School Board Meeting

001and it wouldn't go away it wouldn't you hadn't you weren't that's why because the attendees are still coming in okay foreign i think we're good okay thank you mr wagon good evening everyone i'd like to call to order the august 23rd 2021 meeting for the westchester area school board let's begin with a salute to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right mr let's do roll call please hey where is director bevel aqua director chester here director journal here director gallon here director herman here president mccune here director shaw here director spacman here vice president tiernon here thank you mr chairshore all right we're going to juggle the agenda

002a little bit here and move the public comments on agenda items up to just below the roll call which we just did here so i'll entertain a motion to make that move first first by mr spacman can i get a second second i've missed by miss chester thank you miss chester any comments or questions scene on roll call please miss charisshore director spacman yes director chester yes director herman yes vice president tiernan yes director gallon yes director jornell yes director shaw yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you mr okay so that will now move us to public comments on agenda items in some questions we take it away this is now the time period for public comment on agenda items only that are on the agenda for the board this evening persons wishing to

003make public comments tonight were required to register ahead of time the host will notify each participant when it is their turn to provide public comment when your name is called your screen will ask you to unmute once unmuted please provide your name and address if you are providing public comment as a representative of a group please state your group affiliation comments are limited to two minutes per person per per board policy the time will be available on the screen at the end of the time period the next speaker will be called public comments are to be on agenda items only all comments are being directed to the board as a whole not to individual board members comments may be interrupted or terminated if public comments are too lengthy personally directive abusive or obscene there are

004two technical issues i do want to point out that have come up um in other meetings if you are a participant who's offering public comment and you are also listening on youtube um it would be best to disconnect from youtube while you are giving your public comment well we will be able to hear you on your end you will probably have some feedback that makes it difficult for you to for you to talk um it's confusing to hear yourself several times while you're talking the other issue is is all people who have registered would have been received the link to participate when they signed up and again an hour before this meeting if for some reason you did not receive that link if you go to the district's web home page www.wcasd.net you can if

005you and click on register on zoom you can re-register and it will immediately put you in the list so you will be able to offer your public comment for those who pre-registered okay so with that i'm going to go ahead and share my screen so the time clock is up and then we can go ahead and move the first speaker in our uh first speaker is fred burns the mic is is available to you okay mr burns you can go ahead and unmute and if you want to state your name and address and then i will start your time hi fred burns 546 georgia lean okay i'm going to go ahead and start your time hi thank you for allowing us all to speak here uh my i ask you to vote no to the

006revised health and safety plan with a return to optional mass i realize there are two sides to this issue both with valid arguments depending on what you believe or what they believe the cdc and the state are recommending but not requiring mass i feel it should be left up to the parents to decide what safety measures should be taken for their children furthermore in fairness to all sides i think we we can come up with a better resolution we all want our kids in school and have our reasons for wanting or not wanting to miss one of my ideas is i would like to allow the children to remove their mass while sitting at their desk i think that'll decrease the time and that they have the mask on and be reasonable for both sides

007any parents listening i i urge them to speak up and step up or come up with a resolution if they disagree with having a mask and or email the school board thank you for your time thank you mr burns okay we can move in the next speaker okay our next speaker is uh katrina nolan the mic is now available okay miss nolan if you can unmute and state your name and address and then i'll start your time katrina nolan 504 oak circle 19380. okay i'm going to start your time thank you good evening tonight i voice my support for the updated health and safety plan i have a hobby of analyzing coven data outside of my day job in vaccines research i admit i find it academically interesting since i trained at the university of

008pennsylvania in virology and spent a few months studying the original source coronavirus in 2003 before spending the next seven plus years completing a phd and post-doctoral fellowship but more importantly i make data informed decisions for the safety of my three children this included cyber school for my two school age children last year we've learned so much about the virus since then wearing masks is a safe and effective measure to reduce the spread of the virus the layered approach that westchester area school district has taken to bring our children back into the buildings this fall five days per week relies on everyone doing their part and wearing a mask my children and all children deserve the opportunity for a safe in-school education to those who claim children will always be masked that is simply not true

009we're still in a pandemic and the plan reevaluates risk levels every week i dug back through the past 212 days that chester county has been tracking transmission levels 28 days have been low transmission masks were optional over the summer and life was good i personally enjoyed going out on date nights and taking a family vacation down the shore then came delta in the past week cases continue to climb pediatric icu admissions due to kovid are 24.9 percent higher across the us than at the previous peak in winter of last year yes this is mostly driven by the southern u.s but i do not want to see any of our children in the icu uh miss nolan are you still there or are you done with your comment was miss nolan done with her comment or

010did she drop off i don't know i don't i'm gonna try to bring her back miss nolan are you are you i'm here oh sorry okay okay let me let me let me adjust your time back up for when i we stopped being able to hear you and then i'll start you back up all right and i don't know when you stopped hearing me it was about seven seconds before i said something so all right are you ready yes okay i don't want to see any of our children in the icu we'll get through this we must work together as a community i urge the board to approve the health and safety plan to require masks during periods of moderate substantial and high covered transmission thank you for everything you do to keep our children

011safe okay all right thank you all right then give me a second and we can move to our next commenter our next commenter is megan reichob mike is available hey miss rykov if you want to state your uh name and address and then i'll start your time yes my name is megan rykub 1337 park avenue 19380. okay i'm going to start your time first thank you for addressing the question i had during the property and finance committee meeting about trauma-informed training under policy 805 and administrative guideline 236.1 and clarifying that all staff do indeed receive this as mandated outlined through another policy and i believe it was stated 333 additionally i would like to ask that um the health and safety plan that has been updated is approved masking is a public health issue and

012disability rights issue medical and disability law experts have used the metaphor a mask is a ramp i support this plan because it gets all of our students and staff in school safely masks as shown in this plan provide the greatest opportunity for stability for the school year my family has lived in many states some that have already started back to school the friends in school without universal masking are already experiencing quarantines my youngest was born in florida and i know of more than one district down there in which friends children's are enrolled that are defying the state ban on mass mandates because of the volume of students and teachers sick or exposed to covid and experiencing disruptions because of having to stay home while board decisions are not made by petition i would still like

013to share the status of the petition calling for labor layered coveted safety measures in our schools i am proud to be one of the 600 signers of westchester area school district parents teachers and constituents for masks and schools which was first presented to you by another community member in july thank you very much for making the hard decisions okay thank you all right if you want to move the next commenter in uh the next commenter is uh rectum powell okay your mic is available you want to state your name and address and then i'll go ahead and start your time hello can you hear me yes okay this is herk temple 112 white lion hill circle exton okay i'm gonna start your time sure first i'd like to thank the board for your service and

014opportunity for us to speak so we have followed kohit quite closely looked at the data and so on so there have been of course divide in terms of the opinion but there is no doubt that mask actually although it may not be foolproof it works so i would support the mandate by the school district to have this and the kids are not vaccinated but many of the adults are but still many of the higher education institutions are requiring vaccination as well as masking both so i understand that mask is not very convenient and even difficult for the kids i do understand the parents wants to like some choices and that's also important but at the same time you know sometimes you have to take some hard decisions so i would suggest that you know in

015this case masking if it works i mean you should have that and sometimes you have to swallow the bitter pills for the greater good of everybody although even individually we may not like it but we have to think about the overall public safety so i wholehearted to support this mass mandate thank you for your time okay thank you okay if you want to move the next commenter over yes our next commenter is jessica bordero mike is available thank you jessica borrow 1423 burke road 19380 okay i'm going to start your time thank you for the opportunity i am speaking in support of the updated health and safety plan and urged each of you to vote yes for the final approval this is not last year's covid the delta variant is more transmissible with significantly higher

016viral load and more likely to lead to hospitalizations icu admissions and ultimately death especially men the unvaccinated and let us not forget that all of our 11 elementary school students are vaccine and eligible at present chester county remains at substantial transmission and will likely reach high by the first day of school the u.s hit a record number of coveted hospitalizations in august 14th the national education association the pennsylvania state education association and the pennsylvania affiliate of the american federation of teachers are all in agreement that schools need to employ every mitigation strategy to allow students to return to their classrooms as safe as possible and minimize disruptions like quarantines and closures we all know that the aap and the cdc recommend masks indoors for all individuals regardless of vaccination and status there should be no

017doubt in your minds when both your educators and medical science professionals are calling for a layered mitigation approach to covid19 including masks in the health and safety plan research concludes that mass mandates effectively steiny covert transmission in schools and the cdc's own studies support the same school districts across the us in kansas florida texas mississippi oregon georgia and indiana are facing massive massive coveted case numbers causing quarantines and forcing schools back to the virtual learning all because they had no mass mandates let us learn from their mistakes and serve our students better when we know better we do better and the best way as a medical provider to to treat a disease is to prevent it so please vote yes to keep our children your students safe by approving the updated health and safety plan

018thank you very much okay thank you would you like to move the next commenter in yes our next commenter is diane herron the uh mike is yours and if you'd like to state your name and address and then i'll start your time yes state representative diane herron and my home address is 306 north franklin street and westchester 1938 okay i'm going to go ahead and start your time thank you i'm here to support the health and safety plan first i want to thank this board and the leadership of our school district for putting this policy forth because this policy is essential it protects students teachers administrators and everyone who works in the district it protects families and it is the best tool we have to keep the schools open which is what everyone wants and

019it's what our children need secondly i want you to know that you're supported this past fall the residents of this district voted with an 11 margin against the ballot measures that completely stripped the governor of his powers to declare states of emergency we all know these ballot measures were a referendum on the governor's coven 19 policies but make no mistake our constituents showed us that they want the kind of strong leadership it takes to tamp down this pandemic so we can all get back to work and school third the anti-masking position fails to recognize that we have a responsibility to each other we have a civic duty and we're called upon to perform that duty based on what is best for the people we serve and in this case your policy is what is clearly

020best for the students you serve because it will help maximize success of their lives and is the best chance we have to help them get educated in school so they can achieve their greatest potential which is your most clearly defined goal as educators the science is clear and our national and global pandemic experience is even clearer lastly i know what it's like to be in your shoes i know that leadership requires the confidence to stand alone to make tough decisions and listen to the real needs of others so let's show the way for our children and i'd like to thank you for your leadership as you consider this important decision thank you you can move the next commenter over okay our next commenter is uh lisa rico i apologize if i did not pronounce that

