001foreign it's six o'clock on november 15 2021 i call this business meeting of the laramie county school district number one board of trustees to order welcome everyone if you would please join me in the pledge of allegiance [Music] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you again welcome um this past month has been one of extreme sadness as laramie county school district number one has experienced the loss of several of our precious students and staff members our hearts go out to these families in our community as we continue to mourn in memory of those we have lost we ask that you join us in honoring them with a moment of silence thank you all very much dr crespo at this time do we have
002any adjustments to the agenda no manager we have no adjustments to be admitted second all in favor say aye aye opposed no agenda passes item b recognition of students and staff for outstanding achievements we have students of the week just this week i'd like to ask our principal from kerry junior high derek nissen to come up with his students and introduce them and also we will have principal troy lake from triumph high school to introduce their students mr nissen and mr lake i have some certificates for our students thank you it is my great pleasure to introduce mary wallace who is carey student of the week she is a fabulous musician and an exceptional academic student uh on top of all that she's writing her own novel which was fabulous to find out and so
003beyond that she has integrity she's the person who when it comes to a classroom it brings out the excitement the energy she not only brings that but then helps her students to grow as well her fellow students so she's a fabulous young woman if you get the chance to talk to her we are so proud of her and mary wallace thank you so much for this special recognition i'd like to say thank you to my parents who have supported me all my life and have encouraged me to do my best to the teachers i've met along the way that have encouraged me to ask questions and go beyond the minimal requirements thank you all at the moment i'm not sure what i like to do in my future i do have plans to go to
004college after high school and possibly do something with music thank you again for this awesome recognition i am sincerely grateful can you introduce your parents for us my mom barbara wallace and my dad tony wallace could you stand please thank you thank you very much if you'll stand right there with your principal we'll uh there's a special uh reward at the end of this go ahead mr lake thank you so i would like to say i'm going to introduce uh summer kenny but she's not here she works a full-time job to help pay bills at the household she lives in uh and so she couldn't be here but i do want to talk about her a little bit uh on top of the full-time job she has straight a's she also uh is taking classes
005at lccc and plans on graduating almost a year early and will when she does graduate and finally she'll have six college credits so to say that she's busy is is probably an understatement uh some of the things i like to ask why do you like triumph and she says the reason i like triumph so much is the family when i'm gone people know and they call me and find out what the story is so she's amazing kid she models all the behavior expectations she's just gonna be really successful so thank you thank you very much [Applause] congratulations to her parents as well thank you um the next recognition that we have is i'd like principal fred george um our a.d chad whitworth and head coach sean wilde and assistant john bogus to come up and
006recognize our central high 4a state champion cross country teams yes oh that's right i'm very sorry western vista i wrote my note i'm so sorry thank you please come up and and um mary is mary foster okay mary thank you because i know you want to take pictures i apologize could i have my kiddos back up here again i jumped the gun good evening my name is amy peters i am a financial service officer with western vista credit union western vista is honored to support the school district and honoring the student of the week each week we are delighted to learn about the amazing kids we have here in laramie county recognitions for your efforts um we are we are proud excuse me to present you with certificates recognizing you as a student of white
007groups as well as a gift card for you congratulations and keep up with the work let's get a picture and thank you so much i apologize thank you mary will you circle back around with our triumph student and get that picture as well thank you and thank you so much we appreciate west winner western vistas sponsorship and i apologize for zooming through that thank you all right now principal um george would you come up with your team and uh to recognize our our 4a state champion cross-country teams we have some certificates here principal george i know you can do this thank you smiling faces this is the first time i was able to uh coach two teams that were able to come home with state titles as well as eight all-staters so these uh young
008women and young men worked pretty darn hard this year to get the accolades that they earned and we'll go ahead and read their names off for you whether they're here or not so they can be recognized for that will barrington we can wait till we uh get everybody on there but you guys can do that too it'll just take a little longer bridger brokaw jacob rent the way jason rent the way our big man tristan k thorne rhodey trevor schmidt now we're moving on to our ladies alyssa brenchley lauren clark ryan curdell reiner emma hofmeister sydney morell kaya pilavant and emily taper now we're going to do this again a little later because we have our award ceremony for our cross country season but i want all these uh young women and young men to
009make sure that they tell their parents thank you for letting you compete as well as not making you do other things instead of getting the opportunity to participate in cross-country could we go ahead and have the parents that are here to recognize their students we'd like to recognize those parents please stand congratulations and finally i'd like to thank the community for always looking out for our kiddos while we're out doing our thing and being friendly and being thankful appreciate all that you guys do for us and i hope that you all continue doing so so that we have this wonderful opportunity to compete day in and day out thank you thank you actually um we'll in the past we've just like done the fist bump or whatever but if we could just do a virtual
010walkthrough that'd be great i think we're all ready to do that virtual high five so go ahead and start up here and come in front of the board and we'll congratulations okay good job nice work thank you well done thank you well done congratulations well done good job good job congratulations congratulations congratulations well done good job congratulations great job thank you yeah you're there good job [Music] congratulations principal george as well you guys all did a great job love to see those kids our next item on the agenda is our information from visitors items from visitors on agenda topics we'll go through the protocol the purpose of the board meeting is conduct the business of the school district in public it's not a public meeting the board recognizes the value of a public meeting on
011issues related to the operations of schools to ensure that our meetings are conducted in an orderly manner we ask that you address the board directly please state your first and last name keep your comments two to three minutes so others have time to voice their comments keep your gen your comments general in nature not directed at a specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for k-12 great students additional information or perspective would be appreciated um if we can hold the applause um so that everyone can hear their names being called and we can uh and actually process what people are saying i would appreciate that please be reminded that when you call in you can only call in for yourself you may not offer other people's names or add additional names and
012when you put call in to be on the public comment list you must attend in person via zoom or via zoom to comment no one may substitute for you if you cannot attend you may email a statement to door to our executive secretary darlene davis or to the board thank you so much at this time i have mrs graham thank you my name is susan graham from laramie county i'm here to comment on consent agenda item 3 under d1 recognition of home school curricula i strongly recommend the continued liberty minded state statutes that pertain to homeschooling in wyoming i also strongly recommend that under dr crespo and the board of trustees the school district doesn't fix something that's not broken to this end i urge you to continue your state mandated filing of the intent
013to homeschool forms that parents give you to file on their behalf you all realize that these same forms recognize that parents who file the intent to homeschool form are claiming and exercising their government secured god-given right to choose textbooks and supplemental curricula with which to instruct their children right at least on this statutory matter you all seem to be liberty-minded in recognizing that parents have control and choice on behalf of their children could that be because in this instance statute binds your hands and causes you to appear liberty-minded while at the same time the thought of purging your oath of office in regards to article 1 section 38 gives you no pause for thought next by sharing my public comment time with two products of wyoming homeschooling i would hope to encourage other parents to
014choose homeschooling liberty minded wyoming with that i will introduce my daughters becca and miriam who were homeschooled and also reside in laramie county hello my name is rebecca graham um i wrote this at the last meeting that i was listening to hopefully you'll take it into consideration um would you smother a child with a pillow before bed just think back to the words that we said when this meeting started for liberty and justice for all that's departed do you feel free with that mask on your face if you opened your eyes you'd see it's a disgrace do not force our children to suffocate for children are scared to voice their opinion to adults they know aren't going to listen just follow the rules and you'll be rewarded but this criminal mandate should be reported right
015you have 40 five seconds thank you i have very different views on a lot of things in my family but one thing i did want to say is that there are statistics and uh homeschooled students are likely to graduate college i rated 67 public school kids at 59 and that matters to me thank you next item on our agenda that ends our items from visitors there'll be a second opportunity to talk to you to talk about the non-agenda items um upcoming meetings november 16 2021 5 30 policy advisory strategic planning um in the board room dr cressboard was that one canceled yes i'm sorry that was cancelled on friday sorry november 16th is canceled thank you november 17th through the 19th wyoming school boards association conference in casper november 30th 2021 11 a.m legislators meeting
016for lcsd one update in the boardroom december 1st 2021 a 6 30 parent advisory committee in the boardroom december 6 2021 5 pm work session and a 6 pm regular board meeting item 3 individual board communications and reports do i have anyone that has something to report from the board i'll begin with trustee smith please i actually prepared comments this time so i made sense so bear with me board members if you don't mind i'm gonna read some of this um i'd like to ask this board tonight for another work session to look at our outdated i believe it's outdated um 2020 2021 smart start plan and also the addendum that we passed to that smart start plan back in september when we passed that addendum in september and agreed that everyone in our schools
017would be masked until the county transmission levels fell to the yellow zone we all expressed just really complete frustration and shock at the insanely high numbers that we had at that time of kids under quarantine and staff under quarantine as well and that was all just within the first 10 days of our school year and we voted accordingly and i believe we voted with a sincere desire to keep our kids in the classroom we all agreed then and i'm positive that we all would agree tonight that that face-to-face instruction is critical for our kids but some things have changed since that meeting in early september and for that reason i want to request this work session first the wyoming department of health did issue a statement on october 1st to all superintendents and all school
018board members throughout the state to clarify that they don't require any type of quarantine protocol and that they don't or that they would provide quarantine assistance for school board districts in our state if a district specifically requested it all the members of this board received an email communication about this on october 4th it was sin october 4th but you may have missed it i missed it it came as a forwarded email from wsba it was just forwarded to us the subject line simply read updated information for school so if you have not seen that i would encourage you to go back to your october 4th emails and read the updated information for school's message since we voted on that addendum in early september over 85 percent of the school districts throughout our state have opted
