WSSD Board Meeting 12/14/2020

001good evening I now call the December 14th meeting of the Wallingford swore School Board to order uh in opening as you're willing and able please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you I would like to start by asking Miss VOR to take the Roll Call Mr Ballas here miss Cino here Dr Downey here Dr Huff here Mr cutas here Mrs lent here Mr Sullivan here Mrs wman here Dr Grandy here Mr Burman yes Dr Palmer here miss Patel here thank you we have nine voting members present Dr gry uh thank you Miss fuera um so we're going to start this

002evening uh with our student Representatives report Miss pel thanks Dr Grandy at SRS the late fall book club virtual Gatherings took place during the week of December 1st by grade and as an entire group this month's selections along with the time of year inspired the book club organizers to incorporate a service project into the group Zoom session the club learned about court appointed special Advocates and how they helped children in our community the book club members and the entire SRS Community are invited to donate scar hats and gloves to the kids at court appointed special Advocates along with favorite books through December 18th there's a bin outside the main doors at SRS the book club is open to students in grades two through five and the next sign up will take place in the new

003year also some news from the kindergarten at SRS Miss Cooper Smith and Miss gpie are excited to see the imaginations of their students come to life as they prepare for the their gingerbread houses the construction of gingerbread houses is an annual holiday event for kindergarten students at SRS students are inspired to build houses after analyzing various gingerbread man literature this is a delicious holiday tradition that we're excited to continue this year at West students participated in the hour of code event on December 9th where they practice coding and problem solving principal Savage would like to thank our amazing parent volunteers and instructional support staff for also hosting help sessions for students and families who wanted additional support in accessing these activities additionally Wes hosted virtual guest author Josh Funk on Friday December 11th for an

004entertaining and engaging assembly sponsored by our West PTO fun an author and coder was a perfect guest to round out our hour of code week at the middle school students will be introduced to their third social emotional Learning lesson headed up by the counseling team who is presenting these Concepts in short information video mini lessons before the winter break the themes of the third seal lesson cover the topics of social awareness and empathy and how these skills can positively affect and benefit us as individuals and as an entire School community on St even the student council would like to encourage everyone to support both of the charity projects we have been working on leading up to winter break the first organization we are supporting is the cradles to crayons clothing drive and this began on

005December 9th and will end on the 16th the second is Project home book drive and for this we are collecting gently used books and boxes outside of the third floor offices also up until the 16th of December participating in these drives is a great way to spread the holiday spirit and give back to those in need be sure to drop off your old clothes and books by the end of Wednesday as always more information can be found on the WSS website or on the student council's Instagram page at Strath Haven s Also I spoke at the beginning of the year about the student council's new freshman mentorship program although we've only been able to connect with the ninth graders over Zoom it's been a successful effort so far and I had a great time today

006working on Sanctuary projects with Miss lari third blog class that's it thank you all right thank you Miss Patel for that update uh next we move on to the superintendence report Dr Palmer thank you Dr Grandy the first item I'd like to talk about this even evening is about a community covid update I've written to our parents today a couple of times or actually a few times and I thought let me bring everybody up to speed on where we are some things are a little more obvious than others so I want to take the time to explain them so right now we had our covid-19 County statistics posted this morning and so everyone knows our incident rate per 100,000 is and our percent PCR positivity is 13.24 or 24 we are up considerably as a

007County from where we were before and I always look at where we are locally within wssd and our numbers if we are looking back over the last four weeks four weeks ago we were at 57 incidents or positive test counts then we went down to 34 up to 38 and up now to 40 6 compared to our neighbors we look low but looking low isn't the measurement 46 is still not a good number for our community we still have much work to do and it's as important as ever that we mask we distance we exercise proper hygiene so there's no opportunity for us to let down our guard at all even if we look good relative to some other municipalities we're all in the county and we all have to do our part one other

008area when we're looking at these numbers is how do these numbers play out within our buildings so the pandemic team is always looking for positive cases and we thank everyone in advance for partnering with us and calling us when you have a positive exposure in your home we take that information we contact Trace within our buildings on our buses within our activities we want to see who was near another person who might be positive we list them as close contacts and we do share the information with the Chester County Health Department through all of our contact tracing we have still not found linkages within our building meaning that we are seeing the transmission occur outside of our SK School building and outside of activities on our site and that's a really good thing but one

009thing you should know because I've written to a number of you today that you might be thinking wow it seems every time I check my email she's writing to me sometimes three times in one day with another positive case and it's because we're notified from families when their test results come in someone might get their test results in the morning somebody in the afternoon someone late in the day so I can't always group them together when I send them out because we don't know I might have just sent an alert out to families only to have another family call us as soon as their test results come in so a few weeks ago at one of our board meetings I think it was two board meetings ago Dr Grandy and I signed an attestation saying

010that we understand that we in the Wellingford Swarthmore School District located in Delaware County are in a county that is in the substantial rate however we wanted to still keep our schools open and as such we had to attest that we would follow mitigation strategies that were promulgated by the Department of Health and pde one of the most important strategies is that we mask and we follow the masking order which we do we are religious in how we follow the masking order the other piece that was contained in that attestation was a link to recommendations for prek to 12 schools following the identification of a case of covid and in that it actually classif ifes all of our schools into different siiz schools so for instance our three elementary schools and our Middle School are

011classified as mediumsized schools meaning that their student count is between 500 and 900 students our high school is greater than 900 students so it's classified as a large school why is that particularly relevant that goes directly to the emails that I sent out or the eblast that I sent out to families today talking about the closure of schools in the case of a medium school if we look at our positive cases for students and staff on a rolling 14-day period when we have four students or staff located in the middle school or one of our elementary schools and they come up positive we are supposed to close for a period of 3 to 7 days and during that period of 3 to seven days we are to conduct our contact tracing and our notification which

012we do on the same day the second piece we are supposed to do is clean and disinfect which we do regularly and in the case of a positive we do immediately and the third piece that has to be done is case investigation and that comes after we send the close contact information to the Chester County health department and they do the case investigation so the three really important pieces that we have to do when we are advised of a positive covid case is two of them we control and one of them the Chester County Health Department controls so when we hit four cases at the middle school and six cases today at the high school that necessitated a closure for both of the buildings for at least at least a three-day period we have four

013days until we go on to the winter break so we all thought educationally it made more sense to go four days than to go three days and come back for one but this is something that uh we I have mentioned numerous times that I meet at least once a week with the Chester County Health Department and Dr Brennan and Dr ruin and all the superintendents and we are looking to see if there are any changes that can be made to that structure or any interpretations um to how we're working with that now so what I've written to you about today is based on the guidelines that are there today they could possibly change you've seen uh many of the things that I've said to you from the beginning have changed with each board meeting so

014that's where we are today we currently have one case at npe we have one case at West and we have two positives at SRS our number where we would uh no longer be be able to stay open would be four at the elementary school we're hopeful that we'll be able to stay open but we don't know what positive cases are in the community that have had a trans or that have the individual has been in our building or on our grounds during the contagious period so you may get a letter from me or we may just be fortunate to be able to be fine until the end of this week but I think at this point when I send you a note you probably just want to hit delete you've been getting so many but

015that at least explains a little bit more of the background of why we would have to close two of our buildings the second item that I'd like to talk about tonight is I'd actually like to highlight the efforts of the foundation for wford swore schools so during even the best of times meeting the needs of your family can be really a challenge and these have truly been unprecedented times and the foundation has offered many grp Grant options for some of our families uh they've offered a child care Mini Grant in the amount of $275 and they've done a mini Grant in the amount of $100 for food school supplies and household items so with their generous donation that came from the fundraising efforts of the foundation Community contributions and proceeds from the panther pajama run

016they were able to fund the minig grants in the amount of 5 ,000 which is considerable so I thank everyone who donated to the pajama run to the call for this particular donation and to anyone else who has donated to the foundation so if you'd still like to donate to the foundation please definitely send your donations to them and if you find you have need for one of the mini grants please reach out to one of our social workers or if you don't know how to get a hold of our social workers reach out to me and I will put you in touch with the appropriate social worker and we'll um have them reach out to you relative to the minig grants and then finally as we've already began to celebrate the holiday season I

017would like to send our wishes on behalf of the entire administrative team our teachers and our staff we wish you peace and love during the holidays and a new year that is filled with happiness and good health and Dr Grandy that concludes my report all right thank you Dr Palmer um so just before we move on um just a a couple of quick comments you know I know that the announcement today that we've had to convert all to all virtual learning for the middle school and high school is certainly disappointing for many um I think many hoped we wouldn't have to do this um but this is an instance where we weren't really given a choice in the matter given the requirements from the state but it is our hope that these requirements will evolve

018um because I do hope that we are able to look more holistically at the situation that's going on in any particular School building at a particular time to see whether or not a closure is really necessary in the future um but it is what it is and and that's the situation we face today but like all things through this pandemic um things do rapidly evolve um you know so a month ago we certainly uh didn't have these uh requirements in front of us and certainly those requirements may change um and so we'll just have to stay tuned and be ready to adapt uh to what comes um I also want to say um that one of the items on our agenda tonight which Dr Palmer didn't mention is her retirement um and I wanted to

