then uh afterwards the board uh will move to a vote uh to fill the position um so as always i just put them in alphabetical order so uh miss caruso um is she supposed to go around yeah it's fine okay all right ms caruso if you could just introduce yourself and i forgot my list now i always yeah so

046i have to confirm your eligibility um so mr berman would you do the favor of listing the eligibility criteria and we can have her ms caruso so you are 18 years old you've lived in the district for the past year you lived and currently reside in the region i'm sorry you currently reside in the region for which you're seeking a position and you are not in one of the uh elected or appointed positions for county or other government that would make you ineligible that is correct all right thank you all right take it away thank you you have my information my resume my letter of interest i'd like to start with a short story this weekend i had the pleasure of spending time with my extended family which included my octogenarian parents however on saturday

047and saturday evening my mother spent the bulk of her time attending a zoom conference whereby the bylaws were being updated for one of her volunteer organizations we didn't see her until well after nine o'clock when she joyfully came out where all the bylaws were ratified and amended for the next 10 years and when i was a child my mother was a district math substitute for all of the public middle and high schools where we resided and a lot of times she had long term substitute roles and yes in seventh grade for one week she was my substitute teacher and despite all of the jeers and the jobs i knew her commitment and the role that she played because our kitchen table was her command center with red pens and sharpened pencils with lesson plans and

048quizzes and tests and grading calls from other teachers principals guidance counselors you name it everyone knew who we were in our school district so i fast forward today and i am following in similar footsteps uh by attending board meetings for many years committee meetings and other community meetings and i know she's watching tonight and i know these are big shoes to fill whether you're from south media or south summit bowling green heatherworld npe west middle school the high school all of our voices matter and i would pledge to listen and keep an open mind to everybody's voices whether you are black asian biracial white lbgtq have special needs or foster care or any other needs your voices matter and putting aside assumptions and generalizations as a board member i would provide duty of care and

049accountability in the role as james baldwin wrote a long time ago not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it's faced and i welcome the opportunity to be appointed tonight thank you all right thank you let me just ask if anyone has any questions for ms caruso [Music] maybe i'll just ask ask one question um if you had to um describe your kind of leadership and working style um could you just tell us a little bit about kind of how maybe how you how you would describe those qualities and maybe people you've worked with how they might describe those qualities sure thank you um i like to think of myself as a big picture person i like to see the overview i also like to know what hot buttons

050are and what the temperature of things are i know things go in cycles and i know people go in cycles but i like to keep the long range goal in mind okay thank you any other questions all right thank you ms caruso thank you all right uh mr henry is up next so again now i've got my list so once you get up there i'll i'll confirm go for it um so age 18 or older reside in the school district for at least one year uh currently reside in region region one and that you do not hold any other elected office that's correct all of that yes okay all right take it away thank you so much uh good evening to the board and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening

051uh as you as you already know my name is kevin henry and i'm currently running for election for the expiring region one board seat i'm here tonight to ask for your consideration for an early appointment to the board seat uh in the past i've seen a lot of candidates come up here and they talk about their resumes and what they've done in the past blah blah blah but you have that in front of you and that's public information so i think i assumed you'd be more interested in knowing and i see everybody looking at me now asking the same question why are you running for the school board what would you do what are your priorities um so i thought that would spend a couple seconds to a couple minutes to answer that so i

052am running because i do have a great passion for our school district uh our public school school system in general our our community and as corny as it sounds our country it all wraps up together both of my children have had an amazing experience in this school district all the way up from kindergarten shout out to mrs cooper smith who's still here right both my kids all the way up through high school and my daughter graduated uh recently and my son at stonewall high school and i want to be part of making sure ensuring that all our district kids have the same experience that my kids had um and and also i i really sincerely believe that we all of us as parents as community members etc have a responsibility to make our little corner

053of the world here where we all live a better place and i think sitting on that board those people are trying to do just that [Music] um and i'm not a keyboard warrior i don't sit at home and bang out on social media nasty stuff i get involved i get up like you we come here we try to make the world a better place i've always been involved in my in the community from coaching all of our local sports to raising food for the media food bank for i sit on the boy scout the local boy scout committee and you've you've boarded many of you've seen me up here recently uh working with the uh delaware county citizens corps to help get our community vaccinated so i'm one to always try to be involved uh

054if i am fortunate enough to be appointed tonight or elected in november i have four priorities that i would like to focus on one diversity and equity of course we talk about that all the time we give it a lot of lip service we've come a long way many of you have been in this district for a while you've seen we've come a long way we have a long way to go to me i try to boil it down very simply uh we have a responsibility we being parents we be community members board members to prepare our kids to enter the real world and guess what the real world's got a lot of people different people in it to look like all of us and look like lots of other people so i think diversity

