WSSD Board Meeting 02/22/21

001good evening i now call the february 22nd meeting of the wallingford swarthmore school board to order in opening as you're willing and able please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and thank you uh i would like to start by asking ms fagora to take the roll call mr ballas here miss cimino dr downey here dr huff here mr cutis here mrs lentz here mr sullivan here mrs walkman here dr grandy here mr berman dr palmer here miss patel dr grandy you have nine voting members present all right thank you ms fagora uh so this evening we will start as usual with the student representatives report ms

002patel thank you dr grandi this month all of the schools in our district have been busy learning about black history and finding ways to integrate social justice minded thinking into all aspects of school and life first at srs fourth grade students have spent numerous hours planning researching and drafting their african-american living wax museum slideshows despite the challenges of a virtual environment students have found this process to be extremely rewarding and are very excited to share their work family and friends are invited to view the students presentations through zoom for the black lives matter school day of celebration at srs janine osayund the founder and director of dunya performing arts company will present my historically black neighborhood of swarthmore oral history srs is excited for the special assembly happening this friday february 26th at west next

003week pbis expectations for our learning community will be relaunched this year in conjunction with our teaching tolerance social justice standard work this pbis team has created lessons around cure each letter represents a theme we will be working on connection understanding respect and empathy our lesson next week will focus on listening as a way to build connection using the book night of the moon by hina khan we are also so grateful for our west pto and the guest author committee for securing miss khan as a virtual guest author on march 3rd we are excited to have her join us and practice our listening for connection skills in both the online academy and west many wonderful activities and lessons around influential african american figures have been and will continue to happen teachers have also been crafting and

004sharing lessons in support of the district's recognition of black lives matter in schools on february 26th some of the act many activities being done include listening to the story enough by grace byers and learning through science concepts of skin colors with the text all the colors we are by kate kissinger principal savage shares that the mission of this diversity work is to make what we do meaningful and lasting for students and staff students at npe have also been active in their learning about the contributions of african americans throughout black history month in addition grade levels have been busily preparing for the upcoming day of understanding and affirmation here is just a brief overview kindergarten students at npe will listen to the story sometimes be marched by tessa allen and will learn how to speak up

005with courage and respect when they or someone else has been hurt or wronged by bias second grade students will deepen their understanding of social justice and equality with relation to the pl with relation to the pledge of allegiance and black lives matter at school and creating a culminating activity in a mural formation where each student will create their own depiction of justice and equality the mural will be displayed in the main lobby area the third grade team at npe has been incorporating black history throughout various parts of their curriculum students are learning about famous african-american women this week during their morning meeting and fourth grade students will be reading something happened in our town and doing other activities to learn more about how to get to know others because of who they are and not

006how they look similarly students at stratheven high school have been working this month to make the school a more compassionate and inclusive space last week the student council of the national honor society hosted and promoted a kindness campaign students were encouraged to complete a random act of kindness every day of the week such as compliment a friend make dinner for their family or pay for a stranger's food the student council contributed to the kindness campaign by distributing valentine's day goodie bags to all of the high school's faculty to thank them for their hard work and support this year also something to look forward to for haven students and families coffeehouse is returning on march 17th at 10 a.m students should check their email for the zoom link and all students with music or poetry to

007share are encouraged to reach out to mr fisher with their work to perform that's it thank you thank you miss patel next up we have the superintendent's report dr palmer thank you dr grandi and i'd like to build on what mira just reported as you know the wallingford swarthmore school district has declared friday february 26th as black lives matter at school a day of understanding and affirmation which will culminate our black history month activities our educators and administration across the district have worked together to create a day of learning opportunities to better educate ourselves and seek to educate our school community on historical and the current impact of racism and discrimination on our students families and communities as well as understand our role in perpetuating such inequity this day of understanding and affirmation is created

008to affirm the lives of black children and to promote understanding that will strengthen our community racial equity will not happen unless people are willing to talk about race and this day is one important step in that process and i am hopeful that is what is one day this year will be even more days in the future in addition to the school board adopting the black lives matters at school a day of understanding and affirmation resolution at the january 25th board meeting i am thrilled to report that the wallingford swarthmore education association also known as wsea has adopted a similar resolution which i'd like to read now and it's entitled the wsea black lives matter resolution whereas the wse promotes equity and support social justice work in our schools and whereas we act in solidarity with

009our members and our community to affirm that black lives matter and to ensure that every black student and educator can live grow and thrive with support love and joy and whereas the goal of black lives matter at school is to inspire an ongoing movement of critical reflection and honest conversation and impactful actions in our school communities for people of all ages to engage with issues of racial and social justice therefore let it be resolved that wsa supports equity and social justice training within our organization by working with social justice community groups and supporting the higher hiring of an equity officer or teacher at one assignment for the 21 22 school year and therefore let it be resolved that wsea celebrates black lives participates in black lives matter at school this year and moving forward endorses

010an anti-racist curriculum and therefore let it be resolved that wsea supports hiring and retaining teachers of color and anti-racist teachers thank you to wsea president dave waldman for sharing this thank you to the wsea rep council members for approving it thank you to my colleagues liz bridget sue jennifer emily jen and rita for collaborating and drafting it wsea and wssd are united and are locking arms in our attempt to make our school community more welcoming and socially just we have two focused topics on the agenda this evening and one is quite significant and that topic is the elementary transition part two during the focus topic at our last board meeting we presented elementary transition part 1 which included a possible timeline and a list of tasks that would be associated with transitioning our elementary students

011back to full in-person instruction we also presented an overview of our health and safety assurances tonight in part two we are going to build on that presentation as we now have more information since our meeting we surveyed our elementary parents regarding their opinions and their choice of learning modality for their child or their children nora wheeler our director of instructional technology will present the survey results she'll be joined by our principals as well after our last meeting we also learned more from the cdc the chester county health department and chop so i'd like to speak a little about this now and then a bit more during the focus topic presentation so first when february 12th the cdc came out with their quote operational strategy for k-12 schools through phased mitigation in the document they stress

012that the essential elements of a safe k-12 school in-person instruction include these items they include consistent implementation of layered mitigation strategies they have indicators of community transition they include phased mitigation and learning modes meaning more strategies for a situation as they get better or worse and changing in learning modes they also uh include that there's additional prevention that can be gained through testing and then they also point out that there's additional prevention that comes in the form of vaccination for teachers and staffs and in the communities as soon as the supply allows very important in the report the cdc says five key mitigation strategies that are essential for in-person instruction and help mitigation of covid19 transmission in our schools include the following masking which i am having difficulty with my mask as i talk i

013think it wants me not to talk quite so much so masking physical distancing good hygiene cleaning and contact tracing and of those five the two mitigation strategies that they say should be prioritized are masking meaning using the right mask and correctly using it and physical distancing and they point out in the cdc report they are talking at least six feet should be maximized to the greatest extent possible i'm saying this now because i'm going to start with the discussion of the cdc report move on to chop and then move into the chester county health department so the cdc has created a table of indicators and thresholds for community transmission and they include four categories in that table they have low moderate substantial and high they include a seven day incident rate per 100 000 and

014a seven day percent positivity we've seen this before in the chester county health model the categories are a little bit different but the same information is there and when you look at the grid they don't relax the six foot physical distancing until the community level reaches moderate which of the four of the highest it is the second lowest so when i read their guidance i know the cdc is giving guidance for the entire nation they're not just giving us guidance for the philadelphia area or putting no additional emphasis on philadelphia and there's certainly no additional emphasis knowing the information on how we are performing in the wallingford swarthmore community but i provide everyone the cdc guidance as a baseline and then i think it's easier to stop and think what does the cdc say and

015then let me layer on what we've learned through chop and then what we've learned through the chester county health department so moving on to chop dr rubin was with us at the last board meeting and he talked about his thoughts on our elementary students returning to full in-person learning and as a follow-up to his visit with us i'd like to highlight chop's february 17th blog entitled covet 19 outlook spring planning for in-person schooling can continue if you went onto our website we have a link on board docs to this document and we also have a link to the next document that i'm going to talk about but it is included on the agenda the chop blog highlights that overall the cdc guidance quote reflects the evolution of a year's worth of highly debated recommendations distilling

016those that have stood the test of time and abandoning those that have failed to add value end quote the chops team's view is that the thresholds although they are conservative should serve as approximate guides for schools developing and refining their reopening plans they should serve as guard rails for schools officials but they shouldn't be interpreted as absolute requirements we know that the chop team themselves had moved away from recommending rigid thresholds to the school districts last fall when they saw how successful schools have been with their multi-layered school safety plans and one of the most important quotes that i saw in the chop blog was quote ultimately as they advance their in-person schooling plans each school will need to consider its own community's unique context and experience with its protocols to date so i am

017going to take a moment here and stress that we have been using a multi-layered approach from the very beginning and it has been successful for us so to remind everyone our masking compliance has been excellent our physical distancing has been maintained good hygiene has become a way of life disinfecting protocols have been consistently followed contact tracing is well oiled and i do send a special shout out to our nurses who do an amazing job with contact tracing and i'll add one people who are sick do not come to school that's still a very critical component for us so i've talked about the cdc and their guidance for the nation i've highlighted select portions of the chopped blog that i think are particularly important for us and the top blog focuses locally now i want to

018share information from the chester county health department our local health department for covid and the information that was received by me last friday evening so i've mentioned numerous times in my superintendents report that jean kasner now gene franklin is the public health director for the chester county health department and she meets with county superintendents at least once and sometimes twice a week and even a few times three times a week she works very closely with all of us and she knows what mitigation strategies each of the school districts employ further she monitors our incident rate and our percent positivity she knows how school districts are doing and how our communities are doing her letter which i mentioned was on board docs includes a particularly significant statement and this one is quote because of the layered

019mitigation measures you have successfully implemented we support schools increasing more in-person learning through reduced physical distancing specifically when certain community transmission levels are met and layered mitigation strategies are continued schools are encouraged to reduce physical distancing as outlined below she also notes that this change is further supported and closely aligns with the cdc's recently released operational strategy for k-12 schools through phased mitigation chester county health department does include a table of indicators it has four categories the titles of the categories are slightly different but the content in the four categories is exactly the same but what's different from the cdc's table are the guidelines that pertain to physical distancing and i will share that information during the focus topic presentation but otherwise the tables are exactly the same so we are still battling a very

020serious disease and we have done an excellent job in keeping our students and staff safe during the pandemic gina ross our director of student services and ferg abbott our director of human resources and operations will add more depth to what i just overviewed so moving from elementary education to middle and high school we've already been receiving questions about when will the middle school and the high school students be returning to full in-person instruction and the short answer is that is already in the planning phase it's underway however it's still in the preliminary stage the administration is working on a parent and guardian survey and you can anticipate hearing from them in the few days ahead most likely early next week and then before i close i'd like to say thank you to some folks today

021is national school bus driver day in case you didn't know so thank you to our wonderful drivers who safely navigated a very difficult driving day today and others over the last few weeks as difficult as the weather has been our drivers bus monitors and transportation department staff are true professionals who safely navigate our roadways and are there with reliable service and a friendly smile for our children thank you thank you and today has been what i would call a yucky snow day a very technical term there you have our thank you to our amazing operations department for going above and beyond once again we have had a number of snow days virtual days and even a two hour delay when that occurs many of us will spend the day safe sound warm and dry within

022our homes for our operations department that is so not the case they are our first responders thank you to our operations department to our maintenance staff our grounds crew custodian supervisor and director thank you for your dedication to our students and our staff you are the best and dr grandi that concludes my report thank you dr palmer and actually i was just saying before the meeting one of my favorite days over the past year during the pandemic was when we all got to ride the school buses during the senior graduation parade um so thank you to all of our bus drivers i do have one board announcement uh before we move on to our focus topics this evening um the full board has been very engaged as i've mentioned with the search process for wallingford

023swarthmore's next superintendent and after three sessions of first round interviews we've narrowed the candidate pool to a handful of educational leaders who will meet with the board for second round interviews over the course of the next 10 days and the board is on track with its process and its timeline and is very hopeful of an appointment by april 1st so that takes us to our focus topics that dr palmer was just referring to but before we invite our speakers up i do just want to make a couple opening remarks before we get into our elementary discussion um you know as dr palmer mentioned we are certainly picking that conversation up this evening since that last meeting as all of you know we've surveyed our elementary families to gather opinions and perspectives and also to learn

