WSSD Board Meeting 11/23/20

001I now call the November 23rd meeting of the Wallingford swathmore 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 America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice thank you so we'll start with the roll call again we have some board members participating remotely and some in person uh Miss Fagor can you please take the roll call Mr Ballas here miss simino here Dr Downey here Dr Huff here Mr cus here Mrs lent here Mr Sullivan here Mrs wman here Dr Grandy here Mr [Music] Burman here Dr Palmer here miss Patel here Dr Grandy you have nine voting members present thank you Miss

002Figora uh so this evening uh we are going to start with the student Representatives report Miss Patel thank you Dr tuck would like to extend a thank you to the many hardworking teachers and staff members at SRS this week we are SP sending a special thank you to our nurses and custodians these hardworking individuals are always dedicated to taking care of the students and the school buildings this year there's even more focus on their efforts as we learn to adjust to covid-19 the nurses are constantly on call to help with symptom tracker issues and monitor our students health and our custodians are making sure the playground is cleaned regularly so the kids can play each day thank you so much nurse asley nurse Robin Miss Donna and Mr Pat SRS hman School recently dropped off

003a small gift for each of them as a token of our appreciation on behalf of all of the SRS families NP is excited to announce that we will be having a virtual book fair for our students a portion of the proceeds will go directly to the NP library to purchase additional books for student use the book fair will run from November 30th through December 11th and is completely online in partnership with children's bookstore additional information will be distributed via School East and will be found on our we on our school website Wes is excited to welcome author Josh Funk on Friday December 11th this will be the school's first time hosting a virtual author visit for West coowar and West Online Academy students Josh's books are great for all elementary school ages in addition thanks

004to our generous West family $1,130 was raised for the media food bank for Miss Go's milk and cookie stand as well as a Lobby full of non-p perishables for families in need for City team in Chester principal Savage wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Strath even Middle School had its last home and School Association meeting of 2020 last Wednesday on November 11th the next meeting will be held in January 2021 meeting minutes can be found on the school website also at the middle school the administration would like to say a big thank you to all students teachers and supportive family members for the hard work and dedication throughout the first quarter of this school year it has been one filled with unique challenges but we have also yielded so many benefits during these tough times our

005renewed focus on instructional technology a collaboration between students and teachers never seen before in the virtual world and a reminder of how our schools and Family Support Systems provide so much in the way of the overall development of our children into adolesence and then into young adults speaking of thanks at Strath Haven High School National Honor Society students organized a Thanksgiving food drive to benefit the St Catherine Drexel food pantry Pantry in ch Chester NHS officers boxed up and delivered the generous donations from the community on Wednesday November 18th thank you to everyone who donated that's it from me thank you Dr Grandy thank you Miss Patel um so next up we would typically have the superintendent's report but we're going to shuffle things around a little bit because Dr Palmer's report is focused on

006the topics of our Focus topics this evening so she will cover her report as part of our Focus topics so that's why we're hopping over there and she will join us here in the room uh when it comes time for the focus topic because she needs to or a later Focus topic because she needs to be down the hall on a computer right now so lots of lots of logistics so she is here just down the hall um I do have one board announcement um the board met an executive session prior to this meeting to discuss special education litigation and negotiations so that takes us to our Focus topics uh we do have two of them as I mentioned um and I will ask Dr Palmer to introduce the first thank you Dr Grandy and

007it was a little logistically challenging this evening as I wanted to be in the room room but we thought it would be a little better presentation if Dr mosakowski Dr citelli Jones and I were all online giving the first presentation so thank you for having us tonight and we are delighted to be talking about our diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and as I mentioned my colleagues Dr mosakowski Who is our assistant director of education and Dr citelli Jones who is our director of Education are both joining me this evening to talk about this important topic so first off uh Denise are you able to share the screen yes I am uh let's see as I'm looking at it up I know I'm looking who can share I should be able to share my screen let's

008see all right if you are seeing this then we are good to go let's get to the beginning preview for all all right there we go perfect so Denise would you advance one please certainly so I'd like to start us off and talk about how we really formed our committees so back at the end of the school year I had written to everyone to say that it was my desire to be able to form um diversity equity and inclusion committees and we did form them shortly at the or after the end of the school year right now our WSS D Dei action committee is 39 members okay so as I was saying we have 39 members on our Dei action committee 18 are community members 13 are staff members with a large number of the

009staff members also being community members we have five students and we have F three Schoolboard members and I'd like to do a shout out to our three um Dei subcommittee members Jerry Ballas Michelle Downey and Kelly wman and I thank everyone for the amount of time that they have put in we have been meeting everywhere or anywhere from three to four weeks since the summer so the committee has been very very active and the Schoolboard subcommittee has put in a tremendous amount of time in planning for the meetings and actually attending both meetings so my um sincerest thank you to everyone who has participating in this tremendous effort at this point Denise would you advance one please what we want to do tonight is cover what types excuse me for one second on this end

010Dr Grandy I'll wait for the green light from Mr catrone okay I'll try again I just got the heads up we should be good to go so what we want to do this evening is talk about the key initiatives or those key projects or those key items that we are working on this year that will either be completed this year or will go into next year as well so I'm going to start us off with the first piece that we're doing is working with Pennsylvania School boards Association Dr Heather Bennett who is their director of equity Services has been working with our entire School Board as well as the Dei action committee the Dei action committee has already received one training with her and we anticipate a second training the school board just had its

011first training and we are going to have our second training which which will actually include two of the modules we've already done what is equity and then we will do why is equity important and then understanding and dismantling the barriers to equity Workshop it is through the work that we're doing with Dr Heather Bennett that I anticipate that we will be in a position to come forward with an equity statement and an equity policy by the end of the school year Denise one more please foundational to what we'll be do doing is looking at an equity audit as we start setting our goals this year we've hypothesized where are most important needs are within the district but to really understand what those most important needs are is we really should do an audit in a

012number of different areas so when we're looking at an equity audit we're really looking at an organized process to talk about those difficult conversations that involve educational Equity we're also really trying to explore our underlying data to look at um the data to see are we looking at all of the six goals in an equitable fashion or do we have inequity within our school system we're really looking at having those raw conversations and then finally we're looking to see what we learn through the equity audit and what we can use that for to guide us in terms of setting our policies setting our goals for the next year and closing any gaps where we may have inequities in terms of process just so the community can be aware the first part of the equity audit

013will have us looking at what our data is and there are a number of different uh demographic areas that we will look at aggregate data and then disaggregate data once we pull our data together and we anticipate starting that as early as December we will then work with building teams fairly decent size building teams to try to dig into the data to understand why certain things might be occurring or not occurring and then once we have the data and we've done our initial examination then the um consultant would come in and start working with focus groups and the focus groups would involve students teachers and members of the community we're looking for it to be as broad as we can to get in a variety of different voices then once we have the focus topics

014uh we would anticipate that we would come back and do further data analysis and then pair that data analysis down into ways that can be given to the board in findings and then we can use those findings to come up with a game plan for how do we look at our Equity goals over the next year and even into five years so on the agenda this evening is the recommendation for Tom ster and Associates to perform the equity audit for us and I'm going to be be hopeful that the board will approve it the next slide will take us into the training that we have for this year and I'm going to hand off to Dr Jones thank you Dr Palmer what I want to do is share with you actually I don't know why

015it stays on you Lisa so I'm going to just sort of move me to the side people can see um so when we think about our training one of the things we do out of the curriculum and education office is we try to think about systemic professional development and by systemic we are looking for that professional development to not just be oneof instead we're looking for it to be something that is really becomes a part of our culture and a part of the way that we sort of enfold the district both the students the teachers um all staff Administration into what matters to us in Welling forit swore School District so to start this off in August we had Dr Joan Evelyn Duval Flynn and Dr Kathy tashner come in to do a complete training

016in one day and we broke our groups up into secondary and Elementary and we were looking at a variety of things and so they took us through equity and access for all students what it means how we Define it what it looks like we talked about developing anti-bias environments which is especially important when we talk about individual people and I think you know what I want to say when when I say that is that everybody brings a certain bias and understanding of what that bias is is especially important I'm trying to Mo this down to the B you're wondering what this is happening there we go um also it's important that students feel welcome and valued in their schools so that's a piece of safety that's a piece of feeling that they are contributing members

017and that it is um that is in a welcoming space for them to go to school and so what does that look like as well we talked about methods for addressing and treating traumatic stress including incidents of racism how that can be traumatic stress for many of our students they discussed creating a trauma informed learning environment which we'll talk a little bit later about how that works into this entire picture that we're pulling into Focus that has to do with social and emotional skills and wellness and then lastly about schools being culturally responsive and having inclusive environments and that's for the learning and that's so that students can feel both a part of it and reflected by what we learn what we teach um what we value in our in our schools and in our

018curriculum from there we went to the next step which was to take a look at the first year of professional development and we embraced starting actually with a recommendation by our teachers at the elementary level who had come upon a teaching tolerance Initiative for the um Southern Poverty Law organiz ation who had all of these standards that came together and this particular group of teachers says this is fabulous we need to look at it and so we like to look for things that come from all different spots it it doesn't always come from Administration sometimes it comes from teachers sometimes it comes from students and so we dug a little bit into this teaching tolerance and we were able to get trainings on the docket for this year and then we'll also move it into

019next year now unfortunately our larger trainings that we wanted to do that would have been full day were compromised by covid and so because we couldn't have large Gatherings we were instead relegated to doing things that were all online so this is what we've been able to do now next year we'll flesh that out even more um as we can start to bring more and more people together in one location on August 21st for example we started with something called the unpacking teaching tolerance social justice standards 30 teachers participated in that and you'll see that that particular training unpacking teaching tolerance social justice standards was done three different times it was done on September 22nd for administration and for counselors and it will be done on May 18th with 90 staff member participants the reason

020I bring this up is is because it's really important to know that when you are doing any work of this type we want to have common language we want to have ways that people think and organize and create systems for things that have to do with the same language that we're using the same jargon that we are operating in the same way so when we talk about social justice standards I wanted to just give you a couple of examples the anchor standards from teaching tolerance are divided into four different categories there's identity diversity Justice and action which is a very important step especially when it comes to students and when we're looking at teaching tolerance social justice standards what's nice about this is that it is not just one class that's being taught it's not

021just one let's say in studies is where it's going to happen or maybe in English language arts the idea is that it's actually becomes part of the curriculum and Infused into our hidden corridors of curriculum that exist in all of our buildings which is our culture so an example of identity would be students will Express Pride confidence and healthy self-esteem without denying the value and dignity of other people that's an example of one of the social justice standards under identity under diversity I'm going to give you an example it is students will response to diversity by building empathy respect understanding and connection and these are things that are not just indigenous to one subject area but to all Justice here's an example for that students will analyze the harmful impact of bias and Injustice on

022the world historically and today so you can see where that might situate itself in a social studies class it could also happen within um Ela language arts English English class that could be another place where it happens but it could also be something that we talk about in our PE and health classes it might be in our art classes in our music classes in fact today music had a really great professional development session um we had a speaker who came in and Henry pearlberg put this together for us to talk about diversity in the music classroom it was really exciting to see that it just goes into all of our subject areas and then the last one is action and this is probably the most exciting of all here's an example of a social justice

023standard this is standard number 17 students will recognize their own responsibility to stand up to exclusive Prejudice and Injustice and that is precisely what we want our students to be able to do so by adopting these social justice standards we're not just looking at some oneoff for one piece of professional development but instead what we're looking at is to have it be fully embedded in what we do to be systemic in that way so what I want to show you here is something that we are doing I'm going to move me out of the way here a second um something that we're doing already and what we plan to do in each one of our levels elementary middle and high school so at the elementary level at all three of our elementary schools we have

024multi-tiered systems of support you see the acronym there mtss there's also PBIS that acronym stands for positive behavior interventions and support this program was brought in to be a way that we can have students learn things such as being safe and respectful and responsible there's a social emotional intelligence piece to this things like responsive classroom and global citizenship are all part of what's being done here and this work came from Dr Megan McCulla who is our director of student services for Behavioral Health she began this initiative and has been working with the buildings for the full all all of last year and takes it into this year as well so that is fully up and running at the middle school what's currently happening is that there are monthly social emotional learning seminars led by counselors

025in assemblies and the mtss and PBIS process will begin in January and at the high school what's happening currently so you're seeing that right across that top horizontal line is that there are also monthly seal seminars by counselors and there's also sap meetings which is our opportunity to see where our students are especially those that are struggling and that helps us get a look at how how they are doing both in school and emotionally and socially what you see along the bottom section of this grid is what we are doing moving forward at each level we have asked the administration to put together a teaching tolerance team after the training for all of the administrators the building principles were tasked with forming a teaching tolerance team and that their mission was to adopt one of

026the social justice standards one of the things that we learned in our training was that you don't want to go after 20 standards all at once that in order to change culture you really need to do it one standard at a time so especially during the fact that we're in a pandemic and that time is um certainly being used in many many different ways in many many different areas we wanted to make sure something was being done that's going to continue to move us forward and that will sustain us so that each year one to two standards will be chosen each year by that teaching tolerance team the goal is to create an action plan with that social justice standard in action you heard me say that one of the domains is action so identity

027diversity Justice and action action is where we make all of the learning well actionable and so when we do that we can really see how the students have learned we can really see that they're taking it out into the world they're taking it out into our community that they're living these ideals not just learning about them and so part of this social justice standard is anti-bias education Prejudice reduction and Collective action those are the aims of the social justice standard under teaching tolerance teams and that will happen at each one of our levels so the high school the middle school and the elementary school all have that same Mission an example at the middle school right now is that they have chosen to make a book study for a book called being the change also

028this is one that came to us from our elementary folks who found this book um really liked it many of us read it thought it would be really great and the middle school has decided to adopt this as their book study that will get them started most likely they'll continue that work through the year and potentially into next year looking for other standards that will match in with that one so I've put that there just as an example both the elementary school and high schools are high school and elementary schools are also looking at what they want to do with their teach teing tolerance teams but what we wanted to do was make it important at each building so that Wes might have a different culture that they want to cultivate that's specific and indigenous

029to West we might find that the middle school or the high school their teachers their students want to have something very specific to what's going on in their buildings rather than a blanket expectation across all five buildings we thought it was important for them to have that ownership and that feeling of what matters to them and our culture in addition to the things that we're doing outside as a district so we don't want to leave the administrators behind um so one of the roles that I have in my job as Director of Education is to run the professional development for the administrative team I came across this book culturally proficient leadership when I was studying at uh William and Mary it was one of my doctoral books and it really is about a personal journey

030and what I liked the most about it which is why it's going to be our book study is that it Bec comes a very real look at each person's bias it calls out where you stand as a leader in terms of diversity and equity and the bias that we all have and so it's very workbook in style it's we are doing smaller learning communities and larger learning communities and we'll be studying that book all year long so we've we've already begun we've had our first session um so we have different readings there's different assignments in between the readings and the meetings so that is ongoing we'll be doing that throughout the year and then we'll be taking it into next year with a look of how do we operationalize what it means to be a

