001good evening I now oops sorry needed to mute that sorry technology uh I now call the February 8th meeting of the Wallingford swathmore School Board to order uh in opening as you're willing enable please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty justice for all thank you I'd like to start by asking Miss fuera to take the roll call Mr Ballas here miss simino here Dr Downey Dr Downey Dr Downey's not able to join us this evening okay thank you Dr Huff here Mr cutas here Mrs lent here Mr Sullivan here Mrs wman here Dr Grandy here Mr Burman here Dr Palmer here miss Patel here Dr
002Grandy you have eight voting members present tonight all right thank you Miss Figora uh so to begin our meeting this evening uh I am going to start with our student Representatives report so miss Patel thanks Dr Grandy at SRS the virtual book fair is happening now SRS will receive 30% cashback for all orders placed before February 14th Dr tuck encourages everyone to consider buying a little treat for Valentine's Day or to build a diverse home library in honor of Black History Month also as part of srs's service and Civics programming the home and school will be sharing a series of activities to recognize celebrate diversity month started in 2004 to honor the diversity surrounding us all and Earth Day all of the activities can be safely completed at home or in our surrounding Community throughout
003the month of April students strive every day to be kind be respectful and be responsible at SRS these activities and events will support those efforts and help children get a deeper understanding of each other and the world around them some of the events will also help us celebrate the SRS Traditions that are not possible during the pandemic like Asia week and the Arbor Day celebration more specific information including volunteer opportunities will be shared soon NP will host their 25th Annual Jump Rope for Heart event during the month of February due to safety guidelines related to covid NP will have a socially distanced event during PE classes instead of holding a large group event raising money for the event is completely optional for those that choose to raise money you can use use the collection envelope
004that was sent home to NP families or you can use the American Heart association's website at the middle school Black History Month is being celebrated with lessons and activities on historical figures and events and disciplines all across the school as well as with our listen up in February program in which famous African-American musicians are highlighted in between classes over the PA system also shy V midle wishes a warm welcome to the school's new administrative assistant Brittney mcneel many will recognize her as she was the former athletic trainer for the past two years at shaan high school students remain committed to supporting organizations and causes they care about amongst other initiatives the Green Haven Club is selling reusable straws as a fundraiser with pen environment and encourages everyone to buy one also seniors are now able
005to vote for their official class flag as well as superlatives for classmates through the classes 2021 Google Classroom underclassmen are encouraged to submit selfies for the yearbook to capture the stay-at-home experience the high school's fifth social emotional learning Workshop is on mindset matters and will take place for students on Wednesday February 17th from 10: a.m. to 20 a.m. students who are not taking the Keystone exam that day should attend the workshop being provided by their school counselor with the support of behavioral health staff lastly guidance counselors have already started to meet with juniors in preparation for postsecondary planning students are very grateful for all the support and flexibility from teachers and counselors during this time that's it thank you all right thank you for that Miss Patel uh next up we have the superintendent report
006Dr Palmer thank you Dr Grandy at our last school board meeting I was quite long-winded so I thought I would be very brief tonight and I'd like to talk about one specific item on our agenda and that item is the 2122 calendar and before I talk about the calendar highlights I'd like to thank everyone who shared their comments their likes their dislikes and their preferences with us it seems like everyone is divided in their opinion on almost every topic these days and the calendar is certainly no exception the complete draft calendar is available within board docs but I wanted to highlight where we started and Where We Are Tonight with our recommendation so two board meetings ago Mr Abbott presented the draft calendar as part of our Focus topics included in that calendar was a
007start before Labor Day or August 30th which would be our first student day our school year ended in that particular recommendation on June 10th as the last student Day November 2nd was a teacher in service and a student asynchronous learning day we moved from that Focus topic presentation to the one at our last board meeting where we moved the start date of the calendar for the first student day to be after Labor Day or September 8th and we also moved our last student day to June 17th still included in that draft that was presented at the last meeting was November 2nd as a teacher in service day and a student asynchronous learning day what is before the board this evening is a little different than the last one as well we've kept the recommendation to
008start the school year after Labor Day so to recap it would be on September 8th would be our first student day we would have a corresponding last student day of June 17th we still have November 2nd as a teacher in service day but it would not be an asynchronous learning day and recapping everything when we look at our calendar and we total our number of days and our number of minutes of the things that comes to mind since we just recently had a snow day was how many emergency or weather days are built into the calendar and there are two days that are built in across all of the levels so I thought that might be helpful to know as well and I'm hopeful the board will take action to approve the calendar this evening
009and Dr Grandy that is my short report tonight thank you Dr Palmer uh so that takes me to board announcements um I have two announcements to make and then we'll move into our first Focus topic this evening um the first announcement is an update on the superintendent search um so the application Phase has closed um we've accepted applications from 32 candidates the board will begin introductory first round interviews this week and continue those through next week we expect to meet approximately 10 first round candidates our goal is to complete second and third round interviews including writing samples and presentations by late March for an early April appointment and a July 1 start um the second board announcement is that the board met an executive session prior to our meeting this evening to obtain advice of
010council um so that takes us to our Focus topics this evening um we have two of those on the agenda this evening um the first is uh the big one which is on the elementary transition plans and discussion uh and the second one is on the 2021 2022 preliminary budget um before we uh introduce uh our first speakers for the focus topic I do want to make some some introductory remarks um so please bear with me for a moment um I know we probably have many people in our district and Community watching tonight as there have been a great deal of discussion in our community about plans for our elementary students for the remainder of this school year the question uh as everyone knows is whether to shift from our current hybrid model to full-time
011or close to full-time face-to-face instruction uh for this Academic Year and I know that this issue impacts everyone in our district in many ways and we've heard from many many parents uh over the past week and a half um I want to assure everyone that the board reads each and every message um it's not always possible to respond to every single message as there has been a record number of communications with the board um we are doing our very best to communicate but please know that we read every single message carefully uh every single board member sees those messages um and we appreciate that Outreach as you know we canel our special board meeting last week given it was in the midst of the snowstorm and we had so much uh of a desire for
012comment um that we decided it was not the best process to convert that to an all virtual meeting and so we will start that discussion tonight uh and do so here with the opportunity for some folks to talk to the board in person uh over the past week I also did ask the administration to examine one other possible option that would be somewhere between what you'll hear about tonight and our current hybrid plan uh the administration reviewed that with the education committee on Thursday and felt it was not a viable option involved too many disruptions to instruction and so we'll focus on one option this evening when we get into our Focus topic discussion which is a a four and a half uh day inperson model and so let me start by reminding everyone about
013our process um the elementary plans are only for for discussion this evening um we we have two guests with us this evening from chop um Dr coffin and Dr Ruben uh who are going to start our Focus topic this evening um and we will talk through with them and then we'll talk through uh with our uh Administration uh on what these plans might look like and and have a chance to discuss them in detail following this meeting we'll have a survey for parents to complete to share their views and plans with us should a change be made and then our next board meeting is scheduled for February 22nd to consider this change and I want to say this loud and clear there is no decision that has been made yet I've certainly not made up
014my mind yet and I've heard that some people seem to think a decision has been made and that is absolutely not the case um I also want to speak to all of our community members this evening uh and really try to emphasize a few points first uh and I think I speak for everyone on this board I know how hard everyone is working during this pandemic teachers parents every everyone we are all taking on roles we never imagined and I know people are juggling extraordinary demands and just when we all feel like we get into some kind of Rhythm something seems to change in the world around us our teachers have had to adapt over and over again and I understand that none of this has been easy at any point going back all the
015way to last March and second everyone in our community has their own unique health and safety concerns and their own challenges in their child's education we all have to understand that each and every person comes from their own unique set of experiences and perspectives and everyone has their own valid views and concerns there is no right or wrong in these discussions I've heard of too many instances honestly over the past few weeks where some do dismiss the concerns of others and in some cases shout each other down and I hope we can be a model for our students about how we can have a civil and healthy dialogue in the end we won't all agree with one another but we certainly can have a constructive and thoughtful debate I received and the board received um
016I believe the full board got a fantastic letter from two parents last week and they said we know that the topic of school reopening has become extremely polarizing in our community and prior to this meeting you will have received petitions and letters from parents both adamantly supporting reopening elementary schools and asking for them to remain in the current hybrid model the purpose of this letter is not to take either one of those sides but to encourage all of us to acknowledge this is more new Nuance than being right or wrong and I think that letter is an excellent reminder that we have to have this discussion with respect and understanding and I know our community can do that I certainly have faith in this board to do that I've gotten to know all of my
017fellow board members extremely well during this pandemic and I know every board member is trying to do what they think is right at a time when frankly there are no easy answers there will be a time when Co is in our past and when that time comes we'll still be neighbors and we have to do everything to keep our community and our district strong so how do we get to this point this evening we started last summer if you recall thinking we might be able to have students in fulltime and summer came and so did recommendations to open schools using Hybrid models and then we started the year virtual for a few weeks we did so when we were concerned about Rising summer rates and we were urged to not open we were actually worried
018at the time that our hybrid plan would not prevent transmission when rates were high we successfully transition to hybrid at the end of September and it has been a remarkable success from a health and safety perspective for most districts including our own we've seen far less Transmission in schools than most would have ever thought possible we've had more and more scientific evidence particularly in the past two months that have shown that elementary schools have not been a significant source of transmission we'll hear about some of this discussion with our colleagues from chop this evening but I'll just highlight a few points a study in Mississippi looked at a large group of children diagnosed with covid and found that attending school was not a significant driver of infections but rather out of school Gatherings and not
019wearing masks a study in North Carolina track students over two and a half months also found low rates of transmission and no student to staff transmission and another in Wisconsin came to the same conclusion and there's certainly anecdotal evidence from other states like Rhode Island and districts in our region that have moved to three-foot minimum distancing of their students and is that type of evidence that led to that report that so many people are talking about out of Harvard and that recommended ele elementary schools move to three- foot of distancing even at high rates of community transmission but transmission is not zero in these studies and the mitigation in in place in these schools that are being studied also vary a lot so I don't want to say there's a single study that answers the
020question about what schools should do right now but the evidence is growing to say that schools are far safer than certainly what many thought last summer right now we're still seeing relatively High rates of Co in our County but rates have improved dramatically over the past few weeks in our County and our district and in the region the snowstorm earlier last week could have had some impact on the really nice reduction that we saw in rates last week um but I don't think the snowstorm explains the whole thing because our positivity rate also went down in our County last week which is a sign of whether there is enough testing being done so all of that is encouraging I know there's concern about Co variants and what that means for schools I know that is
021what has been universally true during Co is there's always another threat on the horizon but we still have to start planning our next steps as Co will not be gone anytime soon and if at some point we take a step forward and are forced to take a step back that always remains a possibility during this pandemic our district has very aggressive measures in place including Universal masking which is not necessarily the case in schools overseas and some other states I think that partly explains why we've had so much success at limiting Transmission in schools we also will soon have a testing program that you'll hear about from our guests from chop this evening with the goal of adding a new layer of protection so how do we move forward in this discussion the board asked
022Dr Palmer and the administration to prepare a plan for return to full-time instruction along with a timeline and that is how we got to March when we look at the rest of the school year we have about three and a half weeks of school in March we have 11 weeks of school after spring break if I reviewed the calendar correctly and planning and switching can't happen overnight it's not a light switch that can just be turned on one day and you'll hear about a lot of the work that goes into this transition this evening but what I do feel now it is time to start the conversation if we want to consider a change during this school year we have to make some decisions about where we want to go as a district sooner rather
023than later and that is what we promised we would do at the beginning of the year is continually revisit our plans I know our community has been very divided on this question we have gotten a ton of communication I promise you we've heard very varying perspectives uh with views on both sides of this issue so we will be discussing this plan but we will not be voting this evening again we will survey our parents after this meeting and have those results before our next meeting now I do want to say and bear with me I know my comments are long these are all important things I want to say um I do want to say a word about the survey we had originally intended on two surveys one this week just to get a sense
024of likely choices as well as parent views and then another after the next meeting on actual choices and I've had a lot of discussions with Dr Palmer and Miss wman over the last few days and what we really need to know in order to complete this planning effort and to make a good decision is actual parent choices so that we know the implications of making a change so we will ask our parents for a decision this week um but we will also ask for parent views on that same survey um and so again no decision has been made yet my mind is wide open I want to hear from our families I know this whole board wants to hear from our families but it's very difficult to make this decision without understanding exactly the full
025implications of implementation and the only way to do that is to really ask our parents to make a choice right now so we know how to make a good decision that's in the interest of the whole District in this debate there is no right or wrong I hope people realize there is no winning or losing let's have a thoughtful discussion gather more information and I believe we can make the best decision possible I know that all my fellow board members are all trying to do what is best for the students of Wallingford sopore School District so thank you for listening to these comments I look forward to the discussion we're going to have this evening and with that um I would like to move into our Focus topic discussion which is the elementary transition plan
026so we do have uh our team here in the district uh to present present but before we do that um Dr ruin and Dr coffin from chop uh Dr ruin runs policy lab and has been very involved in many discussions both nationally and locally uh around school policies as has Dr coffin who's an infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia so Dr Ruben maybe we could start with you um I'm hoping you could maybe start this discussion off this evening uh perhaps sharing an assessment of where we are in the pandemic in our region our County and how you thinking about schools reopening further yeah thanks for those introductory comments uh Dave um you know I think you you really pointed out in those introductory comments something that we ascribed to and Dr
027coffin has joined us as well um at chop we have a team uh you know when we have our blog that comes out every week that's not just a product of you know what folks I might think it policy we have a full team that includes multiple people from our infectious disease division Dr coff and leads that group um with a diversity of opinions trying to navigate what we're learning and what we still do not yet know about what is a novel Corona virus and uh we're still going through this pandemic that said we've always kind of thought about this pandemic in 68 we blocks and and and prepared to incorporate new evidence remain Nimble to the time that we were in and I think you you really nicely summarized the different phases the concerns
028late in summer without any evidence on transmission with some Rising rates before Labor Day about not moving too quickly uh to give yourself a longer Runway areas in the Midwest actually went straight into school and then uh had uh much earlier Peaks not just in school but you know um but among their youth but also among just their communities at large they open very quickly in the fall uh we were able to mostly make it very close to the holidays and you know and and and that may have been a product of of a little bit of patience in early fall um that gave us a little bit longer Runway once we got started once we got started we recognized uh what we know is true um that these safety plans that we have developed
029have worked extremely well particularly at at low and even higher incidents um to protect against in school linked transmission much of the transmission we've seen and that's now been confirmed in multiple studies uh has occurred out of school among staff out of school and the activities sometimes with each other after the school day um Youth Sports has been a real challenge uh particularly outside the context of the school day um uh particularly when safety protocols have not uh been followed as well um and you know e in within the school day even when there have been clusters it's been most you know some smaller clusters particularly when safety protocols have been followed well of maybe student to student transmission and occasional staff to staff let's say in a break room Etc but very infrequent uh
030student to staff transmission which for the you know uh which has been reassuring and for families out there in your school Community um we have not seen widespread outbreaks under most circumstances much of the data that we have uh particularly that's been peer-reviewed goes through late fall um uh right before the surge after Halloween Halloween uh was the turning point in the uh in the fall pandemic within a week or two uh it was like a hurricane coming in for those that remember our positivity even among kids particularly older youth uh dramatically increased very quickly and and I I do believe there's still a question at very high case incidents I do believe outbreaks did occur they weren't everywhere um but there were certainly and there have continued to be some some uh LinkedIn School
031cases they're rare and certainly as cases are now declining we've gone through a very difficult winter now and as cases are now declining um I think the opportunity we always in our recommendations when we talked about a pause before for the holidays talked about reopening in January because we did not see the uh major Gatherings on the horizon and we uh presumed that we would eventually move past peak in January which we did and we've seen a nice decline in cases and hospitalizations um uh as we move toward spring and so now as we're considering the next six to8 week interval um I think it's an appropriate time to start thinking about planning and taking advantage of the window you may have and and reappraising your safety protoc calls uh by focusing on uh not
032relaxing but strengthening the things you know that work well masking hygiene keeping sick kids out of the school uh strong sort of protocols around your sports teams particularly around locker rooms you know on buses uh all the things that you know work well so that you give yourself a potential opportunity to make other choices around your safety plan to get closer uh to to a resumption of a normal school day as we move towards Spring and with the hope that that we still see declining incidents and I suspect we will I think there's a lot of optimism as we look forward in our models we've seen it for several weeks but there's also some uncertainty and the uncertainty has been a slower than desired rollout in vaccinations because of inventory particularly because of inventory challenges
033and and and these new concerns about varant strains and so part of our message to you tonight is is is plan as you're doing but also be patient and not act too quickly or or you know we we have a saying walk before you run don't do too many interventions at once and we're proud you know we're excited um to offer a testing program that will add another layer of mitigation to your schools and I'm going to have Dr coffen describe that in just a moment but I also want her to describe what we're learning about the variant strains and how they factor into our desire to be just a little bit cautious as we start to plan our next move so Dr coffin do you want to uh chime in here great thanks Dave
034um I won't spend a really long time talking about the variance in part because we don't have a lot of information but what we do know is that that um uh virus mutation is a normal phenomenon and so what we're go what's going on now and we're seeing um in multiple parts of the globe of of um new strains of the virus cropping up isn't to be um un isn't unexpected what catches everyone's attention is that there are signals and they're not terrific signals but there are definite signals that some of these strains may be more easily passed personto person and with that lots of questions how does this alter our um understanding of current prevention protocols how does this inform our future walk back um as we get to low levels of virus um
035and how do we do that safely having uh not experienced um uh outbreaks with this um these new strains so like Dave said I think there are things that we can do to move ourselves forward taking advantage of low rates of um uh viral spread or falling rates of viral spread in our communities while remaining um cautious um and not pulling out all the stops um until we have a better understanding of where we are with the virus uh these variant viruses we do know that there um have been um at least a handful of isolations um of the uh the UK variant in our state um and that there are likely more the question we don't can't answer is how many more What proportion currently of all the test tested people are um having
036this variant virus and how will that change over the upcoming weeks um and so it's those pieces of information that we really crave before we accelerate our um move towards Spring and a move towards dramatic changes in how we approach um uh bringing kids in for um inperson learning um like Dave said I love the walk before you run metaphor um some of the things that I think um school districts that I've um spent more time talking with have a real advantage to do is to think about how can they maximally use their space while adhering to the six- foot distancing there may be a place to move between where you are now with your hybrid learning model and bringing more children back for more hours of instruction in the school um while still adhering
037to six feat and I definitely um would encourage um uh schools that do see that opportunity available to them to take good advantage of it now um and so that brings us uh to something specific that that um our team at chop has been working on which is adding an additional layer of assurance to existing safety plans that schools are using whether or not a school is um moving from all virtual to hybrid learning or trying to further their activities within hybrid learning and that has to do with using rapid um testing as a way to inform smart decision making to get achieve a couple of goals one is to minimize the frequency with which someone um uh who has an asymptomatic infection spends time in our school buildings um understanding that a um significant
038proportion of all infected people may actually be asymptomatic the second part of our testing program has to do with the early and appropriate diagnosis of Corona virus so we can make smart choices during the school day if a um staff member or a student comes down with um symptoms that look a lot like Corona virus rather than panic and send um this child home and say please call us as soon as you have your test results and knowing you're going to be sitting for 48 hours until those test results become available a rapid test performed at school gives us a chance to make a clear um decision yes this child has Corona virus we are going to have to um act um and engage our Public Health response um and do the appropriate quarantining or
039few this child does not have Corona virus the child still needs to go home they're feeling sick but we can continue our school day otherwise and we really think that this use of um uh these kind of paired um approaches to using rapid tests can provide both um confidence and actual additional safety um that will allow the school day to go on with um with less risk and people feeling happier and more confident in spending time at school so with that I'll I'll pause and um um I'm not sure um uh David how you want to go forward with um additional questions or comments sure thank you and um I'll look for hands in the room I'll look for hands up in the participant list on Zoom um I do want to start with a
040question which is you know essentially our district many other districts are all facing this question right now on February 8th of how to how to plan for the spring and as I mentioned earlier there's not like a quick switch to flip here and so what we're looking at is I I forget how many weeks but I think about five weeks from now takes us to mid-march um which is the timeline that we've been looking at and you know I guess the question is thinking about you know five or so weeks out into the future mid-march keeping all you know we're looking at keeping all of our very aggressive mitigation measures in place that we've been doing since the start of the Year we're looking at maintaining that full six feet of social distancing in high-risk
041settings like eating Mass off all those other types of things but in order to really bring kids back into the classroom our district and I think most other districts in order to repopulate the classrooms really need to relax on the six feet a little bit in order to achieve that and so you know I think that's the the fundamental question faing a lot of districts and you know I think as we talk about potentially backing off one measure slightly in the classroom when students are in desks and in full masks as being the only scenario where we look at kind of relaxing that a bit but also at the same time introducing another layer of protection with the testing program you know I guess I'm curious of your your reaction to that because as a
042practical matter it's hard to there's not a lot of other options in terms of how to bring kids back into the building with a with the space constraints that our our school has with the space constraints that I think a lot of other schools have so you know I I guess I would start to say you're not you you know you're not unique in that deliberation that's going on and I having worked with a lot of school districts throughout the area we're very familiar with this you know discussion that's going on and and and we've learned from our school district just how much planning goes into place and I think it's um suffice it to say I I think it's understandable that planning for a move you're not just going to turn on the switch
043in mid-march or in April we've urged patients to wait for warmer weather in spring because I think that plays to your advantage it also gives you a little time to absorb what the true impacts if any of the of the variants are going to be uh you could plan and and certainly kind of observe the case incidents and see whether the hypothesis that we've had that suggests that perhaps we're not going to see another big surge actually comes true so you just need to plan around I think for many districts it's just the decision of timing is that mid mid-march or is that April you know coming back from spring break uh how much time do you want to observe just to be careful but I think the uh we've always felt optimistic and particularly
044in in the recent weeks that if we continue to observe the case incidents declines and in the context of now adding an assurance testing program that particularly in our elementary school kids a resumption of a normal school day was possible I'm just gonna ask one other question then I'll see if other board members wna want to chime in um you know with the introduction of more more access to testing I guess um you know potentially opens up the opportunity not necessarily for in school testing but also you know kids who are out on quarantine who've you know been potentially exposed in school like if we were to start to repopulate classrooms and the availability of more widespread testing it seems like it would be a little easier to start to find early signals of potential
045Transmission in schools whereas we haven't really had that uh early signal up to this point absolutely you have two you know you have two aspects and uh you know Dr coffen can mention this too I mean number one you're going to be doing you know under our program the weekly Assurance testing of Staff um and so that's a signal you'll watch to see you know we've seen you know in a very similar District up in lower Maran we've seen very inre infrequent asymptomatic infection we found it a few times and and the value of viral reduction not elimination you never eliminate all risk but we've been able to remove some potentially contagious individuals infrequent and it's added it's alleviated anxiety among the staff and the um and the school Community just to see how infrequent
046it was and uh and created a lot of optimism there and I suspect the same would happen in your own District you know one of the use you know we also uh you know um have a number of districts that may start testing kids out of quarantine based on CDC recommendations uh that negative tests at seven days could be used um for children who remain asymptomatic and we're encouraging uh a number of districts who may be interested to think about that as a use case because as you start over the next month and a half or wherever you know where your current state for those uh students who might be identified in the school setting for whom you quarantine students in nearby desks if you're seeing very infrequent or no infections testing out of quarantine
047or um um that will be helpful and create that Baseline Trend that as you start to make changes in the spring um if you continue to see infrequent infection the the the um the the question that's not been reliably answered is as you move within six feet but you're wearing the mask how much protection does that offer and I would rather see some more declining incidents to put you on the better side of that but then you're testing out a quarantine will also help you see whether that uh test the assumptions um uh as you move forward and we'll have data coming from multiple districts that are doing that I think that'll help in in terms of the decision making thank you uh Dr Huff so I just I I just want a little bit
048more clarity on who we are testing so so if I understand it correctly we're doing weekly testing of the teachers and only symptomatic testing of students is that accurate let me have Dr coffen walk through all the te walk through all the uh our recommendations for testing yeah so we um try and uh split things into two different buckets one is asymptomatic testing and that's the the quote unquote Assurance testing making sure that people who don't have symptoms don't have hidden infection for that what we're recommending is that teachers and student facing staff so people who are in the buildings or driving buses or helping kids get to and fro school um participate and we really do encourage near full participation and every District gets there in their own way but this isn't something for
049people to opt in and opt out um of um back and forth um that testing um uh would be weekly um and um uh again we're kind of looking for negative tests making sure people are all negative the other population in which we're currently encouraging schools to think about including are um kids who are coming to school who have sensory issues or other special um educational needs that make them unable to wear Mas masks that's another group where um we think that a weekly Assurance testing um uh application could be a good thing for um both the the um students and their families as well as for for the teachers and AIDS in that classroom so that's the Assurance weekly testing the symptomatic testing um we focus on anybody who gets new onset symptoms during
050the school day while at school so um could be a student could be a teacher could be some you know num another member of the school staff and there our idea is to quickly figure out who's got Corona virus amongst somebody who looks like they have Corona virus recognizing that not everybody who's got the snipples is going to end up with Corona virus um and um uh with that um you know it could be just one or two tests a day you could have four or five tests a day that it individual School nurser or the Proctor at that site might be doing um and so I I hope that helps kind of clarify the two different approaches to testing and and populations to be tested thank you that that's that's helpful we have other
051questions uh Jerry Jerry you're muted so a little clarification on who administers the test on for all the kind of testing the school nurse for each so um this is a test that does not need to be administered by a medical professional or someone with um um medical training it does need to be administered by somebody who has been trained and we have a three-step training program that we um uh for people involved in our program we insist that people participate in there also needs to be an onsite Medical Professional um uh providing some some um uh oversight of a testing site but the we have tested coaches or we've trained coaches we have uh trained um administrative staff um as well as many School nurses to do um uh to do the test what's
052particularly exciting I think is we designed this program to not interfere with the school day to make it as easy for families and staff to participate onsite in your schools um to kind of get cut through the red tape uh to make it very easy to administer the program on a School site and to very easily report the results up to Public Health and that's no small feet because of just how complicated their systems can be and the early experience as we're growing quickly now through the region has been extremely positive in terms of uh both how how easily this is they've been able to adapt this process into the school day um but in addition uh just how how much anxiety it truly has alleviated Marilyn yeah I do have one more question because