019take this opportunity before we get to that point in the agenda uh to thank Dr Palmer for her leadership of our district um there will certainly be times other than this on Zoom where we'll be able to do that more formally in the future I certainly hope so um but I want to say right now how much I deeply appreciate your leadership of the district uh particularly over the past year when you've had to guide us through extraordinary challenges that I don't think anyone could have imagined uh a superintendent would be leading a district through um maybe there's an honorary public health degree in your future I don't know um given what superintendant have had to go through this year um I'm not sure many people know how how hard you work for our district

020uh and so I just want to say thank you um as we get to that later on in the agenda and formally accept your retirement this evening uh but as I said we will have a chance in the future uh to certainly honor your contributions but I just wanted to say thank you so um that takes us to uh board announcements um of which I have several or one small one and one slightly longer one um first board announcement is that the board met an executive session on December 9th to discuss matters related to specific administrative Personnel um but related to that I also wanted to take this time to give a very brief uh update on leadership transition plans for the district so one of the board's greatest responsibilities is the appointment of the

021superintendent our community's educational leader our board takes this responsibility very seriously and we will be committed to a rigorous search to find the best leader for our outstanding district and while so much in life feels unsettled at the moment moment I do want to assure everyone listening that we will find a great leader uh Dr Palmer has also assured us of her unwavering commitment to the district through June um so we are in good hands um we have screened and interviewed several Consultants to facilitate the search process and tonight there's a proposal from Judith Wilson on the agenda and we will vote on this proposal to have her lead the search with us she's led many successful searches for other districts in our region and her networks and school leadership are deep and she's a

022former superintendent herself the process we expect to take about 16 weeks uh it is our hope to have an April appointment for a July 1 start um I also want to mention we we expect our best candidates to be in highlevel leadership roles in other school districts and we've been advised that it's critically important given the types of people that we want to attract and recruit uh to maintain confidentiality for candidates through this process to attract the very best candidates and encourage them to apply however I also want to mention that equally important is in early stage input from all members of our educational community and so um parents residents employees will be asked for input via electronic surveys virtual public forums and you will hear more about these opportunities for input over the next

023few weeks but I do I do want to add specifically um that expertise in equity will certainly be a strong consideration among many others as we look for our next leader I do also just want to mention another item on the agenda this evening we will vote on a change to the retirement date for Ferg abbit the Director of Human Resources and operations for the district Ferg has graciously agreed to delay his retirement from June 30th to December 31st 2021 and this will help ensure a smooth transition to a new superintendent and I want to thank for for his commitment to the district and delaying a well-deserved retirement um the board will certainly keep our Educators support staff students and the public to informed of progress at each stage uh of the process so um

024I just wanted to you know we're just at the beginning of this process but I wanted to provide that update uh to all of you and our community um so that takes us to our Focus topics for the evening and we do have two on the agenda this evening the first related to Student Activities and the second an education update related to the high school and I'm going to ask Dr Palmer uh to introduce the first you're muted Lisa thank you I hit the button twice so for the first uh Focus topic this evening which is talking about Student Activities is I'm going to apologize to everyone first we have spent a great deal of time talking about Athletics and let me give you a little bit of background why we spent so much time

025talking about Athletics and not so much time talking about activities was earlier in the year um I'm looking at Gina Ross as we were talking about our health and safety plan Mary Figora Gina Ross myself Ferg Abbott we all brought together a health and safety plan and we spent a considerable amount of time talking about that plan that plan was required by pde had to follow a general format provided by them and and had to be board approved we also had to have an athletic plan an athletic health and safety plan similar concept to what the district health and safety plan is presented before any activities to or any sports took place and it had to be approved by the board because we did that uh focusing on our volunt Athletics followed by our fall

026Athletics followed by our winter Athletics we spent a great deal of time talking about that we didn't talk about activities but the activities were taking place from the summer on there they were governed under our main health and safety plan we internally spent a lot of time talking about all of the activities including our ensembles including our band and including the Summer music program but what I didn't do was put out enough information so that parents who were not associated with the music ensemble or the music groups you didn't realize what was going on so it's our hope tonight that you walk away with a much broader feeling of a much deeper feeling of what has already taken place this year and what will take place there are still some things we're working through and

027we're looking forward to the new year to be able to launch more activities but my colleagues are with us tonight to be able to talk about it so together tonight we have Greg hilden our Strath Haven High School principal George King our Strath Haven Middle School principal Henry pearlberg our wssd music department chair and Gina Ross our director of student services they're all going to talk about what's actually been taking place is taking place and will be taking place so I'm going to turn it over to the four of you and I don't know who's going to start us off tonight I think I can start off Dr Palmer thank you so much everyone for having me here this evening tonight's board meeting thank you Dr Palmer and Dr Grande and the school board um

028I'd like to share with all of you as well as our Wallingford swore community on what the Wellingford swore School District music department has been doing since the beginning of the school year as well as some of the plans that we have uh what they may look like going forward so I'm going to share my screen here with you there we go can everyone see that okay wonderful the last time we had the opportunity to to present was I think at the end of the summer and we spoke about our Summer music program and our Summer music program was run 100% virtual and uh Mr shankweiler Mr ptera and myself uh ran the program and we had over 180 students participate in the program and um it was 100% virtual and we were quite pleased

029and somewhat U mildly surprised how well the program went we were really pleased with that and um as we presented to the board at the end of the summer Mr shankweiler Mr pin myself came to the conclusion it was not about the what it was more about the how um we're still delivering music education here in Wallingford swathmore it looks a little different right now for sure um how we're doing it has changed quite a bit um as the circumstances have uh allowed us to to change it um and I would not disagree with anyone saying that we are definitely looking forward to a time that we can bring all of our students back into the building and safely have our ensembles uh performing together uh but I can tell you that our our music

030faculty has been working incredibly hard as long as well as our students uh to put together a program that we're quite proud of and I we do believe that students have been engaged in uh some very good music making I'd like to start I'll do it at each level I'll first talk about what's been going on in our elementary schools this fall the Elementary music classrooms have been focusing on uh listening and evaluating music reading and Performing uh rhythms some of the classes have been doing uh in place movement to the form and structure of music that's been studied and the students have been listening to a variety of of adult and children musicians opening their ears and eyes to the musical world uh we've been able to provide all of our students with rhythm

031instrument kits for use at home and we are using the various classroom percussion instruments in School in addition all of our Elementary classrooms have had uh access to music online platforms for many of the music activities that they're doing and in addition we are running as part of all the special areas of the elementary school and music online Academy that Miss Suarez runs and this in the onland Academy students are able to do some singing remotely the elementary instrumental music program has been taught fully online this year um the the ability to safe safely teach all of our school uh small group lessons has been quite effective through Zoom as a matter of fact in speaking with our music faculty uh at our weekly meetings our elementary instrumental teachers have been uh quite pleased and

032the uh format has worked better than expected um they've been using uh different online uh technology formats such as smart music backing tracks and various uh videos to enhance the instruction and one of the things that Zoom allows us to do when we're working with our small groups remotely is it allows students to to be muted and to practice while waiting for other students to share um their knowledge and skill development with the with the music instructor at Strath Haven Middle School uh in the classroom students have been using online resources including uh uh platforms such as soundtrap and note flight to create and edit various uh music projects Rhythm patterns uh they've been learning about music and its relationship to culture around the world as well as an emphasis on social justice and current

033events and we've been spending quite a bit of time on the social emotional learning component of Music we think it fits quite nicely in social emotional learning students in our sixth and seventh graders have also been uh learning about rhythms and beats through bucket drumming so every student has uh gotten a pair of drumsticks and using Home Depot buckets um have been uh learning about Beats and rhythms and Performing when we're in inside in the building together as a group and of course when they're at home performing individually at home and it's been a great way for students to demonstrate the applications of rhythmic skills in addition students have a great opportunity to uh share their work with one another music ensembles at strap Haven Middle School have been working fully virtual um what we

034did when we went to the cohort mode uh we actually what we did was we flipped our cohorts so we are been working with the cohort B on Monday and Tuesdays at our 7 o'clock rehe and then on Thursday and Friday we have an opportunity to work with our cohort a students while the cohort B are in the building and we found it has been a very effective and efficient means to to meet the most students at at one time and during that Ensemble time at 7 o'clock in the morning we've been working not only on Ensemble music but we've been working on students and developing individual skills and musicianship and learning more about the music that they're that they're performing and learning not just preparing for necessarily a concert like we would do in

035a normal year but learning more about the music the choir students have been working on strengthening their oral and Pitch by matching skills with the teacher they've been using sufed syllables as well as hand signs and in the instrumental music ensembles um our instrumental music students have been using uh online platforms such as smart music so they can play their their parts their individual parts to a backing track which they can hear a virtual Ensemble uh playing around them and students have this a have access to the platform at home uh where they can practice with smart music at home they can record themselves on the smart music and then send in their recordings to the instructor so we can listen and assess their their skill development and although our student numbers are down a

036little bit from last year or any previous average year um we've heard comments from some some parents uh reasoning that um their students may not participate this year is that they were trying just to reduce the amount of uh screen time for their students by the same virtue we have many parents and students who look forward to the opportunity to play their instruments via using zoom and online platforms so we're quite pleased with our participation numbers in our choir and our band and our Orchestra in addition our String orchestra students in both the sixth grade and the seventh and eighth grade just by the nature of the instruments that they're not blowing into an instrument we have been able to bring them into the building and socially distance them um in the picture you can

