West Chester Area School District Board Meeting 02/28/2022

001we hereby call to order the february 2022 meeting of the west chester area school board business meeting let's start with a salute to the flag led by kira osha and joseph of east virgin elementary is thank you hero and joseph did i tell you they would all go with you everybody would salute with you and welcome to our school board meeting welcome also to your families who are over there and your principal mr dennis brown who did not write your speech for you right no right we thank you for a report tonight to on what is happening at east ocean with the road runners take it away hi my name is joe falcon i'm a fifth grader at east georgia elementary school a fun event that we do with east ocean is drought and friday

002each teacher takes this team and has under class that shares your gender behavior but very different behavior staying on task showing respect to others being kind to classmates and helping others a teacher is also named murderer new this year students can now vote for another teacher of their choice to be roadrunner too after your name is called over the lab feature you go down to the office there you get a white order and sticker for yourself you also get a green ribbon or sticker to give to someone that you thought is showing roger behavior mr brown takes a picture of all the runners that we can post on twitter another fun activity that we have at ege is after school sports between the fifth grade now now that we are back in school full time

003we can do this program again mrs kiefer one of our fourth grade teachers runs this program once or twice a month we meet after school to play different sports with our classmates so far we've played soccer volleyball basketball hockey my favorite has been for hockey because i'm a nice hockey player i hope you learned a little bit about some fun things that happen at eg thank you for your time and attention to it [Applause] hi my name is kara ishong i'm a fifth grader at east station elementary school a cool thing at east christian elementary school hoppers in third grade after learning about special civilization students depending on the day dedicated to hands-on activities with the help of the art teacher mrs mccluskey and some other teachers and parents the hallway is set up to

004look like it was an ancient time the parents and teachers also put together funny stations for our students this includes writing your name in horror focus a presentation from an archaeologist from the penn museum building temples and pyramids abilities and lessons and being able to resume an artifact from ancient civilization ancient celebrations today is one of the great activities the musical at east station elementary school is just one of the many amazing things the school has to offer the fifth grade students may participate in it so it is 100 optional it will be introduced to all the fifth graders by our incredible youtube teacher at mrs atkinson the musical is different each and every year sometimes there's something familiar to you like annie others aren't seeing something you may not have heard of like how

005should you read it applause the most recent one that i participated in it is an amazing experience there are plenty of practices to share for the performance you get to perform twice once for the students and again in the evening for parents your parents and siblings choosing to participate in an awesome school and watching the musical is just a phenomenal vocation thank you for letting me share some of the amazing things east elementary school [Applause] but i wanted to ask you you will eventually be going to ruston high school is that correct no you will be going to east now did you see happen to see the little mermaid at east was that not great i really want to get a pair of those shoes so you can roll back and forth very fast that

006was a great performance did you get to meet any of the little mermaids in person oh dear well um i want to thank both of you for taking your time this evening and dragging your parents with you to come out to this meeting because people really appreciate hearing from students the wonderful stuff that is happening at your school what was a big deal about today was anything especially special about the day that's what i thought you might say [Laughter] [Music] it was a kind of funny day wasn't it to be without the masks and and some kids are still wearing them which is just fine and some adults are still wearing them as you can see here and that's still fine and um pretty soon people are going to get to know the rest of

007your face and just know you by your eyes all right all right here comes dr and then we'll get back okay huh thank you guys [Applause] baby uh next on the agenda is roll call for the board mrs chairshore vice president babalaswa here director chester here director destiny here director of janelle here director plumbing here director hermann here director scholar here president shannon here director wellesley selena will porter madison gamble thank you before we begin our public comments i would like us to pause for a moment of silence for ukraine and its people i don't need to say anything else but we'll just be quiet for a few minutes and think about them thank you very much that leads to public comments on agenda items if you have filled out a card at the table

008in the back mr jennings we'll call you to the microphone mr jennings it's all yours thank you very much as indicated this is now the time for public comment on agenda items when public commenters names are called i ask that they please approach the podium and begin by stating their first name last name and home municipality if an individual is providing public comment on behalf of a group or entity please state your group or entity affiliation public comments will be limited to two minutes per person per current board policy the two-minute time clock will be projected on the screen at the end of the two minutes the next public commenter will be called the board asks that all commentary be directed to the board as a whole public comments may be interrupted or terminated if

009the commentary exceeds two minutes or if it is obscene and or threatening in nature we will now call the first speaker daniel gillen good evening everybody my agenda commented brief it's on the proposed rule 0 0 6.3 which relates to the public broadcasting and posting of board meeting videos most of the old board meeting videos in recent weeks have gone missing from the youtube channel um there's a few that are still up there but i generally disagree with that decision or that move i think the videos are a valuable important part of the district's history and they provide valuable contact for future decisions of the board that they should remain on the youtube channel for instance i want to watch a presentation right here from last year on scl i should be able to do

010it therefore i suggest that policy zero zero six three be supplemented to require the board meeting videos to remain available for some set period time or definitely although we let at least let taxpayers or parents do them in a private setting uh brief carla i did see an old video from march of 2020 of the former superintendent when he was discussing the beginning of the pandemic in the video he said that ideally the kindergarten teacher teaches right in front of her students so they can see her smiling face and reassuring words i'm happy today that that is now a reality for my daughter thank you very much [Applause] about it good evening melissa bennett west ocean township i just wanted to take the opportunity again to say thank you for the work on next year's

011calendar i'm grateful to be in a school district that includes a variety of religious holidays in particular that eid el cador is a day off for both students and staff thank you we are a stronger community than we are so thank you [Applause] neil bison oh people both come down mckenzie west ocean baby is this thing okay so i'm only wearing a mask now because i cut myself while shaving this morning at a clean athlete it might be crazy you all to hear that but uh but i'm only wearing it because i choose to wear uh not because someone is making me wear it and i'm certainly not wearing it because i believe that it does anything without me those mass natural freedom proponents always wanted to be the parents decision whether manchester city or

012not i don't think anyone ever had the legal authority to make someone aware of that many of us played along to be gracious and or give people in here to position the benefit of doubt it will be one of the community's greatest games to go along with this over the past few years many of you up there caused terrible harm to the students and you should have known a few years ago that matters don't do anything it was unjust for you to threaten to close your schools without compliance indeed children were not getting sick from clothing in any significant number they weren't spreading it the freedom fighters always knew this that the foster plus mass didn't do anything to stop food the size of the open distance between the fibers of the moth of the

013block mass compared to the size of the virus is like a doorway in a softball you don't need a phd in biology or a big farmer to know this and by the way science doesn't change what changes what we learned what people say and these days what people are allowed to hear as a community we need to figure out how to deal with leaders who lie to us are incompetent or high data we shouldn't be required to fill out right to know requests for simple afghanistan they're better than any curious impressed administrators and i think it is time that we hold them accountable and ask them to publicly resign their positions immediately the honorable thing to do so i'm up here to talk about the academic calendar on i'm an irish path to get an

014engineer so many of you see where i'm going with this st patrick's day is very important to me and i know most of you accelerated as well whether it's just wearing green that day or trying our time went on to go there therefore i think we should consider having that every year or most importantly the day after [Applause] before i begin to acknowledge the young people who spoke today it's wonderful to see them come out and speak before the group as you know it can be difficult my name is neil weissman east bradford county i read dr sokolowski's email from saturday night admittedly after all after the constant dire messaging and two years of not considering the wishes of all district constituents i am skeptical as i read about the transition to the mass of

015mass optional policy i thought back to the february 14th educational committee meeting where members of this board debated for 20 minutes the distinction between recommended enough and optional suddenly a catharsis coming to the abrupt conclusion and implied agreement with the less incredible cdc that mass do not work that social distancing is just two words those who merely ask questions about the so-called science were vilified shunned and accused of wanting people to die for over a year the administration and the board hid behind virtual meetings without the opportunity for public comment every decision ignored the will of all for the support of the few to dr sokolowski and new board members you at least get a small pass because you were not here from the beginning of this campaign the mass decision is twofold it is

016an admission that you are acting politically continuing to do so the winds have shifted and keeping policies will hurt many during the next election election cycle this has never been about the science it was a motion masking is science the health and safety plan is more confusing than congressional legislation but the stroke of attend all all of it will come all this is time to move on it is time to leave and stop back away i've seen the bureaucrats on elected officials and a vocal minority scrap the health and safety plan and let people make their own decisions tonight you should issue a statement that you will never again close schools never again revert to the plan i do not speak for others but i know many share my views never again teach our children

017to hide from adversity to fear never again do anything that you know will create division with the stroke of the pen you close schools it will take more than a stroke of a pen to get things back to normal [Applause] and then judy despondo good evening i'm a journalist from wyoming county pa you guys in an evolutionary phase are beyond us so we're here to do a little investigative journalism of how the school runs and the agenda i know i'm asking for um one of the biggest concerns that uh you guys have a 260 million dollar budget one page for the agenda this is going to be really bad for you because we're going to teach people that you have to be better informed for 260 million dollars but the minutes last last week we're