024about enrollment decisions if we transition to this model and we will hear about those results this evening along with other updates from our discussion two weeks ago but before we resume that discussion i do have a few points i would like to make and these are some things i said the last meeting but i do want to echo again and i think it's important for all of us to realize that every single person in our community and we certainly have heard it in many ways will have a different way of looking at this decision everyone will have a different set of concerns and priorities for their own family and everyone will face somewhat different life circumstances but i do hope that we can all agree on one thing that all of those concerns every single

025person's concerns are valid i hope we don't look at this issue as having sides i hope we don't look at this issue of right or wrong we really are not on different teams here and we're all trying to do i think what is best for our students we certainly should not be personally attacking one another about our views we can have a healthy constructive debate we can find ways to understand one another and we can certainly find ways to compromise our students they're living through an unprecedented disruption to their own lives we all are and some are certainly facing more adversity than others and some are certainly facing more risk than others but our students are all watching us they're watching us to see how we respond to these challenges they may not say it

026but they are watching and it is up to us to show our students how our community can work through challenges and emerge from it stronger as opposed to divided so my plea not just for today but going forward is that we can all respect one another and each other's views have constructive debates never attack one another and we can and should debate the ideas and i hope we won't attack our teachers our neighbors our parents and certainly not our students and i do want to say i have deep respect for our teachers my own children have been shaped by fantastic wssd teachers throughout their entire education they've been supported all along the way by their teachers and we put a great deal of trust as parents in our teachers and that trust is well deserved

027and they've been so important my own children's lives and i heard from so many parents who say the same thing you know some of you may know you know i work in healthcare and early in the pandemic healthcare providers went to work every day with communities cheering them on you probably saw videos in new york city people hanging out windows banging pots and pans in philadelphia there was a military flyover there was food deliveries all the time and that did a lot to really pick people up during a very difficult time we haven't had the same cheering for our teachers and i just hope that whatever we do we can understand how hard it is to teach during a pandemic it's been hard to practice healthcare during a pandemic and it is very hard to

028teach during a pandemic pandemic and we find ways to cheer our teachers on through this when the pandemic passes and it will eventually we will still be part of this same community altogether our students will still look to their teachers for guidance support and instruction we all will need to work together to heal the divisions in our own community and help those that have been most harmed by the pandemic so i just say that as a preface to the conversation this evening that we're going to resume i do want to say just a few words about the structure of the evening so we'll start as dr palmer just alluded to with our focus topic discussion that's a time for the administration to present back to the board with updates from the discussion including the survey

029results then we'll have time for public comments for items that are on the agenda this evening which does include the elementary the health and safety plan modifications that are necessary for the elementary plan to go forward then we will move on to the agenda and voting on items and then later in the meeting we'll have time for public comment for items not on the agenda i do want to mention that we as indicated on the agenda we're reserving up to an hour and 15 minutes for the first set of public comments and up to 30 minutes for the second set in the interest of an orderly and efficient meeting we will limit each comment to three minutes to give as many people as possible the chance to be heard and when we get to that

030point we'll alternate back and forth between called in and in person comments and try to keep that process moving uh as quickly as we can um i do want to mention i think we'll update this just on the the website i think there has been some confusion about calling in comments in general called in comments are something that we can accept after the agenda is posted for the meeting so there were some comments that came in before that happened which we will we will read this evening to the extent we have time but just going forward we'll make sure that is clear um so anyway that's just a little bit on kind of the flow of things this evening um and so let me hand things back over to dr palmer to introduce our speakers

031for our first focus topic we have a lot of speakers for this particular topic as i had mentioned before we are going to be talking about our elementary transition part two we are going to start with dr wheeler uh she will introduce it and we'll lead the first part where we will be looking at our survey results we will then look at a transition timeline and tasks and dr citarelli jones will be back oh as and i also realized the principles will be with dr wheeler as well and i apologize i did not include them as they are all walking through the door now and then we will pick up on a recap of our health and safety assurances where we'll have gina ross and ferg abbott joining me for that portion this is comprehensive

032we ask you to have patience with us but we wanted to make sure we put information out into the community and gave the board a very thorough recap of where we are and what did we learn by the survey so dr wheeler when you are ready take it away all right good evening as dr palma said my name is nora wheeler director of instructional technology and i'm going to begin our team presentation tonight by providing an overview of the results of the wssd elementary parent survey on possible revisions to the education plan on the ninth as promised we disseminated the survey to about six 1 645 recipients did provide a few updates over the course of that week before it closed um in total we had 1452 responses however we quickly realized uh we needed

033to clean up the data before doing any analysis um in addition to over a hundred incomplete responses likely because people wanted to read the survey before answering everything dr palmer and our building principals combed through the responses to identify duplicates discrepancies because we didn't want to double count students or any other data associated with the family response this did take a significant amount of time but we do feel like we were able to clean up to get just a response for family after removing the duplicates we were left with 1097 total responses each response represents a family and all of their elementary students throughout the reporting of results i'll do my best to clearly identify whether i'm referring to the family response or whether i'm referring to individual students and as you can see the

034responses by neighborhood school we had 333 npa npe families was represented about 440 students 391 from srs in terms of family responses for 523 students and then 376 west families for 519 students um the principals did do some further work so when they report out some numbers later they might be slightly different than mine as they uh clarified responses from a few families and just to give you an idea in terms of distribution of those students across the grade levels it was pretty comparable to what our actual student enrollment is we didn't see particularly high or low in any one grade level in terms of current modality of the responses thirty percent of responses were for families with one or more student in the online academy and the other seventy percent were for families with

035one or more student currently in our cohort model for in-person learning in the first section of the survey after the introduction respondents were asked to indicate how important four different considerations are in how they feel about sending their elementary age child or children to school in person four and a half days a week with reduced distance requirements i'm going to take you through each of the four considerations first examining the overall data and then looking at a side-by-side comparison of how current in-person learning families responded and how online academy parents responded first consideration asked respondents to identify the level of importance placed upon getting their child or children back to full-time in-person school as quickly as possible for more in-person instruction the range was about 20 at the low end of the range slightly important

036was selected by 13 of families and extremely important was the highest at 33 percent of all families in total this consideration was very or extremely important to 53 percent of all respondents when we separate out that data for the first consideration between in-person and online academy families the distribution across the levels of importance shows a far more far more variation in fact the overall distribution from not at all on the left to extremely important on the right for each graph is the complete inverse whereas 68 percent of in-person learning families think more in-person instruction is very or extremely important consideration 64 percent of online academy families think it is not at all or slightly important next families were asked to consider how important getting their child back to full time in person school as quickly

037as possible for social and emotional reasons is to how they feel about sending their child or children to school in person four and a half days a week with reduced dis requirements this school year as compared to the first consideration there is an increase of 4 percent in extremely important and a decrease in those who felt it was not important at all overall 56 percent of respondents feel this is a very or extremely important consideration when we break this question down by current modality the in person families considered social and emotional reasons almost identically to the level of importance of in-person learning there was a four percent drop from very important and a four percent increase in extremely important for the online academy families however the graph does look a bit different than in the

038first consideration getting a child back for social and emotional reasons resulted in a different distribution across the levels of importance here the range from extremely important to not at all was only 20 whereas the range was 34 for getting them back for in-person instruction of the first consideration the next consideration asks families to indicate how important waiting for community covert rates to decline substantially is to how they feel about sending their child their elementary child or children to school in person four and a half days a week with reduced distance requirements for fifty percent of respondents this consideration was very or extremely important to their feelings about the proposed plan 30 percent felt it is it is a it is not for a slightly important consideration it is i'm sorry it is not an all

039or slightly important consideration as you can see in this side by side comparison 85 percent of the online academy families that responded indicated that this consideration was very or extremely important to them for in-person learning families the distribution across the spectrum hovered close to 20 percent in each of the five levels of importance the final consideration in this first section of the survey asked families to indicate how important waiting for more widespread vaccine available availability is to how they feel about sending their elementary child or children to school in person four and a half days a week with reduced distance requirements this graph is almost the same as the previous one for all respondents there was a slight drop from 50 to 48 percent in terms of it being very or extremely important consideration the

040same is true in this side-by-side comparison the importance of the vaccine as a consideration of how they feel about the plan is similar to waiting for a decline in the community covid 19 rates for both groups the next section of the survey focused on opinions of the proposed plan it is important to note that throughout the rest of the survey analysis opposed means they are not happy with the proposed plan or they do not like one or more of the suggested con consideration or conditions such as distancing the start date or a half day wednesday it does not necessarily mean that they are not a proponent of going back in person based on other responses and comments in the survey itself when asked whether they favor or oppose this plan to reduce the classroom distance

041requirement from six feet to three feet and bring all students excluding those who wish to remain in the online academy back to four and a half days per week as early as mid-march 40 strongly oppose or oppose and 47 percent strongly favor or favor across all respondents when we separate out current in-person families and online academy families with this question 62 percent of in-person families and 9 of online academy families favor or strongly favor the plan to start mid-march whereas 26 percent of in-person families and 74 of online academy families oppose or strongly oppose the plan to start in mid-march families were also asked whether they favor or oppose the proposed plan with an april or post-spring break start date the later date did result in additional families being in favor or strongly in favor

042of the proposed plan for in-person families the increase was seven percent and for online academy families the increase was eight percent over the mid-march start in this section families identified the child or children they have in elementary school the modality where each child is currently placed and whether their commitment was to remain the same or if they would switch modality of the families that responded to the survey 1021 total families or 93 percent elected to remain in their current placement a closer examination of this information revealed that 501 of these families favor the plan 391 families oppose the plan and of these 391 families 229 are online academy families who have elected to remain in online academy and 162 or in-person learning families who have elected to remain in person as you can see here

043there are some families who have elected to change modalities if the proposed plan is passed 38 families which amounts to 53 students move from the online academy to in-person learning 30 34 families which amounts to 44 students go from in-person learning to online academy later in the presentation the principals report slightly different numbers based on work they did at the building level to ensure accuracy of some selections due to discrepancy in the initial survey data we took a deeper look on this slide we take a deeper look at the 72 families who decided to change their child's placement the 72 families represent 6.5 percent of total families 15 of the families favor the proposed plan and our current online academy families 13 of the 15 neutral responses are from the online academy and two of

044the neutral responses are from in-person learning families the data shows that a majority or 42 of these 72 families actually oppose the plan 10 are currently in the online academy and 32 are in in-person learning families who are electing to switch to online academy if we consider that this switch creates a disruption to the child's learning and results in a new teacher one might interpret that to mean they are not necessarily moving to something they favor but might be driven away by one or more of the considerations in the plan that provided some additional information on those who are changing placement we also looked further into the families who opted to commit to in-person learning the survey results indicated that 773 families committed to in-person learning if the plan moves forward as we know from

045the earlier slide 38 of these families are currently enrolled in online academy and would be switching to the in-person learning the remaining 735 families are currently in the cohort model while the majority are in favor of the plan approximately 22 percent of these 735 families indicated that they opposed the plan when we look further into how the 22 percent responded um to the different considerations in question one it appears the group values a decline in covid rates and widespread widespread availability of the vaccine somewhere between very important and extremely important this group also values in-person instruction and the need to return for social and emotional reasons somewhere between slightly important and moderately important this is further supported by their shift in attitudes as all but two families favorability rating of the plan improves or remains

046the same if the full person model moves to after spring break in other words their attitude improved or remained the same from their initial response when the mid with the mid-march start it does not necessarily mean that they agree with the plan we were asked to further look further into the 172 families that oppose the plan but committed to in-person learning to do this examination we look deeper at the comments made by the 105 132 of the 172 opposed to the plan and coded their written responses the reason it's not 172 is because 40 families did not make any comment in some cases more than one specific objection was made within the comment itself so each objection was counted safety concerns which are represented here in the darker blue are separated into three categories because

047specific objections were different distancing specifically moving away from six feet was coded 53 times the vaccine and waiting for either all teachers or more people to be vaccinated was coded 42 times and comments about colbit rates were quoted 17 times the next highest objection with 31 mentions related to staying hybrid or being able to stay in the current cohort model they use those words interchangeably the plan being disrupted this late in the school year was coded 17 times followed by delaying the proposed start of the plan at 16 times there are also five comments um but had no specific objection three objected to the possibility of a teacher change and two objected to a half day on wednesday rather than a full day we then examined that 773 families that committed to in-person learning to

