WSD Regular Public Board Meeting - August 23, 2021

001you just signal me when the feed is you just signal me when the feet are we're now live okay great katie can you please start us off with roll call yes mr badger here mr bliefeld i'm here mr frank here mrs ginsberg here this is here ms kyanicus here mr stolloff here mrs walsh here mr antonio here we have nine president zero uh oh i'm sorry we have a student board about carly meltzer here nine president zero absent and one student board wrap with us tonight great okay um we're gonna start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i'd like to welcome everyone to the august

00223rd 2021 public meeting of the wizarding school district's board of directors as you can see this is our first in-person board meeting in i think probably about 18 months so it's good to see many of you in person and i'm glad that we've retained the ability for the public to continue to participate virtually via zoom tonight is our only board meeting in august so the board will review action items and then vote on them this evening i should also note that the board met in executive session earlier this evening to discuss legal matters item 2 on our agenda notes prior meetings since july while item three lists our upcoming meetings through the end of september and for presentations i'm going to hand things over to jim who has some important updates for us okay thank

003you uh presentation the first one the introduction of five new district leaders we are going to save that for september meeting so we'll jump right into the presentation on covet 19 mitigation protocols and an update can you uh get this started anyway terrific thank you so tonight we have an update on health and safety plans for the 2021-22 school year uh the purpose is to summarize what was previously approved in terms of the protocols review some revised recommendations specifically for grades seven to twelve and review a proposed new staff vaccine program so the previously approved protocols we had a safety plan that was approved on july 19th that was a fully zoom meeting it was following a state prescribed template it's on our website if it was interested as you may recall we had at

004that time masking required in grades k to six and it was not at that time required in grades seven to twelve the instructional plan was also approved at that meeting uh as you know we have a we're trying as best we can to emphasize in-person learning so our options are in person five days for uh virtual when the virtual uh this year is through the westside virtual academy we do not have a hybrid option this year both of those things both those plans were informed by the survey results that was that were the survey was carried out in late june and also from cdc and montgomery county office of public health recommendations and i think it's important to remember that throughout this whole thing our goal the overriding goal above everything else was to have

005in-person learning for as many students as possible so tonight we discuss a new recommendation since july 19th that when we had those two plans approved both cdc and montgomery county have revised their guidelines and they both call now for universal masking regardless of the transmission status of the community uh much of that had to do with the delta variant um and also across the medical professional ranks including both those organizations and the revised guidelines from montgomery county office of public health put a premium on masks and and this is key to avoid the quarantine requirements so i want to take a couple minutes just to explain exactly what that means now a student can be within three to six feet of a positive case that was not the case last year for 15 or more

006minutes and that student would not have to quarantine and that's a big difference last year the rule was six feet for you had to be six feet apart otherwise you had to quarantine and now there's an exception from the office of montgomery montgomery office of public health where it's uh three feet or more as long as both students are masked and that's a really big big difference if we're going to continue to maximize our chances of having as many people in person and then also staying in person in other words not quarantined we really need to have masks in all grades so the new recommendation is to require masking of all students and staff great in grades k to 12. originally as we discussed it was only k-6 and that was based on the fact

007that students in those grades were not old enough yet to to get the vaccine so they wanted it at that time and also though back then the the recommendations uh were prior to these new concerns about the delta variant coming out from both both cdc and office of public health recommendations had changed since then all right the new recommendation grade 66 will still have their masking requirement and modification to this requirement will be considered once the students under age 12 can get the vaccine if they want it and once monco changes their recommendations for those grades today now grades seven to 12 will also have the masculine requirement students in those grades are eligible to get the vaccine now if they want it so that requirement will be revisited should monco change its recommendation so

008the great scada 6 still depends on the vaccine being available if desired in those grades 7 to twelve depends on uh uh only the recommendations for matco okay so shifting gears for a second the staff vaccine program the district does believe in the vital role that vaccines play we know we can't require this code vaccine and we're not requiring this and the staff vaccine program is not a requirement for staff members to get the vaccine if they don't want we've hosted student vaccine clinics for those who's able to to get it old enough and we hope to do that so in the future once the vaccine is approved for younger again of course totally optional we did participate back in march in the county-wide program to make the vaccine available to all employees of course

009on a optional basis and now in order to maximize the number of students or staff members vaccinated a staff vaccine program is being planned what does that look like we're surveying people now as to their vaccine status they don't have to tell us if they don't want to if they if they choose not to then we'll just assume they're not vaccinated that that vaccine or that survey closes friday at noon members are not vaccinated we'll undergo covet testing two times a week starting probably the middle next month on company time company expense uh and we're working in partnership with our local teachers union the wea they do not they're they're not they didn't consent to this necessary they recognize that we have the ability to do this and we're talking through things like what time

010of the day the testing would take place uh who would do the testing where do the records stay confidentially of the confidentiality of them etc that's otherwise known as impact bargaining so in conclusion and then we need this enhanced commitment to masking in order to keep as many students in school as possible and enhanced commitment to vaccines for as many students and staff as possible also keeps our or increases our chances for in-person teaching and learning remember that's the overwriting goal of all of this and this new revised plan allows us to remain vigilant and remain ready to pivot should we need to should circumstances uh change or dictate that's the end of the conclusion uh or the the presentation if anyone board members have questions thanks jim um so i assume board members have

011lots of questions so maybe we will go in order i'll start over there on the far right hand side with zephy do you have any uh questions for jim i have a few um versus what we did last year what we were looking at earlier this summer okay so um that's a key piece and and that's that new change that student exemption uh that is in the montgomery county office of public health uh guidelines which is if two students are three feet or more apart and both are masked then there will not need to be a quarantine if one of the students is positive and one is you know within contact that's not considered to be close contact less than three feet for 15 minutes or more or if one of the two students are

012not masked would would require quarantine of the of the close contact if there's a positive case in the classroom are are we going to notify the entire classroom or just know this effect we are are uh we haven't finalized just yet exactly how the communication will be uh this year we want to know to communicate as much as possible we want to make sure that in so doing we don't compromise anyone's medical uh privacy it's possible that we will be able to notify the entire class much like we do for other contagious diseases we will not be doing the rolling 14 day thing we did last year we will notify everyone in the school probably once a week of the total schools status i think we can do per class we just want to make

013sure we protect privacy before we commit to that i mean we do it for a lot of other cases so i think it's possible yeah i think there's probably a way we can consider that especially if there's someone in the family who might have compromised health issues okay and then um i was a little confused with the recommendations so keep six the recommendation may change after the vaccine becomes available and bronco right we we've committed to k-6 families that will have masking required as long as the vaccine as long as the students are too young to get the vaccine if they want it so that was already approved through so we was assuming it would be the end of the year december but i'm thinking maybe january got it got it okay but we're not

014requiring um anybody to there's no survey of of students so we're not going to actually know who's vaccinated or not correct no that's exactly right none of these protocols are predicated on student vaccine status i will say however that the quarantine does quarantine rules for montgomery county office of public health do also carve out anybody who has been vaccinated they do not have to quarantine unless they also show symptoms that doesn't apply obviously just yet to k to six right so in that case though however just to follow up we would not survey students we would in in the course of contact tracing we would ascertain privately if the student had been quarantined or had been vaccinated if the answer is yes and they're feeling fine then they're actually that second carb out they do

015not have the uh quarantine so that's the content creation would be done very confidentially privately by our nurses and principals and and no one would know the outcome last question i promise i know i'm hijacking the time for the testing of staff only for unvaccinated staff um would there be kind of a consideration to go beyond that later on i understand that maybe there's some urgency to do that up front but i do feel like there's there's still a chance that someone's vaccinated since trans men so how do we kind of prevent uh i don't think we'll be able to prevent that from happening i think we'll be able to perhaps evaluate i like that word get some more information um at this time we don't have plans for that but we can we definitely

016have the ability to to move towards that all right uh david questions for jim uh yes um would you you discussed this before but would you uh repeat uh any uh additional strategies that the schools will be employing uh as far as outdoor lunches or uh air filtration outdoor classrooms anything along those lines um and safety yes so the things we learned from last year um many will still be in place and then there'll be some additional components for example often opportunities for hand washing distancing although this year our distancing requirement is three feet not six due to these new quarantine protocols we do still have as many out we encourage as much time outdoors as possible we're actually not requiring masks when outdoors which is a change from last year um we have filtration

017systems in the cafeterias and nurses office which would be a change from last year but we still have uh distancing as much as possible on buses i will admit that that's a challenge because of the environment but we need to know who's sitting where we need to have masks on during the buses that's a requirement lunchtime masks will be off obviously while students are eating we're requiring three feet or more at lunch lunch is a challenge we are encouraging principals to find as many alternate spaces as possible that becomes a massive challenge when you think of the need to serve food if this was a brown bag option or opportunity that would be different we have the cleaning so and and maximize the amount of fresh air through our hva system as possible which is

018a good way to to enhance filtration thank you that's all for me we'll go to ron and then after ron we'll get someone on zoom uh amy you'll be up with questions after ron yeah uh i think you've pretty well covered the questions i had and uh i want to thank you for your diligence and uh everyone on our staff who worked tremendously uh hard in uh last semester and uh i'm sure they will be continuing to work just as hard now with a larger student population thank you amy thank you um i just had two questions so one um concerns the tracking system we used last year i understand we're not required to do it but are we planning to have anything published online i know you mentioned weekly to the school but will