019it's actually 41 out of the 48 have opted to hold in-person instruction without masks on children and staff they have policies that address quarantining and they have policies that address masking individuals who end up exposed to the virus but many of those policies still allow exposed students and staff to be in school but masked for seven to ten day period if they end up sick or testing positive during that seven to ten days then they're asked to stay home just as they should be us to stay home with any other illness none of these districts this year have faced a spike research in cases second and more recently our federal government has now cleared the way for all kids who are ages five and up to be vaccinated um when we were you know looking
020at starting school and starting school with masks we actually had a number of community members reach out to us and ask that we put masks especially on the younger school age kids who did not have the opportunity to be vaccinated and that you know i i respected those requests but we're here now those kids can be vaccinated and if this is new enough that they haven't had the opportunity to have both doses of that vaccination but really by the beginning of december or early december for those families that would require would request a vaccination for those kids they can have the full two doses of that vaccine so that their kids are vaccinated when they come to school the bottom line in my mind we have less restrictive options that we could pursue as a
021district than a universal masking requirement for our kids and her employees and i'd like to ask this board if we could come together because i i've enjoyed our work sessions when i i feel like we really have some good hard discussion and i think we you know we work well together in those work sessions when we can really get down to the nitty gritty and talk but i would like to ask this board if we could come together put our heads together and think outside of the box a bit and see if we can't come up with the solution for our district um that really might move us back toward a little bit of normalcy for our community we're not bound by state requirements to impose our quarantine orders the way we're doing it we're
022not bound by that um and i think that we i believe 100 in my heart we owe it to our community and our stakeholders to see if there might be another way that we could address this issue so if we could i'm officially requesting that work session sometime soon thank you the last friday i attended the uh strategic planning session we have a committee that's been put together in this district of parents and administrators and teachers and other district personnel and they were meeting on thursday and friday of last week to put together go through the data that has been compiled from all the different stakeholders that were surveyed and by the time i got there which was about 11 o'clock on friday um they'd already gone through and looked through all the data they'd
023come up with three themes and so the rest of then they had select divided the committee up into three groups to work on each one of those themes and the rest the academy was spent in each one of those groups refining those themes coming up with some objectives and so forth and i don't believe that process is completely done yet but they got through most that a lot of great work on the part of every one of those committee members that was there um today i also had the opportunity to go on a site visit with uh um our cte coordinator in the district we went down to see the same brain valley school district's new program which is a program where they called the innovation center and it's one center for the entire district
024i believe they have seven high schools down there and they all share this one and these are all the the newer programs that they have like computer programming and robotics and those sorts of things so that's really all we were going to visit but they also gave us the opportunity to also visit a 50 year old facility they have down there where they have a lot of the more traditional ct things like auto mechanics and welding and agriculture and to see those things operating as kind of a stand-alone unit where the students are in their regular school for most of the day and then they go over there to take those classes they were able to offer much more advanced things than i think we can offer when we do these things in all three
025of our high schools so it's just something that was it was an opportunity to go and look at what somebody else is doing so that as we planned for the future we can come up with a program maybe that works better for us thank you um herman thank you chairman and um i went down there as well and just to add on first of all cte is career tech and uh us old old timers used a votech um but anyway it's that's that's what that's what that is and um just and just amplify just a little bit the idea was to go down and see what is possible to um in not all instances but in some instances um make a district-wide center that where you can make better use of staff facilities equipment um
026and uh just resources in general so that um our kids and you know it would pull together that the students from from our three general ed high schools and our alternative high schools they would so so their efficiencies and um also access issues that um we think could be possibly addressed by uh using borrowing some of the modeling from this program and um and we went through you know welding and you know it's the stuff we do with our individual house our individual high schools right now welding and auto repair and but there were some very high tech things as well and um so so what what could be brought together in the central place but could be left on the schools and uh to the to the advantage of our kids and there were
027some some of those students were graduating early with um you know their associate's degree in place and ready to move on to a certificate program or whatever so so it really launched their students into a career a profession very highly lucrative and just really really good career possibilities for the students so we hope to again it's a process maybe borrow some of the some of the ideas we saw today and i and the other thing i'll talk about the calendar committee met last week to look at the 2023-2024 school calendar we're looking at that for in advance um and um got something on paper um and we're not going to really do anything as far as i mean so we the just briefly the calendar committee includes parents staff from the various units um i
028was there as a board member and so we have this draft and we're going to take it out toward the stakeholders constituents and and see how the the the day shake out a lot of requirements that prevent us from a lot of wiggle room tentatively um you know it's once again it's starting in august and ending in june but just barely into june just to be able to fit in all the days and everything we have but anyway there'll be more on that after the beginning of the year and we'll actually probably put something this has enough solidity to put it out for everyone to take a look at but right now it's still in flux so thank you very good um trustee clawson thank you manage here um i just wanted to address an
029issue that came up about a week and a half ago the board was hunt where some of the members of the board were contacted by some parents that were concerned about a book that was required reading in one of our secondary schools and it was very it had very controversial content and i just want to i afforded that information to dr crespo and her team and i want to say thank you to her um for the good work that she did in reacting very quickly because the book had not been approved through our regular process and it was not sanctioned by the district for um for our curriculum and it's very important that we follow the processes and sometimes following those processes can be frustrating because it can be slow and methodical but in the
030end it's very important that we have transparency and that we have the trust of our stakeholders and so i just want to want to say thank you dr crespo for responding so quickly and for addressing that issue and just please i would ask and i'm sure you're doing this um taking to take all steps necessary to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future now that you're in charge and at the helm and in addition i just want to give you back on what trustee smith just said about the new circumstances of our situation in our district we took a vote in september where many of us voted to mask our students because we had an impossible quarantining policy to deal with and we wanted to keep our students in the classroom in
031person school is i think we all agree the best way to educate our students so having said that um you know this whole process i've been on the board for now almost three years and since covet started it's been evolving you know there were there were folks that thought we couldn't go to school or we couldn't take all our classes we wanted to change our schedule and that ended up happening then we realized that that really wasn't as impactful than it was mandatory masking to keep our kids in school but we're finding more and more information out about how we can get back to a sense of normalcy and and um how we can live with this this disease that's not going to go away we're not going to eradicate this and i don't think
032i've heard anyone say that we are so having said that now that we have i mean our policies have changed with the the information that we were we've received and learned as we've gone so my point is is that our things have changed again and i think that trustee smith is absolutely right that we as a board need to re-look at this issue be flexible and consider that we have now a vaccine for those who want it for children five and up and we also and for of course all the all adults and we also now realize have more information that we are not subject to um the state health officers quarantining guidelines so i think that those warrant a new discussion about this issue of mandatory masking and i would agree that we should
033take it up as a board and have a fuller discussion and discuss and just really see where everybody else is on the board at this point thank you thank you all right um who else had their hand anyone else no all right i would just like to say at this point in time i know that uh several board members actually were able to attend the strategic plan um uh meetings uh for a short period of time and some of them for a longer period of time but the work that we saw happening um on thursday and friday was really um it was really fun to watch we have some incredibly intelligent and dedicated individuals in our district and um it was very powerful to watch all of those educators um from at all levels and
034and every department um talk about um student achievement and and communication and parent involvement and there were just so many um aspects that were brought up and and things that we want to make sure that we are having measurable goals in our district and um that going forward that we are building a very solid strategic plan so i'm really excited about this work um and i appreciate the lift that are uh in addition to their regular jobs um that they are our our teams are doing and our teachers and and uh additional parents and uh staff members are participating in so thank you very much appreciate all your work um christy yes i just realized that there is a meeting coming up um that you missed on the upcoming meetings do you want me to
035mention it now i didn't know if we had all the confirmation on that the the one next monday yes i i don't know that we have everyone confirmed yet okay well just so we can say to people that um where you are trying to set up a work session for monday at noon on our participation in an affiliation with the national school board's association yes we just hadn't had that solid yet so thank you all right at that um we will go to reports from superintendent and staff thank you madam chair i um typically there there's uh i don't typically read from a statement but i will hear there is because there are a few things i need to address so uh first i'll say this statement is to address the petition that was received
036on august 14th and 15th 2021. the 31 signatures on the document have not been verified the request was related to the rules of order changes used to conduct the lcsd1 board meetings the board of trustees uses robert's rules of order in conducting the business of the meeting and the public comment is very important to us it was determined that the increased number of commentators and attendees attendees necessitated a change to the system the prior protocol including calling on the few members in the audience this year the number of commentators increased to ensure that the comments specific to the agenda are heard prior to a vote or discussion we moved public comment regarding agenda items to the beginning due to the fact that the business of the district is conducted in public the agenda must be