018meeting minutes you guys are going to prove me here tonight and i see them the sunshine lab requires that perfect information is available for the people reading versus eagle this is bad folks see me afterwards if you care to know more yeah i appreciate that everybody should have a copy but thank you [Applause] uh hi uh i'm judy defonda i still live in east ocean and uh i'm here tonight uh to talk about leanna renery's retirement um when she started with westchester school district uh we have just been uh what it is by uh testing education and uh they found a lot of problems with westchester and over the course of her ten years uh i think she's done a lot to turn things around uh she worked with parents we used to meet every

019month small group of specialist parents and she would meet friday afternoon because that's kind of when her uh her agenda had signed and um [Music] uh conversations and uh i'll tell you she's very very knowledgeable i learned a lot from her and um i think that the school district is losing a great action with her retirement i also wanted to mention about lisa piper who's worked with her we've met on occasion with brianne and she's also retiring and again another big loss to the district and um i wish both you and lisa a good retirement uh hopefully you'll have many years and uh enjoy it and that you thank you judy i really appreciate those comments i'll be happy thank you sorry that's it next is the approval of the minutes of the january 24th

0202022 board meeting may i have motions to approve please mr vevalakov first and uh kate dr shaw ii roll call please any comments or questions on the yes director shawn yes director chester yes director wonsley yes director dietrich yes director herman yes director yes director fleming yes yes thank you that will move us to approval of the february 28 2022 school board meeting agenda and i have a motion to approve uh okay miss chester in a second dr dietrich any questions or comments about tonight's agenda no please director chester yes director yeah director grenell yes director plumbing yes director shaw yes director yes director herman yes vice president kevin aqua yes thank you mrs karashore please add to the meeting minutes for this evening that we met as a board in executive session earlier this

021evening on personnel matters also on february 14th for legal matters and on february 22nd for legal and personnel matters this leads us to the superintendent's report dr shock thank you president siernan a lot of good news i'd like to share the westchester area school district has been celebrating black history month by participating in writing assignments door decorating competitions history projects research writing presentations and assemblies devoted to honoring the important contributions of african americans the district also had the honor and really historic honor of holding a moderated discussion with dr bernice king daughter of dr martin luther king jr and coretta scott king director of equity and assessment this is dawn matter led the moderated discussion which was live streamed in schools and to all who had registered for the event that was absolutely a wonderful

022program and i can't thank you enough business matter for organizing that this past saturday uh was the 37th annual black student union banquet that took place virtually and actually four of my former students from henderson were recognized the theme and i guess this is indicating i'm getting a little bit older was honoring the legacy of the bsu and in particular former henderson students graduates roger white jason henshaw stephen dennis and zaire newton it was great to see them the district invited all school counselors career counselors intervention specialists mental health specialists and psychologists to recognize national school counseling week back earlier in the month fern hill elementary school recently received a donation of five thousand dollars to the school in celebration of burlington stores opening of their new store in exit fernhill plans to purchase supplies

023for the school library is grateful for our new neighbors westchester east girls basketball team held their sixth annual pink game fundraiser for unite for her they raised over thirteen hundred dollars by selling unite for her merchandise and through a fake sale raffle baskets and halftime shooting contest donations in the area of business moody's investors service has assigned a triple-a rating once again to the westchester area school district the district's aaa issuer rating reflects a robust financial position that is expected to remain healthy through 2022 and also in the area of business future business leaders 21 deca students qualified for the atlanta international career development conference 45 students received awards one student was awarded a scholarship and the entire group received a total of 69 medals and trophies additionally uh their advisor mrs carol lill from

024east high school was selected as the pa advisor of the year mrs lill has been the advisor at east for 22 years and is tireless and her support and encouragement of our students congratulations carol this month buget middle school right here in huguen welcomed the great grandson of j.r feud and jay russell fugit uh came and he shared the story of the rich family history of the pugets including j.r fugits history as the principal of the gay street school following his presentation russell joined students teachers and board members and district administration to learn more about the student experience at fugit it's also musical season as we heard from president tyrion last week he's presented a musical the little mermaid and rustin will put on beauty and the beast and henderson's musical mamma mia will all

025take place uh from march 17th through the 19th more information about these performances as well as other concert happenings can be found on the districts at our school's websites and in the other area of business uh in budget news governor wolf recently presented the pre-k and k-12 education funding uh would grow by 1.9 billion or 19 to 11.6 billion dollars about 1.8 billion more was requested for instruction operations in special education in public schools or about 21 more than this past year of that 300 million is set aside for the 100 poorest public school districts in pennsylvania and 200 million for special education the budget also requested the establishment of a statewide cyber charter tuition rate of about 9 800 per student that would save 199 million a year for school districts based on enrollment

026in outside cyber schools our district would say if this does come to fruition 1.4 million dollars annually on cyber tuitions and lastly an athletic honor that we learned of just last week uh one of our very own middle school westchester cyber students rhys giarano was named to the 2022 u.s under 16 women's national field hockey team it's a huge accomplishment at such a young age the under 16 thank you [Applause] this club will convene in raleigh north carolina for a training camp from march to the 14th before heading to vancouver canada for a four match series against the canadians women's team and congratulations once again to reese i do also just want to take a moment right here here today is president tiernon mentioned we did receive news for change of guidance from the cdc

027interestingly enough that came on the heels of the westchester area school district proposing revisions to our health and safety plan as we had done in the past when we had received updated guidance we moved promptly we moved swiftly but we moved with a lot of care a lot of compassion and a lot of concern for our students uh as well as our staff and just being about today in eight of our our seventeen buildings uh it was just so wonderful to see our students uh just and i know it was a cold monday but it was a very bright day in so many ways across the school district and while i know that this pivot for some families was a bit abrupt i want to just express that we are still practicing mitigation strategies in

028our schools for example at the present time our classrooms are mostly still one directional our cafeterias are still one directional we look to as as things progress and i cross my fingers and i say my prayers uh that we will continue to make progress uh with this pandemic and those situations those one dimensional one directional seating will be able to reintroduce a lot of the flexible city that we had brought uh years ago before the pandemic started so i'm looking forward to a wonderful and a bright spring i'm looking forward to 2022 and being together so thank you [Applause] now we are pleased to have our high school student representative reports eliana rodro from east europe first you'll just use the podium please hi everyone um i'm freezing so can you shiver this one um

029good evening um east has had a pretty amazing month since my last report um with regards to deca and i don't mean to repeat everything you just said but um deca had about 21 students who qualified for the atlanta ic dc and a total of 45 students to receive awards a scholarship winner and a total of 69 medals and trophies for our entire group there were six in first place four in second place sixth and third place seventh and fourth and four finalists congratulations to everyone and i can't wait to see how everyone does in april um the east girls up club has been collecting donations for gently used dresses for their say yes to the free prom dress event the dress shop opens in the library on march 1st and will remain open until

030the beginning of may donations are also being accepted in the east ocean township building as the township sustainability advisory committee is also including a drive as part of their upcoming sustainability expo i don't want to brag too much about our athletic department but we truly are kicking butt um on friday uh february 11th the east girls basketball team had their sixth annual pick out game fundraiser for the unite for her um like doctor scott glassy says we successfully raised over thirteen hundred dollars by selling knight for her merchandise fake still goodies raffles baskets halftime shooting contests donations and so much more there was a great team effort by the western east players coaches administration families and fans we would like to also thank the oxford high school girls basketball team and fans for participating in

031the events with us um the boys basketball team was on fire um after the being in chestnut champions for the past three years it has led them to their amazing season this year they have made it through district 1 playoffs and earned a spot in the state tournament because of their most recent win last friday please show your support for the boys on their next game tomorrow night at downtown west at 7 pm swim also had a great season with the following swimmers qualified for the district 1 swimming championship this meet will be will be among the fastest in the state of pennsylvania and it's no easy task uh with the boys in visual events albert mcnall giuliano butcherelli gavin hefferman with the girls individual of events sarah zaminski taylor tegler sam hetlan and then

032the uh relay race um sarah zaminski again taylor tegler olivia's puno ali sambuco and angelica wendell indoor track has an amazing season as well um with the following vikings competing at the indoor state truck uh track championships chennai uh menovi uh in the 60 to 200 meters and matt bergen in the high jumps switching over to the arts the east theatre company performed a little mermaid this past weekend for four packs audiences over 80 students in grades 9-12 were involved in the cast cruise and orchestra and they all performed exceptionally with talent and energy the leads were grateful and were able to perform without masks for the first time since 2020. the show featured junior cameron snow as ariel and freshman andrew brunswick as prince eric people in the community were enthralled with the magic

033of disney with each performance this year marks the 30th consecutive production for the musical director and east high school choral direct choral director uh kendra warner i don't know if anyone saw it here but um if you were to tell me i called broadway i would believe you um the costumes the sets the dances the music it was all just so amazing um the viking slam volleyball tournament is back at east on tuesday march 8th from six to nine in the gym teens will participate in a series of games and a costume contest i can't wait to see the turnout and i'm very excited to play my last viking slam lastly the east national arts honors society which i am president of um is having their annual coffeehouse on friday march 11th from 7 to