021correctly mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address then i'll start your time lisa replogle 159 west town way in westchester okay i'm going to start your time i am also speaking in a support of the health and safety plan being voted on tonight my boys are in elementary school and as others have mentioned they're unable to be vaccinated at this time i do think masks is the best way to keep all of our children in schools and prevent a lot of quarantines i also just want to thank all of the district administrators and school board i am fairly certain when you took on your positions whenever you began you did not anticipate creating even one let alone multiple health and safety plans over the course of several years and i

022just really appreciate that you are looking out for the best interest of the students and teachers and staff within our school district i do have friends who are parents and teachers in surrounding districts and when we're discussing plans for the school year they have consistently been impressed with what the westchester area school district has proposed i urge you to continue with that positive track record and do what's best for our students here and again thank you for all that you do i know that this is kind of unprecedented it's a pandemic and it's not without public criticism but there are many of us out there that truly appreciate what you're doing for our kids thank you thank you okay we'll go ahead and move the next commenter over next commenter is uh is richard uh

023kessler but i i don't see him in the attendee list uh right under a different name all right let's see if you are mr kessler if you could raise your hand well i have to speak up in the chat yes we'll give him a second and then if he's not here we'll just put him at the end of the public comment list and perhaps he will be here when we get to that point okay all right no okay okay let's move on to the next commenter okay next commenter is uh state uh stacy wamsley uh the mic is yours okay if you state your name and address then i'll start your time i see the mic on but we're not hearing oh sorry stacey 989 regimental drive okay i'm gonna go ahead and start your

024time my agenda comment tonight is regarding the meeting minutes from the july 26 meeting and the public comments regarding critical race theory and the debate of its existence in the westchester area school district i presented at the june meeting in the summer of 2020 my then eight-year-old son took one of the three summer courses offered titled social justice whose course description was for the use of biographies and nonfiction texts we will spark conversation around identity diversity justice and action the four domains of social justice we will engage in discussions readings videos and drawings to bring our learning to life as an amendment to my june comments i would like to clarify that the story was based on race cars and in fact the title of the book assigned is race cars a children's book about

025white privilege this is the back descript cover description of the assigned text race cars is a children's book about white privilege created to help facilitate tough conversations about race privilege and oppression race cars tells the story of two best friends a white car and a black car that have different experiences and face different roles while entering the same race why is this book important as early as six months a baby's brain can notice race based differences by ages two to four children can internalize racial bias and start assigning meaning to race five to eight-year-olds begin to place value judgments on similarities and differences by age 12 children have a complete set of stereotypes about every racial ethnic and religious group in society our guidance is especially crucial during this impressionable time race cars is for

026parents educators administrators school psychologists and anyone with a supporting role in children's lives it offers a simple yet powerful way to introduce these complicated themes to children as a worthy addition to classroom and home libraries i ask that the district cease and desist in its denouncement of the use of critical race theory in its curriculum and acknowledge that this book was used in a course offered by the district in the summer of 2020. thank you okay thank you there was a question i can see from someone wanting to know how they are able to speak when they're called upon i believe when you're asked to call when you're called upon there should be something on your screen mr wagman will automatically move you in so you can speak and there'll be us a box that

027should flash up on your screen asking you to unmute yourself just like you would during a normal zoom meeting okay if we want to move the next commenter over this next commenter uh is rasheeda uh and i again i apologize if i did not pronounce the name correctly hi can you hear me yes state your name and address then i'll go ahead and start your time sure register from extend19341 okay i'm going to start your time thank you good evening everyone today i am speaking in support of school board's decision to mandate masks i'm appreciative of the school district's efforts and the position they are in this trying times i feel the school district did really well last year in magnetic mass and following all the covert guidelines that we were required to after looking

028at the data coming from the states where schools have started without mass mandates i feel it's in the best interest of our children and families to enforce masks social distancing and a good ventilation system in the classroom this academic year as well we all have been looking forward to a normal school year where children go in person for the social and academic benefits they receive from being in school we can still achieve all this by being responsible and following cdc's strong recommendations for school if our children have to be quarantined because of our lack in implementing their recommended safety measures it will disrupt their routine may affect them mentally and socially and also a lot of parents including me won't be able to get back to work through these efforts we are teaching our children

029to not run away from adversity but to face a challenge with caution and safety we all know what's best for our children and this is the time to set an example for our children to take care of each other's needs and do what's best for the community thank you for giving me the opportunity thank you okay we can move the next commenter over yes our next commenter is daniel holland uh the microphone is yours okay if you want to state your name and address i'll go ahead and then i'll start your time uh daniel holland 12 17 karen lane okay i'm going to start your time i appreciate the the opportunity to talk um all the information that's been presented it's very uh confusing this uh i'm actually i'm kind of beside myself just like

030i i don't even know how to begin i'm butchering this my two minutes here i guess but i just don't like not having a choice and i don't know if you guys have kids in the district or not um i wonder about the 600 people that supported the um the one thing that one ladies mentioned that was for uh masking um i mean there's also talks of the the chat censorship and you know bringing outside political activists it's just i don't know i don't know what i'm beside myself i apologize for not saying much of substance anyone that goes against the cdc recommendations i i guess there's questions if you if the school district has the authority to actually mandate the mask wearing um let's say if there's kids that won't wear it or parents

031that won't they're not going to have the kids wear it how are you guys going to enforce that um you know it's just a terrible situation that my wife and i are put in when we have to drop them off at the school bus and they're crying because they have to have masks they talk about anxieties they talk about their asthma they're just it i don't know my heart breaks and it's not fair i'm sorry thank you thank you all right if you want to move the next speaker over yes next speaker is diana uh vincenzo mike is yours okay if you want to state your name and address then we'll go i'll go ahead and start your time is she able to speak uh should be the microphone is on it's unmuted hello can

032you hear me yes oh there was some sort of issue sorry about that okay thank you okay if you want to state your name and address then i'll start your time great my name is diana divincenzo wrangley court westchester okay i'm going to start your time i have a doctorate degree in pharmacy i went to school in the westchester area school district and in the parent of two children entering graystone kindergarten and first grade i would like to use my time to discuss some of the science of masking the science i personally analyzed overwhelmingly points to masking as a relatively simple step we can use to preserve in-person learning for as long as possible unfortunately there are not perfectly designed studies comparing mass to no mass for children answering that question precisely takes rigorous research

033that we simply haven't been able to do but that does not mean that there is not strong evidence which shows mass are a powerful tool to prevent the spread of covid and we need to make a decision for our children now with the best information we know now a large study from georgia conducted last fall showed that cove in 19 incidents was 37 percent lower in schools that required mass for teachers and staff members that same study showed that when students kindergarten through fifth warm mass the incidence of covid was 21 percent lower while this was technically not a statistically significant finding it is clinically significant and combining the findings from this study with findings from many other studies does suggest the most prudent thing we can do is have our children wear masks for

034now there are many studies that show that masking helps reduce transmission especially when combined with other strategies like improve ventilation we can't act on what we don't know but we can act on what we do know schools that have already opened in other parts of the country without mass have already had to quarantine and close we have the luxury of that knowledge and we can act on it i wish my kids didn't have to wear a mask but from a scientific and medical perspective requiring all of our children to wear a mask in school is the wisest decision at this time thank you thank you okay all right if you want to move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is judy defonzo and uh the mic should be available to you okay if

035you'd like to state your name and address then i'll start your time uh yes uh g defonso and i'm on gatewood drive in east ocean okay i'm going to start your time i wanted to talk about the thresh assessment policy kind of reiterate a little bit what i spoke about um at the education committee meeting the ag has language that currently reads notify the building principal of the school the student attends of the reported threat who shall notify the student's parents of the reported threat on the other hand the hazing policy has this language the superintendent or designation notified the parent guardian of any student directly involved in a defined incident as a victim or suspect immediately as soon as practicable the superintendent or designee shall inform the parent or guardian if the local police

036department has jurisdiction over the school property has been or may be notified the incident the superintendent does initial document attempts made to reach the parent or guardian additional language i think from the hazing polish you should be incorporated into the threat assessment policy to parallel what's there parents should be notified immediately or as soon as should it be told if the police are involved in the incident um keep documentation of attempts to contact the parent or guardian in addition if there is a threat against another student it'd be nice to know if you know someone's so another child has threatened your student so i might uh encourage you to rethink um the aeg and to incorporate the uh language from the hazing policy into that section of the threat assessment thank you thank you okay

037we can move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is tammy mayer and the microphone is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time uh well before you start my time i just i have three topics to speak on so i just want to make sure all all three topics are going to be covered in the two minutes no that's not a that's not how it should be i don't think that's how the policy is supposed to be i should have the board policy permits it's two minutes of time for agenda items are you ready are you ready for me to start your time sure okay i'm going to go ahead and start your time i did i did prepare my my uh comments to fit

038within the time that i thought i had allotted but regarding the current version of the safety plan to avoid any confusion can you please strengthen the document to say that staff are encouraged to take students outside for classes and or walks before or after class in order to provide mass breaks also i wonder why we're using incidence rate for the whole population to guide what we're doing for students under the age of 20 can you please adjust the chart to reflect incident numbers for the student population during the education meeting dr shaw mentioned that there was overwhelming evidence to support mask wearing for covid can someone please post that data somewhere for the public to see and also a community member mentioned in the july meeting board meeting that there was 40 sources documenting that

039masks don't work so i'm looking for that data as well regarding the social media policy during the education meeting on august 16th i shared feedback on that policy and i asked for the definition of immorality to be added or for the word to be removed and that was agreed upon however it's still not defined in the document and it's still present in the document and um as we all know everybody's got a different interpretation of what immoral is these days um so i i'm hoping that you can add that and then for the july school board meeting i also noticed that in the meeting minutes there's no mention of the incident that happened with mr mccune walking off the platform taking the um microphone uh you know calling the police to escort the lady out