037addressed with priority therefore the second portion of the public comment was moved to the end of the agenda on items that are not agenda related so that's in response to the petition that was provided a couple of other updates that i just want to share some good news you may have seen on our social media a huge celebration south high school students put on a tech ed fair for south triad third graders they are exposing students to the careers and educational opportunities across the trades and technology areas housed in tech ed their students led all the activities and put together an impressive selection of stations we are incredibly impressed and wonderfully fortunate for our students i also want to share that mayor collins and i met last week as he mentioned in his mayor minutes
038we were working on a variety of things i anticipate and was asked during a board meeting not too long ago about continuing that relationship making sure that we're good partners so recently we talked about the support for our elementary programs and we're all committed to continuing to move forward together and i hope to have an update related to that shortly uh we we will be updating our strategic plan so thank you very much for honoring the people that were there really incredible work um just an amazing amazing commitment from our community our parents i want to say thank you for all of those that responded to the survey over the last couple of months that data was really important for us and we are excited to share upcoming information that was gathered uh please keep
039continue to check out our strategic plan website as we move forward i was also able to attend the chamber meeting as an ex officio member um i was welcomed uh in which was really awesome there we hadn't had somebody available since 2015 so that was great to be there we talked about all of the new and up-and-coming careers here in cheyenne and the county and the need to provide opportunities for our students so our tour today was timely as we're thinking about what we're doing moving forward when i started here in the district that was one of my areas of focus was to make sure that we were bringing every opportunity available to our students this last section before i turn it over i just want to share my deepest gratitude for our teachers staff
040support staff partners such as youth alternatives first responders counselors and crisis team we have had a number of losses over the last several weeks and these individuals have answered the call to support and hold space for our community and often go unthanked and i just want to take a moment to honor the fact that they continue to um answer the call every time we call so thank you for that um with that i want to share uh timely the rays of concerns around the covid and the masking um i had invited kathy emmons to help us uh navigate uh some of the information that we're having come through now uh one of the things that i want to make sure we kick off with and then i'll hand it over to um kathy is that
041we do anticipate that it's reasonable to expect that changes would be coming based on the facts that our students are able to vaccinate at a much younger age if interested uh and in three weeks doing the math in three weeks our kids would be able to have gotten their second dose so i would agree that that's part of what we promised the community in the district was as things were emerging um to make those changes uh based on what's coming so i will hand it over to kathy who does have information around where we are right now um in terms of the current practices because as we know a couple of weeks is a couple weeks so we're all anticipating but we want to make sure we're prepared kathy are you on the line i
042am can you hear me i sure can can you uh feel free to get started okay good evening everyone thank you for um having me at the school board meeting i just wanted to share some statistics about where we're at right now with covid first of all we have been vaccinating um our kids from five through 18 since last wednesday as soon as the okay was given we started vaccinations bright and early the next day and have had lots of parents stepping up i think we've done we don't have all the data from the state yet as far as the numbers but i'm guessing we've probably vaccinated between 250 and 300 kids with their first dose um i mean that feels like a lot to me when you look at the number of kids i
043realize that that's you know a drop in the bucket with all of the kids that are enrolled but we've also been vaccinating the older kids so i'm very i'm really excited about that friday afternoon seemed to be our prime time and we've been doing over 150 on friday afternoon so that's been really exciting i do think that as the superintendent mentioned within the next couple weeks those kids will then have will be able to get their second vaccine which will then make them fully vaccinated so i think that as dr crespo said i think it's reasonable to think that there will be changes coming in lots of areas especially after we know that we can get more kids vaccinated i would anticipate after the holidays we will start to see some changes we also know
044that there are and there is an antiviral medication that is close to release once we have the ability to vaccinate and have an antiviral for people when they get sick that's going to change a lot of things in regard to covid so that'll be a great day when we get to that point just some of the data as far as where we're at in the community right now we have seen a steady increase in our case numbers in the last seven weeks uh we had we've had 417 new cases in the last seven days of those 417 69 of them were kids and 59 of them were were school age kids so that's about 17 or 14 percent um excuse me as of today we have 478 active cases in the community our 19 to
04529 year old age group is still our highest group of folks who are positive or you know who are becoming positive the 18 and under is now the second group they've surpassed the 39 29 to 39 group the hospitals are still struggling we had 46 people at crmc today 40 of those were unvaccinated 40 of the 46 so about 87 percent of the hospitalized people are unvaccinated six were fully vaccinated eight um we have eight people in the icu none of them are vaccinated and seven people on ventilators and none of them are vaccinated as far as the school transmission indicators i know there were some questions about that right now laramie county is in the orange category the reason for that is that laramie county is still in the red for transmission levels because
046we have 458 cases and um the red is from 202 to 999 so that's why we're red on transmission we're yellow on test productivity because we are at six percent and the cdc level is five percent to 7.9 and so that puts us in the orange category and as one of the trustees mentioned there are eight counties who are not quarantining kid or not expecting kids to leave school when they are have been exposed there's 11 school districts that are doing that in eight counties um let's see what else oh i do want to make sure also that we're very clear when we're talking about quarantining that children who are wearing masks at this point are not being quarantined kids get quarantined when they're both not wearing masks and i just want to make sure
047that we're keeping that in mind that if two kids are in a class and they're both masked they are not and one is positive the other one is not quarantined and so what we're seeing is a lot of the quarantine happens because um they're with other kids who are positive and they don't have masks on so i just want to like say be very clear about that all right well thank you very much kathy we appreciate the update um and certainly uh we'll keep you posted on when we need you to come back to give more updates i do want to madam chair before i close out just take a moment i would like everybody to take a look around the room um if you notice we replaced um some of the language that was
048on the walls really uh with the focus of our district so i want to take a moment and just say thank you to our communications department and all of those involved in helping make this happen um many of these photos you may remember because they are our students of the week this this year and i think um keeping them in the forefront is really pretty incredible and just grateful that the team got together and got this going and delivered on it so thank you i am done with my update manager thank you very good thank you all right at this time um we will be moving on to the consist um actually do we wait a minute i have one more thing yes you do sorry we have judd i actually have two more things
049to say thank you so i deleted and judd's probably looking at me like what how come you didn't say what you were supposed to sorry judd i deleted my original come on up so as he's coming up i have one more um statement that i'm supposed to share uh before you start so i apologize madam chair um as i said i deleted my original note and then had to start all over this afternoon so recently the wde opened the application process for assessing federal relief funds under the arp act many of you remember that we've had that conversation around funding for a while all school districts receiving funds are required to develop um all of our improvement all of our return to school plans which we've done our in-person instruction services and we have from
050the beginning used wde's recommended smart start framework for opening within the next 90 day within the 90 days of the arp application opening the next requirement is to develop the district spending plan which we've talked about this uh in the past in coordination with the stakeholders the district will coordinate jed will coordinate develop and publish uh the spending plan with esser funds the finance department is in the process of developing what that process is now i feel like we waited a really long time we were going and then there was this hold up and i'm just coming to share that we're back on right we're got back on the bike uh and the time and we'll be sharing the timeline to meet with the education stakeholders and gather feedback so i just wanted to share
051that information which is very new came out last week sometime and i will say that mr ciccarelli was a little bit like full disclosure because the timeline is really tight and we are in the process of doing an erp as well and training all of those pieces so with that um i will hand it over to you for your um portion thank you sir thank you madam chair um dr crespo members of the board um i'm going to start talk a little bit about the district's annual financial audit so as you're aware each year the wyoming statute requires an annual financial audit of the school district's operations including the presentation of the district's financial statements a review of our accounting procedures internal controls federal compliance among other areas as well so within your meeting packets
052you were provided with the fiscal 21 financial statements and audit report from our uh the district's independent auditors mcgee hearn and pies or mhp and in a moment i'll turn the presentation over to ms stephanie pickering a partner with mhe mhp to go over the results of the audit in more detail can we up the microphone volume on judd's microphone some of our our audience are having a hard time here sure is is i think we're okay is that more closer well yeah just closer there you go very good um so madam chair i was going to say that in a moment i'll turn the presentation over to miss um stephanie pickering um the partner with mhp on our audit to go over the results in more detail but i do have a few points
053to share before she takes over the first is just a kind of a matter of procedural reminder that the charter schools are separate legal entities that have independently audited financial statements but we do present those schools as component units of laramie school district one poder and pass are responsible for obtaining separately issued financial statements and prepared by a separate auditor if any of the board members would like copy of those reports i'm happy to provide those to you as well i also mentioned that there are a number of federal laws which we refer to as the single audit act that apply in situations where a government like ours exceeds more than 750 000 in federal financial assistance um so with with those particular parameters any typical in any typical year our district will expense about
05418 million dollars in federal grants from the government now with the changes in the usda program allocations uh the federal response funds over the last year that's nearly doubled roughly about 37.8 million dollars in federal funds over the last fiscal year each of our external auditors will each of our external auditors will independently determine what federal grant areas will be tested this year a number of major programs were tested those areas included the child nutrition program cluster which is our nutrition services program uh impact aid which is the federal funds that we get for the replacement of property taxes uh we also received a review of funds allocated through the cares program uh those included a number of different areas through cares one of them was the governor's coronavirus relief fund the elementary and secondary