037see Mr shank Wier working with our seventh and eighth grade String orchestra in the Middle School auditorium socially distanced and he's been working with them every Wednesday um at Strat Hava middle school and in the bottom picture it's a few members of our sixth grade String orchestra players and they've been meeting up up until this week on Monday and Thursday afternoons we've uh we started that program in the beginning of November with our string students and for the students that have been able to come in and get a chance to hear one another it's it's been a lot of fun for them and been very enjoyable for them once again to make music together in addition to the string orchestra the concert bands and the and the orchestra um we do have some special ensembles

038uh we began last week our jazz band and that's going to be taught 100% virtual for right now and we were quite pleased that over 50 students have signed up to be a part of jazz band that is being directed by Mr mclaughin and myself and the hope is that as we teach the music and teach them about the music that eventually we can get some of the students to come into the building perhaps maybe in January and February particularly students who play the Rhythm Section instruments such as piano based guitar and drums and play together in as an ensemble while we have the wind players zooming in along with with the rest members of the Jasmine so we look forward to seeing how that's going to work um as we move forward maybe into

039January and February we're contining to use the technology platforms such as smart music to to drive the Jasmine as we do with our other instrumental ensemble and this year we will be participating as we have in past years in the Delaware County Middle School band Festival our host School this year is haford middle school and he will be putting together a virt one of those virtual bands where each student prepares their individual part records it and sends it into him and he will put it together so we're looking forward to that we're looking for a February to March opportunity to piece that one together music theater at straa middle school we had our interest meeting last week and uh was held virtually and over 70 students logged in for the virtual meeting so our plan

040is for the production uh to be taught uh virtually to all of our students we bought a digital platform to Beauty and the Beast um and the students are very excited about it and um the plan is that it will be taught virtual perhaps if circumstances allowed to have some in-person experiences uh but we can go either route with it and planning for a virtual rehearsal schedule and then looking at a performance time perhaps in miday so we're still working out the details of the schedule but we're very excited that over 70 students have expressed an interest in being a part of the the Music Theater program at the middle school this year as it is an important uh component of our of our Middle School uh experience for many students at Strath Haven High

041School uh in the classroom at our music electives we've been focusing again on the on the study of of Music composers composition techniques as well well as The Evolution of Music um students that are zooming into the classroom are have been researching music software that is available to all students and using that software for music composition and students that are in the building have also had that opportunity as well as using the music uh software platforms that we do have at school we I think for our third year we' been running a guitar class and um students have been performing both virtually and in in person guitars learning the basics of chords and chord progression and applying them to songs in addition they learning how to read a variety of notation formats music ensembles of

042Strat Haven High School include many ensembles um the panther marching band which kicked off its band camp in August which was a virtual band camp which went very well uh our season ran from August through November and we were able to provide both virtual and in-person experiences for our Panther marching band members um during the Friday nights prior to any home football games we ran um voluntary in-person rehearsals on Friday nights on Kingfield which went very well Mr petara organized it into several cohorts that would come for different blocks of time on the Friday nights and then when we had our two home football games later on in October um again uh we were limited by the number of students we could have come but we had probably between 60 to 80 students come and

043perform at the two home football games uh we performed in the back of the The End Zone by the scoreboard um the the students were very involved in both games we were playing constantly from beginning through the end of uh the football game and the hope is with the marching band um that uh perhaps in March or April um the plan is right now that we hope to get them back together if we can if circumstances present themselves for an in-person experience perhaps have our marching van showcase concert for our parents uh later this school year but we'll watch how things evolve our symphony orchestra again once the school year started um has been both a virtual and an in-person experience during fifth block uh we started out uh the imperson experiences outside right in

044front of stra Haven High School in the main Courtyard I have a picture when I go to my next frame you can see that and as the weather has now gotten colder the orchestra has moved inside um keeping the inperson experience for our string players uh that want to have the inperson experience but then also San zooming um a virtual experience for string players as well as our wind players symphonic band Wind Ensemble jazzband modern band which is a brand new Ensemble this year just got started over the past couple of weeks um 100% virtual experiences right now for for all the band ensembles again uh at the high school we utilize technology such as smart music to help assist in driving the rehearsals and um for the margin B we had about 85% of

045a typical year year of student enrollment and you can see we have 100 to even increase student enrollment in our uh instrumental ensembles String orchestra Symphony Orchestra jazm Mo band and W Ensemble going forward right now so we're we're quite pleased with the student participation in that and here's a couple photographs uh this is marching band on a Friday night right right before we were ready to March over for one of the Friday Night Football games getting warmed up as our tradition uh we played on the Strath Haven side of Providence Road to get warmed up we had many of our music parents that were along the road there that could they could hear us and then we marched across to Kingfield for the game and this was probably in mid to late October uh

046this is the symphony orchestra in the uh front lobby here of stra Haven High School making a little bit of Night music and you can see all the students are out there socially distanced uh for that rehearsal and as I said Mr Pinar has continued to have orchestra during fifth block times for our choirs camarada canata and Silvertones again it's become a both a virtual and in-person experience uh the virtual experience is happening during fifth blocks and on Wednesdays Mr Shang quiler has run up to four different cohorts of in-person experiences for our Coral students on Wednesdays and um I think we started out the year he had well over 70 to 80 students who have been very excited about uh given that in-person experience being socially distanced um outside and as weather has gotten

047colder he is now moving that rehearsal inside into the stran high school gymnasium again being socially distanced all of our high school students have the opportunity if they are interested our our sophomores Juniors and seniors to audition and participate in Pennsylvania music educator Association ensembles at the district level this year is just an audition for placement um there won't be a Festival this year U but the hope is if any of our students Advance through the pmea um different levels of the f that if any of our students do qualify for Pennsylvania all PMA All State ensembles they would have an opportunity to do a um a master class Workshop type experience later on the spring music uh theater at straan high school um last week auditions were held successfully uh on December the 10th

048for the St High School drama Ed AIS Rex uh we had over 40 students audition and the plan is that drama will be taught virtual with opportunities if circumstances permit for in-person experience experiences um the production hopefully will be outside and performed lived and filmed and we're looking at a mid-march performance time the musical production is planned um we are still waiting on performance rights um Mr shank says it will be a stime musical which is going to celebrate his 90th birthday and we're planning for a late winter rehearsal schedule and a late spring performance in May and we're looking at different venues throughout the Wallingford swath School District to hopefully have a an outside performance venue um so the students can to do the Musical together outside uh socially distanced and outside so the

049Prime Focus obviously with the music department as with all aspects of our school life um is to keep our students safe and healthy through all this and we've been working very closely with our district pandemic team um I work very closely with Gina Ross we meet once every two weeks to to talk about where we are uh in the district with our with our plans and also where the music department where we' like to go um we're using recommendations that we have received from nfhs CCDC and we've been very closely following uh Dr rubin's recommendations um for social distancing which he has strongly recommended that we distance our musicians at 20 feet masked um and also uh looking at the length of time in reversal which is not to exceed 30 minutes um so it

050has provided some challenges for us as we're looking moving forward to see if we can move more of our ensembles to inside um having that 20 foot distancing and mass really does limit that ability to do that right now um our Prime goal of course is to provide access and equity for our students whether they're inperson or virtual Learners and we're at the same time have been doing research on on the best available uh PPE for our student musicians um I do after I after I close my slides sharing I'll show you some of the mass that we've been looking at uh not only for the face but also for the instruments um and Gina and I've been looking at these and she's taken it back to her Medical Group to see which ones will

051be the best provide the best safety for our students before we uh invest in them which we're willing to do so as circumstances evolve um again moving forward our goal always has been to provide all of our students an enriching Music Experience whether it's in person or virtual and as the circumstances evolve um if we can get more of our students in together to make music together that is that is our goal so I'd like to have I have several thank yous um first of all I'd like to thank Deedra abrahamson she has done a wonderful job using our school district social media whether it's Twitter Instagram uh the school district's Facebook page and of our of course our school district's uh homepage to share our students work um Kate plows our media arts teacher

052at sh Haven High School and student Kai linky has worked really hard to document uh the marching band story in in the um and social media and of course I want to thank our District administration all of our building principles uh Gina Ross the district pandemic team and Dr Palmer for their guidance through all this and working with the music department as our as our collaborative goal is to provide the best experiences that we can through this time period for our students um our music faculty has been nothing less than Stellar um thinking outside of the box looking at new ways to engage our students and i' like to thank all of our 12 members of our uh Wallingford swore music department members for working so hard working over time to provide these experiences um

053it requires as with all everything we do a lot more effort to provide um these experiences in this moment and again thank you to our Wallingford sore Board of school directors and Wallingford sore Community um we have so many dedicated interested members of our community that want nothing but the best for our students and lastly our students have been absolutely fabulous through through all this I have never seen our students work harder and more together for each other to build each other up to help each other out through through this in our music department so we're interally grateful to to all the to all the people in our for further help I'm going to unshare my screen here and I just want to show you some of the mask that we've been looking at um