019there be anything regularly tracked online for our parents yes the the same information that goes out weekly to each school instead of parents will be online it just won't be that very confusing 14-day ruling thing okay because it'll be easier to understand this year hopefully and the other question is about um so somebody asked about the classrooms and i think it is important to notify parents if we tell parents like you know someone in the class is pink guy i think we should be sharing that someone in the class is covered um so i'm just talking about the buses though like a child test positive that's on a particular bus other than the normal contact tracing do we do anything to notify other students families that may have had somebody on that bus to this

020point we have not because the contact tracing takes care of anyone who last year was within six feet of the student um and so if you were in the back of the bus and the student who came up positive was on the front of the bus uh there would be no close contact involved so we would not there would be none there would be no need to notify that other family i suppose the bus could be considered the same as a class um we would we could do that we'd have to know who was i i don't want the notifications to take precedent over the contact racing that's another one of my hesitations here i think the contact tracing is primary and then these notifications can take place and should and will i just want

021to i just want us to prioritize the context racing first sure okay thank you okay how about ronnie questions for jim i just wanted to know parents are required to inform the school are asked as nicely as we can to let us know yes okay um how about back to zoom paul any questions for jim um most of the questions have been asked but i did have two just uh a follow-up on the hepa filters um it sounded like you said the final decision is that they will be in common areas and cafeterias have they been ruled out officially for the classrooms so at this point we would have difficulty obtaining filters um probably any earlier than a three month time frame in the meantime truthfully we what we need to do is evaluate the

022machines that we have to determine what's working what isn't working and how loud they are at this point we'll have three different units throughout the district we'll evaluate them we'll present that information back to the board and it's possible there'll be a recommendation to put them into additional classrooms it's also possible that we won't i would think we could discuss that at a facilities meeting in the future the cost is not extraordinarily large but it isn't insignificant either um the less expensive units would probably be in the 150 to 250 000 range uh the more expensive units are about two and a half times that so they really would be very expensive um so that's part of the evaluation great thank you wade my second question is regarding before and after care we had discussed

023that a few meetings ago and there were some questions raised about uh former virtual students and their ability to be able to access the before after care programs uh given that a number of the slots had been taken um is there any update on before and after care availability as well as the basket requirements for that program um so uh dr dewan and i um met with the ymca and then i had some subsequent meetings as well with the principals i think actually there are principles involved at the first meeting as well and the goal was to clear as much of the original waiting list as possible and it is my belief that they were able to clear the waiting list um so at this point in time i'm not sure if there is a

024new waiting list or not but we were able to clear the list and we do have a hope that we would be able to provide quite a considerable increase for the ymca program than was last year um as to masking i suspect that they will have masking in the same rules that we have great thanks again that's all i had joe okay thanks paul um tracy yes thank you um so i know that when we were talking about the hepa filters you had mentioned the lunchrooms are talking about the gymnasium as well since they're large common areas so um in in some locations they end up being a backup uh for the cafeteria um and are used and in those cases we would have uh filters um i think we're able to do that now

025but we have ordered additional filters so they might not be there the first few days if it is solely a gymnasium used just as a gymnasium we at this point do not have filters are we planning i guess because it's indoors none of the kids would be unmasked in the gymnasiums that was the thinking okay i think i would still want to look at getting them because you have a lot more students gathered that are closer than the three feet so i think that's something that we should think about um and then my other question is i know when a child is home now well pre-code how um are we handling something like that if a child is home with a fever are we then requesting them to show proof that they don't have coconut

026what are we doing there yeah there's a there's a whole uh flow chart on that that i don't have a memorize off my head but nurses do i will i'll get the either the link out to that or a uh version of it to everyone okay next up we'll go to marshall and then uh back to carly on zoom to wrap up the questions marshall thank you joe i know you touched on this earlier regarding use of alternative measures outdoors things like that in order to maximize the ability to get a break from the masks is there for lack of a better term a way to mandate or ensure that our kids get more time outside or more time where they can take a break from it to alleviate any issues that they may have

027as a result whether it is ensuring that during the war months coming up they're outdoors for lunch gym is outside maybe classes can be outside can we do that to ensure that that takes place and if we alleviate some of the uh concern in that regard um i would hesitate to say uh mandate but i would say that strongly encouraged i know dr juan what do you what do you sense from your principal uh experience days definitely uh principals are strongly encouraging teachers to take their classes outside as much as possible um in my experience in the buildings and the few months that i was here in the spring as i went around for building the building every building i attended if the weather was good there were classes outside i'm engaged in instruction materials

028so that that definitely is something that i have seen happening and i know the principles are continuing to encourage as much as possible with regard to the mass mandate that you're proposing i presume all legal exemptions remain in place [Music] by legal exemptions meaning religious health things like yes yes finally do we have any type of statistics from our own health or nursing departments since the staff and the students were all masked last year we have any type of or any information to know um if there were negative impacts from whatever restrictions were in place such as having masses on all the time did we have an uptick of kids coming in with either breathing problems any type of physical or emotional issues that we saw at the district level in that regard to keep

029track of any effects that they're making do not have any data on that that would link anything to mask work i mean we have data on how many students were out ill or how many students needed felt the need to visit the guidance counselor or things of that nature but there would be no way to attribute it to one factor or another but in that regard then our nursing staff has not presented to any of the staff in the schools of the administration that there is an uptick in any type of issue or concern or problem do we have anything in that regard we certainly have data on how many people or students come to visit them how many students are out sick how many students present say the guidance counselor with a concern anxiety

030or something we would have no way of linking it to effectiveness i think that's all i have for now okay um carly our student board rep any uh questions or comments about uh jim's presentation i think the only question i have is i know last year with the six feet rule it was you could be six feet away from someone but you had to be facing the same direction and so i was wondering if this year could we be three feet away from someone facing them um does that change at all that's the only question i had carl that's a great question the answer is that was an example of an additional protocol we had last year the less facing each other the better the answer to your question is yes this year as long

031as it is three feet and as long as both students are masked then facing is possible and you won't there won't be a close contact quarantining situation so it's a little better than what we had in place last year in terms of social interaction that sounds good to me and then for comments all i would say is that this mass mandate sounds that we're keeping as many kids in school as possible and as someone who is in from november that's all i want i'm very sick of being in a class with maybe three other students and i can't speak for everyone but i know for myself if this mass mandate is going to get as many kids in school as possible then i support it and i recognize the importance of all it thank you

032um i had a few questions jotted down myself but um go ahead carly thank you for that because that was the perfect example of getting the students perspective because what adult here thought of are we allowed to face the same way right if that had to come from a student i appreciate your input on that thank you i i know i was in for a long time being in school in person was something that i value because i'm not a virtual learner i wasn't good um with the learning over microsoft teams so the social aspect was better being in school but it was still hard especially because in the auditorium for lunch for example i couldn't sit with my friends we were six feet apart facing the same direction and so in that aspect it

033was still difficult but from what i'm hearing this mass main mandate sounds that i'll be able to see people face them and so from my perspective as a student that's all i want in the school year it's kind of all i could ask for and so i'm happy to provide any student perspective that i can thanks carly um and as i was stating earlier i had a few questions jotted down but they were all covered by my fellow board members so um if there are no other questions joe i i have a quick question i'm sorry it's not so much a question but a comment and it doesn't have to do with the presentation but when everyone is speaking if you could just make sure to speak directly into your microphones just for the benefit

034of those on zoom so that everyone can hear you because some people were turning their faces it was hard to hear you when you were speaking okay thanks amy um so board members as you know we are going to vote on the health and safety uh plan update as well as the staff vaccination program a little bit later but prior to our vote we're going to go into our first public comment period and this is where we'll hear comments on agenda items only and i suspect i know which agenda item will be uh spoken about the most i know that the health and safety plan update is a hot topic um for tonight so although we normally have a maximum of five speakers on a given topic i'm going to be relaxing the maximum number

035of speakers for tonight but i'm going to cap the first public comment period at 30 minutes in total and we're going to alternate first with input in person speaker and then a speaker on zoom if there are any and alternate back and forth for 30 minutes and each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak and i will be strictly enforcing the time limit to allow as many people to speak as possible during the time frame when you're called to speak either on zoom or at the podium please be sure to state your name municipality residence and topic if you do not i will remind you to do so and please note that it is the board's practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with speakers according to my watch the time

036is now 7 37 so we will go on with quality comment until well just 7 38 until 808 and with that i have a stack of blue sheets for people to make in-person comments and the first one i have here is maureen bogut maureen let me take this off to talk oh we can keep the mask on all right it's hard okay hi my name is marine bogut i'm from whitpayne township i have two girls in high school i speak to the health and safety plan specifically to the new recommendation to have seven to twelve year uh substitute seven through twelfth grade masked i am a certified speech language pathologist i'm also an acute care physician assistant working with the kovic for the last two years so i have front hand experience with it so

037i know what i'm talking about and the first thing i have to say is that the basing our masking our health and safety plan on masking is faulty from the start because we all know that these don't do anything this is the one i use at work when i have a copic patient is fit tested it's an n95 i have to have a mass put over me every year and they test if i can smell anything through that so this is what works i know this works we have no studies to say these help we all know this we know that it's to prevent liquid droplets large droplets it doesn't prevent a viral spread so to force our older children as well as our little ones but the older children who many who have actually