055and equity at the end of the day is so important because we have a responsibility to educate them it's be part of their education to go out in the real world and our district should be a safe place for all of our students all of them our staff and our teachers as well secondly communication i talk with my hands i talk a lot i think our community is really looking for frequent clear communication dr marseille thank you already has set that kind of example i want to be part of that thirdly student success that's why we're here i want to be part of making sure our students have all the resources they need to succeed and fourthly financial responsibility look i live in this district i pay the taxes we all look at each other

056and we're like yeah man i know they're not going down but i want to be part of making sure they're spent wisely efficiently and on programs that that help our students the most and that's really important so finally i spent the primary election season articulating a positive vision for our school district and and i really believe that that power of the message kind of fueled the success on both sides of the ballot which many of you were kind enough to see uh and i really believe we can harness that good will and sometimes we see it's it's difficult to see it right now but there's so much good will in our community i think we can harness it and we can add that positive energy we can add dr marseille's infectious attitude on top of

057that to really improve our school district so if i am appointed or elected in november it will be my honor honor and privilege to serve our district our staff and our students and i am always happy to answer any questions you may have all right thank you um before i ask others i'll i'll ask the same question um you know in terms of how you would describe your your leadership and work style yeah so um there is a running joke in my family and you can ask any of my kids or anyone who knows me or anyone who went to college with me that i say the words lead by example all the time and i get mocked incessantly for it but i refuse to back down i think like you lead by example right

058how do you live your life how do you talk to other people how do you treat other people i think uh dr granty you mentioned it well about showing respect when people show different opinions so i think my leadership style generally is is i lead by example um i am very enthusiastic i get criticized for i am smiling under this this mass but i but i believe that's part of the way you get things done is you work well with others and and listen to all different sides and i think if you ask anyone who's ever known me you'll get the same kind of feedback all right thank you any other questions from other board members i'm happy to answer anything you may want to know all right i think that's it thank you very

059much all right uh thank you uh to both mr kurusto mr henry uh for stepping forward as always uh to volunteer for this uh position um so that takes us to uh our item for action which is appointment i do wanna point out that i think there's a typo in the agenda that says that the recommended action is appointment of a region iii school board director that should read region 1 school board director and so i would like to uh take us to our action on that item to fill the region one vacancy before we move to that um i want to ask if any board members have any discussion or comment before we vote yeah go ahead john thank you dr grandad yes i do um i think we have two great candidates tonight

060thank you for coming out to both of them uh this excuse me this special election is unique compared to the other ones that we've done and we've done many of them and apparently we'll do another one of them which i was unaware of um so uh and it's unique because uh i've i've actually it's different for me i've come to know both candidates as a virtue of this role i've spoken to each one of you guys more than once and we've had good conversations um both candidates are on the ballot in november both candidates are from opposing parties but don't hold as far as i could see um tremendously polarizing views and from what i've seen and read and learned and heard both really seem to care about the community and the kids and put

061the politics aside second and put the kids first so um i have to say that i would be happy to work with either one of them and i think this district would be fortunate to have either one of them serving especially at a time like now so it's a tough choice for me um but i'm going to vote tonight for amy caruso and she's a republican on the on the um out of the two of them and uh the way i come to this is that i think it's likely that she holds um a different philosophical view than the other board members that sit up here um school board is not meant to be political like judges we're not supposed to be um pushing any party agendas we're not supposed to do that we can

062run on both tickets and a lot of times we do and that is similar to judges because we also don't want them to be pushing political agendas in their role um but the reality is uh that usually um as people we tend to align philosophically with the party which we are a member of and i am a democrat i only ran on the democratic ticket because i'm not very much into um but i still i try to listen very much to all people people who disagree with me people who agree with me i think there's been i couldn't even count how many people in the community have gotten because i've given them my cell number sometimes they agree with me sometimes they don't um and that's the way i've tried to be in this role

063because it's the promise that i made in this role uh i also think that when i'm speaking with someone who doesn't agree with me that uh it enriches me as a person and as a thinker and and that's only good uh i'm interested in populating this board with qualified people with different experiences and different philosophies because i want to see us come together i want to see us bend i want to see us think critically about issues that are going to also enrich our community and our students there is a contingent in this community of people and students that don't feel heard and that i don't think are being represented have uh eight democrats i believe on this on this board uh i guess we have seven now that miss cimino resigned tonight um and