031culturally proficient leader um and so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to turn it over to Dr mosakowski Who is going to talk about some of the more specific and granular things that we are doing in two of our areas of curriculum which will be Ela and social studies good evening thank thank you Dr Stelly Jones and Dr Parmer and members of the board for giving us this opportunity to talk about some of the very important initiatives we are doing through the the office of curriculum uh creating a diverse classroom library for our students grades K to five is another important initiative that we have engaged in the concept of books as Windows and mirors was introduced by Emily Stein as early as 1968 and since then has gained great great momentum

032in the world of literacy education um books as mirrors are powerful because they allow students to see themselves in the text they're reading um they recognize their families their culture the worlds that they come from and this Fosters a sense of belonging validates their identities and certainly promotes their interest and in and improve engagement in Reading as mirrors books offer readers a view into a lives into the lives and worlds that are different from theirs and give um a window into other experiences and other perspectives this encourages students and all adults everybody to be more accepting of one another and to foster a sense of community however the success of books as Windows and mirrors is not not possible just by giving the books to teachers or to students it also we have to intentionally

033and purposefully put the books in the hands of teachers and students and students have to have access to to a wide range of stories and to a wide diversity of people and worlds so again like Dr Jones said before this initiative also stemmed from an interest from teachers and from attending uh teaching tolerance uh trainings where there is a big push for having literature in the hands of students that are diverse that speak to this a multiple World perspective and um they saw this as a big significant vehicle for uh diversity equity and inclusion for our students so right now with the diverse classroom libraries we're a group of eight teachers and and we've been working together since July I can tell you for a fact that this is a very dedicated committed and passionate

034group of Educators um and just looking at their mission at the mission statement that we came up with can tell you just how that speaks volume and express the intention of how much we want to achieve through the diverse classroom libraries uh we are truly committed to increase access to inclusive books and to put them in the hands of our students Denise can you go on thank you like Dr Jones said uh talked about the teaching tolerance social justice standards again uh the books that we are selecting have also been um categorized based on the standards diversity Justice inclusion and action and the process for identifying and selecting books have been of is very comprehensive I'm going to ask you to try to click on the rubric if it doesn't work I will um no

035I can can I screen share I think it's set that all can do it so you can try it Ash what I had it set up sorry about that so if you look at this rubric at this this is the final sheet actually let me take you to the rubric first so this is the rubric that we came up with to select books for our library and if you look at the rubric it is it it has every information that you would want to have from for selecting a book the copyright gear the author's background the illustrator's background the appeal of the story the appeal of the illustrations do the illustrations provide genuine insights what subgroups do the books highlight what invisible group do the book highlight what does the book portray is the book

036historically socially and culturally accurate and the synopsis of the book whether it would be recommended for the library and if so at what grade level so that's one so having each teacher on the team these are examples of the book titles these are the authors so this populates from the rubric uh the teachers who reviewed the books where whether they've had the books or not who has done a first reading who has done a second reading this is a link to the um recommendation of the books and as you can see the strand of where the book falls under identity um Justice action and so this has taken a lot of time and a lot of investment from teachers to actually find the books vet the books and see where the books fit within the

037social justice standards and how we can use the books and we actually had a meeting this morning as a team and our next step right now is each um the team is starting to provide guidance on how to use the book in the classroom so they are picking out the key vocabulary in each of the book The Essential questions so that the other teachers in the Great level can run hit the ground running with what with using the books but we also have some more work to do with identifying the books by grade level and um share this information with family members and other staff so that everybody is aware of what the books are and how they're going to be used and like Dr stelli Jones said before part of this work is examining

038our own biases and our own Comfort level before we can teach about these um standards and teach about these sensitive topics sometimes so this is the diverse classroom Library initiative that we're doing the next one we have started a social studies vertical team grades K5 and there was work done in the social studies Department before in middle school and high school and there it came again teachers and Community families have expressed some gaps in our curriculum and where we are not meeting some of the needs of our um of our students teaching history teaching social studies so this initiative was relaunched in September of this year we have a group of eight teachers and again very committed very passionate very eager to make this work happen so what we have found is we have a

039wealth of materials and resources in the district we are now looking at aligning these materials and resources to the academic standards namely Civics and government economics geography history and students interpersonal skills which is also tied to social justice standards and how to infuse them throughout the four strengths above and if right now we are really looking at the standards the social justice standard from teaching tolerance and how to make this relevant to our students but we're really keeping in mind that we want materials and re resources that are authentic current and relevant because we do we want to teach them we want to teach these materials from a very authentic lens um so these are the two initiatives that we have Embrace from the um with grade levels uh K through five and the work

040continues we both thems met today like I said before and we have we realize that we have a lot of work to do and we are committed to doing the work and we have some growing veins we work together very well we are you know we work through our own biases sometimes so our own differences until because we truly want to make this work valuable and authentic and we want to own this work um and as you heard Dr Palmer Dr cly Jones and even through these uh diverse classroom libraries and social studies vertical team there are so there is a common thread because we we are we have embraced the diversity equity and inclusion initiative and movement and we truly want this to be uh throughout the district to be very effective and productive

041intentional and purposeful this is why we have the common language and we have the common terms that you keep that are recurrent because eventually we want the same we have a common goal which is to make this um part of our district so thank you for having us here tonight thank you Dr mosy Dr Palmer is there anything more do you want me to end or go to questions I'm just about ready to go to questions but I would like to thank the board for having all of us this evening we still know we have work to do but we were really excited to share where we are already and from my view it's an awful lot of work with a lot of dedicated people all focused on a common goal done in a really

042short period of time so I'm excited to see us finish the work we're doing and also to set the goals that will finish us for this year and also continue for at least the next four years so Dr Grandy I'll point to see if there are any questions from the board great and I know um we've got most board board members on Zoom right now so questions you can put your Zoom hand up and I will call on you or anyone in the room here that I can see any questions in the room all right I'm not seeing any oh I see Marilyn has a Marilyn has a hand up go ahead Marilyn so my question is uh regarding the um book project books in the classroom are there um I guess sources of suggested

043books that that this crew is starting with to uh evaluate or or are you guys starting from scratch several of the teachers had books that they were already uh using in the classroom uh so we wanted to make it more Equitable across all grade levels and having a common understanding of what the books are what the genres were what topics they were covering some of the books the list already a list already existed but we also got a list from teaching tolerance from their own from the trainings that we went to and Scholastic has a big uh collection of the books so the books are are there was just a it was really a question of going through that vetting process and going through a process of making sure that we are ready to have

044them in the classroom and being able to use a language for the development and Readiness level of our students thank you Callie um just a comment and u i I wanted to again thank our the administration um and the folks who are part of the Dei action committee as we said there's 39 people in there um many teachers who are are giving their time um to the work in addition to what we've heard about how they participate in the um in the training and and these different teams and so forth um but I especially wanted to thank publicly our students who are part of the Dei action committee um they have been an incredibly active U group of students and um sharing their experience their views um very candidly in a way that is incredibly

045helpful to us as we move forward um and so I wanted to acknowledge their their um their place in all of this and um and hope that we have more student um involvement as we move forward and certainly when we roll out the equity audit um that student voice is so incredibly important so I wanted to thank them too thanks Kelly uh any other comments or questions all right so I will again just Echo what Kelly said I know there is so much going on this year but this is work um that is so important and can't wait and I know the administration feels the same way so I know how hard everyone's working on this in parallel to everything else going on and I certainly appreciate that um so uh Dr Palmer I think

046we can transition to our our next discussion for the evening related to the health and safety plan Dr gry would you like me to join you over there yeah that would be great so we'll pause for 30 seconds for so Dr Grandy let me introduce the second Focus topic as I'm looking for all of my materials here so we have on the agenda this evening that we wanted to talk about the covid-19 data as well as our wssd health and safety plan so the first thing I'd like to do is update everyone where we are with our data so as of last Friday our incident rate per 100,000 Rose in our Delaware County to 310.000 and our PCR positivity is now over 10% we're at 10.47% I have mentioned numerous times that I meet regularly

047with the Chester County Health Department and I still do with the latest meeting last week and through it all when we are talking with the Chester County Health Department Jean casner who is their director has held firm that we are not at the point where we should transition to Virtual learning she's saying that hold the course with the hybrid now to make you feel a little bit more comfortable I'm going to go back over the information that I shared with you in the past with the key things that we are looking for in terms of data so I had mentioned that there are a number of items that would cause us to consider moving from a hybrid model to a virtual model one of those would be linked transmissions in our schools and we are

048not seeing linked transmissions in our school we do have a number of incidents but we are able to pinpoint where they came from and we're not seeing transmission occur within our schools the second piece that we would be looking at is a point where the Chester County Health Department cannot contact Trace their positive cases they are telling us that they are still doing the contact tracing and they are not having an issue with getting to the source of the positive case the third piece which is a critical piece is do we have enough staff in our buildings to open our buildings and to that end we've been monitoring our absences and we are not at a point where we are having a staffing issue in our buildings at this moment we still can adequately staff

049all of our buildings and then the last piece that we would look at is are there any mandates from the Pennsylvania Department of Health um from pde or the Chester County Health Department that would require us to move to Virtual learning that's one I want to talk about because it's not a requirement at this point but there was a change today in terms of what Dr LaVine spoke about for the board's point of view I forwarded information to the board for what is called an attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts and to give the public a little bit of background in terms of ratings from the state they have us based on our covid numbers we are either low moderate or substantial and with our numbers as almost every County in Pennsylvania we are in

050the substantial range when that occurred we were contacted by pde to have a meeting I jumped on a zoom meeting with pde and they told us at this point we have moved into the substantial range with our covid numbers and they would recommend according to their guidelines that we go virtual they pointed out that it is not in order but that it is a recommendation based on the guidelines that they had given to us at the beginning of covid they also acknowledged that we work with the Chester County Health Department as our health agency and their words during that call was to continue to work with the Chester County Health Department and I can't stress that enough because I am meeting regularly with the Chester County Health Department looking to see if we're at that

051point where we might pivot to something else moving forward today what we learned during Dr lavine's message was that she has now uh put through an order and I won't read the whole order but basically they're pointing out that there are there is the recognition that Co is growing in all of our communities and there is the recognition that school districts are in the substantial category in the substantial category they would recommend that we go to Virtual but in the attestation statement they give the school districts the opportunity to go to the virtual or to continue following all of the procedures that we have been following most particularly with the masking and other mitigation plans and we have the opportunity to stay the course and stay in hybrid learning and on this particular statement they

052are asking from the wssd point of view that we meaning our board president and the superintendent are attesting that we are f following all of the parts of the planning and mitigation efforts that um the Department of Health has outlined for us and we are choosing to remain in the hybrid manner our other option is to move to Virtual so that was one of the pieces of information that I did forward to the board today we just received it ourselves and Mr Burman and I were on a zoom earlier today trying to flesh out what does this mean basically that we are complying with everything and we understand that according to the Department of Health guidelines this is what they would recommend but we have the option to still continue what we are doing we

053know our mitigation efforts are working we do have positive cases but we don't have spread uh I will have another meeting with Jean casner tomorrow all of the superintendents will be on our regular call we know we will be discussing this but because we have our board meeting meeting tonight this is one item that I would like the board to take action on so Dr Grandy and I would be able to sign off on this if we do not act on this we will automatically have it acted on for us by 5 o' on Monday if you don't act you go to Virtual so I thought that is one thing that's really important to flesh out but I thought we are monitoring every day as there is new information that comes in as we are

054doing contact tracing we look at every situation as it comes in the community has been wonderful in contacting us if there is something going on in the community so we are getting really quick confirmation that way or or questions should I send my child into school um they're not feeling well it's been really great contact with our parents our nurses have been doing an absolutely awesome job in terms of reach out and staying current on everything we are in a position where we can stay the course because our mitigation efforts are working and I thought that was the key pieces that I wanted to share with everybody tonight that I haven't been writing a different message it is still the same message because we are still finding that our mitigation efforts work one other piece

055I haven't brought out as I've been briefing the community or briefing the board and Mr Abbott mentioned it to me I don't talk about how we go through additional measures to keep our buildings clean I I haven't highlighted that and I really should highlight that because we do go out of our way that if it is part of our regular cleaning or if we find out that someone is not feeling well it is additional cleaning we have done everything we can in terms of mitigation efforts to keep our buildings clean to keep our staff safe to keep our children safe so that's the part I'd really like to convey to everyone tonight we're not seeing a position where we should make the shift and in our last conversation again with Jean casner when asked is

056there a particular number a particular indicator where we would know if it reaches this number we automatically move to another stage and her comment was not a particular number we need to look at the totality of everything the schools have strong mitigation efforts in place so I thought from that point of view I wanted to convey that tonight it is still the same message for me I'm not recommending a change to a different model of instruction at this point Dr Grandy I have not had a chance to talk to you so you may have additional questions for me thank you Dr Palmer um and I'll I'll certainly look for hands from board members for questions or comments um you know I would just reiterate I think um what you said which is I think we

057have obviously we're living through a period where there is rapidly increasing rates in the community and I think there's a lot of concern that we all need to do everything possible to try to reverse that Trend particularly around the Thanksgiving holiday um but it does seem to be the case that um in our own District we're certainly not seeing evidence of of Link transmissions and then I think more broadly speaking it seems that the experience of of other school districts who are using some of the same strict measures that we've been deploying um have also been successful um so I would just add that comment um I guess one one thing that would be worth discussing briefly or I I guess I have a couple things one is I think a lot of people assume

058that all contact tracing is Chester County Health Department but in fact one of the things that happens in schools and the way we've designed things is we have strict seating charts and the kids are organized in very particular ways so that when if there is a case a good deal of the contact tracing is actually happening here is that is that correct could you talk a little bit about that that is correct uh we do have seating charts for our buses we have seating charts for our classrooms and we even have seating charts when we're in our larger areas such as when the kids go to the library I can tell you with certainty it is our staff that runs down where children are so I mean we are looking at um the classroom exactly

059where the desks are uh for the board you may not have noticed but when we were just meeting in one of our class classrooms there were markers on the floor where the desks should be um our teachers know where everyone is they know by period who's sitting in the classes if you go down into the lunchroom you can see who sat at which table and I can tell you even on the buses we are looking at our manifests but then we're also double-checking on the video did the children actually sit in the seat they were supposed to be seated in so Dr Grandy you are correct we are doing the contact Trace and then our nurses provide that information to the Chester County Health Department via a spreadsheet but we do the bulk of the

060contact tracon and I think that's important to emphasize because there's in in building in District contacts that students have and then there's you know Community Based contacts and certainly it's the Chester County Health Department who does a lot of the contact tracing for things that are happening outside of school outside of our District activities um but all the data and review of contacts in our district is all coming from us correct okay um I see I have a couple hands up on Zoom so I'll start there uh Kelly there we go um Dr Palmer I was wondering if you could explain just just so there's no confusion what we mean when we say we don't have linked Transmission in the schools um I know that you know community members certainly know of of um members