048see how delaying the start of the proposed plan until after spring break break impacted the favor opposed response and we saw the following 199 families attitudes about the proposed plan improved along the favorability continuum for example they may have gone from strongly opposed to oppose opposed to favor favor to strongly favor etc with comments such as the vaccine being more widely distributed rates to drop and would be more comfortable with the change in the distancing 74 families saw it as a detriment there were numerous written comments that shed some light onto why it decreased for example comments such as don't delay and start right now 500 families attitude remain unchanged regardless of the start time the final portion of the survey provided families an opportunity to comment there was a comment section after the considerations

049and an opinion section and opinion section as well as one after the placement commitment section in the survey over 650 response respondents or families provided one or more comment although this includes short statements such as thank you we first worked through coding comments in these three broad categories in support neutral and opposed to the plan we look for key words and phrases in order to identify general themes within each of the categories neutral for example included some bus concerns issues with the half day where a family offered an idea from another district or asked a question supportive comments tended to be shorter and included phrases such as let's start today thank you for getting our kids back and my child needs to be in school learning the comments coded as a pose varied from very

050direct statements such as i oppose the plan to explaining the part of the plan or parts of the plan that they did not like such as coveted raised distancing or waiting for the vaccine others in opposition commented on it simply being too disruptive feeling pressured to commit and wanting to stay hybrid as it is now the idea of potentially having to change a teacher was mentioned throughout the comments in all three categories with families indicating that they would likely change their commitment if their particular teacher had to move i hope this survey overview provides you with some a good understanding of some of the data collected um the next uh part of our presentation is uh for our principals to give an overview on how placement commitments impact students at the building level and so

051for this i'll turn it over to al to start with mpe thank you dr wheeler thank you all for having us tonight um i'm just going to take a quick moment just thank nora and her team for all the work that they put in to turn around these uh numbers in a very fast uh fashion 24 to 48 hours also to the staff at her respective buildings who made phone calls to try to finalize the date a lot of work went in so i just want to take a minute and thank all the people who put a lot of hard work and to get this as accurate as possible each of us are going to go through by school talk about the student changes how many students are changing modalities we're going to look at

052the class sizes talk about potential teacher change if any and any potential building change due to current cap sizes at grade levels across the district beginning with npe um as you can see the overall number of students that we would have in person is not that dissimilar to cohorts a and b combined we would have 13 students currently would trans uh transition from cohort to away and 14 students transfer from online academy to in person so obviously that would be 27 students who would have a transition and a new teacher in terms of students in the building it would be very similar to the enrollment that we have currently looking at the grade levels uh the changes are actually fairly even ranging from one to three students at most grade levels with the exception of

053grade three that has uh about four to six but again six going out for coming back so really a net change of only one or two students in terms of um children in the building um so the class sizes overall would range from 14 to 23 is where we are today interestingly enough the 14 and the 23 are actually both in our kindergarten at npe we have three sections we have one in person section and two one am in person section and two in-person sections uh we do have a fourth section but that is an oa teacher who teaches in person in the afternoon um the am section is currently at 23 which is the cap size for kindergarten in our district um should the board decide to bring students back we would explore opportunities

054for students families enrolled in that am class to potentially move to the pm class so we're looking at those options that would not necessitate a teacher change it would be the same teacher um so that's how we're looking at that um that would raise that 14 up probably to 17 or 18 which would put all of our class sizes probably in the range of 17 to probably at most 22 at this point uh moving forward should the board decide to bring the cohorts together um so in summary uh for npe as a result there'd be no teacher changes that we foresee and once again class sizes are probably going to range uh between say 16 to 22 again depending on what happens with that kindergarten so if there's no questions for np i'm gonna pass

055it off to dr tuck thank you very much mr heinlein thank you very much good evening to the school board and thank you very much for your time and your talent and your patience regarding making this decision we appreciate all of the effort that you have put into this process thank you norah dr wheeler also thank you for the wonderful presentation the slides and all the information at this point at srs we're looking at about we're looking at 15 children leaving cohort and going to oa and we have 14 children leaving oa coming into cohort so it's only a difference of one we're just about balanced at each grade level with the exception of kindergarten we have six children coming into kindergarten versus the one leaving and we have six children leaving cohort versus the

056one and third grade so basically it does balance out uh equal meaning the amount of children that are leaving us are similar to the amount of children that will be returning to the oa process we are looking at keeping all of our teachers the same we do we will not have any changes due to the fact that we have an even amount we have 15 leaving and 14 coming in so that means that all of the srs teachers will remain srs cohort teachers and we're really happy about that because we know the connection that our students have made with their teachers and we are looking at all of our great levels having seats available just in case another building needs to transfer a student over so we do have space and kindergarten as well as

057through fifth grade so therefore we're able to accommodate all of our students returning from oa to cohort as well as to accommodate any other child that may need to transfer to from their home building to our building at this point our class sizes will be basically from 13 to 24 which will be within the guidelines that we have and there as i said earlier there are no changes to teaching to the assignments the placement of the students thank you very much i'm going to turn it over to mr gabe savage good evening everyone i'd like to echo the sentiments of mr hindley and dr tuck um it's been amazing to watch our administrative team grow over this last uh calendar year and just figure out how to make things work so i'm very thankful to

058be a part of this team um for wymper elementary school we have some slightly different numbers we have 21 students returning back to us and we have eight students going out that's a plus 13 in the building for us our class size also ranges from 14 to 26 much like mpe that 14 is in kindergarten and just as a as a note in kindergarten is actually our largest group of students coming back from the online academy we're plus seven in kindergarten that's coming in and i'll talk a little bit more about that later um as far as teacher changes if a student did not change modality then they're keeping their teacher the only people who are getting a new teacher are people who are changing from oa to cohort are cohort to oa um i

059do want to highlight this piece at the bottom building change as i said in kindergarten we have seven kindergarteners coming back to the building um our pm kindergarten only has maybe one slot left and i think there are five of the kids coming back are currently in pm kindergarten so we obviously can't fit them all in the class however if they were open to moving to am where that class size is much smaller we could work that out if not you know mr hinley and dr tuck have shared that they do have room inside their buildings for those students i also want to highlight first grade our first grade at west was already maxed out so before all the movement even occurred we were already at our class size limit so it is very likely

060that the students who are returning would have to go to mpe or srs in order to have in-person instruction um now i want to highlight uh a little bit the online academy so our numbers were a little bit different than dr willard's we found that about 49 uh students total were leaving the online academy to go back to the buildings and we found that 30 i think your number was 44. so our number was 36. so we found that 36 students were leaving the building to go to the online academy so that was a plus 13 to the buildings okay um overall in the online academy um we're very solid as far as class size and being able to accommodate everybody who is coming in and the class size ranges are similar 14 to 26

061it will shift a little bit once or if we move students back into the online academy the class size will shift up a little bit so um that's the overview for elementary um and good luck on making your decision because i don't envy you thank you mr savage so i'm just really here to remind everybody about where our timeline is this is really just a repeat from last presentation so when we take a look at um where we are tonight starting tomorrow and running through march 12th the following things will be taking place we will have health and safety measures refined that includes our classrooms our large spaces hallways buses and the like schedule analysis for curriculum alignment it is very important at the elementary school that our online academy students and our students who

062would be full in person are having the same learning experience by that i mean that they have opportunities to meet the learning outcomes i spoke about learning outcomes last time i was here and that's what i am referring to here that requires a significant number of meetings we meet with our grade level chairs we meet um in the buildings building based so our kindergarten will meet across the district for example they'll meet each kindergarten within their buildings these curriculum alignment meetings are really essential to making sure that our oa students and our full in-person students would be at the same learning outcomes by the end of the school year we're also looking at procedures for lunch recess dismissal arrival we have many parents who question how these procedures are going to look and we understand

063that's foremost on their mind we want to get that right also we're talking about the education and health and safety meetings so our elementary education committee meets every wednesday now we used to just meet twice a month now it's every week we're meeting and in those we are talking about the specific health and safety needs teachers will bring things up they are the ones who are operationalizing things in the classrooms things occur to them issues concerns that don't occur to us when we are not in the classroom and so that's essential work that we do also there's a communication piece communicating to parents about the new teacher for those who would receive a new teacher communication about transportation communication back from the parent and questions that we have we need to leave enough time for

064that to breathe for parents to feel that the questions they can ask and get answered in enough time and then finally teaching and learning preparation we're talking about a change in modality we're talking about more kids being back in the classroom it changes the way a teacher teaches it changes what's possible it changes the number of students in front of you and for students who would be zooming in because of quarantine or a sickness past three days you also have those students attending that way and so how do you make sure that they're not left behind when you have more kids directly in front of you so that's going to take some pd that's going to take some brainstorming that's going to take some collaboration and we need that time so once we get past

065the march 12th area we're looking at how do we exactly transition on this and so what we're looking at here is really a timeline that provides the necessary allocation of time to get all of it done and done well so when we look at hiring i mentioned hiring the last time hiring isn't just for the core teachers it isn't just would we need a new third grade teacher it isn't just what we need a new kindergarten teacher for example there's hiring that could be done with transportation there could be hiring needs for related services there could be hiring needs that need to be done for specialists for example until we actually get those numbers settled out we cannot be sure there is no hiring so we have to leave space for that as well in

066addition we're looking at the transition days for building preparation i mentioned it last time i'll mention it again having students at home and not in the building makes it possible for us to rearrange the furniture to pull out bookshelves where necessary to put the markers down the hallway without those uh little bodies there and um and sort of getting in the way of that piece of it students would learn asynchronously on those three days wednesday is already an asynchronous day and they were looking at the start to be full in person on march 18th that would be k-5 and they would be in person from the 18th and 19th and the 22nd you'll see it diverges here a little bit because we have parent-teacher conferences so on march 23rd we're looking at full-in person for

067our first through fifth grade on that day there is no school for kindergarten anyway because that's parent-teacher conferences on march 24th it is a half-day for first through fifth grade because that would be the first of our half days which is built into the four and a half day model and then there is no school for kindergarten again because of conferences march 25th and 26th in the elementary schools is parent-teacher conference times so there are no school for k-5 and then we go into spring break one other thing that i really want to mention and i don't think i can say this strongly enough that this timeline is happening if the school board votes in this way at the same time teachers are preparing for conferences those conferences are an important benchmark in the communication

068between our teachers and our parents for what is happening at home and the data that we normally have in abundance and at our fingertips is stuff that we have to dig for a little bit deeply some of it is observational in some cases we're looking at a student who might be transferring to a new teacher and so we want to make sure that there's a data handoff that happens and that can be coincided with these parent-teacher conferences so parents i'm sorry teachers typically during this time are doing that work to prepare for a parent-teacher conference at the same time that they're teaching this is a third level because they're going to be changing their modality and what teaching and learning looks like at the same time they're preparing for parent-teacher conferences and looking at what

069they've been doing already in the old modalities so we're talking about three different things happening at once i think for the sanity of teachers for the safety of the students for the work that has to get done we really stand by this timeline as the earliest that we can do and i believe i'm handing it off to dr palmer yes you are denise thank you so we're moving into the health and safety assurances and i said i would be back to talk about a little bit more so let me recap what i mentioned what's really new since the last time we came together as a board meeting are three significant uh pieces of guidance that we've received on february 12th we received the cdc operational strategy for k-12 schools that's what i'm looking as that

070macro guidance the guidance that they're offering to all of the schools in the nation then moving down a little bit more regionally we've received information from the chop blog and that's where we were learning in their guidance to look at the cdc numbers and look at them as guide rails but to also look at what our specific experience is and look at the mitigation strategies that we have in place and know our own community in light of the strategies that the cdc is saying and when i say that the strategies that they have are the strategies that we are using the point where we diverge with guidance is the cdc strongly requesting or strongly giving us the guidance to use the six feet where the chopped blood is to ask us to put it in

071perspective and the chester county health department in the letter that we received from gene franklin on friday talks about the conditions under which we could remove or move from the six foot guidance so nor if you'd advance me one more please in jean's letter to us i'm going to repeat this again because it really was significant and the emphasis was added in her letter it says because of the layered mitigation measures you have successfully implemented and the u is all of the school districts in delaware county and chester county the measures you have successfully implemented we support schools increasing more in-person learning through reduced physical distancing specifically when certain community transmission levels are met and layered mitigation strategies are continued schools are encouraged to reduce physical distancing as outlined below and the below is that