055school emergency relief fund so that was what we refer to as sr2 and then the governor's emergency education relief fund which is the gear funds that you've heard me talk about before in the past i am happy to report that there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies identified during the course of that audit which is really no small feat considering the additional administrative requirements to manage those funds over the last year and i do want to mention that credit is rightfully due not only to members of the finance team but certainly our colleagues in the purchasing department nutrition services federal programs we're lucky to have all these individuals here that really make this a team effort to administer these funds another note i did want to make for the board's consideration is that you'll
056remember that over the past three years finance has been working towards issuing more comprehensive financial reports you'll notice that this year similar to the work that we did with the annual budget document that we're taking incremental steps to issue a comprehensive annual fiscal reports that are in alignment with the requirements outlined by the association of school business officers and the government financers finance officers association so you'll notice that when you review the audit we're starting to to build out that information for for public transparency and have that information readily available to individuals and stakeholders who read our audit reports and then one last comment before i hand over the presentation to ms pickering um i'd certainly like to acknowledge the work of of her and her staff in particular mr keegan hall mr dustin frank
057and the rest of the taf staff with mhp and again i want to commend the finance team for all of their work over the past few months but most notably i'd like to recognize our building account ms christine sarah she coordinates the efforts of um the audit from the compliance work in the spring all the way to the preparation of the financial statements in the fall and we're certainly lucky lucky to have that capacity within the district to do all that work so again um kudos to the the team and the finance and purchasing side of the department um so with that um madam chair i'll turn over the presentation to miss pickering who's joining us through zoom so um mrs figurine should be able to unmute yourself and uh go over the results of
058the audit one wonderful madam chairman thank you very much for having me uh this evening um and thank you jed for the kind words about my my audit team i will be happy to share that with them um within your uh within your packet tonight um we're going to start with the um what i think is probably bound for you all but the financial and compliance report um with the exception of um any of the letters and there are three of them uh that are presented on mhp letterhead uh the remainder of the information uh from cover to cover is um prepared by and the responsibility of the district uh so it's our responsibility then as auditors to audit that information and provide you all as a board with opinions on those financial statements so
059i'm going to begin tonight on page one which is the independent auditors report and it is the first of three opinions that we provide to you all um about a quarter of the way down from the top under auditor's responsibility um as jed mentioned your report does include uh the financial information of poderon passes discreetly presented component units so this paragraph just indicates that um that we did not audit that and those have separate um separate audits uh compiled of their information at the very bottom of page one is probably the most important um paragraph for you all as the board and this is our opinion and it is unmodified or clean which is what you hope to have as as a board you'll see there in the second sentence the words present fairly in
060all material respects and that's exactly the language that you all hope to to hear or read as board of trustees if we move to um page three this begins the management discussion and analysis which is required supplementary information under um other under government auditing standards and really provides a summary of the high points of the fiscal year for you all as as you may remember um the district's fiscal year is july 1st 2020 through june 30th 2021. um management uh prepares this it's a great information if you kind of want to know just some of the the changes between um the current year uh and last year 2020 i highly recommend you spend some time looking uh at the mdna um i'm not going to spend much time on it this evening uh page three
061though i think and then kind of onto the top of page four has uh some really good language about the two sets of financial uh statements that are presented within your audit report so kind of unique to governments um there are government-wide financial statements which are really long-term in focus those include long-term liabilities and assets like debt property and equipment commitments related to pension plans and other post-employment benefit uh plans that the district has um they're most like for-profit financial statements that you would see in the business world what is unique to governments then is uh what are called fund financial statements which are a much more shorter term in focus so they exclude all of those long-term um those long-term debts and assets and really focus on revenues expenses assets and liabilities um that
062might happen within about a year or so most of my presentation tonight is going to be spent on the government-wide financial statements but um i do recommend that you just take a quick spin through those fun financial statements at your convenience shifting then to page 11 this is the statement of the net position for the district um and the district has governmental activities which is like your general fund your grants fund um all of your other special revenues funds the capital project fund etc you also have the business type activities which is your nutrition services uh in total if you were to take a look at total assets this year compared to last year um assets are about 559 million dollars which is an increase of uh five percent or 25.1 million dollars um the
063bulk of that 559 million dollars sits inside your fixed assets your capital assets your building your construction and progress building improvements those kinds of things we'll talk a little bit more in depth um about that in footnote 3 here in a bit but in general from last year that increased about 9.6 million dollars another uh big number for you all on your statement of net position is your investments uh which increased 13.8 million dollars uh this year or about 13 uh you can find some additional information on that in footnote 2. if we take a look at your liabilities um those decreased 2 percent or 3.9 million dollars this year a lot of that has to do with fluctuations in your pension liabilities predominantly with uh the net pension liability with the wyoming retirement systems
064uh and that is detailed in note six uh and can be very volatile from year to year just kind of depending on the market uh assumptions made um in the actuary analysis uh by wyoming retirement systems we'll talk a little bit about that here in a few minutes as well uh that decreased about 12.6 million dollars or eight percent uh and then you had a kind of an offsetting increase in your accounts payable about 6.6 million dollars higher this year and that predominantly is just due to timing of payments um particularly with uh healthcare benefits looking at your net position or your equity for the district that increased 27.1 million dollars or about 12 and the bulk of that is tied up inside um net investment with capital assets you can kind of see it's
065the first line there under net position in addition there's an additional 17.8 million dollars that is restricted for capital projects and other purposes shifting then to the statement of activities which begins on page 13. this is uh most like what you would hear referred to as the income statement if you look at um total expenses so in the first column there expenses and if you head all the way down uh to the bottom there where it says total primary government expenses this year were 252.6 million dollars which is very very consistent with 2020. uh it actually decreased one percent or about 1.6 million dollars but by and large um district spending for the year very consistent on the flip side then uh total revenues increased seven million dollars or three percent to two hundred and
066uh about thousand dollars and that's from several different sources so charges for services which is primarily in your nutrition services uh fund operating grants and then um property taxes as well as your funding from the state if you uh kind of take a look kind of towards the bottom of page 13 and then on to 14 you'll see the line item for the state foundation program uh with one point um 159 million dollars that is actually a decrease of about 9.6 million dollars um just decreased funding from the wyoming department of education in 2021. that decrease was offset by the increase in on federal grants that you received this year as jed have previously mentioned um that increased this year uh quite significantly all right i am gonna i'm gonna skip over the uh the
067fund level financial statements as i kind of mentioned but that's kind of pages 15 and 16 if you're interested in looking at that later uh 17 and 18 are really kind of interesting to look at it it details the line by line the differences between the government-wide financial statements and your fund level financial statements uh i'm going to move on now to pointing out some just highlights in the footnotes for you all so if you'll flip to page 24. uh this begins the first footnote is just various accounting policies for the district um and by and large the district did not implement any new policies this year there was one accounting standard that they um they did implement related to a public public partnership with the city of cheyenne and that is disclosed within the
068financial statements moving to footnote uh two um on page 31. this is the information about cash cash and investments portfolio for the district and about um halfway down about you're going to see um kind of a breakout between the cash that's held with financial institutions and then your investment portfolio the district does invest with um wig if and wildstar 2 out of the state treasurer's office 98.7 percent of your investments are held with wigeth which does represent a concentration of credit risk it's not bad it just means that um the bulk of the district's investments are held with primarily one uh one financial institution flipping the page then it's footnote three and it's your capital assets and it's a great snapshot of the beginning of the year um additions or deletions through the year and
069kind of looking at where you ended at june 30th there definitely was a decrease in construction and progress activity at 6 30 20 21 which you might expect with a correlating increase in buildings so during 2021 um the carey junior high uh project became fully operational and that was a significant decrease in that cip uh at your end you do have the dildine renovation project and east high pool replacement which are the two significant projects in place at this time there is also a little bit of construction in progress at 6 30 20 21 for the coyote ridge five six uh school uh really looking into 2022 we expect to see that increase as that project moves forward moving into page 36 begins the note disclosures on the pension plans the district participates in two
070um the first i've already mentioned is the public employees pension plan with wyoming retirement systems and this is a multiple employer plan i'm sure you're familiar with that um the district records their proportionate share of that net pension liability at year end the other one is the single member plan and that is the district's retention bonus plan you can see at the top there that combines the total liabilities related to those two plans are 154.7 million dollars really great information follows in this footnote about benefits provided the contribution percentages how the district funds that um the contribution percentages uh stayed relatively consistent uh from year to year as did the proportionate share of that liability that the district owns if you will and that was at 6.7 if you flipped into page 39 and about
071halfway down it talks about there's a paragraph that talks about the sensitivity of the proportionate share um as i mentioned the net pension liability can be quite quite volatile it's really dependent on how the investment portfolio at wyoming retirement systems performs every year um and it's dependent upon the assumptions that that board makes uh so as they as they make different decisions um as uh as people live longer salaries increase all of those fluctuate um and affect the liability the discount rate you could kind of think of that as the uh investment rate of return if you will um if that were to increase one percent or decrease one percent you could see quite the swing that that would have on your net pension liability uh so if that were to increase eight percent you'd