064i again i'm a democrat i don't think i will agree with everything that ms caruso were to say if she were to be appointed but i want variety and i want variety of thought and i want variety of philosophy and i want it for the health of this board i want it for the health of the district and i want it for the help of our students moreover i have seen mrs caruso at several of our meetings that she's obviously done on her own time finance policy dei and each one of them i believe at least more than once i know i've seen a choice of policy so i'm hoping that if she's appointed that'll be a smooth a relatively smooth transition so good luck to both of you i'm so glad that both of

065you are here thanks mr berman uh i have a question for you uh the letter that you read earlier from chapincimino when was the effective time of that resignation time she just said today the question is whether or not a majority of the board members is four or five at this point if she has resigned as of the time of the reading of that letter then the majority of is four otherwise the board will need five affirmative votes for one candidate she wrote i write to let you know that my resignation will be effective as of tonight's meeting uh then i would i would interpret that to mean that she has already resigned okay all right so in that case uh dr grandy the uh required minimum number of votes for anybody to actually be

066appointed at this meeting is going to be four okay thank you mr berman uh other comments from board members before we move to vote okay and uh thank you jen for your comments i you know it's a it is a unique circumstance for sure um right now and especially in light of the fact that we now have another vacancy in region one um as of today so certainly uh there's been a lot of uh lot of housing transactions and people moving these days if i understand correctly i guess one one factor i would consider is that um this this seat is as you mentioned we're filling this role between now and um the first meeting in december so through through november the seat will then be on the ballot um mr henry is on both

067ballots for the november election and also if i recall i don't have the numbers in front of me did quite well in the primary to get spots on both ballots in terms of his number of votes so one factor on my mind sitting in this seat is is um continuity so we're gonna bring someone onto the board um and um there could be a change again i guess in a few months i think mr henry being on both ballots um means that he is likely to be elected in november though obviously anything can happen um for sure but again that shouldn't drive our decision i think it's just one factor in the mix as we have a lot of transitions on the board any other comments or we'll go ahead and vote all right mr

068berman can you take the roll call sure uh ms witkowski smith mr henry mrs vogt mr henry miss lips ms gruesome mr cutis kevin henry ms walkman kevin henry dr grandy uh mr henry all right um mr henry is elected by the board okay and that was five to one okay um again i really want to thank both candidates uh for uh you know volunteering their service um you know this this district you know i i believe is really the kind of core and foundation of our community uh and it's so important that people have willingness to step forward and serve in this way so deeply deeply to both of you for stepping forward but we'll be doing this again at the next board meeting all right so that takes us to our time for

069audience recognition for response to topics that are not on the agenda as i mentioned i won't go through everything i said earlier but again this is a time for people to comment on things that aren't on the agenda but might come before the board in the future is there anyone who would like to speak tonight about a topic not on the agenda sure maybe if we're going to have multiple people speak what might be helpful is to should we have them line up in the hallway yeah are you okay with lining up in the hallway yeah and then we'll call on you one by one to come in all right uh and then as usual we'll ask each person to let us know their name as well as the street which they reside on hello

070my name's michelle and i'm on chestnut parkway first i wanted to say congratulations you put on a good show two weeks ago at the last school board meeting changing the location from the library to the auditorium to discuss the health and safety policies i've actually been attending these meetings for the last several months and it's clear what is going on because it's happening all over the country inviting one-sided mainstream media calling the police for exercising our first amendment rights with the intent to make parents who want choice for their children look bad you wanted it to ignite and it did in pennsylvania the majority of school funding comes from taxpayers you should all be ashamed of yourself with the exception of one person who stopped stuck up stood up from her children i don't think

071you realize how much division you have created within this school district many parents in this community are well aware of what is going on but you but can't stand up here and speak because there are some parents in the district that like to threaten other people's jobs boys are not born they are raised so there's a lot more that's going on than what you guys are seeing i graduated from the school district over 20 years ago and i used to be proud to be a part of this community but i can't say that i'm proud of anything that i've seen over the last 18 months in your email prior to the last meeting you invited parents out for their voices to be heard but you didn't hear anything that we had said we all know

072the truth and that your decision was made before the meeting for the past few months i've walked these halls wondering what is really being taught in our schools and i actually noticed tonight a lot of stuff came down why does the school support marxism organizations when the focus should be about civil rights leaders like martin luther king vivian thomas rosa parks and malcolm x black history month was not about teaching my 11 year old about the civil rights movement though instead the board approved teaching young children about queer affirmation and gender identity showing my child that they could be male female or neither who gives you the right to teach my my child about this stuff please don't misinterpret or twist my words i have many friends within the lgbtq community and they all agree