053I know that there has been um the CDC administrator made a statement recently and then there's also been talk about um the CDC coming out with some guidance sometime soon for schools and reopening and I'm wondering if um since I'm sure you guys follow that uh more closely than most if you could give us um maybe an idea of what kind of guidance not the details but what kind of guidance we might want we might be expecting um well I you know I'm not privy to to the detailed guidance what I can tell you is that there is a um uh a focus on the tried and true um basic measures there's a discussion of the potential role of um two additional strateg iies um vaccination and testing and also the recognition that at this
054moment none of those strategies can allow us to walk back in a significant way things like masking Etc um yeah and you know I think that you have to you know interpret I mean the the guidance in CDC has been consistent around six feet and I don't I think that's based on pretty sound evidence in terms of transmission I like I said the qu unanswered questions risk of transmission within six feet if both individuals are wearing masks and for how long that remains the topic of debate that said I mean it's public health guidance and and we have viewed our multi-layered safety plans from the perspective of if you are going to walk through that threshold or go through that threshold is to boost your other measures and that includes testing and reinforcing the things
055you know that work well thank you um Dr Ruben Dr coffin thank you so much for being with us um I did want to actually follow up to that specific point about the the other safety mitigation measures and what within that context do you find to be is there any one thing that stands out aside from the masking that is particularly important and curious in particular about um disinfection of surfaces and what the current science says about risk of of uh Contracting Corona virus from surfaces um and any comments too on um on uh ventilation that you might be able to share with us so I'll make a couple of com goad and then I'll make a comment about a couple things I've observed over the seasons so um uh I think um if you
056were going to lighten up on anything lightening up on your environmental cleaning um would be a place to do that I was just told told about a school district that has assigned a um um uh environmental service worker to to go around and wipe the backs of chairs every time somebody stands up um and that's not a good use of time nor does it address risk I think the focus on um keeping the environment generally clean um uh on places that are on spots that are high touch is reasonable but really underlying that the virus is not going to come off of the door knob um uh and cause an infection unless somebody's hand goes to the from the doorknob to their nose their mouth or their eyes um and so moving the focus from
057environmental cleaning to hand cleaning is a is a reasonable way to to shift that um mask wearing I think we understand is critically important but there are so many opportunities to improve the quality of mask wearing um I think David and I both chuckle as we go through the hospital seeing way too many noses hanging out of masks um seeing people thinking that somehow their chin needs to be protected by a mask or sometimes just wearing a really flimsy thin mask people I still see people wearing bandanas and Gators not not worthwhile um and so I think really upping the antie and emphasizing you know when we say wear a mask we want you to wear a good quality mask and we want you to wear it correctly um and then the last questions around
058ventilation these are tough they've been incredibly cont enous um they are at the heart of a lot of um disputes right now um what we know is that there are many many um examples of school systems who have been unable to um uh do substantial changes to existing and often old HVAC systems who have not put in air purifiers who have not added UV light who have not H had um windows open in minus 20 degree weather who have successfully mitigated risk in schools by again really emphasizing the basics and so again and again you want to fatten up and thick and toughen up your layers that you have the best control of particularly if there's a layer that of um prevention you have less control about yeah I'll add a couple of my observations
059I mean you know I I I like to say that you know 80 90% of of all the protection comes from masking and spacing kids out um and then keeping sick people out of the school right those are the the the backbone and how you know these other things are adjunctive hygiene's really important you know the ventilation is really an adjunctive measure you do it if you can um but it's not we don't we've never considered that to be the primary uh in what we do and then and then I would you know encourage you you know what you have the advantage you have right now as you're moving into warmer weather spacing kids out is going to be easier you can move kids back outdoors and uh uh again and take advantage of outdoor
060space as you move into spring and then declining incidents has always been your friend everything about the fall starting later what we went through in the fall was with the knowledge of the seasonality of this virus and that we were going to face this historical surge that was going to potentially overwhelm hospitals in many regions and I have to tell you as hard as it was in the Philadelphia region we saw half the rates of what they saw in the midwest I'm actually proud of the way a lot of our communities handled themselves how strong our our schools worked and as devastating as it was we never uh exceeded the capacity or had to set up a field Hospital in our backyard and a lot of that is because of the smart decisions at the
061right moments about whether to you know to go remote or not and when to kind of pick it back up and keep moving forward and so now you're facing the op the opportunity at declining incidents your risk for error or your potential for error even in a moment when people slip up goes down because there's few PE fewer people knocking at the door and that's what creates such a great opportunity as we move into spring you're much better about your protocols um but then you have this potential uh with warming weather uh declining incidents to really uh kind of give yourself a Fighting Chance as you try to get back to normal school day because eventually we're going to have to accommodate and I think I I'm one of those people that believes the worst
062is beyond us um it doesn't mean we're going to not see other moments where we see some bumps um or or continued uh cases in our community but I I believe the worst we have just encountered and I'm hopeful that if we're smart about the next six to eight weeks we can continue to see the declines we need to kind of uh uh move into uh which should hopefully be a nice spring and and summer Jen hi Dr Ruben hi Dr coffin thanks for being back here with us um I just have a couple of questions I was I was listening to the Midwest I I just want to make sure that I also um hear you correctly when you say that when you're saying that they they had some some different experiences out there
063than we did but they they as best I know a lot of those areas also had different communities on the whole when they had different guidelines and rules General that may have also contributed to those instances and those Rising incidences out in the midwest as um such as controversy over masks in schools businesses opening bars opening restaurants opening um at least that's that's what I read when I I just want to get away from the idea that it wasn't you can't disentangle yeah other things but there were some there you know when you look at the Chicago area and what they went through I I don't think you can just describe it to a lack of of uh you know they're not that dissimilar from our region in terms of composition and so you know
064I do think we have to accept I'm not I'm not laying at the doorstep of school certainly not okay yeah I'm not I I don't want to say that the schools are responsible for for what happened but I want to say that our vigilance as communities you know and in general you know when we went back and reviewed some of the data recently from the fall we we saw that right with within a couple weeks before Thanksgiving that's when that moment hit right after Halloween people changed and transmission rates went down and it's because I think people became more Vigilant and um and I think we did better than than many other areas of the country and I and we just want to continue on that trajectory uh you know take advantage of the opportunities
065in front of us and then try to get back to what we see as normal but do it in a thoughtful way by taking by making incremental progress that's all I'm saying yeah thank you I I knew that when you were saying it there was several factors but I just wanted to make sure that the me that that message was also being carried through um and then you know as as Dr Grandy said in his opening remarks you know we've been walking and we've had tremendous success in our walking so far this year from a health and safety standpoint um this doesn't include all of them but just going back to the precautions you talked about we do the masks we do the PP and the handwashing and I think we're going to hear a
066lot about our ventilation systems and that they're not Antiquated like maybe some other people are um some other schools are dealing with uh no sharing of items and I believe the plan we're going to hear about is going to talk about keeping kids six feet at lunch so since we've been walking so well I guess I'm I'm so excited to hear about this testing that's going to be done so regularly through your program it seems like that is a piece that is being added that for for no fault of anyone's has been missing prior till now that could really add so much to what we've been contending with this mystery of of virus and I know that as a board member that's tremendously exciting for me to really hear Dr coff and talk about that
067and flush that out and make that available to us so so thank you first of all and thank you for talking about it with us and helping us who are not in the medical Arena to understand that a little bit more um um it sounds like um from all of these different measures that we've talked about that I don't think anyone's going to contest that we have in place that and with the planning the weeks of planning we have coming up that it it may not be unreasonable to pick up our Pace a little bit and start our running um from what you're saying and I I think that that's it's great it's great news it's really great news I wanted to know if each of you could talk a little bit about um who
068you were before before covid came to most of us we know you as Dr coffin and Dr Ruben Ruben who are um from the chop policy lab talking us about Co but I'm sure you were people before that I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about what you do and help um the lay people uh which is me understand uh some of your experiences and how you came to um how you came to be part of the chop policy lab on Co for us during this pandemic Susan do you want us you want to take that first I'll I'll I'll take it I'll leave it leave you to do cleanup um I'm a pediatric infectious disease physician I've um been working at chop for over 25 years um for the past
069probably 20 20 years 15 to 20 years my area of expertise and specialization has been infection control and Hospital epidemiology um which um made me prior to covid the last person that somebody would get excited about talking to at a at a cocktail party when I said my work um but um has all of a sudden become interesting to people um and so this is really I've spent a lot of time working on pandemic influenza planning I work um uh in the city um Department of Public Health initially in their their Healthcare infections branch and now just more broadly um and um uh transmission of viruses um burdens of disease in communities interrupting transmission these are the things that For Better or For Worse I've spent a lot of time thinking about and for better
070for worse this is you know for me a really you know interesting challenging uh time to to kind of flex my um uh intellectual muscles to to address a very new and different challenge um so yeah and I'll add that you know my background I'm actually uh um you I'm a general pediatrician I I still see patients uh as well um at one of our chop practices um but I have a background in epidemiology I'm uh I was trained in epid epidemiology at pen I also uh was board certified in child abuse P Pediatrics and spent a lot of time in my early part of my career working with the child welfare system before moving into broader issues of population Health which really looks at the organization of our services for children across the region
071um certainly uh tackles issues of Health Equity um and uh and also the intersection of our programs and the policies we have uh for children um a lot of my my work early has been over my career around what I call local area variation that that if you want to understand what's happening with Children and Families you need to look very locally and and the reason we started this effort back in March and April was because National models and state models um actually uh did not tell the story for every community and Broad uh broad policy action did not give the flexibility for communities like your own to make individual decisions about policy when to open schools how quickly to open for certain types of services when to resume normal activities Sports all the all
072these other things our county level models have been very helpful um to have to try to achieve a more balanced approach for making those decisions that give a lot a lot of local communities the data that they need our school guidance has tried to um to uh provide a middle ground uh of what we know and what we don't know to try to help people navigate what are very uncertain you know uh a very uncertain time um and then the and then beginning around November you know we we pivoted to to to not only creating the guidance but actually adding programs we thought that would uh create like you said an additional layer um what we we like to call our testing program people you know we're thrilled about vaccinations and they and they can't
073come quick enough but to not underestimate the value of testing as an as going on offense against this virus um and uh and and adding a really strong mitigation later so all the all the stuff we've worked on is really sort of the reflection of a career of doing this work and it's been a um a terrific reward to work with my partners in infectious disease like Dr C often along the way right uh any other questions okay um so it sounds like you know again I know that this is a very difficult needle to thread uh in terms of laying out a a series of steps but from what I'm hearing if we were to continue to see significant reductions in our cases we get closer to Spring launch a testing program there could
074be a window there to start to look at some increased densities if we're seeing lots of positive signals um it sounds like in the interim there'll be some insights maybe that you all develop from some of the testing that happens out out of school for kids in quarantine to see to the extent that we're not seeing transmission that somehow we we thought wasn't occurring but confirming that it's not occurring the answer is yes um we remain optimistic and hopeful um I think that's the message here tonight uh but it requires patience and always you know CO's proven to us several times just to be nimble and to to always be looking for the data that you didn't expect and so but I do think there's a lot of optimism from our team tonight tonight that
075there are windows of opportunity opening up as you move to Spring great well always have the plan B As you move forward with your your your plan a make sure you don't abandon you know the plan B um we taught ourselves that lesson time and time again um that that your backup plans can and will be useful to you that we know trust me the whole universe has learned that lesson yeah exactly so you know the good news is I think our our plan B in some sense is what we have now that's been very robust for us and I think Plan B is about to get better with testing and so uh we will always have that uh at our disposal so uh thank you very much I'm gonna let you guys go before
076we have our administrative team come on unless for some reason you decide you want to sit for a very long discussion which I don't imagine you do uh but we very much appreciate you uh sharing your time with us good luck everyone thank you thank you all right um you okay let me uh introduce then Dr uh citarelli Jones uh who will kick off our presentation from our team about uh Elementary transition uh good evening and thank you for having us here tonight I'm going to take you through several slides and the team I'm tall AJ and the team that I have with me today has been part of the investigation team that has been taking a look at what our options are moving forward and so I'm going to introduce the team to you
077and go around so we have Gabe Savage who is the principal of West Elementary School we have Megan Mulla who is our director of um Behavioral Services and we have um Al heinley who is our principal at NP that elementary school and we have Angela tuck who is the principal of SRS Elementary School and right behind me we have Nora wheeler who is our director of instructional technology and right behind me is Gina Ross who is our director of student services and acts um as a pandemic coordinator for our pandemic learning team and I'm Denise Celli Jones I'm the Director of Education so in consideration of returning the elementary students to a full in-person learning model the Schoolboard tasked the administration and specifically this team with an investigation of the feasibility of such a change
078along with a timeline should the Schoolboard decide to make a change so tonight this investigation team will share the work of our investigation to help inform parental decisions on an upcoming survey the work in these areas is ongoing and as we will show later in our timeline will make it possible to transition to a full in-person learning model should the Schoolboard decide to make such a change what we're looking at are two options possible for the wssd elementary learning model outside of the Online Academy which will not change option one is a change to full in-person learning for K to5 students with an increase of student in-person days from two full days to four and a half days in person with no less than three feet of social distance option two is to remain in
079the current hybrid model with 50% of the students at one time in cohorts learning for two full days in school two full days of Zoom learning and one asynchronous day with six foot social distance so I want to take you through the full in-person model presuming that the general public understands what the current model is so I will not be sharing what the current model is I really will be focusing and the team will be Focus focusing on what the full in-person model might look like in this model students would attend school for full days Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday and a half a day on Wednesdays that would happen in the morning and that is where we get our four four and a half days of Total in-person Learning full instruction the daily schedule
080for full inperson will like stay the same right now we're investigating our options for our specials classes so that's not something we can announce at this time we need to do a little more work with that and the elementary education committee meeting in fact we have a meeting this Wednesday and we'll be discussing those also it should be noted that the instructional minutes between the full inperson and the Online Academy learning models will be Equitable this is important for Point number three which is an adherence to the learning outcomes the learning outcomes are those standards that are both mandated by the state and that we have had in our programs all along those standards and learning outcomes will continue to be similarly paced and achieved between both the Online Academy and a full in-person model
081I want to talk about Wednesdays as soon as this advances there we go for the Wednesdays we are looking at a morning of in-person learning during that time students would attend that half day and they would follow the half day schedule it's the same schedule we would do if we had an early dismissal or another type of half day the AM and PM kindergarten students still attend I really want to stress that I've had some parents reach out and say if you're just in the morning that only am Elementary will come in that is not true both the am and the PM kindergarteners will come in also because we leave at the half day Mark the lunch is not served on Wednesdays the second half of Wednesday is asynchronous learning at home this is what
082our students are very used to doing asynchronous learning at home they will continue to complete work assignments through Google classroom and seesaw K2 for uh seesaw and 3 to five for Google Classroom this is also where our te teachers will attend the same types of meetings that they've been attending now for I asynchronous Wednesdays these are the critical IEP meetings the professional development sessions we're offering this is their technology time this is the time for them to work in collaborative planning if you think back to a slide ago when I said that Online Academy and the full in-person learning what's hybrid learning now those teachers are staying on Pace those teachers are talking about and deciding on learning outcomes common across both modalities and they have to talk about how they can stay paced with
083one another so that when we graduate a class of third graders let's say they are in significantly the same place as they would be if they had been together so that when they come into fourth grade we don't have differences between the two different modalities of learning lastly we need to keep Wednesdays as an option in the event that the state does not wave the pssa the state did not wave the Keystone so if they stay on Trend they will not wave the pssa we will need to test those third fourth and fifth graders who in the Online Academy and there is no test at home option that means we will need to bring kids into the buildings in order to do testing and we will need a synchronous time in order to do that
084because then we would have every student in the building and that's not something we can guarantee a three-foot social distance so that's built into that time in fact we may even need to do full asynchronous days we'll we'll see what what happens when we get there in terms of attendance and zoom what we're looking at is that students with a need to quarantine or students with a doctor's note for an illness Beyond three days so past three days would be permitted to attend classes via Zoom when we say attend classes we are saying for core instruction however some parents may prefer for their students to zoom for the entire time and this will be dealt with on a case-by casee basis but with a student who has an illness under that three-day Mark we would
085revert to what we have done in the past which is that our teachers will have support for those students typical of those absences that happened in years prior so that is a little bit of a change um in terms of what we're used to and it will decrease the amount of time that students will need to be learning via Zoom so that's going to be important component that the administration feels pretty strongly about in order to guarantee that we're going to have really concentrated teaching that happens in the classroom and also to guarantee that students are doing as much of their learning in person as possible oh sorry you're changing it I'm changing I'm gonna turn um this over now to Nora wher who's going to talk a little bit about technology in the classroom
086thank you Denise and good evening um I think we all know right now the integration of technology has been critical um and it remains so even when students come back into the classroom and so this plan would uh ask for students to bring charge devices to schools daily in order to access activities um integrated into different subjects throughout the day um most importantly the continued integration of uh seesaw and Google Classroom as he said which are our Management systems that we use in K2 and 35 um of course we envisioned teachers will be able to uh increasingly so go back to some of the traditional uh methodologies uh and activities that merely require a book a piece of paper a pencil a crayon all of which are extremely important in the elementary experience and I
087would argue up through uh high school as well but we want to continue to provide student choice and voice um that is uh available through Innovative options uh as well as to be able to continue to integrate the digital tools that we've been using um quite well throughout this and and I think more and more C the Val will have even Beyond uh the pandemic um we have uh the ability to collaborate uh digitally where we don't have our kids necessarily in small groups right now but technology allows us to have kids continue to collaborate uh through the device that they have um in addition we want to um continue to limit the use of shared materials whether those be manipulatives printed resources or assignments being done in partners and in small groups and the
088iPads and chrome Chromebooks allow us to do that um and make those possible um in this environment um so that is uh key to why we see bringing those devices to school each day not the charger but the actual devices to school every day is going to be critically important uh as we move forward at this point I'm going to turn things over to uh Dr Mola thanks Nora good evening um I'm Dr Megan McCullen I'm just going to talk a little bit from the student service perspective AJ can you advance thank you um student services just as Dr citelli Jones was saying aims to keep our learning outcomes the same and to minimize the disruption for students particularly who struggle with transition and change so it's important to know that 504s IEP and gips
089will continue to be implemented however um the one thing that we do need to have considered is that if this if we were to return to all in-person learning um there might have to be some changes to case managers or to related service providers simply because of scheduling we are at this point able to keep Personal Care Assistance or onetoone assistance assignments for students the same they will remain unchanged and we will be able to implement Passa through the dlm um through through May implementation for that which is the adapted Passa testing or um pssa testing will be able to implement through May and we'll be able to do in-person testing for that even if a family were to choose to go to the Online Academy so with that I'm going to turn it over
090to my co-director Gina Ross who's going to talk a little bit about health and safety hi good evening as we were tasked with the um the goal of looking at what 100% all back in for four and a half days would look like we really sat down and looked at the health and safety plan and the health and safety insurances so the next couple of slides I'll be able to review what that would look like in that model the first is that we have clearly said that students will be no less than 3 feet distance however there are some caveats to That Snack mask breaks and lunch would remain at a six foot anytime students needed to remove their masks they would then be placed at six feet rather than the three feet in terms
091of cohorting at recess time we talked a lot a couple of um board meetings ago when we first looked at the health and safety plan about what recess would look like students will continue to be cohorted at different areas on the recess playgrounds based on their classroom so before they were A or B by their classroom now it would just be a larger section the elementary principles and I have been looking very closely at how do we need to manipulate that environment so our blacktop tends to be our smaller area looking at can we cone off can we barricade certain areas to make that larger but protocols will still be in place balls will be assigned to different cohorts they'll be sanitized in between use things like that in terms of special areas this is
092one area that we're still debating still looking at and a lot of it will come down to the schedule that's finally developed as we move forward special areas may be held within those special classes or they may come to The Home Room areas the other option as Dr Rubin said we're coming into warmer weather so again you'll see tents on grounds and we'll have that option to have classes outside such as PE music things like that the next area deals with the hallways and the stairways we have previously indicated and we will continue to indicate that we will be staggering schedules to ensure that there are less number of individuals in the hallway or stairway at any given time one thing that we're currently working on is the protocols for drop off and pickup we
093know that the vast majority of our parents have moved away from the busing and to dropping their students off and that has caused the backup as we come together between A and B cohort that will increase the number of cars in line so we're going to be looking very closely at how can we schedule that and ensure that we are not backing up into um the public streets additionally we'll be looking at when students are coming in so pre currently students come in in our space six feet we'll be looking at expanding the areas that we utilize and students will be spaced three feet apart just as they would be in the classroom another area is talking about additional PPE so you heard Dr ruin talk about um if you're decreasing how can you bolster
094there students will continue to have access to masks to Shields to hand sanitizer to disinfecting wipes sprays for staff same thing for staff members will have access to that however the district is currently working to acquire clear Cubbies so that students can have them stationed on their desk as an added layer we do have other um PPE that is available to our high-risk students and staff and that those conversations have been going on with building Administration and with our HR office and we would continue to have those conversations finally I want to talk about the topic that Dr Rubin um and Dr Koffman spent a lot of time talking about as we move forward looking at any type of more students coming back we will be continuing to contact tce So currently when there is
095a positive case and that student has been within the district whether it be practice an activity or school within the 48 hours prior to symptom offset or test positive results um that we keep we contact chice and we identify if there are any close contacts and that's when the community and the close contacts receive letters we will continue that we will also continue that if you are a individual who is either a probable or a positive case you will isolate for 10 days that is the current recommendation the second side of that is quarantining so if you are a close contact the district is currently implementing quarantining for 14 days there is an alternative approach that Dr Rubin and Dr Kaufman talked about where you can test that day seven and then you can come
096back as the district moves forward with the binax testing which we expect to have in place within the next three weeks our our nursing department will be finally the three tier tested and um complete that evaluation and then we will be able to move forward we're working on the plans for that once we're able to test individuals then we as a district may make the decision to move to the alternative quarantine however at this point we're staying at 14 days as I said we're moving towards the binex testing the binex testing is a rapid test it is not at the level of a PCR but is a good indicator so we are looking to start with staff and we hope as Dr Koffman said that we have a high number of Staff members participating because
097that's how this can be most successful we would like to start there and then we would like to expand potentially to our athletes there were other groups that Dr Kaufman spoke about and they would be down the line as a possible consideration but it's not where we're starting right away we know that this will be a major undertaking and our nursing department is ready for it and they're planning for it and we will do as I indicated expect to have that in place in the next 3 to four weeks I will turn it over to Ferg Abbott to further discuss thank you so as we have been doing we will continue to provide hand sanitizer disinfectant and alcohol wipes at all the locations so if you go into any one of our classrooms any one
098of our offices you will see those three there alcohol wipes are in a tub uh hand sanitizer is in a bottle similar to you as a board member what you have in front of you except much larger and then also the disinfectant which are in squirt bottles in all locations we are cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces regularly in each one of our schools there will be somebody going around during the day spraying down a surfaces surfaces that are frequently touched also at night in addition to our normal cleaning process a uh the staff that's here at night that are charged with cleaning the buildings thoroughly after each academic day they are cleaning the surfaces and then they will also squirt down the frequently touched surfaces with disinfectant twice weekly we do whole building disinfection
099what that what that involves is using an electric static sprayer and what this device will do is it will charge the particles it will charge the disinfectant that comes out so that that disinfectant is um attracted to the surface so every Wednesday night and every Friday night they go around with these units spraying down all classrooms all areas um that can be accessed and we encourage all our staff to move papers aside th on those evenings and on every evening so that we can spray those surfaces down we're also doing that on the um outside playground equipment during the day the custodians will go out there at least once a day with these electrostatic sprayers to spray down the equipment the gems the jungle gyms we have outside drinking fountains are closed our bottle fillers
100are open but the drinking fountains are closed anything that's shared whether it be materials or play toys they're being disinfected after each use we monitor the building climate conditions daily between the H HVAC technician that the school district employed and myself we are looking at units throughout the district to make sure that things are operating effectively now we always rely on staff to tell us if something's not working right it's too cold it's too warm but we're going through and monitoring the um the levels such as humidity level although things are dry right now we're monitoring how much fresh air is coming into the systems as well we have increased our fresh air intake intake by adjusting these hva systems and opening Windows when the outside weather permits we can adjust these HVAC units either
101manually or the vast majority of them are adjusted via the computer to allow more fresh air to come in and if you've done research the more fresh air the better the more air circulation the better now I'd like to get into a little bit of Weeds on an HVAC unit in a classroom you have an individual unit typically that controls the air in a classroom we also have systems that operate on a wider scale that bring in fresh air so there isn't just one unit controlling the climate in this room for example there are a couple units in one of our buildings we actually have three units that do that so it's not just one and I say that because of that fresh air coming in and also we've increased the amount of of air
102circulation that takes place we've increased the ventilation by turning things on earlier keeping them on later so that way we're creating air circulation before people arrive to the building and once they leave we've had systems in the past that didn't run all year long because we didn't need them to run they're running now and in our large area units we're increasing the um the filter rate we're putting in a d filter now I will say if you've done research on this you got to be careful with that because if you increase the medium of a filter it's harder to push air through it and the whole and one of the keys here is to have high air circulation so we're monitoring those as we put them in we monitor them last summer also the HVAC
103technician and myself went through every building we went through every different type of room we had in every one of our buildings to take a look at those areas that um to take a look at what's happening in each type of area in some of our smaller areas we may not have had enough ventilation we've added HEPA units in those areas coming this Wednesday because we are considering this change to 100% in we have a third-party vendor coming out to take a look at this possible transition and um provide suggestions if any uh for what we would do thank you so I want to talk a little bit about um the fact that this implies change and in terms of the education plan there are certainly changes that will have to be made that the
104teachers will have to make certainly in their classrooms and we understand that there are changes that will be needed for things like space and safety but even our instructional methodologies how we have small group instruction we'll have to change when we have large groups how we distribute materials these are things that teachers have to think and rethink and plan and test we have to look about how do we do Active Learning how are we going to give our tests how are we going to give our quizzes how are we going to do our project based assessments how will we do science labs we also have to look at classroom library book sharing that is a really big Cornerstone of our Ela program in our classrooms we have to think about specials and so much more
105when we talk about it's not just flipping a switch and that it's easy every nuance and decision that we've made in the hundred years that lie before this point those were decisions that were made over time that were tested and retested and we finally honed it into a perfect craft we don't just immediately come up with the best new ways to do it on Research that does not exist on how to do pandemic learning so what we're really asking for as an administrative staff is that everybody exercises a little bit of patience as we continually brainstorm and evaluate these problems to create Solutions and that is not to say that it it matters in the the timeline whenever we would come back to full inperson learning during this pandemic time we will have to solve
