Special Public Board Meeting

001all right we are now live great um katie can you please start us off with roll call yes mr badger you're on you okay i'm here mr bliefeld i'm here mr frank here mrs ginsberg here mrs hayman here miss carrionicus here mr solo mrs walsh president mr antonio here sachimeta here nine present zero absent and one student board rep tonight all right it's time for the pledge of allegiance can we please have the flag and say along with me 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 indivisible with liberty and justice thank you i'd like to welcome everyone to the july 19th 2021 special meeting of the western higgins school district's board of directors tonight we will

002be voting on items reviewed at last week's special meeting on july 12th as well as a couple new items that have come since then i should also note that the board met in executive session earlier this evening to discuss legal and personnel matters item two simply notes our meeting last week and item three in the agenda lists our upcoming meetings through the end of august so now i'll hand it over to jim for our presentation this evening which is a recap of the district's recommended health and safety plan and teaching and learning plan for the upcoming school year which the board will formally vote on later tonight jim okay here you go let's see if i can is that shared nope how's that uh yep okay okay so um what we're intending to do tonight

003is is not recap everything that we discussed last monday but rather give a summary of of that presentation a summary of the uh various recommendations and then add in there some a look at some questions that he came up either at that meeting or uh subsequent to that meeting so that's what we'll do we'll summarize uh additional questions and then we do have that vote as joe noted on the two documents the 7-1 which is the health and safety plan and 7-2 which is the instructional plan we will review those in this presentation as well so uh as a refresher the recommendations uh with regard to health and safety uh center around obviously the most uh shall we say um the the topic that gets the most attention is masking and the recommendation for masking

004in grades k to five is to require it of all individuals in the school uh through december and at some point in january we'll be able to transition on the uh as long as vaccines have been made available to those under 12. that's the tricky part now is that uh as of now uh vax as anybody under 12 can't get the vaccine and it appears that it's going to be made available it in say november ish so if we can work on that assumption once the vaccine is made available and we have a little bit of time for everybody to go get it we're not going to require the vaccine but that will mean that we can relax relax the masking requirement our projection sometime in january now it's also important to note that that

005also presumes that there won't be any agency anywhere federal level state level or county level that steps in and requires masking again such as what happened this past year um so the our local plan is to to carry forth with masks through or into january until such time as we can get everybody vaccinated if they want to but again i want to be clear that something could happen there could be a huge development with uh kovid there could be some agency that says something somewhere so this is just our local plan the recommendation in grade six is is the same in in some sense that is when sixth graders are in a classroom uh we will require masks we will not require masks when they are in common areas because grade seventh and eighth grade

006or seventh eighth grade students will not be required to wear masks uh this is a much the grade six is probably the most complicated of all of our uh challenges because it's in it's in a school with two other grades there is some self-contained time basically in a classroom uh or maybe a couple other times during the day but for the most part there are also integrated times such as hallways not always in grade six most of the hallways are are um self-contained and and kind of contained over to one part of the building but there could easily be other students in the hallway um the we'll talk about a frequently asked question later but one of the rationales for grade six in the classroom is that that's when they'll be close contact because there'll

007be well more than 15 minutes at a time and you will be around people who definitely haven't been vaccinated because they're all under 12. in the hallway you don't have close contact yes you're close but you're passing you you might be in close contact for all of 10 seconds and that's a stick that's a significantly different um circumstances there uh the recommendation for grades 7 to 12 is optional uh we're not going to require the masks because and our philosophy there is that anybody who wanted to be vaccinated in those grades has had the opportunity to to be vaccinated now um one piece of all of these is the busing and we as you recall last monday we we weren't quite clear what the rules were going to be on busing and we can say

008that at the at the moment it might be the case that masks are required on all buses and that's that's currently what uh the thinking is because of a a cdc uh order that applied to uh different transits options trains buses and things and that might filter down to school buses if if that cdc order does not apply to us then we are going to require the masks on grades k-5 buses until january again and it would not be required on middle school or high school buses for the same reason in grade 6 is that there will be integrated environments so um there's gonna be more to come on bussing but i can just say that we will we'll follow whatever direction is given to us or whatever um uh is interpreted that cdc order

009to apply to us here in mercedes the health and safety plan also has other mitigation protocols we won't go into all of them right now but things like distancing won't be the same as last year we are going to go back to what's going to look much more like normal distancing we will not have six feet between desks [Music] we are going to try to do things like get outside as often as we can that's an example by the way of something we we tried doing and we may carry that over even posts covered because that's just a good thing to do generally there's cleaning protocols that our support staff are really good at and they'll be in place we will have all the things like frequent and reminders about hand washing and opportunities to

010do so uh all the things that we did this past year it just won't be the distancing that's going to be a pretty big difference compared to this year the instructional plan the recommendation is in person for uh every day and that's grades k to 12. oops um if a family wants to uh uh choose the virtual option that will come in the form of the wissa hicken virtual academy which is the asynchronous lessons that are carried out by the or provided by montgomery county intermediate union in conjunction with mvp and we are going to ask families if they want to choose that virtual option they have to tell us by july 30th we will immediately send out uh instructions as to how to do that you don't have to opt into in person so

011you have to respond to that if you want to go in person it's just that if you do want to opt into virtual you do need to tell us so we can plan for that so things that we talked about last meeting the factors that we considered we learned quite a bit these past 18 months we know we have to be flexible we know we have to to create for ourselves the ability to pivot sometimes on a dime we know that in-person learning is ideal we know that we can do uh virtual learning if need be and we're going to continue to do that by the way we're going to we are going to continue to have some number of snow days like normal traditional snow days but if we need to go virtual for

012either weather reasons or virus reasons or whatever we're going to retain that that capability and we've also learned that while we can do virtual and in-person instruction at the same time uh that's not the least bit ideal so we're going to try to stay away from that if at all possibly now governing agencies have lots to say uh these days or perhaps in their statements not much to say so for example the cdc has come out with recommendations they do not have any authority over us but they recommend masks for anybody who hasn't been vaccinated in schools basically under under 12. we'll continue to to listen to and pay attention to anything that comes out of these agencies whether the federal level or state uh the state level by the way just last week affirmed

013that they're not going to have their own set of guidelines and that they are going to go along with what cdc recommends so um that makes it sort of easier but sort of not in that it's out of the state's hands now and into whatever cdc is going to say and also we have the county level which as we spoke about on monday is this year it appears it's going to be a little more focused on things like counting of cases uh you're going to be focused on contact tracing that sort of thing now we considered lots of medical opinions and lots of scientific studies and i think it goes without saying that that there are opinions and studies that can be found that can back up any position that pretty much you want when

014it comes to covet um we didn't go and list all the ones we consulted we consider consulted multiple ones um these are also changing very rapidly uh and also pretty much by the day i think it's the american academy of pediatrics just today or maybe it was yesterday put out their recommendations for everyone in k-12 schools to be masked and they didn't even distinguish between vaccine status so we're not doing that again we're going to talk a little bit about compromise and finding middle ground we're not going to that extent but that's coming from some an organization that's that's pretty well respected and we will continue to keep an eye on recommendations and we will of course continue to comply with any mandates that come to us and we did pay attention to our our

015survey that went out in june and we we actually put a great deal of weight on that because what it told us was that while there might be people on either side of the fence in terms of of what they would like with regard to masking we get quite a bit or quite a few more students in person learning if we crafted the the recommendation that the that we spoke of earlier tonight so our guiding principles we went over this on monday night but we wanted to maximize the number of students we wanted to prioritize those 329 more that would be with us in person that's that matters and we really wanted to try to seek a common ground so we're not going to follow for example masking for everybody we are going to change

016and have no masking outdoors when you're in in recess if you can so there's ways to find a common ground there's ways to get these uh additional 329 students and and really and and maximize how many students we have uh learning in person so we had questions either at the meeting or since some of the most frequently ones we can't answer them all uh they're on the website the ones we've gathered for example there was a question what about separate k to five classrooms uh some being masked and some not and we did consider that uh in the end we can't recommend that because uh the classes are carefully crafted in a balanced way we're worried about what would happen if to that balance if our first criteria was masking or not um [Music] also