073that this is inappropriate display of sexual orientation for this particular age group where are the displays of nutrition and exercise in the hallways this school has become nothing but a political political indoctrination center that practices medicine without a license for pharmaceuticals approved for emergency use authorization only while muzzling our children when this has been proven to show no threat to them you will all stand before god one day i pray for november to come fast for the sake of our children everyone in here may not be religious or have different beliefs than mine but i would like to take a moment and pray for our children lord i pray your emotional physical and spiritual protection over our children please keep evil far from them and help them to trust you as their refuge and strength

074i pay i pray you will guard our children's mind from harmful instruction and grant them discernment to recognize truth and create in them a pure heart i pray that you will make them strong and courageous recognizing that you have overcome and will set right all in justice and wrong one day lord help them to find rest in your shadow as they live in the spiritual shelter you provide for them in jesus name amen thank you all right uh yes please come in um dr randy i had simply forgotten to start the timer i'm sorry oh okay all right thank you mr berman um if you could just state your name and the street that you live on we'll try to we'll give you a one minute warning sure thank you i'm rebecca davis i live

075on ogden avenue in swarthmore and i am speaking tonight because i was also at the meeting two weeks ago and in light of what happened two weeks ago and what is happening around the country i am very concerned about the safety of everyone in this room and of our ongoing school board members and new members of the board and i am concerned about the integrity with which we are able to conduct public comment and participation at these meetings politicizing school boards has been going on for a very long time in the 1960s the controversies were over whether to teach sex education at all and there were protesters who showed up many of whom then ran for school board who described sex education interestingly enough as marxist indoctrination that was trying to turn children away from

076morality and into anti-american automatons machines and we see this continuing today in controversies over the teaching of u.s history whether or not we should teach an honest sensible and fact-based telling of american history that includes both the heroes and the wrongs both the celebratory events and the times when america fell short of its ideals and i speak tonight as an openly queer person who is concerned also about the tenor of the language that has occurred at this this meeting tonight and in previous meetings regarding members of the lgbtq community um i say this as a person who teaches hundreds of lgbtq students at the university where i am a professor and i say this as someone who sees the damage that anti-queer comments make especially on our young people so i urge the board to

077implement safety measures for these meetings thank you wendy and to think about the fact that not everyone who's come up has given their last name to make sure that we know that the people speaking at these meetings are in fact members of our community our residents of our district and to make sure that when there are hecklers people shouting as was done when i spoke two weeks ago trying to drown out my voice that that is dealt with in a way that ensures everyone's safety and ability to participate in these meetings there have been threats of violence escalating against school board members in other parts of our country and for your safety and for all of ours i think we need to take this very seriously there is a serious radicalization happening that is combining

078all of these issues around public health queer equity and and uh rights and the teaching of u.s history in a way that is racially uh ethical so thank you for all that you do in service to our community all right i think we have another speaker coming from the hallway hi welcome if you could just uh state your name and the street that you live on sure samuel jenkins i am on academy road in swarthmore uh so thank you for having me um i am a uh six-year taxpayer and will be a first-time parent of a student in the district uh so this is interesting uh to have this all that's going on for my first school board meeting um i just want to say i uh i support the uh development of health and

079safety plans that are based on the recommendations of experts you know i'm an i.t guy people come to me when they have computer problems i go to doctors when i have health problems i go to educators when i need to teach my kids so i appreciate that you're taking that approach and [Music] that's basically all i have to say so thanks very much everyone all right is there anyone in the hallway hi uh if you could just uh introduce yourself with your name and the street that you reside on my name is christine ruther i live on east possum hollow road in wallingford i was a parent of children in the school district for 21 years 21 straight years by the way and i have um been a taxpayer in the wallingford swarthmore school district

080for 28 years currently i sit on delaware county council in that role i have a pretty unique and in-depth look on a frequent basis as often as daily into the coveted numbers the amount of information i have has gone down just as the amount of information you have has gone down because we no longer have the chester county health department providing us with daily or three times a week updates that's unfortunate but i still very very closely follow this have regular conversations with our department of inter-community health with our health advisors and with the commissioners from philadelphia and the surrounding counties who manage their health departments i respectfully suggest that those of you who are sitting up there who are elected representatives make every effort to distinguish between statements that are couched by the speaker

081as facts for example masks are harmful to our children and the actual old-fashioned kind of facts that are backed up by evidence such as when people wear masks as they did over the last year and a half it slows and sometimes completely inhibits the spread of airborne respiratory illnesses take for example the fact that my husband who manages who's the director of the emergency department at ai dupont now the moore's children's hospital in wilmington where many of you i'm sure have taken your children has they had zero cases of flu last year why do you think that was it was because people weren't seeing as much of each other and because when they were they were wearing i encourage you to look out for the health of the children the people who sit up here