040of the room and i i i find that interesting that it's not captured in the meeting minutes um so i'm i'm hoping to have my questions that i've posed here answered by the school board um either during this meeting or at least answer the emails that i've been sending thank you so much thank you okay or we can move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is uh catherine stefan the mic is yours okay once you unmute if you want to state your name and address i'll go ahead and i'll start your time hi my name is catherine steppen and i'm at 951 gravestone drive okay i'm going to start your time thank you so much to the board for your service for allowing me to the opportunity to speak um you the board

041are in the extremely unique situation and that you have the power to affect the short and long term health of nearly 12 000 students but let's not kid ourselves it doesn't just affect 12 000 students does it we all know how this virus spreads i say this to highlight the gravity of this decision that you're faced with and so i come to you not just as a terrified parent of a brand new kindergartner starting this year who by the way wore a mask every day all day to day care with no complaints or problems but i come to you as a terrified community member please listen to the experts on this the groups of extremely knowledgeable individuals that have dedicated their entire working lives to determine what is best for public health the groups that

042have come to a scientific consensus about what works in fighting this the centers for disease control the american academy of pediatrics infectious diseases society of america they have all come out in support of universal masks in school and so when you vote please do not allow a few loud illogical naysayers and conspiracy theorists to cloud your judgment and so doubt in what you know makes sense it's simple it's logical the coronavirus spreads through the mouth and the nose and micro droplets covering the mouth and nose with simple fabric layers reduces that micro droplet spread significantly period this is not a new concept this is not experimental this is our best chance of keeping our children and by extension our westchester community safe thanks thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over yes

043uh our next speaker is ada nester and the mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address then i'll start your time [Music] hi my name is aydah nestor i have both an agenda comment and a general comment for the end of the meeting i live at 1216 gale road okay i'm going to go ahead and start your time on your agenda comment all right my agenda comment this evening are the minute minutes that you will be approving from last month's meeting that others have also commented on is it this board's policy to summarize the comments they disagree with in the meeting minutes while expanding on the comments they agree with or those that shower praise on the board and the administration because based on the review of the comments today included

044in the minutes you are planning to approve that is exactly what's happening picking and choosing which comments to include more fully and reducing those you disagree with from the two minutes they were to a sentence or two we spend time compiling information to use our mere two minutes of meeting to share our very serious concerns and you think it's your place to summarize them pick and choose what you include how does that work exactly i would appreciate someone getting back to me to explain this you also completely excluded the event that you claim is the cause for us to be having this meeting remotely currently so i don't see how that correlates i don't see how that makes sense and i would really appreciate someone getting back to me regarding that thank you thank you

045okay we can move the next speaker in yes next speaker is uh susie smith and the mic is yours okay if you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time sure this is susie smith i live in the westchester borough okay i'm going to go ahead and start your time sounds great i just wanted to first state that daniel holland's comment broke my heart and has me shaking i applaud you for your bravery as many are scared to speak out against the district and its policies for my comment having children mandated to wear masks is in direct violation of equity what is equity in education equity in education is the process of reforming practices policies and procedures at the school and district levels to support academic fairness and inclusion and

046ensure that every child has the resources teachers interventions and supports they need to be successful the special education pupil services team is supposed to support the physical and mental health of our kiddos masking is the psychological stressor for children and disrupts learning especially with children who require special services it hinders communication exasperates the chances for anxiety and depression which are already at epic levels themselves with children in this district we are no longer in a pandemic there is no emergency declaration and no provision in the pa school code that allows for a mass mandate on students there is no need for an exemption choice is the only legal option for the end and the individuals with disabilities education act supersedes masking mandates let's ask the solicitor who's keeping time that we're paying for a healthy

047fully vaccinated teacher is close to impervious to threats posed by coven 19 in the classroom unions are pushing mandates which ultimately are illegal and immoral families have the right to choose to mask or not depending on their interests your time is up okay so you want to move the next commenter over yes uh the next commenter is neil weissman and you have the mike okay um if you want to state your name and address then i'll go ahead and start your time thank you neil weisman lake george circle in east bradford okay i'm going to start your time i will be brief i'm disappointed that this and other critical meetings are now online meeting in person is the only way to ensure full transparency that we deserve coveted response plan is punting on doing what

048is right for students families and community regarding the policy it looks like there is just one situation where mitigation is relaxed when transmission is low further vaccination is a private family decision especially one not approved for children this can be very easy the board should vote no schools are safe always have been if someone anyone is afraid of covid and wants to take precautions do so we can support that i know everybody on this call and everybody involved will support that a no vote will be best for all students and respects the right to full unimpeded and unrestricted access to in-school education others may wear masks or take precautions if they wish to attend school and you offer for those at risk or feel they are at risk a second option a viable and welcome

049cyber educational program parents own decisions all choices related to their children and privacy is essential and it's our right thank you okay um mr wagman that is the last person i have for agenda item comments on my um but i believe we were gonna start go back to mr kessler yes let me see if he's here still not uh still not seeing him among the attendees okay well then that is the lie he is not here then that is the last we have um thank you miss sundquist okay i will take back so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of the minutes from the july 26 2020 monthly school board meeting can i get a motion to approve so move george chester all right george chester i

050start mr janelle lays his hand as number two any comments or questions see none roll call please director chester yes director journal yes director herman yes director shaw yes vice president tiernon yes director allen yes director spacman yes president mccoon yes mission carries thank you mr can you also add to the meeting minutes that we met on monday august 9th regarding school safety and negotiations and then again on thursday august 12th regarding school safety with that we will move to the approval of the august 23rd 2021 school board meeting agenda can i get a motion to approve i approve thank you miss dr hartman can i get a second a second all right thank you dr shaw any comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr director herman yes director shaw yes director chester

051yes vice president tiernon yes director jornell yes director spacman yes director gallon yes president mccune yes motion carrier thank you mr shore that will move us to the superintendent's report dr sokolowski mr mccune school board thank you very much this is my very first superintendent's report to offer for the westchester area school district and i'm extremely excited to share with you some welcoming information for the new school year as well as i would like to acknowledge several members of our of our district just simply thank yous for all of their hard work but today we marked the start of our return for about 1490 faculty and staff members for the the 21 22 school year last year we actually started our induction program with a very large induction class of 81 teachers who engage in

052extensive training and opportunities to get to know one another as well as our community this year instead of holding district-wide meetings at east high school i members of the cabinet administration school board members are going to visit all 17 buildings and provide just a welcome a thank you and setting the vision for the school year dr ulmer will be joining me at several of these buildings to honor employees for their years of service this year we have 11 employees marking their 30th year of service in the westchester area school district and one of our employees who is marking their 40th year thank you to our technology department who has worked countless hours this summer to re-image and upgrade thousands of laptops and devices specifically i would like to thank chang lee nancy fay tom cosgrove

053maura abraham asha barkley linda toe bill speaker sarah prieto grant casavanni jamie edmonds tyler czar janet kolenza sue can canon and a few students who worked with our summer staff linden tow jake omer and austin edmonds thank you all so to our facilities department for working all summer long to prepare our classrooms for the school opening in particular i want to acknowledge our facilities department's creativity in setting cafeteria furniture to accommodate students at three feet of social distancing a final thank you as well to our administrative assistants at all of our buildings uh and at the spelman administration building for their tireless work all summer long to do much of the work behind the scenes making sure our schools are ready for both staff and students very soon we are going to be having a

054formal opening of graystone elementary this is our first elementary school that we have opened since sarah stark weather way back in and then after that uh it was rustin high school opening in 2006 in the fall of 2006. graystone elementary located on aram avenue dr fagan the stone principal can't wait for students to see the new school year uh many thanks as well to members of our facilities department kevin campbell wayne burster mark groves tim burns and our head custodian at greystone jason medley the 21 22 school year officially begins next monday but our teachers many of whom were well engaged in professional learning over the summer this summer we offered 141 professional learning sessions and we had 2006 participants so we had many teachers who enrolled in multiple summer learning programs an enrollment update

055as of today we are showing that we have 12 196 students enrolled in the west chester area school districts uh we are about 295 students over our projection and 229 over our actual enrollment at the end of the 21 school year we have 190 students enrolled in our cyber program for the upcoming year this data i think certainly shows that the westchester area school district is definitely a district of choice some academic honors that i would like to recognize we would like to congratulate the following students on being awarded the ap capstone diploma for the 2021 school year they are ella harrison a graduate from rustin high school dylan smolders from henderson and zeke lieberman also from henderson high school summer has also been a busy time for student athletics and marching band at all

056three of our high schools our student athletes and musicians have been working hard to prepare for the fall season and we're looking forward to their games and competitions resuming in a very normal way this fall all three of our middle schools completed transition camps verizon 6th graders these camps are held each summer at all three of our middle schools to help students become familiar with their new building meet new friends learn about the middle school schedule and practice opening lockers middle school students also learned about marketing finance hospitality management and entrepreneurship this year and they participated at the future millionaire summer camp recently held at east high school the camp was organized and run by student members of the east high school deca program deca prepares students as emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in

057marketing finance hospitality and management in high schools and in colleges worldwide each year the westchester area school district deca students have the opportunity to take part in deca's competitive events program the deca program is available to students at east henderson and ruston high school and that mr mckeon is my first superintendent's report for the month of august uh thank you for the opportunity to share all this good news in the westchester area school district well done dr zokolowski thank you very much all right we will move on now next to the approval of the personnel recommendations dr ulmer all right thank you very much good evening mr mccune mrs tiernan and members of our school board our personnel report for the month of august is as follows with removals from payroll we have 10 resignations

058comprising of three teachers one school counselor one paraprofessional one secretary one staff nurse and three custodians we have one retirement ms suzanne wolfel secretary to the assistant principals at ruston high school with 24 years of service sue was also my administrative assistant for 10 years throughout my career so i'm going to miss sue very much sue congratulations and we're going to wish you a long and happy retirement with your family with additions to payroll we are recommending the hiring of 22 new teachers one caseworker and 12 long-term substitutes teachers additionally we are recommending the hire of three custodians one transportation technician two secretaries and one library assistant in personnel events this month i communicated one status change in our first professional staff and one status change in our support staff i also communicated and delivered