106these problems and we will solve them whenever that timeline would happen but I just really encourage everybody to have patience when it comes time because our teachers really are problem solving deeply and also at the speed of light and that's a big ask I'm going to share with you the timeline um this is what we were tasking with and I think the words were sort of an aggressive timeline what could be the most aggressive timeline if the school board decided to move to a full inperson model and the following dates that I'm going to show you really represent our most feasible timeline for the necessary building education and transportation preparedness actions we have not compromised on quality it was important that we T us up for success rather than rushing and then potentially having flaws
107in the plan right now we're looking at a parent survey that will go out starting tomorrow that is a survey where parents will be making a choice it is not a preliminary survey as Dr gry talked about before we are changing it to a binding decision-making survey that ends on February 15th after that February 16th through the 19th you can see the short window there feedback enrollment and transportation data will be analyzed this is a big decision-making data point for the school board so to have that information earlier will help them with their decision on February 22nd there is a school board meeting two things could happen at that school board meeting either they schoolbd would bring forth a motion to move to a from the hybrid learning model to a full in-person model or
108the school board may decide not to make a change at this time and then no mo motion would come forward at that time in terms of our education and health and safety plan work there is work in progress there is work that began as soon as we were tasked with this there was work that continued today will continue tomorrow we'll continue through February 19th we keep working on this there's a certain sense of inevitability about students coming back to school at some point we have to be prepared for this last year March of 2020 we were not prepared this year March of 2021 we can be more prepared it's a matter of proactive actions so we are continuing to look at our health and safety in the classrooms the shared spaces the hallways the buses
109how can we optimize it we are going to analyze our schedules to make sure that we are staying on point with our learning outcomes one of the most important things that we can do here we are looking at our procedures for lunch recess arrival and dismissal and we're running them through tests remember that any procedure we come up with is theoretical we don't know how it will work until we begin to do it and as we do it we refine immediately it's a it's a constant scientific inquiry into how we do things well the last is that we have to have ongoing meetings between teachers staff Administration for these planning and procedures the more voices we can have the smoother it goes it's the reason we have an elementary education committee that has been in
110place for months so that we can immediately have feedback from teachers and so that they feel they have a voice in fact this group is probably one of the the best most healthy groups I've ever been a part of we can really you know get down and dirty with what we have to think about and problem solve with and this is a group that just steps right up to the plate every single time now in terms of an assignment of teachers this is really important for people to understand and so I'm just going to put it right out there if there is a Schoolboard vote to change to full in-person learning students that move from the online Academy to the full inperson model or who move from Full iners to the Online academ Academy meaning
111they're switching their modality in that case that child would have a teacher change families that do not change their enrollment would only need to change teachers if there were significant shifts in class size and that could happen we can't stand here and say it won't happen it could happen and we feel that it's important to put that piece of it out there there are no guarantees for that secondly I just want to put an eye on the teachers again our teachers may also have a new assignment they could have um a new assignment where they are changing their students that they had before and so it's important to know anything could happen when we start to see the data come back from the parent choice survey we may find that we have to hire now
112hiring is a process our you know director of operations is also our HR director and he can tell you what we're looking at is two to three weeks to ensure teacher quality Wellingford sore has some of the best teachers around we want to make sure that every student is getting the best teacher around that takes time to hire also there's planning and transition time that is essential in cases where teachers are changing assignment and their students midy year so it's something that we have to make sure that our timeline allows for I'm going to continue into March in the early parts of March we would be communicating to parents any transportation issues if there has has to be a change of teaching assignment um any of the transition day procedures things like arrival dismissal um
113what will happen at recess lunch that sort of communication would be going out to parents also that's time for our final teaching and learning preparation that includes lesson plans it will be like the first week of school in many cases where we'll be doing procedures again with the students so we want to make sure that we're doing that well we'll be looking at technology surfaces we might be looking at reconfiguring the tech and classrooms all that stuff would happen in the beginning of March now these are important dates March 15th 16th and 17th the 17th being a Wednesday which is already an asynchronous day in the schedule our transition days for building preparation it can't go understated there's a reason in August no kids are in the building we have to actually move the furniture
114and get ready for those kids coming in not something you can do with bodies in the building so to reconfigure that to put stickers in the hallway to move the desks to move the cafeteria tables to set up the tents for recess that sort of work would happen over those three days for building preparation then on March the 18th which is a Thursday we would be recommending that would be the first day of full in-person learning students would come in on Thursday and Friday and then the full next week um I believe there are parent teacher conferences so it might only be the first three days and then we would move into spring break that's an aggressive timeline but it's a timeline we think we can get to if the school board decides to go
115um for a vote for full in-person learning and at this point if you have questions for the investigation team uh school board members we can do our best to answer them thank you everyone uh for all of those details I'm going to open things up for board members I'll look on my zoom list and look in front of me I see Matt so I have two quick questions one for you Dr citelli Jones and I think one for Mr Ross So Dr Celli Jones can you give us some sense of where our elementary schools are are in their curriculum compared to a normal year I know there's been a lot of transition it's you know different teaching modalities and I'm just wondering where we are this year compared to where we would be in a
116typical year yeah what what we're doing now in the curriculum office is we're starting to gather that data what we use is a combination of Benchmark data standardized type of data um and we also use our own tests our own internal measurement for that thing so we have um something called easycbm that's one of our Benchmark tests the second application of ecdm is coming up that helps us because it tells us where kids begin where they are at the midye um and that helps us to measure against last year and also to measure within the current year so when we have that data we'll have a little better understanding of where we stand Benchmark wise okay as for our own internal tests our students are doing remarkably well um what we have in place is
117sort of our our scope and sequence of skills let's say and and some of this is sort of deductive reasoning I mean I'll go ahead and say that but when we know for example that we're going to hit fractions at a certain point of the third grade year our teachers wouldn't push kids to fractions for example if they weren't ready if they didn't have the requisite skills to reach fractions we are at the same point in our curriculum as we always have been um with no sense of we have to slow things down for our students where we have students who are not doing well potentially in in this modality these are students we have to get our eyes on and we have to work individually with them so that we are not doing some
118broad stroke statements about students not doing well there are students who might not be doing well and they might not have done well anyway or it could be the pandemic learning model um and we have to do our our due diligence to circle the wagons around those students the curriculum office has been working hard to thinking about ways that we can ameliorate that regardless of the Schoolboard vote and also through the summer so we'll be talking about plans in the next probably two to three weeks um for that sort of work but we feel really confident in where we are right now our teachers report confidence in where they are now um a few of them volunteered to come and talk about it but since this isn't a data report we didn't go there yet
119that's great and reassuring thank you uh and then ke you had asked you had in your presentation had talked again a couple of times about no matter what we'll achieve the three-foot distance if we were to go in this direction that would be you know our new threshold for the closest we would put students together if we were to just you know assuming nobody switches from online to cohort model if we were to just put cohort A and B together right now what kind of distance would we be looking at in general I mean I know it's going to change CL absolutely so Mr Abbott actually did this but I can speak to it um we went out and reassessed each of the rooms and looked we are looking at somewhere between three and three
120and a half fet um it really varies not based on the classroom based on the numbers but that is as we sit today if the two cours cohorts were to come together we're not quite sure what that will look like once we see if there is flip okay thank you yes so when we measured it is Center to desk center to desk so it is three feet nose to nose okay actually I'm gonna go back and forth here unless did you is a followup on that all right and then no go for it and then I'll go to Jerry next on on Zoom yes we can't hear her oh your mic's off let me start that over Miss Ross masks still at recess yes masks will be utilized at recess and everybody facing forward um
121in their classrooms yes um in order to utilize the space to our best ability we will need to maintain that okay thank you so much no worries Jerry uh given the timeline that was shared and the plans for the rapid testing can we assure that all the the rapid testing will be fully in place and the first round of tests for the teachers will have occurred prior to the 18th that that is our goal um as I indicated our nursing staff is in the process of completing the three-step trainings um we do anticipate that the pandemic coordination team will be working to identify the protocols that we'll be utilizing and then we are looking to implement as quickly as possible so that is certainly our goal buring any unseen barriers okay thank you Kell another
122question for eugina just yeah be there for a while um it's two parts actually um the first part was I just lost that first part so I'll start with this actually found it so if it um first part was if if a person were to test positive in a classroom where we are at that three three and a half foot distance do you actually have to quarantine the whole class or are you quarantining you're going to have more people within that six foot distance or what correct so at this point there is no changed guidance that would say we wouldn't a close contact would move to 3 feet versus six feet so we would anticipate that we would be looking at the close contacts and then quarantining those individuals that does not necessarily mean a
123whole class so for example if the teacher is not moving about the class and class is not having small group instruction that's floating in and out that we can't go back and um contact trace it um then we might need to close an entire classroom however we would be working very closely with the teams to ensure that we would only have to look at those within the six feet for more than 15 minutes and if we were to make this change are we still able to maintain the six foot distance uh teacher to student and I'm assuming we would be still looking at um the adults any of the adults in the building we would still be asking them to stay at the six foot distance from one another so Dr Ruben had mentioned it
124tonight but I have heard him speak to this previously where um the recommendation will continue to be six feet for adults um that three feet would be for students okay thank you others uh hang on let me then I have a couple things for me okay sorry I thought I was okay then um you had mentioned the clear Cubbies can you just describe what you mean by that yes so if you think to a traditional cubby that we've utilized for like study carols things like that we had purchased them for students and staff who are at high risk um or students with complex needs and so we look to expand that to every Elementary student so it comes three sides and can be adhered to the desk it does not come out to the side
125of the individual so we've talked about some of the leanin instruction for for times great thank you so you're anticipating those like across the board for yes students okay and we are in process of acquiring them um we have confirmation of the order okay and um could you just I I know you mentioned it but if you don't mind just summarizing again what our current approach that we would then apply in this setting of how we do contact tracing in the building so how what is the process that the district is going through when there's a case so when we are made aware of either a positive covid case or a probable covid case in a probable case that identification is an individual with symptoms that has had contact so if there's a family member
126who is positive and now that student or individual is exhibiting symptoms they're identified as probable so either one of those we are made aware of that either via an email a phone call or our symptom tracker we're having conversations to identify the onset of the symptoms or the date of the test so when that is determined we look back 48 hours which is what the CDC the Department of Health and the Chester County Health Department have all indicated is the window if the individual has been within our environment as I said whether it be school an event or a sporting activity um then we begin the contact tracing that contact tracing consists of conversations with either the student themselves depending on their age with the parents with the staff that may have been involved to
127determine was there any breach of our six-foot protocols or were they involved in any type of contact sport or anything else when we identify that close contact list we then send out the community letter and we send out the close contact quarantine letter and so those individuals are then quarantined for 14 days our nursing department does do their best to stay in touch with all of the quarantined individuals to get updates because then if they begin to exhibit symptoms we would then ask them to have a test and then would continue the process with them from there and the um I know there's been questions in the past about like if a parent wants to know how many cases there have been in a building and they're looking at our our dashboards that are online
128so that would be any student who tests positive uh that was on campus in any type of activity yes in that 48 hour period of contagiousness that is correct it does not include any individual who is in the Online Academy and not in another activity um those very clear guidelines can be found in the pde um website under the attestation page that has been very clearly outlined okay thank you you're welcome I think I'll go to Jen and then I know Marilyn's got her hand up thank you Dr Brandy um I had follow-up questions for Dr citelli Jones and for Miss wheeler I think Dr sedari Jones I'm looking at the slide that you put out and I'm looking specifically at the timeline for March between March 1st and and 12th um I'm wondering I
129mean it seems somewhat long sorry seems somewhat like uh next one I think okay this is the stuff we continue to do here's March it's actually your last slide there you go yeah um it seems like somewhat of a long period of time to do um those tasks and obviously I'm not behind the scenes so I hope that doesn't sound offensive any in any way but when I'm looking at that I'm just wondering if there's a way to push it Forward simply because if our if our board decides to do this you know it is February 8th and while I can appreciate appreciate how much time and planning I mean it's evident just listening to all of you would go into this um time is important and that the 18th is is it four or
130five weeks away yeah um do we really need from the 1 to the 12th to do those particular tasks well and so and thank you for asking that question I mean I've reduced it down to two bullet points right but that communication piece can sometimes be back and forth right so there's trans ation there's teacher assignments there's then things that could come back to us then readjustments that we would have to make really talking about 10 business days um at the end of the day when we're talking about that kind of thing um even even fewer actually and final teacher and learning preparation we can't know how quickly we can move on that kind of pivot until we're in it and what we wanted to make sure we did was not short change that process
131by rushing forward I think one of the things that is important to the investigation team certainly to the curriculum office is that this goes well our teachers have been upended and our students really frankly for that matter so many times that if we go in with something that feels half-baked to everybody it's not going to give us the support that we need to move forward and we're asking teachers to be Troopers for month number 12 and 13 and 14 and I just again I keep saying it can't be understated could that timeline go up in the moment we might be able to say we have this we can go up by one week but I wouldn't want to promise that's possible now and then we still have the 15th to 17th which might not yeah
132that's actually the building preparation right so that's that's the we need everybody out so that we can move what we have to do in that classroom is we have to take everything out of the classroom to make that possible where are we storing it right where how where are the kids going to get books if shelves are gone how are we going to have little ones know you can't walk past here on your desk if you have to get up and sharpen your pencil or blow your how are you going to do that so we have to do all of that spacing marking that sort of thing and we already Wednesday is asynchronous so the two days that we would have of doing that that Wednesday being a synchronous could we bump it up and
133have Wednesday be the start again possibly okay yeah all right I I can appreciate the physical lift of the 15th to 17th that's I was just sort of wondering if if everything could be condensed but no and and actually while I'm at the podium I wanted to add something for the question that you asked Kelly um the six-foot social distance between the teacher and the student that has always been problematic you know our teachers especially and the and the principles will tell you this especially at the elementary school um it's it's close you know that and physically close that's how our teachers work kids gather on the rug and and teachers sit in the rocking chair and they read the stories and they talk about it they move in and out of groups fluidly we
134have teachers who will bring kids to the kidney table and they'll work with small groups especially so that we can do remediate ation and extension they're always working with small kids this idea of keeping six foot between the teachers and the students is almost as physically unappealing to our teachers as like swallowing Bad Medicine so they can do it they will do it but it will change the dynamic of the classroom it has changed the dynamic of the classroom um it is it is sort of the unfortunate part I've heard some school districts that are putting you know like plastic up in in front of them these aren't tellers at a bank you know these are these are teachers who be able to be right around their kids and and so I just I want
135you to have the accurate picture of what this looks like even now um it doesn't change for full in person it's still the same six foot but I just people aren't in the classroom so you're not seeing it but I just want you to understand kind of the actual picture of what it looks like it's it's hard for our teachers to not be able to gather those kids in the way they would like to and I was I was going to ask you Dr Sly Jones when will we know if the pssas are happening or not I know this is is being televised and stuff like that so I don't want to say anything disparaging about PBE ultimately I don't want to um however they're real slow to really slow to give us the information
136that we need we were holding our breath for keystones hoping that there would be some last minute reprieve and there wasn't um pssas is a really big undertaking that involves a lot of grades and um and I think that's one half of it so again you have factions I think the other half of it is that there is no testing data from last year so if I'm pde I'm thinking can we go two years without this essential benchmarking data that we use to measure the performance of our schools the performance of our teachers that's their evaluation goes into that so you're going to have the group that says we need to get these pssas going we can't do two years without them and another who says why are we rushing this and we know that
137will force buildings to put kids together sort of in reasons do we really need and I'm sure there are factions battling it as we speak okay it could take it right up to the minute we'll prepare as if it's happening okay and if it does happen at least with the keystones does it typically happen on the same timeline correct me if I'm wrong but I think I recall being like the first and second week in April for pssa well they run over the course of four weeks I believe I think our principles might be able to give better but especially for fourth grade who tests in reading and math and science so they're over that time and we don't we have within that window to test so how we test and when we test matters
138um there are school districts that they go through kids test all day long and then other districts that have them do half days of testing because we think about testing fatigue we think about students just the ability to cognitively be on demand like that um so that whole window is available we have to work within that window especially when we have to bring Online Academy kids in be different for our students who are here if we go to the full in line right on um full in person because they're here already right we can do that it's that online Academy group that's the new the new sort of wrinkle in this okay so I'm wondering if pssas happened and um we were kind of able to get our SE legs with um with the four
139and a half days assuming we went in that direction is there a time when it would be fair to re-evaluate the half day Wednesdays in that model since a lot of that is directed towards the accounting for the PSAs pssas and also getting getting off to a good start you know I'm wondering if um there could be a time when they're looked at again um I I would have to think that there's a Val certainly a value there's there's a lot being asked in the beginning but when I think about the end of May or June right doesn't seem like those would be as necessary or even even the middle of May yeah um and when I think about the asynchronous days I think about it in two ways um I think about kids being
140in the building for half a day but then I think about the going home and getting on screens and these are our absolute youngest Learners I mean and I I think that's sort of a double whammy for some of these for these young kids so I would like to see a time when that half day is possibly re-evaluated if you think that that could still um you know offer our students what we want to offer them and also let us plan and and be prepared yes I think no plan is permanent until the end of the school year right so even now when we're saying we could bring back students full in person potentially if that goes Ary you know we've even suggested it here it could be that we might we might have to
141pull back if there's something that happens and we had to suddenly go virtually we'd have to be ready to do that asynchronous Wednesdays as they stand now and the halfday version of them are also things that we have to continuously evaluate when we no longer need them we could pull back from them that's a certainty okay um the uncertainty is when is it the time to do that sort of thing you said sea legs it's a phrase I use all the time to predict a teacher SE legs You Know It's Tricky business right but when we're feeling that and we're feeling good there's no reason to keep a half day asynchronous if we no longer need it our teachers are very good at saying whether or not something is needed and I really take them
142at their word because they're the ones doing it that's I I have to at that point take them at their word you know and I've watched them be in my meetings and say I can only stay here for another hour because I have an IEP to get to I have students I'm going to work with that sort of thing um the one thing that would remain true through the end of the year is that alignment between the Online Academy and the full iners that has become an essential component of Wednesdays could it be done over the course of every day maybe we interviewed um Central Bucks and asked them what are you doing for your teacher meetings they're ending the day an hour early every single day to give their teachers that time that's far
143more than a half day of in asynchronous planning for teachers so we're actually doing less than Central Bucks is doing for their teachers at the start I we asked them if they would be changing that they said like you're asking we we'll constantly be evaluating that and we would do the same okay so Dr gry I only have questions from Miss wheeler I believe so we can if other people have questions for Dr Sly Jones I will that's okay because I don't know who people have questions I only knew who I had a question for so why don't you just go hi Mrs wheeler um I had a couple questions you know I I'm disappointed to hear that these kids are going to be bringing these devices into school every day again let's let's just
144pause and think about how little the five-year-olds are in kindergarten and then even up to fifth graders who are still really young and really little which would even go for middle schoolers and then some high schoolers I because these are kids um you talked about wanting to get back to the kind of the old school crayons and paper it seems to me that um while some readjustments have to be made where where screens could be advantageous it seems to me that that would be sort of the exception rather than the rule um again not being in the classrooms not being a teacher but um you know in the past I don't know how much I guess I'm wondering what why why do we have to do this why do we need to bring them in
145why why do the youngest Learners have to bring in their devices every day when the real goal is to get them back to this very um in inperson stimulating in classroom looking at their friends and not at the screen type of learning uh absolutely I I don't think it's an all day they'll be on the screen I think what it is is um like for example they don't need to zoom they don't need to be uh in seesaw all the time but will there be value in having the ability to still uh push out an activity through seesaw to collect immediate data absolutely um so I think what you'll see is probably teachers more strategically using um the devices in particular at the younger grades um but to be able to do things as you
146know Dr selli Jones was mentioning that teachers having this zone of instruction that they'll have well they can easily drop an assignment out to a student if they needed to collect some quick data that they may only use it for let's say 10 minutes during that language arts block he won't don't foresee it being where teachers will be heavily relying minute to minute on on using those uh devices however um they can't use them if they're not there um we also have the issue of it would be great to especially for the younger ones say we just bring them in and leave them in school so we can use them as needed when here uh the problem is we don't have a place an ability to securely store them um charge them um and keep
147them overnight so that's just the reality of not having those devices and the magnitude of devices I should say um until the Pandemic those structures were in place as opposed to where I previously had been we had carts in every room so the devices probably could maybe could have stayed um and not be this um something they had to bring back and forth and and leave question to are we just going to have the kid on a device all day I don't think that's any of our goals um but I do think they're going to be important to um teachers to use on a regular basis all right is there and I guess what you just said is what concerns me how easy it is to drop an activity onto these devices and so I'm
148wondering you know so that parents can stay in touch with their children screen time which I think so many parents have just had it you know they they've had it is there going to be any kind of cap or any kind of Regulation and it's dangerous to micromanage that I understand that but um is there going to be any kind of um examination of how they're being used and how often because parents now won't have the ability to know um how much screen time their kids are getting in and I think it is upsetting and concerning for parents that when their kids are going into the buildings um they're going to have these devices again little little little kids um well to some extent they will still be able to see in that especially with
149seesaw um and having the app on my own phone when my child was using it you can see the number of activities right so if you see the volume of activities um is you know you saw 30 activities today um that seems outrageous probably because it is whereas maybe you didn't see any that day so I think there's a is that full monitoring absolutely not well they get some indication of what's going on yeah um but to your point about how we monitor it um I put a lot of trust and value I know only been here for a short period of time but um having sat in grade level meetings having sat with uh teams of teachers I can tell you they are critical thinkers and I've been very impressed by the level to
150which they are concerned about those same issues um and if you think the kids have seesaw fatigue and GL so do the teachers okay but I also think that they know that scrapping it completely from their repertoire would be unfair um both on the short run but also in the long run um but I think they they do absolutely in particular the K1 and two I would say the most um will um will look for opportunities um to really strategically use the device um and you know in terms of asynchronous Wednesdays now that they'll potentially see all their kids on Tuesday asynchronous Wednesday could potentially be entirely screen free because they have the ability to pass out the information whereas when they only saw half your cohort you know you had to have your copies
151on to get that was just strategically with all that's going on Impossible whereas now it's completely fathomable to be able to say Tuesday afternoon hey kids tomorrow during your half day you're going to be doing it and and like now they may still post things in case a kid forgets or maybe record a video in case they need to listen to something again but I think you'll see those asness Wednesdays quite different um especially for the younger ones I still see you know Project based assessment and maybe using devices be a part of it but it certainly doesn't have to be all of it the way we're currently doing doing it just because of the reality of how um the cohort model works okay thank you and and I will tell you your initial impression
152of our teachers is is accurate they're pretty fantastic so yes they really are yeah thank you all right uh I think I have Marilyn next I I suspect that my question is for J Ross but it might be for others as well I have a couple of questions actually um and comes back down to the timeline and there are so many moving Parts um in this and there are so many things we would like to have in place before uh we bring kids back full-time I mean it would it would be awesome if all of the teachers were vaccinated and and we that doesn't appear that that's going to be possible but my qu I was a little bit surprised when you said that the testing um would not really be implemented for three or
153four weeks yet is is there a reason why that is taking so long is it possible that that could be sped up so as I previously indicated and Dr Rubin indicated there is a three-step training process some of our nurses are in two out of three some have completed all three but the remainder are going um will be finished within the next week and a half Additionally the procedures and protocols that we need to put in place to ensure at this point we do not know how many staff members will participate what we can tell you is that the rapid test takes 15 minutes we know that staff are in class during the day and there are strategic times when we'll need to schedule so as soon as we are at the point where we
154have the procedures set we're then going to send out a survey to staff members to identify how many staff members are interested and willing to participate as Dr Kaufman said this is not a casual drop in drop out this is signing up for a weekly assessment if we were to go the route of our student athletes this is signing up for a weekly one time or two time of test um so there are many procedures and protocols that we have to put in place there are also things that I know that Dr Palmer is still vetting through the solicitor in terms of this is new and we're not quite sure where the case law and the legal side um is currently standing so while we're trying to move as quickly as possible we need to
155make sure that we have the protocols in place and that we can do it smoothly and effectively okay thank you U my other question is about the Cubbies because I'm I'm a little bit confused are we are we purchasing enough of the plexiglass surrounds for all of the elementary students yes we have purchased it's not actual plexiglass so it's not that extremely rigid plastic that you might see in our front offices or things like that it is a more flexible actually portable version of it that has um three sides to it and and and what is the expense associated with that purchase the cost per item I don't have on me exactly it is a oh thank you so um I'm not going to be able lift this up um but this is a example
156of the ones that we purchased so they come recited I don't know if you can see it Marilyn because it's really clear I can see it but if you stay at the microphone that's quite helpful okay thank you for giving me that kind reminder I do have a a loud voice so I thought I'd be okay um so that is an example of it I don't have the cost per item on me right now I believe it might have been somewhere approximately $10 per item we had purchased a number of them as I said previously for students with complex needs and students who are high risk so there are a large number of them across the district that are currently being utilized and do we have a funding source for that I going to ask
157Dr Palmer who's saying giving me the high that she'll answer that question Dr Huff one of the things that we would be doing is mounting these on the desks while uh Gina said that they are portable we're looking at affixing them to the desks and as Mary's been talking with Pima we believe a funding source might be a puma Grant while it's not guaranteed and we don't know if the money has run out we know we can continue to apply so it would be our hope that Pima would be the funding source thank you if one more sorry um there we what seems like an hour ago probably talked about um if there was a lot of switching between um Online Academy and inperson um need to potentially change teachers um and we talked about
158whether we would even have to hire additional teachers um and I'm I'm looking at Dr I'm not sure it might be you it might be um Mr Abbot um you know I I don't want to make that seem like the the hiring of additional teachers is something that would be simple to accomplish it's from what I understand extremely difficult to find teachers or substitutes at this point so I I I wanted to put that out there just simply BEC well I'll ask you to confirm that but I also we we need to be realistic and that if we did see see a lot of movement first of all one has to think about whether that is accomplishing the goal if there's a lot of disruption but secondly could we even staff it would be I
159think potentially problematic I could have I could have Ferg talk about the how hard it is to hire I'm not involved in that I can talk about the other part though you want to take the uh there's no denying that staffing has become a much great G challenge during co uh Staffing was becoming a challenge prior to covid but not so much at the elementary level um as far as vacant filling vacancies Elementary has historically been one of the easier uh vacancies to fill it has become challenging we have kept a posting up we continue to get a trickle of candidates in but um when you interview five people let's say um you'll get you'll get one good person out of that um finding candidates in the middle of the year is is is harder