082and spout what they claim to be facts with no reputable studies to back them up aren't responsible for the health and well-being of our children you are so please take that into account and make every effort to decide what facts are relevant when you decide on your health and safety plan and any changes to it thank you all right i believe there's another individual coming in yes please come in name and street that you live on hi i'm helen nadel um and i live on woodbrook lane in swarthmore um first i guess i just i want to welcome dr marseille um it's just a pleasure to be here in person at the school board meeting i was not able to be at the last school board meeting um and i didn't actually plan on addressing

083folks tonight but just felt kind of inspired to after some of what i've heard i wanted to just express my unequivocal support for the health and safety plan that's been established including the amendments i want to just state my support for unfortunately where we are in this county that that there's been a trigger that's had to be put into place i really appreciate the imperative of a full-person instruction and that the decisions that are being made thoughtfully by this body are really have that imperative in mind um well then that topic there i guess i just want to also say based on some of the things that i've heard this evening um that i am in passionate and profound support for teaching fact-based history even if some of the facts that we're now recognizing as

084true look a little bit different than they used to um when i was being educated in u.s history i also want to just state strong and passionate support for supporting lgbtq students staff families here in the district um and i really hope that um and trust that all of um that the school board members are making decisions with all commit all of the community in in mind um that's it thanks all right thank you for anyone else oh yeah please come on uh so just name and the street that you live on absolutely hi my name is kate tejada and i live on governor's drive in wallingford i first want to thank the wssd board and dr marseille for the careful consideration you have given the health and safety plan over the past 30 days

085i have two kids in the district one is a rising second grader at srs and one is a rising sixth grader um and he will not turn 12 until halfway through the school year i want to thank this board for requiring universal masking for k-6 students and for implementing the fail-safe of the universal masking once we hit a certain infection threshold thank you very much for implementing that i want to tell everyone here though about a personal to me cautionary tale we have dear friends who moved to northern georgia a year ago they kept their kids at home last year to keep them safe as neither kiddo or vaccination age but this year both kids are desperate to go back to school no matter what and both kids are fine with wearing masks our friend's

086daughter who is 11 and in the sixth grade started school 10 days ago and was the only one in her grade wearing a mask she came she became sick this past friday and got the confirmed diagnosis on saturday she's currently home she is currently sick in a home with one parent and a younger sibling they are all masked her other parent travels for work and now he can't come home to help in the household if he does and he gets coveted he can't work everyone loses income i know some folks might listen to this and see see masks don't work but i count her with she was the only child wearing a mask in the entire sixth grade to keep her and her family safe and the delta variant got her sick and now she's

087not in school and now they'll have to trace to the students she got it from and i know she would still be in school if the other kids and staff had been masked and i guess i just want to ask how many stories do we need to hear from school districts that are currently shutting down entire grades and moving them online because of caseload numbers this virus gets kids sick let's do the thing that we can do and mask up for our kids our community and my god for the kids who are nowhere near the kind of privileged inclusive and supportive community that we live in thank you for that time check and thank you very much all right thank you is there anyone else in the hallway oh please uh if you could just

088state your name and the street that you live on um melissa kennedy i live on juniata and swarthmore um thank you to the board for hearing my comments tonight i didn't expect to speak um i think welcome to dr marseille and i wanted to applaud you also for your thoughtful consideration throughout an incredibly difficult year and a half i think this board promised a data-driven approach and i think that's what has been delivered throughout this year and a half i want to speak in my in support of universal masking and the health and safety plan um we know that masks are safe effective and risk-free however they most are most effective when everyone is wearing them um i'm a parent of two kids in this district and a pediatrician and i've been watching kids of

089all ages masked successfully for the past year and a half some may argue that parental choice and whether a parent parental choice and whether a child wears a mask i would argue that personal choice should not and does not trump public safety one parent's choice should not put another child teacher or other staff member or child's family member at risk and let's please not forget that there are immunosuppressed children and family members in this district to consider as a pediatrician i take care of many patients on significant immunosuppressing drugs and i am responding daily to messages of terrified parents in districts where masking is not universal schools should protect children and provide a safe and nurturing environment for children to learn and grow universal masking is safe and effective and our best chance at preventing