072grid that i was talking about so it has the four categories with the low moderate high and very high and then when you look at the columns that are the seven day incidence and the seven day percent positivity the breakdown is exactly the same that's in the cdc they just call the high and very high something different at the cdc but the metrics that are in here are exactly the same but when we look at the physical distancing in the right column you will see if we are looking at the bottom in the very high category they strongly recommend that they're six foot distancing for students and they state that it's six feet is required for staff and that's the piece that they were focusing on when we meet in our regular meetings they would

073like us to keep the largest distance for our staff members that's where the higher incidents occur and for our younger children jeanne would even like to see us phase in a return to school as opposed to saying everyone in k-12 she liked the phased approach with us uh working with our youngest ones first but if we were to move from the very high category into either the low moderate or high so the the lowest possible categories of incidents in our community she is saying at that point six feet distancing to the greatest extent possible is recommended so in all of these she is not requiring or she is not using the wording that is saying requiring the six feet they're recommended and strongly recommended and that's a critical divergence from the cdc almost everything else

074though that they are talking about in their document and when we got the document it was advanced wording to what the guidance will be it was given to us in the form of the letter it is on board docs as i had mentioned and we are anticipating that the entire guidance that we receive will be updated this week i just haven't seen it yet so where are we in the next slide nora please we are right now in our most current week at 109.22 is our incident rate per 100 000 so that does put us in to the very high category but the pcr positivity is 6.42 which puts us in the moderate category so we know the numbers are coming down when dr brennan and dr rubin and ms franklin have been on the

075call everybody has been talking about the time to do the planning is now the rates are coming down we're anticipating that they will be moving down and i'm hopeful that they will be under the hundred for the next week i certainly won't know but based on the conversation we've been having we're anticipating that the numbers will be going down but we look like we're on a good trajectory at this point and then i know gina is going to pick up after me and then ferg after her and they're going to drill down into pretty much the pieces that we have in place in the district some of this you heard last time and some will be new thank you dr palmer good evening thank you for allowing me to come and talk again some of

076what i'm going to talk about tonight is a repeat and just a refresh from last time we spoke but there's also some new information that's included in the update to the health and safety plan so we'll cover that the first um slide is really a reference and a reminder of what we had talked about we're looking at nothing less that than that three feet so shooting from the three feet when we talked we had really spoken about three to four feet somewhere in there depending on the class sizes however at lunch recess snack or lunch snack and mass breaks we're going to maintain that six feet so we talked about how the elementary principles are currently working to identify alternative areas such as stages such as the other areas of the building students will continue

077to be cohorted for recess and they'll work in different areas on that playground area additionally they'll continue to be staggered schedules so that we're limiting the number of any group in a hallway at any given time we're still working on those protocols now that we have the data and the numbers of what students would be coming in and what students will be leaving who has requested transportation the principals are working through that information and we're moving closer every day additionally as students enter the building they'll maintain that three feet distance and as we know students coming into the building are often wait somewhere prior to going to their classrooms so the principles are in the process of identifying those specific areas because we know that we will need additional space the next bullet is a

078bullet that we talked a lot about at last meeting so i'm we are moving towards the implementation of the buy next testing we anticipate that that will be in place by march 1st so that is our goal we definitely know we will be in place before any type of return to school would occur we will be starting with the staff and then looking to expand to those very targeted student groups but starting with the staff first the next part is one that we didn't necessarily talk about as much last time which is the queue test we have not yet been trained in on the q test and that is one of our holdups we also don't have the q devices so a binex test is a rapid test a q test is a pcr test

079so if someone were to become positive on the rapid test we then would be doing the q test we would be able to do that in house at this point we're just waiting our nursing department is in process of getting that training and we're waiting we did receive information from gene today indicating that that is slightly on hold because of some data but we anticipate that that hurdle to be overcome rather quickly as i indicated we had our little um show of additional ppe of our our shields and guards there will be things like that the last button on this page is that we will continue to contact trace so our nursing department has been greatly involved in that contact tracing identifying any close contacts really doing that investigation i cannot state how important it

080is that parents still continue to complete the survey so having that survey allows us to move forward and really look at that contact tracing even closer the next two slides are the new information slides so as of tonight the revision that is in front of you for the health and safety plan speaks to a change in quarantine this alternative quarantine was brought forward as a possibility from chester county health department in the middle to end of december however one key components that they talked about at that time was access to testing and that turnaround time and at that time we didn't have that accessibility we now have a chop site that can test kids and turn that around rather quickly and we know that we're going to have to buy next testing so within the

081health and safety plan it's recommending that we move towards that change because we're confident in the fact that we have the capacity to ensure safety so the previous health and safety plan under if you looked under the section of visitors it said that any staff student vendor visitor and another other many other options if they came in close contact or were exhibiting symptoms they would need to quarantine or close contact they need to quarantine for 14 days that specific wording has been removed to indicate that we will follow the guidance of the chester county health department when we wrote this the first time that wasn't even an option out there now that all of the different components are coming together we feel very confident that we can move forward and then the last slide that

082i will speak to speaks to those changes specifically so instead of having a 14-day quarantine it will move to either a 10 or 7 day quarantine so if an individual is a close contact and chooses not to be tested they will have to quarantine for 10 days if they receive a test and have negative results on day five then they will be able to come out of quarantine on day seven the most important part of this though is that the individual remains asymptomatic if symptoms begin at any point then they need to remain in they actually would move from quarantine into isolation at that point because they would be deemed a probable case we think again given the fact that we have these testing abilities we feel confident moving forward this is highlighted because it

083is a cut and paste and a um a screenshot of what was in the cchd again the asymptomatic part is the key part to this and so our nursing department will be working very closely with staff and with families to ensure that the test was done at the accurate time and that it was the correct test and that the individuals remain asymptomatic next up will be ferg to speak to the other components of health and safety thank you gina and most of what i have to say is repeat from previous presentations uh at all locations we have hand sanitizer we have disinfectant and we have alcohol wipes that's all locations we also are disinfecting and cleaning the frequently touched surfaces throughout the day and at evening twice weekly we have the whole building is disinfected

084we have employed or we have started using machinery that creates a charge to the disinfectant and we go around and we fog a room the surface is in the room and with the electrostatically charged nature of the disinfectant it will be attracted to the surfaces and we achieve a better disinfection process during the day our custodians are going out and using that same process on the playground equipment our drinking fountains are closed shared devices and materials are disinfected between uses our teachers and staff have found creative ways to accomplish this quickly and it's effective we are monitoring our climate conditions daily we have we have all our hvac systems are hooked into a honeywell software program where we can monitor the climate conditions we have increased the fresh air intake we've done that through a

085number of a couple different mechanisms we open windows whenever we can it's a little bit more difficult in the winter when it's really cold as it has been but windows are opened as frequently as possible we've also increased the air fresh air intake through our hvac systems at our um older buildings we do that manually and in our newer buildings we do it through the honeywell software system we are increasing ventilation by turning the systems on earlier and then turning them off later we have turned on ventilation systems that we have typically not needed to use in the past all ventilation systems are running throughout the entire day we have employed um higher rated filters um there's a characterization for filter ratings called the merv factor and you can go and merv basically is the

086higher the merv rating the more the filter will catch and most buildings will use in a school districts or in school settings we'll use a merb rated of eight we are now using merv rated filters of in our central um systems now we do this we we don't do this because a more dense filter catches more stuff and we want circulation we want the air moving and also systems can only systems need to move that air through the through their um through the machinery and we have gone through each one of our elementary buildings and brought in an outside company to test the air turnover rate or air exchange rate the recommendation for air exchange rates has always been four to six uh when the when the covet crisis hit and a lot of information

087came out they were recommending four to six in a variety of areas after testing our systems the minimum in one any one of our elementary classrooms is 10. it goes from 10 all the way up to 27. so the minimum turnover rate is 10. and what that means is over in the course of one hour the the volume of air in the room is being turned over ten times it's going through the ventilation systems ten times okay and that does it for my section denise do you want to say thanks to everybody or you know me keep going i think he can do a much better job come on up i didn't know i was the final speaker but i'm always willing to close the show um so a lot of work has gone into

088this and from all levels um from the school board administration dr palmer um our teachers for sure and the parents it's we really you know dr grandy talked about this at the beginning we really are pulling together as a community to make choices for our students to make the best teaching and learning environment possible for them i think the one thing we all agree on is that the children are at the heart of why we're doing what we're doing and the decisions that we make based on that is a team effort so i would really like to thank everybody for the extra hours these people behind me they pick up the phone whenever i call it doesn't matter if it's sunday night it doesn't matter if it's a friday at 10 they pick up the

089phone they're doing the work last time i was remiss and i didn't thank the administration and i want to make sure that i do that this time so thank you guys you've really been great and at this point we can take questions yeah okay great thank you um i'll look in the room and i'll look on zoom anyone in the room shall we um i want to just also thank all of you for all the effort you put in i know how much time you've spent with us and taking our questions and i can't even imagine how many times that's magnified outside of that so thank you we truly appreciate it i had i think one question possibly two um ferg one is for you i know you went through um we know that air

090circulation even though strangely the cdc didn't really comment on that so much um that it is actually quite important and so i'm really excited to hear the data that you shared i know that you also looked at our small spaces that don't have some of those same capacities and could you comment on i know you had positive results on those as well an air change there you mean our smaller classrooms we did yeah the little small rooms for for specialists sure um i should also say that last summer we went through every space in the district the hvac technician that works for the district and myself we went through every space and the vast number of spaces fall in well they fall into several categories you have the large classrooms you have the smaller classrooms

091and when we measured the smaller classroom sizes the error turnover rate was at eight right okay so once again if six is your highest in the recommended we were at eight for those smaller size classrooms um but we have gone through every single space and back in the summer if we found any spaces that we had any kind of concern about because in all schools you will take a space and use it if it was a closet we'll find a better use for it than a closet and i i speak jokingly but um we've used spaces but we've gone through every single space and analyze every space for the proper ventilation requirements but to answer your question specifically the air exchange rate for our smaller classrooms would be eight thank you very much i just

092have one follow-up from that okay thank you mr rabbit um on that as well when you were first talking about the air exchanges you said the recommendation is four to six is that per day and i'm sorry if i didn't um my mistake that's four to six per hour okay that's the recommendation and and our schools are where per hour the minimum of our large classrooms was 10. okay and and the smaller areas is eight yes okay thank you all right jason thank you uh this is for dr wheeler i just wanted to make sure i'm getting the big picture and i have this correct so please correct me if i'm wrong but of the something like 1097 families 1400 something students right there are only 32 families moving from current cohort into online academy

093and something like 38 students is that right with the qualification that the principals gave because they did some additional digging but went from the actual survey results that's what we came up with okay because that's a very small number of a very big much larger it's a pretty small percentage of a bigger correct okay yep all right thank you i just want to make sure i had that right yeah and their numbers in and of itself were only a few different a couple of students that would not have changed the overall percentage that much right okay thanks i just wanted to make a comment um and this is in response to uh gina what you presented about the corn you don't need to get up i'm just commenting um i want to say that i

094am really excited about the the approach that you're talking about with respect to testing with respect to people in quarantine because one of the things that's happened throughout the pandemic as people get put into quarantine they stay home for a couple of weeks in many cases they never get tested and you never really know whether or not they like the exposure that they had led to you know whether they actually had covered they were just asymptomatic and so one of the great benefits of instituting this program is i think it really gives us a tremendous sense of data about anytime someone goes into quarantine did they actually get coveted or not and up until now that's been sort of a missing piece of of data for lots of school districts and lots of organizations and

095so you know it's like many colleges and stuff are doing routine testing now as are many other organizations so anyway i just want to say how excited i am about our ability to do testing of people who are in quarantine i think it makes a big difference in terms of the information that we get and also makes a big difference in terms of how much school kids need to miss and and be quarantined at home can i ask a follow-up to that which was we've gotten a bunch of correspondence lately about whole teams that have to quarantine and what that means for their season and potential postseason does adopting that change the health and safety plan address some of that i can answer that question um yes it does it certainly does address that so