072see a decrease of 69 million dollars in that liability um if it were to to decrease one percent you could see that that would increase quite significantly at 83 million dollars again that's something really that's outside of the district's hands it's a requirement by the government um standards board uh and it's just really a requirement for for gap at year end shifting into page 44. uh this is the explanation of the district's other post-deployment um benefit plan uh related to the health insurance plan um just a reminder for everyone that that has been suspended for new enrollments similar to the volatility within the pension plans the oped plan also experiences um those same fluctuations and that kind of trend analysis if you will is shown on page 48. i'm going to skip now to i'm
073going to skip over beginning on page 49 is the required supplementary information um this includes kind of a budget to actual of the general fund and provide some additional kind of trend information on the pension and the opebs but i'm going to skip over that for tonight and move to um page 66. 66 is a listing of all of the federal awards and the expenditures that the district incurred during june 30th so jed had mentioned the single audit act this details by program by federal assistance listing number the expenditures that the district made under each of those programs this year and on page 68 you can see the total federal expenditures this year were 37.8 million dollars page 70 then is the second of our three opinions and this is our audit report on internal
074control over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations that could have a material effect on the financial statements so it's really us looking at the district's internal controls over financial statements the processes and procedures used by the district and then also looking at the different um and various laws that the district is um subject to um in state statute as judd mentioned um we did not identify any deficiencies in internal control um that we consider to be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in addition the results of our testing disclose no instances of non-compliance or other matters that we would be required to report to you all under government auditing standards so that is a clean opinion for for internal control as well 72 page 72 then is uh the third of our three opinions
075and it is our opinion on compliance for each major federal program as jen mentioned we audit a sample every year of federal funds this year we audited four programs if you look to the bottom of page 72 then you will find an unmodified opinion as well in our opinion the district complied in all material respects with the compliance requirements referred to above that could have a material effect on those programs we also look at internal control and on page 73 a second to last paragraph you'll see that we did not identify any deficiencies and internal controls that we consider to be material weaknesses related to those compliance programs as well had there been any uh material weaknesses or significant deficiencies we would have identified those for you all in this opinion the last thing that
076i would like to just mention tonight on the financial statements is on page 76 and this is the summary schedule of prior audit findings uh for those of you on the board last year you may remember that the district had one finding related to procurement um i am pleased to report uh that through our testing and the corrective action um put in place by the district uh that finding has been resolved uh with that i'll just take a brief break for uh any questions the trustees may have on the financial statements and then i will quickly discuss the audit committee letter hearing none um there is one more communication to you all that i would just like to visit about tonight and that is our audit committee letter or the letter with those charged with
077governments and it really communicates to you um audit processes if we had had any problems or disagreements um throughout the audit we would be able to share that information with you through this letter um but i am pleased to report that uh it is a very clean and short letter um a couple of things to draw your attention to as i mentioned uh there were no um there was one change in accounting policy this year related to the public public partnership with the city of cheyenne um footnote one discloses those significant audit policies uh we did not identify any significant or unusual transactions uh page two of that letter discusses the various significant estimates that are included within the financial statements um we review those estimates to ensure that uh management's judgment and how they
078make those is reasonable uh there were four that we have reported to you all and we found all of those estimation processes reasonable there were no um there were no audit adjustments proposed by us during the audit um and uncorrected misstatements are included within the rep letter should you be interested in those we had no disagreements with management during our audit work we were not aware of any instances in which the um finance and accounting department opinion shocked um or uh tried to obtain a different opinion from another accountant on any auditing or accounting management matters and we did not have any um significant issues that we discussed with with um with management uh by and large is a very very clean smooth audit i would just like to commend the finance and accounting department
079jed his team christine who we work very closely with they are always the most professional people to work with um they respond timely to all of our audit requests um and really are excellent stewards and representatives of of the district and the financial statements so um we appreciate working with with them and appreciate all their hard work thank you do i have any trustees with any questions at this time okay thank you very much i appreciate all your work and and uh um i think i will turn that back over to dr crespo thank you thanks very much to the team as well as to mhp we really do appreciate your time with us i do want to take a moment and mr ciccarelli and his team don't know that i'm about to do this
080but um i would like to take a second and congratulate uh our team here we are the team has received the 2020 the 2122 pathway to the mba which is the meredith budget award from the association of school business officials international asbo um when i arrived in july i um mr cicarelli and his team shared with me their work over creating systems of um fiscal transparency to align to the international standards which i'm familiar with and have been part of in my last districts and just want to say congratulations to them for that incredible work we are um really well on our way um for for success so i just want to say thank you publicly um this happens because you have an incredible incredible business team and finance services so just want to say
081thank you thank you could the board give them a round of applause [Music] as long as we're um noting uh mr ciccarelli's com um contribution that um he is recognized by all the other business officers and finance managers around the district is an extremely valuable asset to um explain to uh determine to i mean he's he is the acknowledged expert in school finance um both as far as a funding and expenditure uh and um so he's a he's a great asset to not only our district but all 48 districts okay thank you yes mr bowling so we just went through a very long report and our audience does not have a copy of it in front of them is this published on our website for people to view not as of yet so we have
082to get it through this conversation first and then move it forward through our transparency options thank you any other very good doctor that is all that i have very good thank you at this time then we'll move on to um the consent agenda all items listed with the designation of ca are considered to be routine items by the governing body and will be enacted in one motion there will be no separate discussion on these items any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered in its normal sequence on the agenda does any board member request to move a motion from the consent agenda yes mrs claussen yes madam chair i'd move to remove d 1.2 from the consent agenda please very good please make a note that we will be removing d 1.2 the
083approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting and executive session from the consent agenda doctor do we need to vote on the motion to remove no we can remove it my understanding is that correct yes very good man madam chair i moved to approval emotions listed as consent agenda second all in favor say aye aye opposed now motion passes moving on to the approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting madam chair i write i'm a move that subject to individual changes and corrections the minutes of the regular board meeting and executive session topics of discussion held november 1st 2021 be approved second second okay very good um is there this would be where you would make your amendment yes yes thank you madam chair um i'd like to make propose an amendment
084to the minutes um last last time we met as you all know um actually christy if we could go ahead and would you motion to do that and then we can have the second and the discussions absolutely thank you my motion is to amend the minutes um where i was speaking about the national school boards association and specifically i proposed to add three words and strike one and and this is what i'm proposing christy clausen is concerned with an issue in news about the september 29th national school boards association letter asking the president to have the department of justice investigate what i'd like to add there is parents attending those two words and then it goes on to say school board and i'd like to add meetings and then strike through members i misspoke last
085week and chair and i forgot to add parents okay we can we can further that discussion we'll just need a second we have a second on that motion we have a second now we can finish that discussion go ahead thank you i i'm only stating that i misspoke when i was speaking last week or last time we met excuse me and um i wanted to just clarify in a minute so they made more sense i'm referring to a letter that was written on the 29th of september the letter talks about parents and i misspoke and didn't include parents attending the school board meetings so that i'd like to add those those words just to clarify um what everyone i think understood was my point okay dr wiederspen madam chair just as a point of clarification
086without any without you know reflecting at all on my colleague's uh amendment am i correct in assuming that the minutes of a meeting reflect a historical record now the record it seems to me reflects what was actually said and so can you then go back and change the record if it was if it was recorded accurately as to what was spoken i understand mrs claussen's point that she misspoke and intended to say something else and i'm totally fine with the fact that she wants to make that clarification i think that's great but i guess and just from my own understanding and clarification how can you go back and correct a historical record if in fact that's what occurred and go back and say well i intended to say this but i didn't really say that
087do you understand what i'm saying so you're addressing our legal counsel mr evans please thank you uh the minutes are a summary of what was said and what occurred in the meeting they're intentionally brief because the reporter is every reporter is going to hear something different so they're not they're not a historical record in the sense of a precise record they're a general description of what was said and if there is an amendment to make that general description uh more in line with what was said i think that's fine if there's an amendment proposed to clean up some language that maybe there was something that spoken one name was said and it was intended to be another name i think that's also allowed so you're right you can't try to change what happened previously through
088the minutes but because the minutes are a general summary i think you can clarify um the minutes it depends on the motion and i'm not sure i understand all the details of this motion to amend but um i think you can do that in that sense uh trusting yourself okay madam chair i stand corrected so thank you for the explanation and uh yes please and i i had the same question that dr wiederspahn didn't and it almost occurred to me that um the clarification um the um edition would be more on in my opinion more appropriate to add to tonight's meeting i'd like to clarify comments i made two weeks ago and that they would become part of tonight's minutes as a correction we're not even correction but an addition amplification and editing of the
089of the um record of events from two weeks ago that's how i see it more appropriate um like obviously we have a difference of opinion here but i would um you know people misspeak and um it occurs to me that the misspeaking well we record these as everyone knows we record these and so there is an official recording of it um i would i would i would prefer that they made part of tonight's record but that's just my opinion okay go ahead trust me thank you i definitely um appreciate any substantive changes don't belong in edits to the minutes i understand that i will say and and you know i said this briefly a minute ago but i referred to a letter that was talking about the department of justice investigating parents so i don't