061of you know sports teams perhaps where you had we had part of a team um out or having test positive so I I wondered if you could explain the difference between a situation like that and and what we mean by a link Transmission in schools thank you Dr uh Mrs wman when we are looking at uh linked transmission we may have a in a classroom but we won't have a second child that is linked to the first child we are able to go back to the um parents of the child and find out where the child may have picked up the covid F from frequently as it's from a family member or they will know where they had exposure to a positive person so we're not seeing the spread as if we have two children

062who are unrelated in a classroom or two children who might have gone to the lunchroom and they both have it were're able to go back to where the origination is and in terms of our teams we have looked at different activities that have taken place some larger Gatherings that have taken place with our teams but we are not seeing the spread when they are coming into the school and we're not seeing the spread when they're playing the sport we're seeing that there was a gathering that took place and there may be a number of kids on a team but there was a gathering that took place outside of school with that brought them together so while they're playing or they're in the classroom we have not seen the spread not saying the spread couldn't occur

063tomorrow but I'm saying we're not seeing it as of today okay thank you and a quick a second question sort of related um when we're reporting in our dashboard um that you have been sharing with um with the community when we're reporting that our numbers that are on there um there have been questions about what those numbers represent are they only children who are coming into children um students and staff coming into the buildings would it include um someone participating in in-person extracurriculars um who may be in the Online Academy but might have tested positive and was part of our online uh I'm sorry our our inperson extracurriculars for example and how does it compare to I have you know I'm in Online Academy only for example and I don't come into our buildings or

064participate in sports at all so when we have a child that comes into the school or we have a staff member that comes into the school or the child is on campus for an extracurricular activity so if you are on campus that's when we're reporting someone who has a positive If the child were solely an online Academy child that was covid positive and never came into the school building or on the school grounds for an activity that child would not be reported and Mrs wman I actually just updated the footnote or asked Mrs abrahamson to update the footnote so it would reflect that it is anytime that a child is positive in our buildings on a bus or on site for an extracurricular activity so that hopefully will make it a little bit more clear

065to the community and if the community would like to know totally how many cases there are within our school district then that's an item that they can actually look on the same page as the co dashboard just a little bit lower and they'll see the link to the Chester County Health Department what I think throws people off just a little bit is that they talk about cases within the wssd and that's really within our boundary total cases it doesn't mean it's within our schools so any parent that lives in our community within the school district boundaries would be listed as a positive case but I would certainly not be reporting that for a parent and I think there's confusion what's in the community versus what's in our building or on our grounds for an extracurricular

066activity so hopefully the footnote will make it a little clearer great thank you yeah I've definitely heard um the the questions about what um the Chester County Health Department reports when they're reporting that District um School District specific information and there's a lot of confusion and people think that represents our school and it doesn't it represents the community the zip codes that comprise our school district and what exists in that Community um so I think it's really important for folks to understand the difference between those thank you thanks Kelly uh Marilyn I have a a few questions actually um Dr paly you brought up the case that a parent tests positive for covid and you would not be reporting that on our dashboard and and I'm I'm just want to confirm that if a parent

067tests positive that the children in that household would likely be quarantined yes accurate that is most accurate and I am appreciative when our parents do call us and tell us that quickly they do call our nurses okay I just wanted to to make that clear just so that that wouldn't be hanging out there like that uh I also have a question for I think this is probably for Greg Hilton since he is here I ask this all the time what is the High School attendance uh like at the um end of last week so the attendance um Dr Health has declined um gradually over the last few weeks um we saw quite uh quite a number of students choose to stay home virtually last week we've had a little over 200 students in the building

068each day uh during Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday confence okay thank you there are lots of potential reasons for that um one could be students deciding to self-isolate before the Thanksgiving holiday um in in their um hopes and plans to visit grandparents and and such um others have have proposed other reasons why that could be happening but that does bring up the point that we do have the Thanksgiving holiday coming up uh this week and what's the guidance to students and families for if they do travel for Thanksgiving and and their potential to return to the buildings Dr Huff I'll take that one because I anticipate sending information out to our parents tomorrow everybody whether you a staff member or a parent or our children we have to abide by Dr lavine's guidance and we have

069to go into quarantine if we are traveling or we have to have a negative covid test and if you're not sure what to do just contact our principal and let them know that you traveled for Thanksgiving if you have to we hope that you don't but if you have to let our principal know that your family has traveled for Thanksgiving and that your child will be attending virtually we're happy to accommodate the virtual education after the Thanksgiving travel we would ask you first not to do the traveling but if you have to we'll accommodate your children virtually and I guess my my last question um for now anyway is is regarding the attestation I may have said that wrong um form which is I guess a a a waiver if we want to continue um

070teaching in a hybrid manner rather than going 100% virtual even though our numbers are quite High um do we have to sign that if any portion of the district cons continues in a hybrid portion Dr Huff that was a considerable part of the conversation that um Mr Burman and I were on earlier we believe if any part of our district is virtual that we do sign it and we just say what part of our district is virtual Mr Burman do you concur yeah that was the that was the upshot of the conversation and that is our advice as well if you're going to keep any part of the uh The District in person you would need to have that signed in order to avoid the uh the state forcing you into a uh an online

071version so just just to clarify um signing that document does not require that we continue hybrid at all levels correct no no um it does not anything else Marilyn I'm good thank you okay um Kelly your hand is still up was that from before or that's yeah it was sorry okay uh Jerry I don't have a question I just wanted to acknowledge the the hard work that has going on in the school to prepare for the mitigation efforts the cleaning efforts and then the the just the excellent execution of that plan and I really want to thank the teachers I want to thank uh Administration uh and I really want to thank the students because my understanding is the students are are doing their part to uh mask to uh to stay apart the six

072feet that's required uh and the parents for know providing information and doing what they can to keep everyone uh safe and healthy so I think it's great that we can continue to uh stay on the uh model we're in and uh even when things are around us look like are not the best and likely will get worse and as long as we continue to uh really be disciplined about the mitigation efforts uh and everyone uh supports one another in it I think we've got a good chance to stay open so thank you thanks Jerry um yeah I think if I reflected back on sometime in the spring I remember having a conversation about Universal masking of students before it was a state mandate and I think everybody underestimated our students abilities to to do all

073these things and um in talking to our our principes and and teachers um it's really remarkable in our buildings how much our students have grown accustomed uh to these measures which I know are not easy uh and certainly that's the case with our teachers as well um Jen I see your hands up thank you Dr Dr Grande I want to go back a moment to when Dr Huff was talking I I it might sound like splitting hairs or feel like splitting hairs but I think it's important that we don't refer to the attestation as a waiver because we're not waving anything and Mr Burman can correct me if I'm wrong but my my reading it's not attached to any kind of liability or anything like that and I think just for clarification purposes it's important

074to make that point correct Mr bman yeah no the the the the um the one liability piece of this is actually tied up in the the brand new law that was passed by the uh the state legislature um the issue is simply that this is an agreement to follow the uh the guidance that's been put out by the Department of Education and the Department of Health um and that if you failed to do that then there could be some uh other pieces that go along with it no this would not specifically be a waiver this is simply an agreement to follow the uh the guidance that was put out and not go Rogue perhaps thank you um I also and I I know Dr Palmer that you did say this but for anyone that was

075half listening I do think it's important to clarify the point there has also not been Transmission in sports as they've been playing although sports teams at times did have to um quarantine that was due to extracurricular socializing in and not the sports themselves is that correct that is correct okay and finally I like the conversation that we had about how much contact tracing we do in our in our schools and in our buildings um I'm thinking of that especially in terms of that fourth point that you made Dr Palmer about um the Chester County Health Department's ability to keep up with their own contact tracing which may Force us to consider a different model of Education um but it sounds like um from what Dr Grande and what Dr Palmer what you both discussed is

076that we actually do a lot of the bulk here um and they're more responsible for the the outside world so to speak so um I think that if they get to a point where they can't keep up for whatever reason that it's important for us to also note that we're actually the ones that are pioneering that effort within the buildings based on what I just heard from from your discussion um that is correct okay that's great all right thanks so much that's all I have uh I have a couple more things but let me see if anyone else in the room has anything no Larry go ahead just a comment um important part of mitigation efforts is contact tracing uh I I I've heard some stories about students Andor family members not cooperating we not

077providing timely cooperation with contact tracing um I I just feel that that is such an important aspect of the mitigation efforts that that it if I don't believe that is happening and happening across the board that will affect my decision to on how I decide to continue curriculum continue extracurricular activities and sports I think it's very important thanks yeah and I think that is a you know so much of this pandemic requires everyone to really work together and to you know if if if you get into a situation where you think you've been exposed or you get into a situation with a positive test um you know it's just a moment to to try to really help the community and help everyone around you um through prompt notification and allow contact tracing to be done

078so that people can stay safe um and so I would agree with that that plea to the community to try to help as much as possible um Marilyn I see hand up yes I think it is um particularly important that the that the families and the communities have confidence in the safety of of sending their children to school um so that they so that they continue to do so so so that we have adequate class sizes um in the school building I know that at the high school level the population of the school has declined and and you know there multiple reasons for that um and we don't necessarily ask people uh why they're switching um likewise the population in some of the Elementary classes is also quite um small which has some advantages for

079um social distancing but has some disadvantages for um uh Staffing and that a a we're using more teachers than we need to at the elementary school as classes shrink and we need to think about that so if we can communicate more effectively um about the transmission within this about the lack of transmission within the schools that is that will be beneficial to everyone at the same time time we do have the Thanksgiving holiday this week we also have college and university students returning to their homes and so even if families um are not traveling over the holidays to visit families that we do have um others coming to visit them so we are running into a period of time where vigilance is incredibly important um and being uh very careful is very important I very

080much would ad advocate for um going 100% virtual at the high school level for two weeks primarily because um a large fraction of these students at the high school have siblings that are returning home from college and university which as much as um colleges and universities are trying to mitigate the spread that is dangerous uh time thank you marily anyone have any other comments or questions I'm going to jump in with one here so I did want to Pivot and and just raise the question about where do we stand so um Jen brought up the fall Sports season and I know Mr Clancy's on the line and I want to understand a little bit about where we are in the timing related to PIAA Central athletic league I know in the fall there was a

081Central athletic league plan that was ultimately agreed upon by the districts uh and is what ultimately guided the the practice and Competition schedule through our fall Sports season as well as a number of safety and mitigation measures where do we stand right now with respect to the timing and sequencing of a winter sports season hello Dr Grandy uh thank you for the question um under the PIAA calendar the winter sports season began this past Friday on November 20th as a league we all agreed that we would wait until after Thanksgiving to begin the winter sports season so the earliest practices for most teams in our league will be November 30th um there's one or two schools that did do tryouts this past weekend with the intention of slimming down their rosters so that they weren't

082having kids Linger on but they also intend to um really make after Thanksgiving the primary start of their season um having said that we're not as unified as we were in the fall different districts are in different places um so right now I would say there's about five schools that are ready to start practice on November 30th um there's about four schools that are not clear to start until mid December for practice um and there's a couple schools that are still in limbo like us um so you know we're all in slightly different places at this point and what is the um I know in the fall um we did ask our athletes in uh particularly in high higher contact or Indoor Sports to be masked and I know there's a universal masking order in

083place right now uh across the board uh so what have been the discussions I assume everyone plans on complying with that mandate at the state level I know there's some questions about that around a couple of sports that's correct we we certainly wish to comply um to the best of our ability and make sure that we are offering a safe environment um you know so I won't go into all the details of each of our sports but um we likely will be masking for basketball um that seems to be a Common Thread throughout our league um swimming will be masking up until they are entering the water um so anytime they're on the deck okay um yeah they will be masked buses and same thing um but they can't mask underwater for safety reasons um

084wrestling is an Al is a point of um concern as well um a lot of the athletic directors and coaches in the wrestling Community are concerned about the safety of masks during wrestling that um if you're performing certain moves that could move the mask either you know out of the way and you'd have to stop the match to readjust in order to cover the nose and mouth or could move it up into covering the eyes and create concerns there we are looking at ways to um you know modify and make you know um our coach pointed out there's um T-shirt model that has a mask kind of sewn into the collar um so that might be a way to um have a uniform that would have the mask built in a little more stable during

085a wrestling competition um but we're you know cognizant of U the intentions of our um fellow members of central league and we'll be communicating about you know where we are with masing with wrestling as well um in terms of the other sports um competitive Spirit um our cheerleading squad um there's some concerns about masking during stumping um P mentioned that you know for most of the routine should be masked but uh when they're performing stunts um when they're doing somersault and things they could clip the mask and cause a safety concern with that um our indoor tracks coaches are against having indoor meets this year so they will likely be outside for the duration of the winter season um and our final winter sport unified Bachi um is not organized through the league it's run

086through Special Olympics uh we have not heard any updates from Special Olympics about that for the season yet but we would match if they would match the entire time and for the schools that are starting in mid December does that affect any kind of eligibility for postseason play sure um so you know our league is had a lot of conversations about this at one point we were pretty unified looking at the November 30th start date then uh there's another meeting among principles where they want to push it back a little more um where the first game would have been January 18th and then when we look at the calendar if you have your first game January 18th you'll only have five basketball games when you need a minimum of 11 for any postseason opportunities um

087so somewhere to the fall each Sports a little bit unique um basketball you do need to get a minimum of 11 games in before any postseason possibilities um wrestling um there's not the same minimum for individual postseason um technically you could go into the postseason without having a match um you know that's happened before where a kid was injured early you know during the preseason practices and they came back in time for districts and States um same thing with swimming I don't believe there's a minimum for the individual postseason um competitive Spirit um you know the competitions there are most likely going to have some kind of virtual component where um teams are sending in video thank you and then this might be a question better for Dr Palmer I'm not sure but um you

088know one of the concerns with uh resumption of Athletics obviously like you know indoor risk is um you know significantly higher than than outdoor settings if there's a case on a team even in the case of outdoor sports generally speaking the health department has quarantined entire team uh and so I guess my question is uh how many teachers do we have coaching because one of the questions would be do we run the risk of Staffing shortages if we have multiple teams quarantined and so I know we have some sports that have outside coaches that aren't teachers in the district we have some sports and I know we don't even know who all of our coaches are but in general in the winter season is do we have many in district teachers who are coaching versus

089external folks historically historically we have not uh to give you an idea I asked Mr Abbott to pull this together so for the PIAA um plan that they have for winter sports they cover basketball wrestling swimming and cheer so if we look at what we had last year we would have had 18 coaches but only seven of them are our teachers okay thank you and then um I don't know if again it's a little confusing to me how there's certain measures that are put forward by pet PIAA and then there was certain things that the central League agreed on as a league last fall and I I believe some of the districts that have proceeded have done so waiting on the central League to try to come to some agreement but at least of temporarily