017class sizes might would become substantially more difficult to manage because there might be a class of eight or let's say a section of eight or a section of 31 and that doesn't break easily um and it just it just kind of it didn't really lend itself some schools might not even have enough classrooms if we know that so we we did think about it but in the end we we can't recommend doing that i spoke a little bit about the rationale behind the recommendation for grade six i know it does sound a little jumpy or that that the recommendation for that grade does does pose the most uh uh so we say challenges for us but again it has to do with how long you're sitting in one place and any which gets at that

018uh close contact opportunity transportation we also spoke about that we believe that right now we're going to go into this with masks required k-5 and we believe also required six to twelve but if it's determined the cdc order does not apply to us then the masks will only be required for us at grade scale five on the bus there are some questions about what about using metrics and i and i know that other districts in the area are doing that um the reason we decided against this is we didn't know how a family could make a decision about sending their student in person or not because they wouldn't know when masking would ever get triggered if it ever would be first it would be hard enough to find the right metric i mean no matter

019what anyone tells you no one knows what the right metric is to all of a sudden start having masks required again okay they can there's some ballparks but there's no one knows what the right one is so let's even if we did find the right metric somehow the families making their decision about sending their student in person or not wouldn't know what the masking status would be for the whole first half of the school year they'd know we'd start off with no masks but they'd have no way of knowing if and when that metric would ever kick in and if they're if they would prefer to have masks if they were in that 329 number then i we feel like using metrics would have substantially uh reduced the number of kids we have in person

020it's nothing the districts that are using metrics aren't wrong it's just that we felt it wasn't the right fit here our cases will be tracked still we're not going to use that uh highly convoluted 14-day rolling window thing that the state required us to but we do intend to track them and communicate them out to everybody in the school community ventures say probably once a week maybe twice a week again there were other questions asked and uh that's the website link for all those questions and a little more detail to the answers so sources for more information there are these two documents in tonight's meeting agenda the seven one is the health and safety plan seven two is uh the instructional plan seven one the health and safety plan is a template that the state

021requires us to use and we fill it in as best we can there's that cdc guidance uh there's last monday's board meeting presentation goes into a little more details for example with regards to survey uh results and in the end i think this is important to just say is that we know these recommendations will not please everyone we that was pretty painfully aware of that as soon as we started to sit down and craft a plan um however we do feel it's the best way in this plan these recommendations are the best way to to optimize in-person teaching and learning and for as many students as possible so um that's kind of the not just the rationale but the sort of why we landed here and how we did and what i think i'll do

022is i'll stop sharing and open joe if you want to have the questions um thanks jim um so i guess at this point i'll just open it up to uh board members who have um questions for jim comments just uh let me know amy and then ronnie thank you joe uh jim so what are other districts around us doing in regard to going back upper dublin some have made up the mind some have not um last i heard i think only spring forward it was for sure or i'm not for sure but said they're going to require masks i believe north penn is going to have a metric type arrangement i'm not sure if everyone else is finalized yet so i wouldn't want to say well district x is doing this or why i don't

023know of others who are requiring masks at the k-5 level again other than springford and what type of metrics is north penn using um i was unable to understand them uh and i'm not sure they've ever been finalized yet anyway so i i don't know it would have to do with case count it would have to do with look rather than have it be state-wide it would be maybe even montgomery county could even be their their community their you know more precisely north penn i'm not sure and when you looked at the separate classrooms for a masked and non-masked students i'm like i know when i filled out the survey i think if i recall i filled in my child's name and grade like i put all that information in like if we had this

024information did we look at it and say okay there will be these odd number classrooms like did we actually break it down by class and year to figure that out no because we we we didn't ask the question if we had some classes masked some not we'd have to ask that again because parents answered that survey based on hey are you requiring massive everyone in the building or not and and so we didn't break it down i mean we uh we could have made the assumption that they would have responded the same way but it's really not the same question because then there'd be lots of kids who know the kids in the mass classrooms um in the hallways would be different sometimes kids come and go from classrooms um we'd have to figure out

025encores that it get combined um so we didn't go to that level detail no because we felt there was too many other reasons not to recommend that okay and then my last question um if we get the numbers on 7 30 and it shows that we have a large number of students that do want to do virtual would we be able to offer a synchronous option for our students not this time we don't have uh plans for doing that all right thank you ronnie i just wanted to ask my perennial question what are we doing about class size are we trying to make them as small as possible given this difficulties it's hard to answer that question phrase that way from a very astute fourth grade former fourth grade teacher i know um we are

026going to take a look at our our class sections and i think one of the important things is we'll we'll make them based on the assumption that every single student is coming in person and this is getting a little into the weeds but the reason i say that is because let's say that in a school uh 15 students choose to go virtual for the first semester we're going to save a seat for them in a classroom somewhere whatever grade they are so that if they choose to come back that class size guideline will still be within our norms so it's quite possible to start the school year there actually might be one or two smaller classes because if students choose virtual we're saving a seat for them anyway okay we'll see thanks joe jim i

027have three questions um first is whether or not we have considered air filtration systems or some sort of ventilation systems within the individual classrooms um okay the answer that is yes we did and uh i'm going to need uh ways to help a little bit on this one as to the the conclusions but um i think there's some filters that were looked at or so yeah thank you um the the um our hvac systems don't allow us just to stick in those type of hepa filters into the hvac they don't work that way so we would have to purchase the hepa filter uh standalones uh we used them in nurses offices and outside in the sort of clinical quarantining areas last year um they're very loud this there was a cdc um uh article that

028was written about them and that it was a positive um but the square footage in that um cdc article was uh 584 square feet and it was two units obviously our classrooms are almost you know on average a little closer to double that so we need four or three depending on the size and the volume of noise that would be occurring in a classroom specifically anybody who would be close to them if you had to have uh three or four of them it would be too loud um in our opinion in my opinion uh to use them if there was some type of incredibly quiet hepa filter out there we can investigate it but at this point we don't think there is okay thanks wade um second question is how will before and after care

029be handled uh i'm assuming mass will be required of students uh in k through five but let me elaborate on that um that's a good question paul we actually haven't uh had the conversation with the health i mean at this point it's the ymca as a provider um it would make sense to me to have it that way and that's i'm talking up top in my head we don't we didn't you know our health and safety plan deals with the school day um but but for consistency's sake i think it might make sense in grades k to five i can't speak to middle school um in fact i think middle school would not but any event we'll uh we'll be sure to have those conversations with the y and and get that out before anyone

030has to commit to care okay great last question is obviously parents families will have to make a decision and commit one way or the other prior to the school year if there is an outbreak you know thinking of a worst case scenario our numbers go up will there be an option midstream for those who are in person to potentially have a virtual option um you know if we have some extenuating circumstances with increased counts yeah so the answer there is uh we as a system will will stand ready to go virtual if we have to we can't we other than january we won't be able to have individual students changing their mind one way or the other so we're going to have that one that one change point in january um and then as a

031district if it get if the case counts get bad enough for for it to be a concern and some agency somewhere says something then we'll all go we'll go back to 100 virtual everybody okay um i do have one other quick one um there was a question raised that there are some students that have individual challenges um specific to their learning uh and math on teachers may impede them from being able to fully understand and learn in that environment is there an option for face shields for teachers to allow students to be able to see their you know to read lips and to um have the visual cues of them through a mat through a shield rather than a mask yes great thank you other uh questions comments for jim tracy tracy and then zephy

032um yeah so i just wanted to i was pulling up some statistics off the cdc website um and just in the last week alone there's been a 69 increase in the last 70 days seven days in the united states for um cova cases there's been a 35 increase in the last seven days in hospitalizations and a 26 increase in the last seven days in deaths now that is not in our area that is across the united states but we do know that uh you know that is something that can definitely happen here um and i did want to remind people too that last year the cdc was recommended that we not go to school that we do 100 virtual and we voted as a board to um task our administrators to figure out a way