090think that by clarifying that it's parents that are being investigated in my in the minutes when i'm off topic or adding content that wasn't discussed so i do believe that it's appropriate to add it to the minutes and i actually thought thought through um that issue i do believe in this case it is appropriate to just modify the minutes in one place where they were recorded last week but certainly if i don't get the votes i will make a statement for the minutes tonight and i can repeat my recommendation if there needs to be clarity please okay so in the minutes you'll see in the first sentence of my comments from last week's last meeting that it states christy claussen is concerned with an issue and news about the september 29 national school board's association
091letter asking the president to have the department of justice investigate school board members i would like to modify that to to say um the sentence that as it is but at the end to investigate parents attending school board meetings and strike members so add parents attending school board ad meetings and then strike members so instead of investigate school board members which is the part i misspoke clarify that the letter says investigate parents attending school board meetings okay i believe we have a comment from uh trustee ashby oh yeah i just on more than one occasion i've seen minutes amended to add something in parens that basically says it was clarified on such and such a date that the intention was to be parents does that meet the needs of both concerns instead of fully changing
092it in the minutes leave the minutes as is and then add a parent in there that says it was clarified on that this was this was the intent so that it goes in in these minutes but is clarified to be different than what it was stated at the meeting accidentally whatever that's trusty classic i would i think i need some guidance here on procedure but i think that that might be an alternative um amendment um i'd like to proceed with my amendment and see where the board is on it first if that is procedurally the way to move forward change is the editorial change the letter recommended concerning parents not school board members so i think it's really kind of it's an editorial change very except yeah okay okay very good we've heard the amendment
093proposed amendment we've had a second we will need to vote on this amendment and then go back to our original um motion so at this time do we have um all in favor for voting for this amendment say aye okay oppose no that amendment passes and now we were back on the original motion all in favor to dr wiederschwan would you read that original motion again sure thank you that's subject to individual changes and corrections the minutes of the regular board meeting and executive session topics of discussion held november 1st 2021 be approved and then what they put in with the including the amendment thank you very good uh do we have a second we already seconded that's right thank you all right all in favor say aye all right very good i'll oppose no
094thank you that motion passes very good thank you for working that out and everyone's had an opportunity to speak to that um approval next on our agenda item uh d 3.1 manager i moved to approve the fiscal year 2020 excuse me 2020 2021 financial audit by mcgee heard in pies llp second is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye opposed no the budget the the approval of the audit is passed thank you so much we are on to future business the next regular board meeting and the organizational meeting will be held on monday december 6 2021 at 6 00 pm a work session will begin at 5 pm the business of the district is done public comment uh we will now take our uh next opportunity for public comment i will
095call your names um this is concerning non-agenda topics please state your first and last name keep your comments two to three minutes so others have time to voice their um their comments as well keep your comments general in nature and not directed at a specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for k-12 great students please add additional information or perspective if you can um if we can hold the applause it really allows us to focus on what has been said i would appreciate that and please remember that when you do call in the week before um that you need to only call in for yourself that you may not add additional names or call in for someone else and when you are put on the public comment list you must attend in
096person or speak the assume um and if you cannot be here there will not be a substitute you can send your statement to our executive direct our executive secretary or to the board so at that our first item our first individual on our list for public comment is josh fizzle thank you biz one more time and i will write it down phonetically thank you in september of 1932 just hours after his uncle's funeral a 12 year old boy walked down the familiar streets of waukegan illinois when he spotted a carnival on the shore of lake michigan every night for the next three nights he saw the amazing mr electrico sit in his electric chair being fired with 10 billion volts of pure blue sizzling power reaching out into the audience his eyes flaming his white
097hair standing on end sparks leaping between his smiling teeth mr electrico brushed an excalibur sword over the heads of the children knighting them with fire when he came to me said the boy he tapped me on both shoulders and then the tip of my nose the lightning rushed down the sword inside my skull made my hair stand up and sparks fly out of my ears he then shouted at me live forever that young man was the great american author ray bradler and if he as a free roaming child might represent our own then we the parents might better be represented by mr electrico knighting our children crying out the day be allowed to live not in fear of the temporal not hiding away from nature's fickle whims not worried over rulers attempting to take away
098their natural born liberty to pursue happiness stuff your eyes bradbury stated with wonder live as if you drop dead in 10 seconds see the world it's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories ask for no guarantees ask for no security let our children play and take risks just as you and i did when we were their age let our kids go to the edge of the cliff and jump off building their wings on the way down masking at this point has become something of a religion a newer form of mysticism the minute you get a religion referee stated you stopped thinking believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas so here is an alternate design stop robbing our kids with their humanity of their individuality
099of their innocence and let them live their lives to the fullest even if some parents would make the choice to keep their children masked in school as is their right it must be allowed to those of us parents who wish to sit our kids free of these guyses to do just so thank you courtney bizzo i really do appreciate if we could hold our applause thank you so much as a healthcare provider with an advanced degree i have been active in my career for the last 11 years i can remember recently when we were worried over mrs infections temporarily petrified of bird flu and scared to death of her h1n1 yet no one recalls that it was just within the past few years that ebola threatened to break out of the congo and go global
100a disease with a survival rate similar to the single flip of a coin and yet here we are acting terrified of a novel coronavirus with an overall mortality rate of about two percent or roughly seven successive equivalent coin flips far more flips if we factor out those cases who died of code 19 only the cdc estimates that 480 children died from the flu during the 2018 and 2019 season that is more in one 12-month period than the 354 who have died from covered 19 in the past 18 months and that is only again if we assume that every one of those deaths was 100 related to nothing other than sars code 2. 4.2 million children worldwide have tested positive for coping only 0.008 percent of them have died that's globally overall 0.0004 of children in
101the united states have died from covert 19. it does not make each one of those deaths any less of a tragedy yet as a community and as a nation we must regain perspective to what those deaths compare twice as many children die by drowning each year meaning a bathtub poses a greater threat to any given child than does covet 19. does this mean we should ban the use of bathtubs or ban the use of automobiles because a child has a higher risk of dying during any given car trip if mass work then why is our sister laramie county school district 2 not enforcing mass while their coveted numbers have remained largely unchanged we are wearing mass to protect the more vulnerable in our communities than we are the same does this not seem as though
102it has nothing whatsoever to do with the health or safety any longer but has morphed into being entirely about unconstitutional control and upholding a rapidly disintegrating narrative thank you susan edgerton thank you susan so tonight i'd like to talk about the district mass policy according to the district website covid 19 cases aren't going down it's been more than two months now since superintendent crespo's letter dated september 9th went out to parents in it she said the decision to wear masks is not taken lightly and was made following input from state and county health officials so can you tell me then why is there a link to the crmc website on the school district website that gives the number of covet positive admission cases icu beds taken and ventilators being used but nothing about keeping your
103immune system strong and how to go about that why aren't things like taking a good multivitamin added vitamins c d3 k2 keratin and elderberry not to mention lowering the sugar in your diet getting fresh air and plenty of sleep in the covid tool kit also on the school district website in addition it seems like the same three to four doctors comment comment on every school board meeting with the same message of number one the masks are safe and effective except the case numbers aren't going down except my granddaughter who's in second grade is struggling to read at grade level and guesses at her words because she doesn't know how to sound them out except my grandson in fourth grade says the masks make his face itch and he's constantly touching his mask and scratching his
104face and he says it's hard to pay attention with it on and both needed summer school number two the hospital is at capacity i don't doubt that seven years ago when i had a scheduled heart surgery i waited nine hours in the recovery room to get a bed in icu my follow-up surgery i waited four hours in recovery to get a bed on the surgical floor and now there's an entire floor of the hospital under construction nothing's changed number three people are dying from covet and yes people are dying with instructions from our county health department and local doctors to self-isolate for 10 days but come into the er if you have difficulty breathing it's no wonder where's the early treatment start asking these doctors or health care professionals why is this their policy would
105they send you home and tell you to self-isolate without medication if you had strep throat influenza meningitis pneumonia or pink eye so why just covet especially since there are drugs that can help to treat it like ivermectin hydroxychloroquine prednisone erythromycin monoclonal antibodies even taking a baby aspirin be honest how many of you here tonight have had kobe despite wearing a mask how many of you only wear the masks at these meetings susan thank you your time's up okay thank you thank you richard stone evening board i'm richard stout it's out of curiosity that um how come i was able to find out and y'all have been able to by now that you all have been lied to about the health system here in the state of wyoming for example the fl triple c is the
106front line copa 19 critical care alliance it's actually a global alliance list there's a whole bunch of doctors on there that has close to if not 100 full deposit patient survival rate the doctor i spoke about my last meeting dr brian tyson he's on this list we scroll down to the bottom of this list to where all the us doctors are they're all broken down by state wyoming is one of seven states that's zero doctors on this list they do not know how to take care of copy patients i believe um their heidi bind what's called the prep act the public readiness and virtual preparedness act it basically gives doctors full uh full immunity to death or amount malpractice of of a patient as long as it's listed under code um america's frontlinesdoctors.org there's a