090adopted piaa's return to play at the same time I think we had different spectator requirements for example in the central League than what PIAA had said um there was some differences I guess is is the point and one of those I think was Spectators is that is that true and if so do we know what the decision would be on Spectators in the central League sure so my understanding is the PIAA um basically used the governor's metrics of 20% capacity based on the size of facility um in our league we went a little more stringent than that um we issued two passes for every participant to allow for home contests um most schools in our league said only senior parents of the visitors or senior participant passes for the visiting team could attend um so

091for example when our football team was on the road we only had nine seniors so while we had 45 members of the roster um only nine players could have their passes valid at a visiting uh facility we were allowing um all participants passes okay so we allowed two Spectators per participant along with Garnet Valley um both of us felt that our gymnasiums and our stadiums could accommodate that you know we have a um approximately 3,500 seats in our Stadium when you know we're not socially distancing so we were able to you know do the math and realize that in our highest capacity you know um you know for a football game we two per cheerleader two per band member two per um visiting and home football player we still had room in our Stadium um

092so we expect most schools will have a similar policy in the winter um allowing two Spectators per participant um in their gymnasiums um for the home team and it's most likely that vising teams will only be allowed to bring senior participant passes okay thank you um and I don't know if you would know the answer to this maybe Dr Palmer would have some districts like as we get into these I mean there there's multiple dimensions of risk in the winter again one is being indoor the second thing of course is just the community rates are profoundly higher now than they were when we were engaged in our fall Sports uh have have other districts required their athletes who decide to to be online only in their Online Academy or virtual education model yes I believe

093there are some other districts that have um made that distinction that you know in order to participate winter Athletics um some for specific teams I can't remember off the top of my head which schools um I know Ratner did that in the fall for football and I believe they're doing that for wrestling um in the winter as well but I I could be mistaken on that okay uh are there other questions or comments from other board members Chen are we discussing Sports now Dr Grandy I think this is meant to be I mean during this Focus topic we can have a fairly expansive conversation that includes you know our our instructional models but also Sports if we as of right now there's nothing on the agenda this evening to vote on Sports um so now

094would be the time to discuss it okay I I I do have some um some questions I would say for um Pat Clancy um Mr Clancy do you know which of our neighboring school districts has approved Sports so far um yes I believe Ridley Springfield Garnet Valley haford um and pencrest have all approved so far um K stoga has not approved yet um they went virtual so they are not participating Sports while they're in Virtual through the Thanksgiving break and um after Thanksgiving um Laura Marian School District um denied their school's health and safety plan for winter Athletics um and they cannot reconsider that until their December 6th board meeting um so um marle new town at I think was still in discussions um and I can't remember off the top of my head who's

095left there upper Derby I believe is um also in kind of a a delayed start um they don't intend to start practice until around mid December and I believe radner's in the same boat it's also true that upper Derby hasn't even gone back into the buildings I don't think so that's correct they're still in a virtual learning instruction okay indoro um I am not familiar with where the Val give right now um they did not participate in the fall season um and I believe they have you know some other logistical challenges for the winner okay and lower Marian is that is I should know this but is that High School in in mcgomery County yes them and Haron are in the same school district in Montgomery County okay so they're they're under different constraints than

096we are right now anyway right so that's kind of a different trajectory as well but our neighbors that are in Delaware County you named one two three four five five that are have definitely approved winter sports that's correct okay and um of those that have approved them do you know how many are online I know you said you weren't sure which ones but do you know how many are online um I believe they are all at least in a hybrid model at this time um Dr Palmer may know a little more but I believe they're all in hybrid still I I guess let me let me rephrase that do you know how many have required their athletes in the winter sports and which Sports to go online even if you don't remember the particular school

097um of those schools I do not believe any of those five schools have required their athletes to um participate virtually okay um in in their education correct for classroom learning okay and um aren't there three winter sports that are scheduled to start practicing before the end of November I was told that there were so um the three sports that well there's four Sports in our league that our league offers competitions for um basketball wrestling swimming and competitive Spirit competitive spirit is really just the central League Championship which takes place after the district one championship in February um so basketball wrestling and swimming have been where the bulk of our conversations has a leag have been and aren't they aren't they all scheduled to and track isn't track another so indoor track is not run by

098the C League um basically there's a coaches association that traditionally has rented out indoor tracks to host their meets so they've gone up to Lehi frequently har for college and our sinus um and basically the coaches have organized those events themselves um so our league does not have an indoor track schedule um and again around the league you'll get varying responses as to um which schools are okay sending their kids to Glen Mills for a meet at Glenn Mills indoors um there's others that are saying you know they're not doing any meets they're just you know G to give coaches reduced salary to have training outside um so indoor track there's a lot of variation right now all right and and as rad I'm sure that you know that all of these Sports especially wrestling

099has been going on in club form for months and months and months it's been going on in the summer there was a huge tournament this weekend okay I just I just want to make sure we all understand that regardless of our decision of this school this is all going on and it's all been going on um would you agree with that Mr Clancy sure you know obviously it's a fair statement right yes obviously you know our athletes U participate in club sports as well as inter Scholastic Athletics um so when there isn't a school team going they often do you know find a club team to join there's usually a fee that's associated with those clubs if you know right I mean that's my understanding that's correct club sports usually have a fee Associated but

100um we do not charge our athletes right so our school isn't a payto playay of course if you're if you're a student but those club sports which again have been going on all throughout covid are payto playay correct okay and um is there a reason why if we were going to go forward with winter sports why we would delay because I do have real concern for the students and and their ability to you know regain their identities thrive in sports if this if this board were to approve them and to also thrive in their academics because we know from history that those two get tied in pretty um pretty well for students is there a reason why we would delay and then risk um jeopardizing any postseason for sports that may may be able to

101engage in that again I I think that's going to be the board's decision clearly you know I've often said this is a different ask from the fall I I recognize that the indoor nature of these Sports is different than our out door fall Sports season um you know I was listening intently to Dr Palmer earlier when she said um we're at 310 cases per 100,000 people um we were at 46 when we approved fall Sports on September 21st so we're close to seven times the case rate that we had for fall sport so I understand if there's need for caution because of the case rates um in terms of our protocols that you know I do trust our coaches um to to you know follow through on our mitigation efforts um you know if we

102delay I don't think we're too far behind some of the other schools that delay um you know I think as long as we can get started practicing by um like December 8th or 9th I think we'll be able to have the minimum number of contest for postseason for basketball and several of these individual sports that may not have the same imp applications but there is an advantage to starting practice sooner um also for the health and safety of the workouts um we have not allowed our winter sports inside yet so for example our basketball team is practicing Outdoors we're getting into cold weather um and there's you know challenges with that um and the impact on tath bodies and the outdoor courts also don't have as much space as our gymnasium we have a rather

103large gymnasium um I believe we have 10 baskets in our gym whereas there's only three on the outdoor court that we're using right now so we actually can spread our athletes out more in the gym than we can outside right now it's also my understanding that the outro quotes don't have lights we are facing daylight issues corre which is significant and a reasonable uh hurdle that there's no way to rationalize around that um now that it's getting dark so early so I I guess I mean for this board I guess I I am wondering about the delay I mean if we could go back and we could think back to when we were handling the false Sports and those decisions you know I think that was a decision that felt scary for every board member

104I know that myself who voted for fall Sports I mean you always you always take those votes I think every board member takes those votes extremely seriously because the last thing I think any member of this board wants to do is walk any adult or child into a bad situation um but with that said I think looking back we know that maybe on some of these things we should have hopped a little sooner especially with maybe predictions we don't know how the Winner's going and it just seems to me that this would be a decision that would be good to make in the shorter term espe especially based on how successful um we were in the fall and and that you know I think we need to give credit where it's due to those students

105and those coaches who took um who took the the social distancing guidelines extremely seriously so you know I don't know Dr Grandy where this where this is meant to go tonight I I'm not sure I understand the delay um I if I mean if there's a definite um if there's definitely no risk to any postseasons with a delay I mean I but I hear everything that seems to counter why a delay would be good to be honest with you I I don't especially since we're behind five other schools and our athletes have not been practicing in the proper climate or the proper conditions for these Sports uh Kelly I see you have your hand up yeah I had I had a question about swimming um and uh Mr Clancy if you're able to comment on

106this one I'm I'm wondering if they're doing anything with reduced Lanes um I mean the lanes and the way they are put together certainly doesn't provide a six foot distance and now you're talking about doing that unmasked so when they're actually swimming um are they doing every other lane as an accommodation for that perhaps um so first of all I believe the LAN lanes are 6 feet wide I I don't know the exact Dimension but I believe it's close to 7 feet um for the width of the lanes themselves they're pretty wide um but in terms of you know mitigation efforts at practice um the USA swim Federation has put out guidelines and suggestions one of them is having U no more than four athletes per Lane and having half of the athletes start at

107each end of the pool so you can run the same workout but only two people at each end so that way they're not uh bunched up as much you know in between sets um swimming has been a sport that we've had high participation in the past we may need to limit participation in order to you know follow the proper safety protocols for this season um so you know no one wants to Institute Cuts but by the same time you know we really are looking at a maximum of 24 people in the water in any given practice um you know so there may need to be some limitations this year um if we see high demand okay yeah my my extended family is um competition swimmers and so when I think about those Lanes I think

108about what happens at the end of the lane when you're done and they're hanging on the ropes they're breathing on each other and breathing heavy and so not going to every other lane is going to create a very significant oversight issue I think in order to make sure that we don't have ourselves hanging over the lanes talking to each other and breathing on each other so I just bring that up um for consideration sure you know with swimming and several other sports there are some timing and facility limitations so if we went every other lane um we're talking about 12 swimmers um you know per practice um most of our coaches have said that you need a minimum of about 17 um in order to field a full team during the swim meet um so

109you know ideally you would like to have your whole team practicing together is you're trying to minimize the number of practice shifts um we we usually have a boy's practice and a girl's practice and a diving practice all in three separate shifts um if we try to divide them up further we'd be extending deeper into the night gotcha okay that's helpful to understand thank you sure Dr Huff so I get to learn something about the swimming tonight which I did not realize I was going to get to learn about you mentioned there were four swimmers per Lane during practice can you just explain a little bit more about about what you mean by four swimmers per Lane sure so um again the idea is that we have six linges um they're about six or seven

110feet wide but it with four swimmers in each lean the leing are 75t long it's a 25 yard pool um if two of the swimmers start at the shallow end of the pool at the 4 foot end and two start consistently at the deep end at the 12ft end of the pool that way um they're not going to all be bunched up together at one end between sets so most of our swimming workouts they're doing things on timed intervals so maybe they do you know a four laps set you know in a minute 15 seconds or something like that um and between those sets you know there's some downtime where they can catch the breath if they were all starting from the same end then you'd have about 24 people on one end of the

111pool um but by staggering them so they're starting on separate sides of the swimming pool um it it limits the number of people that are in close proximity okay oh okay so when you say there are for swimmers per Lane how many are in the water at a time we'd be talking about 24 swimmers um I can do a quick math here um no no I I mean per Lane sure so so two on each end of one lane um so and again I believe the lanes are about 9 feet wide um because I know eight Lanes um is is 75 ft so um basically they're not quite enough for 6 feet a part there but if they're spread out using the lane lines where some are staggered a little further back from the wall

112um you should be able to you know keep people relatively spread if you have the team starting at both ends of the pool instead of starting at one end okay I didn't really mean to go quite that much down a rabbit Hall I apologize for that good any other questions or comments uh Matt sorry I forgot to look up okay I've been hand up every once in a while um I I just want to make sure I sort of have this all straight in my head so what I'm hearing is that the central League doesn't yet have a return to winter sports plan but Pennsylvania does so if we were going to approve anything tonight it would be Pennsylvania's plan that would allow our student athletes to start practicing on Monday instead of waiting until

113early December but there's no contests currently on the schedule and there's no impact of waiting in terms of potential postseason play so do I have that all synthesized correctly Mr Clancy um pretty close so just to clarify um our league did not create a League wide health and safety plan similar to the last one because most of the provisions in that are similar okay just you know obviously an indoor environment changes some of the Dynamics but we are expecting all officials to mask um we're expecting people to mask on all bus ride and a lot of those protocols from the five from the fall um would apply to our winter season as well in terms of the league schedule um we did build out a schedule that would start assuming that practices started on November

11430th but we also made sure that everyone in the room was you know clear that schedule is going to adapt and change you know there will be teams that get quarantined um there will be you know other you know modifications for teams that start late okay um the fall season was I would say a success um I did the tabulations for the league and shared with other athletic directors you know we had 420 scheduled Varsity contests this fall 412 of them were completed on time uh were completed throughout the season there some schedules but you we had a 98% completion rate so while we hear a lot about the cancellations um most of the Fall went well but the winners different with the indoor environment so the first Gaines are scheduled for December 18th um

115and then there's games also scheduled on December 23rd now my understanding is our buildings will be unavailable during the two-week winter break so those games scheduled for the 23rd will already likely be rescheduled um you know and every other school in the league understands there's going to be local accommodations that need to be made based on when teams start and so forth we've also reached the conclusion we probably will not have an equal number of games between schools and we're okay with that because um in in the fall we allowed for a league tournament at the end of the season so that all teams could compete for the championship at the end and the offset in the number of games gets evened out then because if all teams make the tournament you know if you

116were taken out of the equation for two weeks in the middle of the Season you won't be penalized for that in terms of you know a chance to compete for a championship you'll still go to the postseason of the league postseason not district one okay um I'm a big proponent of our athletic programs uh I always did a sport every season growing up and part of that it's not because I was a star athlete by any stretch of the imagination I just did better academically when I had that athletic diversion and so I absolutely want to see that happen but I have huge reservations about moving our Sports indoors with everything we know about the virus and transmissibility uh chapen I guess that's a good segue to me too I mean I'm a three sport

117uh High School athlete too one per season and I couldn't agree more um but I just don't understand how we could be talking about putting kids together in indoors less than six feet apart for extended periods of time like wrestling and we don't have we're not we're we're not having kids sing standing next to each other I don't I don't understand why one's on the table and one isn't um and I don't understand why six feet is a rule unless until it comes to this so I'm wondering if the medical experts have weighed in on indoor sports are we going to have more time to get more information um from experts about this nobody wants to see our kids suffer the parents of the athletes I'm sure have decided it's safe or they wouldn't be

118wanting this for their kids so I just feel like there's a lot of unanswered questions um In the comparison between say something like wrestling again and something like chorus I don't understand why one is happening and one wouldn't be if it's safe so I I don't feel like I have remotely enough information and I didn't think we were voting on anything tonight and to be clear there is nothing on the agenda tonight to vote on Sports I think there was some questions raised about the timing of when the board needed to act if there was going to be a resumption of play and so part of the reason for having this conversation tonight during this Focus topic was to give the board an opportunity to begin this discussion decide if there was a feeling that

119action was needed tonight and that action could be yes or no um tonight or uh we do have a board meeting on December 7th where we could take this up at that time but the goal of having this on the focus topic was not to kick the whole conversation to December 7th but to figure out if it's something we want to take up tonight okay and then I guess I can just request that if we do take it up you know when we take it up again can we have more information about what the experts are saying about athletic competitions indoors versus things like chorus and other things that we've been told kids can't do we can't do and you know why the exception of the six feet rule I'm I'm just I just don't