090school closures quarantines and missed education we all want in-person school and i think that this is the best way um to get there and as a separate comment um as a parent of an lgbtq child who was very clear in his transgender identification from the age of about five on i would like to thank this board and this school for providing an education where my child feels seen the suicide rate the attempted suicide rate and rate of suicidal ideation thank you wendy in children [Music] in transgender children is about 40 that is lowered by 70 in children who can identify an affirming adult so by providing education which talks about gender identity in an honest way from a young age on this school is providing life saving behaviors and i ask that we continue to

091do so thank you hi welcome hi thank you state your name and the street that you live on sure my name is ashley shopin i live on governor's drive um i also had not prepared anything but felt very moved um to come up here to kind of share two thoughts one of which is my great appreciation for the board and everything that you've done my daughter just turned six and it was um this past year my first introduction and her first introduction to the wallingford swapmer school district is we're not from the area originally and from the beginning i have felt thoroughly impressed and thankful for the group of people who have led the year that we have had and while i was incredibly sad and worn the loss of a normal school year for

092her and the the bus rides and the in-person learning i'm incredibly thankful and felt confident each time i sat and watched a board meeting each time i knew that my you know district had to make a decision um and you know it continued to remind me that kids are incredibly resilient my daughter has no problem wearing a mask she understands why she needs to wear it and she never questions me um i um i'm a child life specialist in the pediatric intensive care unit at the children's hospital of philadelphia and it is very hard for me to hear people share their thoughts and opinions um in regards to whether or not they think children are getting sick with this illness um i hope that those people never have to hold the hands of children who

093are fighting for their lives my specialty is psychosocial care of children and families and reducing stress and anxiety and preventing traumatic experiences i can tell you with great confidence on many occasions i have held the hand of a child and had to explain to them that we're going to give them a special sleeping medicine and place a tube in their throat so we can save their lives and i hope every time that that child wakes up afterwards when i'm done working with that child i then hold up the parent who can barely stand on their own two feet because of the medical interventions that are being done with their child and how incredibly traumatic it is for them this is happening all over and i really am very thankful and very appreciative that you all

094are taking fact-based information and you're being really thoughtful and intentional about the decisions that we're making to not only get their kids back into school but to get them back into school safely so thank you very much i really appreciate all of you thank you uh do we have any other okay uh please if you could uh live on west style avenue thank you i want to echo what the natasha shangri and i live on west dale avenue i can spell my last name it's a little bit hard you got it okay um i echo what the two last speaker just said in terms of thanking the board for what you guys have done initially i was very perplexed at the idea that kids would re school would reopen and it would not be mandatory

095mask and i really struggled with the decision of having my 15 year old coming back to school she was online the entire year um last year partly because of my medical issues and so at the end of the school year her thought was mom i want to go back to school i struggled with sending getting her vaccinated and she made that decision for herself i want to go back to school i want to interact with kids so i want to be vaccinated but i think it was 1905 when the united states supreme court in a case out of massachusetts jacobson versus massachusetts made this statement the court upheld the state as constitutional for the state law requiring compulsive vaccination for small spots and in making that hold in the supreme court declared and i'm quoting

096the supreme court upon the principle of self-defense of paramount necessity a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic disease which threatened the safety of its members and then in that same ruling the supreme court went on to say that the claim of individual liberty under the constitution does not include the right of an individual to make the decision about their own health in instances where those decisions endangers others the least intrusive that this board can make when it comes to covet a disease that has no cure a disease that even those who are vaccinated because of delta variant cannot safely say they can go without mask the least intrusive this board could do is what it's doing tonight is to mandate mask we've all been through the year and a half i

097haven't seen family i haven't i mean i've been so isolated because of health concerns and so when you're asking children to come back the least we could do is protect them i understand those who say they don't want to vaccinate their kids and that's okay but in order to do that then we all have to be willing to live in a in this community in the school district where both sides the kids who are vaccinated and the kids who are not vaccinated can come back to school and the least intrusive way unless someone has a different opinion from the doctors the least intrusive way is to say put on a mask and so for that decision tonight i thank the board i am hoping that the health the health policy that you have in place

098is not going to be that just because of the cases go below a thousand but all of a sudden there is no mass mandate because at the end of the day it only takes one student i believe it was in texas two weeks ago let me ask you to just wrap up i will where one student went back to school and 80 kids are now in quarantine please keep that in mind as we go forward with opening school thank you thank you all right do we have anyone else i welcome if you could just state your name and the street that you live on sure my name is kim darnell i live on michael's lane in wellingfort grew up in swarthmore my family's been here for 120 years in this community um i was not