096the information that i've shared with school nurses is that should the health and safety plan revision be approved tomorrow we would be revisiting any individual who is currently in quarantine and then moving forward that would be the implementation any thanks question i had one other follow-up which was for ferg um i think he's still out there i've assumed thanks eric i know you've looked at the different desk spacing configurations i was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that in light of the numbers that we saw for the elementary school classrooms where we're seeing you know somewhere in the 14 to 23 24 even 26 students on occasion right so in the overall in elementary classrooms full-size elementary classrooms uh a a four-foot spacing will produce on average 22 students per class

097at three and a half feet you can fit 26 students in the class those 26 students or 22 students are seated in desks all faced in the same direction very similar to the manner we have now where we have the six foot spacing and they're structured typically in a either a four row by six across or a four row by seven across minus a couple seats um within that configuration so 6 by 4 is 24 minus 2 is 22 and then 7 times 4 is 28 minus 2 which is 26. this allows also a space at the front of an elementary classroom for the teacher to maintain that required six foot spacing it also allows for the technology set up that a teacher would have and typically in an elementary classroom there's another teaching area

098so basically it's taking the front of the classroom allowing that six foot space for the teacher and then you have this grid as six by four seven by four rows of of student desks thank you and for the elementary school classrooms where the kids aren't switching the classroom throughout the day if it's a classroom that only has you know 16 kids or 18 kids are we only going to put 16 or 18 desks in the classroom yes and because it's different than the middle school or the high school where you don't have different groups of students coming in yes we would definitely take away desks unless they provide a benefit they help guide traffic in one direction or another thank you any other questions all right well i want to echo give a question oh

099go for it um a question about the in the health and safety plan um it currently indicates uh it talks about music programs and so forth and presently it indicates that string musicians would still need to um would still be at six feet i was wondering if the board were to approve um the the proposal that's on the table might the uh string students in the elementary buildings be able to uh be at three feet and therefore be able to accommodate more ensemble type yes that was actually an edit that we made today to that to reflect as students are coming in we know that strings are individuals who just need to have their mask on um there is no exhaling right so yes certainly additionally i'm working very closely with the music department they're

100in the process of finalizing their plans for um bringing back more students to in-person music so we're able to identify masks that we've approved as being safe for musical instruments and they are ordered and our fingers are crossed that they will be here within two weeks we already have the vast majority of the bell covers for the instruments and so we are anticipating that by the beginning or just slightly after the very beginning of march we will be able to bring um instrumentalists in at a 9 12 and eventually as rates decrease even further into a six foot distance i had one one more question on the health and safety plan that i almost forgot to ask you um there's uh on page 24 and i think it's in another spot also it talks about

101um state it states that students may choose to participate in online learning if they're unable or unwilling to return to school i wanted to just confirm that means our online academy not zooming into the classroom if they choose to remain virtual i will allow dr jones to answer it if she doesn't like my answer if it's not clear enough but yes it is referencing our online academy thank you okay any other questions all right seeing none um thank you again oh i don't think her hands up is it it was up for a minute but i no longer have a question okay sorry i looked it wasn't enough um so i want to again echo what others have said and thank all of you for an extraordinary amount of work i know even the survey

102alone involved a enormous amount of contacting of families and i'm trying to remember what mr savage said i think it was a team growth opportunity a that how you described it i'm sure that's exactly what you meant so absolutely so thank you again for for all the work you've done on this um and so with that we do have another focus topic so i'm going to let dr palmer uh introduce that one we do have another focused topic and this evening we have spent a lot of time talking about the elementary school and in past meetings we've talked a lot about the high school tonight we're going to focus on the middle school and steve krall assistant principal at the middle school is with us with a focus on middle school athletics what's in the

103works here we go well i think you guys will be glad to hear that i don't expect to be quite as lengthy as their last presentation but it's all good but i did want to thank you guys uh for allowing me to come this evening i know there's a lot on the table here there's a lot to be discussed and continue to be shared this evening but i did want to share a brief update on the evolving plans of the middle school with regard to providing some opportunities for playing come this spring sports union so we're getting there and you can kind of see from the picture not really quite sure where we're heading that's that's sort of a little bit of a a preview into what you'll hear tonight because there there is a

104lot going on um at with our central league middle schools and discussions that have really kind of picked up within the last week or so so we're anticipating you know the next month to really provide a lot more clarity but i'm going to let you know where we are as far as today the team at the middle school has been working in collaboration with other local middle school athletic departments and administrative teams and we are regularly reviewing updated levels of interest to compete and interact interscholastically this spring with our middle school sports programs there are still logistical challenges and hurdles to overcome but we are confident that we will be able to provide some sort of sporting experiences for our students at strathave middle school this spring somewhat of a small hurdle that was overcome

105this winter was getting off the ground some after-school clinics specifically with basketball those activities are actually due to wrap up this week but i wanted to thank all involved for helping run those after school sessions mr tagliaterra our athletic director and mr lucas and mr huffnell for stepping up to sponsor and coach those activities i know that the coaches felt the clinics were successful and the students involved we're really thrilled to have the opportunity to play and be active and i think uh between the two cohorts in the last few weeks we've had anywhere from 30 to 40 students participate participating per week in their cohort but i think they're very excited to have the opportunity to return to some sort of semblance of normalcy i know it was definitely not the same as a

106regular winter season for basketball but they were really thrilled to be there so um that was that was exciting for us this won't maybe let me remote so maybe we'll just go to the next slide there we go thanks aj as we turn our attention now to spring we also want to refocus the opportunities to enhance those experiences that we were sort of able to kind of put together this winner for our student athletes that are willing to play as well as take some smaller steps towards the opening up of competition with other schools listed here are the sports and clubs that we are looking to open for the spring season we are in a sense building a plane as it is taking off as the middle school has not encountered facing these challenges yet

107unlike our high school counterparts for instance in a normal season league assigners scheduled the entire league of games for all schools and right now our league of of middle school schools are still in a period of wait and see of which schools are willing and allowed to participate interscholastically there are a range of options that all middle schools are weighing from running no activities at all to running some intramural programs to running some interscholastic competition which we're hoping to do by holding a few amount of games and events it would probably typically take place in a regular sports season spring sports season we are continuing to get commitments from our coaches at this time from both our internal employees such as our teachers as well as coaches that work outside of our school buildings thanks

108for what we are certain out of at this moment are the following safety continues to be the number one priority of our schools and athletic program and this will lead to modifications in a spring season the middle school will continue to follow the spring summer wssd health and safety plan for competition and voluntary workouts and that was amended a few weeks ago to include the middle school to follow that plan as we were not included originally we are projecting a tentative start date of monday april 5th after the spring recess and that would most typically be for our our teams to start meeting regularly to start practicing i know that some of the athletic directors are looking at the potential to start some interscholastic activities about april 19th so we we have some time to

109work this out and figure out you know what logistical hurdles we need to overcome but that right now is the tentative timeline for us we intend to run activities in each of our spring sports girls and boys track softball baseball girls and boys lacrosse and our ultimate club team at the very least these would be activity clinics to focus on skill development social interaction and an opportunity to exercise and be physically active however we do have the desire to continue to work towards interscholastic competition with other eligible schools this spring we will continue to work with our coaches on designing practice practices in the cohort model we would adjust our practice schedules and expectations if at any time our school model changes at the middle level students will need to acquire an updated pia physical

110from their doctor's office their walk-in clinic or an urgent care facility uh that schedule appointments so families are recommended now if they're hearing this message hopefully we can start spreading the news uh to start looking into those appointments now because i know that you know particularly in this era that you know doctors appointments are you know timely timely to get um but this is a requirement based on the fact that in any interscholastic activities and competition between schools uh sanctioned by pia require that health and information to participate and it's just good safety safety information for us to have as well in closing i just want to take the opportunity to again more clearly define our two main objectives here which are the following you know one is to continue to expand and provide sporting

111opportunities that we know and enhance you know they really support our physical social and mental health of our students there's an abundance of research that supports the positive effects of regular physical activity on our overall health and we are thrilled to be thinking of spring particularly after day like today when getting outside getting back to a more normal semblance of our springtime routine at school is something that many of us are welcoming albeit in on a modified version and secondly this allows us to take a smaller but yet significant and important step towards our gradual reopening of our schools in a safe structured and purposeful manner these avenues and scenarios that we are exploring and reviewing continue to be picked apart and questioned by sort of these planning teams but the middle school levels and

112our building team as we're going to try to mitigate and minimize as many potential issues and challenges as possible but that will be some some things that we'll have to work through as they come along but it does allow us to take that small step towards our complete school form with everything that we're used to providing so we're excited to be you know looking at this um it's not all figured out if i'm sure if you'd call many of these other local middle schools you know we feel like we're in the same boat we're trying to work on this together get our timelines together and really you know offer some more opportunities for our students to spring but it's something that we're excited to be doing so uh thank you for allowing me to you

113know kind of provide you with this update tonight um i know our middle school students and families will be excited to hear this as our district as a whole but if you know i'll be glad to take any questions if you have any at this point for for me this evening well i'll just say thank you again for working on this i know um you know we've ended up talking a lot about the high school over the course of the year so it's great to hear you know the work that's happening at the middle school um the spring sports i'm trying to remember from the listview show these are all outdoor sports right nothing going on indoors which i think you know brings another level of comfortability for us we didn't you know we didn't

114fully take on the winter season i think uh as we were looking at doing something similar to this in the fall we actually had some some fall activities planned that were outdoors and inside it coincided with uh some rising numbers in the coveted cases at the time and i think we just felt it was better to err on the side of caution we got the basketball clinics off the ground and i think that was a big step for us even uh even mentally to just say we were able to do this we haven't seen any issues with it we had a good turnout from our students the coaches and the kids were excited to be there so you know looking towards spring and towards what we kind of think of as you know the light

115at the end of the tunnel i think being outside just brings that next level of comfortability for us to feel like you know this this could be the right time for us to make the move careful you know carefully and cautiously but but purposefully other questions or comments okay thank you thank you guys have a good evening all right uh that takes us to uh audience recognition for response to items for action on the agenda this evening as a reminder public comment is a time 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 is a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community and while we can't answer questions at the meeting there's always

116an opportunity to follow up after meetings if there is a specific question for the district as i've mentioned at other meetings we do have two methods to comment in person and by phone for members of the public wishing to address the board in person we have space here in the room as well as overflow space to maintain adequate social distancing when it's time to speak audience members will be guided to the meeting room to speak everyone must wear a mask at all times members of the public wishing to address the board can also call 610-892-3470 extension 1102 to leave the recorded comments for the board subject to a three-minute time limit as i've mentioned any comments left prior to five o'clock uh are transcribed and made available to the board if it's called in after

117five o'clock but prior to the end of the meeting it will still be transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record but not acknowledged during the meeting as i mentioned earlier we've allocated one hour and 15 minutes during this portion of the meeting or say up to one hour and 15 minutes um for topics on the agenda and one half hour during the portion set aside for topics not on the agenda um just in the interest of maintaining an orderly and efficient meeting we do want to stick to a three-minute limit for comment again in the interest of giving as many people as possible the chance to be heard we'll alternate between in-person and phoned in comments i'll ask our board secretary ms fagor to keep time on each comment and

118let the speaker know when three minutes has elapsed called in comments i believe have already been limited to three minutes in terms of what's what's recorded and transcribed so at this point i will ask kelly to read the first called in comment but at the same time invite anyone up um through the hallway who would like to speak in person for after we get through the first calling comment um the first comment is from lisa squires on osborne lean and this was meant left for us on february 13th i'm calling to express my opinion that you need to follow the cdc guidelines not only am i a parent of a student i'm a health care provider and everyone's safety is very important follow the cdc guidelines i understand children definitely need to be in school

119as much as they can but they need to be physically distanced they do they need to not be eating together unfortunately at this time so please follow the cdc guidance all right thank you so if we have our first in-person comment someone out in the hall okay come on in so uh just name and street name is fine bob kelly uh country club lane wallingford uh just want to say thanks to everybody that put together the survey it certainly was very encouraging from my perspective as somebody that's anxious to get the kids back into school i hope that the board takes into consideration know those parents that are in the cohort model today and anxious to get their kids back in certainly there is an option as correctly pointed out in today's presentation for the