120really I don't get it yeah and I think that you'll be hardpressed to to find someone to say that the risk is not increased engaging in indoor indoor sports where there's close contact you know the question you know and I think from a board perspective you know I think we have of course we have to think about two things we have to think about the the health and safety of all of our students including our athletes and then we also have to think about whether athletic competition creates additional risks for other students in the schools for staff in in the schools I think both of those things are are relevant to this conversation but uh I think you'll be hard pressed to find people uh in the medical field right now given the the rising

121rates that would enthusi enthusiastically support lots of indoor competitive High contact sports right now right and I I mean I get that we haven't seen Transmission in sports yet you know knowing that those were outside and this is inside um so I don't need to be reminded of all of that and there's part of me that thinks okay let them try and then we'll shut it down if it doesn't work you know but then I want to hear the explanation for why aren't we doing that with everything why why is sports getting this and not other extracurricular activities like band and chorus Etc I don't I don't understand the difference and I would like to know that so that's what I'm thinking about as we head into the decision sure I will say that and

122I'll get to I see there's a couple more hands I will say that there's some very well documented high-risk issues around um singing in particular but also presumably translating to musical instruments uh because with covid obviously one of the biggest concerns is the degree to which you aerosolize respiratory droplets in the air and so right so there's some very um there's a very Vivid example from A Chorus where there was a aerosolization that infected almost an entire acire early on during the co pandemic so I think that all of these things the nature of the the risk and exposures are are unique to the activity they're unique to the number of people they're unique to mask no mask proximity you know everything has some some Nuance to it um and I think with respect to

123a lot of these Youth Sports you know I think a lot of what we're facing right now is people trying to you know predict a little bit what the risk is um because in many cases these things are are just getting underway and we don't really have great data to to answer that question um Marilyn I see your hand is up so if if we were to vote on something related to Athletics tonight would we be voting at the level of allowing practice to start without necessarily voting to allow can allow us to enter um a competitive season I mean because those are two different things and two different levels of exposure yeah I mean I think we can certainly choose our own path I think that the uh if I were to think about

124the and maybe Dr Palmer I need your help here but if I were to think about like rose tree media for example adopted the PIAA plan but that plan doesn't really specify any particular dates um it doesn't it's more all the safety measures that go into place for each individual sport as opposed to saying Wallingford sopore school district is going to start practicing on November 30th December 7th December 14th um so you know we can attach whatever parameters we want if we were to for example approve the PIAA plan we could attach a begin a practice date we could you know have a begin of competition date that the beginning of competition date could be in the future when we know we'll have board meetings between now and then um all of that's you know

125on the table if we if we choose to to take it up tonight Jen sorry Dr Palmer that was correct right that was correct Okay so um Chap and I I also was thinking when you were saying you know why not chorus and why Sports because I do recall at the beginning of this pandemic you know the however many and I think it was on the west coast of a of a singing group that had been greatly infected during a chorus session so that comes to my mind first when I think why this and not something like corus but with that said I understand what you're saying you want to hear from experts that would not be me that would be just someone understanding and remembering that that was something we talked about a lot

126and that the news talked about a lot at the beginning of the pandemic um that singing session um the other thing is that you know I I don't think any sports parents are saying let's play sports it's safe I think that everyone has decided what is a risk benefit for their Lifestyles and I don't think that there is one person in this nation that hasn't made that assessment for themselves to some degree I think it would be disingenuous to say that we're all looking at the numbers and following them um strictly because we've all decided what is worth um a risk I mean if you've left your house at all since March you've decided that that was worth the risk and no one I mean we I'm looking at Dr Palmer and Dr Grandy sitting

127next to each other I mean no one could even say that that's 100% safe but it's worth the benefit of having this Schoolboard meeting based on the risk that is perceived based on what we know and I think that you know it's great to get the experts here I've always enjoyed hearing from them but what I think we all have to be mindful of is that when they come they talk about one side of this equation they don't talk they talk about the risks of covid they don't talk about the benefits of sports they don't talk about the benefits of in-person learning and they don't know the struggles that our students are facing every single day with their identity being taken since March and we've never given it back so I don't want to go

128off on a tangent there but I you know I want to I'd love to hear that too but you have to always keep in mind that that's only one portion of right Jenn and there are other kids with their identities that aren't being able to do the same things it's not just sports kids it's other kids too I don't think that you're making faces at me now I mean I don't think you and I are going to be able to you know totally agree or disagree and you might think I've made up my mind one way but I haven't I'm raising some Equity concerns that I think a lot of people have and aren't expressing and so you can disagree with me for all of your reasons and I've heard them but I I think

129we probably should you know you should allow me to want expert information if that's what I think is needed and argue with me about it I I actually don't think we're saying different things and I don't think I'm arguing with you and one thing I would never do is make faces at you or anyone else I would ever may I say something please with all due respect Jerry I'm speaking and I'm not finished so um I would never do that it might just be my face I apologize for that but I think we're saying the same thing I also said that experts are helpful but they only come in with an expertise in one area so going on um I think that the timing matters that's what we're hearing from everyone the timing matters and

130I'm wondering why we need to even wait till the 7th it doesn't sound sounds like this is too big to tackle tonight but I'm wondering if November 30th might be a more reasonable um day to address this and you know since we brought up Equity I mean we just heard about divers uh diversity and equity and inclusion and I cannot think I do not think it can fall on deaf ears that all of these Sports have been going on we are fooling ourselves to think that all these Sports haven't been going on haven't been going on indoors we heard from a parent a couple meetings ago whose son organized his own basketball league we know that other districts have had their auditoriums open for sports we heard from Pat Clancy who said we can actually

131social distance a little better inside with 10 baskets so when you talk about Equity what's going to happen is what's been happening which is that the kids that can pay to play are going to get to play and the kids that can't get a play can't pay to play are going to be disadvantaged and so when you want to bring up Equity you know I think that that's something else we should be thinking about the equity in in no knowing that sports are happening and knowing that our students are participating them regardless of what we vote on and knowing that there are some kids that are left out so I'm done now Jerry thanks go ahead Jerry I think we've discussed this extensively and if somebody wants to for us to take some action it

132would be nice to put in a motion either to recommend uh starting practice or recommend meeting on the 30th and let's decide what do we want to do and then move on I like that idea very much so why don't we close out uh this Focus topic discussion uh when we get to curriculum there'll be an opportunity uh if we need to bring any motions forward um but before I do that we've been spending the last uh good bit of time on Athletics I just want to make sure there's no other questions or comments related to where we started this conversation around our instructional model okay all right um so thank you Dr Palmer did you have anything else here no thank you okay all right so that takes us to uh our time for

133audience recognition uh as I mentioned in Prior board meetings um we have two two methods to comment in person and by phone uh anyone uh wishing to make a comment by phone uh as usual can call 610 89234 70 extension 1102 to leave a recorded comment for the board subject to a three-minute time limit comments left prior to 5 o' today have been transcribed and made available to the board any comments made after 5 o'clock but prior to end of this meeting will still be transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record but will not be acknowledged during the meeting um before I get to the in-person comments I think we have two called in comments um I've asked Larry to read those uh during the meeting Dr Grandy I think

134think those um comments are for other topics got it okay um picking up the topics of those okay I'm trying to let me look real quick because I think our what's on the agenda not on the agenda is a little more difficult to tell tonight why don't we just for this evening absolutely just read them we have two topics here or two submissions first one is from a Allison garfinkle Dartmouth Circle swathmore my daughter Abigail garfinkle is in the first grade in the Online Academy she usually attends SRS I'm calling because I'm really upset about the specials my daughter has synchronous specials two times a week and I just listened to our R teacher explaining to the students how to access their assignments in seesaw she spent 50% of the lesson time at least the

135first 15 minutes explaining to them where their assignments are and that none of the class have completed their assignments yet I just think this is completely ridiculous and unreasonable for six-year-olds to understand where these assignments are and basically this is just a lot of work dumped on to the parents I can't get through all this yes I can discuss this with their teacher on a onetoone basis but I don't think any of us should have to you know complete assignments for four different specials that are not offered synchronously when we have reading and math and everything else as it is I can barely get through the necessary assignments for my daughter in seesaw and it's becoming a struggle and I just can't fathom also doing this for four specials these children were just told that

136if they don't complete all these assignments by Christmas time that they're not going to get their points whatever that means and then a child raised her hand and said are we going to do any art today and that's exactly how I feel I'm just really upset about this and I think it's unreasonable for six-year-olds to be expected to access all the assignments on their own and not only that but be penalized if they're not completed by Christmas time so I really appreciate a discussion of this at the next board meeting because I know I'm not the only parent struggling with this second submission from Thomas papy Morris Lane Wallingford I'm calling to leave a message regarding the upcoming Strath Haven wrestling season for the 2020 2021 my son is a varsity High School wrestler who

137is currently recovering from leg surgery he loves his teammates we love our coaches I initially expressed my concern about going forward with the with the season to the school board but after further consideration I believe that these students have a right to try to have the season our coaches are passionate our parents are committed and as long as the students follow the safety measures set in place by the coaching staff they should be given a chance this is particularly true of the seniors I was initially skeptical based on my experience with public health and and currently the situation with my son in the hospital having his therapist contract Co but I think these seniors have a right to have a season and we have a right to try with the proper precautions in place other

138teams are allowed to participate and our wrestling team should have an opportunity to participate if the other stra Haven High School teams are allowed to participate should there be a continual uptick cases and people start Contracting the virus we may have to reconsider but I think at this point I would be in support of a modified wrestling season for the students at the high school so this is Thomas papy leaving my public comment for the upcoming Schoolboard meeting thank you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving all right uh thank you for those comments and thanks L for for reading those uh and then of course we also have time uh for uh comments in person uh for members of the public wishing to address the board if anyone would like to address the board I would

139say that normally again we separate separate out things that are on the agenda versus not on the agenda now is the time for things on the agenda of what I would say we're having a pretty broad conversation about the health and safety plan so as well as Athletics so if anybody has a comment they'd like to make to the board I think we can do that now if you do have a comment I would just ask that you go out in the hallway and enter into the room over here and then there's some I think little footprints on the floor to keep our distance uh is there anyone who would like to make a a comment all right welcome hi U so if you don't mind just uh stating your name and your address you

140don't have to give your house number but just the street you live on um Kelly Kegel and Beach Road in wingford so uh initially um some things I wanted to say have changed a little bit based on some of the things that I've heard uh tonight so far um I want to start by uh encouraging parents from theater um music that they should reach out to if theyve not already but continue to reach out to the board and to Administration uh in an effort to see their um children have that opportunity so I am speaking specifically for wrestling um my messaging is for all of the winter sports and opportunities for all of the children but specifically to wrestling um I also uh I will start by clarifying that the poua did um in fact

141move forward um a improving practices 11:20 and competition to begin 1211 um and then they set in um guidelines additional um guidelines and one specific to wrestling as well the central League then has their own plan um which as Pat mentioned practicing starting 11 11:30 um I am confused as to why this wasn't on the agenda to be voted for to begin with which prompted me to really show up tonight because especially considering that in enough time to add it to the agenda we had learned that the five very close uh districts to us have all approved to start Sports and have already started so um it's disappointing that we know that Sports has been a a big issue as important to the kids and that our I know our athletic director is also aware

142of the schools that did approve it that we um didn't bring this to tonight's meeting for a a vote so um I don't know all of the rules but I would hope that we would there I don't know you know have an emergency meeting or do what needs to be done to have us join the other schools that have also agreed to move forward um I also think that fall Sports um which I understand everybody was cautious about for good reason um has proven to be done successfully so the concerns that we had then um which have changed slightly yes I understand most of them moving to indoors um it still is based on this what if and we have gotten through fall without spreading during practice or uh during competition and I think I

143was happy to hear one of the board members give our students credit because uh they have shown that we can trust them a large majority have shown that we can trust them to make good decisions and be responsible wear their masks and be responsible outside of practices and competitions and they've proven to have been able to do that along with their coaches and staff um I understand wrestling is very unique um the coach in addition to the PIAA guidelines the central League Health guidelines has implemented his own plan with additional precautions question s um that was sent to all of our parents when we had a team zoom I'm not sure if it's been forwarded to um Mr Clancy yet but I'm sure we'd be happy to do that um something unique with wrestling while

144indoors though is you are typically working with the same partner so it is not you can be spread out in small six foot circles with just two people so this you can have the same partner you do not interact in competition with multiple athletes you are individually wrestling you're one opponent um the postseason which I know you know has been an issue in the fall is extremely important and unique in wrestling in the fact that a lot of the sacrifices made need in the wrestling season are directly for the postseason it is a Time the postseason is where kids wrestlers in particular see their opportunity for um recognition with colleges it's it you wrestle to get to the postseason and I know that in you know all sports you want to be a part of

145the postseason and be you know in a championship but it's it's very important in the in the um in in wrestling so I also want to touch on another thing since we have Equity being discussed in the board this is an issue of equity we've had this conversation in the fall we have our students driving around and seeing Fields being played on all around them yet if they cannot afford to pay to play they're not having that opportunity and that is a real issue and there are as we've mentioned tonight already wrestling tournaments that are happening all over the country you are not hearing from medical experts you're not reading about you know outbreaks um spreading there's aaou basketball tournaments there this is something that is going on and our Focus all of our focus

146is and should be on our our our children and our community and they're relying on us to provide them with sports extracurricular activities in-person instruction these are extremely important as you all know um there was a recent um actually there was just a recent study with high school 3300 high school students um The Academy of Pediatrics um talked on this a little bit an article just came out on the 13th and um a third of them reported that they're feeling unhappy and they're depressed and you know the um another one of uh Dr Bruner from The Academy of uh Pediatrics you know the development and Independence um for our children is thed and it's slowed down um when they are sitting at home all day with parents in the Next Room um so while I

147feel like we can constantly be discussing a lot of things having our kids you know in school still and I'm glad to hear that we are still being encouraged to at least stick with this hybrid I'm I'm happy to hear that um I'm thankful for the teachers that are continuing to come in and some of those whom coach um Administration who I the principles I know the last two board meetings we haven't we're hearing a lot about teachers and we're hearing a lot about about parents and it's giving this idea it's feeling like from home that we're against each other and I feel like we need to be circling back we're invested in this for for the kids it's absolutely hard for all of us adults but the the way some of the conversation goes

148is distracting from what is supposed to be the focus of why we're all doing this um so I ask you um to be making a decision regarding the sports much sooner than later um and I think that the parents and the students have earned the opportunity to start doing that immediately we were challenged in the fall and we we met the challeng and successfully and I think it's a it's hard to try to move the goalpost to why all of the sudden you know it definitely can't work I think we have to have the opportunity to to do that um I appreciate the time uh to talk and um I look forward to seeing our kids still have in-person instruction at you know the minimum that they do and to have the opportunity to play