107lot of good information on here a lot of factual science studies testimonies videos of all these doctors uh basically stating that the cdc fda federal government and a lot of health officials are basically lying and making up stories they do talk about this one doctor named ted noel who actually has a video out there that shows the actual operation of how mask actually works has a variety of different uh masks that he used even respirators how they actually work and basically what he states that all the masks really is just an emotional security plan people are people that are scared um it used to be on the cdc website i haven't seen other at all lately that the mass actually helps accelerate the spread of coping those uh up like 88 of people that's been
108hospitalized for wearing mass supposedly i had a curiosity of why the icu is full here in the uh giant original medical center when assembly takes a uh normally a 50 treatment per patient to cure those people well it's probably 300 bucks now due to the bite inflation but it used to be dollars my opinion i believe any doctor that pushes for mass vaccines and or social disciplines are not really doctors you're just politicians and like i stated on my uh last meeting um my last speech politics has always been the number one killer in this country thank you thank you nicole hutchins is on zoom nicole hutchins she's on zoom kyle if you'll raise your hand nicole can you find her i can't see the list chair i do not see that name um okay
109nicole um if you're on the zoom please raise your hand very good shannon ashby shannon ashby all right i'm gonna read some blurbs from a book called monday's not coming these can be found in our middle schools and our high schools here shannon thank you we'll address that thank you very much and also i would like to know why a lot of these books are only to be rented or checked out by the kids through the ipads that they have because parents like myself have no idea that this stuff was here in this no idea i had to make sure that these books were in the classroom or in the libraries of the public schools by asking some of our other friends because i took my kids out of this district because of this reason
110we'll address that thank you [Music] alicia greene if we could thank you last meeting we had a dad tell us how his daughter struggles to breathe in a mask we've had kids speak to you crying about how hard it is to socialize and learn in mass we have parents like myself sharing stories of how our kids struggled mentally and physically in masks then we had a doctor tell us kids don't struggle with mass parents do then he had the gall to speak on empathy dismissing testimonies of dozens of individuals then lecturing us on how we're teaching our kids to have a me versus them mindset is not being empathetic i promise you i'm here solely because of empathy i watched my sweet daughter suffer through each week having to wear a mess she did not
111struggle with the mask because i did i struggle with the mask because she did my kids aren't even at lcs ds1 anymore and i'm here speaking for the kids who don't have someone to speak up for them being here is not easy for me to fit in my schedule i don't think this is fun i'm not here to win a fight i'm here because these masks really are an issue for children not because the adults in their lives say so that's truly what empathy is to see someone else's struggle and be able to show compassion and relate with that struggle it's not telling them their struggle is made up i sent every member a heartfelt email on this topic only mr boland responded thank you mr bolin through this conversation it's clear mask usage comes
112back to quarantines not effectiveness but so healthy kids who are contact traced to positively tested individuals don't have to quarantine i can't imagine how frustrating it is for parents of healthy kids to need to miss work because their kids sat near a kid who was sick that's the real issue at hand here a father spoke on covet being endemic and that we need to come up with better strategies going forward and he's absolutely correct we have kids in mass for logistical reasons not health reasons we'll have half a dozen doctors here tonight telling us how bad covet is and how full hospitals are yes we understand no one here is denying that but kids but having kids in mass all day does not affect that all it does is make healthy kids not have to
113quarantine as often so what is the problem there maybe we can find alternative solutions to quarantines it's been almost two years can't we accept that this is here and try to find a new normal that doesn't include children wearing face coverings for eight hours a day we had another doctor talk about kids needing to wear masks because of wyoming's low back vaccine numbers let's take a look at oregon they have one of the highest vaccine rates in the country and have had mass mandates for all vaccinated or not since august 13 and their cova death numbers are higher than ever so as much as these doctors want to peg us as extremists for not wanting mass or vaccine mandates maybe we could find middle ground on the fact that these coveted cures aren't causing anything
114but a divide and we can come together and find solutions that actually work without putting a strain on two working homes two working parent homes in the meantime thank you aaron smith if you guys will hold your applause they'll be able to hear their names called thank you so much i understand and i just would ask you to do that so we can we can actually address the individuals that have the next opportunity to speak thank you mr smith madam chair members of the board my wife alicia and i have four children in this district in this district and we love this community i want to encourage each of you and everybody out here to lead with love and logic fear and anger are taking over our country and we we're better than that in
115cheyenne most of us in this community are here because we love this community and that's why i'm here and i want to talk about what happened in september see i think that you were steered into a bad decision you were told that you had two options bad and worse you were told bad mess the kids worse all the kids would be quarantined you'll have to shut things down that's not right so you were misled at best as an attorney i can tell you that the facts speak for themselves and you would not have had to shut down we all know that now because we have 48 school districts and 40 one of them have not uh have not shut down and are not masking their kids and they're doing great in fact only seven school
116districts have mastered kids including us and the alt-left counties of teton and alvin while we are failing our kids the rest of state is doing it right they are doing they are in this together the catchphrase in this together let's put some meat on that statement and join the rest of the state and be in this together with them bottom line it is now proven we can keep our kids our schools open our kids healthy without the draconian mask mandate i've spoken to the superintendent of school district number two you can go to their website and you can see exactly how to navigate this without masking the kids as they're doing and it's working swimmingly it's easy to find the information our website needs to be revamped i humbly tell you this i represent thousands
117of people in this community and that's not an overstatement and uh and we are the majority and i'll just uh if you want me to if you want to prove that we're the majority just to ask me um and we'll we'll flood this place i mean right now what i'd like to do is it's for you we can flood this with uh people coming in but let's not not do that um be a waste of time everyone knows that we're the majority and the elephant in the room is covered masking at the very least we should put it on the agenda for next time which you guys should um talk about bring our kids in closing as neighbors and members of the community i love you i love each of you and i really love
118one of you and had a crush on you for 22 years and i encourage you to lead lead with love lead with logic and let's free our kids and remove the mask mandate and let's really be in this together with the rest of the state i just have one more quick comment i can't find one instance of a child under the age of 18 dying from covet in this in this in this county because you don't die from covert unless you have comorbidities if you're a child so i'll give a thousand dollars a board member that can actually point me in that direction tonight thank you mr smith joshua fish joshua good evening madam chair trustees uh thank you uh this is me a bit more vulnerable tonight i didn't prepare i didn't practice in
119my house i didn't get down in my my three minutes to the second uh i actually just wrote some some off-hand notes to myself um so one i just want to say thank you for letting me speak tonight to you i want to say i agree with you superintendent crespo about pictures uh that one in particular made me think um this is me being vulnerable i was in band when i was in high school i played trombone i was in marching band cadet band concert band jazz bands 1000 madrigals i sang with them um so i did a lot of different things i balanced that out by having trucks and going to baghdad so i tried to balance it out um so i love this stuff i love seeing the kids i love the pictures
120i think it's awesome i love seeing our kids here um it's not easy to come up here i'd much rather be with my smoking hot wife just right back there on a date tonight um but uh i'm not we're here and it takes multiple babysitters to watch all four of my kids who i had to pull out of the district recently so this isn't this isn't easy it's not easy to get in front of this microphone to be recorded on youtube to have my image processed around to have all kinds of people say nasty things about me online social media things like that it's not easy for me to be investigated i'm retired now it's not easy for me to be investigated by national guard bureau for my statements in august 2nd um where they
121sent a team to investigate me for quoting the the center for disease control and world health organization so i know that me standing up here potentially as a parent could make me lose my retirement after 22 years that's a chance right it's a chance you know this being recorded right now could be being frantically sent to national guard bureau so they can cut me off since technically one december is the last date so they could hit me they could get it you know but i did not use my rank my uniform or anything appropriate i just spoke as a parent not in uniform just quoting other sources right so it's not easy to stand up here and do these things i want to say i agree absolutely we need to risk off the national school
122board association immediately let's stop giving them 20 dollars a month those people are against parents they're against anything that stands for anything righteous so let's get rid of that i agree with that um i agree we absolutely should talk about getting rid of mass again but not for some of the reasons i've heard mentioned tonight i don't think mass are effective i think the efficacy can absolutely be debated um i don't think my vaccines are effective i had the vaccine and i don't like to say that very often i thought it was a leadership call because i had some young scared airmen so i took it january of this year took both doses and i've got to fight vaccine injury ever since then my wife has to deal with all the pain that i have
123to deal with every single day you know so vaccines i think can be a choice for someone if you're extremely immuno-system compromised go for it but i think it's personal choice right so i don't think the district has the right constitutionally to mandate mass or vaccines ever so i don't agree whether they work or they don't work with a mass work but they don't work i don't care i don't think this board has a constitutional right to mandate them either way i don't think you have the right to make medical decisions for myself and my family i think that you might talk about safety but i think it's government overreach liberty is more safe safety is a deception there's no such thing so anyway thank you very much for your time that's my most vulnerable
124thank you katie peters hi we meet again i spoke last ford meeting and i'm going to finish the last paragraph that i wasn't able to because i feel like this is the good roundabout of what i need to get across to all of everyone i am a frontline rn and i have been through this whole pandemic i have been through the rooms of covet patients giving them treatments that is where the full masking and the serious ppe comes in not these masks that everybody has touched i know covet is real for many people but not for everyone covet is not going anywhere it is with us forever but now is also the time to move forward researchers and doctors can claim they know what it what this is and what is going to work but
125honestly nobody knows nobody and i would love to talk to a doctor or a nurse or any other front line health care worker not sitting behind a desk physician with the md initials i would really like for them to be able to tell me and teach me as a nurse on what we do with covid because i have not gotten an answer yet from many specialists that i have reached out to just because i want to expand my knowledge we don't have a grasp on this but we are taking away people's freedoms due to this i look at these pictures yes they are great but that picture right there with those little girls it bugs me i can't tell are they smiling are they crying what emotions are they showing we we get we get