0349 p.m in the east cafe come out to see all the beautiful artwork decorations music coffee and just have a great time thank you and have a great [Applause] now young man young man obviously you're not world porter no you're not yeah it is that and you don't have a mask on here we go lovely to see you uh starting in sports uh wrestling to come the district one title and continue on the stage this uh past weekend is nine wrestlers medals for the warriors juniors uh carmichael tasey and senior billy wilson paul millennium press patton all placed first in their respective weight classes uh in swimming uh nine swimmers qualified for states at the district commute last weekend uh the girls 200 meter relay of christa marlin katie simpson rather kelly and janet gamble

035took home goals for the warriors and they continue on the stage with the first seat and favorite swim goal again uh boys basketball while suits off games and we're knocked out of the playoffs which is the farthest team since 2007. um in other news henderson deca competed at states uh this month as uh sacrifices state side uh multiple groups found success during the three day uh two night state literacy lodge for the group of dylan falls for native labrador we're the only henderson students to qualify for nationals in atlanta this spring earlier this month the henderson high school red cross club came together to make over 30 lunches for the residents of state harvard the students made sandwiches and packaged all the meals into brown paper bags safe harper's safe harbor vancouver students and seven

036meals for the delicious uh henderson senior monty byrd was presented with the alice m thomas award at the 38th annual alice thomas award banquet last friday the award is directed to a student who vet supports diversity and community involvement uh amaya isn't president energy psu and an honorable student i would like to say congratulations to mommy uh north a senior from henderson high school uh wrote an article that has been accepted through publication in the national high school journal of sciences uh february edition uh the article discusses the algorithms you created that can help protect brain tumors much earlier than traditional doctors uh through our participation in tchs kunita started working with dr young min kwon a poultry scientist at the university of arkansas uh he asked here to build a data profile of salmonella

037a common virus in poultry she developed a python code high-level general purpose programming language to help dr kwon visualize the mutation frequencies which helped him develop better treatments for poultry realizing the potential of what you just created in order then instituted an ai program to apply the algorithm to apply the algorithm to brain mri scan and focus in on each singular pixel and focus on the abnormalities that appear compared to your common brain stand scan using public medical data she's able to prove that her algorithm can detect brain scans at earlier stages and doctors analyzing traditional standards needless to say we're all very proud [Applause] it's [Music] okay starting off strong with our spring sports tryouts starting next week our winter sports are coming to a close including our girlfriend's basketball team winning our central

038champions and our girls indoor track are the new pennsylvania state runner-ups so moving on to our district one swimming championships adam cassie for a senior at russia now holds rusty's record for the 200 freestyle which is representing a second or two and the wrestling girls swim team also had a wonderful day at the championships with many many medals spread across all of the girls the science olympiad team at boston held a competition for the university of pennsylvania at russell this past weekend many golden night events placed first in their categories and others also meddled the uh russian observed black history month this past friday with an assembly on hosted by our own black student union we it made it optional for teachers to sign up their classes to bring down a mentor traditional cultural and

039historical events and then our wrestling prom shop similar to how easy doing it is accepting local donations for gently used prom apparel for kids to come in borrow use take for their liking our model united nations club is headed to new york in a couple months for their next conference similar to both east and henderson two of our deca students qualified for nationals beauty and the beast is upcoming just as much as he said and our photo department has new lighting equipment for use in their photo two and three classes [Applause] uh thank you student representatives for continuing to keep us up to date on your schools as well as your thoughts which we continue to like to hear as you move into the third quarter of your senior year the momentum now speeds up

040as all of your parents know for seniors and their parents as we approach many events and graduation in a little over three months it's a big time but i can't thank you enough for continuing to be thankful and come to the meetings even if some board president doesn't even recognize you and um and fill us in gather information and fill us in so clearly about what is happening at your schools dr sokolowski yes i would also just like to thank elena and will and maddie for your presentations and looking forward to the spring and celebrating your senior year i think the graduations proms just all those end of year events are going to be extremely special this year so thank you all right that leads us to the personnel recommendations from dr ulmer good evening

041this is tiernan this is revelato and directors of the board our personnel report for the month of february is as follows with removals from payroll we have five resignations one teacher one paraprofession two paraprofessionals and two custodians we have eight retirements for approval first we have mrs sue cornelius athletic director at east high school with 36 years of service sue will be difficult to replace and will miss her strong leadership intuitive problem solving and love for athletics at east high school plus the students experiences on the field sue is always defending soon we will miss you and thank you this is charlene de rocco certified school nurse at ruston high school with 20 years of service ms victoria grant certified school nurse at excellent elementary school with 12 years of service mr david kelly tech

042ed teacher at stetson middle school with 25 years of service dr robert king science teacher at east high school with 15 years of service miss sandy marowski special education teacher at beauget middle school with 17 years of service this is lisa lisa pfeiffer now this is the fonzo you kind of stole my thunder here but thank you miss lisa pfeiffer supervisor of special education of the ecs theater pattern with 12 years of service lisa i'll miss working with you and your positive outlook on every situation on which we've worked on together and last but certainly not least dr leanne ranieri doctor director of pupil services with 13 years of service leanne working with you has been a pleasure on every level your professionalism knowledge kindness patience humor and willingness to listen has always been a

043bright spot in our cabinet meetings and working together the direct reputable services has never been an easy job and i know i have a very difficult time trying to fill your shoes the attempt to find someone that will bring as much stability as you have into this position please think of us when you see those sunsets at the cove in cape may and try not to laugh knowing you all have to sit with us every wednesday at 10 a.m we wish all of our retirees the best and happy and healthy new chapter we will miss you and thank you for your service we are also recommending the termination of one employment of employment of one custodian with additions to payroll we are recommending the hiring of one new teacher eight long-term substitute teachers one staff

044nurse one secretary three custodians and two substitute custodians in personnel events i communicated three static changes in the professional staff two of these status changes are teachers on assignment moving into administrative positions we would like to welcome kathleen coulter as our supervisor of pupil services and deb dinsmore as our supervisor of english and language arts kate and deb both went through an intensive interview process and we are thrilled to have such talented professionals join our management team congratulations to kathleen and deb and ellie's still here this evening in the back yes thank you congratulations [Applause] congratulations to kate coulter and deb woodmeyer i just said deb dismore he did i apologize that witch meyer did more retired from us a couple of years ago [Applause] i also communicated two status changes in our custodial department

045and personnel leaves i'm recommending a sabbatical in the professional staff and an unpaid lead in the support staff in additional information we are recommending 11 start date updates one updated end date two recommended salary changes the name of one bus driver from craft buses and two drivers and one aid from on-the-go kids buses in tutoring we are recommending the approval of 40 new tutors in supplemental contracts we're asking for approval for 19 annual contracts and 10 spring contracts we're also recommending two annual contract removals and six spring contract removals we're also recommending 11 adjustments of annual contracts along with two adjustments of spring supplementals i'm respectfully requesting board approval for all personnel matters listed above thank you thanks dr almer ford any questions or comments on the personnel report and you know i can't see

046down there so if you want to make a motion you have to wave your hand out in the front of you are you clear all right do i have uh first uh let me see now karen dr herman and the second uh mr darnell would you call would you give vote call for the vote please visit sheriff lester herman yes director durham yes vice president yes director fleming yes director shaw yes director director chester yes director featuring yes president yes thank you next on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda before we vote are there any board members who wish to remove any items from the consent agenda okay do we have a motion to approve thank you and mr revlon all right would you get call for the vote please director yes vice

047president yes director wellesley yes director plumbing yes director directory yes director yes director herman yes director chester yes president yes all right we're moving on to school board committee reports the first report is education with dr shaw thank you mrs tiernon um the education committee had a meeting on valentine's day the 14th and it was a really romantic evening that's a warm emotion expressed at that meeting um we had actually a really informative meeting we did discuss some changes to the health and safety plan that dr sokolowski had been proposing before the cdc guidance change we discussed changes to the school calendar including the inclusion of eid we discussed some charter school policy changes and then we had a really great presentation of the comprehensive uh plan and the special education comprehensive plan that is

048being proposed um and i want to commend dr reynolds and dr ranieri and all of the staff and teachers parents board members and students that were involved in developing these plans it was a really great exercise in the district of community involvement around our core mission which is to create a strategic plan and to execute that so that we can continue to provide the best education possible for our students so the draft comprehensive plans or the proposed comprehensive plans are posted on the westchester area school district website and they will be there for 28 days and we invite comment and review of those plans so i encourage you to go to the website and take a look at them and that concludes my report thank you second is pupil services with miss chester sorry next

049is personnel dr herman thank you president everything is moving along in a positive direction in the human resources department i want to take a minute to acknowledge dr ulner the westchester area school district human resources director for his thoroughness and also his compassion and fairness when he is dealing with staff administrators teachers students his role is an extremely important one in our organization and he often is the behind the scenes guy who helps to keep the people in the organization healthy safe and motivated to keep working in a very positive way and it had been we've had a couple of rough years and thank you for all that you do dr romer we appreciate you and we appreciate your team and that concludes my report thank you this is dr herman and last is property

050and finance mr bevalaqua good evening we held the last property finance meeting last week on february 22nd the first item on the agenda we discussed was mr wegman our technology director reviewed the results of a request for proposal for the fiber optic leases and then and the minibids for the pe ppm approved providers um these all use e-rate rules which give us a discount from network hardware and this is all for the 20-22-23 school year of next year mr whitman recommended approval of the following bids and vendors optive security for our hp and aruba and bell branded switchgear for a price of 1.4 million optive security also for the hp aruba indoor and outdoor wireless access points for price of 195k the committee recommended the e-rate bid approval for the recommended vendors as we just