05919 involuntary transfers in our professional staff and eight voluntary transfers in our professional staff and 12 voluntary transfers in our support staff furthermore we're recommending two sabbaticals in the professional staff in additional information we are updating one update and staffing allocation seven start date updates one job offer resentment and four salary adjustments in supplemental contracts we have 16 additions to our contracts for the fall season and two removals from fall contracts we also have one adjustment to the fall season i'm respectfully requesting board approval for all personnel matters listed above thank you thank you dr olmer i'll entertain a motion to approve i approve first by dr herman can i get a second second by mrs tiernan any comments or questions scene on roll call please mr director herman yes vice president tiernon yes director

060shaw yes director jurnell yes director allen yes director spacman yes director chester yes president mccune yes motion care thank you mr thank you dr ulmer all right that will move us down to our the approval of the consent agenda i've not been approached by anyone to remove any items from the consent agenda but i will put it out there for anyone who wishes to raise an item same none i'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda make a motion first by mr spacman second a second second by dr herman well call please sorry directors back me yes director herman yes director chester yes director gallon yes director shaw yes director durnell yes vice president tiernon yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you mr chairshore all right that will take us down to our

061committee reports and up first is education and mrs tierney thank you mr mccune at the education committee meeting we voted uh to approve the first reading of 12 different policies we voted to retire one administrative guideline 916 ag-2 sorry nope that's what we did and we voted to approve the westchester area school district that is the education committee voted we bring to you tonight the approval of the westchester area school district health and safety plan for school year 2021 2022 effective august 24th 2021. that's the end of my report thank you all right mr you can make a motion on the approval of the plan i so move okay perfect uh can i get a second uh second bye mr dornell uh with that uh before we go around the horn for any comments and

062feedback dr sokolowski would you like to summarize the health plan uh yes mr mckeon thank you very much for the opportunity to summarize i first want to just share with everyone i do understand the weight of this decision and the challenges as well as the concerns for students and wearing masks it's definitely not ideal but as we look back to where we were a year ago we have the opportunity to open in person and we have the opportunity to preserve in-person instruction so the recommendation to wear mass under elevated conditions and that would be at any level other than low is driven by that commitment to keep students safe and preserve in-person instruction the fact that as the cdc released guidance for close contact and close contact exceptions back in the middle of july that

063stated that the close contact exceptions can be made if both the infected student and the close contact and that close contact would be between three and six feet and they are massed uh will greatly reduce quarantining that we saw last year so this exception that if both the infected student and a close contact are massed will greatly greatly reduce the amount of quarantining and help us preserve in-person instruction for students help us also not see so many interruptions and students simply just coming to school and having that anxiety would they be there the following day unlike last year mass are not required outdoors we're therefore pleased to have started our fall sports program our music programs under mostly normal conditions this summer a couple of modifications that we made and this is with our parent

064and our community input at the education committee the title of the plan we've included language so that it was specific that the plan is for covid19 mitigation and it is not something that would remain in place for a simple flu season mass breaks and outdoor activities are encouraged during the school day what i can also do working with our our directors uh dr uh misit uh as well as dr reynolds uh with her coming on board next week uh is to be more specific with our building administration about those types of activities and i think there was a lot learned last school year that we'll be able to engage uh in the fall the administration and the school board we also added this language will evaluate the conditions on a weekly basis and i am

065optimistic that hopefully sooner rather than later we will return to low levels of transmission and be able to move in a way that we're no longer wearing masks in the classroom and as i said before i do understand those challenges wearing masks are not ideal but i think what is the biggest priority is to keep our students safe and to keep our students in school as much as possible thank you mr mckeon thank you dr klosky all right so now what we'll do is i'll just go around the horn to everybody to allow the opportunity to provide any comments if you so wish to in terms of how what you're thinking and how you're going to vote tonight so just go in alphabetical order here miss chester you're all new mrs chester hi thank you

066i will be voting yes uh for several reasons um i i really um and listening to the data on how masks not only from the parents that spoke this evening but from family members who are doctors family members who are in the medical field um it's just a simple thing that can help so many and since we have such a hodgepodge of folks that may or may not have been vaccinated for whatever reason i think it's i think it's it's warranted of us we absolutely have to look at the safety of all 12 000 children in the district i we we know the impact of children being out of school i so look forward to them being in school five days a week i think that's something we've all worked for i think um parents

067set the tone for help how children will feel about wearing masks i've talked to some children about how what impact it has on them and they said little to none these are the children that i've spoken to so i think for the safety of all i think it's a small price to pay to keep as many as possible well and in school five days a week so i will be voting yes thank you mr mckeon thank you mr chester up next is mr darnell uh yes as i mentioned uh last week in the education meeting i currently teach and i i see students every day and speaking generally most students uh display incredible resiliency and and very there are some that struggle with masking but the vast majority of the students they tolerate the mask

068and they they understand uh that it's it's for safety uh i will be voting yes he stood schools open to keep kids in school and for the safety of the students and for the community thank you thank you mr nell all right that will bring us to mr gallon yes um i will be voting no tonight for one reason really it comes down to parental choice and we are taking that out of the hands of the parents to make those decisions so that's it thank you mr gallon dr herman um i am very concerned about our students staff and our community when it comes to safety in connection with the delta variant it's supposed to be very contagious and i believe the only way that we're going to be able to help prevent this the

069contagiousness is by our students wearing masks i will be supporting the mask mandate i believe in social distancing also as an option the main reason why i'm voting yes is we need to keep our students safe we need to keep them in school there have been many studies saying that is the best place for them um academically socially emotionally um i also believe that as a school community we not only need to be concerned about our students staff but we need to be concerned about everyone in our westchester area school community and i think that a mask is a very small thing to do that will be a very large consequence to help for the prevention of the variant um so tonight i will be voting yes thank you thank you dr herman dr shaw

070i will be voting to support the policy this evening and it's i've listened very carefully to what everybody says i certainly have had some heated conversations with people about this topic but at the end of the day this is not a political decision this is a decision about the health and safety of our students and our staff that's the most important charge that we have as a school board and the second most important charge we have as a school board is to maximize the amount of time that our children can be in school safe safely there is clearly a preponderance of evidence that masking is part of a larger strategy that includes social distancing helps to reduce the spread of covid and i really um i put a lot of weight in the opinions and

071the professional judgment of people who are at the pinnacle of their careers and have spent their entire lives focusing on the kinds of issues that we're struggling with i recognize we're not doctors um i recognize that we are have been put in a position that we had never anticipated but i think that um in looking at all the evidence the the path forward is clear i would say that i would like to ask that we take a look and revisit the religious and medical exemption element of the policy not tonight but maybe next month um and because i think it's important to be more specific about what we're talking about and what the guidelines would be there but i will be voting yes on the policy tonight thank you thank you dr shaw mr spackman

072yes thank you mr mckeon um with this there's been so many different uh perspectives and thought processes and i really have tried to listen to them all take them to heart as a parent myself with multiple children in the district of various different age groups some of them have affected with this more than others um i i believe that by voting yes we can keep the kids in school which is best for the kids to be in there with their friends with their teachers and if the masking will help limit contract tracing and things like that i think that makes a lot of sense logistically because they said with these different variants and all we're doing some things we don't know all the background too it's kind of like um how i look at it

073is having somebody else's kids over at my house i may let my kids do one thing but when somebody else's kids are in my house i'm a lot more productive protective because they're not my kids or somebody else's and here we have 12 196 somebody else's kids under our control under under our watch and we have to look out for and do what's best for that community and i think it makes sense to be more prudently safe uh for all for that group and i think with with thinking in that process i think we only have to think for everyone's safety the teachers the staffs everything like that and this is not a long-term thing this is just get us over the hill and and keep them in school and keep everybody safe so this

074all gets worked out so thank you thank you mr spacman mrs tiernon uh thank you i will be voting yes i think the critical thing for the community for our children and our parents right now is to get the kids back in school and keep them there and i do believe that masking will help us achieve that goal because while they're in school we can meet their needs we can meet their special needs we can meet their mental health and emotional needs but we need to open school and have it run this year and i will be supporting them asking the health and safety policy thank you mrs tiernan all right i'll provide my comments and then we'll get to our roll call here so i'd like to start by thanking everyone who has reached

075out to share their thoughts and concerns on the revised health and safety plan i know all of us had hoped that we'd be on the other side of this pandemic by now in the last few weeks we've seen the surging cases and hospitalizations related to the delta variant we're also seeing more of an impact on children this time around i do feel that we're in a better spot than we were a year ago the delta variant has shown to be a swifter cycle eight to ten weeks in other areas health data is also typically traveling by a couple weeks so we could be through this by the end of september i feel that our safety our health and safety plan is put forth is the best option to start a successful and healthy in-person school

076year it will also help with the extracurricular activities outside the classroom which are critical to the social mental health of our students now there are areas of plan that i feel need improvement most most notably the masking status per county transmission levels needs to be revisited the masking stand should be differentiated across all three levels the masculine status should also be more forward-leaning to a full return to normal as we start to study our own data so what i'll do i do have reservations about the overall composition of the plan i will be voting to support the plan tonight because it's the best option in the near term uh the board administration will continue as dr sukhlaski said to review this on a weekly basis so it's not a one and done thing it's not

077going to be forever we're going to be vigilant about this and again we'll continue to review the local data and implement the changes as we move forward so with that i will be a yes as well uh with that mr roll call please vice president tiernon yes director journal yes director spacman [Music] yes director gallon no director herman yes director shaw yes director chester yes president mccune yes mission carries 7-1 thank you mr and mrs tiernon i assume that closes out the education report yes it does mr mckeon yes thank you with that we will move to pupil services in miss chester okay oh and here i am so first of all i'd like to congratulate dr sokolowski on his first superintendent's report and uh well done uh we had a uh wonderful we had