099and that's my brother so no one's going to top that i was not planning on speaking tonight i usually watch the school home meetings at home because since this pandemic i've not been out i don't know for those who are here if you've lost family but i've lost plenty plenty family and friends and the best that we can do right now is put a mask on it doesn't do any harm i thank the board for implementing that and i am a parent of a deaf child and my child won't go out the house with a mask and even though she wears cochlear implants and she can't hear that well because she can't see people's faces we still recommend the mask she wants to come back to school this year she's in seventh grade so she's

100vaccinated so she will be back in school with her mask and you know so i applaud you i pray and hope that even when the numbers go down we can still keep those math going my nephew is on the spectrum but he needs to be in school because he needs the socialization he's mainstream we're scared to death because he can't get vaccinated but the only thing that we can do as citizens that want to be in a community together is wear a mask and so i support that i supported 110 um and i just thank you for thinking about that but i just want that you know because some people say you know learning this that and the other you can't top a deaf child that can't read your lips they can't see your expression

101on your face but she will be in school with a mask and that's all i say we got a chance now with the outdoor seating go outside get a chance to get a little bit of fresh air put the mass back on maybe we can extend recess to help give mass breaks but that's the only way that we're going to be protected so i do thank you for that thank you hi welcome if you could just state your name and the street that you live on cool uh good evening uh jupiter gill i'm on cornell avenue excuse me in uh swarthmore um first off i'd like to commend you guys for the health and safety plan most importantly the masking mandate that you guys have imposed it is uh it is a great way to

102mitigate the further spread of of the chronovirus amongst our students what i feel that the district now needs to turn its gaze to or additionally turns gays to is to the services that they provide to students who have been inflicted by clovis 19. on recent research that my organization put forth we found that amongst college students the instances of depression anxiety and food insecurity or physical uh physical health are much larger among students who have had probid versus students who have had it significantly higher too say a student who had a 20 chance of facing anxiety if they did not have kovid face an almost 40 percent chance of having anxiety if they did have kobe showing that extra burden that those students face the students faces as they as i understand that they had

103the the virus now while those were college students i wouldn't understand that that the same thing probably affects our middle school and high school students too and probably even our elementary school students so as i understand the uh the health and safety plan does indicate the need to connect those students with those supports what i hope to see from the district is a communication strategy to help students and their parents understand where those services are provided how they can how they can reach out to them whether it's included on syllabus on email sent to parents or various other ways that can that can be communicated to that because there i feel like that that that is a necessary bond that needs to be created in order to in order to fully serve these students and

104assure that they're gonna succeed later on in school but i hope to see that in the future um but once again i commend you guys for for the work that you've done so far thank you all right thank you is anyone else in the hallway no no more okay all right well uh what do you want to say okay sure uh so i just want to again thank everyone uh who came out to speak tonight um again we've listened and heard your concerns and certainly uh these topics may come up again at future meetings um dr mercedes did you want to say a few words yes i i do and i hope i don't take uh too long um uh so i too want to share a story um i've had the pleasure of living

105in and working with some wonderful people across pennsylvania and new jersey i grew up in princeton eventually went to school the princeton system came back and taught um i worked in north brunswick uh new jersey worked in south brunswick spent some time in lower marion spent time in cheltenham and then i'm here um when i first came to this country as a very young man from haiti um i struggled oh i wish people would have stayed um [Music] and i was bullied as a young man coming into a new country landing in one of the wealthiest communities in the country many of you have not been to princeton it's absolutely flawless so i've had more positive than negative so um and i was bullied because i was different um i never shared that with my

106teachers or my parents because fear that somehow the bullyer would find out so i'm very sensitive about how students are received in a school what adults don't see what adults do see and what children won't say despite all the anguish and pain and it was physical um and the physical can go away um the emotional scars stay i remember the names of each and every single one of those young men um [Music] and i say that because and i make reference to the communities i'm from is um i am new here and so is my family i appreciate but don't need the recommendation or the applause about decisions don't expect them but what i do expect from adults is civility because i have a child and i teach her that her words matter her actions

107matter and you need to treat people with respect and when you see where that's not happening you may not have the courage right then and there to confront that but you need to have the courage to go and speak to another adult to say hey this is happening i wish so many children would have done that for me when i was a kid who was afraid to go to an adult just because there's this fallacy that because i don't vote for a particular position you stand for that i don't hear you and when adults manifest behavior like that it concerns me about the fact of what are we unintentionally sharing with children who watch everything i'm not saying we have to agree i am open for that level of dissonance i want to learn more