051spoke the next item mr wegman continued on and reviewed a new board policy board policy 6.3 broadcasting board news prior to the covent it had been practiced at the school district to record public meetings and post them on the district's website during the pandemic when meetings had to be held remotely the district began to live stream the meetings for public access over the district's youtube channel live streaming meetings of the district youtube channel continues the committee recommended approval of the new board policy 6.3 broadcasting board news first reading the next item mr burster office our facilities and operation director provided the committee with the big results from multiple uh projects for the 2223 capital reserve and capital fund projects we reviewed each one in detail and went through each of those the bottom line conclusion

052was the those capital reserve and capital fund projects were approved for a total price of two million twenty three thousand two forty four which is under the budgeted amount that we had allocated at two million one hundred and seventy eight thousand six eleven the committee recommended approval of the bids for the 2223 capital reserve the capital fund projects associated with the documentation the next item mr scully as he normally does in each of our property finance meetings reviewed the february budget forecast model the net savings of the current 21 22 year was a savings of 1.3 million the savings resulted from changes to the 21-22 projections and they'll be utilized to reduce the next year's 22-23 budget cap the summary of all funds were reviewed in detail and that analysis showed no gap in the

0532223 assuming a tax increase up to the act one limit which is set at three point three point three percent mr scully then continued and provided the committee with a financial update moody's reaffirmed the district triple a rating as dr sakolowski announced earlier the bond sale for the refinancing of the series 8 2022 and the series double a 2016 and the series 2017s will occur in the beginning of march which will be over the next week or so the committee approved the resolutions authorizing the parameters for refunding the bonds as we spoke in detail about the next property finance meeting will be held on march 21st all are welcome to attend and that concludes our report this evening thank you mr velva we are moving on now to other reports the first is a report

054from the cciu and this is my final report as liaison to the cciu i know i said that last month but we forgot to vote mr journal on to the iu board so tonight i would like to report that at the iu board meeting which mr grinnell attended on the 23rd of february we approve the marketplace budget and the health and safety plan that moves moves the iu to dealing with covid as one more communicable disease the iu will continue to be vigilant and respond to any clusters of coded in any of its schools concerning rises and numbers and that is the end it was a delightful experience but i passed the baton to mr jarnell for real because we will be electing him officially tonight and he will serve there for the rest of

055his life i just got out a little early all right dr herman psba reporter thank you president newly elected school board directors should have completed the training from psba um this is just a general reminder if you've not completed this please do so i highly recommend school board directors to read the material that is offered by psba lots of good things um and there are many many good things going on in schools just like in our schools and it's kind of nice to see what other districts are doing that concludes my report thank you legislative liaison report dr shaw okay dr sokolowski highlighted a couple of things that have happened with regard to the proposed 2223 budget i want to give just a little bit more detail it's very clear that in this last budget

056that governor wolf has presented he wants to create a legacy of being very strong supporter of public education so to that end he is proposing a 24 increase which is a 1.55 billion dollar increase in basic education funding 1.25 billion of that would be distributed to a fair funding formula which is really important because this formula weights the amount of money that districts receive based on the number of low-income special education and english learner students an additional 300 million dollars will go to the 100 most underfunded districts via a policy called level up there will also be a 200 million increase in special education funding which is really important um since this is an area that continues to grow in cost and there'll also be a 60 million dollar 25 increase in pre-k counts which

057is focused on high quality pre-k access and just to understand what this budget would include for a westchester area school district if it were passed we would receive an additional 3.3 million dollars which is a 34.5 year-over-year increase in our basic ed funding and another 236 thousand dollars for special education funding um so we'll wait to see what the legislature has to say about this but um this is an exciting budget proposal for public schools across the state that concludes my report thank you dr shaw and mr jarnell your equity report please thank you thank you uh we're excited to report the success of a historic visit from the daughter of martin king jr and coretta scott king dr bernice king was the featured speaker at the first strengthening community symposium a free event that

058took place virtually on tuesday february 15th from 9 a.m to 1 30 p.m our very own director of equity and assessment dawn matter was chosen to serve as the lead moderator for the event dr king spoke about ways in which we can strengthen our community and the importance of equity work in k-12 education and how it reflects her father's work once cleared by the king center we will post dr king's ferrari historic interview on our district website as well as the other speakers including our very own sandra bradley who were featured in the symposium in celebration of black history month students from the pierce middle school were invited to meet award-winning author kwame alexander via zoom in the zoom pierce students had the opportunity to ask mr alexander about the writing and publishing process in

059addition to learning about kwame alexander's new show centered on his popular and best-selling book crossover which will be featured in a tv show on disney plus late last month dawn matter met with west ocean police chief mike carroll and west ocean community and board members at the police community advisory committee to continue the work to strengthen the westchester area community through diversity equity and inclusion efforts and to support safe and positive community interactions as well we will be collaborating with sandra bradley community engagement specialists to help build bridges with our spanish-speaking families in west coast finally save the date for the final installment of part three of our community conversation series which will take place march 31st at 6 30 p.m at fired ruston high school event registration will be emailed and posted on social

060media as we get closer to the event special guests for the community conversations include police chiefs from all four police departments that serve the westchester area school district thank you to all of the area police departments for supporting our community connections and strength strengthening efforts that is my report thanks mr cornell the four liaisons you just heard from are people who have taken on assignments to work with outreach in the community keep an eye on psga keep an eye on legislative uh things that are happening in harrisburg mr jernalkins and i on equity efforts in the school district which continue and we'll then be making two reports next month so thank you all uh mrs steerman you didn't mention because this was for the rest of my life though well when you'll know when the

061time is right mr janelle that's all i can tell you you'll know fairness all right in other business we have three motions to approve this evening so if you're looking at the screen up there you'll see other business and there are three things which need votes this evening so we'll have three different people for making those proposals for pupil services miss chester please yes president here we are tonight asking approval for a contract for therapy services so approval is requested of the deborah foundation doing business as devereaux advanced behavioral health contract for bilingual bi-label therapy services thank you may i have a second karen dr herman thank you very much three hands went up but i can't do they are they're sorry all right any questions or comments on this proposal on this proposed motion

062no then please call for the vote mr director chester yes director harmony yes director yes director durnell yes dr b yes director shaw yes director fleming yes vice president beverly yes president yes thank you all right dr herman regarding our proposed reorganization charts that we talked about in the last committee meeting yes thank you president tierney approval of the revised westchester area school district management team organizational chart approval is requested of the revised westchester area school district managed management team organizational chart with authorization for the district to receive with the immediate posting and hiring of the assistant director of facilities and operations position and the immediate posting of the behavioral specialist coordinator with the start date of july 1 2022. i salute thank you second dr shaw questions or comments about the proposed changes to

063the reorg chart or anything else that dr herman brought up all right call for the vote please director herman yes director chester yes president yes and with great pleasure uh miss miss karen fleming will move to appoint mr jornell thank you president kieran as mentioned earlier approval is requested to appoint board member daryl durnell as a member of the chester county intermediate unit number 24 board of directors to complete the unexpired term of sue kieran ending on june 30th hi somebody thank you you need a second miss chester thank you questions or comments for daryl they're all you don't get to ask any more questions no then would you could you call for the vote please directly yes director chester yes director d3 yeah director i believe i need to stay oh no you can

064vote for yourself absolutely okay then yes director shaw yes director yes vice president devil awkward yes director herman yes president yes so our solicitor is saying that you do have to abstain director journal so i agree with you it wasn't me mr jennings we always vote for ourselves here we'll take that into account the next time we vote for somebody i thank you all and mr darnell you'll have the time of your life okay the last item on tonight's agenda is comments from residents on non-agenda items if you have filled out a card you would like to come up um mr jennings thank you president when a public commenter's name is called i asked again that they please approach the podium and begin by stating their first name last name and home municipality public comments

065will be limited to three minutes per person per current board policy the three-minute time clock will be projected on the screen at the end of the three minutes the next public commenter will be called upon again i'll remind everyone that the board asks that all commentaries be directed to the board as a whole public comments may be interrupted or terminated if the commentary exceeds three minutes or if it is obscene and or threatening in nature we'll now call the first speaker i'm going to call two people down at the same time you have mary jane nearly speaking first and then kyle parked up next hello my name is um i want to speak for a moment about the impact of the district's policy of silencing debate concerning killing mitigation in the schools when the fairly

066new topic of third litigation is spoken about it is presented simply as right and wrong moral and immoral there is no actual conversation with us as students no healthy debate about risk management no encouragement of critical thinking respectfully a critical job of school is to promote open dialogue on issues and encourage the information the formation of constructive arguments debate itself is an important agency in problem-solving and establishing public opinion without open debate there will only be the starting point of one person or group's thoughts and opinions and not the cumulative agreement of the best course of action lack of friction in conversations reduces tolerance for anything besides popular training how will our school become better if only one idea or opinion is encouraged what kind of culture is this creating in our schools what happens