038been vaccinated in good faith knowing thinking that their freedoms would be to be without mask is really um a concern for me and there have been many side effects i know that supposedly there's nothing reported to nursing lately but i know that there are many people who have had anecdotal problems and it's been well documented in medical literature headaches anxiety panic attacks these are small things you know these are young children they're healthy they shouldn't have to suffer like this um you know we're basically i'm not sure really who we're protecting because children mortality from kobe thank god has been still despite this surge that we're seeing or increasing case numbers has not affected the children we've had no death since july 7th thank god and the average death for coe in the last two

039years has been 70 or 80 years old in township we should focus on our district so when i find montgomery county recommending masking without any data as to when to stop uh basically community spread it it tells me when are we ever going to stop them asking because we need a criteria first of all we need criteria to actually mask the children what is that i don't know what that is secondly when do we stop this is not going away copa doesn't go away it is going to continue to be there our children need to live normally they're not at risk majority of living has been vaccinated 70 have been vaccinated adults even the young ones went to 12 to 18 i think 65 a huge number so who are we protecting the mass don't

040help them they cause harm um i just it's just it's faulty logic i also want to speak about the teacher's vaccinations to have two classes of medical status vaccinated and unvaccinated i think i can't finish my sentence right well thank you thank you katie can you go to the first speaker can you hear me okay good evening my name is christina dematio and i'm from whit payne township and i'll be speaking tonight on the issue of the drama and choral programs as it relates to the reopening plan sorry um that topic is not uh tonight so will you save your comment to the second public comment period please for the second comment period yes thank you thank i can't you read the next speaker and zoom strauss hello are you ready for me yes okay

041my name is tara strauss and i'm a fifth grade teacher at shady grove i'm here tonight representing many staff members parents and community members that are concerned about the proposal to test unvaccinated staff members twice a week and we fear that it will tear our school community apart at the exact time that we need to be pulling together to face another challenging school year we recognize that this proposal is put forth with good intentions wanting to protect everyone from contracting covet and the delta variant however according to the cdc website asymptomatic infections among vaccinated people will also occur for this reason alone we should be testing every employee or none at all part of the district's plan is to have staff members monitor the twice weekly testing and i wonder how will the location and

042presence of a staff member not lead to water cooler conversations how will students not become aware of their teachers vaccination status and community members how will they handle the news are we prepared to deal with the fallout another thing to consider is that the rapid test being used has the potential to generate numerous false positives due to the fact that the pcr test has been deemed unreliable according to the fda's announcement in july this will create numerous teacher absences and interruptions to the education of our students at a time when we're trying to fill the gaps in instruction caused by shutdowns of the previous two school years this doesn't seem right the theme for the shady grove school year is literally unconditional belonging or you belong but how can this take place if we're dividing

043up our faculty into two groups based on vaccination status not just dividing them but treating one group as lepers who can spread disease this proposal has the makings of creating very hostile work environment we teach our students to speak up when they see others being ostracized or bullies we tell them not to be bystanders but to be brave that is why we're here tonight this proposal will not protect our schools from covid but it has a great potential to harm the climate and culture of every building for years to come our district has taken many precautions to keep us safe we're washing hands wearing masks social distancing disinfecting surfaces and making decisions as to what's best for our bodies we're all taking steps to keep people safe but of course there's still fear some people

044are afraid of the virus but we are more afraid of our response to it which one can we control let's not let kova divide our district any more than it already has it's time for us to pull together the cdc reports that no vaccine is 100 effective all people can get and transmit the virus we can all agree that 100 percent of our student body has the possibility to contract the virus and a hundred percent of the adults can do the same this virus does not discriminate so why would wissa hicken again we should be testing everyone or no one please vote no on tonight's proposal and do so strengthen our school community thank you thank you speaker is in person hi i'm patti cobley of whit paint township i have two kids enrolled in

045district schools this year and a preschooler going to the wizarding early learning lab i am here to support the implementation of the cdc's recommendations and the health and wellness our health and safety plan for the school year the two most effective ways we have of preventing the spread of coronavirus are masks and vaccines the center for disease control recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers staff students and visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination status not everyone is going to agree with the expanded mass guidelines but before mass mandates drivers protested seatbelt laws and motorcycle riders protested helmet laws despite the opposition those safety regulations were the right thing to do because prevention saves lives what's even more important about this particular cdc recommendation is that wearing a mask protects the other members of our

046community and not just the wearer when registering my kids for school this year i had to provide their vaccinations to various diseases and that isn't to make sure that my kid doesn't have measles or bumps it's requested to make sure that my kid's not going to bring music to everybody else's kids it's our obligation to each other as members of a community to minimize preventable harm to each other if we want to participate in communal activities like public school we should meet a minimum standard of care for our fellow community members we've all been through a lot in the last 18 months it's been a difficult time as country as parents and there's a lot of people here parents and guardians who are all going to comment tonight and they all care a great deal

047about the kids in their lives watching the student representative tonight really hit home but the kids want to be in school and masks are our best chance to keep school in person for k to 12 all year without without outbreaks that will force clovers encourage the board to vote to enact the revised health and safety measures in the agenda today's meeting thank you next we'll go to zoom speaker katie i can't quite read today hi can you hear me yes okay my name is cara frederick i'm a parent and a resident in the wissican school district i actually have three different comments and they're on three different topics so should i just speak about the health and safety plans ones first yes okay and if needed um can i have the three full minutes for

048both questions and comments we have a second public period for any other questions that we're not voting on tonight and you'll have three minutes so dr chrisfield mentioned the exclusion that students who are both masked are excluded from the close contact rule correct using this scenario will a student have to quarantine if the person who tested positive is a teacher or staff member since only the student in this scenario has the exclusion will the whole class have to quarantine if they are masked and the teacher is masked also a comment about if we have the technology in place to allow students to link to classes last year why would this not be the solution for students being forced to be absent for seven ten days due to the montgomery county board of public health and

049wessican school district guidelines these absences are not equivalent to keeping your child home in prior years because that was parent or personal physician choice the comparison that's mentioned about it in the faq is misleading and false and it's it's because of how do you expect students to complete 10 days of work without being taught the topic not having any access to the classroom to learn algebra algebra ii a world language science a solution to the quarantining that does not include student learning is lazily and a poorly thought out non-solution also mentioned in the health and safety plan is middle school sports and in the faq in the athletic section it says middle school sports or tbd why is this is if whis is moving forward with high school sports and already has guidelines in place

050why is the middle school different who is making the decision and why this year i'd also like to have each of my questions recorded and answered on the website after the meeting those are my two comments thank you thank our you speaker is in person and it is amanda hunt hi my name is amanda hines i'm from whit paint township and my topic is masking at the elementary level good evening i know that there has been much tension within our community as well as communities around the nation regarding code 19 mitigation in schools some feel the risks of contracting and spreading over 19 outweigh any negative effects of our mitigation efforts for others they are extremely concerned with the impact mask wearing is specific has on mental health education and psychosocial issues no matter what

051your stance i do believe that we all have one thing in common we want our children to experience the safe and successful school year over the past several weeks i've consulted with a number of local reading specialists as well as speech and language pathologists who have expressed their growing concerns with reading and language development in our youngest population no matter what their opinions were on masking distancing etc they all agreed that our kindergarten to second grade students are in a critical period for learning how to read and speak the english language and we will not get this time back as a school psychologist i also share these concerns young children look at mouths to learn to speak and read and teachers rely heavily on cues through facial express expressions of young children as to whether

052or not they are grasping new material masking impedes non-verbal communication causing difficulty for teachers to be attuned to signals of frustration during the learning process our youngest learners will struggle the most with articulating this emotion verbally due to the nature of childhood development masks also muffle sound eliminate the extent to which teachers and students are able to clearly project their voices students receiving speech and language services and reading intervention are significantly impacted according to local service providers it's imperative that the mouth of the student and provider be seen in order to implement adequate intervention sessions that are executed with fidelity a local reading specialist reported and i quote i can honestly say it would be near impossible to be masked while teaching wilson or another program here to students with dyslexia of course our first

053priority is keeping our children safe as one of the top performing districts in pennsylvania we have always strived for educational excellence i truly believe that both can be achieved perhaps clear masks face shields distancing and other tools such as microphones can be utilized by students and staff to help our children learn more effectively both in general education as well as pull out intervention services i'm confident that if the district administration collaborates with educators and professionals who are working with this group of early learners they can create a plan that will help manage the negative effects of cloven 19 mitigation while continuing to provide a safe but more productive learning environment the next generation is relying on us to provide them with the best educational experience possible so they can reach their maximum potential and they

054deserve it let's not let them down okay can we take the next speaker then zoom the next speaker is michael michael will need to unmute himself all right maybe michael's having technical difficulties who's uh who's next next we have rosetta can you guys hear me okay hi my name is rosetta kievacci and i'm from ambler borough i've been a pediatric nurse for 40 years at children's hospital of philadelphia and first i would like to thank the administration and the board for recommending a back-to-school safety plan that includes masking for all students currently montgomery county is considered in a high rate of covid spread this is actually the fourth surge of this virus and the delta variant is much more contagious than the original and even though children are at a they are at a lower

055risk to be infected and get serious illness and die it is not zero and they can be carriers this variance spreads much faster and puts at risk children with underlying medical problems and elderly adults in the community cloth masks help reduce transmission of a virus from an infected person mass can block 50 to 70 percent of fine droplets and particles and can slow down particles that were not captured cloth masks also reduce the wearer's exposure to infectious droplets by filtering fine droplets and particles well science source data from the american academy of pediatrics assures wearing masks does not physically reduce oxygen intake affect a child's lungs from developing normally trap co2 or stress the body causing a weaker immune system they are all myths masks together with proper ventilation and hand washing will allow our