078a wonderful education committee presentation followed by a pupil services presentation on what happened over the summer with our children some of the programming so in the extended school year program we had five and six week programs in the elementary and secondary schools in elementary we had a five-week program in the east coast in east ocean elementary and a six-week program at east bradford elementary it was wonderful to see and in the secondary we had five and six week programs at stetson it was wonderful to see the children there were 110 children daily engaged in the five-week program for elementary and 65 students engaged in the six-week program in elementary so they um there were 18 teachers in elementary in the five-week program there were ten teachers in the six-week elementary program so there was a

079lot of bustle a lot of activity and it was great that uh children were able to get some academic stimulation as well as uh occupational therapy speech therapy and other therapies that were able to help move them progress them along during the summer so when asked in september what they did on their summer vacation they have a lot to tell so if anyone is interested in those um programs please go to the website and check out the pupil services report also we approved or we re-upped uh 10 contracts they are also listed in including bayata delta t uh two of our doctors are um were re-negotiated for this upcoming year as well as u.s medical staffing and a few others so if you're interested in that please check out the agenda i'm sorry the um

080report from pupil services that is listed on august 16th when our meeting occurred our next meeting will be september 13th and we look forward to to uh seeing you there thank you very much mr mccune thank you miss chester that will move us onto personnel and dr hermann good evening uh dr olmer and i met for our august monthly meeting and we had a very productive update where we reviewed personnel matters that concludes my report thank you mr mccoon thank you dr herman that will move us to property and finance and we have mr galen pinch hitting for mr beverlock what's going on yes thank you mr mckeon uh the property and finance committee met this evening prior to the board meeting mr scully reviewed the budget forecast model uh this month's forecast model focused

081on revisions to the year-end projections for both revenue and expenses at june 30th 2020. changes in revenue projections included increase in local revenues as a result of higher than anticipated revenues and earned income delinquents tax collections and transfer taxes the district also recognized over three million dollars in federal grant money related to covid funding on the expense side the district recognized savings in employee medical claims contracted aids contracted services utilities and student transportation mr scully reviewed the projected fund balance at june 30th and made recommendations to increase our ending unreserved fund balance and to align with board policy and recommended increases to our fund balance reserves for alternative education property tax assessment fluctuations in technology and infrastructure needs mr scully advised the committee that any undesignated fund balance would be used to reduce the impact

082on millage for the 2022-2023 budget this again was for informational purposes and required no action from the committee uh next mr scully reviewed the district uh initiated assessment appeal process and identified four properties within the district that transferred ownership last year that met the criteria of board policy 606.2 for appeal this item is on the agenda for a vote this evening so approval was requested for the 2021 tax appeals iso move thank you mr gallant can i get a second yes all right thank you mr spacman uh with that any comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr mr gallon yes mr gallon director smackman yes director chester oh yes yeah director harmon yes director journal yes director shaw yes vice president tiernon yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you mr back to

083you mr gallon okay uh next mr scully reviewed changes to board policy 606.3 senior tax reduction incentive volunteer exchange program this program offers tax credits to resident senior citizens in exchange for volunteer services this program has been in the district for many years the the changes made to the program were with respect to eligibility of age the eligibility age was reduced from age 62 to 60 in accordance with act 20 of 2020 that's easy to say this item is on the agenda for a vote this evening so approval is requested of reward of revised board policy 606.3 senior tax reduction incentive volunteer exchange program iso move thank you mr gallon can i get a second second second by mrs tiernon any comments or questions seeing known roll call please mrs chairshorn director gallon yes vice

084president tiernon yes director journal yes director shaw yes director spackman yes director herman yes director chester yes president mccune yes promotion carrizzy thank you miss chairshore back to you mr gallon still going um then mr campbell provided the committee with recommended revisions to board policy 805 emergency preparedness and response formerly emergency preparedness and policy 805.2 school security personnel both first readings revisions were made to align the policies with the new threat assessment policy trauma-informed approach and references to requirements for continuity continuity of instruction in emergency situations mr campbell advised the committee that revisions were made to policy 805.2 school security personnel to address the background investigation and employment requirements for law enforcement personnel based on act 57 of 2020 which which took effect on july 14th of this year 2021. these items are on the

085agenda for vote this evening so the first one approval is requested of revives board policy 805 emergency preparedness and response iso move thank you can i get a second i second second by dr herman any comments or questions scene on roll call please mr schwartz director gallon yes director herman yes director spacman yes director durnell yes director shaw yes director chester yes vice president tiernon yes president mchugh yes crushing calories eight to zero thank you miss cherisher back to you mr gallon last one approval is requested of revised board policy 805.2 school security personnel iso move thank you mr gown can i get a second second seconded by mrs tiernan any comments or questions scene none roll call please mr short rusher gallon yes president tiernon yes director shaw yes director journal yes director spacman

086yes director shaw i mean chester yes director herman yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you mr all right so the next property and finance committee meeting will be held on september 20th uh that concludes my report for tonight thank you mr gown all right that will take us to our other reports and up first is the intermediate unit with mrs tunan thank you the intermediate unit is actually celebrating although uh somewhat differently than we might have expected their 50th anniversary we had a big celebration plan for august 23rd but it is being postponed until the spring and so we will look forward to uh celebrating when perhaps the pandemic has re has gone away a little dr gerhard assistant executive director gave a presentation on the cciu health and safety plan i think every

087district and every group is uh looking at this right at this moment the cciu followed guidance from chester county health department in updating our plan for the start of 2021 and it will be updated and reviewed as well all plans periodically depending on the transmission levels of coat of the virus dr gerhart explained the uniqueness of the cciu and how we serve students not only from chester county but from over 40 different school districts throughout the region many of whom are medically fragile the plan approved calls from universal masking for all staff and students regardless of vaccination status so the intermediate unit has struggled with and has made the same decision that the westchester district did and many others that's the end of my report thank you mrs tiernan won't that move us to pspa

088report dr herbert good evening all public school leaders are invited on thursday october 14th 2021 to assume and it is about fall virtual advocacy day the day will center around reaching out to legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public education if anyone is interested register now on my psba thank you that concludes my report thank you dr herman that will move us to the legislative liaison report dr shaw the major thing that i have to report is that a lawsuit filed several years ago that sues the state of pennsylvania for inadequate and inequitable public school funding has finally been approved to be heard in the commonwealth court which is potentially a huge deal in our state because as i say pretty much every month we are the most inequitably funded uh state in the union

089when it comes to public schools so this is a long-standing and pretty critical problem um so the the trial will begin on october 12th and i'll be sure to keep you updated as things move along thank you thank you dr shaw that will move us to the equity report mr jannell hi thank you the district will be sending information out this week on the first of three of our community conversations series part one of the community conversation series will take place on september 9th at 6 30 pm at bayern rustin high school the information sent will contain a registration link uh we hope you can make it that that's all i have tonight thank you mr mail that will move us to the community liaison report mr speckman uh thank you mr mccune um it's

090it's been quiet right now in the community but with the schools getting back in session and all the excitement going on next month i think will be a real zinger right now we're building the excitement for seeing greystone open this doors to new classes for the very first time and that's such a neat thing when school really opens and comes into the community because that's where the memories are made and so many future uh lives would be touched by that thank you thank you mr speckman all right we will move on to other business there's two items that are both on the consent agenda which are the school boards treasury report and statement of disbursements as well as the july 31st 2021 financial report so no action is needed on either those items that will

091move us to uh comments from residents on non-agenda items uh miss sundquist i will move it back over to you okay this is now the period for public comment on non-agenda items those are the items that were not on the board's agenda tonight persons wishing to make public comments tonight were required to register ahead of time the host will notify each participant when it is their turn to provide public comment when your name is called your screen will ask you to unmute once unmuted please provide your name and address if you are providing comment on as a representative of a group please state your group affiliation public comments are limited to two minutes per person for the per the board policy the time will be available on the screen at the end of the time

092period the next speaker will be called public comments are to be on non-agenda items all comments are to be directed at the board as a whole not an individual board members comments may be interrupted or terminated if the public comment is too lengthy personally directive abusive or obscene i'm going to go ahead and get the screen share okay and then mr wagman if you want to move over the first our commenter commenter is uh megan rykob and the mic should be available okay you'd like to state your name and address and then i'll go ahead and start your time good evening my name is megan reichel 1337 park avenue 19380 okay i'm going to start your time my comment is on the upcoming community conversation on equity last month i was deeply moved by some

093of the public comments one of the district's special education teachers shared her unique perspective on equitable education as both an educator and someone who uses a power wheelchair to navigate the world a black mother an active volunteer in school shared her experiences on how important it is to walk in another person's shoes and how she partnered with her children's principal to create a project called your heritage in a day i was further moved at new parent orientation last week when principal dr brown made a point to share in his presentation that a transgender student wanted to be at east because they felt welcomed i ended my public comment in july by saying that diversity is a fact equity is an act and inclusion is a choice diversity is who makes up our school community diversity

094has both visible traits like skin color or religious garb and invisible traits such as some disabilities and sexual orientation it is a choice to see who isn't at the literal and proverbial lunch table ask why not and then invite them i look forward to seeing how this event will facilitate conversation ensuring people feel welcome at the table there are ways our lives shape us we may have in common and ones we may never know well we won't literally walk a mile in someone's shoes listening to situations others have encountered builds bridges and empathy the statement i never thought about it that way can be powerful when we allow it to broaden our viewpoints at our core i believe humans want to be understood and open-hearted conversation can foster understanding i remain appreciative of the district's

095equity mission and goals because i think they not only embrace my children but prepare them and all students for a life beyond this great beyond this district in the great wide world thank you okay thank you okay you want to move the next commenter over yes the next commenter is uh and i apologize if i mispronounce it elite element shelley uh the microphone is yours okay if you want to state your name and address then i'll then i will start your time yes this is from liam lane in westchester i i think i selected the wrong category i was going to talk about the support for the health and safety initiative i think that's been voted on so without wasting anyone's time i would like to back my time so anyone else who might want

096to talk thank you thank you okay you want to move the next commenter over yes the next uh commenter is stacy wamsley and the microphone is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time stacy wensley 989 regimental drive okay i'm going to start your time my non-agenda comment tonight is regarding the revised health and safety plan that was actually excluded from the consent agenda last monday i explained how a universal mass mandate violates my son's rights as an individual under the protection of the ada or americans with disabilities act liam's disability is of the communication type and we as his parents reject the district's attempt to supersede our parental rights by invoking and local parentis by forcing universal masks and requiring students with disabilities to get an