067to fbl's standards this is not encouraging students as individuals to think critically for themselves or to engage in thoughtful and respectful conversations instead of using this crisis in our country as a learning opportunity and a chance to grow our school district has cultivated an environment in which students and teachers are deterred from thinking for themselves i believe that when we look back on these past two years we will not recall the great threat of kobe to our country instead we will remember with regret the great threat of the systematic silence we were told over and over if we just follow the rules we will get our freedoms back but that is not a healthy attitude to teach our country's future leaders america was founded on the principles the competition of ideas creates the best solution

068and i don't see that right now in my school district thank you for this opportunity [Applause] my two boys whose voices are not being heard nor respected my intention is to raise awareness regarding the harmful effects of mass square as many of you may know a lot of this was pre-written before the ruling that was made district as you stop enforcing mandates that are called in harm to our children i think we can all agree this pandemic has changed our way of life how we think act and live closer to home this period from my family has been especially traumatic as my boys had to navigate at the time when they also tragically lost their mothers every two years the impact of your covered masking decisions have had on my children and continue to have

069are hurting family physically emotionally and psychologically to say that the pain and damage is irreparable for example the other day my son sat on suspenders from school he was segregated on the bus at the school where he was isolated and treated like a criminal set the westgate police will be calling it for the statement that remained filmed our schools violated so many policies and stated that he would be suspended 15 days not allowed to enter the school parenthesis for wearing failing awareness it's just imagine if this was your child granting a child making child feel unsafe is this how we treat our future this is how we treat a child who is mourning from the loss of the mother really all for failing to wear a mask this is the outcome i expect when i

070sunset to school that is in a safe place a safe haven that protects inspires and motivates our future i don't expect that those teachers administrative staff to bear the political views on their sleeve suit to a low like this and make my son feel like a criminal an outcast but that's exactly what happened and on more than one occasion let me remind you he's a 11 year old boy a highly impressionable and vulnerable 11 year old is this the example we want to set does it not feel like a total failure in leadership at all levels would you want your child to be told that the police are coming again when all he's trying to do is make his voice count why would anyone want to break a child well perhaps not the intention certainly

071the outcome that happens that your voice counts and this role or asean is saying on the hallways of glendale elementary school anyone who cares thank you sir thank you thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] amanda greenberg good evening everyone it's great that our children are finally free for the math mandate which has gone on far too long and families are now permitted to make a reasonable choice on their own however we all know the motive behind the change is not tied to emotional well-being it is not tied to physical health and it is not tied to the countless pleas from us parents all school year long on behalf of our children this change is not even linear to how the majority of board members feel as evidenced by behaviors and statements made perpetually the change

072has come because the cdc has forced the school district's hands so truthfully as a parent i find all of this very disappointing especially after you have all heard parents how parents and kids have been affected right by horse masking in school giving rightful decisions making back to parents is not the intention of the board as a whole tonight and as great as it is for families to now have choice i am not blinded by this joy which at this time is temporary which is what brings me to my comment tonight wearing masks at any time needs to be a personal decision for parents and guardians at this point anyone who wants shots boosters and nine o'clock masks are free to do so and have support from the community so please do so if that's what

073makes you feel protected but do not expect others to do for themselves what you do for yourself this should go without saying but here i am standing in front of the public saying it yet again we will be standing here before you every month and at every meeting asking for you to remove the verbiage from the health and safety plan that makes personal freedom like what our kids experience today a temporary decision and changeable on a win i cannot imagine the frustration our kids will face in the near future with on-again off-again mass protocols i am advocating yet again for common sense and parental rights to be restored within this publicly funded district westchester area school district thank you i appreciate it amanda greenberg uh hi amanda greenberg i just moved to east ocean with

074my family last week so it's great to be here i am happy to be part of westchester area school district now my kids have gone to four days of school now and so far so good um i want to personally thank you um to dr pepalowski mrs wellesley and president tiernon for responding to my email and welcoming my family to westchester area school district um getting responses from school board members especially the new residents is refreshing to not be ignored to be acknowledged and to be warmly welcomed it was it was really nice so i want to thank you for that um well we're now uh able to be math-free at many children who had exemptions before were including my children it's interesting to me that the metrics that were proposed in dr sephiloski's change

075for the health and safety plan are now different because of the cdc guidelines and so according to the new guidelines we're now following metrics for the community and not the school like the proposed change to the health and safety plan was and i have a few questions concerns um about that so i want to know why do the hospitalization numbers in the community matter when we know that statistically children are being hospitalized from covid at a rate of zero percent statistically uh the number of children who've been hospitalized from covid have been statistically insignificant um just by data um and also wondering why we would go back to force masking at any point based on the fact that we know that all of the medical experts have said and clarified that cloth masks don't prevent

076spread that one-way masking may have some effect but that two-way masking does not prevent spread so according again this is my interpretation of the new rules is that there is the possibility of going back to force masking and based on the data and the new science that's been coming out that doesn't really make any sense so i'd like some clarification or explanation on that um and then also to follow up that it really doesn't make sense for mass to ever be mandatory again so i'd like to see a change in the verbiage to where the only time that mass would ever be mandatory again would be if there was a state of emergency declared by either the governor or the county health department um so if that could be stated in the new health and

077safety plan um that would be great thank you so much i anticipate some other comments regarding health and safety plans so i do have perhaps some of those answers for you and also welcome to have a phone conversation and again welcome to the westchester area thank you representative diane van halen and then virginia burton good evening i'm representative diane heron and i represent this district and i'm here tonight because i think it's important to set the record straight about what is really happening at these school board meetings most of our school board members are being vilified by members of the public who apparently do not feel compelled to act within the bounds of propriety or generate genuine debate but rather to take a draw a line in the sand tribal stance i'm here to send

078the message this is not an organic grassroots movement this is part of a national political playbook escalating from california to pennsylvania from texas to tennessee this is why we hear in school board meetings across the country the exact same vitriol about teaching the hard truth of our history of slavery this is why we are seeing people from vermont to missouri demanding books acknowledging the existence of racism and lgbtq plus people to be censored this is why we hear people saying the very same words in florida's school board meetings as they do in westchesters in a quest to overturn science-based health policies that protect us in the middle of a global pandemic this is why we have seen more than 55 attempted school board recalls in america just last year alone this is the manifestation of

079a well-funded propaganda campaign to foment fear and anger to help right-wing and libertarian groups and candidates win political power as we have seen in the past steve bannon himself called it the tea party to the test power playing it out at the local level gives it an audience it gets good press and this is why school boards have long been a theater for conflict in the american political sphere so i'm here to make sure we understand that all politics is not local these are adult battles over adult partisanship and if we're really here to advocate for the children the defamation and demonizing of our school board members will stop the vast majority of this community is grateful for your continued service to the students in the face of this divisive national political campaign and we

080thank you [Applause] [Music] good evening members of the board i am thankful this evening that parents and students were able to make their own choice today on masking thank you dr sokolowski for taking the time to call me today and explain the steps that were taken over the weekend i continue to encourage you to allow for personal choice as you consider the future of the health and safety plan one of my concerns here is that we are giving people a false sense of security with these cloth masks instead of encouraging those at risk to be using an n95 mask which is what the cdc recommends our school number spiked in december and january just as the community numbers spiked which shows that our cloth math should not make an impact in our buildings i think

081it's important to focus on individual school cases as we develop metrics to follow in the future there are too many factors in chester county like westchester university hospitals and nursing homes which drive up our county numbers but have no impact on our school numbers with the closure of two area hospitals it is also reasonable to expect that it will drive up the numbers of patient beds being used for cova patients at the remaining hospital in chester county i would encourage all of you to know and understand the new cdc guidance to be in the low there can only be less than 200 cases per 100 000 which is only one-fifth of one percent let me say that again one-fifth of one percent of cases to be considered in low that is that number is extremely

082low for highly contagious disease and the fact that people can subtract it more than once much like the common cold once we exceed that we are automatically a medium however if we have 10 or more hospital admissions for 100 000 or 10 000 10 of our hospital beds occupied by convocation that would automatically put us in a high category regardless of the count in our schools we essentially could have much less than five percent of school cases or even zero and be forced back into masking students based on these new cdc guidelines for this reason if we must have a plan i encourage you to follow dr sokolowski community and give strong consideration into changing the plan to school-based metrics thank you [Applause] and then evening corey martino from the borough of westchester i'm here

083tonight to thank the members of this board who have served this community since march of 2020 as a school administrator i know firsthand the challenges faced by both public and private schools as a result of this pandemic i apologize for my failure to offer you public support until tonight i hope i am heard particularly by those who seek to undermine and disrupt your work good leaders often need to make incredibly difficult and unpopular decisions school boards across this country have been faced with untold hurdles and obstacles this board alone has been accused of heinous actions i ask those who seek to vilify these public servants to remember that this is an economically racially culturally and theologically diverse community the decisions made by this board must meet the needs of many their decisions are data-driven and

084well-intended they have been charged with providing an appropriate and safe education for all of westchester's children i would hope that as adults and as americans we would teach our children that sometimes we need to sacrifice for the good of the whole sacrifice is uncomfortable but the benefits of sacrifice often outweigh any minor and temporary inconveniences we are stronger and healthier when we work together to the member of this board i say this you were elected to serve this community and i applaud your efforts i thank you i cannot imagine the sleepless nights and the daily anxiety you've experienced as you wrestle with this monumental task in this most divisive climate to the newly elected i ask you that you commit to serving the needs of the whole rather than the singular agenda of the minority