149their Sports and I just want to end with encouraging parents outside of the sports conversation to advocate for your kids and for the opportunity that your kids also need and deserve thank you thank you all right good evening um if you just uh state your name and you could just say the street address you don't have to give your house number sure and then the microphone is yours hi my name's Tim Edwards I live on Brent Drive in Wallingford and I too tonight showed up uh like Kelly because I was shocked that Sports wasn't on the agenda um I do app appreciate the conversation and bringing it bringing it up and I agree with a lot of what Jen said I mean pretty much everything she did say one thing about they haven't been practicing

150well they have been practicing and if it's if it hasn't been on their their own through years basically but most recently in my driveway I I get kids coming in my driveway all the time practicing we finally got approved by the board to allow our kids to practice outside that's been going on thank thankfully most of the days that practices were scheduled the weather was great but that's not going to continue um so I I do agree with Thomas papy the kids deserve a chance give them a chance to have a season um I I I I mean I was going to a lot of what I was going to say was already brought up because of the conversation but I think it's it's really fitting that we talk about diversity equity and inclusion when

151I really want to push for I mean my sons play basketball I I I think voting is timing it it's we need to vote sooner than later if we wait to mid December and only let them play five games not have a postseason I mean I think part of the problem I don't know is that we we talk about diversity now we we mentioned equity and inclusion right and and we touched on that but we talk about diversity and there's no mention of sports that's mindboggling to me I mean Pride confidence healthy self-esteem belonging diversity respect the the trait of good teams the job of the players is to love one another when you love one another you play harder in practice you're going to go the extra mile and that's any color any person

152I mean to not have this on the agenda it it's just a disservice to our kids I mean not meeting the needs of our students Behavioral Health I mean action I here's an example so this summer there was an outdoor summer league played in sappa Bitz Park right sap ofits Park we talk about action sense of community right are we we're made up in neighborhoods of swathmore Wallingford nether Providence rutage how many times do you get everyone from those neighborhoods in South media really I mean Sports Action now we had that League you got kids from all different neighborhoods going to South media hanging out together and playing I mean we we I think we need to I'm all for the education the books and that's how we presented the diversity but Sports not only

153do you meet people you might never come across become teammates Brothers learn about their culture their background their family go to their house have dinner with their families I think we're overlooking Sports in our school district and it's it's very upsetting especially when you take a basketball program that hadn't been to the state tournament in 11 years they won three games three and 19 the year before the amount of effort by the parents by the boosters by the players by the coaches by the teachers in the school we reached out to The Graphic Arts Teacher we had posters hung up she she dedicated her one of her classes to makeing posters to hang up and and and give a sense of pride to our to our players to to the community people were coming out

154the games now I know we got hit with the pandemic but to overlook all the effort that you turn a program around you get people in the stands I don't really care about people in the stands at this point these kids should deserve an opportunity to compete and to compete for the postseason and if we wait until mid November or mid December to start playing and not have a chance to play in the postseason that is a disservice to our students and it's it it's it it hurts to to even think that Sports is an afterthought you know I mean it shouldn't be there's life lessons in sports not only diversity but you go into the Working World and you have to work with people from all different backgrounds and you have to collaborate I

155just I just appreciate the fact that you at least brought it up and I I plead that I I and Kelly you you you confirm the timing the timing we could be playing right now last year at this time we started November 15th it got pushed back I get it but I feel like we can't just keep pushing this back we have to make a decision and the decision should be to give these kids a chance so if we can vote on that tonight if we can vote on that at the latest November 30th we should be practicing and playing and and getting in schedule and in tune with the other Central League teams all the five that were mentioned plus marple's going to vote tomorrow you know or whenever they're going to vote this

156week we should be voting it at at a minimum and I'm for giving the kids a chance to play I appreciate the opportunity to speak and uh and I really do appreciate what Jen said I mean the fact that she recognized what was said I came two weeks or two board meetings ago and she remembered what I said uh about the league starting up by the kids that League was an offshoot of the summer league that got started we brought the community together through Sports diverse backgrounds and now you got kids from all different neighborhoods playing in the in the playground of South media where some of those kids probably never been before in their life and that's in our own community so I hope we vote to play basketball and and give these kids

157a chance for all the all the the winter sports thank you for the time and the opportunity to speak thank you hi good evening um if you don't mind just stating your name and uh your address but you don't have to give your house number just the street okay is fine I'm Roa odonnell and we live on um Brook Haven Road in Wallingford and um I actually came with a different plan about what I wanted to say but I was listening to the conversation this evening and I um came up with something a little bit different but that makes the same point I moved to this neighborhood 20 years ago from illim Germany with my three-year-old who has now graduated from this district and our district was always the leader in education and in athletics

158and in everything else we were always the leader we were the first one out the door we were always the first one out the door we were not the fifth one and we were certainly never the sixth one we are now the sixth one out the door for athletics and that is not okay with me that is not the district that I paid to move into and that I paid taxes to live in that is not okay with me I moved here for the best life and best education for my children which I truly believe is 5 days fulltime School best life best education for the dollars I pay to be here I believe that the district is currently out of touch with the expectations of the parents in this district and what we want

159for our children best life best education best sports and also best extracurricular activities we understand the risks that come with these things and we have weighed what we think is important in our children's lives we understand that in 2017 more than 6,000 children committed suicide we understand in 2018 more than 2,000 children died in motor vehicle accidents we understand that the risk from covid is minimal and we know the CDC numbers and we expect that our board will also know them we want our kids in sports because the risks of the other things that are dangerous to our children far outweigh any risk that comes from covid-19 and we want our board to hear us say that we are all writing to you and we were very disappointed that we had to find out from

160an article in the swath Moran what we really thought about going back to school and we did not hear that from our board members we want to be back in school we want our kids to be back in sports and we are not making bones about it anymore and you are receiving our emails and we would like responses to those emails we would like to know that our voices are being heard if we would like to talk about Equity let's talk about Equity we should be a leader in equity my child has been wrestling since September as well as many of the kids in here who have been playing sports since September nobody there has been zero spread none we have been safely doing it we have the money to do that not everybody here

161has the money to do that in our district also if we're going to talk about Equity let's go to all of the mothers who have had to quit working or take a part-time job so that they could stay home with their children because we are not providing Equity of Education here in addition there are people in our school district that I and you are all aware of that have small children are staying home at home while their parents are at work what is their Equity how are you providing equity for them if we as a district are saying that we are interested in equity to check a box that is not okay with me and I know that's not okay with a lot of people we are not box checking people we need to make

162it a priority for us our kids need sports sports keeps them alive and happy and in my email that I sent to you and in my many emails I have addressed Equity every time since August and so you know how I feel about Equity I was a little bit upset that none of the equity that I have mentioned was mentioned in our little presentation about Equity including equity for the teachers that work in our district that cannot come to work because they do not have child care their kids would be in school in this District but they're not I see that we have a whole bunch of teachers that are out on leave and I'm assuming that there's some teachers that are probably taking advantage of the fact that they can take that medical leave

163and they need that Equity to take care of their children we need to provide equity for everybody not just some people thank you thank you good evening by Kelly uh Country Club Lane Wallingford um I think what I'd like to just start off with echoing what some of the other folks said this evening specifically around extracurricular activities uh primarily Sports is the fact that you know from a winter sports perspective as a board as an athletic uh Department with uh head by Mr Clancy it's not like we didn't know that this was coming there is you know a schedule to the school year there's fall sports are over winter sports start I think parents understand that there is increased risk with indoor activity I I don't think anybody will dispute that but what I would

164say is that Athletics for the most part has demonstrated whether that's on the aaou level with indoor basketball ice hockey indoor field hockey whatever Indoor Sport you're playing but there's been very few documented cases of a spreader event there's actually one happened in Florida with teams from multiple States it's a fairly large tournament and there's what 22 people on a hockey ran at any given time all the sport that we have in this District do not meet those qualifications basketball is the most 10 people on the court swimming obviously there's a large group of kids in the pool but the lanes are almost 10et wide it's been documented by the swimming Association that it can be done safely we're I think somebody just set two World Records The Other Day a national event so I

165would hope that the board would take that into consideration and as to the one board member that was uh talking about choir and music if we can be done safely and demonstrated safely I think we should do it but Sports has my kids have been playing sports all fall both indoor and outdoor there's been no event in the state of Pennsylvania frankly on the East Coast so I would hope that you would would take that information and use it and apply it because delaying the vote you're robbing these kids of their experience we all went through high school I was fortunate enough to play sports it's a great experience for a number of kids and by delaying a decision to vote on it you're robbing them of precious time whether they're a freshman or a

166senior so I think it's important and I ask you to vote on that tonight if you can I really do think that that's important the other thing I'd like to mention I think it was mentioned this evening you talked about possibly having athletes go to 100% online learning I am very against that as a parent that has chosen to send their kids to school I think that you're singling those athletes out by having that even be considered as an option we're not crossing state lines to play these Sports we're in Delaware County for the most part with the exceptional Laur Maran so I would hope that that is was just a a comment and not an actual thought to actually be voted on finally since it's a fairly open Forum this evening um as it

167pertains to I think what started the open Forum was the you know the decision to possibly have to go from a state perspective uh virtually 100% virtual again I would like to you know U appreciate the administration the teachers and everything they've done I think we've done a very good job for those kids that do want to attend school um controlling uh any spread and I think that we should continue down this path obviously I you know I've addressed the board before I think it should be a full day School uh for those that elected hybrid I understand there's some complications around that and I know that a survey was just recently sent out I would have liked that survey to at least had a question and give parents an option to express their desire

168to go to a full day school day at the high school level it was not included and a number of parents certainly expressed their strong opinions and Des desire for their kids to have full day school and that I believe it was in plenty of time to be included in the survey so I just wanted to take this last moment to reinforce that point with the board um because a number of parents are are really uh having a difficult time you know whether it be scheduling issues number of the folks tonight address the emotional issues that people are having Hey listen this has been tough on everybody I understand it's a tough position we're putting you in but I just think from a planning perspective if you can incorporate that into the plan two full

169days at minimum if we can do more great um and do that as soon as possible because I do think it affects the welfare of the kids you know you see your kids going to school I never thought I'd see the day when all of my kids are excited to go to school in mid November it's usually Hey when's Christmas when's Thanksgiving you know when's When's break they don't want break they want to be in school so for what it's worth if you can expedite that planning to try to get to a full day at the high school level um I think it would benefit the community and certainly the the kids um that have chosen and their families have chosen to go to the hybrid model and in in person learning uh that's all

170I have to say thank you thank you oh that was there there's nobody else oh there's no one else thank you all right uh so thank you everyone for those comments we're going to move into our items for Action uh so the first one we have this even this evening sorry is the approval of the November 9th regular business meeting minutes and I so move uh do we have a second second uh thank you Matt uh any discussion all right Miss Vora can you please take a roll call vote Mr Ballas I miss smino I Dr Downey I Dr Huff hi Mr cus hi Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Dr Grandy the motion passes 9 to zero all right thank you Miss Figora uh that takes us to Personnel we have

17113 items for Action are there any items on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay uh we have the approval of two retirements uh Ferg Abbott Director of Human Resources and operations and Cheryl Sweeny Foy confidential Executive Administrative Assistant in the human resources department we have the approval of four appointments Vincent Shakur building substitute at West Joyce ther a family and consumer Sciences teacher at the middle school Lisa lingren an English language arts teacher in building sub substitute at the high school and Janine oer an English language arts teach teacher and building substitute at the high school uh we have the approval of 11 leaves of absence as listed in the agenda we have the approval of compensation and administration for administration of the sat on October 14th 2020 for Danielle

172Kima how do you say her last name Lisa kello okay and Valerie Pella uh as stipulated uh we have approval of stiens for School nurses to perform covid related duties as stipulated we have the approval of professional development planning work as stipulated at an hourly rate of $37 per hour we have the approval of transportation change of hours effective October 1st uh 2020 as stipulated we have the approval of one change of assignment for Kate Evans as stipulated we have the approval of an additional staff member is a mentor during the 2020 2021 school year as stipulated we have the approval of the special education teaching professional to work on curriculum development at the rate of $37 per hour for an additional 36 hours during the 2020 Summer and we have the approval of an

173addition to the 2020 2021 fall athletic supplementals all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda U do I have a motion so moved Kelly wman thank you Kelly do we have a second second Jerry Ballas thank you Jerry any discussion all right I'll just mention that I'm thinking ahead to the end of the year when Ferg Abbott normally goes through all the retirements in the district and wondering what we're going to do at that time since Ferg is retiring um so sad to see that on the agenda but uh we'll we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it um Miss Vora can you please take a roll call vote Miss simino I Dr Downey I Dr Huff hi Mr cutus I Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman

174I Mr Ballas hi Dr Grandy I Personnel motion a through L passes 9 to zero thank you m vagora so that takes us to curriculum um there are three items listed for Action uh the third being related to the Ws health and safety plan I'd like to start with the first two items uh unless someone would like to separate those two from one another for any reason okay um first we have approval of related services provider contracts as stipulated and second we have approval of an educational service agreement as described um both of the items are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved Kelly wman thank you Kelly do we have a second second chapen simino thanks chapen any discussion all right Miss vagora can you please take

175a roll call vote Dr [Music] Downey I Dr Huff I Mr cutus hi Mrs lent hi I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Mr Ballas I miss minino hi Dr Grandy I curriculum items A and B pass 9 to zero all right and then as I mentioned we have this placeholder but I want to there's no specific motion there listed but um I did want to bring forward the motion related to this attestation requirement uh that we learned of today from the state um which is an attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts and uh the motion would read uh as the following a motion for the board of school directors to continue with in-person hybrid instruction and authorize the board president and superintendent to sign the PD form entitled attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts

176this form once executed shall become part of the wssd health and safety plan further the board of school directors directs the superintendent to post the wssd health and safety plan inclusive of this attestation on its website and to file the same with the Pennsylvania Department of Education so I guess if I'm making that motion it's just a second at that point correct um do I have a second second Jennifer Lance uh I think we got Matt thank you Matt and thanks Jen uh any discussion okay oh sorry thank you uh Marilyn with this be the appropriate time to encourage the uh District to move to um all virtual for the high school following Thanksgiving I think that would be better as a separate motion because I think if um yeah if you don't mind could

177we just treat those separately okay okay any other questions or comments okay uh so miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Dr Huff I Mr cutas I Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman hi Mr Ballas hi Miss simino hi Dr I Dr Grandy I the motion passes 9 to zero all right thank you uh so Marilyn it sounds like you had a motion you wanted to bring forward uh yes I would like uh to make a motion that we move the high school to all virtual school education with the exception of students with complex learning needs for two weeks following the Thanksgiving holidays uh because the um transmission rate among high school students tends to track that of the general population whereas for younger students it tends to be lower