033to get us into the classrooms and i think we did a halfway decent job that we were the only district in the area to be able to open our schools and have 100 in person offered in uh elementary at least in the very beginning um where no other school offered that um i think jim's recommendation of masking our k to five or k to six group to make sure that we can get as many kids in in person is something that um you know that's what we were trying to do last year we were trying to get as many kids as possible in person and i think if that is our way of doing that this this year then that's something that we also need to think about um and also right now the cdc

034is currently recommending masks now it's recommending masks to be worn indoors for all adults and children that are not vaccinated and the purpose of the k-6 being required is because they are not able to get vaccinated um but let's not forget the cdc is still recommending adults and children not vaccinated to mask up indoors because covet is still happening um the other question the other comment that i would have is in regards to busing so if we are requiring grade six to mask i think my personal opinion is that the buses should be required as well so even if you're in high school if you get on a bus you should be wearing a mask because there are six graders on there that aren't able to be vaccinated yes you know seven through twelve had

035the option to vaccinate but the sixth graders did not um it's not that long of a trip most kids the longest it's about 50 minutes if you're on you know the very last and a lot of the high school kids don't take the bus anyway a lot of them drive so for my opinion would be that uh for the buses that the high school kids should be required to wear a mask while on the bus if we're mandating that the sixth graders wear it during the day um and the other comment that i had was for the classes that are you know the people that were asking about the classes for masked and unmasked classes like jim said about the you know encores how they how will they handle that because some of the classes

036are mixed and then also you know the other thing to think about is lunches because all the kids are most likely going to be in there unmasked at lunch so that's another thing to think about um and i don't i don't even know my opinion on on that just yet of if we're not requiring it at lunch why are we requiring it in the classroom and if we're requiring it in the classroom why aren't we requiring it at lunch or to be separated i don't know um but i just wanted to bring up those couple of things of what i found on the cdc website too hi um so um jim a lot of great questions i i think and you said it earlier sixth grade is definitely the trickiest um but i guess um

037wanted to understand the rationale why we're not going to have the mask in the hallways is it purely because it's not we're not able to i don't mean to say police but um you know check that or is there another or is it because of the seventh grade i'm i'm like struggling with that one a little bit can you walk us through the rationale there sure sure so the hallways um were probably the trickiest piece and the uh passing is usually just sixth graders sometimes there's reason for seven eighth graders in the same hallways and one of the things we didn't want to do is have a situation where sixth graders were walking around masson in the middle of of some some activity where other kids didn't have to wear a mask we're trying to

038be sensitive to to when when we contain sixth graders who have not obviously not been vaccinated because by definition then then they just mask up and all sixth graders know there's no um calling identifying somebody for who's sixth grade who isn't um that peers don't look at each other and you know any of that and so in the hallways there could be seven eighth graders and also the time that you spend passing somebody in someone's close contact space is minimal as compared to in math class you're sitting next to that classmate for 45 minutes and and so the the likelihood of having integrated hallway plus the limited amount of time contact racing-wise uh led us to that recommendation for the hallways okay great um i i get that that's helpful and then i'm i'm with

039tracy a little bit with the transportation um i read that um universally public transportation we should be masking unless you're on a ferry um but like buses trains airplanes across the board is is the masking requirement um so my my struggle with six plus on the bus again is how do we how do we regulate that and like if yeah it's like i don't like i'm struggling with how we how this will look like yeah well right now the health and safety plan reads that um this is for all grades k to 12. [Music] masks or let me just say math grades 6-12 masks are optional all times except while on a bus if required by federal or state law and right now the cdc order is interpreted to apply to school bus so if

040we start school tomorrow everyone on a bus would be required to wear a mask but i wanted to be consistent in how we handle buses if we are allowed to if some at some point down the road that that federal cdc order is decided it's decided it doesn't apply to school buses i wanted to be consistent in our approach to masking on buses as we were in schools yeah but this is a perfect example of an agency somewhere in this case the cdc issued an order which is being interpreted as a mandate to do something so we're going to comply and so there will be masks required on the bus all grades k to 12 and then then these questions we're talking about would only uh become applicable if at some point in the future

041it's determined that order does not apply anymore to school buses yeah so we can cross that bridge later uh at the moment though it's all uh required okay thanks amy jim uh just following up on that like i'm just concerned in general like how are we going to enforce this because a parent like i don't myself go through the rule book and say i'm going to follow this rule but not this rule if there's rules in place i follow them but there may be parents out there that say you know on this particular issue i'm not sending my child in the mask what is our plan for that uh i assume you're not talking about buses being celebrated generally now generally yeah well uh this the let's say that k to five or even in

042grade six two uh masks are a school rule um and we have school rules that uh everyone has to follow and it's not like uh like you say you can't pick and choose which school rules to follow and you can't wear offensive things on the t-shirts and you can't wear clothing that reveals too much and you can't hit other people and there's lots of other things you can and can't do and this is another one of those and so we'll handle the same way and and it uh you there will not be a choice you parents won't have a choice to i know there's been talk about we're not going to follow school well we have to follow the rules and otherwise there's lots of rules in the school that and everyone has to follow

043all the rules okay thank you well jim just to follow up on amy's point um if there is non-compliance what is i guess what action will the school staff take the same as we we uh normally do for non-compliance i mean in this case it's a health matter so the student let's just say the student chooses not to wear a mask anymore someday any day off they go to the principal's office to find out like hey so anyway or you first have a conversation with teacher like you know we gotta wear a mask and they'll and they'll oh i forgot okay then the issue's over i don't really want to wear one right now i know but you gotta if you could it'd be better and they put it on and it's all good i

044mean teachers have this skill set that eventually ends with i refuse to wear a mask and i refuse no matter what you tell me in this case okay well then you got to go down to see the talk to the principal about this school rules are not something i make up it's it's the school school principal have a nice conversation try again to persuade the student to follow school rules so the student can go back to the classroom and continue the teaching and learning if the student continues to choose not to follow that school rule well then the next step as in all the school rules is a call home to the parent uh listen we gotta you gotta come get your child because he's not following school rules okay yeah amy just to follow

045up on that like let's say i mean there are some kids out there that i've heard you know they maybe get dizzy from wearing them um or have other side effects from wearing them is that something like rather than the principal's office we can you know obviously on a case-by-case basis assess things and say okay this student needs to go to the nurse's office um because it seems to be you know health-related issue and they need to go there to have an opportunity to have a mask break or something oh okay good really good point mass breaks are totally different matter we we allow for mass breaks we always have we have this year uh he's gotta be distant from somebody a mask break does not carry on for four and a half hours but

046a mask break is absolutely an opportunity to just take a little break go just but you got to be away from people and we did this this year no problem totally allowed and and you don't have to leave the classroom to do that okay thank you any other questions for jim okay well um as i stated earlier we're going to take a formal vote on the health and safety plan as well as the teaching and learning plan a little bit later this evening but at this point we are at the first public comment period where we'll hear comments on agenda items only and because i know that the health and safety plan is a hot topic uh like i did last week i'm going to be relaxing our normal maximum of five speakers on the

047same topic but again i will cap the first public comment period to 30 minutes max so uh just like normal anyone wishing to make the comment can use the raised hand feature and zoom and we'll take comments in the order that hands are raised and when your name is called please unmute state your name municipality of residence and the agenda topic for which you want to comment and please limit your comments to three minutes after which your mic may be muted and note that it is the board's practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with speakers and checking my watch the time is now 8 we'll take comments up until nine uh eight sorry 7 46 p.m right now and we'll take comments or up to half an hour which would take us

048to 8 16. so i'm going to check the queue to see if we have any speakers and i see several and we'll start off with p b good evening this is um everybody can hear me i'm assuming yes thank you um i just want to say that i'm going to be speaking regarding to the math situation um upper dublin north penn half a horsham colonial um and several saturn as well there's a bunch of schools that already are math optional for next year and as far as school rules are concerned aren't school rules in the student handbook and if they are is there anything in there about masks um just want to talk about masks real quick masks are hindering a student's academic learning master creating a bullying environment masks are creating internal fears masks