160at you getting best time to get candidates at the beginning year and the middle of the year um does that answer the question not really but it's it's a it's a challenge um we continue to get candidates but but it's a type of thing where we have to constantly be looking as the elementary principles can attest can you repeat the other part of your question I want to make sure I answer it right thank you the um I think I was just commenting more than a question that if there is a lot of movement um that would require many students potentially to change teachers one has to question at least I think one has to question whether we're accomplishing the goal which is to create some continuity some greater continuity greater access to inperson education
161is it being um does it accomplish the goal if we're disrupting that teacher relationship um I mean it's I mean I can comment on it just in terms of you know my belief about thing you know there's a reason why um elementary students typically have one teacher me two in terms of their specials if you will case manager that sort of thing um and as you progress up through grades 12 you know you at Middle School they'll be in teams and even as a middle school administrator we were always reluctant to change a child's team even a couple of weeks into the school year we were reluctant to do that because those relationships become so Paramount to the learning up through high school you know a student can be taking you know AP Physics and
162then decide they're going to take something else and the change of teacher doesn't have the same sort of impact but when you're talking about our youngest Learners that Bond and that relationship they form with the team with the teacher becomes really part of their learning um there are teacher Styles there are student learning styles they start to learn how to mesh those Styles together by this point in the year um so for some students A disruption like that could be an important thing for parents to consider if I'm a parent making this decision I would think about how adaptive my child is to change um do they easily connect with adults if they do then the change might not be quite so difficult if they're a fifth grader maybe that for example if they're a
163child where if that relationship is in place that student will learn and if that relationship is not in place they will not learn that's a student for whom a a switch of teacher May really be detrimental so I mean I would encourage parents to really think through their child's adaptable um just the way that they look at relationships for the teacher I think that's really part of Elementary learning um and so that's a I don't mean that to sound doomsday but it is important that everybody thinks through their own child's needs in terms of a relationship with the teacher right thank you and it it just speaks to how important it is for us to to get the survey um out get get responses to those surveys because that it's just going to be such
164an important component of a decision-making process in mind sure I agree and I'll also just add to that um you know I think that you know some will wonder why we want we are asking for that binding choice this week and I think it's become apparent to me certainly in these conversations that without that information it's very hard to fully understand the implications of a change um and so um I'm just saying that to take the blame people will wonder like why do you need to know already and um you know I think it's critical toward our decision- making because I think of the issues around continuity of education and if we ask for hypothetical choices and then we find out something very different a few weeks later I think it makes it very hard
165to adjust uh and kind of rep pivot all the plans at that point so um again not a question but I just wanted to piggyback on Kelly's comment to try to explain to parents why we're really asking for this now um because I think it is really Central to decision making so no comment necessary well just say yeah but it did make me think of something so I'm gonna add it because I love a good microphone moment um the for parents to make a decision right now if I'm a parent I want all the facts right and one of the things the investigation team agreed upon is that we would not rush the facts just to make sure that there was an answer if the answer is not good then it's better to have no
166answer that said this presentation is being turned into FAQs and when that FAQ goes up onto the website tomorrow we're working with dearra abenson for that as we make decisions that's where you'll see the decisions it'll be the 11th FAQ the 40th FAQ each one of those decisions will get added into an FAQ so that we're not sending out the latest newest edition the next newest the 50th Edition it is go to the FAQs that's where you'll see the latest decisions being made and we'll probably put something that says like new so that people can get straight to what's new um we want to make sure that our decisions made in real time are communicated real time where actually it's a good question where should parents go to find this information is it the school
167reopening part of our website is that a after my nine o'clock meeting I will know for sure but um I I want to have it as front and center as possible I don't want a parent to have to go on a breadcrumb trail hunt so maybe when we send out the survey we can send a link should be in there I think that link should be embedded in the survey and then that will be the continuous place they can go yes great thank you I don't think there's any more questions I know it's 9:20 we have one more short Focus topic to go so I think that's it and thank you for all the hard work from the entire team thank you Dr Palmer do you want to introduce our second I'll be briefer I
168think focus it will be briefer for sure so tonight miss Q is back reminding us uh what's in our budget or at least in that proposed preliminary budget budget I will remind everyone that the budget itself is very preliminary and very much a work in progress covid-19 as we've talked about tonight has an Ever Changing process of our educational plan and also looking at our health and safety plans and it has been making our budgeting very difficult to say the very least as we prepare the 2122 budget I will reiterate that we remain committed to maintaining our excellent educational program strengthening our mental and Behavioral Health supports and broadening our diversity equity and inclusion Focus procedurally we started our budget countdown at the last board meeting with the beginning of the required steps toward the
169adoption of the final budget we will continue to share more details and refine our estimates until June at which point our board will adopt the final budget for 2122 and I would like to clarify one important item before Miss Q starts the presentation at our last meeting Mr Ballas asked me if the Online Academy was included in the draft budget and I said no and I should have said not yet so let me remind everybody when we passed the budget for the 2021 school year there was no pandemic planning there was no Online Academy we had not even thought about it but as we sit here now we have an online Academy K12 we have full online options and in-person options when I say not yet I want you to think of the budget that
170we had 2021 and think that Miss Q trended it forward it is very early and she's involved in the reconciliation process for the 2021 school year we still have a lot of planning for what the fall will look like this evening you heard about what even the next few weeks could look like then that could take us to the end of the year we are having those conversations about what the fall could look like but we haven't finalized the numbers we haven't finalized the uh design of what it would look like and we haven't finalized what our student needs are so for anyone who thought I said there would be no Online Academy I'm just saying it is not included in the preliminary and the preliminary starts our budget process we will continue to have
171the process where we will work through the finance committee meetings and we will have additional presentations here I can tell you we will have to make a provision for online learning but I can't tell you at this moment what it's going to look like so I thought it was important to put that out because I have seen some things and actually some pretty nasty things written on the how could I be so foolish not to think that we would need online learning and I'd like to convey I'm not foolish and I didn't dismiss it I should have said we hadn't included it yet so hopefully I made that a little bit more clear and Miss Q if you are ready you can start the budget presentation anytime that you're ready AJ do you have your
172slides up yes they're up yep okay good evening as I noted in the last presentation and as Dr Palmer just said we are very early in the budget process there are many unknowns and a deeper analysis is needed on so many things we will continue that analysis as we work toward the presentation of the proposed final budget in May doing projections for the current year becomes incredibly difficult with the ongoing covid-19 expenses and related effects on District revenues what other costs will the district have to absorb during this most unusual year getting estimations for revenues and future expenditures is more difficult as there are so many unknowns when you are talking about a time frame so far into the future where there is so many questions yet to be answered we do not know whether
173that we will receive additional relief funding from the state or federal government however the governor did make his budget address on February 3rd we've heard the the governor's budget described as bold and it certainly was had included in it unprecedented support for the educ a contained within it we've also heard it described as Dead on Arrival for a number of reasons including an increase in personal income tax rates Etc to clarify a comment and to further reinforce what Dr Palmer said this preliminary budget is modeled on a full return to school for 2122 this does not mean that this is the final say on what the district does regarding School in the coming months or at the start of the coming school year this budget will continue to undergo many adjustments and changes from now
174until the final approval in June so as indicated we are very early in the process and many items need to be fleshed out before the final budget in June next slide let's review where expenditures are projected for this preliminary budget oops did you go two slides thank you salaries and benefits make up approximately 6 9% of the total budget purchase Services represent just over 18% Debt Service and fees makes up just over 9% supplies are just over 3% of the budget and the budgetary reserve represents less than one half of 1% of the total budget for a total expenditure budget of 89 m110 694 next slide on the revenues the local revenues make up just over 81% of the revenue budget State revenues make up just under 177% of that budget Federal revenues make up
175less than onethird of 1% of the entire Revenue budget we are also using the fund balance of $1.3 million to balance this budget to again come to that 89,1 110,00 in total next slide there has been a great deal of discussion about fund balances in the past think of this as your savings account you would pay for a large expenditure such as replacing your roof for example out of your savings but you would not pay your electric bill out of that same savings account at this moment the district is using its fund balance to pay normal operating costs instead of saving those funds for those large unexpected items if 2122 finishes out at the original budgetary amounts we will use approximately $3 million of that savings account and the current preliminary budget has a $1
176million shortfall that would leave a fund balance of $4.1 million the state does permit an unassigned general fund balance of 8% that would be $7.1 million or almost $3 million more than what this projection shows but notice I have an asteris here there is a change to the fund balance that that has a rather dramatic effect if things fall where it continues to look next slide please note that the $3 million budgetary shortfall does not include the co cost effect the budget was finalized prior to knowing the effects of the pandemic the costs of Co including PPE instructional supports including equipment instructors special education services HVAC adjustments and on and on are in addition to that final budget for this year so the fund balance has the potential to be even further diluted we have
177been applying for Grants and supports as quickly as we can as this site indicates we currently have approximately $3.8 million expended on covid related expenses we have gotten two pccd grants two eer grants a gear Grant and yes those are all abbreviations set by the state but that only represents $1.6 million so if nothing happens we have an additional $2.2 million in costs that aren't counted for in this year's budget now Dr Palmer mentioned that we are applying to fima and Pima to help recover costs as well so we're hoping to get further funds through that and we obviously don't know whether any other additional funds will come up to help offset the cost of covid next slide act one and the Act One index what is that basically act one was intended as an
178inflationary Factor developed through the legislation in 2006 it is first calculated using the three-year average of the Statewide average weekly wage or the saw and the employer cost index or the EIC the resulting Statewide number is the base Act One index which serves as a starting point in calculating each school's District's adjusted Act One index so basically what this boils down to is it's an inflation factor for 2122 that was 3% however in a year of a countywide reassessment Act One according to the law a district must use the prior year index or in this case the prior year was 2.6% so our inflation factor is further diluted by the way this slide came from um psba so I thank them for their information next Slide the since I mentioned the countywide reassessment we are
179still finalizing the reassessment value but at this point in time the district went from $1.4 billion in assessed value to $2.6 billion if we reset the millage rate based on that new assessed value we would go from 48.3 Ms to 25.6 Ms we are eligible for a special education exception this year this exception is based upon the two prior years of special ed costs the expenditures for 1819 which was were just over $13 million as compared to the expenditures for 1920 which were three 13.6 million the state sets the years for this comparison and they are using those two years so this exception is basically providing the district funds for costs the district has already incurred this budget includes both the Act One index and the full special education exception for a total of 1.1
180Mills or a 4 .34 tax per tax increase please remember even that in even with that increase we are still using $1.3 million from the fund balance to balance this budget each year we talk about the effect on the median assessed value in Prior years that value was $179,000 or approximately $8,600 in real estate taxes assuming an average adjustment the new median assessed value would be approximately $318,000 or $848 in real estate taxes as I said previously some properties will see an increase in taxes While others will see a decrease in a normal County based reassessment you should see oneir get a decrease oneir get an increase and oneir remain approximately the same next slide so what what's next as I mentioned earlier the governor made what was called a bold budget address on the
181third including increases in education funding but also including increases in the personal income tax to offset that additional funds I am sure that they will be working on this through budget committees from now until June 30th and we'll see what comes out of that process as we continue on we will have finance committee meetings in the remaining months from now until the May proposed final budget presentation as well as working on it right up until the end in June when fi the board's final approval for that final budget any questions any questions from board members Kelly um Miss Q thank you I had a question about the fund balance and I know that the situation that we're looking at again it's a preliminary budget but the situation is is one that's shared by many school
182districts coming out of a CO period here but my my question is does a fund balance that's approaching the levels that we are looking at have an impact on future borrowing capacity for the district if we continue to dilute our fund balance yes it could potentially affect our bond rating as we go to future usages of debt um that's one of the things they do look at and if every year we continue to spend down that fund balance it will definitely affect our bond rating thank you other questions Matt even beyond the bond rating Martha we're going to get to a point where we have no fund balance left to spend down we're getting critically close to that that is correct um in addition to that when last year when we did the presentation of
183the five-year capital expenditure plan that Five-Year Plan actually expended both the capital reserve as well as the general fund balance in it in its full extent we have since diluted our general fund fund balance so that five-year Capital plan we don't currently have the funds to fully cover that plan any other questions K just just a comment that I as as I hope that people are watching and listening to this this is not a good position to be in and so when we think about what this is going to mean um to how we spend our money moving forward we are going to have to make some very difficult decisions in this District um we we're not alone in that I want to emphasize that this is a strong District we're in actually remarkably um
184even looking at that we're in much better position than many districts in the state but it cannot continue in the same way that we are accustomed to if we're about we're that close to potentially eliminating a fund balance we can't any other questions comments so certainly we we will be coming back to this in finance committee discussions and then ultimately back to the full board as we get further along in the budget season and we'll get to a point where I think our our estimates will get more precise in terms of thinking about what this uh current fiscal year looks like in terms of final expenditure so thank you Miss Q all right um so that takes us to our first audience recognition now this is the time for items for Action that are on
185the agenda so that doesn't include our um fairly extensive discussion about the elementary transition plan so if there's people here to speak on that I think we will get to that quite soon uh but we're not quite there yet um but as a reminder public comment is a time for the district res for district residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the board or may come before the board uh 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 an opportunity to follow up after meetings if there is a specific question for the district as I've mentioned at recent meetings for now we have two methods to comment in person and
186by phone so members of the public wishing to address the board in person uh we do have overflow space for this meeting uh to maintain adequate social distancing and when it's time to speak audience members are 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 11102 to leave a recorded comment for the board subject to a three minute time limit any comments left prior at 5 o'clock today uh on the day of the meeting are transcribed and made available to the board and acknowledged at the meeting uh comments left after 5 o'clock but prior to the end of the meeting are still transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the
187record but not acknowledged uh during the meeting so um I know we have many many called in comments but I believe all of those called in comments are for items not on the agenda so I don't think we have any of those to read at the moment uh is there anyone in the audience uh who who would like to speak to an issue on the agenda this evening okay so I don't see any um so that will take us to our first item for Action which is the approval of the January 25th regular business meeting minutes and I so move uh do we have a second second second chapen uh I got Matt first on that thank you though chapen um any discussion okay uh Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote
188Mr Ballas I miss Sino I Dr Huff I Mr cus I Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Dr Grandy hi the motion passes 8 to zero all right thank you Miss vagora so we have 10 items for action and Personnel are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay uh first we have the approval of three retirements uh George King principal at the middle school William Thorp math teacher teacher at the middle school and Gina Ross director of student services all the dates are listed in the agenda with have the approval of one appointment Jason kransky environmental science teacher at the high school we have the approval of a new higher recision as listed in the agenda we have the approval of three leaves of absence
189as listed in the agenda we have the approval of two changes of assignment as listed in the agenda we have approval of the revision of compensation of staff for the student and staff Wellness committee is stipulated we have the approval of additions to the 2020 2021 activity supplemental appointment lists as listed in the agenda we have the approval of additions to the 2020 2021 winter athletic supplementals as listed in the agenda with the approval of the deletion to the 2020 2021 curriculum supplemental appointment lists as stipulated and we have the approval of payment of unused sick days as stipulated all the items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved thank you Jerry do we have a second second thank you Larry uh any discussion
190all right Mr oh sorry CH go ahead I was just gonna say you had said three resignations but um Gina's are three retirements but Gina's not a retirement right not that it matters just oh I got you yep how are those listed right now not that I'm not protesting okay I got you retirement slash resignation so yes that's a resignation the first two retirements thanks for correcting that uh any other comments or Corrections or questions or discussion okay Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Miss smino hi Dr Huff hi Mr cutus hi Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas I Dr Grandy I the motion passes 8 to Zer thank you Miss Figora so we have four items for Action in curriculum let me fast forward okay
191uh are there any on the list anyone would like to separate I would like to separate out the school calendar okay any others okay so we'll start with a B and D so we uh first we have approval of the 2020 2021 related services provider contracts as stipulated we have the approval of a tuition contract for the 2020 2021 school year is stipulated and we have the approval of the addition of the Middle School to the 2020 2021 health safety plan for competition and voluntary workouts um these items are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved thanks Kelly H do we have a second thanks Matt uh any discussion okay Miss fer can you please take a roll call vote Dr Huff I Mr cutus I Mrs lent
192I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Mr Ballas hi Miss samino hi Dr Grandy hi Dr Grandy the motion passes 8 to zero all right thank you Miss Vora uh so then uh that takes us to the other item in curriculum which is approval of the 2021 2022 school calendar uh do I have a motion Thanks Jen uh second second thanks Matt uh any discussion Marilyn so I I understand the reasons why the start date has been shifted to after um Labor Day for this year um I do want to encourage uh the Administration and the board to really consider in future years bringing the start date to be before Labor Day it it's advantageous for many um reasons and I also want to encourage the administration and the board to start communicating those reasons
193to um the community regularly uh so that it does not come as a surprise for the um future school years thank you Marilyn any other discussion okay Miss vagora can you please take a roll call Mr cus hi Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas I miss smino I Dr Huff no Dr Grandy I motion passes 7 to one all right thank you Miss Vora so we have uh nine items in finance are there any on the list anyone would like to separate I'd like to separate out D which one d as in David okay any others okay uh so we will do all but D here so eight uh first so we have approval of a contract to Russo Corporation for a general Construction contract in the amount of $362,000
194for the Strath Haven High School secure entrances project to be paid from capital reserve funds we have approval of a contractor hburg mechanical for an HVAC construction project in the amount of $134,900 for the Strath Haven High School secure entrances project project to be paid from capital reserve funds we have approval of a contract to Jr meter for an electrical Construction contract in the amount of 83,500 for the Strath Haven High School secureity entrances project to be paid from capital reserve funds we have approval of the first renewal of the third party commercial driers license skills testing services agreement between the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Wallingford sore School District as stipulated we have approval of the 2021 2022 preliminary general fund budget of 89,1 10,693 with the following millage rates as listed nether
195Providence Township Ros Valley burough 26.7 1886 rled burough swore burrow 27.3 eight uh and lastly authorization to apply to pte for the Act One exception for special education expenditures all of these items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved thank you Jerry do we have a second second thank you Larry uh any discussion is your light on for oh okay okay uh Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas hi Miss simino hi Dr Huff hi Mr cutus hi Dr Grandy hi the motion passes 8 to zero all right then we return to item D which is authorization for the director of operations after consultation with the superintendent board president board
196vice president to approve expenditures prior to school board approval not to exceed 15% of the aggregated total of all awarded contract values for the Strath Haven High School secure entrances project to be paid from capital reserve funds uh do I have a motion so moved Marilyn thank you Marilyn do I have a second I'll second and then open the comments sure go ahead so given the discussion that we just had I'm wondering whether this item is set at the right threshold so the item here is to approve uh up to 15% of additional expenditures based on the contract value uh it's a $600,000 contract roughly and we just had a brief discussion about the uh significant issues we're facing with our fund balances and this would be an expenditure of up to $100,000 out of
197those fund balances and so I'm wondering whether it's appropriate to set a lower if not much lower threshold here of 10% or maybe 5% Dr Palmer is Mr Abbot still available okay he's coming I would uh love to get Mr Abbott's thoughts on this I know there's some concern about uh this is a project that needs to take place in the summer when the board does not meet frequently and um there is cons concern about project delays but I'll let Mr Abit uh yes and I wish I could talk about years of experience um I'm going based upon previous uh projects we've had most notably in the in the memo referring to the the West project where it was set at 10% um do I do we anticipate it being much less yes uh do
198we feel as if this is a well planned project so far yes um it's just it's a it's a contingency of 15% um using the West project is our most recent guide which was at 10% but that was with one prime contractor and in this case although we're approving three now there will be a fourth at some point for plumbing so I wish I could say I had 10 years of experience in this job to be able to truly say that um but uh this this provides a contingency we would need to keep moving forward I think putting in there about in consultation with the um the the board president and the board vice president uh hopefully gives some assurances that any money that did have to be spent because of a change order is
199being properly vetted uh fer are we saving money by going with four contracts as opposed to getting a general contractor and subcontracts yes we are um while $600,000 plus is a lot of money um in the scope of uh projects it's it's not a large project and we're saving the money of not having a company oversee this while we're giv the responsibility to the general contractor uh the general Construction Company um we have we have our own um people Celli Associates and the architect that will be overseeing the project in addition to the operations department and that does save us money Berg where where did we come in on the bids compared to what Nick and the architect were projecting um we came in right on target for the three of the four that were
200um looking to approve uh when we we originally intended to do this project uh last summer uh summer 2020 um but with Co hit we were delayed in going to the market and for Co reasons mostly we felt as if this project may come in around a million dollars so we decided to postpone and it also allowed us to go to market very early in the bidding um season so we feel as if we've gotten um good prices in line with what they wanted um except for the one Plumbing um bid which we are still working on any other discussion okay uh Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Alice hi Miss simino hi Dr Huff hi Mr cutas I Mrs lent I Dr Grandy
201I Dr Grandy the motion passes 8 to zero all right thank you Miss Fagor so that does take us to audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda this evening um again as I mentioned earlier this is a time for members of the district community speak to the board about an issue before the board or may come before the board uh the section is for items on the agenda uh not on the agenda sorry this evening it's a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community and again while we can't answer questions at the meeting there's always an opportunity to follow up after meetings if there is specific question for the district again I'll remind those watching from home um that if you wish to leave a comment
202uh you can still do so before the end of the meeting by calling 610 892 3470 extension 1102 up until the end of the meeting and those comments will still be transcribed but and distributed to the board made a part of the record but not acknowledged during the meeting um we have a very large number of called in comments to read this evening um I think we have something like 60 so we will be reading for quite some time but I'm going to start with uh checking in with our audience to see if there are folks who want to make a comment good evening uh just a reminder uh so we just ask for a name uh Street for your home address you don't have to give your your house number um and then I'm
203not exactly sure how many people we have but in general since we have like 60 comments to read we're asking people to try to stay you know I'm be here all night now roughly a few minutes like three minutes if you can those are our called in comments or three minutes I never heard anybody tell me to be short but um Derek Ryder batty Road um so I want to thank uh you know the board members Dr Palmer uh who listened and worked um with me and others as we advocated for fall Sports earlier this year it was a new process an unknown of sorts but it worked but in hindsight we planned too slow our neighboring counties and districts across the state were far ahead of us and concluded playoffs and state finals we
204had half the games and no chance at a district or State title this also occurred with winter sports we delayed our start and we'll have less games meets and this did not sneak up on us here we are again this is not sneaking up on us it's February 8th we most likely will not have Elementary School back until late March let alone the middle school or high school as we are not even discussing those students or a plan so I ask don't let it sneak up on you I'm here to discuss the logistics slow moving or lack thereof and why other districts States are finding Solutions with success and delivering on in-person education with full days not hybrid or the two hours for two days a week our goal posts continue to move back we
205should be closer and ready to allow full-time inperson learning we have schools in our boundaries and neighboring towns to look up to it's working and safely why are we behind for the sake of transparency and to cool down social media posts and insults can we have the reasons why we are not moving to full-time iners is it the slow development plan can you provide us the data on what the teachers would like to do Ferg Aid spoke on this a little bit earlier and we just don't know number one do they want to teach full-time in person do the teachers want to stay hybrid do they not want to be in school at all or do they need to teach online due to personal health or household members not parents or family nearby but in
206their home as I'd like to visit my in-laws too but cannot as it is their choice so please let us know we need the information on what teachers are thinking feeling are they scared whatever it may be I as a parent and I'm sure others want the an those answers and the opportunity to return to school full-time inperson learning as it is occurring around us and saful so why do we still not have a plan until tonight we're months behind we cannot base our decision on fear alone even Dr Rubin stated earlier it's not transferring from student to teachers everyone other than those who want full-time in person have a choice we do not is it the parents or is it the teachers the union which has set up the roadblock not allowing full-time iners
207learning I love teachers love the coaches love the administrators they are family and their friends I'm not a teacher hater those advocating for full-time Anders learning are not haters or looking to bring harm we want to be informed exactly on the reasons we are not in school fulltime the information is not aail able other than we are in a pandemic well the news flash is this is not ending anytime soon let's work around it safely but not at a snail's pace show us what our teachers feel want or need let us help please move forward with full-time iners learning sooner not later before the school year ends and don't forget about the class of 2021 who have not been in full-time and person school for for close to a year thank you thank you and
208so I will uh invite the next person up who wants to speak if there's someone else who wants to speak in the meantime Kelly can you go ahead and read just the first the first comment um uh this comment is from Sarah Baron samlin of sa Brook Lane in Wallingford we have one child in the school district at this time and two incoming students I'm calling with regards to the upcoming special school board meeting on Monday February 1st with regards to students returning full-time in person our child is currently in the hybrid program and while we appreciate the desire for people to have kids go back full-time and we do my husband and I feel very strongly that we make sure to do that in an intelligent way I'm a healthc care provider I have
209several family members who are healthc care providers at this time hospitals are overwhelmed there are multiple variants of the virus coming into the country and spreading in the country Pennsylvania has one of the highest highest infection rates right now I think that would be irresponsible of our Township to go back to full in time person School even though the transmission rate is very low in students we just don't know whether or not these kids are carrying these germs home to family members I'm thrilled that there's a vaccine out there I'm thrilled that people will be able to get it but at this time it's just not widely available enough to make it logical to change a system that is basically working for our kids right now the hybrid program is working kids are learning they're
210able to deep clean the schools between the student cohort S I think that there is value in continuing with what we're currently doing rather than risking something and then having to disrupt our children's lives by going back to a cohort model if it's ineffective or if the virus starts spreading worldwidely in the school district so please keep that in mind at this point they've been doing this already for four months even if we go back full-time in March that will be another two months and there will only be two to three months left of the school year I'm not sure it's worth it to disrupt the pattern that they've become accustomed to and to increase the exposure risk I appreciate you taking my comment and concerns into consideration and you'll make a smart decision thanks
211Kelly please just name and uh Street would be great John lonard West Rose Valley Road first of all thank you for allowing us to speak and uh really appreciate the comments that were just provided uh by the other inperson speaker um I'm also in favor of inperson learning and I know there's a concern about the holdup of teachers and School staff being vaccinated but it's important to realize that the return to school plans that were initially developed without a vaccine were developed without a vaccine on the horizon many of us may remember from last summer I believe wssd is own plan last summer was either fully in person or fully virtual until plan shifted mum Midsummer School experiences as past fall in absence of vaccination still showed school can be safer than Comm than the
212community in regards to co transmission including the very many schools that were open with a minimum 3-foot distance all the expert guidance takes into account the lack of widespread vaccination and risks to Teachers Community and students while concluding that children need to return to in-person learning and that indeed can be done safely obviously with mitigation strategies also a couple things the data supporting full in-person learning in schools that practice these strong protocols is now overwhelming as an example in the recent chop webinar the Island School the Rhode Island Commissioner of Education noted that the excellent safety profile of Rhode Island schools using 3-foot distancing they also found that all virtual students had a higher infection rates than the kids who went to school the very fact that local districts in bucks and monco are doing