085thank you daniel gillan thornbury township before i begin my main comment i just have a side comment um representatives mentioned the beauty and the beast the russian theater company did a nice little event on saturday morning for children of my age and we really appreciate their time volunteering it was a lovely event we have a lot of fun on my main comment on innovative teaching and learning section of the comprehensive plan specifically the plan to embed social emotional learning sel into everyday classroom culture and practice this is a pretty big deal with major consequences and frankly i'm very concerned about it i'm going to share some of those concerns generally i'm concerned that sel is borderline or perhaps fully the unethical practice of psychology but unqualified faculty i'm concerned that sel reduces valuable academic instruction

086time i'm concerned that sel data collection methods are inappropriate and personally invasive similar to what we've seen with the surveys that raised eye grounds during the last few weeks in the station i'm concerned about the sample lesson lesson plans for our sel vendor tom stecker some of them call me old fashioned but i just don't think it's necessary for eighth graders to discuss their private core values in a group setting an uncontrolled group setting to effectively learn geometry i'm concerned about castle the leading sel company in the united states and its recent shift towards transformational or transformative scl transformative sel focuses on redistributing power and inappropriately instills controversial values in threes including critical race theory principles and gender ideas i'm concerned that at its core sel is at odds or perhaps destroys parent autonomy if

087it's embedded everywhere objective parents have no way to opt out and no meaningful resource please consider my concerns when assessing the academic plan this administration should also be transparent it should make all sel lesson plans used in this district easily accessible to parents without specific requests or an adversarial way to no request this way parents can fully inform themselves and see what seo is truly about and judge whether my concerns are legitimate thank you [Applause] melissa bennett and fred burns i want to first just say i'm grateful for following the cdc guidance i'm supportive of that and i hope you will continue to as you evaluate health and safety you will continue to utilize that guidance i want to celebrate the strengthening community support support symposium that happened february 15th and mrs matters leadership thank

088you so much for that wonderful morning at last month's board meeting i was surprised and dismayed to hear the number of people who addressed you the board of directors and administrators with the words disgust and shame people said they were disgusted with you and you should be ashamed of yourself more times than i was able to count that night and i'm sorry you had to endure that i don't spend a lot of time with the notions of disgust and shame especially to describe human behavior i want to lift people up not tear them down but i've been thinking about that meeting a lot it seems that for a while our schools have become battlegrounds for political agendas month after month we hear concerns that some perceive their personal freedoms are under attack we've seen it

089with the health and safety plan with book banning with criticism of gender identity inclusion with questions about racial equities i believe some maybe many of these concerns are manufactured by extremists who want nothing more than to dismantle public education for personal fees and then these manufactured concerns are fed to individuals or groups who press them locally public education is just that with and for the public some want us to believe that schools you as directors administrators teachers librarians etc should only do and teach what they want that you should follow the majority and never make the majority uncomfortable they say anything or anyone that causes discomfort should be banned or punished but education is often at its very root and uncomfortable process learning is an uncomfortable engagement we are supporting the development of young minds

090not only for their academic abilities but to make good citizens your work is to do what is best for all of our kids and the community they are part of even if it makes them uncomfortable thank you for staying grounded and focused on doing what is best for our kids [Applause] fred burns uh west ocean a lot of the parents that just spoke down had have been changing up kind of what i'm saying it's like a lot of assumptions are being made of me just because i'm against my child being mad um i'm probably i probably lean more towards diversity than that you can think just because i don't want my kid to wear a mask you just assumed that i was a republican and part of some grassroots movement that i am not a

091part of in any way so i'm kind of pissed off about that and all i am my kid is because i disagree with it so like that's what it is i'm not part of anything i'm not i'm independent and i i barely even voted which is probably wrong it's definitely wrong but so what do you don't put being a boss first of all next and what i came up here to say thank you dr sokolowski for replying to every single email um i've disagreed with a lot i've been angry borderline rude at points and i just want to thank you that you not all the whole board you reply to every single email every single time no matter what so thank you for that second black history month amazing my daughter she's in first grade

092came home with different people through black history she was so excited to discuss it and it was so cool to see that being in the school and i thought it was awesome so thank you there three respective school board members um i i just want to ask that that you guys are prepared for these meetings um on february 14th i felt it was disrespectful to the parents and dr sokolowski that it seemed as though none of you read the health and safety proposal that he brought up and i have a a two-year-old home with leukemia i got a six-month-old in my arm crying and my daughter asked me what they're talking about and you guys are arguing over optional versus recommended in the definition which he clearly put in there so like be a little

093respectful of that please your elected officials um not fitting this into your schedule however i'm a parent fitting it into mine as far as the management goes you know how i stand i i there shouldn't be a mandate it should be a parent's choice unless there's a state of an emergency and the idea that it doesn't bother my kid so it shouldn't bother yours it makes me angry as well uh my my daughter who i believe or not i don't press these views on her um has gone to school with the mass and she was given uh a in school report so not homework so i had nothing to do with this i got this screenshot from my wife on friday and she was asked what she would do if she was president and instead

094of coming up with cool ideas or things to grow four out of the five was she would remove basks i don't watch fox news i don't watch cnn i don't watch any of that garbage in my opinion i make my own decisions based on my gut and how i what i look into so this isn't one size fits all and one other thing i'm not gonna sacrifice my kids health for the good of anything my kid comes before everyone taylor and then george nestor hello good evening my name is portia davis taylor and i live in west um whiteman township i am here tonight to shed light on something other than men i'm here to talk about black history month i'm here to talk about something that happened at pierce middle school that bothers me

095on february 11th i received an email stating that my student had been selected to participate in strengthening community public symposium that will feature a moderated discussion with the daughter of civil rights activists and icons dr martin luther king and coretta scott i was so excited and i talked to her about this event when she came home she told me she received an invitation in homeroom to go to this event she went to the event and noticed that she was amongst all the other 6th 7th and 8th grade black students at pierce middle school i further asked her were any other students in attendance no this was not the first event that this happened this was the second or the third she also told me that she was invited to see award-winning kwame alexander a poet

096educator best-selling author she was invited along with all the other black students in sixth seventh and eighth grade at pierce middle school there was another event that she attended where hispanic students and her peers that were black were invited and it was about an after-school program that they could attend there were students that were not invited that attended and they were asked to leave this is not okay with me as a parent in this district i walk into places my daughter walks into places and we already know that we are different when i talked to the principal at paris middle school i had a few questions one of those questions were how were students selected to be part of this invitation demographics how have parents and caregivers been informed about this group yes by email

097the same email i received saying my daughter had been invited it never said that she was invited because she walked into pierce middle school with brown skin it said she had been invited i also asked are students that are not part of this subset of chosen students allowed to attend these events no that option was not given what is the goal of the events for these students to make them feel special my daughter already felt special now she feels different because she has to explain why [Applause] [Music] georgia nestor west ocean i just want to start with piggybacking off something that president mentioned although he's not here now i'm not sure where people like diane herron and others have been but the only thing we've been trying to do is ask for debate and discussion

098and i'm not part of any kind of organization and if there's some machine getting other people some money that that agree with my similar views man i'm missing out all right so i just want to say uh to my comment i'm happy to see the ship the mask optional over the weekend uh i do want to note though that uh it does raise some questions you know one if this could have been changed at any point without a board vote what took so long why did we wait so long and put everyone through this for so much time number two why would this have been why why in the world would this have been removed from the agenda for tonight there's a policy that needs to be amended or removed or at least discussed more

099removing it from the agenda leaving it as is just leaves us open to at any point in time we can go back to what's in that policy or the policy before that or whatever whatever policy you want to talk about it should have been left on the agenda it should have been discussed more and there needs to be a change and i just want to point out let's not forget it was only a little over a month ago when there were board members up here who directly attacked members of this community who didn't feel the same way they did about mask and now we're here joking about it so yeah i'm going to say it again that's disgusting [Music] anita as gary and then shannon bruno you know what i love about this board meeting

100you come here think you're gonna talk about something and so many other things happen that you just forget what you were gonna say but one thing i'm gonna stick with is the all the jars that i brought you all know me and it's interesting that the very politician who's supposed to represent us comes to stand here to divide us and [Applause] i guess this was your first speech but yes shame on you for cat talk to the boys take care of their kids and they want the best for them she didn't insult me [Music] okay i came here and i was gonna get you all these branches but after looking at it in amazon it was not going to happen so i got each board member an olive jar i came here to tell you

101the way we are interacting it doesn't work clearly it doesn't work and it gives opportunities for some opportunist people to get here to play their violin i am bringing you olive branch i want you to talk to us to me you don't like some of us i get it you're gonna see in your email the next few days an invitation for you to come to my house to eat drink and get to know me some parents from both sides and i will have a sign-up sheet your staff is welcome to join us i will taste the food before you so you know it's that poison and i will drink the wine before you taste it so you know it's not poison this what's happening here it's crazy this is crazy and you know it you