097exemption when they are already protected by the ada our son may be exceptional but he is not an exception and we refuse to allow you to put a label on him given the impending threat to our son's health development and overall well-being we were already concerned about his continued attendance at stark weather then we learned from a concerned citizen that there was a more immediate danger to our children and that was the target put on his back by dr scanlon in a communication to this board and the entire district administration we find this to be an egregious abuse of power and submitted a right to know last week to better understand the possible threat to our son this morning we received notice that the district has chosen to invoke the additional 30 days afforded to

098them by the right to know process instead of producing the information requested as a result we are withdrawing our son from the district effective monday august 30th until further notice pending an investigation of the statements made by dr scanlon we find the continued actions of this board and administration to diminish threaten blackmail and intimidate our family and other members of the community to be the most imminent threat to our children and community in may i spoke about how we the adults should model the pbis behaviors taught to our children and i'm disheartened to see those words fall on deaf ears i hope you listen closely to the parents bravely speaking up tonight they are only a fraction of those sitting at home listening watching and waiting for you to rise to the occasion good night

099thank you okay if you want to move the next speaker over yes uh the next speaker is lou vitale and mike is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then and then i'll start your time hold on one second sorry we have to unmute you there you go how do i get back to it no it's all right i need to read it hi my name is lou vitale uh i live in westchester i'll give you the zip code one nine three eight zero i'm not gonna get mine directly i'm not gonna give my exact address due to my uh employment that's fine i i'll go ahead and start your time okay thanks um i've been a police officer for almost two and a half decades prior to that i served

100my country in the armed forces and still currently serve in the national guard i'm very disturbed by the amount of anti-law enforcement material on the school district's website specifically in the resources section of the equity page to start there is a video aimed at an elementary aged audience called woke read alouds where the narrator is quoted as saying i wrote this book called black lives matter about all the black kids who have been killed by police officers sometimes black children are not safe around police officers another video featured black parents speaking with their children about the police in this video in this video after being asked how she would confront a police officer a woman states at this point there is nothing they could do to make me feel safe except clearing them all out

101and starting from scratch lastly there are a number of lesson plan resources uh in the teaching tolerance folder that explicitly explicitly blame the police for the 2012 killing of michael brown in ferguson missouri it has since been proven that brown assaulted the officer and attempted to grab his gun but the lesson plan fails to make mention of this after almost two years of escalating violence toward law enforcement the last thing we need is a school district poisoning the minds of our children against the police the children need to know that the police are their friend and when they are in danger or distress that is the police that they can turn to and god forbid something should happen it is the police that is going to run in the direction of danger while everyone else

102is running away from it i feel it personally offensive and professionally offensive as well thank you very much thank you okay i'm going to move the next commenter over yes i wanted to see if richard kessler was here i still don't see him in the list of attendees all right well then we'll move him to the end and call him again okay then our next speaker is stephanie vitale and the microphone is yours hi thank you uh for your time tonight um i'm stephanie vitale uh i also live with my husband um in westchester uh one nine three eight zero again not uh okay disclosing our address because of our profession okay um i'm gonna start your time okay thank you i just wanted to piggyback on what my husband said i i am also

103a law enforcement officer in chester county um and i'd like to speak to this from uh a parental standpoint uh it's very disheartening to see these resources up for the children the peers of our children because i do not want my children's peers to be afraid to come to our house because of our profession we often have police cars parked in our driveway we come home on duty in uniform and i really really really hate to see children scared to come to our house because of stuff that is posted on the district's website um not only that but i also don't want my children to be afraid to go to other people's houses because of this material and then on top of that in some of like my husband quoted a lot of the statements

104are broad stroke statements about law enforcement on whole and i i don't don't wish that on anybody any profession any any group of people whether it's your gender race sexual orientation or employment um i find the comments to be very divisive and i don't find the district to be a divisive community i i think the purpose of our school district is to bring the community together but these videos are just quite frankly the opposite um that's really all i have for tonight thank you okay if you want to move the next commenter over yes our next commenter is uh elizabeth montgomery lewis and the mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time hi um first time caller so i apologize i don't have anything prepared

105i i was just going to speak off the cuff i'm elizabeth montgomery lewis i live at 1100 station way westchester okay i'm going to start your time hi um my sophomore son at ruston plays on the soccer team and part of their training over the summer was given to them by the coach he had them running 10 400s or other days shooting on net and we did not have access to the turf field at ruston and i'd like you to possibly reconsider the use of the field for the kids in the summertime when they're given training programs by their coaches especially for the fall sports i know that point is moot now because the sports have already started but it would be something maybe you could reconsider for next summer that the kids could have

106access to the field getting over to henderson i know that that's the one field that has access you have three schools converging on henderson and it would be really nice to be able to spread those kids out over three different fields and that's it thank you okay you want to move the next caller over yes our next caller is maria proctor you have the mic all right if you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time is miss proctor moved over she is okay are you able to unmute yourself he's unmuted now can you hear me yes yes okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time maria proctor 1636 herron lane okay i'm going to start your time i would like to hear

107from more parents who are actually from other countries we heard from a few over the last few weeks but i'm very interested in hearing they've coming to a free country with free with our education system they're leaving oppression they're leaving surveillance their children may have been born in those countries and know that as well so i would really like whatever the teaching program is going to be for the year to promote religious freedom race freedom gender freedom and i'd like to hear more from the parents that's i think my my main um message since we're not speaking about things that were on the agenda tonight um and i'd also like again to support the police i'm hoping that we hear support from the teacher the teachers unions and also what the kids are being taught

108i think that's very very important for our children and we have a constitution that defends all these things i'd like to hear the constitution promoted and i'd like to know who's going to be teaching those classes especially in the upper classes and how many if middle school it's taught high school it's taught and also about the um i'd like to see policemen and they're teaching some of the um about more about what they do as well thank you okay if you want to move the next caller over yeah i believe it's daniel holland uh that's who i have okay so again um so daniel holland the mic is yours you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time muted okay mr holland are you able to unmute mr wegman can

109you prompt him to unmute um well i already have yes okay um i just you would unmute yourself just like you would on mute yourself on a zoom call there'll be a box you can push okay mr holland uh i got a message that says we can pass him okay okay okay all right then we'll move on to the next caller the next uh next commenter is uh maria margrow and mike is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time hi my name is maria margrow i live at 11 stone barn lane in thornton okay i'm going to start your time thanks um first i just want to thank mr and mrs vitale for their contributions to our community and to our country it's much appreciated my

110comments tonight are about the district my son will be entering 10th grade this year and my family moved to this district exactly 10 years ago i think today because of the excellent school district that our son would have the opportunity to attend we felt the district to be exemplary at that time and we haven't changed our mind especially given the unprecedented events of the last year however even though we've been here for 10 years this is the first time i'm speaking at a school board meeting and what compels me to speak is my support of our school board as well as the president of our school board chris mccune i wanted to just share with you that i appreciate uh the board's leadership especially um under chris's oversight as the president and when i look

111back at the last year i'm grateful the board was led with science and sound decision making regarding cova decisions the the decisions that were made balanced uh safety while allowing us to be the first to announce plans to go back full time in person and the first district to be hybrid we also have a superior credit rating under moody's and this is not an accident it's the long hours and the time that the board has spent to ensure that we are in a good solid financial position um i also just want to share with you that um the the district has clarified many times that crt is not being taught um the investments have been made in diversity and inclusion and dei is not crt neither are the educational materials related to dei they're not

112crt either finally i do know mr mckeon outside of being a school board president our kids go to school together i know him i'm a woman of color and all the terrible things that have been said about him couldn't be further from the truth chris and the rest of the board thank you for your leaders all right your time is done okay our next speaker uh is john mcdonald okay do you want to move mr mcdonald over all right the mic is yours okay if you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time yeah this is john mcdonald at 503 north walnut street okay i'm going to start your time we can all agree that there's a sharp divide amongst our school communities surrounding a couple of nuance issues here

113one being the ability of our children to breathe freely and the other concerning principles and constructs of hatred divisiveness and marxism regardless of which camp you put yourself in there again is a solution that i've spoken on previously those that disagree with me on those issues i do have a few questions for you are you telling me that myself and others who believe the same as i do have no merit validity or justification for our concerns that we have no legitimacy to our arguments that we're just supposed to shut up and take this just muzzle our kids against our conscience and send them into marxist indoctrination factories i ask you what recourse do we have can we not have reconciliation here some like to call us enemies but i don't accept that we're still your

114neighbors and we're still human regardless of how you feel on these issues members of the board who thrust the masking and the crt dei because they are the same thing the ones that throw these edicts at us um against those that believe that these policies are inherently evil i ask you where is our diversity where is our diversity of thought where's our equity and where's our inclusion no it appears as though we've been exiled and excluded just to be relegated to an island if we don't comply and submit with the monolithic ways of groupthink this is cruel give us a way out allow us not to be your burden anymore work with us to create charter schools so that we can go on our way and you can go in yours why are we being

115held hostage here why are we being forced to pay for goods and services that we don't support we don't do that in any other faculties of life when was the last time you flew on an airplane and sat in coach only to be charged with the first class fair so why should i expect to be subjugated to send my children off or something that i am forced to fund with what goes on that violates my conscience members of this community i urge you to contact me so we can start charter schools and end the psychological harm that is being thrusted upon our children it's time to take these schools into our hands and get the teachers students out of them thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over our next speaker is

116uh ricky swamp but i don't see him in the attendees okay mr swamp if you're there now would be the time to raise your hand okay if you don't see him then we'll move him to the end and call him again okay uh our next uh speaker is um maureen snook and the mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time thank you can you hear me all right okay yes it's maureen snook 300 barn hill road westchester 19380. okay i'm gonna start your time thank you this has nothing to do with masks but i know we've all been part of a recent spirited debates on critical race theory and there's so much division on it i'm really looking forward to more unity i know that