213full inperson safely and now have been doing so for some time is a powerful form of data that I would hope the district would consider so why are these districts able to provide sa to provide safely for full I for their kids when our district has not yet done that the debate over school reopening is still skewed in favor of the risks from covid yet as we know the decision to keep kids at home is not Costless the costs are depression learning loss and social emotional regression amongst others the longer kids are out of school the longer it will take them to regain a healthy developmental trajectory in some cases the possibility of irrevocable loss is very real these are the realities even for kids in wealthy Suburban districts like ours thank you for your
214time all right thank you uh Kelly do you want to read the next one uh next comment is from Courtney Batel in on Glenn Road in Wellingford I'm calling to express my support for the board's proposal to return to full-time in-person learning the data supporting full-time inperson learning in schools that are currently practicing strong safety protocols is by now overwhelming in the recent chop webinar the Rhode Island Commissioner of Education noted the excellent safety profile of Rhode Island schools doing 3 feet distancing and they found that all virtual students actually had a higher infection rate than kids who went to school physically and in person the very fact that our local school districts and Bun bucks and Montgomery County are doing full iners learning safely and has been doing for some time should also demonstrate
215support for our board's proposal I really want to encourage the board to use current science and data as they make this very important decision about our CH children's learning future because of the cost of keeping our kids at home is far too much depression learning loss social and emotional regressions are just a few of the Cass and the longer that our kids are out of school it can be longer for them to develop a healthy trajectory toward all those factors this fall made the personal decision in our home to not return to work so I can fully support my first in kindergarteners Online Academy experience maybe that's a benefit that I had of being newly widowed I have flexibility my my children don't after they lost their father this past April my children had not
216had the social and emotional support from the school experience that we cannot simply replicate at home attending the Online Academy I have since switched to the hybrid cohort model I hope my children are afforded the opportunity to return to five days of in-person learning before this Academic Year ends thank you so much for taking my thoughts into consideration all right thank you please good evening Alicia sty 725 Windsor Place in Wallingford I would like to take to take this time to thank you for all for this opportunity to speak and thank you for your time and dedication to our schools this past year it has not been easy and the varying opinions can make it all the more challenging the difference in opinions within the community has definitely been eye openening this past week it's
217important to point out that I think we all want to achieve the same goal but the the approach can be very different the decision to go back full-time should not be based on which side speaks louder but rather on data and evidence that proves it is safe for our teachers and students our teachers want their classrooms full again but they want to feel safe wanting to feel safe in their workplace is very different from being lazy which is still the rhetoric from some in our community there's so many teachers in this District who not only teach here but live here as well I happen to be married to one it is demoralizing that they continue to hear how they are being lazy and they don't want to work because I can tell you that is
218so far from the truth I know there are far more community members that support our teachers but it's never easy to hear the complaints especially in a year that they have worked so hard we need to acknowledge that this pandemic is a process not an event we must adapt to the changes that occur the criteria we use to open hybrid in the fall will most likely not be the same criteria to open full-time numbers are dramatically higher and new variants have emerged that are far more contagious than the previous strains this new information must be taken into account can we reduce spacing from 6 feet to 3 ft are the guidelines being changed from the medical experts to say that is safe and School settings if the guidelines remain at 6 feet will we remain
219hybrid or ignore the guidelines and essentially conduct our own experiment to see if 3 feet really works reducing the space to 3 feet and allowing full classrooms where class sizes will range from 20 to 27 students will most likely increase the exposure to teachers and students and potentially create outbreaks that will cause us to shut down can we say definitively that the virus isn't spreading in schools Because unless we are testing that's an assumption that ignores asymptomatic spread are we basing our data on schools that are testing consistently under what conditions are those schools open full-time hybrid data can be presented in many ways and still be factual we can base our data on Philadelphia schools which have shown zero spread but we know they have been virtual since last March but it's still a
220fact so if we go this route and reduce the space will we be testing consistently to prove the virus isn't spreading within our schools with a new timeline of March 18th a start would give five full days before spring break it seems like a more natural transition would be to start the Monday after spring break and allow more time for teachers to get vaccinated numbers to come down and planning purposes since this process will require a great great deal of planning it is my hope that if this does get approved and our teachers that our teachers will be front and center in the planning process just like we need to follow the science with the virus we need to follow the guidance of our teachers who know what's best within the classroom in closing let's
221not forget that we have been open and back in person since early fall many schools have been all virtual since last March our administrators principes teachers and staff have worked tirelessly to make this happen successfully because we have followed the guidelines I hope we continue to follow the guidelines from our medical experts and the decision to go back full-time is based on data and evidence and not assumption at the end of the day we can all agree we want our kids back in school full-time but not if we are compromising the safety of our teachers and students thank you thank you Kelly you want to read the next one uh this common is from Mitchell Berger and Eileen Whitman Tanglewood Drive in Rose Valley our sons are students at nether Providence Elementary School and we
222are calling to voice our support for continuation of the current hybrid model for elementary education we feel that the three days remote and two days impers design balances safety considerations and student engagement it also maintains the recommended standard of six feet minimum social distancing in the schools as well as distancing on school buses it is unclear when vaccination Administration efforts will be sufficiently rolled out to effectively contain the virus for the well-being of the students teachers and support staff who keep the schools and buses running we would prefer to maintain the current hybrid model and not move to a 5 days in-person Elementary School experience thank you thanks Kelly welcome thank you uh and uh I just wanted to say thank you to everybody on this board that it's very clear how much you're all
223considering all this so carefully uh to really try to make sure that the decisions that you make are going to be the decisions that are in the best way supporting everybody involved and I know that's hard to do when everybody thinks that the boat is sinking at the same time um my name is Dan hin I live on Devon Lane my wife and I moved here with our three children from lower Marian School District at the beginning of the school year we moved here because we needed more space but we wanted our kids to still have the best quality schools and a warm safe Community to grow up in our youngest daughter is two and staying at home but our son is in seventh grade and our oldest daughter is in kindergarten uh when we
224were deciding whether to send them to the Online Academy or the hybrid model I visited their schools and I was amazed by the facilities and really impressed by the teachers and staff I was so tempted to send them I remember saying my wife is the disease really that bad the schools are just so beautiful this was why we came here why we pay high property taxes this was how they would make new friends instead we sent them to the Online Academy my father is 86 years old asmatic and recovering from cancer and our only close family and we see him regularly as our son said I don't want to go to Virtual School I just don't want to kill someone I love friends I hate Zoom school I am amazed by how well the school
225district is doing it and how well our kids are adapting to it but is still not the same thing as real school that doesn't make it bad the pandemic is the bad thing this is the best option we have for dealing with it for right now I know we're worried about our kids well-being and I am too one day last week my daughter in kindergarten told me she wanted a robot so that she could have a friend who was allowed to come inside the house it broke my heart I know they're all struggling with isolation I know they're all struggling with dealing with zoom school I'm struggling not you know I already have my hair pulled out but if I didn't I would pull it out now and just to be trying to juggle everything
226and trying to keep them on track we're doing our best we can and I know everyone else is too and everybody has good reason to be upset um but I don't think that the situation that we're in right now is necessarily making our kids dangerously fragile and mentally unwell in my family I've seen that it's teaching them to be more mature more compassionate and in many ways more resilient our kids are learning to be independent and to lean on us they're continuing to keep up with their schoolwork they're still able to play with their friends who are in hybrid outside but they're also learning to think in terms of more than themselves having to make the best safe Choice possible even if it is not the one you would most wish for our kids aren't
227falling apart they're having difficulty sometimes they get sad sometimes they get depressed but that's because they're living through a pandemic that doesn't mean they're becoming weak it means they are aware of the world around them and that is a healthy thing whatever difficulties they have now are nothing to compare to what they would be going through if they got truly sick from covid or if they felt responsible for some making someone they love get sick or die where if things had to shut down even further because of a massive outbreak here that could have been prevented simply by maintaining our current approach so far we've been following best practices I'm sure we could do better than we are already doing in some ways and it sounds like we're talking about ways of doing that tonight
228and I'm really glad to hear that but I but we've maintained quality education already with multiple options for our community's needs and we've done it without super spreader disasters that's a lot and we should be proud of that accomplish M and working to build off of it not trying to undermine it and I don't think anybody wants to undermine it but I think that we're considering decisions that could I'm a former teacher myself and I believe in the truth that life is full of unavoidable risks and you should prepare the child for the road not prepare the road for the child but that doesn't mean you leave a landmine in the road when you could remove it that's not an unavoidable risk that's a foolish mistake and so is forcing everyone back into hybrid five
229days a week right now it could be I think maybe after spring bake we might be ready right now the variants are starting to explode out the fact that we're not seeing it quite yet here doesn't mean that it's not already happening it was just starting when we didn't see it coming before but they're already saying they're starting to identify it more and more and we don't really know how they're going to react I think anyone in our communities vaccinated now and we don't know how these strains are going to make things much worse there's been a lot of politization politicization of Science and the arguments about what our school should do but I think we should be to agree on the value of the most basic part of science the scientific method it's what
230I heard the body that was here tonight talking about and how they were making their decisions and analyzing the facts the method is that you examine the facts and see where they lead us you don't come up with a goal and rearrange the facts to make it seem necessary right now the facts tell me and I think they could be telling all of us if we listen well that switching to five days a week right yet and undoing the distancing protocols that we currently have is unnecessary for our children's mental health and dangerous to their physical health that is even more true given how little we know about the new more contagious variants of Co so why do it I as hesitant as some of the people on the other side of this issue about
231whether all our safety measures are completely necessary I know there are lots of people who have been infected with little effect but but that is also how the disease spreads to the people it kills that is why I don't feel right doing something that could be so dangerous just because because it could be more convenient or more fun or even more satisfying it's the same reason I don't drive 80 miles per hour in a school zone I am ready to roll up my sleeves think creatively help with budgeting raise money if needed but let's do what's needed hybrid is working well enough let's build off of where we are now and do the research and planning necessary to safely get our kids back to school when we know that that's really likely to be the
232result if there's any District that can do this from everything I've seen it's ours and I hope we can do it together thank you thank you uh Kelly you want to read the next one sure um this comment's from Curtis Bix bixel on calendar Lan in Wellingford I'm leaving a message in regards to the school year and how I would like to strongly emphasize that we have come so far and to alter our course with three months left in the semester would be foolish putting our teachers In Harm's Way we've come so far it seems erratic and disruptive to put people's lives in danger thanks so much go ready yes good evening thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Monica Zees and I live on far and Swarthmore my
233children attend SRS in Strath Haven Middle School I'm here to express my strong support for the plan presented this evening to allow elementary students the opportunity to to return uh to full-time inperson School especially given a rapidly declining covid cases as pointed out by Dr Grande and Dr Rubin tonight at the last meeting I shared guidance developed by a group of national experts in various Fields ranging from epidemiology medicine and public health to education and ethics these National experts have carefully considered risk to teacher student Community as well as the new covid variants and have concluded that children and teachers can safely return to classrooms with mitigation strategies like masking in place they have studed the school experiences from the fall in the absence of vaccination and with minimum three-foot distancing and seeing that school
234can actually be safer than the community in regards to co transmission which was also discussed at the recent chop policy lab virtual discussion on covid in schools we should all continue to urge our politicians to prioritize our school Personnel for Co vaccination but we should not let this delay a return to more iners learning Dr relle will I our newly appointed CDC director stated last week vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools while I fully support the proposal to bring our youngest Learners back full-time the timeline is extremely disappointing I realize that for some children virtual schooling is working well however we cannot forget that with each passing day there are many other students struggling socially emotionally physically and academically given the ities of bringing these kids back full-time I
235hope that planning has begun for a phased return for our middle school and high school students early this spring while it may be more challenging to accomplish there is no guidance to suggest that they too cannot safely return to their classrooms full-time since speaking up at our last board meeting I've been called immoral and Despicable among many other things I can only imagine the hate mail and vitriol that has been directed towards board members but I have returned tonight to show the that those words are not going to shame nor silence me I'm asking the board to also please be brave the scientific evidence supports this proposal to allow our elementary children the opportunity to return to full Anderson learning now our children are depending on you when the time comes to vote please vote
236yes thank you for your time and dedication to our community thank you Kelly you want to read our next one sure right um I'm going to at this point read a petition um we received a petition from uh the wsa and we also received one from the wsp so the wsa is the Wallingford swathmore Education Association and the wsp is the Wallingford swore education support Personnel inst structural support members um I'll begin by reading the uh the Professionals of the Wallingford sore Education Association wsa request that the Wallingford swore School District administration and the Wallingford wmer School District Board of school directors delay returning our elementary schools to a full in-person learning model until the covid-19 vaccine is distributed to wsea staff and has reached its full Effectiveness making such a shift safe for both
237staff and students at present our elementary school hybrid plan allows families the choice to send their children to school while utilizing guidelines created by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Chester County Health Department these guidelines enable all of us to keep a safe social distance of six feet while students still receive a quality in-person Wellingford swur educational experience it is our understanding that the school board meeting scheduled for Monday February 1st will include a vote to turn elementary students to 4 and a half days of in-person instruction with only 3 fet of mandated soal social distancing we believe that this decision will put our student staff and their families at further risk of infection if the date of this transition precedes the date on which all of our staff has been effectively vaccinated therefore
238in the interest of the health and safety of all concerned wsea members are petitioning the school board and administration to delay returning our elementary schools to a full in-person learning model based on the following evidence one despite slight decreases in positive cases in the most recent 7-Day period January 8th through January 14th the Pennsylvania Department of Health early warning monitoring system dashboard shows that Delo County had a 99.9% positivity rate and 252 cases per 100,000 there was also a significant increase in the number of covid-19 Hospital admissions these statistics place wssd in an area of substantial transmission two according to the latest guidelines from Pennsylvania Department of Education and PD issued on January 7th 2021 schools and areas of substantial transmission should be all virtual or hybrid but not fully open three the emergence of
239a new more transmissible V variant of the virus is circulating in our state and region the Centers for Disease Control and prevention statement on Friday January 15th 2021 predicts that this variant will result and yet another surge of Corona virus infections by March 2021 leading to increased hospitalizations and deaths we certainly appreciate the challenges involved in making decisions regard regarding how to open how open to keep our buildings wsa members firmly believe that in light of these imperfect choices we must prioritize the health and safety of our students teachers and their families simply put our first obligation as a school Community is to protect the people in our schools to that end we suggest that wssd remain in the current hybrid mode of instruction until the vaccine is widely available and our staff have been
240fully vaccinated on behalf of all wsa members we want to thank the school board and administration for their careful consideration of this petition and this was signed by uh Dave Waldman president of the wsa and 295 members of the Wallingford sthare Education Association the petition uh that we received from the Wallingford sthare education support Personnel instructional support members uh not exclusive of any other WSPA members in conjunction with wsa request that the Wallingford sthare School District administration and the Wallingford sthare School District Board of school directors delay returning our elementary schools to a full in-person learning model until the covid-19 vaccine is distributed to WSPA staff and has reached its full Effectiveness making such a shift safe for both staff and students and the remainder of the petition reads uh the same as that from
241the wsa uh this petition from the wsp was signed by 39 members of the WSPA thank you Cy please good evening um Kelly keegel um Beach Road and wingford I'm back um even though this meeting is not really designed to have people linger and um Talk uh as a single parent it's difficult to be here at 10:30 to be able to have my voice uh be heard uh which I would assume there's a lot of people in this community that then you know takes away that um opport opportunity from them so um I 20 years of uh kids my first time being active coming to board meetings I I would be I I don't know how this is the design to have voices be heard I I feel like this is a this in itself
242is an issue um we are in desperate need of leadership um I have a lot of compassion for the position that you board members are in I feel like it's incredibly unfair even um especially the way that we've allowed um conversation to [Music] um become that a cry to have say it's crucial for schools your children to be in school has somehow also aligned with being anti-teacher um immoral um someone that would harm people I mean to it's irresponsible for our community to allow that messaging to even be going you know through the community on out next door or Facebook or wherever this is happening um I don't have Facebook but a lot gets sent to me and um you know I'm I'm going to ask a few a few questions here that I know
243can't be answered but we have a lot of Specialists that we bring in to Give opinions and I'm curious um if anybody has seek out a specialist to inquire about the mental health impacts this is having on our children I don't know if we have had teachers be hospitalized this year so far due to covid um I know we've had students be hospitalized for mental health issues so are we seeking out a specialist to get numbers on that and all over the country how depression and anxiety Suicidal Thoughts I know we talk about Equity a lot this is not Equitable it's not it's also not sustainable so have we reached out to anybody to find out how less privileged children are being impacted by school closures um it's frustrating uh to have us show passion
244for being Equitable um and really not walking that path when I say that we're in need of leadership we have teachers that have felt comfortable communicating on social media about conversations and reaching out to the community and how they feel um I'm friends with a lot of teachers in this district and think um they're doing a great job I am team teacher but we are supposed to be representing our students the teachers are have jobs that Pro a union protects them people don't it's uncomfortable to stand up here and to be saying this because this backlash that might happen but the community is being misled and we do not have enough transparency and honesty and it is allowing people to be pinned against each other and for there to be misinformation everybody knows there's a
245teachers union it is what it is it's something that's afforded to to that profession and great if it I don't know how they work so well but great if that's something um that is a benefit to them if that if teachers unions are contacting the board and asking that meetings be paused we should come out and just say what it is so that we can then move on or deal with whatever issues come with that it it it is what it is at this point but to have everybody be going round and around and not have all the pieces to the puzzle to know how to get together and work and make some real progress is just a length in things and the students are the ones that are C caught in this Crossfire I
246don't have Elementary kid students but they should be in school they need to be in school the I'm thinking of little kindergarteners and first graders that are just not really even picking up maybe on some social cues knowing when people are you know they're picking up on Fear on a face or excitement or the interactions and I I think it's great for people that are um their kids are doing doing well um my kids are doing well um I I I think that if your kids are doing well we need to be advocating for the kids that maybe aren't in the same position as we are so I think that in order for us to be moving forward we need to have some transparency and some honesty and we need to stop delaying things too
247can we have a meeting next week about this because it's misleading to have these meetings and these talks and then delaying it and then people think they're having a vote and then all this misinformation that's going around and now we're here again to talk about it you know for a really long time and then you know we'll come back in two weeks I mean I I think it's important to to get to it one way or another um again I I feel for you you board members but you are all all some of us have we the students you know some parents we don't have anybody else really speaking up or or advocating um even for for for us so you're who we have to to Hope can make some hard decisions for us but
248ones that are right for students and I'm not going to repeat a bunch of stats and things that I brought because everybody is doing that and I don't even know if we're all listening at this point but um we we need to have the kids back in school and people that don't feel comfortable with that you guys have worked really hard to give them an option they have an option and you cannot control the out outside world we have high school students that are washing dishes at Swap Market we have high school students that are stocking shelves at CBS we have parents that cannot say they're afraid to go to work in this community or they cannot feed their children they're not coming here they're not making petitions they're not saying everything correctly they need
249they need us so you know I hope this doesn't create a lot of backlash I hope teachers understand that I I appreciate them and everything that they're doing I hope you guys understand sometimes saying hard things is ex it's exactly what it is it's hard it's hard to do and it feels uncomfortable um but we need to be really moving in a different this is not sustainable it's it's not um thank you for your time and thank you to the board I wish I could see the people online but thank you to um those members that whether we agree or disagree have been open to conversation and hearing um you know hearing what people have to say that's it's incred L valuable and uh I'm I'm I'm grateful to that opportunity and it's most of
250you sitting here in front of me so thank you thank you very much all right transparency and honesty thank you I I just wanna before I go to Kelly just offer a quick comment which is to say that you know one of the things I feel strongly about in this entire process of decision making is that we have to have a process I I realize people want a decision as quickly as possible but we have to give our parents and our families a chance to be heard and that is what we will do um the survey that we'll put out to our families will give us real data on how families feel about the proposed change and without that I personally don't want to make a decision based on dueling po and who can collect
251the most signatures I don't feel like that's the the type of decision that I want to go through so I do believe we need a process we're moving it as quickly as possible there is no special secret going on behind you're watching this conversation happen tonight you're watching the conversation we had earlier this evening there there's nothing there's nothing else um this is our board discussion on this issue um you know and and you know all I can say is you know from the bottom of my heart like this is we're we're trying as hard as we can working as hard as possible to try to listen to as many people as we can because at the end of the day we do have to make a decision for the whole district and we need
252to give people a chance to voice their opinion on this before we make a final decision um and we will do our very best to do that um Kelly do you want to read the next comment I offer a quick comment though to sure I I I want to say that the decision um and reiterate that the decision to um postpone the meeting that happened with the snowstorm was a decision that was made entirely uh in consultation the three of us um uh Dr Grande Dr Palmer and I made that decision and we made that decision um for the reasons that you just articulated we were being overwhelmed with feedback we did not have an opportunity to have an in-person meeting and this is too important a decision and a conversation to not allow the
253the opportunity for iners and there was nothing that went into that decision other than that that was it um so I wanted to share that um this comment is from um Miss wman just before we go on I just want to I know that we read the petitions from the teachers union and from the instructional support Union but we didn't read the names for logistical purposes so that I know will those full petitions be incorporated into the minutes um because I know that the speakers give their names but this is a petition and we didn't read those names I believe so I mean the yeah they will it'll be in the record okay thank you this comments from Nate Brown Waterville Road in wingford I live with my wife Joanna and our children I had
254a comment that I just wanted to make to the school board before the meeting here so let me start by saying that I'm in favor of safely putting all of our students back into schools uh having said that at this time putting all of our students back into the building full-time is not safe a decision to allow elementary students to attend school 5 days a week at three feet of social distancing I think would be questionable at best and irresponsible at worst the data surrounding in school Transmissions of this virus is murky only definitive confirmed School Transmissions are documented even though in many cases School transmission cannot be ruled out as a possibility admittedly the six feet of social distancing is a guideline and not a mandate but guidelines have been put in place for
255a reason there are many widely accepted scientific principles that are known as theories even though they stood the test of time for many years semantics is a very poor argument for opening schools to less than recommended social distancing of 6 feet Yes parents of our elementary students would be given the option to go to the Online Academy if the this decision is made so no now parents will have the choice of either sending their child to a school in an unsafe environment or move them fully online to a classroom with a new teacher and new classmates in the middle of the most inconsistent school year they've ever experienced families like mine will have to choose will my autistic Elementary child continue to go in person to get the social services and in-person support that she
256desperately needs s or should I keep my elementary child home so my imuno compromised fully online high school student be as safe as he can be maybe instead of trying to figure out how to fit all of our students in our classrooms we could find a safer better way to help our students that are truly struggling with the online system additionally there's potential for the pmic pandemic to leak into the 2021 2022 school year instead of focusing how to reopen our schools fully during the pandemic maybe we should spend some time building a contingency plan in the event that we're still dealing with this next year also chop has discovered that a number of children that have been infected with covid even though they are asymptomatic have developed PMA which is a blood clotting syndrome
257the long- lasting effects of this syndrome is currently unknown and is being examined we should not be Taking Chances with the potential long-term health of our youth finally your own faculty and staff have made their voice heard through petition this petition I've been told has requested that the decision to fully open element schools be delayed until at least the faculty and staff and any person that's going inside the building to perform their job are able to receive the vaccine if they choose to get it as of January 22nd Chester County Department of Health has communicated the mass vaccines for our teachers and support staff will not be coming anytime soon we should not not be making our School District employees choose between their health and their jobs honestly the only reason I can see opening
258elementary schools fully is that some parents are complaining if the decision to fully open our elementary school is made then I guess we know what's important to the school board although it shouldn't come as a surprise seeing how the high school staff and students requested to keep the high school schedule and changed but at the request of some parents the entire High School model was turned upside down also student athletes that are coming in close contact with others from our school and from outside of our school are now potentially going back into the student body so it's clear to me that science the desires of our teachers our staff our students and the general concern for the health and safety of our and their families all play second fiddle to the vocal minority thank you
259very much for your time uh why don't we go to the next one I'll see if someone appears uh this is from Melissa Carden Stratford Lane Wellingford I have two sons one in fifth grade at West and one at the middle school in eth grade first of all I would like to say thank you so very much to the school board and the teachers for how hard everyone's working during this very difficult time I chose this area because of the school district and I'm grateful for the high standards and the great education that my sons are getting I'm calling to say I was grateful to see that the CDC has come out this week to say there's little risk of Corona virus Transmission in classrooms I know that there is an immense risk for students
260stuck at home but I'm calling to let you know that I believe we should follow the CDC guidance I think we should work towards imperson schooling specifically I think we have to follow the data and do what's best for our kids we know that they have loss of learning and particularly I'd like to talk about mental health anxiety loneliness depression these are things that we're experiencing as a family and I know many other families are also in fact I feel that if you're a family that's not experiencing it you're probably in the minority not the majority so I would like to say a wholeheartedly support getting the kids back to school and support it with all of the proper guidelines I think it's I think it's essential for the well-being of our children and like
261I said if we support the data if we follow the data then this is where it should take us thank you so much for all you do to educate our kids and keep everyone safe keep on going yeah uh don cron recers Avenue swathmore I'm the parent of a first and fourth grader at SRS as scientist my partner and I have been carefully monitoring covid cases in our area nationally and want to commend the school district on the decisions they've made thus far to keep our children teachers and Community as safe as possible during this pandemic we also want to thank you for holding a special board meeting to discuss bringing our elementary children back 5 days a week for inperson learning we were 100% in favor of return to school 5 days per week
262and encourag the school board to vote in favor of our children's health and well-being based on the CDC new recommendation to get children back in school and that children are not drivers of the spread of the SARS virus coupled with a 30% drop in covid cases nationally compared to mid January it seems like the right time we know you're weighing the data the recommendations and the health and safety of our community I but I want to relay our own experience with hybrid learning learning in our household which I'm sure Echoes the experiences of many virtual virtual learning is particularly challenging for our youngest Learners our first grader was still learning to read and write it's really challenging to both stay engaged and to learn via Zoom I witnessed him attempting to write the mirror image
263of letters on his whiteboard to show his teacher the image on the computer screen because it's not in the right orientation this is so incredibly problematic for learning letter formation and he is really struggling with learning to read in addition there are regular tears and frustration with completing schoolwork and trying to juggle multiple Zoom meetings for each child while my partner and I both work full-time this has been nearly impossible and an emotional toll in our household we both R run research labs and teach at the college level full-time which requires us to work outside the home and it's been a scramble to find child care to allow us to continue to do our jobs we're fortunate that we can afford to do so and have flexible work schedules but has been a considerable financial