054and we want to make sure we pick the right one some of the M have been shared from some of music there's this black m that has a little flap that you can put your mouthpiece in and we're not quite sure about this because all singers and wind instruments when you inhale to play an instrument you inhale through your mouth so while it covers your nose when the flap is up you're you're actually unmasked in inhale the air so we're not really pleased with this Mass if it's offering enough protection for our students the mass that we've been most pleased with this one is called the singer's mask and some of the parents of our Coral students will recognize this because we purchased this for our stra Haven High School course members that are meeting

055in person and this one does provide a lot of tight protection we like it and now they've added the flap which now you can insert a an instrument inside the flap and there's a fairly Tight Seal with it so our pandemic team right now is looking at this to see if this will a suitable mask and once we get their approval on this we'll look forward to see if we can purchase a few of these for more of our chor members and our instrumentalists and then the last mask we've been looking at is we've been masking the bells of our instrument we masked the bells of our marching band instruments when we were outside and now they're producing one that has actually a very thin MV 13 filter that's inside the Bell Mas so this

056will be something that would work in conjunction with a face mask I think would provide um a safe way for our student musicians if we're able to get them inside and socially distance them and have them mask that we can get more of them inside to to uh play their instruments and sing together so that's what we're looking for it as we move through the uh winter and the spring months of the school year so that is the end of my presentation uh Dr poer Dr Grande thank you uh Henry for that comprehensive uh presentation you know the music department has long been a staple here in wford wathore and I think the tradition continues even in the virtual and pandemic environment so we really appreciate all that you and your team have done for

057our music program our students in addition to the music program we have our traditional activities occurring as well our student council as you heard Miss Patel mentioned at the beginning of the meeting tonight and our highq uh is engaging in their first competition this Thursday in a virtual format and we have many other clubs and activities all of those are occurring virtually at the high school on our asynchronous Wednesday so we have three blocks of time carved out in the afternoon where those clubs meet every Wednesday and very often students are are going to multiple of those uh periods in order to participate in activities so we have been up and running since pretty early in the school year with our traditional activities over and above um you know what is being done in the

058music department I think Mr King um you have some thoughts about the middle school as well yes thank you Dr Hilton um and Henry thank you for that thorough report and everything you had to say about the high school and middle school musically as you can see there's a lot going on also just like the high school we have 20 virtual clubs that have been running since September that are student LED and have been very popular and are still going very strong we also have student council and along with student council we have Robotics and our Science Olympiad programs which have been been running both virtually and in person obviously the inperson aspect has been paused um but we are looking forward to two competitions coming up for the Science Olympia team in the next

059month which will both be done virtually so that is um they're the activities at the middle school and we are certainly going to when we come back in January we're going to test the waters um and see what is um on the horizon for us as far as our intramural program we're already looking at possibly basketball for January so we're all very excited about that and I know the students are as well so and that's um that's what's happening at the middle school all right should we uh anything else or should we take questions there I think I think that's it for the activities presentation okay um so I'll I'll board members if you have questions to put your Zoom hand up and I'll call on you but I do want to just ask two

060questions one is just in general the things that we've been doing in person as we hit pause on face to face in our buildings will all of those activities continue in a virtual format whether it be in the music program or some of our other clubs and activities maybe Mr PR yeah um things that we had to pause this week because of the Mandate from the governor are continuing virtually everything that we offered in person was not instead of what we had been doing virtual it was an addition so we will continue to offer the the virtual experiences and is that for the other uh student clubs and activities is that the case so so most of our student clubs and ities are occurring virtually now so that remains uninterrupted anything with our music program

061at the high school that's co-curricular in other words the students gain credit on their transcript is still occurring in person but anything that's extracurricular has been moved to Virtual okay and um it sounds like in some of our programs we've seen participation rates go down it sounds like some perhaps not um I guess I'm wondering if we have um ideas even from our students themselves or others uh about how to try to you know invigorate this part of school as much as possible in terms of getting students uh involved would you like go ahead Henry as far as the music department goes we are constantly looking at new ideas to engage our students as well as reaching out to our students and asking them um if they have ideas would could would invigorate some of

062the things that we're doing virtually um whether it's giving opportunities to have a recital night whether the kids have an opportunity to share their their work uh virtually um as well as having them to to maybe pick and choose some of the things that we're actually having to learn in music as well so those are some of things we're looking at right now uh as we move forward and we're going to continue to reach out to our students and see um once we get into the new year and reinvite some of the students that may have been apprehensive in September not quite sure how they were going to manage their time in this environment and uh you know reinvite them in January now they've got a a handle on how things have been working for

063them so far the first four months of the year and I apologize we I don't have an idea of participation rate as it was compared to last year I can say anecdotally at least in one Club the speech and debate Club are they're attending more competitions this year from my understanding than they did last year the virtual I think has actually made it a little bit more accessible for them less travel and whatnot so um certainly we can we can check on those participation rates but we don't have those handy tonight and and Dr gry I know at the middle school our participation rates are down um however as students are more comfortable with in-person learning we are getting more requests for student-led clubs which is always a good thing because they're taking ownership in

064the club so we look forward to hosting more the student Le base clubs as we move into the New Year great thank you uh Kelly I see you have a hand up yep um one uh comment one question first I would just want to say thank you to everyone who's helping to make the clubs the um all the programs I have a visitor as we can see um making all of that work and I I just um because we've got um kids in the music programs in particular I just want to say I think you guys have done just a simply outstanding job of pulling the music programs together I've been so impressed um I know lots of families are uh making lots of excuses to their co-workers while they're trying to carry on meetings

065and there's uh lessons and uh ensembles taking place in the background so but thank you so much for that um one one question um if you're um not a musician yourself as a parent um or a caregiver are there opportunities of some kind to help students who might need help tuning their instruments that's one of those things that can so challenging as a as a parent and I wondered if there's anything that we can do to help with that or are already doing um a few of us I know Mr pin Tera and I offer on we call it curbside instrument repair and tunings uh we pick one day each week after school and we have a window of time if if the instrument is in seriously of a tuning or a minor repair um

066we've been offering that on a weekly basis um certainly if there's an email or a or going to do a quick uh Zoom with the parent we be more than willing to maybe talk a parent through uh to help tune the instrument I know we do spend quite a bit of time tuning the string instruments with the students before rehearsal during their their group lessons here at the middle school and the students have been pretty good very good about tuning it with guidance from the instructor but if it's a little bit beyond that their ability to do it that way we're more than willing to to do the curbside instrument tuning and repairs awesome thank you so much thanks for adding that extra time in to to help out the amilies that's awesome sure any

067other board questions uh Jen thanks Dr Grandy um Mr pearlberg is I was wondering if it's possible that the musical production of Beauty and the Beast for the Middle School may also end up happening in person um it I didn't see that you had written that um maybe outside as well or maybe that remains to be determined I think that was going to remain to be determined I know they're planning for an early May performance of it so given that may the weather is a lot nicer and warmer that there's maybe potential to possibility to to do that um I can I can ask our Music Theater directors um I'm not directly involved with the theater I asked them to share the information that they had had from last week's uh interest me meeting and

068and the planning going forward but I do know that this particular uh production of it can be done virtually so I know they have that piece in place and I guess if it if were possible circumstances arise there maybe some portions of it that can be done uh live so if that would be something I can refer that question to them I was just wondering if that was also something that was potentially evolving just like most other things it seems like in the educational Arena right now or if that was decided right it has not been fully decided yet not knowing what the future holds so I think they were looking at making sure we can get their students engaged this winter in a production and right now we have to do it virtually in

069this moment so that's great and um I'm not sure who this is best asked of but um I think and and Lisa you Dr P you did touch on it but um we did spend so much time this board being asked about sport and I think it's so wonderful that um while I've known that a lot of things have been occurring when you flush it out like this it really gives everyone a better idea and a better sense of really just how rich these programs and these clubs have been and how important they've been for our kids which is great um but I think it is important again so that the constituency understands that um the reason that we weren't talking about this as much is that a lot of these decisions including which mask

070gets selected is not within the purview of our board am I am I correct about that that is correct it's within our regular health and safety plan okay because while I do zero time on social media um personally but it has sort of um I've come to understand that there has been some some discussions on social media that because we talked about sports and because we're just now getting to this that it may it may mean that one matters more and I think it's important that our our families and our constituency um understand that it was because some things are within the perview of the board and some things are not is that am I restating it right that is correct okay um and again thank you Dr pearlberg I mean Mr pearlberg congratulations and

071Dr hilden um for explaining all of this and and flushing it out for even for these board members and myself um because I think at the end of the day that everyone just wants the best for the kids and whatever kids can safely participate in parts of their lives that are so important um despite the pandemic that they should so that's wonderful thanks for all your hard work and for being here all right um I don't see any other hands up so I'll just wrap this up by again thanking all of you again there's an amazing amount of creativity that's going in into making these activities happen during a difficult time but I think these activities are so important uh to have available to our students and Mr pearlberg you're giving me all sorts of

072ideas of things to like hope and dream about in the spring when the weather turns nice and things are better in the world and things we might be able to do um it gives me lots of visions and ideas in my head that I hope are true so H thank you uh so Dr Palmer do you want to introduce our second topic I would so several meetings ago we have had Dr hilden with us to talk several times about the high school schedule and what are some of the concerns he has or some of the obstacles or some of the opportunities that we may have at the high school we've also had a number of parents who've talked about the requests that they have had to improve the amount of time that kids are in