108about different perspectives and trust me you my brother who i love to death who is a marine we couldn't be polar opposites and where he stands on views where he stands on on political lines total opposite where he stands on presidents and former presidents total opposite where he stands on the black lives matter issue total opposite i tried to figure out what house did you were you raised in um but those are his prospective views i love him to death and after surveying so many tours i love them even more for protecting that um and he's entitled to that as his nieces and nephews call and said what's wrong with uncle why is he espousing those views i said your uncle's allowed to believe what he wants to believe just like you are that's his

109perspective why don't you call your uncle and talk to him to see how you can better understand his perspective that's why we meet to talk and to hear each other's perspectives that's why i'm open to create spaces like that but because i don't particularly take a position that you're taking doesn't mean i haven't created the space to do that i also want to say to this board that we need a civility policy i don't mind you disagreeing with me uh and i understand that i understand that this is the one of the few jobs in america where everyone believes that they can do what it is that we're doing no one questions their doctors are you sure you're doing that root canal right i read something on the internet that said a b c or

110d i watch a whole bunch of videos and i watch this network that network and they told me that that's probably not the best way to do it but that is the nature of being an educator right teachers are feeling that everybody took a math class everybody knows how to teach math so i get it that's the industry that i'm in um but the industry that we shouldn't be in is this divisive industry so i am all about letting individuals speak i want to create that i told dr i said i'm not opposed to meetings all day every day create them let people talk i'd rather have you in front of me than behind the keyboard and all the other things so there is a point and i need this community to understand is i

111need this board to understand that you didn't hire me to be bullied by certain members of this community there's no paycheck that great especially the way people are talking which i always say let's just meet instead because you're you don't want to read tone and pitch however you don't need to be an english major to understand there are several words and sentences put together there's no other way you can define them except for that which is aggressive disrespectful and threatening and then you want me to respond to that how and when i do it creates more venom this is our brand we're talking about everyone represents this institution to some capacity and the gentleman who's spoken said that everyone has to do their part their peace for the entire community you can have those views

112you have every right to them what you don't have the right to is to engage in that level of discourse with individuals and i went and for the speakers who came up here who cautioned about where this is going i agree with you a thousand percent this is much bigger than just this moment and i understand you can be angry i understand you can disagree but there's a way in which we can engage and talk to each other and i want to tell you that in my years i've never been called a liar as i'm sitting there in front of the podium never been heckled at in the years thank you wally for swarthmore for providing that unique experience it's been lots of unique experiences at princeton none of them were like that north brunswick

113none of them were like that south of brunswick none of them like that cheltenham none of them like that but here and i understand that this is unprecedented at times because i wasn't living in covid when i was in princeton when i was lowering my other places but there were still very divisive conversations taking place and individuals knew about that so a civility policy is not an attempt to silence people because i don't believe in that it's an attempt to set norms about how we engage the same way our teachers set norms in their classrooms about how we talk to each other even though we have differences of opinion if you really care about children mind yourself in public and how you're engaging with other people your children are watching you and more often than

114not they will replicate that believe it or not it is true so i'm saying that we will get through this as a community this too shall pass but we have to be intact after we get through it there's no point of getting through this and we're broken in 50 million pieces so i encourage you in the audience and you wherever you are watching somewhere and to the gentleman who spoke about do your peace do your part inviting space for inquiry and deep conversation but do your part when you see division and hate because that festers into a lot of things and i wanted the opportunity to say that um because the sheer amount of communication in my years here doing this work is extremely over the top and disrespectful and i'm trying to think about

115um i have a young daughter at home i need to model appropriate behavior for her in terms of how people are engaging me because i don't want her to think she can talk to individuals like that and you should never talk to any individual like that regardless of where you are so self-regulation is extremely important we teach that to our children that it's okay to feel this way but you have to find ways to manifest that into positive ways and i think some of the adults in this community need to think through this idea about self-regulation and how often times your actions absolutely blindside your passion people are not listening when you get to that point it's hard to and we want to listen even though i may not agree so i'm hoping that as

116we continue to go through this that we think about our children are watching our children are watching that's all i have to say with that matter and i do encourage the board to think about if we don't have one uh an appropriate level of decorum in terms of when individuals are engaged it's not okay and if you continue to let people believe it's okay they're going to keep doing it and they're going to go keep stretching that it's not okay you can share your thoughts but it's not okay to talk to people the way in which many are even though they have strong emotions i have strong emotions but i have to regulate that because of my positionality but more importantly because i'm a parent of a child in this district and i want to

117make sure that cheyenne knows her daddy though can engage in disagreement is practicing what he preaches at home all right thank you for for those words dr marseille um that takes us uh close to the end of our agenda i just want to ask if any uh members of the school board have any reports from district subcommittees or out of district rules okay and do we have any old business do we have any new business all right this meeting is adjourned you