056children to be back in the classrooms where they belong thank you very much thank you our next speaker is in person and it is k.e wenger my name is katie wenger and i am a resident of whitpete township i'm also a current school district parent this is a time that has been difficult for all parents and all people i believe that we are trying to make the best decisions that we can for our children unfortunately it seems like politics is getting in the way and that is a detriment to our children when it dictates restrictions for them as a school board is your responsibility to be bipartisan you also take an oath to the constitution in the wissa hicken school district local board procedures and goals it states the board shall act as a general

057agent of the residents of this district in the matter of public education almost half of the parents of this district at least have not been represented by this school board as evidenced by the 9-0 vote to mask our youngest students at the last board meeting my husband who's also present with me today remarked on the lack of diversity on the board and that is horrible clearly a 9-0 vote on issues do not reflect the beliefs of the district's constituent parents our constitution ensures freedom and liberty for all freedom for our children to not be forced to be masked freedom for parents to make the decision for their own children whether it's mask and whether to vaccinate with a vaccine that is still in the experimental phase the national center for biotechnology information and the national

058institute of health published a study it's step it cites that covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate interpret and mimic the expressions of those with whom we interact positive emotions become less recognizable and negative emotions are amplified emotional mimicry contagion and emotionality in general are reduced and thereby bonding between teachers and learners group cohesion and learning of which emotions are a major driver they also say that wearing masks may have physical side effects once again i want to reiterate face mask impair face recognition and face identification face mask and pair verbal and non-verbal communication face mask block emotional signaling between teacher and learners the negative effects of masking children will be seen for years and years to come these are their formative years developmentally socially and emotionally these negative effects

059cannot be undone there is a common ground here mask choice securely fit and 95 masks are the only masks that have a chance to filter the virus for those who are concerned enough to mask they have this option forcing our children to wear masks that do not keep the virus out or in is only doing harm not good please protect our children's childhood and future and let each of us choose whether or not to put our children in masks thank you take your next speech michael again okay hi this is jamie erful from whit payne township can you hear me great thank you um i'm here to speak about the health and safety plan i've already spoken at a couple school board meetings about how i personally feel about masking and mandates and forcing anyone

060to do anything but it doesn't really matter what i'm concerned about now is that we have a community divided we two years ago were a community and we were so united everyone loved each other parents you know we were all on the same ground we cared about our kids first and nothing's changed there we still care about our kids first what's the problem is is there is no attempt to find a common ground at two school board meetings ago when dr krisfeld spoke and said let's find a common ground that's just as important as getting the kids back in school i thought okay this is great we can do this you know we've got parents on both sides of the issues we can find surely we can find a middle ground and everyone can be

061somewhat happy but that was never brought up again that was never addressed it's almost like he said that to sound good and then it like disappeared and we never even talked about it again i don't know if any of you have been on the facebook pages for our school district but it's appalling you have parents fighting parents yelling at each other there's no attempt to understand each other and it's just as much the board and croosfeld's fault as it is ours because we have no leadership guiding us there is no common ground even though there is a common ground and i'm sure that we could find one if we only had an opportunity to try and instead the board sided nine to zero on one side and ignited this fire in our community i you

062know i just i'm so disappointed i really wish that he would never have said that because if you're going to say something you should at least follow through and do it i still think that we can find a common ground i brought up so many questions on the last school board meeting i asked about you know are there going to be mask breaks mandatory mass breaks um are there you know there was so many questions i asked and then you guys wrote back to me and you said oh we'll find answers you answered maybe two of my ten questions and i personally if somebody that doesn't feel comfortable with force masking would have felt comfortable sending my kids to school this year knowing the plan of action when they would have breaks knowing if there

063would be mandatory mass changes and none of my questions were answered i actually just transferred three of my kids over to saint helena i and my middle schooler is staying because you also said that he would have an option to wear a mask or not and now tonight we find out that that could change so i'm just i'm struggling to find where the common ground is here are we still is that still a goal dr krisfeld that you're looking to achieve and if so when and how are we going to look at it thank you thank you our next speaker is jennifer henderson good evening everyone my name is jennifer henderson i'm from amber burrow now i am integrated for the mass because the mass do work you know last year we had a lot

064of kids a lot of parents having their secret parties people we couldn't go places they were traveling the states that they were supposed to not saying anything kids coming back infecting people and we had a mess the only way we're going to get rid of this virus is to have our kids have mass i have a son within the district he is sick and he can't afford to get to catch this cova virus and there's tons of other children who can't afford it let alone staff and teachers why don't everyone stop being selfish and let's just look at what we have to do here and we have to defeat this virus in order to defeat it we need vaccines we need baths so i hope that this board approves the mass mandate all children should

065be wearing these masks until this virus is eradicated we don't have polio we don't have chickenpox we don't have all these diseases because of eradication and until that happens here we need from masks let's try michael one last time okay let's take the next one okay can you hear me okay thank you my name is neil roper i'm the parent of a student at wissa hicken high school in ambler i'd like to support the health and safety plan and its recommendation for masking for students faculty and staff i'd like to commend the board for following the recommendations of the cdc and the montgomery county department of health it is a valid recommendation and it is good that you are going to follow it i don't doubt that as this virus continues to evolve and change

066that new guidance will be handed down by national and state medical authorities that is the nature of science as a nature of an evolving threat that said it's important that we all concentrate on the greatest good for the greatest number of people including the children that go to school i'll be the first to admit that masks are not a panacea but as a part of a comprehensive safety plan that will include encouraging vaccination physical distancing along with masking i think we will have the best opportunity to get our ski our students through the next school year safely as possible thank you very much i yield the best of my time thank you we have one minute left so i'll allow one more in-person comment and that is from liz weir hi i'm liz weir um

067i'm in lower gwinnett township i have children in both middle and high school and i'm here to talk about masks i believe it is the responsibility of this board to represent all voices in this community and to do that you should be voting for choice and not mandates i'm under no illusion that what we say here will impact your vote i'm here to wake up as many other parents as i can who are sitting on the sidelines who don't like what is happening but who believe that by complying it will end to those of you i want to say it won't end until we say enough and i am here to say enough you all promised last year you would follow the science but you haven't you followed the cdc an unelected body that has

068no governing authority and has been wrong at every single term did any of you research what they based their recommendation on it was actually done with dummies and aerosol cans that's their recommendation for the masks if you are just blindly following them what do we need you for we can just put the cdc in charge it's a myth that masks prevent viruses from spreading masks are safety blankets and nothing more the time-tested peer-reviewed evidence is clear used in a community setting they offer next to no protection against viruses the virus particle is much too small to be stopped by mask a covered particle is about 0.1 microns pore size in a surgical mask is 200 to 1000 times that size this is the equivalent of throwing sand at a chain-linked fence and thinking the fence

069is going to stop it as soon as a mask is touched it is no longer sterile and once that happens you're actually at a higher risk of illness from the mask than if you didn't wear one at all not to mention these masks are being shoved in backpacks used as napkins tissues dropped on the ground have you been to one of the elementary schools does that feel like protection or does it feel like we're strapping a petri dish onto our children's faces in the name of safety as it is your policy to not respond or engage i'd like to put some questions on the record because masks have not been proven to stop spread of viruses their use was only authorized under the eau any eiu authorized device such as mask requires explicit informed consent

070should you approve this rule will you be providing that informed consent if not why not will you be providing the peer-reviewed scientific data you're using to establish this rule if not why not we haven't heard a shred of scientific data from this board or the county health department and that's who you're following the nine of you in our administration seem to have lost the script so let me remind you of something the board answers to the community we the people are done as critical as this for our children bag thank you they're moving on to the board president report and before i move on i just want to say i know that there are a number of other people who also submitted blue sheets to try to speak tonight but in the interest of time

071and other business we need to conduct as i said earlier i'm limiting the comments to to 30 minutes which we've now exceeded but we do have a second public comment period at the back half and towards the end of our agenda so you can uh if you still want make comments at that time with that i'm moving on to the board president report for this evening i don't have any informational items or action items so we'll move right into the superintendent report and back the gym okay thank you uh informational items i'm going to save the special education supervisor recognition for until september but i do have some school opening updates to share as parents or at least parents of younger students anyway were keenly aware of today we opened up the infinite campus portal

072in terms of who has which teacher and always a fun day and we have the opening of school one week from today where all this is what we're doing come to fruition and students and staff are back we've had our news staff in uh last week for some uh onboarding and uh dr duan will speak to that a little bit later but uh this week starting tomorrow we have our all of our staff back for our annual beginning of school in service um so those are the informational items the two action items that are up for a vote tonight include 7b1 which is the amendment to the district's health and safety plan which we've been discussing at length tonight and the second is the approval of the resolution to establish the vaccine program for staff

073that one has a document 7-1 if i could please uh a motion to prove that you want to split him out so moved jim i'd recommend um we split these items into two individual votes sure sure how we do that so in which case uh ask please for a motion to approve agenda item 7b1 so moved okay the motion has been moved and seconded any additional questions comments or discussions okay uh katie can i ask for a roll call vote please yes mr badger yes mr frank yes mrs ginsberg yes mrs heathen yes this is yes mrs walsh yes mr antonio yes zero no motion passes thank you thank you then uh ask please for a motion to approve agenda item 7b2 per document 7-1 so moved second the motion has been moved and seconded