073with us whether it's half day full day but they would like more time within our buildings so since the time Dr hilden was with us he has been with his team and he is joined by assistant principles Chris mat Sanka and Tom mclin this evening and they can talk a little bit more about what are some of those things that they're thinking about as they are looking toward the future too so Greg I don't know who's going to start you off tonight so thank you Dr Palmer um I'm going to start off by sharing my scen screen as well let's see see if this works here and all right can everyone see it see this screen Perfect all right so um thank you again for providing us this opportunity to provide you with an update

074um Dr Palmer asked us to give a mini Focus topic I'm not sure exactly how mini this is maybe compared to Henry's music um presentation but uh overall you're going to find a lot of detail uh in the schu that you're about to see so I just want to start with a little bit of background um as Dr pommer mentioned we've been back to the school board numerous times to talk about the different options for providing more time for our students to be in person at the high school and we've had obviously some obstacles and some barriers that would prevent us from doing that and I think it was two school board meetings ago I presented a timeline whereby we would provide this type of information or more of a formal um recommendation about a

075schedule to the board in early January so what we thought was important was to to kind of pull the curtain back and show you what's going on behind the scenes what you're going to see tonight are all drafts they're not 100% foolproof there are still some bugs in some of them but we wanted to share with everyone where our mindset was what the schedules are are uh as they are now that we're working on and there are a couple options and some the reason for that is some of the options have different priorities so I'll let the um Dr matzka and Mr mcclan explain the actual schedules what I'm going to do is kind of lead you to how we arrive at those schedules so on August 31st the first day of school you can

076see we were 100% virtual and we're going to go back to that schedule tomorrow when we begin virtual learning for the remainder of this week and that schedule is posted on our website and it was emailed to all the students uh earlier this evening since October 12th we've been in the hybrid learning model and that's the cohort model where we have some of our students come in person Monday Tuesday and the other half of the cohort come Thursday Friday and then a third group of students who have stayed home and remained virtual in what we call our Online Academy and on October 7th you can see the the numbers of students that were in each cohort a cohort B and Online Academy and how that has changed from October to November to December and I

077can tell you what's not there is when folks email the high school admin team to to request changing from cohort to Online Academy they do they primarily have done so citing safety and C numbers what you don't see there um in particular is the number of students who decide to stay home at any given day but also access their education online so they're not absent from school in the sense that they're participating virtual but they're not coming to school on a day that they originally decided that they would come as a part of the cohort so that is why we put the attendance rates on this screen so you can see um and those were the last week so on December 7th that was an a cohort day and if you look at December 11th

078in in cohort a there were 349 students so only 44% of that group came to in-person learning on December 7th it's it's interesting it spikes the second day of the cohort so the seventh and e8th were cohort a and the 11 10th and 11th were cohort B and in each case you see a little increase on the site day we have some theories about that but nothing that we can prove so um today which was a Monday it was a cohort day a day we actually only had about 40% of the cohort that attended school today uh back in late October I think it was October 30th I sent a survey of my weekly eblast to parents to try to gain more information because one what you're going to see later is one of the

079major factors is the flexibility in between moving from the hybrid to the Online Academy is one of the major barriers to deciding which type of schedule to choose so we had 749 responses to give you perspective there's about 1230 families or students I should say not families students in the high school some of those responses are um the same family multiple times for different students so we do have some families that have students that have chosen to um same family one student may be online the other student may be in person and those uh numbers there correlate to the to the um cohorts and the Online Academy when we asked the reason which which best which reason best describes why you chose the Online Academy you'll see safety was the number one um Choice there

080and which was interesting to me was we had 25 students that actually identified that they preferred learning in a virtual environment unfortunately we didn't have a follow-up question there to to to determine why that was the case but that might be interesting um moving forward in the future when we look at any kind of online learning for our students and then you see no full day option nine students said they were staying home because there was no full day option we asked some other questions to try to to determine whether or not students would move in from cohort to online or back if we had changed the schedule so what you're seeing is these are the Online Academy students of that group 31 students said that they would switch to the cohort if we offered

081a full day and if we offered an extended half day which you're going to see later on basically is lunches at the end of the day if you will so you just go through the classes one two three four only 12 students said that they would return if that was the case in cohort a we had 18 students would who would be willing to switch to the Online Academy if we were to go in person the rest the remainder of 262 out of 279 so they would stay in the cohort and then with the extended half day we had 23 students identifi that they would switch to the Online Academy in cohort B and and again these numbers are not very far apart from one another you'll see 15 students identifying that they would switch

082to the Online Academy if we went the full dat now in context this survey was October 30th before the numbers really started to increase so this is you know old data if you will even though it's only a month and a half two months um behind us and so the last thing I want to to share with you before we we get into the schedule is just all the different things that really affect the making of of a schedule and some of these are particular to the circumstances that we see ourselves in now so we we've talked about a lot of these before you know we've talked about trying to Pro to provide Equity so that students taking classes would have the same experience we've talked about lunch and the space um and we've talked

083about instructional time and making sure that that we meet the minimum requirement that's mandated by the state um in addition to that you know I really want to point out that we you know we must plan for for everyone and that Online Academy piece there that's the flexible policy we talked a little bit about this before but I want to highlight that for the community because I think it's important any schedule that we employ we have to have some policy around whether or not you're going to stay in the Online Academy or you're going to stay in the cohort or when when and how if and why you should switch so right now we have our policy is really flexible we've allowed people to identify if they want to move back and forth and we've

084been able to accommodate that because we have a certain number of people in the Online Academy whereby our classes don't exceed 15 students within a certain cohort when you look at the other schedules that policy is going to to need to change and become more um or I should say less flexible if we go to some of the other schedules and again that's not something that's insurmountable but it will be a condition or or a guiding factor in the choice of any of the schedules so I'm going to um turn it over to Dr man Sanka and he's going to walk through a little bit just as a quick reminder of what our current schedule is now and explain to you the the first of the new schedules that we've been looking at and then

085Mr mclin's going to commit and explain the other two schedules thank you Dr hilon good evening everyone um just I'm gonna give you a quick recap of our current model as of today not as of tomorrow um currently uh students and cohort attend uh in person two half days a week uh cohort a attends in person on Mondays and Tuesdays cohort B Thursdays and Fridays students in cohort attend virtually when they're not scheduled in person uh the current schedule split each day with two 80 minute classes for the imperson portion and two 60 Minute classes for the virtual portion online students attend all sessions uh sessions virtually and we do have fifth Block it's twice a week but it's once per cohort so that's the current schedule that we've been uh working with now for

086for a few weeks um and since then we've been looking at a couple different models so I'm going to start off with the easiest model uh you can go to the next slide please so this is a full day two times a week cohort without lunch and this is uh very Sim similar to um some schedules that neighboring school districts who are in Block are are utilizing and essentially uh we are pushing the lunch back uh expanding the lunch and trying to fit in four blocks before lunch four full blocks and one of the biggest constraints that we're having to deal with is space in the cafeteria uh so this schedule removes that constraint in this schedule students would attend 4 70 minute blocks uh so inperson students would see every teacher twice a week

087where they currently see every teacher in person once a week cohort a would remain in person Mondays and Tuesdays and cohort B in person Thursdays and Fridays with this schedule there would be no inperson fifth block uh students would have to attend virtually at at least as of right now what we're TR we're evaluating there are a few obstacles with this schedule am votch arrives in the middle of third block currently am votech uh arrives somewhere between 10:30 and and 10:40 each day uh this is something that we are evaluating uh but if we had to implement this model these Stu the way it is these students would miss uh instruction we have to figure out a way for music students to attend uh in person for fifth block we just heard um you know

088Mr prober give a rundown of our our great music program and we know how important that is to our community and our students um so that's still something that we're working on uh one of the glaring concerns that students would go for extended time without having lunch so they would go through the schedule all way to 12:24 and students would leave uh go home and would not get lunch until then um that is a you know extensive time but uh currently right now there are times throughout a year where kids do not eat until that time um but that we we know this is this is a glaring concern with this schedule Mr Mich ain's going to go over the next next two schedules thank you Dr mat Sanka uh so the next schedule we're

089going to take a look at is the full day cohort with with lunch built into the schedule uh going back to what Dr met Sanka stated you know one of the larger concerns is the room in the cafeteria uh so if you look at the first condition there with this policy we would have to we would have to come up with a policy for uh people to commit to the online academy uh we need approximately 240 students to take our number down to a just under a thousand would be something that we think we can work with what we did was uh we took the the two blocks or the two blocks that we have in the morning and we did an a an AA cohort and a BB cohort so a cohort would come

090in Monday Tuesday they come in for blocks one and two third Block in order to facilitate this we had to create a study hall option the study hall option would then allow us to have a 25 minute lunch period and then a 25 minute study h per uh the reason we need that time is to clean between lunches as well as to facilitate lunch for the staff and this would allow us to do that um we would have to find a location for the students to be in study hall as well as switch down to the cafeteria and then obviously they would stay for Block four and then anyone one or two would could remain for fifth block so in essence the students would get fifth block twice a week they would be in school