117some of our own officials have said that we don't we can only teach history with critical race theory others assert that there is no crt in our district the national education association wants crt taught in classrooms the american federation of teachers says there's no crt and k-12 schools so there's an awful lot of diverse opinion on this the big thing that i fear is not crt but division and mistrust among us it's bad for us i think it's bad for our kids it's bad for our schools so i propose rather our original national motto e plara bazunum out of many one this is the motto of the united states back in 1776 i hope our kids are taught i'm looking forward to the upcoming community conversations on september 9th but as a couple hours ago

118this was not on the website it's not on the school calendar and i think that kind of approach just breeds mistrust among all of us so i think it's real important to reach out to all the stakeholders and just know that we want everybody's voices heard like we've heard tonight and that we really need to come together better division is bad hate is bad racism is bad bigotry is bad so let's really try to unite and see if we can make one out of many of us thank you very much and i do look forward to participating in the community conversations just please advertise it wider thank you thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is john page and the mic is yours okay mr page if

119you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time john page woods edge road 19382 okay i'm going to start your time thank you very much not to see not to overstate the obvious but the last 18 months are unprecedented the impact has been brought on globally nationally locally and not a moment goes by that nobody is aware of what has occurred as many have stated this evening there's divergent opinions on many topics surrounding the pandemic and other issues that have faced our country and others globally as well today it's difficult to build consensus it's certainly even more difficult to lead i appreciate your service and volunteerism while recognizing the changes required to navigate through this pandemic i commend the board on their ongoing efforts to support the initiatives by reinforcing

120all efforts to provide the district's children with an opportunity to acquire first-rate public education good luck going forward and you have our support good evening thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is dana seaman and the mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time hello my name is dana seaman and my address is 912 stage road in west town okay i'm going to start your time hello i am a resident taxpayer and business owner in westchester i'm also a former pto president of ruston stetson in west town thornbury i wholeheartedly support chris mccune as school board president and i'm thankful for his continued guidance and governance of the westchester area school district chris first ran for school

121board director at a time when our school school board had been inundated with members who were causing divisiveness within the community they were focusing on furthering political agendas instead of what is best for our children and their education he has been doing a great job putting our children and their education first while maintaining the excellent reputation of our school district and keeping our home values high while our taxes the lowest in chester county there's been a lot of challenges in the past few years chris mccune has been a proven leader and will continue to be the consistency we need moving forward chris mccune values the weight of truth facts and common sense he will not allow politics to interfere with the education of our students chris has demonstrated that he will make decisions based on

122science experience and reality and not misinterpretations or alternate facts that are unproven without sources it upsets me that some parents in our district are being fed misinformation about critical race theory being a part of our curriculum even though it is in fact not being taught in any school district anywhere i would like to thank chris mchugh for keeping politics out of our schools and for preserving the quality of education in the westchester area school district thank you our next uh speaker is robin callener okay you're mic is yours okay if you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time uh robin calendar 1198 carrie lane in west town okay i'm gonna start your time okay i'm speaking tonight to express my sadness and frustration regarding what has happened in our

123school district community from 2014 to mid-2020 our district was peaceful and board elections transpired without the ugliness that had preceded them and without the complete breakdown of civility that we've devolved into this last year i was unhappy when my son was learning remotely and i let the board know in a civil manner i'm not thrilled he has to start the year with a mask but i concede masking could help maintain my son's in-person learning my top priority so i accept it but the words and actions of a small but vocal part of this community which is bitterly against these things have led to the collapse of common decency the attacks against chris mccune have been of such a personal and vile nature that i won't dignify repeating them and now due to the national alt-rights

124invitation into our community our school district has been threatened with violence to a degree that the fbi is now involved and we have police and lawyers attending our meetings most of those doing the yelling haven't been paying attention to the board for the last eight years because overall their kids were fine but if they had they would have seen that chris mccune has done an exceptional job leading this district they weren't watching when he guided the negotiations of financially advantaged advantageous contracts or when he drove the implementation of full day kindergarten and a cyber program that both supported our students and drew market share and money back to our schools and i can attest from personal experience serving on the board with chris that he is markedly skilled at drawing board members to consensus and

125pushing back on administration when needed they're paying attention now because it impacts them but they can only see or only willing to see their own perspective and forget that there are many out there who feel differently they just aren't yelling and threatening but the board nevertheless has to consider their views on making decisions for the entire district i sincerely hope that quiet majority starts paying attention and speaking up soon because chris mccune deserves much better than this treatment and this district will be lucky to have his leadership for another four years thanks thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over yes the next speaker is karen haran and the mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time karen hurran 1188 muirfield drive

126westchester okay i'm going to start your time i wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the school board members for their leadership and for maintaining their focus on their respective committees and district-wide initiatives especially over the last few weeks your volunteer responsibility should not have to include you or your families being put in potentially harmful situations in order to de-escalate volatile outbursts and you should not be threatened through social media posts emails phone calls or inflammatory false narratives our community comes together this fall to decide who will serve the district i hope all these individuals seeking board positions will take the opportunity to educate taxpayers on your experience what value you will bring to the board and how you and your supporters will work to unite the district through your service not divide it

127discrediting opponents or current board members by communicating false information should have no place in our district in closing i would like to thank mr mccune and his family for their outstanding commitment in years of service to the local community leading with a sense of honesty integrity and collaboration in order to meet the demands of taxpayers parents educators and students is an extraordinary task and one that mr mckeon has not only met but exceeded over the years thank you for keeping politics out of the district and thank you for your time thank you okay our next uh speaker is judy defonso and the mike is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time uh yes hi everyone uh judy defonzo here still living on gatesfood drive in east

128ocean thank you all right i'm gonna start your time um i was gonna speak last month i kind of prepared something and then i got uh to the meeting a little late where i couldn't uh sign in to speak so i'm going to say the same thing what i had planned last year uh month um july was disability awareness month and about 20 of the westchester population is disabled if you take the number of students with ieps and 504s and in the 20 years i've had a child in the school district i've seen very few disabled teachers principal staff other than jessica keough you know she's kind of you know out there in the community which is kind of nice to see um i know we've talked about having a representative uh population that the

129kids can relate to you know in a position of authority in the school district and you know disability is a type of diversity um you also wanted to say about best practices in education and that is always to follow what's been researched or evidenced based to work in schools and i know when it comes to like implicit bias i don't believe there's any um research or evidence as to a guideline as to what to do and when there's no evidence you have two choices either you do nothing or you do something and i'm very proud that the westchester school district has uh a program to try and you know at least make people aware of the fact that there's bias and um you know this sort of thing that goes around and hopefully um correct

130it and uh because that's what's best for the for the students is for everyone to get along uh for them to not you know be afraid of their neighbors and that sort of thing oh thank you very much thank you okay you want to move the next speaker over yes our next speaker is tammy mayer okay you can when you after you state your name and address i'll start your time tabby mayor east bradford township okay i'm going to start your time i'm just really curious about the processes here and how we um just unanimously approved meeting minutes that left out entire segments of what actually happened during the meeting i don't get that and i think that the public needs to have some clarification on that um the other the other thing that's concerning

131me is i i'm not clear as to why the board the committee members during the committee meetings don't acknowledge the people who are presenting and the time that they've put into providing feedback even even emails are not even being answered and i'm very puzzled by that i mean it's just it's a it's disrespectful it's rude um but i'm especially concerned that you're not even discussing the ideas that are being presented during these meetings with one am with one another before you're even taking a vote on a particular thing um it it makes it seem as if you don't care about the public comments that this is just a facade you know just make the parents feel good make the community feel good by seeming like they have a a say in things um and it

132it's it's very disheartening it's just it's discouraging to to see all of you on on these meetings and and to know that you know you're you're not even acknowledging the comments that people are making let alone discussing the feedback that they're providing before you're ever taking votes so i would just urge you to rethink the way that you're um you know coming to the meetings and um maybe the processes and the policies around these these meetings and how they're conducted so that it's a more respectful way of doing business thank you thank you okay you want to move the next commenter over yes uh the next commenter is dave mclean like is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then we'll start your time yes dave mclean west ocean township okay

133i'm going to start your time good evening dr sokolowski westchester area school board members and our world-class faculty and staff that may be on this call thank you for your time and endless commitment to our children's education and for making westchester area school district the high performing district that it is especially during these challenging past 18 months my wife kate and i have three thriving children in westchester schools each are highly active learners engaged in their community the school community and members of the school sports program so we are westchester proud when deciding years ago where we would call home westchester area school district quickly rose to the top of our list for multiple reasons having top-ranked schools in the state and being the lowest tax district in chester county these results only come from

134true dedicated leadership mr mccoon was one of the first board members we met at a school board-based community event first hand we have witnessed his passion and desire for all our students to develop it in all areas of academics and activities we believe mr mccune works tirelessly and selfless to make the best decisions and to ensure our students and school remains top ranked thank you greatly for all you do for the westchester area school district school school district community thank you okay if you want to move the next commenter over yes our next commenter is nancy wood and it looks like she's on the phone okay all right if you want to state your your name and address and then i'll start your time nancy wood 300 shropshire drive okay i'm going to start your

135time the escalating attacks against our district's equity mission deeply sad in me tonight i speak in support of director of equity and assessment dawn matter who has been subjected to a public unsubstantiated and politically motivated attack i was shocked to hear political candidate stacey wamsley in a publicly broadcasted interview in which she promoted her campaign for this board attack miss matters professionalism and integrity ms wamsley started by discussing this matter's salary saying that she is quote handsomely paid leaving this insinuation hanging she launched into a second-hand anecdote not facts to falsely assert that ms matter refuses to answer questions or provide data and stating that his matter won't put anything in writing while scrutiny of our administrators is necessary criticism should be fact-based and constructive to reference this matter's salary while publicly undermining her reputation

136raises ethical questions giving that miss wamsley is seeking a position of power over ms matter and others the truth is that ms matter is a distinguished and lauded educator with nearly 20 years in her career her role in its objectives were created based on recommendations from the upenn equity audit the truth is that ms matter and the district have provided reams of data and effectiveness measures all accessible front and center on the district's home page the truth is that ms matter answered questions including difficult ones promptly respectfully and truthfully after hearing this wamsley's accusation i directly asked ms matter about her approach in fielding questions she explained that when questions are unclear sensitive or contentious she occasionally suggests a meeting or phone call explaining that direct communication is especially critical for authentic conversations about race