178um and that the risks are quite High all right excuse me do we have a second all right there is no second so that motion will not come forward do we have any other motions uh in this section of the agenda uh Dave the only I don't know if it's in the form of a motion but I would propose that we meet um a week from now or um either Sunday or Monday Monday because the Sports issue is time sensitive I'm not sure I think I'm under the right part of the agenda but I don't think we should wait until our December 7th meeting to address this issue okay um this is the right part of the agenda um I guess my question is we could certainly schedule a special meeting um and I know

179this isn't like a time for lengthy process discussion but the other option would be to consider it now are you suggesting we wait I would have no problem considering it now but I'm getting a sense from my fellow board members that they are not prepared to consider it tonight which is why I suggested a week from now six days from now okay can we at least tonight consider the start of practice we can for these Sports we can certainly consider and then a week or two weeks down the road decide on competition yeah there would be no competitions until correct if my understanding is correct I think until we after the next board meeting yeah so we could uh Marilyn I see your hand is up was that from before it is not from before

180and it is also not related to Athletics I don't know if we want to get my other motion out of the way before we tackle Athletics sure while people are are thinking about the Athletics question go ahead with your motion so my motion would be to amend the health and safety plan to allow uh families and students at the elementary level to transition between the Online Academy and the um hybrid education on a monthly basis rather than only at the um each semester so you were saying at all levels um I believe at the middle school and high SCH High School level they already have that ability so I just want to add it for the elementary school but at a monthly at a monthly bases okay um do we have a second I'll second

181that okay uh second from chapen discussion I would just jump in here and then I see Kelly's hand just went up as well um oh and then Matt I I keep forgetting to look up sorry um I know at the elementary school we have very particular challenges with kids moving back and forth particularly as we place value on keeping students with their teachers and so um Dr Palmer would you mind me asking the question about what what the logistical issues are with the elementary school compared to middle and high school with students being able to switch on a monthly basis into the Online Academy or and back you know as um Dr Huff brought the motion forward I was thinking how could we even do that on a monthly basis because when we sectioned the

182elementary schools we were very careful to be able to have them with their teacher for a half a year and to move them on a monthly basis we'll we'll reshuffle the classes because we were particularly careful with our class sizes whether we were in-person classes or we were online classes we observe the class siiz guidelines I don't know how to move the children with more frequency it would mean rebalancing all of the classes and moving the children again I'm sure there are ways to mitigate it but I'm at a loss to think of them right now I am thinking ahead of what we have proposed for even January and I know some parents are even saying that's difficult to have to make a decision in advance of the timeline that we were talking about for

183January but it does mean rebalancing all of those classes there's there's not slack in the classes that's just off the top of my head thank you uh so let's go to Matt and then Kelly will come to you so that actually dovetails and covers most of my question but why don't we face that same issue Dr Palmer at the other levels why don't we need to Shuffle classes when kids switch back and forth at the middle school and the high school the kids are already in their particular class and whether they are coming in virtually or in the classroom they're entering the same class like the teacher like if like just like we did tonight we're still the same nine people scheduled for the same class the way we handled it at the elementary school

184is this particular group of children who might have been in the Online Academy had teacher Sullivan in the opposite if this group of teach or children were in school they had teacher Figora if we're going back and forth there aren't extra seats in those classes or even if there are a few you're switching a teacher at the middle school and the high school you're in your grade it was it may have been with your teacher but it didn't matter whether you're coming in virtually or in person you're still scheduled with that cohort of children okay so my my kids are all the the hybrid the imperson people and so I would I wasn't realizing that the middle school and high school that are all online are still getting the same teachers there's not different online

185teachers for the middle school and the high school level correct got it thank you Kelly I we ended up covering my question so no no further question for me okay yeah and I'll just say you know I completely understand the the motivation behind the motion but I think from a practical logistical perspective the disruptions to our instructional model from moving students back and forth in that sort of way uh is not something I'd be inclined to support uh any other comments discussion okay uh Miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote Mr cutas nay Mrs lent nay Mr Sullivan N Mrs wman nay Mr Ballas nay Miss Cino nay I'm sorry is that a yay or a nay no it was a negative thank you Dr Downey R Dr Huff yes Dr Grandy

186nay Dr Grandy the motion fails 8 to one all right thank you Miss Figora do we have other motions anyone would like to bring forward okay I would propose that we at least begin to answer this question this evening about Athletics I realize everybody may not be fully resolved on the question of competition uh at this point and the timing of competition um but I'm not sure that coming back a week from today that there will be a lot of new information to make this decision So Others May May disagree with that timing um but I would like to to bring a motion forward and I think I'm I'm certainly sensing some reticence among the board to to move this forward so I want to try to find some some sort of uh way to

187bring something forward that I think can get support so and people can can certainly amend but let me read through the motion the a motion for the board of school directors to approve the implementation of the PIAA return to competition plan for winter sports as part of the wssd health and safety plan for athletics with the following conditions the county superintendents along with the Central athletic league will continue to discuss and make decisions regarding initiation and continuation of winter sports schedules the board and administration is aware of the revised masking order from the Department of Health issued on November 17th and continues to monitor the application of this masking order to Athletics particularly to swimming and wrestling the order allows for an exception to masking due to safety concerns as well as if the wearing

188of a mask would impede breathing such as in swimming or present other specific safety concerns relative to wearing a mask during some portion of the athletic activity such as during wrestling competitions the order as it relates to Athletics continues to be clarified by the Pennsylvania Department of Health as well as legal interpretation by school solicitors of allowable exceptions under this order the administration will continue to comply with any Pennsylvania Department of Health order and will continue to follow clarification and legal Direction on this matter the third qualification is that athletes who choose to participate in the winter sports program transition to Virtual School attendance when practices begin to include live Drilling in which distancing of six feet or more with mask cannot be achieved and will continue to attend school virtually until 14 days after

189the last competition at which the ath at at which point the athletes can select to return to inperson hybrid learning coaching recommendations will be finalized before the first practice will commence and I would also suggest uh practices commencing on December 7th and so that's my motion is there a second is there an is it appropriate to make a motion to amend that motion or we just approving or disproving your motion so Mr Burman can correct me but I think what would happen is we would second the motion and at the initiation of discussion someone can make a motion to amend and then that motion can be discussed and voted on and then depending on what happens to that motion we're either discussing a amended motion or the original motion is that correct Mr Burman that

190is correct okay so we need to have a second and then we would need to have motions to amend as part of that discussion second Kelly wman thank you Kelly discussion and and I'll just say again in putting forward the motion from the earlier discussion I think people have a lot of um you know understanding understandable um worry you know about the risk associated with winter Indoor Sports you know I think that I'm in favor of trying to come to some resolution this evening um to to provide some clarity and certainty to our athletes at the same time I think I also recognized from our earlier discussion that I think that having some additional mitigation measures in place compared to our fall Outdoor Sports uh is is necessary Jen thank you thank you Dr gry

191so I have a question and perhaps a motion um the first point that you read and um you know you read quite a bit and fairness we have copies of your motion so I am looking at the part that says County superintendence along with the Central athletic league will continue to discuss and make decisions regarding the initiation continuation of winter sports schedules could you clarify what you mean by that does that mean that Dr Palmer would be in the driver seat of making the decisions on um whether Falls whether winter sports go forward and to what extent is that unilateral no I think that the general point and I I'll ask Dr Palmer way but the general point is that the Central athletic league has yet to really firm up specific plans and I don't

192think we need to convene the board to um you know approve some competition schedule or something along those lines or a specific par parameters certainly I don't anticipate any competition happening before our December 7th meeting so if the situation in the community were to change there was new information and the board didn't feel comfortable with proceeding with competition there would be the opportunity to do so but I think the conversation is very fluid with all the schools in the central League about what the intent is around even scheduling competitions at this point Dr Palmer is that fair to say okay okay if that's what that means then then I understand thank you for clarifying I would make um you know I the third portion which says athletes who choose to participate in the winter sports

193program shall transition to Virtual School attendance when practices begin to include live Drilling in which distancing of six feet or more with masks cannot be achieved and will continue to attend school virtually until 14 days after the last competition at which point the athletes can select to return to in-person hybrid learning um if I read that right it's it's basically saying anyone who chooses to participate in a winter sport will have to go virtual is that correct correct okay so I would make a motion to delete that point in its entirety and the reason is because it's not that I don't understand the motivation for that point I understand the rationale behind it but I think the execution of that is problematic I think that it again goes back to an equity issue we are

194forcing our kids uh first of all to be treated differently than any other kids that may participate in a live extracurricular program um uh for example drama if that ends up being in person in the winter I understand that's a winter activity or anything else that's similar to that we're treating our athletes differently and um that's my first point on Equity my second point on Equity is is that that again goes back to the payto playay issue which means that kids that want to play but also want to go to inperson school which I think many Studies have shown can be a more effective learning model for many kids not all but certainly more than the majority um are going to be able to pay and play their Sport and still go to in-person school

195and the kids that cannot afford that are going to be boxed into playing sports for our school and then having to choose between an education that could change the trajectory for them um I don't think that that lends itself to our Equity vision for this school so I would make a motion to delete that third paragraph In fairness to our students that were treating everyone as they should be unequally or equitably excuse me I'll second that we have a second from Matt so it's open for discussion so again the a motion is to amend the prior motion which would be to delete the third point of the of the five that I included uh Kelly so I am in favor of keeping um the original proposed language that would require the athletes to move to

196the Online Academy um for a few reasons um but most importantly I uh I believe strongly based on uh conversations with many parents or interaction with many parents via email that there are those who are currently participating in the cohort model who will feel quite uncomfortable knowing that we have athletes participating in in-person competition at this time when the rates are so high in our community that they would be doing that inside and in some instance says the competition would potentially be taking uh Place unmasked and so I think in all fairness to those parents and students who want to participate in person uh but feel that the risk is too high um that this is an undue burden to place on those parents who and those children who may feel that they need to

197then self- select out of the cohort model um and as a member of the Dei committee I fully recognize um the issues of equity with sports but I would also um argue that uh from an equity perspective the safety of the in-person learning is our primary responsibility as a school board and it needs to be prioritized um as the top priority of our district as it should be other discussion I think you I think what Kelly said has a lot of validity around how um you know other students and all of our teachers and staff you know the the risk that they that they worry about in terms of um all of this happening during a period of time with rapidly increasing rates in the community um and so I completely appreciate that we had

198a very success uccessful fall season I was very supportive of that fall season and I also do want to create opportunities for winter athletes but I do think we're in a different situation now uh than what we were in uh in the fall both in terms of the activities themselves but also the environment uh as it exists today uh any other discussion or we'll move to a a vote okay so we're taking a roll call vote on Jen's Amendment to the motion which is to strike the third bullet uh which again uh in summary relates to um virtual attendance in school um during winter Athletics Miss vagora can you please take a roll call vote Mrs lent hi Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman nay Mr Ballas nay Miss samino hi Dr Downey nay sorry Dr

199Huff nay Mr cutas I Dr Grandy nay the motion fails 5 to four all right making notes we're back to discussion of the original motion yeah I have a question on the motion you mentioned starting practice on the on the 7th uh is there any reason why we wouldn't consider staring practice on the 30th instead is there some significance between the 7th and the 30th regarding the motion you know I think that you know the the reasoning I had there was related to um some of the concerns that Marilyn raised earlier about um Thanksgiving and related travel and holiday Gatherings and waiting till December 7th uh would allow us a little bit of uh time away from some of those Gatherings and travel I understand at least for indoor indoor practices certainly you know the

200the outdoor practicing as it exists today could resume and my understanding from what I heard earlier is the 30th and no if we if we wait till the 30th it does not curtail anything regarding participation in competition is that correct if we wait till the the 30th or the 7th or specifically 30 the seventh I apologize if we wait as the motion was stated it does not cause any difficulty for any of the competitions is that correct yeah and I if I I don't know if Mr Clancy is still on but that was what we heard earlier as it relates to postseason eligibility as well as a number of games that could be achieved as well as um I think some of the start dates it's not that far off from some of the start

201dates of our our peers so just to clarify um if we were to start on December 7th um you need three weeks of practice before the first competition so we would not be able to have a competition until after New Year's and if we held firm to um closing the building during the two weeks of winter break the first competition then would be um January 9th if we start on the 7th um so that would cut out a couple of Gams but um most of the Season would be intact thank you so Mr Clancy it's three weeks of practice so you need 15 practices over the course of 19 days um I reached out to district one just to clarify it does not need to be 19 consecutive days so for example our colleagues in

202Montgomery County some of them started with tryouts last week and then that cut off the first three days of practice for whenever they're allowed to return under Montgomery County's WS um so for our purposes if we started the 7th we would be able to get 10 practices maybe 11 or 12 before we close for winter break and then after winter break we could return um one of the new rules the P BL put in anytime a team must take off for three days or more they must have three days of practice before a return competition as well that's really more for if a team has to quarantine they don't want them taking two weeks off then rushing back to a game you know so um I'm mentioning that because any way we break it if

203we're taking off a winter break there's going to need to be a three-day gap before competition and so November 30th start date allows for competition before the winter a November 30th um start date for practice would mean the game that we have scheduled on December 18th could take place and we have a game scheduled for December 22nd as well now um taking a quick peek at the opponents um as to our opponent's availability based on their school boards right now we're scheduled to open on the 18th with marel new town and the 22nd is scheduled against pencrest um so pen Crest we know is around marle New Town um we believe they're going to have their board meeting later this week um so we'll find out about their availability but if we start the 30th

204we would be able to complete all 16 um basketball games we would get all eight dual wrestling matches in all seven swim meets um if we start a week later it cuts us down to five swim meets um seven wrestling mat matches and 12 basketball games uh and another question would we if we practice guarantee social distancing and mask at all times throughout the practice first of all there would be guarantees of masking throughout the practice for basketball because we expect that will be a protocol used throughout games and the like um in terms of can we maintain six feet social distance through practice um I would say for some of the earlier practices when we're doing skill development with dribbling shooting things like that we probably could um start with you know extra protocols

205in place but eventually um for wrestling and basketball they are going to need to teach the specific um skills that you would use you know for wrestling and you know defensive plays and things like that for basketball where um they would need to be a little closer together at some point now if the board had to put some restrictions in the earlier practice you know I'm sure our coaches would be willing to work with that Jerry did you have anything else uh I'm debating whether to uh make an amend amendment to your motion to move it to the 30th and I will do that see how the board feels I would like to amend to move from the 7th to the 30th to November 30th right I second that second by Larry okay uh discussion

206uh Kelly is that a hand for this or that was yes it is um and I wanted to ask a question of Dr Palmer um when we I know that uh we have not had the in school transmission uh of covid and but I know that at the same time um due to uh Gatherings that happened outside of school we ended up having to quarantine um members or large portions of our a few of our sports teams I was wondering if you could comment on which sports teams uh how many of them had to be quarantined at some point during The Fall season now I'm having difficulty recalling it I know there was one there was one one in particular because there were a large group of children I want to say I believe there