074any additional questions comments or discussion i wanted to comment um i don't know that i agree with this with the fact of singling out teachers that aren't vaccinated to test i don't know if there's a better way to do that but i personally i have a problem with that because as we've been finding out you know people that are vaccinated so i don't know i don't know i think that there's a better way that's maybe not just unvaccinated people that are getting tested any other comments yeah i also i'm with tracy and there's also some elements of this that i don't necessarily agree with um um any other questions comments yes um my uh take on this is a little different i i would see it as uh for those who can't or or or

075choose not to be vaccinated a regular taste testing provides an additional means of protection for those folks um which is seems to me fairly convenient and not obtrusive i don't see it as divisive seems like the way to try to make sure everybody's protected in the way that they choose jim a quick question you've had discussions with the union president about the staff vaccination program and what's been their perspective their stance on the vaccination program uh they they are aware of different different positions in their union membership so i i don't believe they're they're uh too keen on taking an official stance publicly uh they do want to make sure we have these things in place such as the testing uh not taking place on the employee's time but rather on ours and that kind

076of impact bargaining but i don't believe they'll have an official position did i recall correctly that um the national head of the uh the national education alliance of which our union is affiliated came out and spoke in favor of staff vaccination requirements yes both the national and the state levels of their organization have supported vaccine programs such as this as the american federation teachers they're not here but i think locals have a little different different uh circumstance in front of them because they have individual staff members who feel problem with okay other comments or questions um i just was thinking i know that we're talking about uh testing the unvaccinated teachers twice a week so maybe look at testing vaccinated teachers once a week i don't know i just think that there's something that we

077can make a little bit more okay um katie can you conduct a role call book please yes mr badger oh yes no mr frank yes this is ginsburg no this is no mr soloff yes this is walsh no mr antonio yes five yes and four no all right motion passes thank you all right we're moving on then to the assistant superintendent report thank you yes i have a one informational item which is a update for uh from our new staff induction after a rigorous hiring process throughout the spring and summer we were so excited to welcome our new teachers last week they attended three days of learning sessions on wednesday thursday and friday the induction programs for years one two and three have always been high quality here in wisconsin school district and this year

078our programs have been redesigned to help establish a foundation of equity and cultural responsiveness with our new teachers in their first three years so are your three inductees engaged in a book study led by our instructional coaches using the text culturally responsive teaching in the brain our year two inductees engaged in learning sessions with our instructional coaches that focused on differentiation excuse me differentiated instruction through a lens of equity and cultural responsiveness and our year one inductees engaged in learning sessions led by administrators in various departments including our new employee orientation with our hr department and an overview with our student services department our technology department review technology tools that are used in our district as well as technology resources to support curriculum and instruction and lastly dr schmidt and i facilitated a session on

079culturally responsive teaching followed by sessions led by our principals and assistant principals to introduce all of our year one teachers to the danielson supervision and evaluation framework using a lens of equity and cultural responsiveness just want to say special thanks to all of our administrators and instructional coaches who facilitated sessions over those three days and a very special thank you to dr schmidt who's our director of teaching and learning for her tireless efforts with our high quality induction programs thank you thank you any uh questions or comments from mourinho all right we're gonna move on to the board solicitor report i'm not sure if um our solicitor jeff saltanic is is on zoom he is oh hey jeff hi how are you um i am requesting board approval for agenda items 9b 1 and b2

080which are settlement agreements between families a student id number seven eight five six eight six and family b student id number seven eight three three zero one six these items were reviewed in executive session as these are confidential uh special education settlement agreements so emotion to that effect would be in order all right the motion has been moved and seconded any questions all those in favor say aye aye me opposed the motion passes that concludes my report the board secretary report wait yeah thank you very much there is no informational item tonight and the uh requested action items are approval of the july 12th and july 19th special public board meetings for documents 10-1 and 10-2 the motion has been moved and seconded any questions all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion

081passes thank you we please continue with the treasure report thank you there's no informational item um and we request acceptance admitting the treasurer's report for may 31st june 30th july 31st for document 11-1 so move the motion has been moved and seconded any questions all those in favor say aye aye the opposed motion passes thank you okay we're moving on to the director of human resources report danielle hi good evening uh for tonight's hr report there are no informational items um i am seeking approval for action items 12v1 through 12b7 you will see some revisions and additions in bold uh regarding a few action items in 12b1 it's going to be hiring a couple weeks for us so we thank you for your consideration okay so danielle i'm sorry did you ask for a motion

082to approve action items 12b one through seven yes can i have a motion to approve action items 12v1 through 12 e7 just also um for there's a blue sheet on 12b so move second second all right the motion has been moved and seconded any questions for danielle i have one sure gallagher um consulting services yes gallagher is our benefits administration consultant other questions okay all those in favor say aye aye aye aye aye any opposed motion passes all right that takes us to the communications committee report exactly no informational or action items thank you the curriculum and technology committee report ronnie there are no informational items you want to take the action items yes thank you um these action items for b1 through 4b 6 will be seeking a motion for approval for these item

0834b1 had a blue sheet with a correction for the correct times um the revised document showed the pre now shows the pre pandemic time so you should refer me a blue sheet for that action item 4b2 is an annual annual request for approving the anticipated outplay services for tuition costs you can refer to document 14 2 items 4b3 is another annual request that's typical at this time of year for athletic extended field trips item 4 b4 and 4b5 are requests for um increase in resources due to our increased enrollment and item four b6 is an annual subscription renewal so we'll be seeking a motion for approval of action items 4b1 through 4b6 at this time the motion has been moved and seconded any questions i just have a quick item of clarification is this 4

084or fourteen um this is section 14 because like i'm hearing four i'm sorry any other questions okay all those in favor say aye hi he opposed motion passes all right that takes us to the facilities and transportation committee report tracy yeah thank you there's no uh informational items today and wait did you want to go over the action items right here thank you very much um yes the um the first is um been an item that we've had on the five-year list for a while and it is the hvac project at stoney creek it is uh currently um believed to be at a budget when it's developed and this is the approval of the professional fees in order to develop the project the second is a request for additional payment to keystone 3919 as described

085for under alignment layman's sheets beneath the floor tile and the third item is additional earth engineering testing at stoney creek the project is going extremely extremely well we're very very fortunate but we do need additional money for additional testing in the future um wait i did have a question on uh one with the new uh system at stony this is this going to interface with parts of the building or is this just something for the older sections of the building thank you it is uh the older part of the building that is um it's the left side of the building all right the motion has been moved and seconded oh what additional uh problems have developed that they need to do some more uh ground testing yeah it's um it's as of right now we

086actually still have money left on the original contract that's approved by the board uh it's just that they're close to being done and there's still more work to be done so in the original estimate there were certain unsuitable soils that we had to do additional things to and that's probably where we actually went over the original estimate but right now we're under and it's really just to allow for the continuation of the testing okay thank you any other questions all those in favor say hi the opposed motion passes all right that takes us to the finance committee report david thank you joe a finance committee report has no informational items we have six action items so wait would you please summarize those thank you very much um so the first is the normal financial reports

087and you'll see them in document 16 1. the second is the winter sports bids that we do annually and that's provided in 16.2 item three is we're getting an early request in to purchase the cafeteria tables for stoney creek the construction is going well so that we're hopeful that these are going to be needed soon and the current cafeteria tables at stoney creek are attached to the wall so we're not going to be able to reuse them so we need new um four is the builders risk uh insurance it's an annual premium associated with the construction project five is an annual um request to basically it's posting the bus schedules and the ability for anybody to come and review them if they would like to do so and then six is the various list of

088payments that we've had for may june and july thank you wait um so with that um we'll be requesting [Music] first a motion for approval of action item 16 b 1 through 5. the motion has been moved and seconded any questions wait i just had one question when will the bus schedules be posted online for families to see the schedule they they are they are now okay yep thank you okay all those in favor say aye aye aye aye okay and finally uh would like uh to ask for approval of a motion uh a motion to approve action item 16b6 second motion has been moved and seconded any questions comments yes i have a comment i will any opposed motion passes okay that takes us to the policy committee report marshall thank you joe although

089this has appointed most people i have no information and no action item so i am finished thank you thank you uh the racial equity oversight committee paul uh thank you joe just a quick informational note we have determined our schedule you hear me yes uh just an informational note we have established our upcoming meeting schedule for the equity diversity committee we will be kicking off our next meeting on september 20th all the meeting dates will be published but i can just go through them quickly october 18 november 15 december 20 january 24th february 14th march 21st april 18th may 16 and june 20. and so that's the tentative meeting schedule for the upcoming calendar year and paul i assume they'll be posted on the district website as well right they will be yes okay thank

090you thank you that's all i have all right next up is the report of board representatives and out of these groups i think north monco technical career center is the only one that's met recently about the extracurricular oh sure okay go ahead um so i just wanted to bring up a couple of points about the wizarding middle school sports and drama i highly my feeling on this is that if we are having other sports that we should look at open it to the clubs and i know um especially with drama that you know this is something that they work on year-round you know they're practicing all outdoors and whatever but they need a lot of headway for a production so i think that this is something that should be moved on sooner rather than later

091you know it takes a lot of logistics to figure out where they're playing what play they're doing about what part and all of that that's just something i think needs to be put together sooner rather than later um and then also if we can look at the wizard middle school sports this is our theater program to our high school sport playing then the high school kids are working with maybe some of the other middle schools that are playing obviously if other we should be trying to get our kids into it joe may i make a comment real quick on the extracurriculars uh sure as a parent of a student who was an athlete and another student who was a band member i can tell you that they're equally important to one another that's who they