137the truth is that dawn matter is working to build bridges and strengthen our community our district is fortunate to have her leadership which is worthy of emulation by anyone seeking a role in guiding our community thank you okay you want to move our next commenter over yes our next commenter is aidan nester and the mic is yours okay if you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time my name is aydah nesta i still live on gail road okay i'm going to start your time there are currently three children in the icus in all of chester county that is not specific to covet three children in all of chester county the law being used to justify your health mandate is in loco prentice and based on pa code bulletin title

13822 chapter 1022 pa code 10.25 authorities ability to stand in loco parentis over children does not extend to matters beyond content conduct and discipline during school school activities or on a conveyance as described in the safe schools act teachers guidance counselors vice principals and principals in the public schools have the right to exercise the same authority as a parent guardian or person in parental relation to such people concerning conduct and behavior over the peoples attending a school during the time they are in attendance including the time required this does not allow you to make decisions for the health of our children we do not co-parent with the school district there is no justification for this at all again three children in the icu for all reasons in all of chester county you or your solicitor

139are not being honest about this law's power over our children's health or the decisions that we as parents have a right to make parents are afraid to come forward because they see how we are treated for doing so we hear from them every single day they are afraid of their children being excluded they are afraid of being attacked online and they are afraid of the pitchforks coming from them you have created that environment with your behavior thank you okay do you want to move the next speaker over yes i think the next speaker is is susie smith i'm just not clear whether she wanted to comment at the end of the meeting so um i think i think she's listed as i have her as listed okay yes then uh smith you're you're mike the

140mic is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time is miss smith been moved over she has okay is she able to unmute she's been prompted to unmute i'm not i can't uh can you prompt her again to unmute yes all right well then what we can do if she's not able to unmute right now is we can go back we can continue on the list and then we'll we'll try her again i don't have anybody else um our last uh last speaker uh contacted miss cheryshore and and uh withdrew from okay so then we need to go back and do mr kessler or mr small we said we would go back to them okay still not seeing mr kessler among the attendees but um so you

141gotta message in here okay there's a couple of comments and yeah i'm i'm looking at that um i see there's a valerie doherty who said that she registered for comments should she be on this list also a jennifer mcfarlane and a cheryl wayland should they be on the list what all right they were not on the list that closed at noon today okay and anita edgarian said she was not called they said they put their i know these miss mcfarland said she put in her information last thursday so why don't we we'll do those four individuals okay um and then we and then we'll be done with non-agenda item comment okay so i'll start with um sally valerie dougherty jennifer mcfarland cheryl whalen anita edgarian okay valerie uh dougherty up first and uh mike is

142yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time can you see me no i can hear you okay so i'm valerie dougherty thank you for getting me on very last minute um i appreciate your time perfect thank you i just want to say i appreciate everybody in the district and coming from a very different lens but working in a school system that what our district has done during a pandemic has been very inspiring inspirational and you really have supported these students in ways that nobody can understand unless you really understand what it looks like to work in a district and i've literally [Music] have struggled in a sense with trying to understand what a pandemic is which we all have what equity inclusion diversity looks like and i

143really feel that our vision our perception of that is very different and i'm jewish my children are biracial my husband is catholic i'm therapist he's on the bomb squad it's very different in our vision but my struggle is the disconnect that i have literally seen within our community during this pandemic it's it's disheartening to me i don't understand it i don't appreciate it and i just want to meet people where they are but i'm confused and i just wanna i mean i think dawn matter came in to this district and her vision is she wants to support and she's coming from a different lens but i think some people are trying to understand her lens but there's people that aren't but if we're not going to be open-minded and understand what that truly means it's

144not going to work and it's really unfortunate because we hear equity diversity inclusion what i learned i got 10 seconds left was people are looking at that as a color thing it is a color thing but it is an equity thing meaning here we go with the time thank you okay if you want to move uh miss mcfarlane over yes um miss mcfarlane the mic is yours jennifer mcfarland east bradford township okay i'm going to start your time i recently wrote a response to the statement from mr mccune um on that was in the august 2nd 2021 daily local news it survived on their facebook page and website for a hot minute before being pulled fortunately i have a screenshot of the posting but i question why it was pulled at that time miss edgarian

145asked a question that was not answered in that meeting in fact mr mccune still has not answered the question nor has the board are you teaching critical race theory to the teachers he would not answer because the answer is yes having been disturbed about what i was seeing and hearing in my grandson's classroom this past year and assignments from the previous year second and third grade as a result i filed a right to know within the school district last fall and i have the documentation a powerpoint slide presentation teacher workbooks calendars of trading dates showing that the administration and school board have approved budgeted and instructed all the staff in critical race theory every year over the past 17 years under the guise of diversity equity inclusion but wait you say we want all schools

146in our country to be diverse and inclusive it's what america is how can anyone be against equity diversity and inclusion the fact is what the average american defines as equity diversity and inclusion is not what the purveyors of crt believe i'm far from being an expert in critical race theory but i can see what is going on before my eyes while i believe that the dei curriculum was brought in with good intentions i also believe that the boarding committee members were uninformed on the history founders and proponents of crt there is only one truthful answer to the question of are you teaching the teachers crt that truthful answer is yes the presentations in my hands the hands of others prove it in addition you've spent almost a half million dollars of taxpayer money to do

147so i ask you as well if you've spent so much time why are on this why would you think it's not going to the students do your research i did your time is up our next uh miss leyland speaker is uh cheryl whalen yes mike is yours okay can you hear me yes you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time yeah thank you for giving me an opportunity again uh cheryl whalen153 leadline lane okay i'm going to start your time hi thank you um i just wanted to say you know it's really a shame to hear all the division in this district you know when i hear someone say a few loud illogical naysayers it's very upsetting just because we disagree doesn't mean we need to start calling people

148names you know can't we just agree to disagree there needs to be respectful debate on both sides of the issue instead of shutting down speech in addition to that i don't know what you call crt however my son graduated from reston and four years ago during black history month he watched a youtube video talking about white privilege with curse words i sent an email to this principal questioning this and said i'm totally supportive of black history month we can talk about dave martin luther king day of service who my son volunteers with scouts every single year totally supportive of that but this is totally inappropriate and upsetting to me that this is what my cat my son came home offended and said a lot of his friends were offended but was taught in a sophomore

149uh kind of orientation in addition to that the board got three million dollars in federal grant for cobid why are we not hiring any reading specialist why is that money not going to special education and everybody talks about masks it should be up to the parents totally up to the parents of medical decision my son may wear a mask he may not i don't know but why are the high school students who are vaccinated still forced to wear masks what about the anxiety the depression the you know kids who suffer from dysthymia you know what about all the negative aspects of mass no one ever talks about that the rate of suicide in this district and all the mental health services not being provided i know kids are turned away from mental health services within

150this particular district i talked to the pediatrician and he tells me he hears it from other parents why is that not being addressed with all this additional money so you know it's just upsetting very upsetting and you know i so i know the board is working very hard but we can agree to disagree and be respectful about it especially when you hear specific people being called out it's very upsetting as a taxpayer and a parent okay your time is up okay and we'll move over miss agarion okay so gary and mike is yours okay you want to state your name and address and then i'll start your time my name is anita edgarian i will not state my address because since i was attacked by mr mckeon's life hasn't that's fine you don't have to

151say your address i'll start yeah so this is not about crt or mask and it's not even about the out-of-body experience that your board member displayed at the last board meeting and the fact that you carefully eliminated that from your board notes for your information that is called dictatorship and i will address that later this is about the board accountability around august 2nd we were informed that you have a threat and because of public safety you are going to do virtual that was two weeks ago since then we have not heard a thing from the board that's fine then you expect in less than a week for us to put 12 000 kids 1800 staff members in 16 different locations and i am personally told there's no safety issue that's fine so the threat was

152about the board members and that's why you're going virtual well according to police authority the case is closed it has been closed so the leadership is manipulating this situation to avoid facing parents you are using this to take away our parents god given right to advocate for our kids in person you have broken the public trust and you're hiding behind your computer screens to maintain your censorship your job to provide a forum to parents to communicate that's your job so not only you have been silenced about the parent being physically harassed in the last board meeting but yet you repeat the same ignorance tonight and are holding a virtual meeting so i'll tell you what you're good people but you're doing the wrong thing the most honorable thing you can do is resign from your

153positions and let us bring the trustworthy board members that care about our kids and the education all right thank you i think we have to circle back to miss smith one more time to give her an opportunity like we said we would and then we'll then we'll be done with non-agenda item public comment okay well uh smith if you wish to make a comment the mic is is yours it says she only had an agenda item comment all right and we're done with non-agenda and public comment okay uh that will move us to uh german uh before we get that i do have an announcement and then we'll close with a quote here so uh the west chester school district plans to resume in-person school board and committee meetings in september all mailings will be

154held at spelman education center located at 782 springdale drive if we need to move the meetings to a larger venue we will communicate this information to the community the meeting schedule is as follows monday september 13th 6 30 p.m education committee 7 pm people service committee monday september 20th 6 30 p.m property and finance committee monday september 27th 7 pm school board meeting please note that mass will be required at all meetings as long as chester county transmission rates are moderate or higher it is our sincere hope that the school board returns to in-person meetings these are mainly these are clearly mainly different approaches and opinions regarding the best course of action as we continue to navigate the ongoing pandemic and one thing is clear we are all passionately concerned about educating our students i

155think we can all agree that moving forward with calm and civility well provide our students and staff with a supportive environment they need to see achieve success in this school year with that i will close out with a quote uh last week i was actually summons the jury duty and the judge presiding over the case was a judge by the name of uh william man the honorable willie man up in chester county courthouse and uh he was giving a lot of advice to the jurors as we were being seated and so here was his quote the world will never be perfect it's up to each of us to make it as good as possible with that i'll entertain a motion to adjourn first by randall mr spacman in a second second by mr annelle all

156in favor say aye hi hi good night everyone thank you everybody