091for a full day twice a week and the other opposite days if cohort a was in school Monday Tuesday they would be Zoom or online for Thursday Friday um obviously some obstacles with this schedule would be Staffing and by Staffing we mean uh Supervision in the study hall cafeteria because we'd have multiple areas that need to be covered during those times uh we'd have to figure out the logistics for when students arrive in the morning where we're going to put those students and how we right currently we put students in the gym and the cafeteria but we have to break the chairs down every morning we put them up and every morning as soon as they leave we have to break the chairs down so our fiz department can have their own facility to use

092obviously lunch would be uh is a bit of a a challenge because we'd have to figure out the cleaning process as well as moving students from the cafeteria to the study hall from study hall to cafeteria and then to class so we can figure out traffic patterns in the hallways and then the last one would be class coverages uh because currently we use the cafeteria for classes for coverages but we would be able to have that facility for third block and we have going back again to the Online Academy policy uh if we had corts that ended up being larger than 15 we would need room in the library or the auditorium or the cafeteria to house classes that have more than 15 students uh given the current um Health recommendations of six- foot separation

093the most we can fit into a classroom is is 15 students so we'd have to really um have a strict policy about that to facilitate those numbers so that would be the full day two days a week cohort with launch uh Dr hen can you go to the next slide for me the final uh schedule we took a look at was half day four times a week with a cohort model without launch so that means that cohort a would come to school Monday Tuesday in the morning and Thursday Friday in the afternoon we Tred to figure out a way to have it consistent so um you know your student would be in in the building every day it's just a matter of either in the morning or in the afternoon so both cohorts would be

094in school they would come in in the morning for Block one and two they would go home this would be cohort a of course they would go home for um their second half of the day which would be uh blocks three and four in zoom and then in that case for the B cohort would be in school they would stay for fifth block on Monday and Tuesday and then the the schedule would exactly flip for Thursday Friday cohort B would come in the morning cohort a would come in the afternoon and then cohort a would have the opportunity for inperson band uh on Thursday and Friday in terms of the constraints you know we have to talk about food service so on Monday Tuesday cohort a could pick up lunch on the way out uh

095cohort B could theoretically pick lunch up on the way in or we can talk to the Food Service people about having a pick up on the way out of school the other consideration would be Transportation uh we would be adding an extra Transportation run and when we spoke with Transportation they need approximately an hour to drop the students off clean the buses and start the runs to bring students back so if you notice there we left about an hour and 18 minutes of time there um to hopefully get enough you know time for them to do all that and then um the time limit on the blocks and we're currently having an 80 60 split on blocks we would have a 70-minute block for all four classes so it's not quite 80 minutes but it's

096close enough and uh it gets them enough instructional time for uh the week uh that would be that this this schedule will allow for 140 minutes of face Toof FaceTime a day 140 minutes of Zoom a day for our cohort uh requirements or Online Academy students would have 280 minutes of online time a day so they were the four options that we came up with uh to meet the conditions that we currently are dealing with uh thank thank thank you Mr M so I'm just going to recap a little bit and you know share with everyone again these are are drafts there are certainly some items that still need to be polished and put forth but we felt like it was important to share where we were in the process so that all the stakeholders

097could could see and have an opportunity for them to obviously voice any concerns or thoughts that they have in relationship to these schedules it will add that essentially the um instructional time Remains the Same with the exception of the um I'm going to go back here if I can uh this the third schedule which is the full day two days a week with the lunch uh it increases instructional time per week by about 80 minutes and it increases the amount of Zoom time for our Online Academy students by that same amount of time whereas the zoom time decreases for the in-person cohort students it actually increases for our Online Academy students so with that I will leave these schedules up here because I'm sure people may want to ask questions based upon what they can

098see here and we'll turn it over for questions great thank you uh a lot of detailed work there I know um you know we've certainly heard a lot from the community about a real strong desire to try to move to a different model than what we have now I think that the um you know there's challenges with the current model that I think many are are struggling with and so I think you've put forward three options here that gives some potential Way Forward um I did have one question about the option that is a full day with lunch I just wanted to make sure I understood what the Online Academy commitment had to be in order for that to potentially be feasible I wasn't sure I got that number sure so our basically and gentleman

099can correct me if if I'm wrong we have about um 350 places for lunch and study hall combined um so we have 150 I'm sorry I think that I spoke too high we have three 150 seats in the cafeteria and 100 seats so it's 250 students per group right so that's 500 for Monday Tuesday and 500 for Thursday and Friday so that's a thousand students so we would need about the remaining 238 or 240 students to remain online and that that's in order to accomplish this schedule that you see on the screen does that answer your question so there's 250 seats total where students would be either eating or in study hall correct so so I'll I'll so if you look on Monday and you look at block 3 3A group one during that group

100you will have 150 students in the cafeteria eating and 100 students having a study hall in another place in the building then they will switch in group two and that's the study hall students will then eat lunch and the lunch students will have study hall we can accommodate 250 students in group a and 250 students in group b okay yeah I mean I could you want me to elaborate a little bit more I I I think one of the things that we we failed to mention is right now with this initial plan we're we're thinking of study hall in the auditorium and may come it may be a surprise to people that I think there's about 550 seats in our Auditorium but because of the six feet social distancing we can only fit 87 students

101in in the chairs in the auditorium so um we we discussing other ways to add more more seating in the auditorium but that's that's one of the constraints right now is that we're kind of just trying to balance flipping kids in Auditorium with the cafeteria and it's really about turning over to cafeteria quicker because if if ideally if we had 600 kids students um coming back we need to make sure we're looking to figure out how can we get all them cycle them through the cafeteria um and that's when we're looking at each launch as two mini launches and 25 minutes doesn't sound like a lot of time to eat but I promise you kids kids eat quite quickly um and we're we're looking to turn the cafeteria over and and kind of do a

102swap with the study hall and lunch if that makes sense so we're limitting in spacing of of of being able to do that swap right now that's that's what we're we're evaluating so we're looking at approximately 120 kids per cohort having to commit to the online model to make that work based off the way we have it right now and I think what you're not seeing there that may be confusing is that when when group 3A is in lunch and study hall group 3B is in class and then they switch so I think that might be that was my math problem okay there you go right and I I we have looked at these schedules so many times that that it it just runs together in our brain so I apologize what you're not seeing

103there is that one group is in class while the other group is at lunch perfect okay I was like why do you keep doubling okay I get it um I see Matt's hand is up thank you so you asked one of the questions I have but I still have another one but before I do that I wanted to thank all of you for all this information I know I've been one of the ones asking what can we do to get the kids back in the building more and I really appreciate all the thought and detail that went into this and this was a really helpful presentation to understand some of the options you're looking at and some of the obstacles we still need to get over so now that I understand the math that we

104just went through for the full day option I did have a question about the um the half day the four half day option so you talked about the timing of the transportation runs and the district uh transportation department needing about an hour to run a transportation run and so we we're hoping we have enough time baked into the Lunch Period to allow that to happen but the other obstacle with that schedule is cleaning in between the cohorts and we think that the hour and 18 minute lunch period allows enough time for that or is that still an obstacle that we need to find a solution to so thanks Matt that is one of the things that we still have to iron out I we do think it's possible but it's something that we have to

105vet again through our um pandemic team we have the backpack sprayers that they can use that they clean at night and there's a certain amount of time that it takes uh for those to to work and I'm not the expert there so I won't I won't go down that uh course but um we do think it's possible but again those details have not been ironed out yet what what's nice about schedule and they all have things that are nice about them um as well what's nice about this is it actually gets students into the building four days of the week so while it's only a half day each it totals two days but if you're a routine oriented person and you want to get up and make sure you're out of bed and dressed and

106um shaved if you will uh this gives you opportunity to be in school in a routine four days a week yeah and I do like how much more routine it is than the current schedule where you're in for one morning and then you're in the next day on in afternoon and then you're out I like the fact that it' be two mornings and then two afternoons uh Marilyn so um I think it's also if you look at the survey from end of October it seems like the Online Academy enrollment will work with these plans and there and it doesn't it doesn't appear that people are going to jump out of the Online Academy in Mass um if we were make these changes so so that's a positive thing um another concern we have to keep

107in mind of course is also getting getting the covid numbers under control um since we are currently all virtual now we're going to have to uh get past that before we can put any of these changes in place so I just want to uh make sure that gets mentioned out loud during this discussion so my other question was uh Dr hilden when you were um presenting the attendance numbers and kind of the trajectory in the student shifting uh more towards the online online Academy um over the last couple of months um I'm wondering what the experience is in the classroom particularly this last week when the attendance rate was just about 50% so in a given classroom how many students are actually present compared to how many students are participating by Zoom so so that's

108a great question I would say the vast majority of students are participating by Zoom when you Walk The Halls and look in the classroom you may see between two and five students in the classroom that that the size is very small I mean if you take a day like today you have 139 students in the entire building and you spread them out amongst all of our classrooms for any given period um it's very few students so what typically happens in in instructionally is you end up teaching primarily the modality is virtual you you're teaching to the majority of students who are online in front of you and the students that are sitting in the desk are attending basically in Zoom with the other students you know and this is probably the saddest part of the