092are as people i know how difficult it is when one gets to participate and one does not my band student last year did not have an opportunity to participate and play all year and that was difficult for him and i i don't fault anybody for that there's no fault we're trying to figure out the best we could do but i think we're at the point where we have to figure out a way to do these things especially when it comes to trauma these extracurricular activities are an important part of these children's lives and whether they do it outside they do it by zoom they do it by some other means and come up with a way to either put on a play put on a show or do something else to keep them engaged it

093is essential for them to do so and i would uh wholeheartedly support any effort to ensure that these groups have an equal opportunity to participate in these types of activities because it's not just in school social outlet and it could be their way of life it could be their future and we don't want to harm that i think we can come up with a way to do it and i'd like to see that i'd like to comment on that also if it's necessary for the students to be in the next county from each other then uh they can i think they can still work together uh i as you just said uh this is who they are and i think we should give them a chance to uh move their skills further and the thing

094that whether they be in the band or the drama it is an important skill i know uh just this past weekend i got my car washed on saturday uh right before it rained in fact but i didn't do it because my car would not be stained by a downpour i did it to support the band and i think that our students have these uh these clubs these organizations and we should support them and make sure that they are given the opportunity to develop their skills as far as they can sooner much sooner than later and one more thing there are students here that don't have the opportunity to do these things their sport their drama their singing outside of school they need school because they don't have the means the financial opportunities we have to

095have to give that opportunity to them any updates from any of the committees under the report representatives section um yeah for north montco we had a meeting last tuesday i think august 16th that was monday [Music] there were a number of personnel items that were approved there was an update to their [Music] health and safety plan which requires full-time masking a lot of their activities are sort of in close quarters and they don't have any option there but to take that route they did have some good news that the the technical center received uh ester grant funds of a little over half a million dollars i believe the correct amount which they initially didn't think they would get but they're i think currently working formulating a plan on how to best use those funds and

096finally they announced that in their new mechatronics space they're a class which had been uh fairly competitive to get into they didn't have to turn anyone away this year so they're making a lot better use of their space i guess and that and that's all from north market thanks david i don't know i don't recall that topic coming up at any of our meetings okay well that takes us to the second public comment period of the night where we'll hear comments on any school related topic um again we're going to alternate in-person speakers with those on zoom and again everyone will have up to three minutes to speak and i will be strictly enforcing the time limit when you are called to speak please be sure to state your name municipality residence and topic and

097please note again that it is the board's practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with speakers we started with in person last time okay so in fairness we'll start with zoom first are there any hands raised we have four the first one is the series all right can you guys hear me yes yeah my name is punit kaushik uh my daughter is going to be starting first grade uh next year um in the in the next coming couple of weeks i think um i just wanted to kind of touch upon some of the inconsistent statements that are being made by the board in terms of the masking issue as we all know when it comes to just pure data flu has been proven to be much more dangerous than covert is to young

098kids yet i would argue that none of the people on the board ever thought about mass mandates for the flu 2019 or previously to me that shows massive amounts of hypocrisy and consistency in the way we're approaching this issue nowhere in the eu do we have mass mandates for kids once again the inconsistency is mind-boggling and the final thing that i'd like to say is if the delta variance is more deadly is more dangerous than the original kobit the mind-numbing attitude that we've taken to say instead of six feet of distancing now we're gonna go with three feet of distancing once again to me shows and reeks of complete hypocrisy in the way this issue is being approached and i have no doubt in my mind that this board is going to vote 9-0 to

099go ahead and implement these mass mandates because the voice of the people the voice of the people that were paying for your salaries does not matter at all so having said that i have no doubt in my mind that the only way to go ahead and overcome this issue is for the people for the parents that feel a certain way about this to start running for school boards and to vote you people out that is all i have i'll concede my time thank you our next uh speaker is in person and it's carmina taylor before i start to speak i want everyone to know that i came here um i've been here outside your school building since 10 o'clock this morning i've never done that i don't want my time to start because it's a

100comment so i've been here since 10 o'clock this morning because i thought it was vitally important to make a statement about the process in which public the public could get engaged today my comments are two subjects i don't want to be cut off i made you first three minutes i want to say that my mother was inducted into the hall of fame sports hall of fame 41 years after she graduated from high school we are on the brink of having black male athletes having not been inducted 30 and 40 years again my mother had lifetime achievements my mom was a certified mensa and there are people that have been inducted in the hall of fame in the last three to five years that have less than 10 years out of high school i am asking

101the board to reconsider the criteria i think the process for hall of fame should go back to sports hall of fame and a hall of fame for alumni the black males from penland and ambler will never be inducted in the criteria of a certain stance because they have not done things outside of the state records that have not been surpassed this is the fifth year in a row that i've come and said the same thing this is the fifth year in a row i have asked to find out if there are alumni that do not work for the district on the committee with the staff that are on the committee it's an atrocity it is an absolute atrocity the black community feels that they meet the sports program at wizard and track in basketball and

102football dr cressfield has done a very good job in the last year last six months at diversifying this workforce to me that's writing some of the wrongs that haven't been done in this district you guys have to right the wrongs of all the black athletes that play for wizard but didn't make it through college you have to write those wrongs so there has to be another reconsideration of how the committee is formulated who receives the applications there has to be another type of communication with the community to have more applications come in i will say this my mother was a mensa and she got inducted into the sports hall of fame here 41 years after she graduated from high school um i want to read this is important and this is another topic joe i'm

103not leaving this podium okay i'm not leaving this podium i want to read you something that dr i'm not leaving please do not do this it is a separate topic do you want me to sit down and get back up i'll allow you to come back good evening my name is christina d'amatio i'm from whit payne township and i'll be speaking about the drama and choral program at the high school um i was very heartened to hear the board member comments earlier in favor of the drama and choral programs as well as the other arts programs for those who may not be aware lucy hicken recently circulated a frequently asked questions page regarding the reopening plan on that page there's a clear and detailed plan for athletics at the high school level including indoor practices

104and competitions listed right underneath that plan for athletics for the high school drama program the plan is listed as to be determined the plan also says the choral music can only be practiced indoors which we all know will only be possible for about eight weeks or so i have to tell you that as a parent of high school theater student it was very insulting and disappointing to see that wissa hicken did not have a solid and realistic place in plan for these kids for many of the kids who did the theater program at the high school level the fall drama the choral program and the spring musical may be their primary extracurricular activities this isn't just a hobby for these kids just like student athletes these students have often trained their entire lives taking private

105dance and voice lessons etc the high school fall drama typically holds auditions right after labor day but the student directors have been advised that that program is quote on hold as of right now as far as i know and far as i can tell there have not been plans put in place to start the fall drama for these kids it's a slap in the face that sports practices have already started but there's no plan in place for theater and an unrealistic plan for choral rehearsals if the district can plan for indoor sports the district can also plan for theater and choral programs to move forward safely as well these programs cannot afford to wait preparing these theatrical productions takes time and the fall drama program needs to start now other districts and other programs are

106offering in-person theater many of them even offered managed to offer in-person theater last year why can't we give our students the same opportunity i'm asking the board to ensure that these programs are prioritized and that a clear and workable plan is put into place immediately so that our high school students can participate in theater and choral music programs in person with their friends safely this year starting as soon as possible thank you thank you next speaker is in person and it's jennifer henderson and barbaro um just want to say thank you guys for taking the time now to listen to everyone and really taking in consideration what we have to say um that's that's pretty much all i have right now thank you thank you hi can you hear me yes hi cara frederick parent

107and resident of whissican school district um i want to make a comment about the racial equity committee um i've it's just my observation i've noticed in past board meetings and i look through the agendas of meetings i haven't been able to attend but it always seems that the action items bullet on the agenda it always says no items so my comment is are there action items that result from these meetings why aren't they being added to the agenda it feels like this topic and the committee is glazed over in our board meetings are there really no takeaways and no action being done in these committee meetings and if the latter is true then we have the wrong people on this important committee and to be completely candid i think the committee is already made up

108of some of the wrong people that is uh my comment i also just want to add that the teacher from shady grove that spoke on testing vaccinated teachers 100 agree with the breakthrough cases that are happening with vaccinated um people it only makes sense to um test everyone if we're gonna test one group we should test the other because they can test positive thank you for hearing me have a great night thank you our next speaker is in person it is a jim thorn maybe for tom thomas thank you very much um my comments are about racial equity as well um number one um the racial equity committee is very important i'm not sure if you guys have analyzed where the beef in our school lunch systems come from i'm not sure if you're aware

109that last year 25 tons of beef came in from namibia africa into the port of philadelphia they've removed the country of origin labeling so now it comes in as grass-fed hormone-free free-range beef i'd like to find out if we're importing beef from namibia africa the reason is that they grow next to or the cattle are raised mr cow next to cat camels which are the prion um [Music] animals they can spread jacob crutchfield disease or slow virus it's very important to analyze this because this may have some racial disparities the next thing is the uh is the racial disparity of the spike protein in the sars cov2 whether it's in the vaccine or in the virus source cov2 spike protein has four regions in it furin tmprss2 there's the two and then there's a third

110region called the ace2 receptor and then there's a fourth is the s2 sub unit which has gp41 120 which is an hiv subunit in the spike protein this is what the mrna makes our bodies make this spike protein has racial predilections the ace-2 receptor binds titus to blacks browns irish italians that's why so many people in italy died but it doesn't bind to certain people as well these two receptor does not bind to george soros now george soros as you know financed the wohan lab we should be focused on the racial disparities of the spike protein and figuring out how this could harm our children racially with racial disparity that's why so many people blacks are dying more browns are dying more and we have to figure out what the racial differences are this is