264burden the stress of making sure we can do our job and the kids can do their virtual school and be taken care of as significant with that said we recognize we are very fortunate and cannot even imagine the burden this is placing on the most vulnerable families and children within our community whose parents need to work full-time outside the home and have less financial means and work flexibility offering them the possibility to attend school in person 5 days a week will have the biggest impact on those families that are struggling the most we see the teachers working so hard to support students both in the classroom and at home this must be completely exhausting but we commend the job they've done so far trying to keep our students engaged when they're at home for our
265teachers and children's mental well-being we hope you will bring our children back into the classroom to learn from their wonderful teachers in person starting on March 4th we urge the board to please let us Salvage in a few months of what I'm sorry we urge the board to please let us Salvage in a few months of what so far has really felt like a lost and frustrating year of learning thank you uh Deborah carunchio on South Chester Road in swathmore I have two children in the swathmore redage school district um this swore rage school and they are both in first grade Nate and Sam we are in favor of in-person school five days a week based on the most re recent scientific data available and based on a number of opinions and Healthcare figures in
266the community to include those at chop and the American Academy of Pediatrics I am also a nurse and work in the field of oncology our kids are falling behind on academic and psychosocial issues we were advised that this would be a few weeks it is soon going to be one year since our kids have been in school for 5 days a week and this is why me and my spouse feel that our children should be back at school 5 days a week based on the most recent scientific data please help get our kids back to a normal way of life thank you this is Allison Collings Fox Lane and Wellingford my son and daughter both attend Wallingford Elementary School and this is a message for Dr Palmer and the school board with regards to the
267meeting meeting that is occurring tonight to review the return to school plan and timeline for elementary students I wanted to call to express my concern about the lack of information that has been provided to the community up to this point on this plan that I understand based on what was mentioned in last Monday's meeting will be voted upon tonight this plan is a big shift for everybody involved staff teachers students and families we all need time to consume this information when it's it is presented weigh the pros and cons and determine the right path forward the board members need to hear from their constituents incorporate that feedback into to their vote therefore I implore you to please postpone any action on this plan in tonight's meeting I also want to express my concerns about this
268plan we are going into what is deemed one of the most dangerous heightened parts of this pandemic with new variants and strains now coming into the United States we are learning that we are not able to get our citizens vaccinated as quickly as we'd like to yet are we are now being proposed a plan for our elementary school students to go back into school at full capacity and have their teachers go back in and teach at full capacity without having having the protection of a vaccine ahead of that I know we all value our Educators we all value our children's lives and families and I think this is an egregious mistake please please consider that this is not a necessary decision there are families that are in the cohort model and that is working for
269them by making this decision you're taking that option away from them and forcing them to either put them in school at full capacity in a dangerous environment or change them from the classroom they've been in for more than half of the year with a teacher they have a relationship with and move them to the Online Academy this is a lose lose situation I beg you to please think about this take some time and not make any rash decisions around this plan thank you very much and I'll finish with LZ Corson and then we can pass it to the next um Liz Corson Pritchard Lane Wallingford I am both a teacher at SRS a parent of West Strath Haven High School Al um and a resident of Wallingford I'm calling to urge you to wait to
270implement the full inperson learning model and teachers and staff have been vaccinated like everyone I desperately want the full in-person learning model to already be happening but we are currently in a pandemic with more virulent strains already in Montgomery County the risks to returning to full inperson learning model are many and these risks can be reduced if one all teachers and staff are vaccinated two the ability to open all classroom Windows is addressed three the question of how children will safely eat both snack and lunch in the full inperson learning model with three-foot NOS to- noose distancing is addressed if those three issues are not addressed before returning to the full inperson model we put our community at risk our teachers and staff our older community members which include my 81 and 82y old parents
271and the many seniors living in our school district most of whom are also not yet vaccinated and any other Community member who's not yet vaccinated which is the vast majority of our district I just made an appointment for my parents to get the first vaccine at the start of March they will not have immunity until April and I was lucky enough to sign them up for an appointment after trying for two weeks I urge you to wait to return to the full inperson learning model the wssd community who do not have children currently in the schools have not been informed of this plan that that and they will absolutely be directly impacted especially if or when the more virulent covid strains arrive as if as predicted in March at which time this plan would mean
272whole classrooms would be quarantining for two weeks at a time instead of one child quarantining at a time as we are currently able to do with the six Flint spacing thank you for all your work to do what is best for our children at wssd while also considering the entire wssd Community okay I'll take the Baton on the next group uh next one is Jennifer Costello Siri on sa Brook Lane in Wallingford uh I'm calling in regards to the meeting this evening about bringing elementary kids in fulltime I do support this however I know you understand that people do have concerns about it you know I've been looking at all the research it seems that the benefit to having as many kids as possible coming to school seem to outweigh the risk I'm personally am
273more concerned about my sixth grader who had been happy and thriving throughout Elementary School and now has been very depressed and anxious and unfortunately been home by herself three days a week and unmotivated my fourth grader seems to be doing better than her kind of just skating by but her sister is really having a tougher time I almost wish at the middle school age maybe due to my own personal issues that was going more often although I know the younger kids need to be at school more as well I can say that in the provider in the area that I've seen more and more children who are having mental health difficulties due to not having school and other activities a lot more depression a lot more anxiety I tend to just work with middle school
274and up but I'm definitely seeing a lot more kids come in for a session and talking to my colleagues that this has recently really increased so my hope is they can get into school more I know there are concerns around this and I understand that people are nervous but from everything that I've been reading about and learning is that the benefits of having them at school far outweigh the risks I trust that our district would be be really vigilant for enforcing masking and keeping good distancing thank you next up is Rebecca Davis on North Princeton Avenue and swathmore I'm calling to strongly state that I hope schools will not go to three-foot distancing or have all staff back in the building until all teachers and other building staff have been fully vaccinated and that accommodations
275are made for staff of any kind who have medically vulnerable family members such that staff may still receive their salary and benefits thank you very much the next one is Lou Carlo on Wilder Road in Wellingford I'm a taxpayer children should be back in school fulltime uh next up is Terry uh darar de Caesar thank you uh my grandson Luke charion is in Mrs Ira's first grade hybrid class at West and I'm the schoolwork monitor on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday first we would like to commend the school district on the outstanding job it has been doing and meeting the needs of children and their families in this very challenging school year they've made it possible for families to choose their own Comfort level in managing their children's schooling in the midst of this pandemic and
276have made sure they do so following the science the hybrid model has been exemplary in keeping children safe through carefully enforcing social distancing and masking our family has been very impressed and very pleased which is why now we are confused and upset by the sudden efforts to get Elementary School back to full in-person class by March 1st based on all the recent reporting about the current stage of this pandemic we are worried the district is not continuing to follow the science our understanding of where we are based on listening to many experts is that we are in the midst of the deadly stage of this pandemic while there's been a bit of plateau in the past week or so none of the experts experts are predicting that the worst is over even President Biden has
277said on many occasions that over the first few months of his administration we will see covid deaths climb to over 500,000 by March which seems like we are on track to meet the new variants which in some cases are more deadly and have a much higher rate of spread could bring those numbers even higher many experts are recommending double masking and all experts are continuing to emphasize social distancing we wonder how on Earth the children will be able to socially distant when the numbers in the classroom will be doubled as far as getting protection from the vaccine the Biden Administration has just received a promise of 200 million more doses but those won't arrive until at least May or June in the meantime trying to get a vaccine is like winning the lottery I'm 67
278years old and I own a child daycare center which serves 65 children employs 18 staff I and my staff are on several lists for the vaccine and based on what we are being told we are not expecting to receive it until at least the spring it's highly unlikely that the majority of teachers parents and grandparents at Wallingford swore school district will be vaccinated by March 1st we feel very good about the safety of the current hybrid model for Luke however going to full inperson class would force us to choose the Online Academy for Luke's safety and the safety of our family this would deprive Luke of two days of normaly two days of inperson instruction and two days of pure interaction we hope you will not make this sudden and ill informed decision and keep
279the current model as it is until the science shows that it's safe to do so thank you for your time and consideration next we have uh Kristen Dole from uh haford place in swathmore as someone who has been pretty closely following the latest CC CDC cchd updates I was surprised and Confused to learn of the suggestion that conditions have warranted a change the full-time in person learning I like many would love to see my kids return to five days a week in person and wholeheartedly agree this is how their educational needs can best be met but I also like many am not willing to compromise health and safety to achieve this our board has rightfully from the start relied on bodies such as CC CDC and cchd for their leadership and guidance as relates to
280matters of data medicine and science this Reliance has brought us to the point we are today with having delivered roughly four months of hybrid instruction in a relatively safe manner so today I'm respectfully asking the board number one why the shift in the absence of Shifting guidance from these bodies it seems to me the guidance has not changed but the interpretation has number two with the understanding this is an incredibly difficult situation to navigate why weren't parents surveyed as we were in the late summer before the hybrid model was offered for families whose children have participated in the hybrid model this is a huge change in we are left with an impossible decision pull our kids from the current teacher classroom and opportunity for some in-person learning or accept the risk which we firmly believe
281they and we will be incurring number three if this proposal goes through what additional PPE will be put into place to keep both our students and staff safe my understanding is that social distancing above and beyond masking is key as a school psychologist administering inperson evaluations the medical guidance I've received is that additional PPE I think there's a typo here required in circumstances when six feet is not attainable uh next up we have Emily emman Westminster Drive in Wallingford I'm calling in today to show my support for the Wallingford swore school district teachers and staff who have come to work during a pandemic every single day who have showed such care and understanding during incredibly hard year I myself had the most amazing opportunity to grow up in this town and attend school in the
282school district four years ago we made the decision to move our family back into the district after having our set of boy girl twins I truly have cherished my time in the district as a child and I hope my children will eventually cherish memories once they start I have an overwhelming feeling and desire to oppose the vote this evening to bring kids back fulltime to school at this moment our teachers deserve to get vaccinated before we decide to add more kids and decrease the number of school distance my kids have had the option to attend the Online Academy have all of our teachers had that option as well do my kids have hard Zoom Day days on Zoom sometimes they do it is each day easy with math and English not always we are making
283the best out of the year and are staying positive that next year may bring back some normaly my children are SRS in kindergarten with Miss uh it's Miss Cooper Smith she has been amazing amazing not only with our children but our parents as well we are truly lucky to have her this year and what a pleasure to have her as part of the school district I would not be surviving this year without her help with all due respect I expect more from our board and our leadership why do you feel these teachers should be why do you not feel these teachers should be vaccinated before we bring more kids in and go to three feet distance instead of six feet I find it completely inappropriate and what a slap in the face after these teachers
284and staff have worked so hard for our students so far this year these teachers deserve respect and patience from parents in this District their health is just as important as ours our children deserve to work in a safe environment and our teachers to work in a safe environment to give them the opportunity to get the vaccine before we bring more kids into our school and more cases of covid occur does everyone on the Schoolboard know every single health issue of our teachers in this District how many teachers have sick children at home do you know what teachers have elderly parents living with them do you know what teachers have cancer or autoimmune disease I urge you to think about these questions before you vote have any of the board members walked in the halls of
285the school have you gone into the classroom and asked how these teachers are doing just because they look healthy doesn't mean they are I just look fine like any other parent in this District however don't always judge it booked by its cover as I sit in my chemo chair today calling in to support our teachers you think about life I'm fighting for my life every single day please do not put put these teachers in the same position as I am let's do this safe and not rush let's give these teachers the respect and dignity they deserve and have them vaccinated before you send them into a war zone of germs let's take care of the ones who take care of our babies we all want to be in school we are all longing for the
286day of normaly that lifestyle is going to come back but it's going to take teamwork and it's going to take time and patience I know not everyone on the board agrees but we could use less eye rolls and head shaking when it does not fit your agenda gen length we need to do better we need to treat people with respect on both sides we are all watching these teachers deserve our love our empathy and our compassion not snarky hurtful comments this year has been about the hands of the people who are trying their best to make the best plans for kids education during such a horrific pandemic I've always thought of Wellingford swart School District as a leader in Delaware County let's lead and show other districts we not only care but we also care
287for our teachers Garnet Valley school district has this idea why do we not our kids wouldn't be who they are if it wasn't for our teachers and staff in this District let these teachers get vaccinated and set a good example for the other communities around Delaware County set the standard high and be the leading District I thought they joined next up is uh Andrea uh fabric Fabrica fabricator on Brierwood Road in Wallingford uh I'm calling to voice my concern about the plan to vote to fully return the elementary school kids to fulltime I wish I had more and more notice about this in advance of this vote I believe that both the vote and the decision to return the elementary school children to fulltime I feel as rushed I think that if there is no
288plan to wait until every teacher that wants a vaccine has been able to be fully vaccinated then this feels unsafe if there's not an abundance of clear and convincing evidence that social distancing of 3 to 4 feet is as effective as 6 to 8 feet for students teachers and staff then this is unsafe for the entire Community not just the children and faculty and staff that are there I believe this is an unacceptable burden to force families to have to decide between doubling their children's daily exposures or having to change teachers two-thirds of the way through an already chaotic and unstable year I think that if there are no plans and resources for regular covid testing for all teachers staff and kids and this plan is premature I feel this plan is not align with
289current CDC recommendations for safe oper operation of schools this is irresponsible it seems rushed I hope the board will hear and consider these concerns uh next up is an Anthony Fabrica Tour on Brierwood Road in Wallingford I would like to have this message read into the record at tonight's district meeting I would like to voice my concern about the plan to fully reopen the elementary schools the lack of ample notice for community members to voice their concerns as parents and ask important questions is unfortunate and acceptable it is unsafe and premature to return to full in-person learning for elementary students before every teacher administrator and staff member who wants to be fully vaccinated is fully vaccinated it's premature to fully reopen the school before there's clear and convincing evidence that reducing physical distancing to 3
290to four feet is in fact safe it's not acceptable to force families to decide between doubling their kids daily exposure or their own daily exposure or changing teachers two-thirds of the way through an already chaotic unstable year if there's no plan and no resources for regular Co testing for all teachers staff and kids the plan is premature and unsafe if the plan does not align with current CDC recommendations for the safe operation of schools it's irresponsible this seems rushed and I hope the board will hear and consider these concerns from all community members before holding the vote uh next up is Marshall fer on Highland Avenue in Wallingford I'm calling to encourage the school board to vote to return to full-time in-person learning as soon as possible the children of our Community desperately needs social
291interactions in-person instruction and attention from our highly skilled Educators the adults of our community need to be able to count on schools to be open so that they can be productive members of the community and so they can earn income needed to pay the taxes that the schools need to operate we know that some families will choose to continue remote learning until they are comfortable to return to in-person learning the concept there is Choice as of now families who wish for a full-time inperson have no choice show us that we are the top a top rated School for a reason be a model for other school districts and show them wssd can safely provide a worldclass in-person education thank you for your time next up is Elizabeth Feldman North swathmore Avenue in swore I really
292looking forward to getting students back into the buildings and moving in a more normalized Direction I want to make sure we're doing this with the utmost care and conscious Consciousness towards safety and sustainability however I really have some concerns and several questions regarding the plan to go to three-foot distance since spacing grades K to 5 I've had the privilege of attending the following school districts board meetings Ros tree media rner lower Maran Upper Darby marpel New Town Garnet Valley upper Maran Central Bucks Council Rock penridge nasham Palisades Quakertown Beaverton and Wisa hickin I've been privy to every one of these school districts reopen plans to even open and hybrid from all virtual Central Bucks had to go to 3 feet because of their classroom size and classroom capacity this is really not a novel plan
293and many if not all school districts are struggling with the the same issues we are including but not limited to will the health department improve the plan will pte approve the plan is threefoot distancing and violation of the attestation is it safe to do without vaccinated teachers do we have the right mitigation in place per all the guidance in order to move to three feet all the hours it seems is planning for covid and its effects which will be around at least through the 2021 2022 school year they've all budgeted for the continuation of the Cyber options surveillance testing substantial masking requirements and renovations to their ventilation system they've also planned for the inevitability of a fluid shift between in-person and virtual instruction as needed due to infection rate they've been applying for and getting
294a number of Grants to support these efforts also they open the last couple of weeks after discussing to keep their kids in clusters there's no mixing with other classes at all during the day or the week this is in the middle school and high school as well and it will take a lot of thought and time to set up Middle School and High School clusters to stay together all day long additionally I commend owens's pandem response team for their early intervention education program since late February uh that's L1 uh we get daily briefings and twice weekly readings to prepare and react to the changing landscape of this pandemic I've been looking at all of these plans and ideas with an extremely Keen Eye and all but wssd is planning and preparing for the new variants
295we don't know if the vaccines work effectively against the Brazil and South African variants which are more transmissible and deadly they do suggest however that fiser Mna do offer some protection against the UK variant The jamama Meta study suggests that the evidence for reducing distancing is not as strong as the mass media would suggest there's a lack of credible data about in school Transmissions especially since no one is tracking a symptomatic transmission I would hope we would consider the proposed reduction of safety protocols and mitigation me measures only after our teachers are fully vaccinated we know that even when they're vaccinated we still need rigorous infection control protocol so I'm proud to say that wssd has been open to inperson instruction for 18 plus weeks many schools are still all virtual and have not been
296reopened I'm really excited to get our kids to return but also return safely and sustainably inperson instruction can only happen with trust and Community commitment to safety and compliance we need to prioritize safety and put in all possible infection control and mitigation protocols if we want to prioritize keeping schools open we all have to commit to masking distancing testing and being truthful on the screening form now here are my questions are you Consulting with the health department and chop policy lab on your plans volc 95 mask fa shs be provided to teachers will we require more substantial masking for students have you visited the other school districts for doing three feet distancing what districts have you met with what have you learned from that does in your plan how how is the timing of the
297shift work how will we accommodate kids and families who want to move to Online Academy from hybrid due to the lesson six feet so six feet distancing are you counting for par professionals and other staff in the classroom will you continue to space adult 6 feet how strong is your surveillance testing and contact tracing how many tests are we getting and how will they be divided how much time will families have to decide about what they want to do with their children are we relying on flawed information to make safety decisions how will you keep specialist teachers safe as they move from class pod to class pod will we be escalating our cleaning protocols we heard that students in Online Academy are academically outperforming the inperson kids so what is your plan for helping in-person
298kids to catch up can you confirm that all schools have ventilation systems that exchange the air four to five times per hour what we do about the disparity in class sizes between the elementary schools some may be able to distance better than others I really do hope there will be thoughtful planning and the necessary systems to keep everyone's staff and students as safe as possible at this point in time I don't have the confidence in the district's ability to keep people safe given the protocols we have in place I want us to be able to return students to classroom safely and sustainably thank you for your service and dedication to our children I think I hand off at that point to Matt have the next 10 Bill Foster Strat Haven Avenue Sophomore PA regarding the
299proposed full reopening of K through 5 I don't think this makes sense until the District employees and District contractors are fully vaccinated against covid-19 the covid-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious disease and hospitalizations including serious disease from the increasingly widely circulating more contagious and fatal variants of concern these vaccines are really revolutionary with respect to their speed of development and efficacy their ease of reconfiguration in response to virus mutations and their ability to simultaneously activate two important types of antivirus immunity all of this progress is fantastic positive news that we must take advantage of before a full School reopening at any grade level waiting until staff are fully vaccinated is especially important right now given the rise of the more transmissible viral variants that have driven European countries that had fully reopened schools
300to transition to fully closed schools we should keep their recent experience in mind in making this decis decision but also remain hopeful and focused that we can vaccinate all staff and move on to full K through 5 reopening soon it's just not yet Sally fer East Country Club Lane Wallingford PA I do not have an elementary school student but I do have a senior in high school and I want to express my concerns over opening the elementary schools prior to the teachers being vaccinated I really think in the times we have right now where there's increased strains that our teachers could be more susceptible to I think it'd be very good for them to be vaccinated before having a full class of student sitting closer together eating all together with no masks during eating that's
301the biggest Point not being able to isolate or provide distance when they're maskless and during the winter times when you can't go outside for lunch I believe that it would be in their best interest to have the teachers vaccinated and then reopen elementary schools thank you for your consideration and hopefully you make a safe decision for all including the teachers lindsy Goldsmith Marky Brookside Road Wallingford I wish that this plan had been introduced and defended to the community while in advance of this evening's vote since it was not I offer some conditional statements to the board in hopes that they will be used as guidance to make a safe and responsible decision if the district has not garnered the support of the elementary school teachers and provide realistic professional options for all of those who
302disagree or are comfortable then this plan is not tenable for our Educators if the district does not intend to wait to implement this plan until every single teacher that wants to be vaccinated then this plan is not safe for our teachers if the district is does not have an abundance of clear and convincing evidence from multiple peer-reviewed respected science and public health sources that social distancing of 3 to four feet is as effective as social distancing of 6 to8 feet for our elementary school students and for the teachers administrators and staff who work in our elementary schools then this plan is not safe for our community if the district does not have a plan in place such that children who do not feel safe doubling the number of other children that they're exposed to each
303day at school do not have to change teachers two-thirds of the way through what is arguably been the most tumultuous school year of their life then this plan is not emotionally acceptable for our children if the district does not have plans in place and the resources secured to implement regular covid testing for elementary school students and staff then this plan represents a premature move to increased exposure if this plan is not in alignment with current CDC recommendations for the safe operation of schools then it is unwise and irresponsible if each board member does not have the intention of listening with open ears to the voices of the community and then using that feedback to inform their vote then the potential adoption of this plan constitutes a breach of Justice in our community I sent an
304email to you all on Friday urging to to you to slow this process down and hold off on voting until the community has more time to process the plan and respond I gave you access to the results of a Google form where you could see names of wssd community members who support that letter as of the time that I recorded this message 168 people had signed it I urge you in this time of virtual interaction where we have lost some sense of what it is like to be present with other people to imagine 168 people standing with you wherever you are 168 people in front of you asking you to slow down to think to hear our voices Nicole Gordon angle Drive Wallingford PA my husband and I have two children who go to Wallingford
305Elementary School I'd first like to thank the school board and the administration and especially the teachers for all that they have done to help our school and our students navigate these challenging times up until this moment I've been very pleased with how the health and safety of our students and the health and safety of our teachers has been a priority for our school board and for our Administration I have to say though that I feel like the decision to move full-time for parents to choose full-time or to choose full virtual is Hasty in order to do this I believe that you would have to relax the six feet social distancing in classrooms my daughter in fifth grade has 27 kids in her class and there's no way that if everyone chose to come back they
306would be able to maintain six feet of social distancing I was watching the board meeting from last week and I understand that you're citing some surveys but from my understanding the CDC and the Chester County Department of Health are still recommending six feet I work in a district and they're considering bringing students back some students back on a stage re-entry and they're still maintaining six feet when I speak to my daughter about it because we've been very safe and trying to help her but really be aware my fifth grade daughter she's concerned because it feels like people will be be too close because we've drilled 6 feet into them we are so close to having our teachers vaccinated I appreciate that you're looking at a testing program but with the new variants coming up and
307with the cases still not under control I believe we're still in a high spread County that I feel like this is a hasty decision and I don't feel like it's fair to the students who chose hybrid or kids that are virtual for them to have to then choose to have a brand new teacher I can't afford to have my kids virtual four days a week I can't afford to have them virtual two days a week and so essentially I don't have a choice regarding this I'm disappointed that you're moving this quickly without surveying parents about whether or not most parents want this or not and without giving a little bit more information about how you're going to maintain the safety this district has always put the health and safety first for their teachers and their
308students I'm just disappointed I'm really really disappointed that this is being talked about and being done so hastily I want to thank you for your efforts up until now and I want you to believe that our postpone in a full return to learning until there's more information and until our teachers have been able to be vaccinated thank you so much Marty guron Meadow Lane wingford I'm calling because I want to voice my support of opening the elementary schools to full five days in person my daughter is at the elementary school and she has lagged basically a grade level in Reading behind virtual learning is not for her at all what whatsoever I work full-time my husband is unemployed and is trying very hard to find a job we have a 5-year-old we have a middle
309school child as well and honestly we can't be everywhere it wants it's just not possible the school district hasn't given us any options for having any kind of full daycare and we haven't really been asked at any point if our children have a safe place to be with access to food or Internet any of those things no one's ever asked me that anyway and you know they don't know I know my kids are one of the fortunate ones in that sense we at least have a roof over their heads and they can eat but I'm not sure that's true of everyone and give given the new commitment to diversity equity and inclusion I think it's absolutely critical that the district is able to provide as much in-person education for any student that needs it whether
310it's for physical resources Mental Health Resources or just the ability to be around other people and not have the distractions of being at home and having to deal with internet that is not great sometimes and zoom that kicks you out and being marked absent even though you're there the number of times I've had to call about my student absences in Middle School even though he's right there it's frustrating I have other things to do and I have to sit there and basically prove that my child is there is there that's not a good use of anybody's resources also the symptom tracker I don't know why it's being sent at 1:00 a.m. 6: a.m. and 7 p.m. 7 a.m. most people I know asleep be between those hours so I generally fill it out without seeing
311my children when my child was ill I did not send them to school as you're not supposed to but then it was a whole big thing trying to make it so he could zoom in it's a big giant headache and there aren't good good policies they're not consistent with what the research shows I'm a PhD chemist I know about data and we're not following it we're following our understanding from March and April and our understanding is a lot better now a lot of studies that have come out show the same thing the studies that have been used to refute the safety of opening schools have been in other situations where there are way more students where there's way less space the whole masking thing is different there's so much more data that shows in fact
312the transmission of Co is much much less when stent students are in school because when they're not in school they're somewhere else if they're somewhere else that means they're mingling with more people in the community it just makes sense whereas allowing them to be able to be in kind of one tight neck Community there's just less transmission the folks who want to remain virtual absolutely should have that choice and there's no reason to believe that's not the case I also want to add I'm an educator myself I've been in person since August it's not impossible and I don't feel unsafe I've never felt unsafe in my situation I believe from what I've heard from various teachers of not only my institution but even at District institutions there's plenty of teachers who will be more than
313happy to teach in person so I really believe we need to get a little more creative and make this happen for our kids thank you so much Dr Darcy Hayes 909 West Hill Avenue swatar I've previously emailed the board but I thought it necessary to have his comments reflected in the record it is unconscionable to me for the board to consider voting on a proposal to negate prior Public Health advice regarding the classroom and maintaining appropriate physical distancing without the input of local public health and pediatric experts as chop policy lab was a frequent collaborator on prior decision- making I respectfully request that the board delay their votes to enable such time for these valuable Public Health experts to check in and for the community to have time to digest their input I will also