109situation we're in you know I've mentioned before that the high school is not the vibrant place that it normally Is On Any Given year um and I think the last month or so it has been increasingly difficult to watch as you know students don't have the opportunity to experience High School in a traditional way now there's hope obviously we get back to that and I'm very hopeful that we do um but the classroom experience in October is certainly different than it was is has become in November and December I'm I'm wondering if if we've kind of hit a Tipping Point um where the attendance in person has dropped so low that it's not as attractive to students to attend in person since it's they're not getting the interaction with with their buddies um in the

110room since their buddies just aren't there yeah the my only response to that would be I think that's true but I think that the evidence in that it the in the value of it is the fact that while the students know that they still continue to choose to commit so if if that were to affect them I think we would see everybody drop off but we do still have you know 150 to 200 students on any given day who are choosing to come in despite that reality and I think that's important for that I I I have I have one concern if because now that the next time you're going to see students coming into the high school is going to be after the winter break um and I and and I have a concern

111that attendance may be low again then um for the same reasons it was low after for Thanksgiving people concerned about um covid transmission um and I'm concerned about what do you do if only 20 students show up on January 4th um what happens then you know I it's it's hard to guess what the attendance will be I'm sure but we'll teach the same way you know we we kind of don't know on any given day who's coming now um we do have a process to code students that don't come when they're supposed to um but they're still attending virtually which is the most important thing they're still accessing their education so you know if we have 40 kids or 100 kids we're going to um March forward and and and teach them the same way

112we would now thank you all right I'm going in the order that Zoom tells me I hope it's correct um I have Jerry's hand up next Jerry you're muted uh question about the four heft day model you mentioned I thought you said with no lunch but you also mentioned that they pick up lunch on the way home is that correct correct so our our cafeteria has been providing lunch as they do now for students as they come in and as they exit the building and that practice would continue in this model okay okay so how do you manage that with students I can see how you manage it with students leaving how do you manage it with the students coming so it's available to them to come and they can come a little bit early

113and then go down to the cafeteria and eat because we can accommodate 150 students that capacity um but quite honestly the students have not taken advantage really of that option so we have very few students who take lunch when they come into the building for the afternoon sessions okay thank you Al sorry sorry about that um I I just wanted to clarify um a question related to that the very first option which was I think full two time full days twice a week no lunch is it that one that impacts votch students and I I I'm not familiar with how it works for them today and what point in the schedule they leave so are they leaving right in the middle of instruction they would have well not in the middle but they're they're leaving

114yeah in the middle of instruction they would have otherwise received and we miss it entirely is that what would happen so Dr Manser do you want to take the votch sure yeah the concern of the am votch students uh leave our our campus at 7:15 and attend uh the technical school um they arrive uh back to our school right now at you know between 10:30 and and 10:40 and then go to class so uh they are scheduled to miss blocks one and two uh or two blocks a day um when they enroll in the the technical school with this schedule if you look there at block three block three starts at 101 um so they would be on their way back uh from the technical school campuses and um missing part of instruction at our

115school now we do know other schools are running a similar model and we do know we've been in contact quite a bit with the technical school um they've been very flexible with with schools um we've been doing everything we can to get our students there as as often as possible um and as much as possible but they're you know we're not sure if there's some wiggle room there and that's that's one of the things we're exploring that to see how that can work okay so so one of the one of the variations on this schedule that we've seen from other block schools like Central Bucks is after block two they don't have a full Lunch Period they have a 10 or 15 minute snack break where the students remain in their second block class but

116that would mean that the students are eating unmasked in the classroom which would be a concern for some people but that is another option A variation so that would accomplish two things it would give the students a break a little bit and it would buffer that V Tech impact um but there are some concerns obviously with transmission if you're eating on mass uh in a classroom where all the students are facing the instructor and there's really no place for the the supervisor the instructor to go to in that situation okay I just want to I I know that we don't have you know the same level of enrollment in the vocational technical schools as some of the surrounding districts but for the students who are in it in the families uh their families it's really

117important and um but it's it's also important that they get the full education when they come back so I I I appreciate that you've called out that that's a a remaining signific an obstacle and and until we could figure out how to resolve that one this one doesn't feel to me like it's workable um when it we'd have to find a way to make that work and I think you you're I don't think you're suggesting otherwise uh I just want to be clear that um we do have students that take advantage of that in our district and we have to figure out how to make something work for them too uh Jen thank you um uh Dr hen I'm so glad to hear that there is an a thought process about making our kids and

118our families or encouraging them to make the commitment because I I'm it's my sense that people are ready to make those commitments um and then even if we don't have the formal commitments they're somewhat living by an informal commitment so I think it makes sense at this point so that that we can give everyone the education that um possibly fits best for their kids under the circumstances so I'm really glad to hear that that's very much on the table um I was wondering seeing the numbers that you offered do you think it's possible that if people commit to the Online Academy that the numbers may even foster kids coming into the building four days a week all of the kids and merging those cohorts so the issue we have is we're still restricted by the

119safety plan which states that that the students have to be six feet apart at I mean at six feet apart with the numbers Foster that still at six feet apart I apologize I'm not sure I understand what you're what you're asking are are Jen are you saying that at the online academy uh enrollment remains over 500 yeah let let me let I I see you're saying okay if the Online Academy remains as high as it has been right and um again um potentially climing uh after we get that commitment is it possible that kids could attend every day for a full day four days a week with six feet apart safely yeah I I'd have to go back and look I mean part of that depends on what which Co when you add the cohorts

120together I mean certainly if you just look at the number of students enrolled um you know when you're only having two two to five people in the class if you theoretically double that then in theory yes we'd have to look specifically at the actual classes and look at the number of classes where we would exceed 15 if that were to be the case the other issue there is you would have to absolutely have a commitment right because we wouldn't be able to accommodate people from on a day-to-day basis you know choosing to come to school not com to school right it it sounds like that commitment would be pivotal with that and and the Catalyst really to putting any of these schedules into play effectively um is it possible for kids to eat in their

121classrooms six feet apart so so the issue in with that is where how the classes are set up so the classes are set up and the students are six feet of part and they're facing the same way that they would as if they were in the cafeteria but the difference is in the classroom instructor is on the other side of that and the instructor doesn't have the ability unless they kind of face the corner or don't you know really observe the class our instructors were all in the front of the classrooms and that was to pH facilitate the learning via zoom and smartboards so that's the issue in in those situations but that those instructors would remain masked I'm guessing their lunchtime is not at the same time as the students is that right correct

122but you would still be having another person unmasked at probably exactly six feet right I know that a lot of neighboring schools are handling it that way that's why that's the only reason I asked um not always Public Schools but some other schools are are handling it in that very way um successfully so far but um I was also wondering on the full two times a week cohort with no lunch model um with band at the fifth block is that um for credit it is it is and so one of the drawbacks to this schedule is the fact that they would not be having any option for inperson until we found out another way to transport them or to have them get their own transportation here for that period so that's a major draw back

123to this um model that I thought it was that went because you said something and linked it to academics in some way so I thought that was that fifth was for credit model okay and the full day two s a week with lunch um to get moderators for classrooms is it possible or even feasible to ask um parents parents that are willing to volunteer that have had their clearances kind of like we would with a field trip when we need some extra hands to moderate those types of things or is that that's not something that you foresee working um I'm gonna give you one of I'd have to think about that I'd have to think that through okay and um why do you flip the schedules in the four days a week half days maybe

124you said this but I didn't I didn't hear it so this last schedule the four day week yeah why do they go morning for the first two and then if they came in four days go afternoon for the um Thursday Friday so they can see their PM teacher so this is again the vot tech issue so if you were to oh re if you were to renumber the periods and rotate them 1 two 3 4 and then 4321 students who are attending school outside the building would then miss that period so you have to have one two three four and that's why the students split and not the period okay I'll tell you that when I look at these schedules I I find this last Model to be the most appealing for several reasons and

125you know one of those several reasons is that I think it's important for kids to have somewhere to be every day where someone's going to count on them to show up and to take a shower or to at least act like they took a shower and um I I think that's incredibly important now I haven't been to high school in 30 years so I'm wondering if it may behoove us to again the kids the kids thoughts don't necessarily dictate what we decide but to ask some kids and maybe you've already done this what they think about that schedule because I know that some kids have become and I think our numbers bear that out I don't think it's all because of covid some kids have become incredibly unmotivated by our current short mornings with just

126two half days a week and while I look at this last schedule and I I think it looks like the best one and maybe the the most attainable uh I don't know what would some students find that to somehow be unmotivating it might it might just be worth asking if you haven't already and um maybe you have because if we ended up with the same numbers despite all that work that would not be productive right no and thank you for that suggestion we have not and that's you know to the point where our team really Chris Tom and I we've just got this to the point where we could give it to you we haven't had a chance to run this through our teachers or instructional leaders our students that would be kind of the

127next step in this process okay thanks so much Dr hon all right um just before we wrap up I don't see any other hands um Dr hen do you think we will be able to consider a proposal at the meeting our first meeting in January I'm thinking a timeline here I think it's January 11th is a Monday if I remember correctly is our first board meeting in January and then the semester changes a couple weeks after that correct correct I think um I think it would be important to have something completed by that time because it would give a couple weeks lead time for for teachers and students to prepare um if we were to change something going into the second semester which begin on the 25th I believe I think I think that's a