049are creating dental issues masks are creating medical issues masks are creating divisiveness masks are creating are suppressing a student's confidence also the pursuit of life liberty and happiness are stifled when children wear masks these are many long-term damaging reasons as to why the prevention is worse than the virus if masks are effective in protecting against covid19 then the schools that are not enforcing them should have high number of cases which will force a school shutdown this has yet to happen in the u.s or internationally children are .00 to .025 percent of all covet deaths in the u.s and eight states reported zero child deaths this year westahign needs to give the mass decision to the parents parents and teach need to teach their children how to keep themselves safe as most do for an allergy

050reminder free appropriate public education is the law math and vaccines are recommendation tonight please vote on mass choice for all thank you thank you our next speaker is cara finn hi again kara finn lower gwened i will have two children in elementary school this coming year as you can guess i'm commenting to voice my support for the administration's proposed health and safety plan the cdc released guidance less than two weeks ago advising universal indoor masking for all unvaccinated students teachers and staff this coming school year the aap released guidance just yesterday advising universal indoor masking for all student teachers and staff within schools regardless of vaccination status they both stress the importance of being in school with proper precautions note that personal preference in regards to masks does not have a place in public health

051recommendations there is no agenda behind these recommendations other than protecting the physical and mental health of our nation's children these recommendations come from the top experts in the nation you can be assured that these experts have access to all of the data available including any evidence that might show drawbacks of masks if there were significant drawbacks to masks or if they didn't work to reduce the spread of covet in schools you would be seeing different recommendations from these experts the administration's plan is a compromise as dr as dr chris phil mentioned if you look at the plan in light of the newest aap recommendations as well as the newest cdc recommendations if we followed the aap guidance there would be mandatory masking through all age groups setting all that aside making masks mandatory for 4k

052through 6 gets 329 more students physically into schools than making them optional would if you vote to support this plan 329 more children will receive the best education and the numerous mental health and social benefits of being in person how could you not support it thank you for your time and for all that you do for our community thank you our next speaker is kristin hello hello the common ground that's being discussed is the common ground this is kristin in whit peen township the common ground being discussed is seems like it's what is more convenient for the district which is as few virtual students as possible it cannot be based on data if it was you'd know the answers to the following what are the results from the last year of states and counties that

053allowed in-person schooling how did mass-mandated versus mass optional schools differ empirically when studied what are the harms of long-term forced masking on children masks were a crutch to keep 50 of the population participating in society the cdca has never provided definitive proof that they work just statements that they do they are not standardized requiring an unstandardized apparatus that restricts breathing and does not allow for the full human communication experience should probably be at least standardized and proven we have never required the cdc to provide the burden of proof on masks however no masks are the status quo the burden of proof should be unproven that they're effective and that they are safe there is no definitive data for either of these issues let alone in children without a mass mandate by the federal or state

054government you are acting as individuals personally liable for making this decision for an entire district population a population almost half do not support forced masking of children are you that confident in your decision that you are not causing harm physically and psychologically are you educated about the effects of reduced oxygen on a developing brain and body how about the effects of covering the human face on developing social and communication skills the children have been largely unaffected by the virus itself and have contributed minimally to its spread there is data on that it is not our children's job to protect us they deserve a normal experience or at the very least undeniable evidence that an intervention will make any sort of impact and cause them absolutely no harm and you can provide neither thank you our

055next speaker is jason bobby hello can you hear me yes hi my name is jason bobby from whip paint township i want to discuss limits on the requirements for masking throughout the entirety of our history mankind spot disease there were flu seasons that had much greater impact on children in our communities than did covet 19. the cdc and the world health organization declared a pandemic for the 2009 h1n1 flu according to the cdc the 2009 h1n1 flu was responsible for 358 pediatric deaths perhaps i'm giving prior boards too much credit but i suspect at no point in the midst of those terrible flu seasons in 2009 would a board have given the slightest thought that their powers would allow them to force masks upon the entire school population whether someone was sick or not as

056an attorney i can rationalize the legal justification that extraordinary measures were permitted in the previous school year based on the emergency disaster declaration in the commonwealth on june 10th the pennsylvania legislature voted to end governor wolf's emergency disaster declaration that had been put in place on march 20th of last year at the end of june the mass mandate that had been in place through much of 2020 and early 2021 was lifted across the commonwealth for all manners of businesses as well as public and private gatherings the reality we face today is that the public and their elected representatives in this state have deemed that the benefits of mask wearing even among unvaccinated individuals does not outweigh the disruption of civil liberties today me and my three children may go to philly's games and sit next

057to forty thousand other attendees when they go to restaurants and dine indoors we may go to church libraries birthday parties and swimming pools without the burden of masks despite the emergency use vaccine not being available to them it is only in the public schools that my children will be required to wear masks and from what i'm hearing and people have said tonight wissahicken is alone among the neighboring school districts my children all attend a k-5 school and based on the proposal put forth by superintendent chris field they will be required to wear masks based on the argument that they are not eligible for the vaccine conversely children over 12 are permitted masked choice regardless of their vaccination status similarly teachers in k-5 are required to mask even when vaccinated while their co-workers in higher grades

058do not bear this burden this is not a requirement put in place by the state this is the sole choice of the school board assembled here today the burden isn't attached to any rational concern about contagion among unvaccinated students as older children that are not vaccinated by their choice are treated differently from younger children that may not yet receive the treatment under fda emergency authorization the burden placed upon my children by the school board is distinct and separate from any burden imposed on other persons or classes of persons in similar places of public congregation this is in direct violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment the board has heard many arguments discussing the pros and cons of masks from many well-informed parents but i fear you may not have considered the legal

059ramifications that approval of this plan may bring good intentions and trying to placate as many survey takers as possible does not supersede constitutional rights vested in me my children their teachers and countless others adversely burdened by the policies you will attempt to put in place this evening i recommend the board vote no thank you our next speaker is alexis wasserman my name is alexis wasserman and i am a resident of whittain township i am also a parent of two elementary school children and i am speaking about the health and safety plan thank you for a proposed health and safety plan which allows as many of our students as possible to return to in-person learning in an environment that is as safe as possible i would like to note that in addition to making in-person learning

060accessible in general the requirement for masking also minimizes the risk of sudden school closures and quarantines which threaten to disrupt in-person learning throughout the year i truly appreciate the additional effort taken by the administration and the board to conduct a survey which allowed the catered six parents to express their wishes rather than caving to pressure from a very vocal minority therefore i strongly urge the board to vote in favor of the proposed plan which follows cdc and american academy of pediatrics guidelines for our elementary schools and also follows the majority of parent wishes in our district i would also encourage the administration to consider any additional ways in which we can continue to keep our children safe in the face of increasingly more contagious viral variants many of these might have already been introduced last

061year but i wanted to ensure that they continue to be considered and implemented where practical especially given at the increased number of people who will be in the school building such measures could include maximizing outdoor time even including outdoor lunch or snack if feasible adding portable hepa filters to common spaces like higher risk cafeterias and gyms i i heard the conversation earlier where it was that it might not be possible for classrooms but certainly there are some higher risk areas that we could consider also could we minimize crowding in hallways for example slightly staggering bus arrival or dismissal times to to help avoid that crowding and finally parental notification of a covet class case within our child's classroom regardless of when positive results are received or what is considered to be close contact similar to

062what would normally be sent home in any regular school year for strep or flu thank you again for your leadership and for keeping our kids safe in these uncertain times thank you our next speaker is kdw kdw are you there yes hello can you hear me yes okay good evening my name is katie wenger i'm a resident of whit pain township and a parent in the school district i have to go outside of my planned speaking points tonight so that i can assure you that maths do not enhance mental health they significantly harm it spreading that information is incredibly damaging to be telling the people of this community and being in that field i can tell you the fallout that i have seen from everything with the pandemic on mental health and surely on the

063mental health of our children as well as mass there's social isolation and we have known in the field of psychology for a very long time that social and emotional bonding even between friends kids on the playground occurs by reading facial expressions occurs by seeing another child smile at them or being able to see them speak so please know that maths do not enhance mental health again they significantly harm it so i'm obviously here to advocate for mass choice for children in grades k through 6 for the upcoming school year with the wealth of information available as to how most mass are not effective and how they are very detrimental to our children i was very surprised of this proposed plan to continue masking our youngest students the long-term effects of their faces being masked much