314knowe for the record that as of today Monday February 1st according to the CDC Co data tracker our most recent County Countrywide 7-Day total indicates 295 cases per 100,000 individuals which is indicative of the highest risk of transmission within schools per CDC metrics and that the Pennsylvania Department of Health labeled this number as their highest risk category of substantial which triggers their recommendation for the consideration of Blended learning for elementary schools only versus full remote learning well though I certainly acknowledge the board's autonomy and decision- making and understand that these metrics or recommendations rather than requirements I ask that it be noted for the record that if the board votes to resume full five days a week inperson learning for elementary school at the expense of physical distancing the board will be doing so against
315both state and National Current public health advice inform formed decision- making is critical when lives are at stake and I'm quite distressed and what appears to be very Rush timeline to push forward a critical decision in the absence of formal Public Health input Justin Hensel plush Ro wingford I fully support the motion to return the elementary schools and all other schools for that matter within the district to full-time 5 day a week instruction our children need a daily structure and normaly of school their mental physical and social well-being depend on it the data on the virus in our state and County according to pa.gov warrants a safe return of our students and staff to the classroom the hybrid system has run its course the asynchronous learning day on Wednesday is another lost day of learning
316and to believe a school district administrator would try to support this synchronous day to count toward the 180 days of instruction required by the Commonwealth is absurd and I hope taken out of context as reported in the SWAT morian this has not been easy for any of the parties involved but just as every other industry has figured out how to operate in this environment the school district needs to as well thank you Nancy haam calendar Lane Wallingford I'm calling to request that you delay the vote for full reopening elementary schools in the Wallingford sopore School District I don't understand why it's being rushed my concern is that every teacher has not been fully vaccinated and until that time you should not be putting the children in there 5 days a week has the school board
317talked to teachers specifically in the elementary schools have they visited the elementary schools if the school board members have not visited an elementary school within the last two months there's no way that this should pass every school board member should be in those buildings to see what it's like in an Elementary classroom if you're afraid to go in those elementary schools then those classroom should not be packed with students thank you Laura Hunter cor Avenue swore my son Gavin is a first grader at SRS I just want to leave a message that my family is strongly in favor of our schools fully reopening we believe that this can be done safely with staff and students my son is a first grader he's never experienced a full year of imperson learning I'm deeply concerned about not
318only him but all students falling behind academically socially and emotionally as a working parent I rely on a network of child care to cover virtual learning in the various days off and I worry about involving people from different communities that actually make it less safe compared to just remaining an SRS pool bubble so I'm overall very very in favor of the school fully reopening thank you mayor Beth CN Wilder Road wingford I have four children in this district and I'm calling in support of the return to full-time in-person education at the elementary level I'm hopeful that this positive change will lead to the return to fulltime for the middle and high school students as well as a nurse for over 20 years I have always been in support of decision made on the basis of
319scientific evidence and facts as opposed to the ones driven by fear or personal opinions I think the time has come to put aside the wh ifs and what might happen and take a hard look at what is actually going on as a consequence for schools remaining even partially closed the mental health of our students especially teenagers is suffering and suicides are on the rise I personally have shared with the board my 10th graders severe struggles this year and I sincerely hope that no child would become a statistic before changes are made schools across our country state and our County State and country are proving that the return to full-time in-person education is possible and safe I implore the board to make our students their priority and move forward with the decision to transition thank you
320very much thank you Matt uh relle Kelly West Country Club Lane Wallingford Pennsylvania I'm calling about the special board meeting that's scheduled for Monday February 1st to discuss the elementary schools it's imperative for our children to return to inperson learning at least four days a week they are losing valuable time and are at risk children are at a true loss other areas schools return to full in-person learning with ease it can be done safely and effectively science tells us that children younger in eth grade are at the lowest risk in our district we gave our families options if in-person learning doesn't work for you they can choose the Online Academy but for those of us who have chosen the cohort model we need more than two days a week our children need consistency to learn
321interpersonal communication skills and to be held accountable they need this consistency to effectively learn math writing and all forms of language arts please send our elementary age children back to school they really need us now David Lair Jr East Rose Valley Road in walling for I'm calling to comment excuse me I'm calling to comment on the recent discussion about sending the elementary school children back to school in person while ignoring the CDC recommendation and spacing students at least 6 feet apart why would Wallingford Swarthmore even consider ignoring the scientific experts whose knowledge based on covid-19 is far beyond almost all community members wouldn't these decisions be better left to The Experts what other industry is currently functioning in an environment with 24 or more people in a room with less than six feet to socially
322distance and for longer than 15es minutes Center doctor offices know many have reduced their appointments even when patients are seen by fully vaccinated staff patients are asked to wait outside or more are spaced far apart in Waiting rooms almost all businesses continue to have their employees work from home until covid-19 is under control and an acceptable level of her immunity has been reached it is horrific that we cannot accompany our loved ones to hospitals or emergencies or even be in a hospital to comfort sick family members as they're dying alone from this deadly virus and why is this because it's not safe we're in a global pandemic with a virus that continues to mutate and is producing new even more transmissible strains yet Wallingford swore school district is considering sending their school Personnel into these
323unsafe conditions knowing very few of them have been vaccinated this is unconscionable the vaccine is on the horizon we're almost there how can we risk the lives of our teachers administrators bus drivers support personnel and the community as a whole because we can not wait a few more months until the vaccine can be disseminated to those who need it pandemics do not simply end because we are tired of following the protocols necessary to ensure the safety of ourselves and others or because we want our children back in school and like to return to normal pandemics end when we can take the necessary steps to prevent the spread of the virus and vaccinate our population a large part of the child's education is learning to become responsible Global Citizens and socially aware Community how do we
324tell our students that the desires of a small group take precedence over the good of an entire community and that we will ignore the state guidelines for eradicating the virus and jeopardize the safety of others is this the lesson we want to impart to our students I implore the school board to do what is ethically and morally right do not cave to the pressures of this vocal minority that is putting their self-serving individual agenda above the safety of this whole Community get our teachers and school Personnel vaccinated first and reduce the spread of the virus only then should Wallingford Walmore School District agreed to reconsider our educational plan and continued to follow the recommendations of the CDC thank you for your time and consideration Colleen McCarthy Walnut Lane Wallingford I'm calling to comment on the
325push to bring students to an elementary level back full-time I believe this to be a very Reckless decision and I don't understand how when the virus is still active and showing newer more easily transmittable strains we would fully open schools when parents made the decision for the hybrid model we did so because it help help bring students back safely why are we going to upset things now sending students back in person it is not fair for the parents who are comfortable with the hybrid model but not with the full in person to now go entirely virtual it's not fair to these students to change their teacher and classmates halfway through the year and what about our teachers a decision like this is a slap in the face to the dedicated teachers who've worked so hard
326to help our children during these unprecedented times how can we ask them to go back to full classes without even being vaccinated teachers in PA fall under the 1B category of vaccination and people in the 1A category strug struggle to find an appointment who knows when teachers will be fully vaccinated we can't risk our Teachers Health to send students back full-time I always believe Wellingford Walmore to be a district that respects and cares for their teachers but a decision like this to send Elementary School back fully shows the exact opposite thank you Kevin and Jessica melberg of plush Mill Road in Wallingford first let me say we report the opening of all schools however given the focus of this special board meeting we believe that the guidelines have evolved and evidence suggests that there are
327smaller number of cases on younger children the reward to students returning to an in-person learning five days a week far outweighs any potential increased risk associated with transmitting the virus more specifically this past year has proven to me that my elementary school student needs a structured and more focused learning environment he needs to continue the growth and development as as a student including teaching him and reinforcing skills needed to excel in Middle School therefore we are fully putting our support behind the return to five days a week inperson learning at the elementary school level thank you Colleen Murphy Westminster Avenue and swore I'm calling today regarding the vote to return to school at three-foot distancing as a parent and a Community member this effort does not feel safe to me we have teachers in our
328school district who are afraid these are family and friends they're real people and they deserve to have their concerns heard I wonder if you've visited a school or talked to a teacher ask their concerns have you heard them listen to what it's really like in the classroom at this time if you do not have the support of teachers I don't see how you can move forward with a decision like this I assume the new distancing measures are in place with new plans regarding exposures have the teachers been made aware of this have they had input on these things that will affect them our teachers our parents family members and caregivers they deserve to have a voice and they deserve to have their concerns heard I feel fortunate to be in this District we have a
329really good online program in place right now if you drive an hour into other school districts those families are not so fortunate they do not have systems in place that work like ours do I'm asking that you slow down and provide teachers with all the information and all the plans and ask for their input before making a decision that affects them so much thank you for allowing me to voice my concerns I know there are not easy answers here okay which okay Bob and Liz Oaks good okay Woodward Road in Media the reason we're calling in advance of tonight's board meeting is to urge the board to not vote on the school reopening plan for elementary schools particularly given that the plan is being presented for the first time tonight and the meeting was just
330announced on Friday this is a very important decision for those in the community particularly those children in in elementary school there's a wide range of opinions and concerns about it within the community and the community should be given an opportunity to hear the plan tonight think about it and to provide feedback about the plan to their elected school board members in advance of any vote there is no reason why the board could not vote on this plan in a week or two and still reopen the elementary schools in March if it chooses to do so so for those reasons we urge the board to postpone a vote and to give the community a chance to respond to the reopening plan also at the next meeting we would like to understand what specific research and guidance
331the district is relying on for the decision to reopen elementary schools at full capacity at the beginning of March we expect the district's plans for reopening the elementary school to full capacity with specific safety and testing measures we want to hear a clear and specific explanation of what those measures are and what will change the procedures currently in place when class CL rooms have half the number of students we'd also like to understand what the district is doing to ensure that elementary school teachers will have the opportunity to be vaccinated in advance of a full Elementary School reopening we want our kids back in school full-time we also want to know that there's a coherent plan in place supported by our current guidance that addresses teachers and students thank you to the administration and school
332board for all the work that you have done and will do on behalf of our kids Michael olet Martin Lane in Wallingford Sciences have estimated transmissibility of the new Corona virus mutants is 50 to 70% enhanced compared to the original strain of the virus this means our current mitigation efforts will be 50 to 70% less effective as is the case with the virus mutations that provide it an advantage it's reasonable to assume that these new variants will become the dominant circul strains in due time couple this with a slow vaccine roll out it's our social responsibility to demonstrate increased vigilance with infection mitigation strategies and redouble our efforts to get citizens vaccinated bringing students back to the classroom and increasing personto person contact contradicts the social imperative in front of us and places our teachers
333School staff and vulnerable populations at an increased risk this is not the right time to be increasing people density especially in the face of a large unvaccinated population and the emergence of a of more transmissible strains of the co9 virus Lee supporter Grand View Road Media I just wanted to leave a message stating that I was in full favor of all elementary schools returning back full-time thank you Whitney posternack Drexel Place swore I'm calling because I'd like to share my opinion on the idea of opening schools prior to having teachers fully vaccinated I get it I think that there are a lot of kids that need some more support and I think that by now the teachers in each and every classroom know exactly who those kids are prioritize those children but to open the
334school five days a week when things are working right now our numbers are low because of the good things that we're doing by keeping the space six feet apart as close to that as possible by being able to have enough space and enough support to keep the children and the teachers safe until the teach are vaccinated it is not fair to ask them to take on full classrooms of kids and changing the guidelines and changing the rules that have been working it's not fair to ask them to do that there are kids that are struggling I agree prioritize those children than those children only and the others can stay either hybrid Andor virtual as you see fit the middle school program and the way that it is set up and how the classrooms are set
335up is working great and there's flexibility there too Elementary School is not as Flex ible I get it but it's not fair to ask the teachers we're so close to being at a place where they will be protected once the state prioritizes them and they can get their vaccinations then I wholeheartedly agree five days is an option thank you for your time Joseph qualtieri McGill Road swore I'm the parent of two Elementary age children in the school district they've been attending the Online Academy and will continue to do so regardless of what is decided tonight take medication that compromises my immune system and so exposing myself isn't an option I believe that it is responsible to even consider returning to full in-person school any child who becomes a carrier of the disease however asymptomatic they
336are bringing they're bringing it home to infect older imuno compromised members of their family and the community also while we believe Co covid-19 is more mild in children we have no idea what the long-term effects on their development will be I'm sympathetic to the need for children to socialize but these are exceptional times and we need to find a way to help them safely it's imperative that we prioritize Public Health over all else forcing people back to school and work without mass vaccinations is a dereliction of our responsibility to each other as individuals and as a society lastly it is an egregious act to risk the health of the teachers and other staff members in our school including all support staff custodial staff Etc teachers should not be expected to put their lives on the
337line This is especially true when they've been doing an incredible job of teaching and supporting the children in a virtual setting children cannot learn learn and teachers uh children cannot learn teachers cannot teach unless they are alive and healthy I've been amazed at the ability of the teacher staff and students to adapt to something none of us are expected furthermore returning to school and the conditions for that return should never be done without full collective bargaining with the teachers union and their members the workers need to need to say and what risks they feel are appropriate I for one would fully support any teacher or staff member that refuses to put themselves or the kids at unnecessary risk and I'd vigorously push back on any attempts to force them into an unsafe workplace thank you
338for your time thanks Jen next one's from frany Riley Avenue swore dear wingford swore School Board Dr Palmer Miss casner Chester County Health Department delare County Health Department I am writing the to request that the school board vote against sending our children in grades K to five back to school five days a week and vote in favor of continuing to adhere to the Chester County Health Department's guidelines for social distancing in schools I am making this request with concerns for the safety of our teachers students and Community as outline below safety of our teachers the CDC released updated guidelines on January 20th 2021 resources for teachers and staff that continue to emphasize that students should have six feet of Separation The CDC identifies the guiding principles to keep in mind as follows the risk for
339covid-19 spread increases with increased close contact with others the more people who teachers and staff interact with and the longer those interactions last the higher the risk of covid-19 spread close contact is defined by the CDC as someone who was within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period starting from two days before the illness onset or for asymptomatic patients two days prior to test specimen collection until the time the patient is isolated the petition to change 6 feet spacing requirements to 3T in classrooms that was recently circulated emphasized that the SE that the Chester County Health Department's guidance is simply guidelines to consider not a mandate I'm concerned with this line of thinking does Mas wearing also fall into this category what examples
340are we setting to protect our teachers if we selectively decide to ignore these guidelines these guidelines were established for the safety of our teachers and students if we selectively ignore these guidelines what is the risk in Georgia three cob cob County Educators died from covid-19 in one month that is the risk that we face when we decide to selectively ignore guidelines in addition the petition cites to preliminary data that provides that with 3 feet distancing droplet transmission is minimal when both parties are Mass what does this mean for lunch what does the data show about transmission when students are 3et apart and not masked will teachers also be in the lunchroom when students are three feet apart and not mass what risk does it pose to them how will we properly clean the schools to
341the level that they are now if the students are in every day if we do not know the answers to these questions we should not use our schools a scientific experiment to find out finally a superior a super majority of our teachers have not been afforded the opportunity to receive any doses of the vaccine while certain Health Care Professionals have started to receive their first vaccine Andor second vaccine our teacher students in many community members have not had that same opportunity the idea of now increasing the teachers risk of exposure when they are so close to being able to receive the vaccine and the benefits of the vaccine is dangerous and morally unacceptable I appreciate the school that the school board passed a resolution to vaccinate teachers now but I also appreciate that the school
342board openly acknowledged that to date not a single vaccine has been received by the district our teachers deserve better and should be treated with the same consideration respect given to our Health Care Professionals safety of our students we do not know enough about covid-19 to knowingly increase the risk of exposure to our students even if students show mild symptoms or asymptomatic the long-term effects may be serious Ohio State recently conducted a study on student athletes that had tested positive for covid-19 and found that co9 had been linked with myoc cardias at a higher frequency sorry doctor myocarditis thank you at a higher frequency than other viruses had been based B on limited studies in addition in addition a recent study of a 100 patients recently recovered from covid-19 in Germany found that a cardiac magnetic
343resonance resonance imaging rebuild cardiac envirment in 78 patients an ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients which was independent of pre-existing conditions s and overall course of the acute illness and the time from the original diagnosis both of these studies concluded that the ongoing investigation was needed to determine the full impact of covid-19 if we were able to protect our students by adhering to the Chester County Health Department's guidelines of six feet social distancing as adults why wouldn't had there been any discussion of the high school in Israel that was reported in the J publication data and policy to guide opening school safely to limit the spread of SARS Cove to infection dated January 26 2021 as background in Israel within two weeks of reopening a large High School outbreak occur when two students with epidemiologically
344unrelated infections attended classes while mildly as symptomatic testing of more than 99% of at RIS atrisk students and staff identified 153 and 25 cases respectively contributing factors to this outbreak included CRA CL crowded classrooms with insufficient physical distancing for example student density in classrooms exceeded recommended values exemption from face mask use and continuous air conditioning that recycled interior air in closed rooms during a heat wave the recommendation from the CDC in this article is all recommended mitigation measures in schools must continue requiring Universal face mask use increasing physical Distance by densifying classrooms in common area using hybrid attendance models when needed to limit the total number of contacts and prevent crowding increasing room air ventilation and expanding screening testing to rapidly identify and isolate asymptomatic infected individ individuals if the recommendation is the densifying of
345classrooms wi increasing the number of students as a parent I appreciate the school that the school board and administrators develop plans to return to school in person in alignment with the guidance provided by the Chester County Health Department if the school board is making the decision not to adhere to not adhere to the guidance established by federal state and local Health departments what guidance will they be using IF many other P parents elect to switch their children to the Online Academy the number in the Online Academy May fluctuate widely how will the district ensure Equity among the various classes will there be a survey for parents that complete regarding a decision to switch do parents have the flexibility to change your schedules for to for full-time inperson instruction and then then change again if there
346is a spiking cases and the school is shut down safety of our community as previously stated certain healthc Care Professionals have started to receive their first vaccine Andor second vaccine our teachers students and many community members have not had that same opportunity on a weekly if not more frequently basis we receive notifications about positive covid cases covid-19 cases in schools within our district it is the intent that these notifications will increase by having students three feet from one another in addition we know that covid-19 is highly contagious along with new strains that are emerging when a student notification is sent there is risk that the student unknowingly has also been in the community if we increase the exposure to students are we also increasing the exposure to our community do we have a responsibility to
347adhere to this Chester County Health Department's guidelines to not only protect our teachers and our students but also our community the risk appear greater now to the teachers students and Community given the high levels infections and the emergence of new strains what is the upside to this petition it would appear that the downside risk would be greater on raising the risk to the stakeholders and this would appear to be unnecessary and not and unwarranted in the end it could be successful but is it worth the risk the plan implemented has been the plan Implement has been successful given the adherence to the guidelines set forth by the various Health agencies in some we have all worked together to ensure the safety of ourselves and each other throughout this pandemic our researchers have diligently worked are
348diligently working to produce and distribute vaccines our teachers and Community are frantically looking to receive the vaccine for the safety of our teachers students and Community we are requesting that the school board continue to follow the Chester County Health Department guidelines this is not the time to take chances we have all been challenged by the toll that this terrible virus has taken on our community we are hopefully weeks away from vaccinations being distributed to our community we therefore implore you to continue following the Su successful plan that is in place in the hopes of returning to a safe normal in the near future next one's from Carolyn Robin basser Avenue swaer I am calling to share my concerns about the district plan that would disrupt the consistency that you we've been trying to provide our
349very young children in this world in which they've lost so many good things that bring them joy and Foster development I would like the board to please prior partiz keeping children with their teachers I am a licensed child psychologist and researcher who specializes in attachment relationships and Trauma the importance of close trusting relationships for weathering challenging situations cannot be overestimated any plan that has the potential to shuffle children between classrooms this late in the year like March I ask you to reconsider we selected the Online Academy for many reasons one of which was was providing consistency to our daughter's daily and weekly routine I was pleased to hear that you would take a vote only after receiving feedback from the parent surveys transparent transparency and Community input are critical in a Time filled with so
350much fear and equality and uncertainty I hope that the voices of parents with children in the hybrid programs and find this change preemptive and disruptive are hard we are still so early in the vaccine roll out just coming out just coming down off the peak of cases and perhaps most importantly our teachers are not yet vaccinated please listen to the teachers and please get them vaccinated before class sizes double thank you Scott and Jen Rogers bmore Drive wingford dear wingford swore School Board the new proposed Elementary School schedule is of serious concern to us as residents of wingford wingford swore school district teachers have not been vaccinated so the discussion of increased face-to-face instruction time should be postponed in addition to teaching at straing high school we are the parents of a cohort student in
351fifth grade at MPE we do not want our son attending school for any more than the two days he's already there with his cohort we do not want our son in the classroom with any more students than are in his established cohort we do not want him in a school building that is chosen the lower lower it safety standards including lowering the social distancing to three feet we made the decision to put him in the cor cohort based on the current schedule the district's pandemic safety plan and our sons learning needs as a student on the autism spectrum this new proposal violates any trust we have in the administration to keep our child his classmates teacher and staff safe to switch our son with autism to an online Academy at this point in the school
352year has the potential to be incredibly devastating to him in addition it would complicate the services he receives as per his IEP changes to the Elementary schedule will be extraordinarily stressful for our teachers and staff they're working unbelievably hard to provide excellent education to our students during a pandemic to install a new less safe schedule is negligent we do not want our colleagues put in any more danger than they already are they deserve to be safe and feel safe at work changes to the Elementary schedule will mean that our beloved art music library and PE teachers will see 125 plus students a day in their classrooms while classroom teachers have classes of 20 plus students our special teacher will have the entire student population cycling in and out of their classrooms changes to the Elementary
353schedule will mean that our treasured special education teachers speech and language pathologist OTS pts along with instrumental music teachers will have to remake their schedules for each individual student they teach this is a gargantuan task you've already required these highly trained profession did do this twice already this school year please do not add any more stress to their workload this could also have a potential for lack of services due to the confusion of changing schedules yet again during this pandemic school year as I stated in my presentation to the school board on no on November 9th 2020 we all yearned for a pandemic free school year but there is a long way to go before that can happen the ultim ultimate goal should be to keep our children faculty and staff safe safety should not
354be com compromised to cater to a loud vocal group of parents who think they know what is best in education this reopen group does not re represent everyone in the school district those of us who put safety at the Forefront deserve to have our voices listen to as well the demands of the reopen group are dangerous are you willing to accept the sickness suffering and potential deaths that could occur from your decision to put children faculty and staff into unsafe school buildings dur pan during a pandemic please postpone your vote on this matter until all wford swore School District employees are vaccinated are safely vaccinated the next one is from Katherine rer Hastings Avenue wingford my daughter is in first grade at at MPE I am calling to please ask you to return to 5
355days a week in person for schooling it is super important for not only my daughter's well-being but also for the other children in the school district I truly feel as a parent that they learn better in person from a teacher just from our experience with doing virtual learning she just learned so much better when she's at school the days that she is home whether it's Wednesdays or Mondays and Tuesdays are just filled with tears and frustration on both our parts because she's so emotional and just would ra much rather be in school with her teacher and her friends so I'm asking you for her wellbeing and for ours to please vote for five days a week in person of course as a parent plan planning for the teacher safety and for her safety but I
356know the plan that you would propose that they'll be able to continue their social distancing I would even welcome you know if they need to have Plex of glass at each desk this is what the kids would have for personal space and some distance in between I'd be totally fine with that I know there's plenty of other school districts and other states even that are already five days a week and they've been five days a week the entire year so I'm asking that you consider sending them back five days a week I know there's a lot of parents that are opposed to this but the whole intention of us doing in person even with two days a week was to eventually get back to five days a week for so for those parents who were
357not interested in that then they should have chosen the Online Academy and they still can choose the Online Academy the parents that truly want our kids in in five days a week should not have to go up against those parents that are not willing to have their kids going to school more days we shouldn't have to compromise you can offer the online Academy for those that aren't willing to go in person five days and then offer five days a week for those that are I think it's really Paramount that we get the kids back in school there's so many kids which is just so much better and are falling behind because they're not getting the instruction five days a week I just hope you can really consider five days a week in person for the
358well-being of our children thank you Kate samaris North North swathmore Avenue swathmore I have a daughter of Rosa samaris in first grade at SRS I'm calling to put my support behind returning the kids to school full-time I feel my child is being left behind with the virtual learning she is definitely not learning as much as she or I would like this year and her socialization is definitely falling behind as well thank you next one is William Shaw West Wich drive wingford I'm calling to express my support to have inperson schooling five days a week for elementary school and actually the entire District should be five days a week but the issue right now is to keep the kids the elementary school kids at five days a week There's the Online Academy for those of you
359who either have extenuating circumstance and we need to keep that however for the rest of us the kids need to be in school five days a week they're falling behind the mental health aspects of it horrible for those kids the impact's there there's no reason medically from scientific standpoint these kids should not be in the classroom five days a week everybody from Anthony fouchy to the CDC anybody who's looked at the science who follows the science honestly agrees that there's no reason kid should not be in school the W the rest of the world has been doing it the United States is the outlier and there's no reason for that thank you next one is Jessica stowman Lloyd Willow Road wingford I respectfully request the board of school directors Del lay the vote for five-day
360impersonal learning for t to 5 until March or when the teachers are vaccinated parents teachers and administrat ERS all know that the best place for children is a full-time inperson schooling however we've already been down this road for a year what is another few weeks to determine if we'll be able to meet vaccine goals I would also like to invite consideration of a full-time classroom for k to2 space throughout the buildings with older students remaining hybrid as a compromise this will keep building density population low give our young Learners the education they need and protects the healthy adults in the building I respect the difficult work you have all done this year making impossible decision after impossible decision it would be a terrible shame to rush into this decision when you're so so close to
361the Finish Line let's wait let's just wait until after we know when the teachers will be able to get vaccinated before we commit the risk of their health and safety thank you very much next one is from Ed Strauss Riverview Road swathmore my wife and I have children in the fifth and seventh grade last August at the very last minute the board voted to go all virtual we elected to send our children to school in another state we are pleased that they have been safely attending classes live and in person five days a week since last August their school has followed all state and federal guidance and has had only a couple children come down with the covid virus Each of which made a quick and full recovery in addition our children have been involved
362in competitive team sports and other activities continuously since August with no adverse effects while it is a difficult decision both financially and emotionally we felt it was important that they have in-person learning before making our decision we asked our children if they wanted to be in the classroom and they both emphatically said yes both children did not gain anything from the virtual experience last spring in fact they regressed as the scientists are telling us it is it is safe for children and teachers to be in the classroom full-time our experience demonstrate this to be true it is unwise to delay sending their children back to school as the studies are showing they are suffering both academically socially and emotionally please vote to open the elementary schools as well as the middle and high school children