128good Target date okay so aiming for the change of the semester um it does seem like one wild card in all of this is um students are able to not only go back and forth between online and hybrid right now they're able to do it on a daily basis um and so that's a whole another Wrinkle In whether people continue to be allowed to do on a daily basis for reasons of personal preference as opposed to reasons of like being sick and needing to not be in the buildings and so it's not a question it's just complicated how to think about like handling what has become a norm in the school now which is not just whether or not you elect for the Online Academy period but whether you change it on a daily basis

129because students do that without actually designating the they've changed right like our when you say 50% of students in the school right our absentee rate is not that high they're actually getting up and getting online and attending via Zoom so it's it you're right it's a daily preference if you will either the weather is bad or I miss my bus or I have an appointment or a variety of reasons and some would argue that that they don't want to lose that flexibility and some would say that that flexibility is inconsequential against the need to be in school more so you know there's there's certainly um two sides to yeah every story well I just want to say again I think you've heard it from others um a couple just um takeaway points I think one

130is like very much appreciation for working through I know schedules are are difficult um for working through these options and giving us a Way Forward I think because I think the second key thing is I do think that the current model has been a struggle um you know I think we're not really achieving what we could potentially achieve with what we're doing today and we're certainly hearing that from a lot of uh families and students in the high school and so you know I know all of these involve tradeoffs in terms of thinking about which is the best way forward um but appreciate your working through a lot of these difficult questions and finding one that will uh potentially work going forward and input on that I think is great from our our students and

131families as well um so we will move on again thank you for walking us through that and so um that will take us to the next part of our agenda which I need to get in front of me all right uh so that is our audience time for audience recognition for items for action on the agenda um as I've mentioned before uh in this uh virtual environment that we're in now members of the public wishing to address the board can call 61892 3470 extension 11102 to leave a recorded comment for the board subject to a three minute time limit any comments that were called in prior to 5 o'clock today have been transcribed and made available to the board uh people can continue to call up until the end of the meeting those will still

132be transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record uh but not acknowledged during the meeting this evening uh I believe we have one called in comment Kelly do you have that we we do um and I'm going to go ahead and read it um at this point it's it's a little clear to me whether it should be here or um items not on the agenda but I think it makes sense to go ahead and read it now um this is from uh J gatri dos apologize of Whittier Place in swathmore um I'm right I'm sharing this comment on behalf of 103 wssd residents who have signed on in report the signed list has been submitted via email as you begin to search for a new leader for our schools we would

133like to share our expectations that our next superintendent will be chosen with proven experience in equity and anti-rac racism education recently you announced the decision to reopen a search for an equity audit firm after listening to Community Voices that call for representation of diverse non-weight perspectives and explicit expertise in equity and inclusion in any meaningful assessment of our schools we commend you for this decision yet recognize that these same concerns are in play with even greater consequence in selecting our new superintendent events over the past few years in our district demonstrate the urgency of choosing a leader who can transform our schools to further equity and opportunities for all students we see the pain of students of color students in the lgbtq plus community and students of Min minority Faith groups when they're marginalized both

134in the classroom and outside side we see repeated occurrences of hate crimes hate speech and bias perpetrated by wssd students we see the need for a thoughtful crisis response plan that prioritizes the trauma of impacted students after these incidents we see the disproportionate number of suspensions of students of color we see the need for social justice to be elevated as a foundational principle of our children's education rather than being compressed into positive behavior programs while the pandemic mic has challenged us to respond to an acute Health crisis the new superintendent must be prepared to prioritize action on these no less critical chronic issues that impact the health safety and well-being of our students as families teachers and residents of wssd we also know that the direction of our superintendent leadership will shape conversations about inequities

135in our broader Community we urge you to engage the diversity equity and inclusion committee to provide guidance in the search process and input into the the selection of the next superintendent Equity is not just a word or our most vulnerable students are hurt when Equity as a core value is not at the Forefront our students who are part of the dominant culture will also be empowered to understand the need for equity and the Privileges they have to Advocate and enact change our status quo requires systemic changes to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity to thrive and considering the next leader of our students teacher staff administ ation and Community choosing a superintendent with the experience and expertise to bring Equity into Focus will allow all of our students and families to come together

136as a stronger Community thank you for your consideration all right thank you um and Kelly I I think later on when we get the Schoolboard reports do you have any updates from our Dei committee at that time I I would like to share a brief update yes okay so we'll come back to that and I just want to Echo what I said earlier is I think a lot of the I share a lot of the sentiments in that letter and making sure we prioritize Equity through this process and I um our Dei committee will certainly be uh invited for input along the way uh in this important process um so I appreciate um those who sign on to that letter um that takes us to our first items for Action uh this evening which is

137the approval of the November 23rd regular business meeting the December 7th reorganization meeting and the December 7th special meeting minutes uh and I so move uh do I have a second second Kelly wman thank you Kelly uh any discussion okay Miss fuer can you please take a roll call Mr Ballas hi Miss tamino hi Dr Downey hi Dr Huff hi Mr CIS hi Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman I Dr Grandy I the motion passes 9 to Z thank you Miss Figora so that takes us to uh Personnel uh where we have eight items for Action uh are there any on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay uh first we as I mentioned earlier we have the approval of the retirement of Dr Palmer uh

138effective at the end of the day on June 30th 2021 uh second we have the approval of the change of retirement date for Ferguson Abbott Director of Human Resources and operations uh from the end of the day on June 30th 2021 to December 31st 2021 we have the approval of Casey Goldberg as a special education teacher at NP as stipulated we have the approval of changes of assignments as listed in the agenda we have approval of fall athletic supplementals as listed in the agenda we have approval of winter athletic Supple supplements as listed in the agenda agenda and we have approval of additions and deletions to the 2020 2021 activity supplemental appointment lists as stipulated uh and then we have approval of additions to the 2020 activity adviser appointments as stipulated I don't know if

139I just said that twice um lost track on my paper uh so all items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so move jury Bells thank you Jerry uh do we have a second second Kelly wman thank you Kelly any discussion okay uh Miss fer can you please take a roll call vote misso hi Dr Downey hi Dr Huff hi Mr cus Mr cutas hi Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman I Mr Ballas I Dr Grandy I the motion passes nine to zero all right thank you Miss Fagor uh that takes us to curriculum we just have one item for Action in curriculum this evening which is the approval of the dciu English language development service agreement for the 2020 2021 school year as

140stipulated do I have a motion so moved chapen Sino thank you chapen do I have a second second Larry cus thank you Larry any discussion all right Miss vagora can you please take a roll call vote Dr Downey I Dr Huff I Mr cutas I Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas hi Miss Sino hi Dr Grandy hi the curriculum motion passes 9 to zero all right thank you m Vora that takes us to finance we have three items in finance are there any on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay we have approval of payment of invoices to vendors dated November 18th 2020 through December 8th 2020 we have the removal of obsolete technology equipment by easy pc pc LLC I knew i'

141have trouble saying that uh and then finally we have the approval of a proposal from Judith Wilson LLC to conduct the Wallingford swathmore superintendent search process as stipulated all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda uh do I have a motion so move Jennifer lens thank you Jen uh do we have a second second Marilyn H you Marilyn any discussion all right Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Dr Huff hi Mr cutas i m l i Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas hi Miss Cino hi Dr Downey I Dr Grandy I motion passes 9 to zero thank you Miss Figora uh so that takes us to our second audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda and Kelly just to confirm there

142was no other called in comments correct correct okay um so that takes us to Schoolboard reports uh is a time for reports from board members serving on District subcommittees or out of District roles uh do we have any school board reports um I I'll jump in um with a update from the Dei uh Committee of the board and I encourage my my colleagues on the board um to jump in as well um with anything I might have missed um first I actually wanted to make a correction to uh the statement that I made in the last board meeting I had indicated in that meeting that um the members of the the uh Dei committee had met with leadership from the WSS big idea group on November 25th and I must have looked at my calendar

143wrong because that actually took place on December 2 so I wanted to um um correct that uh the board is participating in our second training session with um our trainer from the Pennsylvania School boards Association tomorrow evening and so we're very much looking forward to that uh we are also um working on scheduling another meeting of uh the board committee either this week or next week we're trying to fit it in into a very busy week if we can this week um and then finally I just um I did want to follow on to the the comment um that we received the public comment that we received and reiterate Dr gry which you also said that um it is is um very much our expectation as a board um as a subcommittee that uh finding

144a candidate for the superintendent position who will continue to move us forward on um diversity equity and inclusion and has um expertise and experience in that realm is is very vitally important we we've um under under uh Dr Palmer's leadership we have made um some significant strides in the last year in particular not the least of which was the creation of subcommittee um to focus specifically on on diversity equity and inclusion and um it is it's very important to us that that continues does anyone else on the committee have anything that they wanted to add to that update don't see any okay thank you any other Schoolboard reports okay thank you um do we have any old business any new business all right um before I adjourn you know it is our at least our

145last scheduled meeting of 2020 um not saying it's definitely the last meeting but it's it's our last scheduled meeting uh so before we adjourn this evening I do want to wish everyone a very happy holiday I know our celebrations will be very different this year uh and this year has been harder than just about any other in our recent history um but even with those challenges I really do genuinely hope that all of our teachers staff administrators all of you my fellow board members and all of our students and families have a safe and happy holiday season uh so thank you uh and this meeting is adjourned