064of the day and seeing mostly mass spaces will be seen in years to come and experts in the field of speech psychology and healthcare continue to state these unfortunate repercussions i never expected that we would come to a time where the decisions that we make as parents for our children would be overridden and ignored with parents on both sides of this issue the only clear resolution is to allow parents the choice over whether or not to mask their children our children children are now used to spending the summer mass list in stores and restaurants on vacation at the pool at camp with family with friends and at community events and now we are being told to acclimate them once again to an unnatural and healthy practice that will impact them for many years to come

065not to mention the numerous studies showing how the bacteria on their mass breathing in increased levels of carbon dioxide and lower levels of oxygen impacts their physical health how as parents can we tell our children to follow this masking practice when there is no rational explanation for why this is being forced upon them the world health organization and unicef state a few very important points that the decision to use mass for children aged 6 to 11 should be based on the following factors whether there is widespread transmission in the area where the child resides and the potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychological development and in consultation with teachers parents and caregivers and or medical providers so i think that's very important to take note of as well i will also state

066that this is the time for our leadership and school board to demonstrate who they are putting first our children their students please be the leader so that now and in the future our children can retain the trust that they have in school administrators principals and teachers a trust that has already been deeply damaged by being reprimanded for taking a mass break and yes that was happening this year they were not always allowed mask breaks and it differed very widely between teachers and they were even sent to the principal's office for this as we mentioned thank you for your comments joe antonio his time is up thank you for your comments the next speaker is jen hello yes hi can you hear me yes okay it's jen dobin uh whit payne township i am also speaking

067on the mask um a couple a couple things that i want a lot of people to understand that the parents that are against mass wearing we're not all necessarily saying that we don't want to mask our children we are saying that it's our choice as parents not anybody else's choice the other thing i wanna i wanna point out is how completely irrational or illogical it is that the masks that these children are wearing are cloth masks that are bought on etsy target wherever the ones that look like their surgical masks although they're not they don't protect against covid they don't protect you from getting it they don't protect anybody from or you from giving it to anybody so it it doesn't make sense you're gonna require masking for protection but yet the n95s are the

068only masks that i know of that are actually proven to protect the person wearing it and the people around them um and it also doesn't make sense that we're going to go back to standard distancing standard class sizes if that's what i heard correctly earlier but require masks it it it doesn't make sense it just it doesn't make sense so that's all i have to say thank you our next speaker is joe wenger hi good evening can you hear me yes thank you mr antonio my name is joe wenger i am a resident of whit payne township and i have two children in the district and another child in preschool uh first before i uh go through prepared remarks i just wanted to say that um i agree fully with the um the parent who

069went before me i think her name was jen um the the cloth masks are really um very ineffective at stopping any viral particles anyone who's done any uh construction work uh will tell you that anything less than an n95 mask will not stop drywall dusk and viral particles are much much they're a fraction of the size of drywall dust so i just wanted to make that point i also wanted to say that i agree fully with the comments of my wife katie i better say that right um with the with the current success of the vaccination programs in our area and around the country many of us now enjoy a return to as normal of a life as we've seen since 2019 we go to the grocery store work family cookouts vacations at the beach

070all without having to wear these facial coverings that were introduced into our lives in 2020 those coverings had the purpose of slowing the spread of the virus however with the widespread adoption of the vaccination program every single person over the age of 12 who wants to be vaccinated has had the opportunity to become vaccinated for months now i humbly petition the board to adopt mask choice for the following reasons i would like for a second for for us all to consider the downside of masking our children much social learning occurs through communication amongst peers and much of that communication is non-verbal social psychologists have estimated that up to 50 percent of all communication is from non-verbal cues and gestures the conveyance of emotion through facial expression is something that children learn as they grow up

071and even adults at least the smart ones continue learning throughout their lives anyone who doubts the value of nonverbal communication has never felt the joy of a child who has received positive nonverbal feedback from an adult through just a smile or laughter also pure bond pure bonds between students are an extremely important aspect of learning the downsides are not just on the emotional level however consider too that mask wearing over long periods of time reduces oxygen to the brain this has already been acknowledged by the administration by the need for occasional mass breaks we've all seen that the masks our children wore last year and even maybe the ones we wore ourselves end up being filthy they probably harbor more bacteria and other pathogens best kept away from our care ways in closing i would

072like to point out that many of the surrounding school districts and prairie field schools have opted for mask choice to start the school year to do otherwise in our district would be a disservice to our children and it's a service to freedom of choice itself thank you our next speaker is shannon taylor hi can you hear me yes hi shannon taylor lower gwyneth township i have two children at the elementary level and something i just wanted the board to consider if they haven't already is to possibly make masking optional at the beginning of the school year and then rather than wait until january to re-evaluate re-evaluate in november as flu season begins and start to ramp up because then that would give our students the option to see their classmates know who their classmates are

073at the beginning of the school year have that facial recognition and then they would also be able to see their teachers as well get that positive feedback from them learn their entire facial expressions so should we have to go back to mandatory masks they would at least have that skill under their belt um so i would really like to see option b uh a masking be optional definitely at the beginning of the school year and re-evaluated much earlier than january this would also then do what dr chris fields trying to do and sort of weigh both sides and try i mean you're not going to be able to fully but make everybody happy to give parents a little bit of choice um so i if that hasn't already been considered i would like you to

074think about that um for the beginning of the school year thank you so much thank you our next speaker is carrie c hi can you hear me yes hi i'm carrie coleman from whit payne township i've got two kids in elementary and four in the district and one who will be starting school um i want to share a few of my thoughts on the question of universal masking and i think it's best to think in terms of trade-offs what do we gain and what do we lose if we recruit require this of all students i'll start with what we're losing there have been loads of studies i'm not going to go into them people have already mentioned the negative effects from headaches and difficulty concentrating less happiness and more wearing masks is not going to

075kill our children um but that doesn't mean that requiring them to mask is without harm there is a trade-off there is a loss and i've seen the negative effects in my children my nephews my nieces and my children's friends it may not seem dire to you but as a parent the issue is dire to me my job isn't just to keep my child alive it's to do everything i can to help them flourish so much of what is good in life cannot be quantified on a survey or a spreadsheet things like my children seeing their friends spontaneously smile when they make a joke a subtle glance and expression of approval from a teacher a silly face from a lunch lady a whisper between friends an environment that feels warm and welcoming rather than cold and

076threatening this question of masking as you know is no small thing you as the board may not see or be able to tabulate the negative effect of requiring all students to be masked but as a parent i've seen the negative effects of masking i've seen the tears at the end of the day when my daughter describes the headache she couldn't get rid of i've seen the joy in her face when she described how she and her friends found a secret place where they could take down their masks and laugh and talk i've held back tears when my child burst through the front door describing how she received a hug instead of an air hug you may think the kids are used to this and i actually think you're right they are used to this but

077it's not good to be used to this it's not good that our children are used to hiding in order to enjoy their friends it's not good that our children are used to pretending to drink water so they can breathe freely it's not good that they're used to only hearing parts of a conversation but this is what's happening we are losing so much and what are we gaining the evidence suggests that we're not gaining much of anything in france there is a countrywide mass mandate requiring everyone to wear masks this is much more strict than the us but guess who's exempt kids under the age of 12 because they know it's not worth it kids are not getting covered and they are not spreading it at that age the trade-off is not worth it for what

078we're losing when we require universal masking in schools we're losing something that is unquantifiably significant and what we gain is statistically insignificant i urge you to please look past the politics the dollar signs the rhetoric and please vote for our kids to get a normal school year next year thank you thank you we have time for one more speaker and that is quinn and blair holt camp hi this is alex from ambler and i hope you guys can hear me okay um i just want to say it quick um i applaud you guys last year for the trend and being the only school in our area that opened up for in-person education you made a point then of saying that our top priority here in wisconsin is to get kids in the classroom we want