120online model uh for if there is a medical condition or some other concern for students to get that online education but the i guess i'm here just to talk about what i consider the greater good and i think everybody would agree regardless of what side of the issue you're on unfortunately it has become an issue um that in-person learning is the most beneficial for a majority of students so if we can move as quickly as possible and i think starting with the elementary school is a great first step and it seems like the numbers for the most part will work out that we should do that as quickly as possible and it's very encouraging to hear that we're also putting plans in place to address both the middle and high school um you know for

121those high school seniors you know it's it's been a tough year you know your last two years of high school really was some of the best times of your life potentially and you know a lot of those experiences have been taken away from those kids so anything that we can do to try to get kids back into school i fully endorse and i hope that you know everybody can come together uh to make this a reality and do it safely and it seems like our mitigation efforts have worked very well so far and that we are continuing to evaluate ways to make it safe for all people students teachers parents to enter a school building so thank you very much thank you all right kelly you want to read the next one this next comment

122is from william circus uh dickinson avenue this was also left on february 14th i'm a parent of four children three of whom are currently in the district i wish to express my deep deep unsettling feelings about your thoughts about reopening schools with a three foot distance i believe this puts our entire community at risk based on potentially flawed data it places our teachers at risk and it is a wrong decision i strongly oppose any change in our current system of hybrid and online learning thank you very much and have a good day thank you next in-person comment hi come on in hello my name's tim edwards i live on brunt drive in wallingford and i'm here tonight to discuss the quarantining policy that was raised as a agenda item uh thank you for putting that

123on the agenda um currently it's a 14-day quarantine and uh i i really would love for you guys to vote yes to um a seven-day quarantine with a negative test after five days um and what that what that does for us so our current situation i'm a parent of two basketball players and uh i'm speaking on behalf of the basketball team and i see some of the parents here as well um we uh received a letter from chester county that we were exposed on tuesday february 16th and by his current policy that puts us in quarantine to march second um and eliminates us from the central league playoffs um our team had a zoom meeting on sunday to strategize and everyone got to get on the same page we went to chop and got the

124pcr test and we're hoping to present negative results or whatever results they are to the administration to allow us if if we do update the policy will allow us back on the court wednesday so we missed the game on friday we have two regular season games left of an already shortened schedule it would be nice to get the game in on wednesday that was originally scheduled for tuesday this week and we would finish up on thursday with ridley so that would give us a total of 12 games but most importantly it would allow our team to compete for a central league championship uh something i really do believe these boys deserve it's been a rough it's been a rough year with just the shortened season and not having an off season so um and and

125just the the mere fact that how hard they work and i and i'm sure i'm speaking for other sports as well because i mean updating an outdated policy to align with cdc and pa department of health only makes sense to me um and and it's best for our students um because it could could impact other sports down the line but um again i i thank you for bringing it up and putting it on the agenda um it would mean a lot for our boys to uh be able to compete this week um and then get it rolling go into the playoffs and maybe make a run because i really think they have a chance to do it so thank you thank you this comment is from chris mcginnis uh yale avenue swarthmore left on february

12614th my comment is once that all teachers and instructors are vaccinated i feel that is the time for students to return i say that as a registered nurse a grandmother a mother and a resident of the district thank you thanks next comment just name and street good evening jay hiragi from cedar land in wallingford um first of all thank you for the time and i gotta say this is my first board meeting so i have an appreciation for a lot of details that you guys go through and the information that we shared and that you have to absorb and make decisions on so i appreciate your time and a lot of effort that you guys put into all the work and decisions you're making that being said i'm here to represent also another child in

127the high school basketball team i also will make another point regarding middle school sports as well i have two middle schoolers in seventh grade in addition to that um just to reiterate some of the things that tim said the basketball team has put a lot of effort but i just want to share a different perspective my son plays went through the testing it works the recommendation they turned around a test we went to chop and we got a test within less than 24 hours so we're here with a negative test to share with you we presented it to the nurse if you guys can vote towards recommendation he would be one that could play starting as soon as thursday or friday so that's how much of an impact even though it was on your agenda

128for 30 seconds or it was presented for one minute that level of detail has so much impact on this team the second point i'd like to make is just for the middle school my kids my two kids that are in seventh grade they're hungry for sports right so i was glad to see it on the agenda it was nice to see it there they they miss basketball they see their brother play they would love to do something for middle school even though it wasn't available we do what we can spring's coming up baseball and lacrosse two sports that they both enjoy it'd be great to see that as well just wanted to show us thank you great thank you go ahead this comment is from elise sorry kat sapis uh left on february 14th we're

129just calling to say that i oppose the three foot distancing and having the students to be back to school four and a half days i'd like you to follow the cdc guidelines all right is there another in-person comment why don't you go ahead and start reading the next one this is from sarah baron samlin and david sandlin saybrook lane and wallingford left on february 14th i'm calling with regards to the new guidelines that were released by the cdc on friday february 12th the new plan or proposed plan for reopening elementary schools five days a week is not in line with those cdc guidelines which stressed the need for six foot distancing in cohorts and pods and thorough cleaning between cohorts and pods my husband and i were thoroughly against reopening four to five days a

130week prior to those new guidelines being released but at the same time you know keeping an open mind we now have these guidelines released i think that it's extremely challenging that you're asking us to choose potentially between putting our children in physical danger where we're subjecting them to psychological hardship based on no physical contact with other children or complete physical contact with other children five days a week i think that what is prudent is to take our time there are a lot of viral variants out there there's a lot to consider here and what we have right now with the cohort models working for most students i understand that some students are struggling and i'm not trying to discount that but please understand that there are other ways to support those individual children by bringing

131them in on those cohort days or something like that rather than subjecting all children that they'd have to be in school for five days a week therefore subjecting them and their family members to higher risk or they have to do virtual school which basically means that they have no contact with their peers which is psychologically damaging to children of that age group or of any age group and i think that's that's a mistake i really do and also my husband that we want to voice that so thank you for your time and we hope that you will keep this in mind moving forward thank you this is from uh christian dick on drexel road in swarthmore left on february 14th a parent of a fourth grader in srs i just want to let you know

132that i oppose the school opening with four and a half days in the distance of students being less than six feet i believe it should be three feet i do not agree with i do not agree with that thank you very much this is from erin hosback school lean and swarthmore left february 14th i filled out the online survey i just wanted to call and reaffirm via this voicemail that i'm opposed to the four and a half day proposal it brings staff and students back with only three feet consideration between them it is against cdc guidelines it just does not make sense it does not keep our teachers safe with the vaccine right around the corner i don't understand why we would ever push the situation for a few weeks or a month or so

133at school i'm against that and wanted to reinforce that thank you this is from lena flower drexel place swarthmore left february 15th i've previously called in to oppose the board's plan to go to the four and a half day plan but after reviewing the scientific evidence and talking to people who've done more research about this i'm now in support of the four and a half day plan i feel like the students should be going back and the school district will do it safely thank you this is from colleen duskis scott lane and wallingford left february 15th i'm writing and sharing an email that i just wrote to you to share my opposition to the possible plan to return elementary students to school 4.5 days per week at this time i strongly support remaining in the

134hybrid model until the cdc guidelines support three feet social distancing i have a medically fragile high school student with special needs at home who is learning virtually we chose the hybrid model for my fifth grade son because that was the best choice for him we made this decision knowing that the class size would be cut in half and six feet of social distancing would be adhered switching to five and a half days for all elementary student changes all of that and it is not what we signed up for in the hybrid model putting my son in the online academy at this point in his fifth grade school year at mp when he's two months or three months away from graduating is not a fair or reasonable option for him that would be emotionally detrimental to

135him at this point he is sacrificed enough to keep his sister safe and we will not ask that of him we have come this far why are we considering unsafe options at this point when we are so close to doing it safely please vote to keep the hybrid model in place until the cdc guidelines support three feet distancing as a safe and viable option we want these kids to go back i don't want to keep my kids at home but i want to keep the teachers safe and i want to keep my son safe and ultimately keep my family safe until the cdc says the six feet is safe this option is not safe for many of us hybrid parents you're leaving us no option but to send our children into what we feel is

136an unsafe situation that's something that no parent should ever be put in thank you for your time and i hope that you will consider my request thank you okay comment in person comment yes please come on good evening and uh thank you to the board for allowing us to discuss this and my comment is about returning to full-time in-person learning now my name is john lennart i'm on west rose valley road in wallingford i think we would all agree that we are not any different than any of the other local school districts or even states that have already opened for full-time in-person learning without an increased incidence rate of covad either among staff support personnel obviously the students or families which is very heartwarming i think to everyone from a humanistic perspective the science and

137guidelines supports returning to full-time and personal learning now even without unfortunately teacher vaccinations and that's not my opinion that's per the cdc guidelines and was in the letter i think that dr palmer had [Music] spoken of earlier also the dropping rates of positivity and the incidence rates are within the almost within the levels for in-person three-foot distance learning which is fantastic and those rates continue to drop i believe from 140 to and the most recent data and we're already below the positivity rates i believe around seven percent what i took away most and hopefully uh the more importantly those voting members tonight is it was encouraging to hear the district's preparation which was fantastic the local resident support and the chop guidance as well or opinions supporting the return to full-time in-person learning at least

138for our elementary schools um at the distance of three foot or less and i guess the last thing i have to say is there's an opportunity for each of you voting tonight on the return to learning for the elementary schools they're really to examine your thoughts and really to think about it from a student's perspective you know i appreciated dr grande's comments earlier about there's not sides and i don't think there is either it's really just about what's best for the children and i would just ask you and i think many parents who have been supportive and not supportive of it would say what do you think is best for every student because that's really who you're voting about and that there's a large majority of families that are desperately looking for your guidance and

139your leadership to return to in-person learning full-time as early as possible certainly with elementary schools first and hopefully with others soon to follow thanks very much for your time and all the work you do thank you kelly you want to read the next one this is from kelly weiler governor's drive in wellingford left february 15th i have a third grader and a fifth grader at srs i'm opposed to the children returning to school at this time they are in a hybrid schedule i think that starting the transition back to full time towards the end of the year is in poor taste due to the fluidity of covid with the new mutations and strains and our teachers not being vaccinated i think that the kids have been through so much this past year with kovid that

140it is a disservice to them to abruptly disrupt their schedule and bring them back into a classroom where they're not actually safe we don't know the structure of the buildings we don't know ventilation systems not keeping them three feet apart etc with that being said the effect that will do with the teachers if they have to get taken out of school to do to anybody being exposed to a positive code of a case in their classrooms i think that the focus at this time for the school board should stop be to stop worrying about the rest of this school year and continue with whatever families have in place which would be hybrid or online or letting the online academy people switch over to hybrid if they choose to i think the focus now needs to

141be looked at for fall of 2021 and spring of 2022 because covid will still be here and what you are planning on doing then that's where our money for the taxpayers needs to go into for the kids and for their mental health also for their mental health in addition to the hybrid start offering services put the energy and time into that versus trying to rush people back into school and you're not being prepared for it that's where the money should be spent that's where the focus should be spent i agree that i have a child with iep issues they have wonderful counselors at srs that we have utilized i can't speak highly enough about it they embraced my family who directly was affected by covet 19 and one of my family members is a long

142hauler so i know how serious this is if honestly you do do full time i will pull my child from the school district and will pay for private school and what would be the point of me paying the taxes to live in the school district to have to do that this is just not a safe plan it's a rough plan again stop wasting the time on 2021 spring and focus on fall 2021 and spring do it the right way you guys have had plenty of time to figure it out it's going to be a fluid situation in the fall we're going to be doing a flow again and so on so forth so please do not open school full-time keep it at a hybrid in an online academy for the safety of all the staff

143teachers and students put the energy into that and put this to bed once and for all get these kids extra resources for mental health issues if they so need it thank you yeah uh do you have a comment yeah come on in just uh name and street and yeah um allison carpent i live at 308 martin lane in wallingford um so i just wanted to make two comments one is um first and foremost i agree firmly that we need to stick to to six feet three feet is not enough and i was just counting how many people are in this giant room and i think there's 22 people in here my child's class would have 27 people in it maybe one less now 26. so i just find it interesting that we're all sitting here

144six feet apart but we're gonna ask our kids to sit three feet apart beyond that i think our kids have been really accustomed to being six feet from people i think all of us have been really proud of our kids for how much they've adjusted to this new normal that we're all living in they know they have to wear their their masks and they know how far they need to stand from people and so the idea that we're gonna now suddenly at one certain day have them pour into a classroom with 27 kids in it is going to put my kid at extreme anxiety and i think we need to think about this not just from our adult perspectives and our brains and our maps of how many feet apart people need to be but