102think you are doing a good job we don't usually we are crazy we don't think we are crazy so at some point we need to see each other as humans please come to my house i have i can accommodate 30 40 people if the weather is good i wanted to take this olive leaf and let's start working our kids for our kids second of all um there is a movie coming up on march 14th i'm gonna send you the invitation and the other thing mr daryl the community event needs to be balanced i'm in touch with a black author and alberta king and i would like her to have the same platform as your audience that they have to for the next community then [Applause] [Music] nancy wood okay [Music] no you are you are

103our friend here from our next public conference thank you um i wanted to take a minute to probably publicly recognize and commend mrs dawn matter for her work on the strengthening community symposium held on february 15th events like this one and the lessons learned from it are just one of the many reasons why having a diversity and equity position within our district can only set us up for future success um i participated in every session of the day and was so moved by the work and dedication of each speaker a particular note was western surrey school district's own sandra bradley who spoke about the reason behind the creation of the padres latinos program mrs bradley's presentation brought myself and others to tears that day understanding that the district worked hard to create a space for

104families who would have otherwise been excluded from routine activities within the district in their respective schools in the presentation i learned that something as simple as latino families working longer hours and second jobs often exclude them from flexibility needed for events like parent-teacher conferences and after-school activities i learned that padres latinos worked hard to solve problems like these for families in need in our district and i could not be more proud to hear that and of course the inclusion of and presentation by dr bernice king was powerful and in my opinion a way to make our district stand out and prove that we are worthy of the good names that comes along with our current reputation i would hope that we can continue that good reputation going forward i'd also like to share that dr

105kane shared during her presentation something called the four ps over the last two years our district has been torn apart due to political infiltration within a school board that should be bipartisan as a way to begin to build the bridge between on another i'd like to share dr king's own words to my fellow parents the nettlesome task today is to organize our strength into compelling power power building is not about how we build our passions together but how we look at the strengths we each bring to the table and organize ourselves in a powerful way to bring about change thank you again dr matter and to the board for having his awesome day i really appreciated it thanks so much nancy wood is rapper our superintendent recently observed that despite division in our community the

106common theme is care for students i think that's true as parents we all have a common ground of concern for our children but i also think we need to acknowledge the presence of a troubling movement that has preyed on parental concern to influence educational policy it's not about being liberal or conservative it's about a new mindset that views our school district and our teachers as enemies it's a form of conspiracy theory and extremism and i know that there are caring parents here and at home who will bristle at those words but i don't know what else to call it it is extreme to accuse our educators of trying to indoctrinate and harm our children it is extreme to sue our school board for child abuse for following public health guidelines it is extreme that we

107have a league of parent influencers intentionally generating viral moments and then claiming victory when they achieve negative media attention on our community it is extreme when the loudest concern over racism in our schools is a worry that learning about racism might make white kids feel uncomfortable or turn into marxists it's extreme these tactics don't solve problems they weaken our community public schools aren't perfect but by any metric we have excellent public schools in this community that excellence is being put at risk teachers and administrators are exhausted school board members are being targeted if this continues it will become impossible to find a reasonable qualified people willing to fill these important roles it is time to stop attacking our own community we need to work with our schools not against them thank you [Applause] so i

108didn't prepare anything i drove over two hours to come down here because you guys are so far ahead of us in this disaster and um you all helped prepare my what i want to talk about uh number one there was somebody back here we talked about there appears to be an organized national political campaign that's happening and it is happening which is not happening on the side that they're charging you with does anybody on the board know of a 2017 1.2 billion dollar grant that you've got does anybody here raise your hand do you know of that grant are you from westchester no ma'am i'm i'm not i'm from wyoming county and i'm i'm a journalist and i'm here on journalism duties because you are ahead of us okay very good very good okay does

109anybody out here know of a two a 1.2 billion dollar brand sir we would be happy to listen to you for three minutes yes but you're still running my time you are right talk to us okay very good very good very good okay very yes ma'am and i love you because you remind me of my grandmother the way you spoke to that yeah i know it okay so uh you had a 1.2 billion dollar grant and it was there were three schools used as a test subject see if you sound familiar elizabeth forward school district somerset area school district westchester area school district 2017. you guys were test dummies you were test dummies for this playbook that people talk about a national political campaign is right here and you all took 1.2 billion dollars to

110do this this is called the ester grant nobody out here knows what it is and that's a shame the same reason why you have a 260 million dollar budget but yet you have one page people talk about being organized there is an organized campaign against the people and you guys are unfortunately part of it because some of you all might not know about the grant check on it there's a minority uh there was there was a discussion about a minority shouldn't be able to to prevail or whatever it does not take a majority prevail but rather an irate tireless minority keen on setting up brush visor freedom in the minds of men samuel adams because if you don't organize because of another speaker quoting about organizing if you don't organize against the 1.2 billion dollar

111grant and their playbook that's written against you it's right here then you're in trouble it is extreme to insert 1.2 billion dollars into a school district where everybody should know about it but not even the school board potentially knows about it so it's it is an organized playbook and it's against the people forget about the parties and these people are being used if you would the quote is useful idiots because some of them don't even know what's going on it's not even their fault so it's sometimes it is shameful to be hard on them because they're unaware they're unprepared we have over 3 000 hours studying this they some of them probably don't know what it is so it's very it is a shame it is organized it's organized against the people the department the

112pennsylvania department of education these higher departments are organized against the people and they are uncertain all that they're saying they're not inserting [Music] alexis hmm uh first i just want to say um wonderful is that the students and staff now have a choice in regards to masking um i also just want to point out that i was appreciative of the district allowing exemptions for moral philosophical and religious reasons since it empowered every family and our school community to do what was best what was in the best interest of their family um speaking of empowering parents is there a plan for a book committee with parents to review current library materials i find it concerning that there are many books in the school library that should not be there based on lack of appropriateness should the

113school libraries be held to a higher standard after all schools should be modeling intellectual curiosity and containing a catalog with endless books to be taking sex acts diminishes the quality of education can someone explain to me why there's a need for sexual content that children as young as age 11 can access that school um where is the value in that when it comes to the subject of sex which is a very sensitive topic parents have the first day because we know what is best for our kids thank you [Music] [Applause] dear board of directors i believe okay good evening our board of records i believe in our district's mission which reads to educate and inspire students to achieve their personal best president tierney recently you concluded a meeting by emphasizing how important that mission is

114to all students and i agree i believe logic and reason when applied fairly and judiciously can achieve the goal that goal and sustain it over time every student should be welcomed and inspired to cheat to achieve their personal best in this district my concern is that the proposed comprehensive plan will not get us there it will lead to more discrimination than inclusion in many different ways it discriminates on skin color sex and other immutable traits while also violating civil rights and exposing the school district to lawsuits the comprehensive plan is built on the university of pennsylvania's equity audit the comprehensive plan is built on the university of pennsylvania's equity audit of our district the comprehensive plan and the equity audit are two p's in a pod take a look at the university of pennsylvania and

115how they're trying to achieve equity but instead are creating discrimination in its wake many have read in the news that a boy from the men's swim team has joined the women's swim team when he swam on the men's team he was not a top performer now when he swims on the women's team he's setting records and earning first place times robbing women of victory and future opportunities this new reality is fast becoming a national trend because of equity ideologies at every district board meeting we hear from our wonderful student leaders about the success of the various sports teams at each of our high schools if the district follows the university of pennsylvania's logic then the next woman star basketball basketball player their fastest swimmer their best athlete will be boys on the girls teams is

116this what you want for our daughters to play second place to play second fiddle to men if you vote for this new comprehensive plan that's exactly what you're saying to our girls there's a new glass ceiling and it's boys who identify as girls there is no limiting principle the university of pennsylvania is equity audit and our district will not stop so there's nothing in that plan that will stop it we may not get there in one week in one month or even in one year but it is the final destination of the path you're on please don't [Music] mean good evening my name is ocean that was a very sitting comment for me to follow given what i would like to say to the board and first of all transgender children transgender adults exist have

117existed forever my religion actually indicates that there are more than two genders so it is not a trend of the audience no i am not lying but thank you you're right thank you last april i stood before the board grateful that gender identity had been included under district discrimination policy i warned the anti-transgender sentiment was growing nationwide and would come to our district clearly it has censorship over a non-binary person's memoir and a novel about a trans girl have been challenged members of our community are stigmatizing lgbtq plus people and books as though being transgender is inherently wrong acting like we don't have trans students in our schools when you say a memoir is inappropriate you are telling real people including trans children their lives are inappropriate this risks making school a less safe place

118the freedom to read must not be infringed and to use a common phrase i do not co-parent with people who would ban books from school libraries especially not those challenging books to have admitted to not even reading beyond passages taken out of context i have never centered what books my children read instead i preview them i advise them and i'm always available for questions and conversations our district shouldn't have to focus on who's going to complain but rather be able to ask what student might need this i support teachers and librarians making collection appropriate choices to serve a diverse world shouldn't be radical and yet thanks to the fears and costs associated with those choices it is we must prioritize the safety of queer kids over the discomfort of adults going after lgbtq plus representation