079them in the classroom learning and we made that happen last year um my kids were virtual and i was in awe of how well it went in person there was times that i considered switching um the virtual program they did was great that being said this year we're ready to go back to the classroom um as are a lot of students i think we're ready we're seeing covid change and we're willing to change with that um that being said we did something different last year it increased kids getting into the classroom this year the plan right now is meeting what cdc and aap recommend for masking they're saying put on masks masks and get kids back in the classroom and that's exactly what with looking at let's get kids in the classroom however that may

080be the other thing with removing masks is we're also talking about increasing class sizes and removing other mitigations that made it successful last year so if we need to remove all those other mitigations to get kids back unfortunately that means that we have to keep some of them and in this case it's maps we're going to keep masks we're going to get all these kids back in the classroom and unfortunately right now that's as close to normal as we're gonna get for a little while because as much as all of us want things to be normal we're not quite there yet let's get all the kids back in the classroom with masks let's keep the schools open last year we only had one outbreak at lower gwened elementary and that was with masks in place

081i can only imagine that this coming school year if we move all mitigations um i'd gamble that we're likely to have more closures and have to switch back and forth to virtual nonetheless keep doing what you guys are doing don't be afraid to stand apart and do something a little bit different thank you thank you so that wraps up the first public comment period of our agenda i know there are a few other hands raised that we did not get to in the 30 minutes allotted but we will have a second public comment period at the back half or towards the end of our meeting so with that we're going to move on to the board president report and um no changes from what we discussed last week there's only one action item that's up

082for a vote tonight and it's the approval of resolution number w-13-21 emergency declaration pursuant to section 520.1 of the pennsylvania school code for document 6-1 and again this is in essence authorization for us to count virtual instruction days as um as actual school days uh at least give us that option during the coming school year so uh with that i'm going to ask for a motion for approval of action item 6b1 the motion has movement seconded any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed motion passes okay i'm going to hand it off to jim for the superintendent report and the vote that i guess where most of us are waiting for okay thank you um the there are no information items but on the four action items there

083actually uh is uh some bold words because we have names identified with the two uh vacancies and i just like to say a couple words about each of the candidates because um i can't tell you how excited we are to welcome them both actually welcome one to wizan and welcome one to a new position in wasakin so as you see on the agenda for our new uh position director of equity and cultural responsiveness uh is my recommendation that we hire uh ms kazaya latour who is coming to us uh from ratner but also coming to us after a rather incredible teaching career in cheltenham and uh miss la tour got right out of penn state and jumped into teaching with a passion that was evident and we uh we we know of her teaching in

084cheltenham and then she took some leadership roles in cheltenham and started to display how or why uh matters of equity and inclusiveness are important to her and then she moved over to be an assistant principal uh over in radnor for a couple years and there it really took off and her her role in various committees groups uh district-wide initiatives she was the diversity equity and inclusion officer at the high school um really gave her great really really helpful grounding in this and then um when we'll we will formally introduce her to everybody in person in august or perhaps if she can't get here maybe september but um you'll see she has a passion for this she's engaging she wants to uh go out and meet everybody in every school on day one and i have

085to try to dr dewan i'm going to have to try to convince her that's not possible but then she also wants to branch out into the community and and make connections there it's exactly what we're looking for in a director of equity uh and and cultural responsiveness so uh miss la torre i look forward to having everybody meet her she's the one name that we didn't have on the agenda last meeting because we were still in process and the other name this wasn't on there is that of angela farlow and you may uh that name is probably familiar to many because after angela uh or uh earned her degree from delaware in uh elementary education she uh started out as a teacher in elementary grades in philadelphia moved over to us in the middle school

086as a teacher of language arts and quickly became cemented as one of the very best teachers we have and uh she over the last couple years has actually been assistant principal at middle school demonstrating her leadership skills so this is an example of a promotion internal promotion so we'll welcome angela to a new position but she's going to be great at blue bell she understands teaching she's got an enthusiasm uh the staff is uh uh already aware of her uh recommended uh recommended name and they're very fired up to have her and so um i'm very excited about these two new leaders coming to us and i look forward to everyone seeing them i didn't feel like an introduction zoom would be first choice so we'll do that when we go back to in person

087in in august or september so with that the uh the four motions are the same as we reviewed on monday night with exception those two names added so i would ask please for approval of action oh yes yes yes um can i ask that um and for the board that we split out items one and two um separately from items three and four sure because what i'd like to do is is conduct a role called vote for the first two okay the health and safety plan and the teaching learning plan and then we can do uh a regular vote for items three or four right so do one and two together though yeah unless unless any board members want me to split one and two separately are you okay one and two together you're kind

088of in your counter though yeah sure all right then please i would ask for a motion for approval of action item seven b one and seven b two so much all right the motion has been moved and seconded any comments i have one thing that i'd i'd like to listen into some of the parents one somebody suggested which i think is a very good idea um the hepa filters since they're not the you know eunice since wade was saying it wasn't really feasible to have them in all of the classrooms maybe we look at having them if they're not already there in the lunchrooms and the gyms where you know more of the kids are congregating together would that be something that we could look at doing is that a yes yes it is we

089i think it's a good idea we will look into that okay thank you hi amy i just wanted to make sure we have um ample extra masks at the school correct if students would misplace one or somebody would have a dirty mask and would need a new mask we have extra masks that we can offer the students correct right okay and are we encouraging our teachers to have outdoor time for classrooms rather than always having it in the classroom but taking the students outside to teach some lessons yes okay great and if if they're going when they're going outside for these lessons and for when they're eating lunch and when they're having recess they're going to be unmasked so they'll be seeing their classmates at those times without masks yes any other comments i just

090want to comment um for me personally and i know my fellow board members we've gotten dozens and dozens of emails from the community um expressing opinions and perspectives on the health and safety plan in particular with masks and what our policy is going to be for the fall um we we i well i know i personally have read all of them even though we don't respond to all of them um we do receive the emails and we do take those into consideration as we uh you know think amongst ourselves and try to decide how we're going to vote the recommendation that's before us that jim has presented is um again his profession in his professional opinion and judgment the best um overall compromise and seeking common ground while at the same time bringing the most

091kids back to in-person learning which we know is um better than the virtual or hybrid learning that many kids had to experience in the past year um you know we know that there are a lot of people who feel very strongly passionate about each side um no matter what we do as individuals as a full board some people are going to be unhappy in my view um for me what it comes down to is i'm voting um based on what i think uh makes the most sense and does the most good for the most students and families in wissa hicken um each board member is i encourage each board member to do the same you know vote your heart and what you think is the best um and i know that we uh as a

092district in montgomery county are once again just like last year kind of blocking the trend and that many districts all around us are going with mass optional i don't know the specifics of their school boards their school communities or what's happening over there in their discussions but what i do know is what's going on here and the arguments that jim presented my own personal perspective as a parent and board member um so to me that's what's most important as opposed to what other districts may may be doing and uh the circumstances in context which i'm not aware of um so again a lot of people joe uh one more thing i just wanted to check um with jeff sultanak and just uh check in with him to see because one of the parents brought up

093about this being a legal issue i just wanted to make sure that it is not a legal issue whatever we whatever the vote goes here or however the vote goes is my opinion that regardless of the determination of the board with respect to the health and safety plan for what is incorporated in the health and safety plan including whether or not masks are mandatory for a certain group of individuals versus not mandatory versus for a certain group of individuals that it does not present a legal risk uh on the part of the school district at one point in time i think somebody said that we're liable for the medical conditions of certain individuals who might contract illnesses as a result of wearing mass we are protected under the doctrine of sovereign immunity and the political

094subdivision toward claims act under pennsylvania law for those kinds of liabilities and i am not aware of any successful equal protection act claim against the school district about creating a separate class of students versus others to wear masks versus who don't need to wear masks and we have authority notwithstanding the uh change in authority in the state under section 5-510 of the public school code of 1949 to impose regulations regarding uh the actions and deportment of students so to make a long story short i do not believe that there is a foreseeable risk of liability as asserted by certain members of our community okay well again a lot's been said about uh the health and safety plan in mass and so forth for the year i think it's time to vote so i'm going to