111very important this is a matter of critical emergency there is there may be one person who can help us with this he is the head of the declassification board of the united states his name is ezra a cohen or ezra cohen-watnik and he may be able to declassify the spike protein and tell us what it's about who made it thank you very much we'll take our next comment from zoom next up we have david hello thank you my name is david beavers i'm a resident of whit payne township my main reason for speaking this evening is to urge the board in the school district administration to be open and transparent with parents and taxpayers about the culturally responsive teaching is imposing on our students on july 8 i sent an email in a detailed letter

112to the superintendent asking that he define what culturally responsive teaching is and how it differs from the racist marxist critical race theory being promoted throughout the country today it has been 46 days and i have had no response or even an acknowledgement on july 16 i sent my july 8 letter to the entire school board along with the detailed email only one of you acknowledged it and it has been 38 days without any response question number one do you intend to respond or do you intend to keep us all in the dark until you're forced to comply and disclose what you're doing let me read an exercise that i understand was assigned to the ninth grade in february of this year wissa hicken quote reverse racism prejudice discrimination or antagonism directed against the person people

113on the basis of their membership in a dominant or privileged racial or ethnic group theory a white individual may experience individual acts of racism however the idea that a racial or ethnic minority group can cause a negative outcome for the dominant majority group is not possible in america thoughts examples close quote what is this teaching it's teaching it's okay to be prejudiced against discriminate against and be antagonistic towards white people it's teaching minorities can do nothing to compete effectively with white people if you're a student your child what are you to think what are you to think about this as a minority it's okay to hate whites i'm always going to be a victim there's no reason for me to try if i'm white then it's okay for minorities to hate me for people of

114color to show prejudice against me why should i try to excel if people of color are to be promoted over me this is neither history nor social studies this is marxist social engineering and indoctrination and it will surely destroy our youth just as certainly as fentanyl addiction would our tax dollars should not go to support the indoctrination of this poison if you're not teaching our children to treat others the way you want to be treated then you're failing us if you're not teaching our children if they work hard and they try their best they can achieve great things then you're failing us if you're not teaching these essentials but rather critical race theory or cultural responsive theory you forfeited the right to teach our students thank you all right we don't have any more in-person

115speakers registered um carmina you wanted to come up with yours yeah the staff i have here were primarily for the first public comment period oh you want you want to i can go back to you're saying you're in the list of speakers who did not okay but in the meantime carmina you can come up and hello okay so you know i am not a district parent i received this email um multiple times from multiple parents in the district black parents it's dr crestfield's letter that he said um about reopening the black community had a problem with the last paragraph and i want to read it to you guys he said in closing i have one last thought to share disunity is draining and discouraging for people of all ages while covet 19 and its new

116evil child delta have teamed up to put our country under a cloud of anger fear and distrust these past 18 months i think it might be time to start coming together as the school community and keep our eye on the prize that's a very insensitive ending i am the prize is a pbs documentary series about the struggle of black people in america and why i received that letter is because black people did not feel it was appropriate for the superintendent to make that connotation mr murphy that was here and there's a woman that's on the forum page asked wanted me to ask when is the district gonna show a demonstration when is the superintendent going to start fostering unity it's not a word it's action if you want to unify this community it has to

117come from leadership i just want him to be very conscious of how he uses his words eyes as the prize is not something for someone white to say and i'm saying it just like that it's not it stirs up emotions it stirs up trauma and i want him to be mindful of that and they sent that to me because they wanted him to be mindful of that i would like the community wants this school district leadership on the school board and at the administration to unify this community i remember talking to ron five years ago have a community town hall meeting let people discuss their fears and their anxieties about race and about equity that's how you start to unify this community i am not an adversary i'm an ally but i'm jaded because i'm

118tired you have disrespected me far too long and just this week a parent in the middle school sent an email to the principal and the guidance counselor asking me to be their advocate so i'm not going anywhere thank you okay um hey are there any more comments in zoom all right we'll take the next one rap report hello can you hear me yes hi it's jen rappaport i'm a resident of lower gwen township um i think i've caught him before about the mask thing your decisions made on that um i don't agree with it i mean if there's all the breaks they can provide whatever you can do outdoors that would all be great um i was really just calling in tonight to thank the four board members that voted to not have two time

119a week testing for the teachers i think that's a really poor decision that was voted on tonight for these teachers i mean to divide them like that and separate them in like this some people are not able to get the vaccine people have medical conditions clotting issues things of that nature where they can't um not everybody is choosing to not get it so i just think i wanted to just call in and say thank you thank you to the four of you that uh tried and that's really about all i have to say tonight okay i'm going back to uh in person and some of these are people who didn't get a chance to speak at the first public comment period and i have a sheet here for joyce pickles good evening my name is

120joyce pickles i live in the penland area of lower quinin my son will be in second grade at vbes i want to thank the board for making the right decision to match children k through 6. i do not believe i need to rehash the widespread and confirm protection that masks offer our children or the alarming risks posed to children and being vaccinated by the delta variant little could be more clear however i would like to speak for a moment about risk management i'm a licensed attorney and i'm well versed with the americans with disabilities act i have recently familiarized myself with the ferpa and other education laws regarding access to schools i'm not jeff but it's highly highly clear to me that risk management demands that the mass mandate stay in place in our elementary

121schools until a vaccine for children is available would this mandate go away any sooner than that the district and the taxpayers payers could be facing dire financial strains somewhere in our district there is a child who is or children who are compromised or medical medically fragile those parents likely chose a virtual option last year and perhaps even this year but we know that virtual school does not offer the social aspect of learning that so many children need to advance grade levels a bird in these children's face with academic struggle struggle is compounded by the emotional and financial hardship their parents our caretakers face in a virtual schooling environment first of all these children were and perhaps are excluded from so many of the things that are offered by in-person learning exclusion that can be especially

122devastating to a disabled child without a mass mandate its children are not offered the accessibility to the curriculum they need they are denied the accessibility that is afforded to them by federal law without a mass mandate these children by attending school person could be put in danger by other unvaccinated children on the risk management aspect that's bad news that means the school itself by failing to have a mass mandate could be held liable for the actions of those other students it's called state-created danger and it's a violation of the u.s constitution it's a topic of frequent litigation on the opposite side of the channel school boards have legally analyzed the mask issue and determined that it may violate students and parents legal rights are relying on a completely antiquated law promulgated in 1868 called dylan's

123rule i don't need to go into it too much and i know my time is expiring but i know that other lawyers in the room would agree with me that a court faced with an alleged federal law and constitutional violations versus a legal theory promulgated a century and a half ago would last a letter of argument out of court it's also it's antiquated and it's struck by preemption but imagine for a moment this district was facing a wrongful death lawsuit on the former theory of the state treated danger the district's legal arguments would fail sovereign immunity would fail in the face of a gross negligence argument it is the people of this district the taxpayers that will be forced to fund a multi-million dollar judgment of such a lawsuit it is enough to say that

124we cannot afford risking our children's health so that's not optional fasting but it's also safe to say it would be an extreme financial risk for this district thank you for listening and protecting my case thank you um hi can you hear me yes okay i can't hear you but okay um this is sorry this is paula bladak uh with payne township um the classrooms are not operating rooms for those board members that do think that these young students need to be exposed to germs to build their immune system any voting should not be done based on popularity or your heart as some board members have expressed at the last meeting for the core subjects the district provides instruction using evidence-based curriculum the vote that you casted tonight was not based on evidence facts or data

125the surveys were federally mandated the july meetings were scheduled at the last minute teachers being required to be vaccinated or tested limiting the public to 20 people and it's very hard to hear all of you tonight on zoom or youtube clearly you want to avoid working with the voters or taxpayers of whit payne township you are not adhering to the oath that you took as board members by working with the community you are doing a disservice to the teachers and the students many parents support the teachers and their right tonight marxism has begun with you with the vote that you have casted about trying to take control over someone else's body thank you thank you our next speaker is in person melissa hi my name is melissa chargell um i live in whit pain and

126my six-year-old will be a first grader at shady grove yeah we'll prank cause like she'll be a first grader at shady grove um unfortunately she couldn't be a kindergartner last year because like myself she has adhd and cannot learn virtually so i was lucky enough to find an all outdoor program that required masks and i'm excited that she can go to acidic in this year um just based on someone else's comment um please don't expose my kids to measles or mumps i just appreciate that put that out there um when we have times where we require masks can we please now stipulate that they are supposed to cover your nose and your mouth um i feel like this shouldn't have to be said but apparently it does um so if we could do that i'd

127be very appreciative um i want to say that um we all know there's a school board election coming up and i have said to a few of you before that i do not envy your position at all it takes a certain amount of bravery to be on the school board right now which is bonkers but you know it does take a certain amount of bravery and i do want to say that if you are one of the people running to be a school board member you know people like to threaten like well i'm gonna run against you i think they should i believe in competitive elections um if they do run against you i think we should at least know where they stand so put it out there be brave like the members who are

128here and let us know what you really think and feel um i'm going through a lot of things as much as i can go through once um i also want to say that my daughter my daughter like i said she has adhd we recently found out that she's significantly delayed in executive functioning fine motor functioning gross motor functioning all sorts of things and she attends a gold standard very expensive occupational therapy um that's yeah that's considered by gold sander like i said they believe that my daughter will be significantly more harmed if she or any of her loved ones die obviously or suffer from covet long haulers or like i said before if she's required to learn virtually um she just can't it doesn't work um like i said they think that she would be