363in our District need you to do the right thing the next one is from Hannah Thomas Linden AV new rutl I would like to register my strong support for students full return as proposed in the meeting tonight I have a Kinder Gardner and a third grader at SRS who have been struggling to keep up keep up with virtual hybrid School virtual school does not work well for elementary school children and the learning has been significantly affected over the past year I do believe that their mental health especially for my third grader with ADD For Whom the hurdle of hybrid learning poses an additional learning barrier and affects his sense of worth children have borne a significant burden in this pandemic yet the data does not show that school drives Community spread virtual school was acceptable
364at first while everything was being figured out but continuing to keep School virtual is no longer acceptable especially for young children I'm very thankful for the Herculean effort put forth by the teachers to make possible all that they have done over the last year what they have been able to provide virtually and in the hybrid program is remarkable they should be commended and thoroughly recognized I wish for teachers to be safe however the essential nature of school needs to be recognized as well virtual school is not a long-term solution and our kids need to be able to go back thank you for steering us as a district through this crisis and making thoughtful evidence-based decisions thank you and next is Alice turbiville Cornell Avenue sore my two children John and Matilda attended sore rage Elementary
365and I work at the college as the assistant vice president for finance and assistant treasure part of my responsibilities is to oversee covid testing and cont contact tracing for the faculty and staff so I'm very familiar with the decision that school board has before it I also serve on a board of a charter school in Chester and I know exactly the decision that you have and the factors that you're weighing and making the this decision there's a few aspects to our district that I think point to it being a safe environment for us to take the advice of the CDC and bring students back at the three-foot distance in classrooms those data points I wanted to point out is that the cases at the elementary school level in the district are extremely low and if
366the contract tracers that have performed to duties on the on this cases have not pointed out any Community spread within the elementary school then we know we're doing what we can to reduce the number of positive cases through our masking procedures in the school these cases likely came from outside exposure users would couldn't which couldn't be prevented whether you have school in five in session five days a week or not our kids have been incredibly resilient and compliant in all the new procedures that we have in place I don't think that'll change if we bring them back five days a week the other thing to keep in mind is that protocols can change and if you open the school five days a week and find that there is any Community spread of course you're going
367to put in additional procedures or go back to H to a hybrid policy the last thing I wanted to mention is about your rapid testing program I'm extremely excited that teachers are going to get access to Rapid testing at swathmore we've been doing PCR testing in the fall and that has really opened our eyes to the number of cases out there so adding that additional mode of certainty around exposure is really a positive thing and it should give your teachers that much more confidence to come in school and know their status during the rapid testing so I applaud you for getting that in place and I hope that you can continue it good luck with your decision making okay marann Watson Washington Avenue media I would like to register my strong support for students full
368return to school as proposed in the meeting tonight I have a first grader who has been struggling to keep up with hybrid Virtual School virtual school does not work well for elementary school children and our learning has been significantly affected over this past year it takes a toll in our mental health especially for my first grader who is possibly dealing with a mental disorder and for him the burle of hybrid learning poses an additional learning barrier and affects his sense of worth her sense of worth sorry children have been children have born a significant burden in this pandemic yet the data does not show that school drives Community spread virtual school was acceptable at first while everything was being figured out but continuing to keep school virtuals no longer acceptable especially for young young children
369I'm very thankful for the Herculean effort put forth by the teachers to make possible all they have done over the last year but what they have but what they have been able to provide virtually and in hybrid is remarkable they should be commended and thoroughly recognized I wish for teachers to be safe however the essential nature of school needs to be recognized as well virtual school is not a long-term solution and our kids need to be able to go back thank you for steering us as a district through this crisis and making thoughtful evidence-based decisions Kelly Whitehead Shepards Lane Wallingford I have a fifth grader at Wallingford Elementary and an eighth grader at the middle school I'd like to begin tonight by thanking our School principles who have worked so hard to make this year
370work for our children though it's not perfect it's nice to see my children engaged in learning and happy to interact and be with your teachers and Friends you've made lemonade out of lemons and I can't thank you enough I'd also like to thank our teachers you are the glue that holds this District together you are everything that is good and right in our schools thank you for working so hard this year you have no idea how much so many of our families appreciate you and now for the matter at hand I'm deeply concerned with the board's proposal to ship our K through five students back to school full-time this proposal is rushed and misguided we are still in the Deep throws of this pandemic with high case numbers high hospitalizations and record death numbers and
371all of this there and all of this there is new more contagious variant that is surfaced a Varian so aggressive that double masks might soon be necessary while the vaccines are out there the only ones in our community who've been fortunate enough to receive them are the elderly nursing home recipients and our health care providers our teachers are not in this group of recipients additionally and most importantly the CDC is still recommending that everyone remain masked and socially distanced at six feet the chop policy lab which we have followed from the beginning of the pandemic is recommending the same returning our K through five students five days a week would pack our overcrowded classrooms and have children distance at just 3 feet apart are you aware that the fifth grade classes at West have 27
372or 26 students in each of them do you realize that measuring 3 ft for social distancing is measuring nose to nose not desk Edge to desk Edge I don't understand how you can even begin to think that this is safe why are we suddenly ignoring the recommendations from the CDC and the chop policy lab none of the experts are recommending that social distancing be reduced to 3 feet and if we aren't following the the CDC or chop then who are we following are we just making up our own set of rules as we go along this seems nothing short of Reckless and irr responsible prior to tonight's meeting the board received a petition signed by over 650 District res residents asking that we continue to follow the recommendations of experts and keep our kids distanced
373at 6 feet in the classroom you have also received a petition signed by almost all of our 319 teachers and another petition signed by most of our classroom AIDS you've received countless letters from parents urging you to continue following the advice of the experts we are all saying the same thing follow the science follow the CDC recommendations follow do Dr fouche's recommendations follow the chop policy lab recommendations follow these recommendations as you have been and do what is in the be do what is best for our students and their families our teachers and our community let's get back to the classroom when the experts agree that it's safe to return thank you Mark Williams Strath Haven Avenue swathmore as a democratically elected Schoolboard your job is to make decisions that represent the interests of the
374public the people have spoken nearly a thousand voices are asking you to delay this vote this alone should give you a reason to postpone opening of schools to all students unfortunately the perception of many in this district is the board has already made its decision that this is not truly Up For Debate to make such an important decision that affects so many stakeholders before both sides have had a chance to present their cases will be unconscionable yet here we yet here we stand with an emergency meeting called with only one week's notice given to the public and only the weekend to review the actual plan without adequate time for discussion or survey of parents teachers and other stakeholders in the district it upsets me to see the growing animosity directed toward teachers in our district
375that I've seen posted on social media by supporters of the 5day plan they accuse teachers of being lazy and selfish which exposes their own ignorance and their previously held negative views of Educators our teachers are having to adapt all of their lessons to engage the students online while also meeting the needs of students in the classroom they're trying to satisfy both groups which has added countless hours to their prep time and yet despite the extra work the faculty and staff are begging you not to ignore the six-foot distancing guidelines I grew up in this district and returned to raise my children here and I cannot remember the last time the relationship between teachers Administration and school board was so poor I guarantee that all of the teachers want to be in the classroom when it
376is safe they ask you to allow them to continue practicing their profession in a safe manner but they do not trust you they're not confident that you will put aside your own personal agendas and the urgencies of a vocal minority in favor of the will will of the majority and the guidance of the Chester County Health Department and pte who from the outset of this pandemic this board sorry and pde who from the outset of the pandemic this board so they would follow their recommendations the patronage of Staff many of whom live in this District do not want to be part of your science experiments nor do hundreds of other families in this District I ask that you consider the voices of your constituents who clearly do not agree with moving forward with the plan
377at this time and to follow the guidance of the Public Health agencies who the board stated from the beginning will be the authority in this matter Bridget Kelly Maple Avenue swathmore dear Wallingford sore Schoolboard Dr Palmer Miss casner Chester County Health Department Delaware County Health Department I'm waiting to request that the school board vote against sending our children in grades K through 5 back to school 5 days a week and vote in favor of continuing to adhere to the cchd guidelines for social distancing in schools I'm making this request with concerns for the safety of our teachers students and Community as outlined below safety of our teachers the CDC release guid updated guidelines the CD sorry the CDC released updated guidelines on January 20th 2021 that continued to emphasize that students should have six feet
378of Separation The CDC identifies the guiding principles to keep in mind as follows the risk of covid-19 spread Rises with increased close contacts with others the more people who teachers and staff interact with and the longer those interactions last the higher the risk of covid-19 spread close contact is defined by the CDC as someone who is sitting within 6 feet of an infected person for cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period starting from two days before illness on set or for asymptomatic patients two days before or two days prior to test specimen collection until the time a patient is isolated the petition to change six foot spacing requirements to 3 feet in classrooms that was recently circulated emphasized that the CCD guidance is simply guidelines to consider by mandate I'm concerned
379with this line of thinking does maske wearing also fall into this category what examples are we setting to protect our teachers if we selectively decide to ignore these guidelines these guidelines were established for the safety of our teachers and students if we selectively ignore these guidelines what is the risk in Georgia three cob County teachers died from covid-19 in one month that is the risk we face when we decide to selectively ignore guidelines in addition the petition sites preliminary data that provides that with threefoot spacing droplet transmission is minimal but both parties are masked what does this mean for lunch what does this data show about transmission with students and 3 feet apart not masked will teachers also be in the classroom students are 3 feet apart and not masked what risk does this POS
380to them how will we properly clean the schools to the level that they are now if the students are in every day if we do not know the answers to these questions we should not use our schools as scientific experiments to find out finally a super majority of our students have not been afforded the opportunity to receive any doses of the vaccine certain healthc Care Professionals have started to receive their first vaccine and or second vaccine our teachers students and many community members have not had that same opportunity the idea of increasing the teachers risk of exposure when they're so close to being able to receive the vaccine and the benefits of the vaccine is dangerous and morally unacceptable I appreciate that the school board passed a resolution to vaccine teachers now but I also
381appreciate that sorry to vaccinate teachers now but I also appreciate that the school board openly acknowledged that today not a single vaccine has been received by the district our teachers deserve veterans should be treated with the same consideration and respect given to our Healthcare professionals they serve our students we do not know enough about covid-19 to knowingly increase the risk of exposure to our students even if students show mild symptoms or asymptomatic the long-term effects may be very serious Ohio State recently conducted a study on student athletes that have tested positive for covid-19 and found that covid-19 has been linked to myard myocarditis at a higher frequency than other viruses have been based on limited studies KY with respect that was three minutes for that one that was over three minutes I timed it okay
382this is also it's the same it's a duplicate um from another from another thank yeah are we okay to move forward that's fine the whole thing will be on the record okay uh from Neil Neil Young crestlan swore I want to offer my full support for the reopening of the elementary schools that is being discussed this evening 2020 and now 2021 have been economic k for educational disasters there are 22,000 deaths in Pennsylvania alone so nothing I say should trivialize and diminish this tragedy I only hope that vaccines are delivered effectively and quickly and of course we should all pay attention to the governor and the CDC advice on keeping safe closing schools was a reasonable and prudent measure when we knew little about the virus I'm grateful that the district could offer an educational
383program through most of the year and I thank all the Frontline teachers and Sport staff for their commitment the risk of covid remains real but the empirical evidence is that our k35 students have not been a source of disease spread what is also clear at least to me is that iPad based learning is not as effective as classroom instruction and children need face-to-face interaction with their teachers and their fellow pupils we likely simply don't know the long-term impacts of nearly a year of mass virtual instruction but I can't imagine it's positive children who have the most educational needs whose homes don't have the luxury of quiet spaces and highspeed internet parents who can't supervise lessons hire Tutors or contemplate private school these people need the high quality education of Wellingford sore they seem to me
384to be the ones who suffer most from continued remote education I fully acknowledge the risk of covid however medical facts suggest that children are rarely severely infected and the risk of spread can be managed with masks masks social distancing and basic hygiene there's a risk to everything in life in a school environment we allow and encourage Sports the figures may be a little dated but the CDC has mentioned 2 million injuries 500,000 doctor's visits and 30,000 hospitalizations annually as a result of school sports but yet we've managed risk because we know the benefits I feel respect for children's conditions hidden and invisible that means full-time in-person instruction is not suitable for them I understand too that other parents have different views of risk the option of virtual school for those families is something I must
385fully support too however my overall impression is that the vast majority of parents want their children in school full-time with as normal teaching and learning environment as possible I trust that the medical and scientific evidence supports the plan proposed by the district I urge the board to be responsive to the needs of parents most importantly students and vote for the proposal to reopen fully our schools as soon as possible uh Dr mik Michael Zilla School Lane Wallingford I'm a professor at Temple University in the DAT of two boys in the district I'm calling to ask the board to place a higher value on our teachers lives and SA especially the older teachers over any desires for personal convenience of a return to school there are many loud voices in the minority that have been clamoring
386for an irresponsible rush back to the schools from the very beginning please don't be swayed by the disproportionate volume of the minority and the arguments that dance around the following facts some have argued that the school is not a place where transmission is significant and while there's some truth to this this is because transmission is mitigated only by proper social distancing and masking doubling the occupancy of the school while simultaneously stretching the occupancy see by the same students from 2 days to 5 days and putting kids into crowded spaces to unmask and eat will erase the effectiveness of our precautions so far teachers are dying of covid Across America and the school board should not be willing to risk increasing the risk to our teachers lives others have argued that the vaccinations are forthcoming therefore
387the time to begin the transition back to regular life is now however this is not true because cases are still in a phase of the highest occurrences so far and because the vaccine roll out in Pennsylvania is slow finally because the vaccine is not effective until the second dose we should revisit the return to school once and only once every teacher has had both doses our teachers have worked hard and sacrificed much with too little thanks I implore you to not I implore you not to endanger their health nor undervalue their safety and their sacrifice please vote no thank you for considering my arguments Shannon Elliot Cedar Lane swathmore I'd like to say I'd like to thank the board and the staff and administration for doing the work to create a plan to bring our
388elementary school students back to school for 4 and half days a week instead of two days a week at this point it seems that all are in agreement that getting the kids back for more inperson learning is important and necessary for the short and long-term Wellness if there is any doubt that the effort may be too late in the year I would say that my fourth grader would disagree even one month in the school building full-time would make an impact on her well-being in addition I'd like to add that a major stress point for me is ensuring that our teachers feel part of the solution and are actively involved in safety planning the CDC says vaccines are not necessary if the proper mitigation and safety plans are in place we cannot get our teachers vaccinated
389which is ideal ahead of a full return if we cannot um get our teachers vaccinated which is ideal ahead of a full return then please make sure they're fully involved and informed on what the safety plans will be to keep them and our children as safe as possible collaboration will be key if there's an expectation of a compromise to make the return habit ahead of the vaccine the teachers are key to the success of this District so please be sure they're well prepared for this next phase returning to school Greg Gregory of pmo Prem Pembroke Road wingford I'm calling to ask the board to take a big step back and the apparent rushed approach to getting kids back into the school by simply reducing the spacing requirements from 6 feet to 3 feet I can
390appreciate that last week the board did not take a move to make sure that the community was involved in this discussion as of today the board has suggested to my understanding a proposed timeline for voting to get kids back to school and having parents vote on this however this does suggest that we all we have all the information available the CDC has indicated that late that later this week they will Pro be providing updated information on social distancing guidelines why would we want to put in motion a timeline for voting for wssd if we don't even have all the information available I think today's board meeting could be a good first start but the object objectives of today's meeting should not be to put in place a vote for a timeline if there's anything that
391I've learned from my 20 years of experience which includes a doctorate in Immunology both having worked on over 30 vaccines and infectious disease treatment that evidence is key and right now both sides are only bringing to the table anecdotes moreover it is critical that the school carefully assess that we are providing the same level of Education engagement with students and teachers when we consider Online Academy versus inperson versus hybrid personally one of my kids is already rotated through three different teachers they've all been great but the idea that moving from the hybrid model to the more to the more students in person and having yet another rotation to students when we only have you know X number of weeks available left in the year seems ludicrous to me thank you again to the board as
392well as to the community for letting me share my thoughts Janet click Georgetown Road Wallingford I'm the parent of a Strath Haven I'm the parent of Strath Haven graduate and I am an alumni myself the reason for my call this afternoon is to ask the board what precautions it plans to take to ensure an acceptable level of safety for par professionals especially those who work directly with students one on-one who are not vaccinated and have often felt as though their concerns are ignored at times these par professionals are subjected to an unacceptable level of risk to students staff and other community members what I want to know is how can the district ensure their safety and Welfare thank you uh Simi M um Devin Lane Wellingford so I'm here to give I guess a sort
393of speech or debate against why they should change the hybrid program and take it away I disagree with that so here's my thoughts on it dear wssd Schoolboard my name is Jimmy and I am in the seventh grade at Strath Haven I want to speak to you directly tonight because I personally do not think it is a good idea to get rid of the hybrid program doing so will dramatically lower safety protocols by increasing the amount of students in the school at one time and reducing social distancing we know that social distancing is part of the protection for students and hence henceforth our families and friends I can empathize greatly with the people who feel they need normal life back in fact I moved here this year I know pretty much nobody sometimes times my
394social life feels like it's in Ruins I haven't seen my biological dad in about a year because he lives in New York I have recently even had my bar mitzvah completely on Zoom completely online try and spend about a year practicing preparing for it and I still find my Bar M OFA meaningful despite the circumstances in fact I found it possibly even more meaningful than it would have been in person because it was a moment of joy and great achievement that was able to happen during these difficult times that people put in the effort to still make it happen but despite all the hardships the pandemic is thrust upon us I'm still excelling in school even after skipping a grade and math I admit is difficult I am so happy I'm still resilient and I'm
395still finding a way to get through this and enjoy life it's always better to prepare the child for the road and not the road for the child and this is not a good idea to let convenience be a reason to give into an easy way out in exchange for putting safety as a secondary priority this virus is dangerous vaccines are scarce rushing aside health and safety is never a good decision because of this I'm here tonight on behalf of my teachers at Strath Haven Middle School and the friends I am starting to make my family I implore you to keep safety protocols as high as they can be not to go fully in person right now even kids and adults can get through this without having to compromise on their well-being and all their lives
396Lauren Minsky nll Road Wallingford dear board members I'm sure that you are in and dated right now this is just a short note to observe that the Harvard Global Health Institute guidance that you site notes that quote trust is not merely a matter of community spread it is also a question of how School leaders make decisions how well they do it incorporating Educators par professionals and other staff in decision-making processes how well they do at communicating around decision- making and how well their decisions include in the line focus on the health and safety of everyone in the building students but also Educators par professionals and other staff end quote I ask that you please consider this portion of the guidance as seriously as you're considering a cherry-picked social distancing recommendation and that too in isolation
397from all other requir requ ired safety measures as you and your board moves forward please prioritize rebuilding our community sense of solidarity and Trust if you choose to navigate these extraordinarily challenging Waters via highly personalistic relationships appointments and by attempting to G Rogue with respect to federal state local and chop Public Health guidance you will continue to inflict serious damage on our community and the social relationships that are its greatest strength first Do no harm with kind regards and best wishes uh Lisa popek and Eric baren Devon Lane Wellingford we have a fifth grade daughter in the Online Academy our home school is NP I'm calling to express our concerns about the potential return to 5-day in-person instruction at 3 feet my daughter doesn't enjoy online school it's different it's diff and difficult not being
398in the classroom she misses the camaraderie of her friends she and we look forward to the fall when she's back in person this time at the middle school I fully believe that safe full-time Anders learning is achievable I do not believe it's achievable right right now however however when our community of teachers and staff remain unvaccinated and when significant mitigation efforts remain lacking in the district ending hybrid instruction now when positivity rates are high in the surrounding Community would be Reckless wssd schools are the heart of this community but they should not be at the heart of community spread cramming students and teachers into enclosed spaces where social distancing cannot be practiced will endanger everybody's lives on the front lines are our valued teachers and staff but if this virus spreads it will reach beyond
399the schools instead of considering this abrupt change I would suggest concentrating District efforts on a robust extended school year program to benefit our children with learning differences and special needs perhaps even expanding the program to include other children whose learning has been hampered by the disjointed year beyond that of course would be concentration on a program for the fall that would be safe for our children our teachers and staff and by extension our community as a whole thank you today for the opportunity to speak I'm actually going to finish with reading some additional calls that came in but still need to be officially transcribed the first one is by Lisa brumall Hill from Glenn Avenue Glennwood Avenue and media I implore you to hold off on voting tonight and bringing children back full-time without a
400comprehensive plan being released to the WSSC Community an additional time to address questions and concerns my daughter's fifth grade class at West as well as the other three fifth grade classes have 27 students each I'm very concerned how they and their teachers can stay safe in a clouded classroom as this as she would love to have to be back in school full-time we stand behind our teachers and feel their worries and wishes should be at the top of the list of considerations when making a return to school plan the hybrid model has been very successful at reducing transmission rates in our schools while providing quality education to the students it is unfortunate that some parents keep their students and think their students are falling behind or being neglected nonetheless this is a whole community that
401needs to be considered thank you for your time the second call is from Allison carpon from Martin Lane in Wallingford I'm calling to comment with regard to the reopening of the elementary schools I'm currently very concerned about this plan because of the Corona virus mutations I think this is a really bad social move at this point in time we also know that we've had a slow vaccine roll out and social pressure that's going to result in new Co variants so I think our responsibility needs to be around increased vigilance and increased vaccination and we need to hang tight before we bring students back to school I have another call from Amy Caruso from Colonial Drive in Wallingford I'm calling in my support for the reopening of elementary school and the Wallingford swore School District as
402soon as possible as proposed by the board in the special meeting for the four full days a week this is long overdue and I do not feel that this should be delayed any longer our children need to be in school and need to be learning for both their social and mental health there is science to back this up and to support this decision and there's been a lot of positive information coming out of the chop lab which has been used as one of the primary sources for the board and making decisions over the last year we commend the board for bringing this recommendation and this decision to the community this evening and I fully support it and ask that you vote in favor there's been a considerable amount of time now that has been spent
403working on coming up with ways to manage and to make this a suitable situation in addition we've been very appreciative of the increase in time at the high school which just started last week and the new semester of going to the 4 half days so any continued reopening we support and we applaud the board and we also commend the option for those who cannot or do not wish to go to continue with the online model and that shows a lot of prudence and I think it offers something for everyone thank you very much I have another call from Stephanie mcdono on Waterford Way in Wallingford I have four children in the district and between them they have have had at least 23 teachers or other staff in the building we see how hard they are
404working and we greatly appreciate all they have done to make this year okay my kindergartner loves her teachers and classmates she loves going to school and doing her work she hates Zoom she hates the iPad she checks every morning for her teachers to see her submitted work she listens to aoid comments and repeats herself words that should not be hard to see and this is only one Peak at the downside of virtual education I urge you to approve the plan to fully reopen our elementary school the plan has a long lead time which should allow for adequate planning the implementation of the testing program as well as increased vaccinations in both our community and our Educators schools across the country have opened safely for full-time instruction another call from Jesse cherion of South Province Road
405and Wallingford PA my son is Luke cherion he's in the first grade at West I was surprised as a parent and also as an employee of pen medicine I've been pleased to how the hybrid option for for people which my son is in is balanced the need for some social action with a lot of social distancing and masking that's possibly because there are so many fewer children in the schools and I think it would be really a mistake to look at going back March 1st if you look at the project they're talking about 200,000 people dead by may we have at least four really contagious new variants that are showing up and again as an employee of medicine I can tell you that we are very far from being able to vaccinate teachers we're now
406just getting to people and also people with serious health conditions so there's no way that by March teachers will be vaccinated the three pillars are masking ventilation social distancing and having that many children back in school with very little correlation and reduced social distance in I think is a recipe for disaster and at this point we cannot in good conscience then move him back full-time that would be really negative for his development so I really urge the board to delay and talk to health experts and to make this decision based on what is best for the health of the te teachers and the students I'm looking at this holistically I know it's difficult and there's pressure on the school but I feel really strongly as a parent and someone who works for Health Organization but
407this would be a mistake Holly Bergen East Valley Roose Road in Wallingford I'm calling in regards to the plan that's going to be discussed and voted on tonight with regard to the elementary school and reducing the spacing from six feet down to three feet and I'm calling because I W wish this plan had been introduced and defended to the community well in advance of this evening's route if the district ises not Garner the support of the elementary school teachers and provide realistic professional options for all those who disagree or are not comfortable then the plan is not tenable for educators if it does not intend to wait to implement this plan until every teacher that wants to be vaccinated this plan is not safe for our teachers if the district does not have an abundance
408of clear and convincing evidence for multiple peer reviewed respected science and public health sources and social distancing of 3 to 4 feet as an effective a social distancing of 6 to 8T for elementary school students and for the teachers administrators and staff who work on our elementary schools then this plan is not safe for our community if the district does not have a plan in place such as the children who not feel safe doubling the amount or doubling the number of other children they are expected they're expressed to each day at school do not have to change teachers two-thirds of the way through this tumult school year that's been already and the plan is not emotionally acceptable for her children if the district does not have plans in place and the resources secured to implement
409regular covid testing for elementary school students and staff and this plan represents a premature move to increases exposure if this plan is not in alignment with current CDC recommendations as well as recommendations put out by PD for the safe operation of schools then it is unwise and irresponsible if each board member does not have the intention of listening with open years and voices of the community and then using a feedback to inform their vote than this potential adoption of this plan constitutes a breach of Justice nor Comm community and finally one more from uh Sandra Gat from Pine Ridge Road and media I just wanted to call and let you know that I'm in favor of returning to school for five days a week for elementary students my son is in second grade and he
410is missing being in school in addition my kindergarten son attends Mother of Providence and has been in school five days a week since September he has 20 students in this class they are appropriately masking and they are 3 feet SPAC in their classroom and the school has not had any issues they may have had a case here or there but certainly no more than any of our elementary schools have had thus far this year I really feel it's in the best interest of all students for the mental state as well as their academics to be in school with a certified teacher it's being done it's being safely done in parochial schools it's being safely done in interborough it's being safely done in districts in Bucks County and it can be safely done in Wallingford swore
411thank you so much that was the last one that's it okay all right thank you uh everyone again as um I mentioned in my opening comments you know I know that there are many strong views and opinions uh about how we proceed and how we consider our plans for the remainder of this school year um and I just want everyone to know that we've heard you um again we've received many many emails we've read them all uh and we listen carefully uh to all the comments uh that were made this evening both in person uh and called in and I do want to just say that there will certainly be a chance for everyone to be heard again uh on the survey that goes out to our families and I hope everyone uh will will
412certainly share their views uh when they complete that um it takes us to the part of the agenda where we would normally ask if there are any Schoolboard reports are there any Schoolboard reports okay uh do we have any old business we have any new business all right this meeting is adjourned good night everybody