095ask for a roll call vote katie please mr badger i vote in favor of the district's recommendation mr bliefeld i vote in favor of the recommendation mr frank i'm in favor of the recommendation mrs ginsburg i vote in favor mrs hayman i vote in favor also miss carrie and i guess in favor mr stoloff in favor mrs walsh in favor mr antonio uh in favor nine in favor and zero knows all right thank you so the health and safety plan and teaching and learning plan are approved okay thank you and we have the two other items in my report which are the two personnel appointments so to that end i'm asking please promotion for agenda items a7 b3 and seven b4 second okay the motion has been moved and seconded any comments questions all those

096in favor say aye aye aye aye opposed motion passes all right and congratulations to our two new hires um okay well that takes us then to the assistant superintendent report when yahweh hi good evening thank you i have no informational items and no action items at this time okay the board solicitor report jeff i'm missing my agenda i want to be sure that i don't have anything on the agenda that's the problem i've been uh there's there's nothing there's nothing noted so unless you have anything to add i have no additional wisdom to share with the board okay um the board secretary report wait uh no informational items and we request approval of items 10b one through three which have not changed since last meeting all right the motion has been approved and seconded any

097comments all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes and wait can you continue with the board treasurer report please thank you there's no informational item or voting items for the treasurer tonight thank you okay and the director of human resources report danielle thank you good evening uh tonight there's no informational items since the work session on monday there was only one change that is highlighted under 12b1 and tonight i'm requesting approval of action items 12b1 through 12b7 so moved second the motion has been moved and seconded any comments questions all those in favor say aye hi hi any opposed motion passes thank you uh the communications committee report zephy anything new nothing for tonight thank you okay thank you the curriculum and technology committee report ronnie there are no informational items

098um dr du1 there's plenty for you yes thank you um we have um two action items item 14 b one um is the approval of the increase of tuition costs for the montgomery county community college gateway to college dual enrollment partnership that we have and this additional increase is not to exceed an additional four thousand two hundred dollars there was some uh this excuse miss communication or misunderstanding on that last uh in our work session so we wanted to clearly articulate that here so this is an increase to um what was already approved by the board so the increase is not to exceed an additional four thousand two hundred dollars and then item fourteen b two is um newly added and um this is an approval of an agreement um between alterscape youth bureau and

099wasting school district for mental health services this is to provide services for our students to continue throughout the entire 2021-22 school year and the amount is not to exceed 20 480 for document 14 1. so moved second all right the motion has been moved and seconded any comments amy has your hand raised and then stephanie i just had a question with the alders gay contract how do parents go about requesting the services that they are offering they can contact their school counselor um our schools have been actively connecting with families for students that are on our counselor's radar but families can certainly contact their counselors directly to inquire about their services throughout the summer as well as throughout next school year and what locations will they be at we'll just be elementaries or high school

100middle school so in all of our schools every school yeah there's a there's a specific schedule um therapists will be available two days per week for the secondary students and one day per week for the elementary students and of course this is in addition to the services that our school counselors can provide throughout the school year as well so this is an additional service um but there will be they will be available at all of the schools okay great for some reason i thought it was at only two of the schools so i just want to make sure it was at all of them okay no absolutely thank you debbie do you have a question yeah um question is this um do folks need to or parents students need to resp request this and do

101they have to meet a certain threshold of need to get this service or is this open to any student who wants it it is certainly open to families to inquire um and the conversation with the school counselor will help best to direct what specific services a student might need um but if there's no there's no restriction around it though no that conversation is important for families to engage with the school counselors to understand what are the best services that are available for students and then a quick follow-up on that um can a student like maybe like an older middle high school make this request without a parent consent i believe their apparent consent is required for this service um but again this is in addition to the services our schools provide through our school counselors

102um i can i can seek confirmation on that but i'm i believe there is a parental um consent is required for this particular service okay and david you have a question too yes thanks joe along the same lines that would i i'm presuming that teacher referrals would be also an avenue to receive these services is that correct absolutely yes absolutely and i do have confirmation parental consent is required for the services through ultrascape okay the earlier motion has been moved and seconded um all those in favor say aye any aye motion passes okay that takes us to the facilities and transportation committee report tracy thank you i'm looking for approval of action items 15 b one through three there are no changes from last week so moved second all right the motion has been moved

103and seconded any comments all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes all right we're at the finance committee report david thanks joe um i'm gonna turn this over to you wade i see one of our action items is bolded so would you it i verbally explained what the change was going to be and it is just now reflected in the document so it's two percent and two percent and years three uh i think it's four and five uh as as i discussed at the last meeting so no no change for the verbal okay and then um i think there may be some interest in pulling action item 2 approval of a tax penalty waiver out separately so i'm going to ask for a motion to consider action item 16 b 1 and

1043. so moved second all right the motion has been moving seconded any comments all those in favor say aye any opposed motion passes okay and then the uh last action item to consider would be 16 b two uh all right that motion has been moving and seconded any comments ron yeah has any uh more information uh been uh developed since we last discussed this item uh no that i mean um i think it was uh mr antonio had requested to find out about um additional communication and that has been i i don't have anything definitive that i would say is easy for me to say yes this is what happened or didn't happen there seems to be a difference of opinion between two parties and the question is whether or not the abe property owners

105did in fact mail in a proper manner the tax payment and why wasn't it received by the tax collector as such and i don't think i am going to know that answer all right thank you yeah matt um yeah amy go ahead first no i just want to confirm i think it was said at la the last meeting the township has agreed to waive their penalty correct yes okay just to make sure yeah wait um have they been a taxpayer before and have they ever been late on any of their payments it's it's it's an actual interim bill so on this property i don't think they've ever paid yeah i think new development yes but other properties would you know that i i probably would know it and i'm not aware of it but it's

106possible they have smaller properties based on the information that we had received from the tax collector as well as the tax property owner um as wade said i think it's a little bit he said she said so it's hard to know definitively like you know whose fault it is so to speak but um personally my read of the situation is that there was a good faith effort to try to mail the tax bill on time and before the penalty phase um who knows exactly what happened since then and whose fault it was but again because there was a good faith effort to mail the tax bill on time i i would be comfortable and am going to vote to waive the penalty portion of the of the tax bill and they did state that in

107the future they were going to do registered mail to make sure that it's received correct i believe so okay um there are no other ques comments or questions uh do you want should i do a roll call vote maybe just to make it cleanest katie can you conduct a will call vote please yes mr badger yes mr bliefeld yes mr frank no mrs ginsburg yes mrs heyman yes miss carrie and ikus yes mr stoloff yes mrs walsh yes mr antonio yes we have eight yes and one no okay motion passes and uh that takes us to the policy committee report marshall anything tonight nothing tonight thank you okay uh racial equity oversight committee report paul anything new to report nothing new tonight thanks okay then the report of board representatives any updates on meetings since

108last week i have none same here none okay so then that takes us to the second public comment period of the evening where we'll hear comments on any school-related topic uh anyone wishing to make a comment can use the raise hand feature in zoom and we'll take comments in the order that hands are raised and when your name is called please unmute state your name municipality of residence and your topic maximum five speakers on the same topic will be allowed please limit your comments to three minutes after which your mic may be muted and note that it is inwards practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with speakers so once again i'm going to check the list we have a few names and our first one is maureen boga hi guys can you

109hear me yes okay hi maureen bogut i am whit payne township um i'm talking to the health and safety plan that was just voted upon with i can't believe nine of you nine of you none of you dissented i'm just shocked by that because i mean you are basically spitting the faces of fifty percent of the school district because if you take the six percent of whatever that didn't really care it's basically to go either direction fifty percent who are very concerned about their children having masks for many reasons these are young children as we know learning language i mean it's a big issue okay and their children are also right now as everybody pointed out have been fully engaged in society without any issues we have a one percent positivity rate in montgomery county

110right now um we have in pennsylvania i can't even tell you the number there are no deaths in pennsylvania in the children under 20. so children are not affected by the covid and yet you're still putting these disgusting cloth masks that don't do anything on the children but i'm getting off topic what i'm saying is basically you know if you give mask option each person has the chance to send their child in with an n95 if they want which will protect that child supposedly uh n85s do and and they can be used in children that would be great let the other parents do what they need to do with their children it's parental rights it's parental control this is not a school's decision this is not something this has been such flux and flow uh