145really what the experience is going to be like for our kids i think we're going to need to phase this in i think they're going to need to have time to be able to move from this far apart to somebody to being really close to them because it's not going to settle well with them at all and i'm not sure that we're in their minds on that and last i have to speak up for the teachers i mean if we're not willing to be in this room together for two hours three feet apart then how is it that we expect our teachers really to do their best job not just today but to believe that we have faith in them in the future because in this district we put a lot of pressure on our

146teachers right i've been in your chair i know that we've asked them to do new reading curriculum new math curriculum we change it over all the time math math math math we're going to ask them to go the extra mile after having told them that they need to be in a classroom without a vaccine three feet and i know we're supposed to be six feet apart but how are they supposed to talk to a kid in the class what's the point they can't be that close to them to help them with instructional needs so i just wanted to share those points with you all and thank you for your consideration today thank you oh you want to read the next one christy mcguire on westminster drive in wallingford left february 21st i'm calling to urge

147you to vote yes to bring all students back for full-time in-person instruction beginning with the elementary students we are approaching one year without full-time in-person instruction if we wait to act on this plan it is more likely that it will be a year and a half before students are back in classrooms full-time with graduate degrees in both education and biomedical science i'm able to read the literature in both fields and weigh the risks the risks of continuing to deny our children full-time in-person education clearly outweigh their risks from coven-19 percent of schools across the country and even more around the world have shown that full-time in-person instruction can be done safely even without six feet of distancing between students meanwhile our students are falling behind i want to make it clear that i am not

148anti-union or anti-teacher in fact both in fact my husband and i are both educators who are back to teaching in person without yet being vaccinated so we are not asking wssd faculty and staff to do something we are unwilling to do ourselves we made sacrifices to move to this district because of the excellent schools and are disappointed that anyone would prevent a family from choosing to send their child back to school for full-time in-person instruction this needs to be the default for public education do our schools need more funding yes should all teachers be prioritized for vaccinations yes but we cannot hold up the preparations for reopening while these things are happening every day not in school is a loss for our children and they have already lost so much this past year i am

149asking you as school board members to please put our children's education first and vote yes to begin the process of bringing all students back for full-time in-person instruction as quickly as possible thank you let's go ahead and meet the next one christine dole uh haverford play swarthmore left february 22nd i'm calling regarding tonight's board meeting and the decision to return to four and a half days in person with three feet of distancing unfortunately i think we need to be clear that while testing adds another layer of mitigation strategy for the most recent february twists 12 cdc update schools should prioritize two mitigation strategies number one universal masking and number two physical distancing of at least six feet to the greatest extent possible these are identified as top priorities and having the greatest potential for reducing

150transmission the cdc goes on to state that while the risk of exposure may be lower when indications of community spread are lower this risk is also dependent upon the implementation of school and community mitigation strategies for example if community transmission is low but mitigation strategies are not implemented or inconsistently implemented the risk of exposure and transmission will increase in addition for the chester county health department the most current guidance specifies six feet of separation throughout the day to the maximum extent feasible if six feet cannot be maintained due to space limitations schools should consider alternate options such as hybrid if evidence exists that indicates improvement in cases transmissions deaths hospitalizations etc schools may consult with the cchd about transitioning to in-person with less than six feet i urge the board to carefully consider this guidance

151as it has from the beginning it seems to me that each school and district's circumstances for doing them safely will vary greatly which is the reason for reliance on bodies such as the chester county health department in addition in our specific circumstance we have a large number of teaching staff who are in our buildings day in and day out and who have expressed their concern that this may create an unsafe environment for all this is not an easy decision and when it comes to the health and safety of our community it shouldn't be thank you for all of your work heidi velhagen putnam boulevard wallingford left february 22nd dear board members i'm calling to voice my concerns about the opening of school buildings to four and a half days a week notice i say opening

152the school buildings instead of school opening because schools have been open since september this is the reality but they have been opened i think we should change the narrative as saying the school opening or opening the schools is an insult to our teachers faculty staff parents and students who have been in school since september now we opted to send our son to online academy it was a very difficult decision but we thought it would be best suited for him as our family which is high risk he has a 504 related to his transition skills or lack of them from social skills as well so in order for him to have this ability schedule in every team we decided to sign him up for the online academy thank god he's thriving in the online academy has

153been way better than what we expected ms barnes's teacher who's in fourth grade is an amazing teacher who gets them keeps them engaged and is a caring teacher the teacher is not afraid of technology and as far as i can see because i'm working from home and i can hear them all students are engaged and thriving now because of all of this that is happening we may have to put our son's routine in jeopardy as he may lose his teacher and classmates that he's gotten accustomed to and that would defeat the 504 because of his transition skills if the school building is open every day and the hybrid model disappears then he may have to lose all that stability and everything that he has accomplished so far and i don't think it's fair another thing

154is that i don't see why the rush of opening the buildings why don't we focus on vaccinating our teachers and staff and start planning for a strong 2021-2022 school year opening it will give a chance for our teachers to get protected and a chance for our community to get more people vaccinated that will protect the teachers the community plus our students i want to end by saying i work at chop i attend every employee town hall that there that there is every week and the recommendations haven't changed as we saw in the meeting that we had with the top doctors at the board meeting six feet apart masks and hand washing thank you so much for the space and thank you for everything you're doing i know this is hard but i do not agree

155with opening the buildings thank you julie uh legate columbia avenue swarthmore uh february 22nd it strikes me that while this has been a very divisive issue in the school district the two positions are not in inherent opposition an alternative would be to be creative about space in order to bring more students in person more often while maintaining safe six foot distancing danielle morris ash road wallingford left february 22nd i'm a nurse and the parent of 11th grade student who is in the process of taking acts and sats as you can imagine his scores are extremely lower than they would be if he was in in-person learning that being said i know his teachers are doing the best they can with virtual and hybrid learning i'm calling in for two reasons first and foremost to ask

156the board members to please vote for full-time in-person learning for our children time is limited for our high school kids these current seniors will be graduating in june and have not been fully in school for over one year second my son is a lacrosse player and his motivation and self-confidence are directly related to his ability to play lacrosse both the boys and girls basketball teams have been negatively affected by the school's policy regarding a possible exposure the girls team was quarantined for 16 days post-exposure and the boys team was told to quarantine for 14 days after their exposure please consider changing your policy to align with the cdc and the state health department's recommendation which is a 10-day quarantine or seven days with a negative test and no symptoms this decision will affect all athletes

157moving forward keep in mind that the asic program will include testing asymptomatic players on out on our teams and most central league teams thank you for your time and consideration i appreciate the board's time and i know these are not easy decisions for you to make but please know our children need in-person learning kim graham west brookhaven road in wallingford left february 22nd i have a question for the board that is given the fact that the chester county department of health just came out with relaxed guidelines today that could change how parents feel about their student attending in person will there be allowances for families to change their decision that was on the survey last week thank you this is from emily ekman westminster drive in wellingford left february 22nd thank you to the school

158board members for all your help and support this past year i wanted to reference that i give support to the teachers and i'm fully in support of them being vaccinated prior to everybody coming back full time and until then stay six feet from each other i want to thank every single teacher in the wellington for swarthmore school district for their courage their great work and their love for every single student in the school district i hope and i pray that everyone stays safe during this pandemic i oppose the idea of all the kids going back to four and a half days a week and would love to see the cohort parents that truly would like to keep it to two days to do so and i appreciate the fact that there is also an option

159for the online academy thank you so much and have a great day this final comment is from megan eckenhoff beach road in wallingford left february 22nd i am an npe mom i'm calling regarding the issue of whether to reopen the school buildings full-time and i urge you to follow the science science the cdc and the chester county health department has been very clear in their recommendations and i hope that none of us here would presume to know better the teachers are not vaccinated too many families have vulnerable family members who are also unvaccinated this is not the time to go rogue no decision here will make everyone happy but let's air on the side of caution start keeping the school doors locked and and unfortunately it did not trans translate here there's no reason to

160take unnecessary risk for students teachers and family safety please do the right thing keep the distancing at six feet and keep the focus on opening properly in the fall thank you that was the last one correct are there any other in-person comments okay yeah i'm getting a waving from ferg but there's no one in the hall okay all right i want to thank everyone who has contacted the board and and has come to comment tonight and called in comments um you know we certainly have gotten i think as many of you know a great deal of input and comments and we take it all quite seriously with that i do want to take us to items on the agenda for voting now um the first item uh for action is approval of the february 8th

161regular business meeting minutes uh an iso move uh do we have a second second uh thanks matt uh any discussion on the minutes okay mr gore can you please take a roll call vote mr ballas all right miss amino aye dr downey aye dr huff aye mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye dr grandy aye motion passes nine to zero all right thank you mr mora so that takes us to personnel we have eight items for action are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay we have approval of one retirement susan novatnik a special education teacher at srs with the approval of three appointments thomas gates family and consumer sciences teacher at the high school linda hollahan a chemistry teacher at the high

162school and jonathan hardy technology support specialist at the high school we have the approval of four leaves of absence as listed in the agenda with the approval of the change and appointment of staff members as mentors during the 2020-2021 school year is stipulated with the approval of additions to the 2020-2021 activities supplemental appointment list as listed in the agenda we have approval of additions to the 2020-2021 curriculum supplemental appointment list as stipulated if approval of compensation for staff for cova compensatory services tutoring services is stipulated with the approval of kathleen plows as independent contractor for live streaming services of up to two athletic contests as stipulated we have approval of additions to the 2020 2021 conference request as stipulated all items in the section is attached or described in the agenda do i have a

163motion so moved thank you jerry do we have a second second again thanks matt any discussion okay mr gore can you take a roll call vote miss cimino hi dr downey hi dr huff aye mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman hi mr ballas aye dr grandi aye personal motion it passes nine to zero all right thank you miss football so that takes us to curriculum there are three items i'm going to start with the first two uh unless anyone would like those two separated okay first is the approval of the 2020 2021 related services provider contracts as stipulated and second is the approval of the 360 degree therapy agreement for contracted special education teachers and these items are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion

164still move thanks matt do we have a second second thanks larry any discussion okay mr gore can you take a roll call vote dr downey aye dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr balas aye ms amino aye dr grandy aye curriculum items a and b past nine to zero okay next up we have approval of revisions to the wssd health and safety plan for reopening schools as stipulated this is the item that was discussed extensively during our focus topic this evening the revised plan is as attached and also includes the revised guidance from the chester county health department and further guidance from child policy lab both are appended to the agenda um do i have a motion so moved thank you kelly do you have a

165second second okay um that takes us to discussion and i'm going to take the prerogative here to start the discussion if that's okay um you know obviously this has been um a big issue for our entire district for our entire community to talk through and work through i myself have given a great deal of thought as to how we move forward and i know every other board member has done the same thing and i know there are diverse views on our board and our community but i think again has been said multiple times tonight that we all share the same goal which is to provide the best education possible while balancing that with health and safety concerns so we have that common goal and the question is how and when to do it tonight we

166saw survey data that gives us a pretty strong sense of the views of our elementary families we did see that many of our families that have their children enrolled in our hybrid program want to see their children return to school full-time soon and support relaxing social distancing requirements to achieve that goal at the same time i completely recognize that our some of our families are very worried about this change and i understand that and i certainly know some of our teachers are worried as well we've heard from families throughout our through our district survey we've heard from hundreds through comments emails and other communication and i think i speak for most of the board members when i say it's not an easy decision and it certainly weighs heavily on me i've considered the new guidance

167from the cdc the chester county health department the new guidance from chop as i shared at the last meeting i do spend a lot of time reading study after study that relates to covet risks in schools and take this decision very seriously but i do believe we're at a time when we need to move forward the coveted rates in our community have really improved dramatically over the past one and a half months they're not as low as we all want them to be but they are coming down at a quite rapid rate we also have to consider i think the cost to our kids that are accumulating over time educationally socially and emotionally we've talked about these issues a lot and those those costs are greater 12 months into the pandemic than they were a