207were two large quarantines and then the other ones were individuals on the team but I I'm not 100% sure I can only vividly recall the one maybe okay I believe there was one team that was quarantined twice as a team um and then there was two other teams that face quarantines towards the end of their season thank you Pat um the other one the two other teams with single incidents it was single cases single positive incidents on the team um and when we went through the discovery and went through the chest Health Department they recommended the whole team quarantine but we are not aware of any Transmissions from those cases okay ask the question primarily because again as we consider the fact that we're coming to be coming off the holiday um we know that

208we have a large number of students unfortunately in families that seem to be traveling for Thanksgiving um as the students have been indicating such and communicating as such to their teachers uh so it concerns me um considerably to move immediately back into practice um immediately post uh the holiday uh Marilyn did you have your hand up for this one yes I did okay I I agree with Kelly's concern there because by November 30th the students will have no idea and no way to have been tested since Thanksgiving to know if they are covid positive or not and if we start practice that soon I think we are setting up those teams for potential quarantine now just uh to clarify this if if our student athletes travel they would be subject to the same exact 14-day

209quarantine requirement that we talked about earlier um and so I think that's part of the equation here and I hadn't thought about that at the moment um but when I made the motion but I would actually be inclined to to support the modification that that Jerry has put forward uh based on that uh I see Jen's hand up actually Dave that's what I was going to say as well I mean it's a state guideline that you need to quarantine for 14 days if you are traveling so that's what they would be doing if they were traveling or a negative test I mean that's that's where it stands right now that's a state state guidelines so thank you Dave you said what I was going to say okay Dr Grandy Dave is fine can can we

210clarify about the state guidelines are the state guidelines related to only Interstate travel or does it also include intrastate travel Interstate only so yes leaving Pennsylvania coming back to Pennsylvania okay so if you're visiting family in 5 hours away in the middle of of or on the western side of Pennsylvania you don't have to quarantine is that what we're saying correct that's the state requirement could we set a stricter requirement what I would say is if you want to suggest that we entertain it separately is there any other discussion on Jerry's motion or can we move to a vote oh sorry Sor staring at my computer start jumping and waving um just a couple of observations one I'm actually more worried about practice than I am competition I think of the swimming context and I'm

211more worried about the kids who are sharing Lanes in practice than I am in competition where you get up on the blocks race your race and get out and put your mask back on but I also think that the reason we're taking this up tonight is to get practices on under way and so bumping up the timing to the 30th makes sense to me if we wanted to wait and see where the data goes then we could just vote on the 7th when we meet anyway um and then my my last observation is just if we pass this because Jen's modification didn't pass it means the second swimming practices start the whole swim team's going to be forced into virtual learning um that seems a bit Draconian to me but it is is what it

212is okay uh I don't see any other hands up so we're gonna take a roll call vote on Jerry's motion to change the date at which practices May commence from December 7th to November 30th Mr Sullivan hi Mrs wman May Mr Ballas I Miss simino I Dr [Music] Downey I Dr Huff nay Mr cutas I Mrs lent I Dr Grandy hi the motion passes 7 to2 all right uh so that takes us back to now the uh original motion which has now been amended um just testing all my procedural knowledge here um so it's the original motion the only thing that has changed is the practice date starting November 30th instead of December 7th uh any discussion on that Marilyn so I have a question in that we get um District level information from the

213Chester County Health Department about covid incidence rates um every week on Fridays and this past Friday our rate was uh 260 per 100,000 residents and the week before it was 160 per 100,000 residents and I presume we will also get data this Friday or Saturday even though it is the holiday uh and if that rate were to rise dramatically would that impact um the decision to resume practices on November 30th as it stands no but I don't know if that was a question for me can I ask the followup to that then which would be for me what what's the end game then if if we continue to see rates go up are we going to be looking like now we look for are we seeing transmission within the schools are we going to be

214looking for transmission within the sports team or are we going to be pulling the plug earlier based on you know broader concerns than that what's what's gonna be our metric for ending the sports season if we needed to I think it's it's always hard qu I know everybody wants like a very specific decision point and I would love to have that but in general I think it's a little hard to say but I would imagine if we started having cases on our teams teams are quarantined they can't play if we started seeing widespread cases in in other teams suggesting that the activities themselves in the context of the rates that we have in the community are leading to outbreaks on sports teams in general I think those would be the kind of broad considerations that

215at least I personally would think about uh at that moment in time I think just uh an absolute rate in the community is not necessarily yeah sorry I didn't mean to suggest there was some bright line we should be setting I'm just wondering a what's the framework what's the Matrix we're going to look at for that decision and B is it even we the ones that are going to be making that decision are we going to need to meet again to vote or is that something that Mr Clancy and Dr Palmer are going to be able to decide in the interum well there's always the opportunity that we've empowered the administration if there's a if there's a acute Health concern safety concern to implement measures and bring them back to the board so if they

216need to happen in a timely fashion and it is something the administration would be able to do ultimately it needs to come back to the board do we need to make that part of this motion or is that just standard procedure that that power is there we made that standard procedure correct two meetings ago I think yeah so no there's no specific action that needs to be taken to to um make that a reality uh Mr Burman yes um so I just wanted to point out that earlier in this meeting uh you were authorized to sign off with the uh superintendent on the what the what PD is calling an attestation uh what that does among other things is it um reaffirms The District's agreement to follow the Department of Health guidelines uh so in

217the event that certain mil Stones Get triggered uh you would end up having to follow those guidelines regardless so it doesn't actually require further board action in that regard okay uh any other discussion on this before we have a roll call vote are we back to the original motion not well the amended motion but the full motion at this point exactly all right uh Miss Fagor can you I'm sorry Dave can you clarify that again like what oh sure so this was the the long motion that I read before um as I read it um but with the one modification that practices May commence November 30th as opposed to December 7th okay all right thank you all right um Miss Vora can you please take a roll call vote Mrs wman N Mr Ballas I

218miss simino hi Dr Downey we couldn't hear you Michelle I thank you Dr Huff no Mr cus I Mrs lent I'm going to vote I but I am vehemently against making these athletes attend school virtually and I hope it's something that we can revisit I think that's that is a terrible part of this motion for so many reasons but I don't want to hold up these Sports so I'll vote I'll vote I Mr Sullivan I Dr Grandy I Dr Grandy the motion passes 7 to2 all right thank you Miss Fagor uh are there any other motions in curriculum if not we're going to move to finance okay onward to finance so we have six items for approval and finance are there anyone any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay

219uh first we have approval of payment of invoices to vendors dated uh October 21st through uh November 17 2020 we have acknowledgement of receipt of the financial statements as stipulated we have approval of the October 2020 Treasures report we have approval of the 2020 2021 budget transfers as stipulated we've acknowledgement of a donation from the class of 2024 in the amount of $1,120 to help pay for a w bottle filler at Kingfield we have an approval of an agreement with Thomas stcker and Associates to perform an equity audit as stipulated and as described in the focus topic earlier um all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion I'll move Jerry BS thank you Jerry do we have a second second Kelly wman I got you

220Matt uh any discussion all right Miss Vora can you please take a roll call vote Mr Ballas I miss smino I Dr Downey I Dr Huff I Mr cutas I Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Dr Grandy I motion passes 9 to zero all right uh so this takes us to our second time for audience recognition but I think we already covered audience recognition um oh is okay hi good evening if you could just I'm over here state your name uh address just street address is fine uh and then you can go ahead uh can everyone hear me yes yes uh good evening I'm Robert christaldi Jr of plam Boulevard in Wallingford I'm a junior at Strath Haven High School and I think in some ways I can provide a unique experience

221that this board has not yet seen uh considering I had been to the high school before covid came first and foremost I want to thank the wssd teachers staff and families for Rising uh to pass challenges and the ones who are rising to this one at this time though I'm disappointed by WSS D's performance in handling the crisis I love Strath Haven and I'm proud to tell people that I go to this fabulous District but I think this year has been terrible from the start I'd like to focus on asynchronous Wednesdays and the half days and the school schedule for asynchronous Wednesdays I have seen and heard students staff families and parents stand at this Podium and say they are necessary needed and important for the district's teachers parents and families I think they're a

222loud minority and personally I have seen some teachers never post on Wednesdays and I lose a whole day of learning and then they complain every other day of the week that they don't have enough time to teach the lessons that they need to teach for each week asynchronous work for me takes less than 60 Minutes combined for all four classes on a good day sometimes there's nothing to do at all I'm just disappointed yes it's supposed to be a teacher work day but teachers have never needed it before so why do they need it now it doesn't make sense or add up many parents have sat at their kitchen tables or on their couches and looked at this Podium listening to the people speaking thinking about how necessary they are and wondering this very question

223where were they before it just can't be now that they need these days don't be afraid to say it Wednesdays are not school days they are days off every single time the consequences of having us learning on Le not even on Zoom is too great we lost 65 days of learning this spring and at our current rate we have lost another 36 by June 2021 combined that is 101 school days and that's more than half a school year uh while we've had work in the spring it wasn't it was just asynchronous work which wasn't real school this means over half a year of instruction will be lost at our current rate in June 2021 I only I so that means I would have compared to before I would have only been through the middle of

22411th grade not the end while we can't make up for this lost time we can't easily save the future and this doesn't include the fact that us students at straat Haven High School only spend four and a half hours for four days four and a half hours per day four days a week for instruction compared to six or six and a half five days a week like before there are 180 school days this year take out the 36 asynchronous Wednesdays accounted for already and there are 144 remaining we miss at least one and a half hours of school every day compared to before this means we miss 216 hours of instruction and that's roughly equal to the 36 school days which adds to the previously mentioned 101 making it 137 days lost during the Pand

225mic by June 2021 make no mistake we are lagging behind not just a little a lot we need 80 minute blocks every day all five days a week just like before right now it appears teachers are only working four days a week taxpayers are not asking for a 1 reduction in their taxes they're simply asking for the same quality education they got before it is certain we are currently not my teachers are constantly rushing through lessons saying we are getting the truncated version instead of the full lesson uh this is disappointing and the taxpayers know this and they see it and they don't like it they know teachers aren't teaching as much and therefore my prediction is is if you don't give us the education we deserve they will seriously demand tax reduction their patience

226is running thin and I know mine is as for half days I've looked at the schedule over and over again and and every aspect of it does not make sense school starts on different days uh school starts on different days each day at different times and ends on different times lunches are on different different times classes are at different times and there's no consistency it's a strain on all the parents of this hardworking School District not all the parents can be home when their child comes home from school and can never work their schedule around this one as for half days it doesn't make sense that the middle and elementary school can do it but we can't it would be so easy we need at least two full in-person days of instruction learning and hopefully

227we can get to three four or five this spring I know there are concerns for spaces for lunches but the high school has a library a cafeteria an outside space if it's a nice day and it has the gym if there's no classes being run in there you could bring back the ab and C lunches to space out students even more and I can't see why we can't do this if we can spend the time on to create a diversity Equity equity and inclusion committee spent on and they take the time we spend on that project we might just have two full days uh another concept quence of the half day system is no one bothered to pay attention to the school zone flashing sign on Providence and Brook Haven Road there was almost a

228crash on Brook Haven Road this time last week uh by the high school because my school bus was making a left without the protection of a flashing school zone sign because it was 10:30 not 2:30 the car was traveling at least 40 miles per hour which is the designated speed limit and that area also has a pedestrian crosswalk buses have horns children don't if I was walking to or from school and I needed to cross the street at 10:30 a.m. whether I'm coming to or from I'd be very nervous uh this is a result of our half day schedule I digress the important part is we are not getting the instruction this District promised like when I joined it 12 years ago I could have gone somewhere else but I didn't Services I needed were

229provided here and this is one of the best schools in the country don't make my family regret this Choice My overall experience has been okay at best I already talked about the half days the asynchronous W States but I haven't talked about the actual experience the hallways are divided like a highway and even then they're rarely obeyed uh it's done it's been done in grocery stores across this country no it doesn't work just take them off the floor uh we are told not to turn our heads to face our friends six feet apart even just for a second on Zoom we never have a chance to speak to other students or get updates on each other's lives like we did before helping a friend by sliding the pencil six feet across the floor to share

230it is discouraged I'm confident we can remove some of these obsessive restrictions and we can make school feel more normal again is it possible that this school board is deliberately making things difficult by refusing to share data making in-person education feel more alien and driving us to zoom classes because you were afraid of the teachers union whom I have been searching for have certain has been pushing for all virtual yes Folks at home teachers have been telling me the union has been pushing for all virtual against the will of this District's taxpayers but in trying to appease the teachers union I believe you have abandoned two principles that school has one to provide excellent education and two to to allow students to Foster and grow friendships with our peers point one is not being satisfied

231and neither is two if we can't even get the two basic Straits what's the point we might as well give up I also wanted to comment on the board's consideration to return to all virtual which happily has been declined for now the time to do it is not now it's definitely won't be in a few weeks everyone in the District staff teachers students we're all wearing masks social distancing and washing our hands and staying safe we still have the ability to contact trace and we students are filling out the symptom tracker most importantly there has been no zero transmission that we know of between student or staff at the high school since October 12th when hybrid learning began uh the time to do the time to turn around and doubt ourselves is definitely not now

232finally I want to say something our community is feeling but some have already expressed this s sentiment but it doesn't feel like you've hurt us our community is suffering my friends are suffering I am suffering we just want to go back to school and we want to be there for at least two days a week let those who don't want to go go to the Online Academy but don't punish us for wanting an education some of us just want to go to our friends and learn from our teachers who can Will and have supported us during this time we want to go back to school and to conclude in the last board meeting uh one administrative official said that we should get more in school time by using the fifth block this person knows who

233they are and knows that doesn't make sense and I was disgusted when I heard it it really shows some people don't understand and I'm very disappointed you can do better than that school board don't let us down don't let me down the risks are worth the reward they are thank you for listening and good evening thank you all right I don't think we have any other uh comments uh so that takes us to school board reports do we have any reports for members serving on District subcommittees or out of District roles okay do we have any old business Jen sorry new business okay uh do new business you're up okay uh yes um Mrs garfinkle um wrote a decently a lengthy letter tonight and um I just want to make sure that she's going to

234be followed up with I know that she didn't discuss things that were addressed at this board meeting but I think that the issues she raises in her letter which is this crunch time for a six-year-old in first grade to get her her assignments in by Christmas to get the points is um something that needs to be addressed so I'm wondering how we're going to address that um is there a plan Dr Palmer is that something be followed up on um Miss lens I will definitely follow up on it my initial reaction is to speak with Mr Savage thank you uh any other new business okay um I just want to say I know this is not an easy meeting we had to work through a lot of difficult decisions and I know there are many

235many competing uh demands um that we're trying to address with um keeping kids in school as best and long as we can and also creating these extracurricular opportunities as well so I just appreciate all the all the difficult conversations this evening um I appreciate the board working together to try to to come to some resolution uh and make some decisions for our students um so anyway I just want to express that again I know it's late and I know it was a very long meeting but I do appreciate everyone hanging in there uh and working through these issues um and with that um thank you again and this meeting is adjourned