111that no one can seem to have an agreement about what is you know actually truth except parental rights should trump everything else especially with someone's putting a mask over their uh child's face for the sake of someone else if someone's wearing their own mask you should not mandate another child to wear it for for you if they want it they can wear 995 or they can wear it they can wear two masks okay but do not have them you know lord their their fears over another parent telling that parent their child should be masked it it just makes no sense and i'm very disappointed in the board and you're going to be hearing from a lot of parents i can guarantee you this is really unsatisfactory you really ignored half of your constituency half of

112them not one of you seem to even acknowledge it it's just really callous thank you i'm done thank you our next speaker is christine english hi i'm christine english we're in whit payne township um i just saw a couple of things not on the mass topic number one was i was wondering if you can alert us or tell us who the replacement will be for dr farlow over at the middle school and also um just accessibility with aldersgate i'm not sure if anyone's as parents have tried to access that but i don't find it to be that accessible um i did ask about it a couple of times over the years and it didn't really seem to be fully understood the other thing is and the final is for the equity um i'm wondering if

113there's been any consideration of our children with um lgbtq needs as well um i i do know the importance of the racial equity um but i just was wondering i haven't heard anything about the lgbtq and i know a lot of our children have really been experiencing issues surrounding that and i'm concerned just some feedback i've seen from parents in our community i'm not so sure that the needs of our kids are being understood and i'm not sure what the level of professional development has been that's been offered to our teachers and i was wondering if that could be something looked into cultural training for our teachers to help them so that they can be a good access point for any students that need help thank you and have a good evening thank you our

114next speaker is michael degeade hello hello hello yes we can hear you all fine i just wanted to bring you up to date on this um uh can you can you please introduce yourself um in your municipality and topic please we uh then got a message uh that public one the next morning in which he said he would do that if we escaped missiles from turkey excuse me um i'm going to when i unmute can you please introduce yourself again and state your municipality and your topic please the withdrawal of these vessels this is a recording of some type please cut this i can't i can't really quite hear it okay our next speaker is monique and ade galloway yeah they lowered their hand okay and then our next speaker is enver halil taraki good

115evening in recent months members of my administration and officials of the that sounds like a reporting charge please cut this all right these include charges of illegal act okay someone's trying to have some fun um and our last speaker looks like is monique and ade galloway again hi hi everyone can you hear me okay yes okay sorry about before we couldn't quite figure out how to come off of mute so i'm monique galloway my husband aday is with me and we're both residents of the paint township and parents of two children attending lis hicken school district one in k-5 and one in the middle school and i want to thank you all as as board members for your thoughtfulness for bringing everyone together to have these really tough discussions i'm specifically wanting to talk about

116the masking item you know nothing about being in this pandemic is normal nothing about masking is normal nothing about these conversations that we're having to have within our communities is normal but we are very grateful for how you all voted this evening this past year our um sorry i'm just very emotional about all this but this past year our child was in elementary school went the entire year in person and wore masks and had mass break and thrived and survived and did extremely well and as parents when we entrust you all with our child during the day it's more than just about our decision as parents we're entrusting you to make the right choices for when our child is with you from the time they leave our house to the time they return to us

117and we think that you all have done a phenomenal exceptionally challenging job this year and we're very grateful that you're continuing to do that nothing about this again is normal nothing about this is easy and when i hear people in my community say that oh children aren't dying for covet it truly makes me nauseous because it's not about whether our children are dying or not it's about whether they're healthy and whether they're alive and any parent who has attended this meeting any one of you on this board who are parents and has been with a sick child at night has been at the urgent care with your child because they have something as simple as a tough flu or a cold can only understand when i say to you that my concern is not about

118whether my child is alive or not that's a given right that's my expectation it's about whether they are not sick and if we have to take an opportunity like this to make tough choices like requiring them to wear a mask when it's reasonable and safe for them to do so then we fully support that the one thing that i will ask of course and i think you all are taking this into consideration is that if we have any numbers spike in the middle school that instead of um thrusting us into what we experienced last year we had to suddenly go into a virtual environment which was chaotic and less than ideal that we immediately amend this this current protocol that you just voted upon to consider having a masking requirement be you know be mandated

119in the middle school so um i i also support the other parents um thoughts about the additional hipaa uh sorry not hypo about air filtrations i think that's a great idea and should be and should be looked into further thank you for the opportunity to fly comment thank you our next speaker is stephen oakworth mr speaker yesterday okay um and i think that wraps up the speakers for our second public comment period takes us then now to board comments any comments from my fellow board members uh yes ronnie and then zeppy yes we've as we've heard everyone talk about masks no masks eye masks not masks what comes to my mind would anyone ask their surgeon or their doctor to take off their mask before they operate it i mean are masks ineffective but effective

120for surgeons and doctors okay i think we're making a mistake if we think masks aren't for the good that's all uh yeah i just wanted to share that indeed we've received a lot of emails and i read every single one of them and you know we it's in i i have a full-time job i'm unable to answer every single email i read every text even the ones that come through facebook um and this wasn't um an easy decision but we we really looked at this and looked at this hard and i don't think there was any one way that we would make everyone happy but um after reading um what the american academy of pediatrics announced today it was kind of hard not to take that into consideration um i really hope that we have

121a successful 21 22 school year because that's number one goal thank you tracy tracy here i'm you there we go uh so a couple of things um jim would it be possible for us like the one parent was just bringing up if there is a big spike in the middle school if we um could amend this in the future to include everyone in the middle school if necessary again if necessary we uh we stand ready to amend anything if we there's some agency that declares a mandate so if we feel the need to do something different yes okay and then um like zephy said this was this is not an easy decision um i know one of the parents was on there you know she was saying you know we didn't listen to 50 of

122the people but we did listen to 50 of the people so it was just the different 50 of the people um so when you say that you know we're in a lose-lose situation really because no matter what we do half of the people are going to be are going to disagree with us and i just wanted to also bring up one thing you know when we talk about parental rights and just think if you're changing the words mask fit or masks for covid optional change those words to smallpox vaccine or mmr vaccine when you say that it's our right to do what we want with our children and you have no right to tell us what to do with the children i'm not saying that we're going to say that your children need to be

123vaccinated for this but we do require children to be vaccinated for certain things to protect other children and that is what we are looking for here when we're making this decision on a mask we don't take it lightly honestly you know i would rather not have to do this i would rather covet be gone but it is not so these are the things that we have this is what we have to do right now and i just voted myself i voted my conscience on what i think would help our children stay safe and like last year get the most kids that we can in our classrooms in person learning the kids wore masks last year and they were able to do it it wasn't the best thing in the world honestly like we would rather

124not have this whole situation but this is what we are this is what we're in right now and the kids did it last year and i'm sure that they will be able to do it this year and hopefully it won't last long and we can get completely out of it and then my last comment is uh the one parent that made a comment about um our equity person that we just hired and yes you know it's for equity for all not just racial equity but equity for all is what we're looking for and we're looking you know we're hoping for guidance on if there's things that we're doing that we can change to make sure that that's happening so just so you know you know it is equity for all that we are looking for

125and that's it all right ron and the last thing uh our job as the school board as onerous and uncomfortable as it is is not a popularity contest our job is to educate our students in the safest manner and the best manner possible to protect the uh the entire community uh not just to make uh anybody happy or not happy uh there was uh i've read all these emails and all these texts and all the posts on on social media and there is a there's been an argument up and down but the main point is and i think tracy made a fantastic point that uh while the parents are talking about it is my my power to decide what my child will do you as far as public health is concerned the public health trumps

126the parents uh powers and uh the courts have agreed and morality agrees if you uh if your child is typhoid mary your child does not have the right to come to school without a mask or even be in school we have to protect our students the best way we can and uh that is what we've decided and if things change between now and january then we will make the adjustments necessary but our job is to as of this date we are doing what we consider the best move possible thank you all right any other board members sochi any uh comments um no not right now okay um so with that i guess i'll ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting all right all those in favor say aye aye meeting adjourned