168few months into the pandemic last spring or even in the early fall we also have to consider the scientific evidence that shows that schools are much safer than many had imagined we really had hardly any research to answer this question last summer when this board was wrestling with these decisions but most studies that evaluate risk risks in schools that have just been published in the past two to three months really show that schools have been relatively safe so how we weigh the issues of health and safety education social and emotional well-being of our students has to shift over time and adapt to our new knowledge and what about the new cdc guidelines i have deep respect for the cdc i work in healthcare and public health but those guidelines were written to apply to all

169districts including those that have never been open those with fewer resources those with little experience with coveted mitigation and far lower mass compliance if we strictly follow these guidelines we might even consider our high school not being open now in this in one interview with the cdc director one of the reasons that she stated why why they were cautious was that just 60 of students are wearing masks appropriately in schools and and that is certainly not us as we also talked about we're also about to launch a new testing program which is one reason i think that the chester county health department has changed their recommendations they feel much more confident about the safety of schools knowing that that program is being deployed and having our own data as i mentioned earlier can make our

170schools even safer we'll track asymptomatic screening results of teachers and staff students in higher risk settings and as i mentioned earlier perhaps most importantly we'll be able to test students and staff that are in quarantine due to an exposure at school which will give us critical information about any possible transmission that is occurring in school it would give us a very early warning sign in our schools and allow us to react quickly we've never had this type of data and information to inform our decisions and now we will testing in my view has been a missing piece of the puzzle that makes it possible to relax one of our measures bucks county has been following this road map of testing students in quarantine and through this testing they've demonstrated that in-school transmission there has been

171very rare even when relaxing distance requirements i'm also very encouraged by the hvac testing results that we heard from mr abbott our system far exceeds recommended ventilation requirements for covid mitigation that frankly a lot of school districts are not able to achieve so all in all we are in very good shape in terms of all of our layered mitigation strategies and i think that's why we have not seen transmission in our own classrooms and again i want to echo that i know our teachers are under enormous stress under normal circumstances teaching is very hard work and under the current circumstances it's even harder and our teachers have been resilient committed and caring i know we're asking them to potentially adapt again and again and perhaps one more time tonight and i have such deep respect

172and admiration for our teachers as i said earlier i really look up to so many of the teachers in our district who've given my own children such a remarkable education here and i know many many families in this district feel the same way we will continue to advocate for vaccine availability we can continue to value safety as we move forward but the question is how do we move forward so i would like to put forward a little bit of a compromise and an approach that i think speaks to those that want kids in full time as quickly as possible and those that want to go a little bit slower i think none of us can ask for perfect right now so i'd like to offer a motion that i think can help us come together

173our board our district and our community i hope everyone can give a little i would like to propose an amendment a small amendment to the health and safety plan that's on the agenda and let me just summarize and then i'll state what it is if rates fall below 100 per 100 000 per the cchd guidelines on or around march 5th we move forward with the elementary transition plan on march 18th and all the signs point to us clearly heading in that direction and i hope we get there if we don't get there on march 5th or around march 5th around the time we'll have access to that data we still move forward but do so on april 5th right after spring break the day after the spring break recess and we fully commit to moving

174forward unless there's some dramatic change that we're confronted with and of course if there's some dramatic change we're confronted with we can always look at the situation and make some decisions so you might ask why tie things to the threshold in march but not in april i think the difference is we have enough time to not just launch our testing program which will launch in early march but to ensure it's fully operational with some accumulated data for multiple weeks so i do think with the with everything that we're doing as a district the experience that we've had with kids in our buildings going all the way back to the very end of september beginning of october it is time to to move forward and with this amendment it will be as soon as march 18th

175but certainly no later than april 5th so let me just read the specific language i would like to offer the areas of the plan that allow for three feet of social distancing will take effect on march 18th if seven day coveted 19 incidence rates in the county or district are less than 100 per hundred thousand the district will review data on or around march 5th if rates exceed these levels the areas of the plan that allow for three feet of social distancing will take effect on april 5th when the district will have its own operational cova 19 testing program and data from multiple weeks of that program so i'm hoping that all of you can support this i hope it's a reasonable compromise and i'm asking for a second a second thanks matt discussion on

176the motion to amend so if i can i just want to pick up on a couple of things that you said dr granny one one is i share your respect and admiration and and gratitude for our teachers and i'm sure that my fellow board members do as well my kids have received an incredible education at the schools at all different levels of this district and the teachers are just an incredible resource and they've been dynamic and caring and they're everything we ask for in teachers and and i care about them deeply and so a bunch of the comments that we've heard over time and again tonight have really pointed to vaccination and we should wait for vaccination and dr grandi you you talked about vaccine availability or you mentioned it and i just wanted to

177point out that yeah teachers should be in phase 1a they're they're unfortunately not they're in phase 1b my wife teaches at villanova and she's in that same boat and it's really frustrating to me but that's the reality we're in there's 246 000 people ahead of them in line in delaware county and we're currently vaccinating in delaware county at 5 000 people a week so we're talking about at that current pace mid-december and that's just not realistic i i hope it picks up and picks up quickly but we just we can't we can't wait thank you other discussion uh jared just wanted to confirm a couple of elements of the health and safety plan that i thought i heard teachers will continue at a six foot social distance at all times that is correct and second

178that students if masks are off for any reason would be uh also at six feet shorter distance is that correct yes okay thank you kelly uh i want i think i wanted to just share that um i have had um many many sleepless nights wrestling with this decision um and those who know me know that that's very true i at the end of the day we've had a lot of folks who read the cdc guidance to say that you cannot go less than six feet we've had just as many read that guidance saying that it absolutely says we can go forward at six feet and the same is true with the uh the cchd guidance that has come out more recently and dr grande i think you you spoke to um the point that is

179um addressed very specifically in the chop guidance that came out uh mid last week which is that the more conservative guidelines that were contained in that cdc guidance they specifically point to this and talk about how those thresholds and i quote cdc's thresholds should be viewed as more relative than absolute and they specifically pointed them to the qualifying language of to the greatest extent possible they encourage schools to use flex in outdoor space to the extent they can for those highest risk moments which we are looking at we are we are looking at all of those opportunities for the highest risk moments um to have the maximum distancing and we have been assured repeatedly uh that those times where there will not be masks will be at six feet particularly at lunch and so while

180i i struggled very much with this decision i struggled with a decision that while overwhelmingly supported by our parents in a cohort model still makes them very uncomfortable and that really gave me pause at the end of the day when i read the guidance from children's hospital that we've relied on multiple times throughout this entire time speaking to us saying that you need to look at this as a relative guidance you need to look at your multi-layered strategies and pointing to the value of the the testing program that we're going to have in place i feel that that based on the the feedback from our our parents what we can absolutely see and agree is um improvements that we see in when when children are in person i i i fully support your your your

181emotion and i feel it's the right right thing to do in our district to move forward thanks kelly and i share that experience with sleepless nights marilyn sleeping is overrated apparently um i don't know about that i think i have a parliamentary question because my comment is not directly related to your amendment so would it be more appropriate for it to come after we vote on the amendment uh yeah i mean i think there's a fair amount of latitude on what we discussed related to the amendment but yes that in general if it's not related to the amendment we can hold till afterwards i see mr berman appeared on my screen so maybe he wants to weigh in on the parliamentary question i was going to say the same thing okay okay then then i

182will wait okay other comments on the amendment even um yes i i think it's wise um to tie our movement to our local data i do think there are a lot of things about our district that make us special and different and i think everybody agrees on that i think everybody no matter which way they wish this decision comes out agrees that our district is unique and different and special in a lot of ways so i also have wrestled with this and i'm i get increasingly comfortable um stepping away from the perceived certainty of the cdc just stay at six you know that's a certain and it's sweet certainty makes us feel better but knowing that that is a backdrop for a lot of communities that cannot perform the way that we can perform and

183that we all know that we have and will continue to and on that measure i would say that the decision to tie our timing to the local data isn't a signal that we're endorsing relaxing any of these metrics outside of school but rather we actually have to step them up in order that we can do this for our kids so it's to take very seriously and not misunderstand if this board does decide that we're willing to relax this one metric on the basis of everything that we've heard tonight in confidence full confidence that it's safe and the testing will tell us that that doesn't mean outside of school um everybody you know all of a sudden we can go three feet in fact it's the opposite thank you for that totally agree any other comments

184on the amendment all right mr gore can you please take a roll call vote mr cutis hi mrs lentz mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr balas jerry you're muted mr ballas aye miss amino aye dr downey aye dr huff aye dr grandy hi the motion two amen passes nine to zero thank you uh everyone um so that takes us to now the uh health and safety plan that's on the agenda as amended uh by the motion that just passed in maryland i think i'll start with you okay so my question actually came based on some of the comments we heard tonight from the basketball families and so my question was really when this health and safety plan will take effect because at least when i read the version that was out on saturday it

185sounded like the new health and safety plan as a whole wasn't taking an effect until march 18th and so i'm wondering if we want that piece about the quarantining to take effect earlier do we need to amend it to make that happen so the the health and safety plan right now all the provisions go into effect immediately with the exception of the social distancing modifications that enable the elementary transition plan and i believe it's on uh okay there is a there was a tweaked version attached to the agenda that i believe the cover is modified and maybe are there other places oh okay yeah all right but yes that it would go into effect immediately and it's also on page so we're so i guess i read the copy that came out on saturday were

186there any other changes to that other than the effective date on the title page and the other piece that was already mentioned tonight dr huff minor changes that went through the review with um gene kassner she aligned a couple of things for consistency but nothing substantive okay thank you other discussion okay miss figure can you please take a roll call dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr balas aye ms amino aye dr danny i think she might be frozen dr grandy hi hi motion passes nine to zero all right that takes us to uh finance um again i just want to thank everyone i know i think it's not just kelly that has lost sleep over the last couple of weeks i think many people have

187and uh i know how seriously everyone takes takes this issue that takes us to finance we have four items for approval are there any items on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay we have approval of payment of invoices to vendors uh dated january 20th 2021 through february 16 2021 we have acknowledgement of receipt of the financial statements as stipulated we have approval of the treasurer's report for january 2021 and we have approval of 2020 2021 budget transfers as stipulated all items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion still move thank you larry second striking kelly okay uh any discussion i'm sorry the second was miss walkman yes thank you okay miss figure can you please take a roll

188call vote mrs lentz mr sullivan hi mrs walkman hi mr ballas i'm miss mino i dr downey aye dr huff aye mr cutis aye dr grandi aye motion passes nine to zero thank you miss figura that takes us to the section on the agenda called other um which is the approval of mr cutis as the dciu not that we would call you the other uh as the dciu board representative for a term commencing july 1st 2021 and ending june 30th 2024. uh do i have a motion i'm going to take michelle on that one do we have a second any discussion thank you one question yes doesn't june 30 2024 extend past larry's term on the board can you turn your microphone on sorry it does but that's a standard term for dud for assignment

189to the dciu board so everybody's assigned for that four year period and i hope you're still on the board january 2014. [Laughter] all right everyone's getting a little punchy um so any other discussion okay this figure can you please take a roll call of it mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr balas aye mino aye dr downey aye dr huff hi mr cutis do i abstain no hi mrs lentz hi dr granty hi motion passes nine to zero all right thank you mr garrett now i should have said you could abstain but there's no reason to abstain i hope i didn't twist your arm into voting okay um so that takes us to audience recognition time for response for topics not on the agenda as i mentioned earlier we're limiting this to a total time

190of 30 minutes um it's the same procedures as earlier we don't have any phoned in comments for things not on the agenda and i don't believe we have anybody or in person no one's here okay so that takes us to school board reports does anyone have a report from a district subcommittee or out of district rule i can provide a brief update from our most recent dei action committee uh we met recently i can't remember exactly which date um but we heard just a tremendous feedback from particularly from our teachers in the elementary and the middle school about the wonderful things that are happening in celebration both of black history month and our black lives matter day of um affirmation and it was just very very exciting to hear the energy and the wonderful things

191that are taking place um at the same time i do i do want to acknowledge that there are um there's more support needed and more of a i guess a framework that we need to embed in the high school and so that is that's an area of focus moving forward for for all of us on the action committee and and on the board subcommittee the other thing i wanted to comment on is i wanted to also thank the wsea for their um uh what what do we call that uh the resolution um in in support of the black lives matter at school our resolution if there are any of my fellow members of the committee anything you would like to add to that no that's a good summary kelly thank you thank you any other

192reports okay do we have any old business any new business all right thank you this meeting's adjourned