129more harmed with that than if she's required to wear a mask last thing um people speak about you know people feeling both sides and you're not feeling less about i gotta be honest some people's other side could kill my kid could kill my four-year-old who's prone to pneumonia you know and people that we know and so i don't think it's apples and oranges or it is apples and oranges is what i'm all right well thank you for your time thank you do we have any other speakers on zoom okay the queue looks clear so we'll go back to our next in-person speaker and that is tianisha heinz evening i just wanted to um i came here tonight in favor for um the uh update of the health and safety plan however um at this time

130i just want to thank you all really from the bottom of my heart um for your diligence and putting our children first um as a mother i i am a resident of whit paint township i'm also a parent of a recent graduate of um wesleyan high school as well as the daughter who is attending 11th grade a frontline worker i'm a registered nurse now back in school for anesthesia and a doctoral nursing candidate currently a lot of people don't know about the virus and um i think that you guys voted um correctly um i've seen a lot um i've experienced a lot but not so much to come and talk to you from an emotional standpoint but more so i think numbers don't lie um i've done a lot of literature research um and i've

131reviewed uh cochrane reviews meta analysis um randomized control studies and all of which indicate that mass do indeed when two people are missed it does prevent the spread of infection significantly as a critical care nurse i often work with a lot of open heart surgery patients immunocompromised patients um and we are required as healthcare providers to put on a surgical mass to protect the immunocompromised patient from ourselves and this is pre-covered um so the data is there uh also there is data uh to support that there there is there's no data indicating that children suffer from any long-term effects as a result of mass wearing i am wearing a mask 14 hours plus a day when i'm on call i'm wearing a mask 24 hours and not just the face surgical mask i wear an

132n95 mask um as i'm required to do so in the anesthesia department so um i just i thank you graciously um for all of your efforts and putting our children first thank you i i just wanted to say something i usually reserve this for people in the military but thank you for your service okay um at this point we've all right well we've uh more than exceeded the number of uh speakers on a particular topic for this uh section of the public period um so but i'll allow for one last speaker for the evening and it's an in-person comment from lori greene good evening my name is laurie green and i live in whit payne township um a lot of the speakers in the second public comment were talking about facts and numbers so i

133had them written down all night so i wanted to talk about them on the american academy of pediatrics website and this is when you look up covet data and updates it says at this time it appears that severe illness due to covet 19 is uncommon among children to clarify the mortality rate for children is they have a 99.99 percent survival rate when you look at percentage of covid cases since the month of may children made up 14 at that time in may of 2021 of all cova cases since that time when supposedly children are getting increasingly more cases and the delta variant is here and that many more people have been vaccinated since that time children now only make up 14.6 of all total cova cases so the jump from may to now has only

134gone up 0.6 of all cases and it seems every two weeks it goes up maybe another 0.1 i also had two questions one question is how did we determine that the unvaccinated teachers should be tested twice a week when you look at the montgomery county recommendations in a high transmission rate they recommend that teachers are vaccinated once a week not twice a week so my question is how did we come up with the twice a week standard my other commenting question is something that we brought up to dr chris field is that parents that want mass choice we're very interested in comparing our data with a school district that is mass optional so we can have data and numbers to go off of because there are school districts in montgomery county and in southeastern pennsylvania

135that are not requiring mass so we would like to have that data calculated for our school district in comparison to another school district thank you very much thank you okay so that uh wraps up the second public comment period we're moving on then to board comments do i have any uh comments from fellow board members uh ron yes uh it seems like we've been talking about this forever and uh we've been involved in the same thing we've been uh bouncing back and forth as the evidence has changed over over the past months but that shouldn't be a sign of weakness that's a sign of strength because that's the way science works when uh you start out with one posture and you develop uh or you discover data that shows that that no longer that never

136was but uh the truth therefore you change your behavior and your recommendations uh some people find that a weakness that's because they don't know how science works they're looking for dogma and unfortunately when you try to apply dogma to science you're corrupting science so what i say is as the evidence has changed so should our behavior and here we are first we we had no school so we had part school so we had everybody back and we could dance and sing in the sunshine then suddenly we're in masks again because the world has changed over the months and so should our behavior and for those who refuse to see this uh i guess something has been missing in their science education uh whether if they hopefully they were not the graduates of the whissicken school

137district but if they were i think we ought to go back and see what was our curriculum like did we really talk about how science works not just look through the microscope and see the cell divide but what is the purpose of science what is the technique of science and i think we have to look at ourselves as educators because based on what we've heard today what we hear on tv what we see on facebook and all the other social media there's a lot of misunderstanding of what reality is actually like thank you all right anyone else marshall i have just a couple of observations tonight first although the overriding discussion and concern among everybody was our health and safety plan that's not all we're doing we still have a school district to deal with

138we still have students to deal with in classes and teachers and everything else that goes along with it and so while we talked about how to get them in safely we still heard from people about issues of racial equity we still heard about extracurricular activities that doesn't stop um not for anything other than we have to get it done and we can't lose sight of that fact that we still have work to be done and we're doing that work in addition to all the time and effort we take to get through this issue we still make sure that to the best of our ability we try to provide the best district and the best opportunities we can for all of our kids that's number one number two i think tonight was a testament to all

139of us there was some comment that we are as divided as ever because of coped and i would say that tonight proves otherwise we had a very very i would say genial and important debate tonight because it allowed all of us who wanted to speak an opportunity to say what they had to say and whether we agreed with it or not whether it was on the side of what we believe or not we listen to one another we debated one another and i think that shows how we are more together than not together we may not agree on approach all the time we may not agree on votes all the time but the one thing we can all agree on is the fact that we all believe in our kids their health and safety getting

140them all in and doing what's best for the community and that strength is based on our ability to listen to one another to respect one another and to see that we all have a common goal and that is our kids so i'd like to just say that because i think that's really important because i don't think you see that all the time in every district which you did here tonight thank all of you tracy yes um so somebody had brought up uh about the speech therapy and i just wondered that might be something worth um then i also wanted to say something about the racial equity committee they are putting together a comprehensive plan with different action items and as those action items come up you know some of them will be brought forth right

141away and some of them brought forth in a plan um so just because you don't see anything on these dockets does not mean that uh doesn't mean that nothing is happening but we're just not voting on it and we would never vote on anything like that we can't vote on anything like that in the back room all of that voting goes on out here um in front of everybody so i don't want anybody to think that we're doing something behind everybody's backs it's all out here everybody sees it and that's that's where it's done um and then my last item that i wanted to say was you know the book that i cast tonight was to help make sure that our kids are in our buildings as long and as much as possible um you

142know some of these other states and we are not these other states but some of these other states um i know in the atlanta metro area right now they started school a couple weeks ago they have 23 000 staff and students out in quarantine that is not helping the situation not having the kids in school and you know my objective i won't speak for the whole world but my objective like i said is to get as many kids in the classroom for as long as possible while we all suffer through this because we are suffering through it um but i just want everybody to know that might not have the same opinion as me that aren't on different sides like marshall said we are all working towards one goal and that is to do what's

143best for our children we might have different opinions of how that happens but we none of us here i will speak for the board here are doing this as a political agenda we are doing this because this is what our thoughts of what is right for our children i just wanted to finish off with that thank you um tracy since you uh made reference to the racial equity oversight committee i just wanted to build on that um i've attended every single one of the meetings that we've had so far it's only been a handful because the committee is new and just getting ramped up but in that short time frame there were several at least two significant things i think are worth mentioning that uh were a part of the committee's work one was the

144formation of a new position in the district a director of diversity equity and inclusion uh the committee was instrumental in helping the administration refine its thinking on the structure and the purpose and intent of that position and then we went out and hired uh someone who is i think starting next week so uh that came across as an action item not within the racial equity committee section but as part of an hr item but it was nevertheless influenced by that committee's work the second piece is that um what we're doing this year as a different uh approach is universal screening for giftedness amongst all of our students in the early grades i believe in second grade this is a recommendation that came out in discussion with the committee as a way to increase the diversity

145of black and brown students in our gifted programs which we saw data and evidence that it is uh grossly under represented relative to the composition of the district so that did not come across as a specific action item that we voted on because the funds for that universal screening were already embedded in the overall district budget which we approved back in june so because you don't see specific action items associated and the racial equity committee section does not mean that there isn't work and impact being done by the committee uh because there has been even in this short time frame um so that's just one thing i wanted to make clear to folks um about about the committee's work mr president i do have a a late uh comment uh for an update for the

146benefit of the board um i just learned i just learned today uh just a little while ago that a federal judge granted a restraining order against the north allegheny school district forcing the school district to enforce its covid masked mandate uh on an across-the-board basis in the district uh there was an injunction apparently filed yesterday evening by a group of 11 parents and 11 students who asked for the court to force the school district to mandate masks as the school year begins the details of that order were in the process of obtaining as we speak but to the best of my knowledge this represents the first federal court decision in the commonwealth of pennsylvania since this latest round of mass mandates forcing the authority of a school board to move forward with a masked mandate

147for the beginning of school so for the first day of school tomorrow in the north allegheny school district all students and faculty members will be required to wear masks so i just wanted to share that information we'll be working with your superintendents in the county to get more information about this as the law evolves on the subject thanks for the update jeff any other board comments our student board rep carly if you're still on any uh comments you want to add what's that okay um any other seeing no other board comments can i have a motion to adjourn the meeting second all those in favor say hi meeting adjourned thanks everyone you