119as a wedge issue has real human collateral and you don't just have to take my word for it lavar burton who many of us grew up watching on reading rainbow says read the books they don't want you to that's where the good stuff is thank you [Applause] is it working i just wanted to i'm not going to get into my whole speech but um i'm kind of just don anderson east ocean um i wanted to thank the school board i know you guys take time out of your day we're going to agree we're not going to break you can't judge a book by its cover just like my shirt said people are going to think i'm the hard black on the heartbreak whatever for people calling other people names and going against their beliefs is

120completely out of hand and it's coming to our kids i hope you guys all agree on that um there was a social media post there was going to be extremists at the meeting so i guess i'm considered an extremist but thank me outside so um i want to thank the superintendent i've talked to him numerous times about different things i was going to talk about me asking that it should be a personal choice people are dividing the kids the kids are getting into it one side does this one side does that and they call each other names and i think it's just absurd so i will leave that point out um i also think vaccinations should be discussed in school it shouldn't be discussed among each other or faculty and students um i do think

121some books should be removed from the westchester every school district such as the one where a boy was jerking off another kids that is disgusting that i don't care i don't care if you're gay i don't care if you're trans that's all fine i include everybody it's the person you are but my kids will not be reading books about other people getting off on other people it's unacceptable for the school but once it's in a public library [Applause] i sent my kids to this school i moved here from an excellent school district to come here because of the education and i thank all you guys to take time out of your night to come up here and listen to the whole crap of other people calling other people names and we're come on we're not

122coming after you most of us aren't i'm thankful for you guys but it's just it's coming to the point where it's like if you're masking and you're not masking you're against this you're against that i mean why can't we all come together as people do you see how bad this world is today do you want to raise your kids in that thank you guys [Music] jennifer good evening jennifer mcfarland east bradford township um interestingly enough i comment on this book that we all are speaking about which is called genderqueer if you want to take a look at it you can after the meeting i'd like to go on public record that i attended the book review committee meeting in lieu of another person who was not able to attend i appreciated the opportunity to review

123the book genderqueer the book currently resides in the high school libraries but also has resided in the middle school libraries until removed after the meeting i read the book and i looked for some looked for some data so that we could conduct a thorough review of the book its appropriateness for grades 6 through 12 in a public school environment and whether or not there is a need for this type of genre in the westchester school district i've yet to receive a response from dr reynolds though she did say tonight she was going to respond the meeting was a week ago i have yet to receive oh excuse me it does not speak well for the westchester school district not to respond to a request for data from a taxpayer to make them have to file

124an rtk to receive information and that should be readily supplied when asked it puts a question to the willingness of to be transparent and forthcoming i would like to think that if the district is sure of the road that they are traveling that it would be supported by the majority of parents and taxpayers it would not miss an opportunity to be transparent with programs and data that show that the programs are indeed working and have shown positive effect on students at this point i'm submitting an rtk to request the data that i have not received in addition i'm requesting the meeting to consider the book genderqueer postponed until such data is available for consideration especially since the meeting to vote on the book is three days from now the information that i requested just for

125your information was number one the data um regarding the number of lgbt lgbtq plus students in the school district uh also the um and that should be public information and um also the data um for the last 20 years regarding the number of uh the number of referrals to the guidance office or request go to the guidance office for lgbtq issues or gender dysphoria issues i do not think that these data the numbers are anything that we should hide in fact they should inform the decisions that we make about the types of programs that we put into place [Applause] so uh hi i'm zach cosor from east bradford township uh first i want to applaud you guys for putting up with the various forms of transposed anti-scientific fast monitor the whole night but otherwise i'm

126here to talk to you guys about the district's decision to take down the voluntary and anonymous student-made political survey for barry russell's um ap capstone research class the issue that i take with this removal of the survey is that the survey was taken down not because it was the like rule abiding thing to do or the best thing for students it was taken down because it was the easiest thing to do to kill the controversy your own district policy states that no student shall be required to take a survey relating to political matters but no student was explicitly required to take the survey and i can speak to the student that nobody even felt as if they were required to take the survey some parents have complained that even despite this lack of requirement to

127take the survey it can still be taken down because parents were not correctly notified district policy however appears to say that parents must be notified of the survey of this nature only if it's a district administered survey not a student survey from the individual school all of this is why it appears that the survey was only taken down for the ease of living as easy as i'm sure it was to make this decision to take down the survey that's a very dangerous precedent uh your decision has empowered the conspiracy theorists who believe this survey to be some sort of soviet-era communist information gathering tactic to be even bolder in the future even more you've showed this group that their delusions have power to influence the school's school district decisions a strong student supporting board would

128fight for the credibility of the research programs fight for the credibility of dr morano who approved this survey fight for the credibility of mr president who runs the class where he's created yet you did none of this you let conspiracy theorists get the better of you instead of pushing back on their unfounded points and their claims you back down an admitted fault all i'm asking you is to repost the survey let the student gather more information for their research and stand up against conspiracy theorists so they can't cause further harm to our school district in the future all you guys done so far is just you've taken a moment to step back but now it's time to have our backs instead of bending over backwards for a conspiracy theorist you guys should stamp students that's

129all [Applause] [Music] that's it i was going to say something about the fact that i sat for three hours at the east auditorium on saturday afternoon it was a cold winter day and there were other family things happening there were other school board things happening but i was invited to go by the daughter of her a former student's daughter and it was an entirely reassuring life-affirming three hours the kids were singing the music was playing the costumes were on and it said to me that despite the hard hard two years that we've had here together life has gone on in many ways music has gone on in many ways the feeling of the students and the little kids who are watching the program was affirming it reminds me of why these nine people sit at

130this school board but you know i don't know why you have to leave right in the middle here why these nine people who were elected to represent all of the children in the district and i believe that these nine people sitting in front of you are working very hard to do that i want to say that because we say it to each other you think that we're not representing you because we are not listening to one adult voice or two adult voices and and you're very um you're very loud oh and so we hear you but we also have to consider as has been said 12 the parents of 12 000 students many different beliefs and many different families so we try our very best after having to be elected in contentious political elections to

131not let politics enter into any of our you throw this at us all the time this is a political decision to wear masks please no we have to look at data at night we have to look at data on weekends we must meet all those times dr sokolowski is the superintendent but he is part of a team of 10 people so we work very closely together and so i just want to say i would be deeply appreciative and i think my colleagues would if instead of using some of your personal anger to attack us you were willing to give us the credit for having the intelligence and the personal and moral belief that we are here to do the best that we can for the children of the westchester area school district i started in

132education in 1968 and you know how old that makes me and so i've watched my mother go here and i go here and my children and my grandchildren and i know in my heart that political agendas personal agendas are not what drives these nine people so i would like you when you come to the meeting to try and understand that some of us have 40 50 years of background in education some of us have 40 50 years and many other varied enterprises but we come together here to work hard for the 12 000 children of this district we have great pride in this district we have great pride in the teachers of our district is everything perfect if somebody said absolutely not and anybody who's worked in this district will be the first to say

133let's talk about that is it is our school the answer for every single child probably not it's okay to say that but we can't teach 12 000 different ways we have to find what is good for kids and critical thinking and as i've watched my children leave here and my grandchildren leave here and go to college i think we've done a good job and i think if you give us a chance we will do a good job with your children so let us work together and move forward to the future i don't know when we'll be drinking wine together but we certainly can come together in a civil way and talk to each other i don't remember insulting anyone sitting in this seat i don't think any of the other eight have either and i

134know dr zakolowski has not but i know that i have been hurtfully insulted and i guess your opinion about this is she has to take it she's got the office well you know my husband and my family would disagree with that and and i know that our families are saying why do you want to do this i still want to do it because i was elected and because i believed in the education of the westchester school district and i believe i speak from what the other eight people that i did not ask permission to say this for so together we go forward we will start our committee meetings as you know in march and we will come together at the end of march for another school board meeting i do hope that when we come

135forward to that meeting it is not after we have spent three nights not sleeping because this is ugly it feels ugly and i've never experienced anything like this before i've been on the board for 10 years i've been in education as i said for a very long time in this community all my life i've never experienced anything like this i'm not a mean person i'm a grandma so i hope that we can come together and work on this in a productive positive way starting at our very next meeting that's all i had this is tearing our board this is a wonderful school district but these are very difficult nights but as i look to that podium and to the right to the left of the podium i see our students and they are the reason

136that i'm here zach you're the reason i'm here you're the reason i'm here there are nights that i don't sleep there are mornings when i wake up way too early but i am here for all of your children and i will take the shots i have i will i will continue to and as i was looking over to our students our representatives from our high schools i thought of a poem that i wrote when i was 16. dr reynolds i shared this with you because we have a love for language and we actually did with our administrators a social emotional learning activity where you know what we did we linked our lyrics we found the songs from our youth or from yesterday and we joined our phrases because we know that music we know that

137language we know that that translates to love and care for one another and so here's here's the poem will you walk with me upon the high sea wall with the silence the roar and the stone beneath our feet we'll run to freedom across the high sea wall with the dark the light and hope within our reach together for a thousand miles along the high sea wall running above the deep and in only our souls to keep so we are still at that high sea wall we still have miles to go but i think today we have seen a light and if we can come together as mrs tyrion was talking about and we can be civil with one another we can continue to move forward so i appreciate the discourse but i would love to

138see us truly come together thank you okay i'd like to call it for a moment to endure the meeting mr dornell and can i hear i thank you very much thank you board members