126a picture of them with their face covered we don't get to see the smile the teeth the giggling it's it's it needs to be over that we need to we need to look at real numbers real data and i i realized that we had our nice health department here today but i promise you those numbers she reported i bet my career on this because that is what i'm staking by coming up here and speaking the truth of what is happening is my career is on the line so i will double down on that that those numbers are false and anyone i will be i'll be around um you have my info from calling into the board meeting um i would love to talk to you about those numbers if you think they are real i
127don't have enough time to tell you how many times numbers are faked with cobit thank you i called aaron waskowitz hello board my name is aaron waskowitz i had some prepared comments tonight but i met this nice gentleman who was unaware of the rule changes that you all made about calling in and he has something that he feels is very important so i am going to let him take my spot i know you say that's against the rules but the rules seem to be evolving so i'm going to help evolve them right now too sir um aaron i appreciate that sir thank you so much for watching excuse me we have a spot please i'm here to talk about um asking you to implement some procedures in our school districts when there's a tragedy at
128one of our schools such it happened november 8th that the principal will do a face-to-face notification to that family rather than a phone call trying to humanize and put some compassion into the tragedy and i think that's just that's what the fire department the police department the military does they don't make a phone call they go visit somebody face to face and inform them they can show their id give them a card and say i'm here to hopefully help you besides notify you i think some procedures should be in place across our school district for any kind of a tragedy i hope it never happens again but i'm sure it probably will that's my comment thank you sir sir can we get your name okay sir booker i just want to acknowledge that i know
129that the board's job is not easy and you're asked to make decisions that have no way of making everyone happy i get that and i thank you for the opportunity to speak i'm here tonight because i think the big picture is getting lost in the need to be right i see a lot of people that want to be right and prove why the other side is wrong the truth of the matter is that none of our opinions matter not yours and not ours it's not about who's right or wrong this is about a parental right being taken from us and we should all be standing together to keep anyone from infringing on our rights as parents if one right is taken i assure you they can and will all be taken i think what you
130as a board are seeing here is parents that are afraid and don't want to lose control some are afraid of the virus and trying to gain control over it some are afraid of having our rights taken away and just want to keep control of our lives anger is not a primary emotion it is usually the expression of anxiety and fear we are all afraid of something i am personally afraid of the rights being taken away i believe that people should have the right to wear a mask if they want to i also believe that people should have the right not to wear a mask if they don't regardless of whether i think kids should wear a mask or not parrots should have the right to make that choice why are our rights being taken away
131we haven't done anything wrong dfs hasn't needed to step in and evaluate my children home and family why is the board overstepping their boundaries and acting on behalf of all of us i'm here to tell the parents that if we do not fight for the ability to choose for ourselves we will lose it in all aspects of our life it might not seem like a big deal to be told to wear a mask when it is phrased for everyone's safety and you might ask yourself what's the big deal it's just a mask but what is next and i assure you more is coming once the precedent is set that we won't fight and we will just believe everything we are told on both sides of the argument there's no going back so next year the
132kids have to wear a mask and you're not allowed to see what library books your kids check out or have access to the records from the recent visit to the nurse's office sounds silly sound extreme this is happening in school districts across the country already don't believe me when i say that this will happen ask anyone that's ever fought over a union contract or a child custody case in fact ask yourself the next time you have the urge to say why won't you do that now you've done it before please board members help us keep our parental rights we're just asking for your support in making the choice for our children families themselves please make masks optional let's move on from the issue here and now and start standing together to fight more important things
133like a bigger budget more teachers and all other exponentially more important things that we need as a school district i think everyone here has proven that we will that we will that we do have the courage to fight for our kids think of what we can do if we can come together fighting a fight with no absolute resolution or right answer is frankly a waste of time give us our choice back and let's move forward with bigger and better things dr jason dr jason castle good evening i'm a board-certified family practice position like i said one of the good ones um [Music] i feel that the very extremes on both sides have been misguided but when physicians attended these very board meetings and advocated for forced masking of school children under the guise that you
134will quote to kill grandma and vote if you oppose that policy i understand the anti-mandate crowd's confusion name especially when grandma has multiple options for prevention and treatment the public is angry but anger is the secondary motivation you know typically rooted in fears the public is fearful that two weeks to slowly spread will end up with vaccine mandates for children yeah they are quicker right to be disconcerted and afraid based on past bait-and-switch behavior of certain public officials many physicians have spoken to the board recently some are deserving of everyone's respect like dr renee um could we we're going to keep this non-personal thank you okay but others are not deserving of that esteem in conference especially those doctors berating parents for peddling misinformation yesterday's misinformation are today's facts vis-a-vis supremacy of natural immunity the
135science didn't change the medical and public health community went off that cost as a physician and libertarian i will not ever nor have i ever pressured my patients into getting any vaccine or medical intervention for that matter i haven't deterred them either i simply explain the options risks benefits alternatives and let them desire it's not my place to supplant a patient's medical autonomy with my paternalist much like george w and the weapons of mass destruction if the evidence is not iron clad we should just shut up and err on the side of more personal liberty because once that trust is gone we will not get it back if officials continue to enact and position to continue to advocate for policies whose consequences are unclear at best and potentially harmful at worst run the word run
136the risk of undermining the little bit of credibility the public still has us i fear that we clinicians are going down the same femoral path that has led to undermining of the faith of all the places in us we need to stay objective and impartial as difficult as that sometimes is and quantify the risks of the disease as well as the vaccine and let the elected officials do policy continuing to double down using copadas single factor analysis and implementing a one-size-fits-all approach to solve a complex issue makes as much sense as an open section of the pool the anger everyone feels in the room at the perceived enemies is a product of more mandates and more centralized control we need less of those two things not more parents are just trying to do what they
137think is right to protect their children and there is not one clear solution to this complex problem so i implore you all to implement the following three things one pass a binding resolution that states there will not be any vaccine mandate since the result this is what they're afraid of to continue thank you you're not i'm going to reclaim continue the mass mandate for four weeks to make it non-renewable and advertise the community where to get the plaster vaccine and honestly thank you for my services to help thank you thank you mandy cotton thank you good evening my name is mandy cotton i have seven grandkids in this district for now my message to you tonight has been weighing on my heart very heavily for a while and i finally get to get up and
138say something and i guess it was just given that tonight is the night for it so i'm going to start with this this is from luke 3. therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in a private room shall be proclaimed from the housetops everything is coming to light we are finding out a lot of information that we did not know before so this is what i have to say the only good thing to come out of this plandemic was the beginning of the awakening call it what you will the silent majority speaking the great awakening waking the sleeping giant it has just begun and this is your awakening if you pay attention to even just a little bit what's going on in this
139country outside of your own world you will see what is actually happening in virginia new jersey oklahoma recently school boards all across the country the sleeping giant is awake you affected our kids and now we're angry make no mistake this is a war this is not a boots on the ground with weapons kind of war this is a war we will fight in court this is a war we will fight in the voting booths and we will win we are already winning we thought we were safe here in wyoming in the cowboy state in the state of freedom we were complacent and we learned differently after this pointless special session this is about the freedom of we the people the parents the grandparents our community you've already seen how many children have been pulled from
140this district because of this now we have pornography pedophilia and here come the vaccines the second that you start talking about that being involved with the schools i can guarantee you a minimum of one-third of this district will walk that day that includes my seven grandkids gone thank you remember andy kessler last week i had the privilege of speaking after a doctor that i felt like insulted parents and so i was a little upset and emotional about that but i just wanna pretty much everybody said what needs to be said but i i remember at the beginning we all talked about the stakeholders of and i really appreciated the stakeholders of the parents the kids and the teachers and i think it's important to consider i i've done some research on the quarantine and i
141realize it's not a mandate it's also not something to be enforced it's just a guideline and so really what we've taken our guidelines have we made them law and that's not really what it is and so then because of quarantine guidelines we forced people to wear masks so people don't have to miss school and teachers and kids don't have to miss school based on guidelines not laws not anything but guidelines so i would encourage you to take into consideration the teachers the kids my kids who suffer if you've ever had anxiety how many of you've ever had an anxiety attack or a panic attack with the mask on have you ever hyperventilated with the mascot it's not easy i've had to call my child out almost every week for panic attacks and hyperventilation and when
142you go to a doctor if a doctor ever tells you that it's your child's fault that's not a very good doctor because what they would do is they would say what's going on how can we help you work through this or it's the parent's fault that the child is hyperventilating because of the mask that's not very good medicine when a child is struggling like that you don't blame the child or the parent you want to know why the child's struggling right if they're struggling in school you want to know why and my child is struggling and every pretty much every week i have to call her out and the reasoning is is because she's having a panic attack and she can't breathe so please take that into consideration thank you good evening just want to
143say parents uh good job for staying for your rights um you guys have that under article one section here dave the wyoming constitution um guys they're your kids okay i just want to say that there's a clear violation of the wyoming constitution here that's been brought up by a lot of our state senators and state house members and there better not be a vaccine mandate and i'll say i got the vaccine but that was my choice key word my choice parents choice to vaccinate their kids parents choice to mask not you guys not the state even says wyoming shall not infringe upon that right and again as one previous guest said there is an election in 2022 there are consequences for it happened in blue virginia it will happen in deep red wyoming that's all
144i have to say thank you hello marcus crawl thank you for the opportunity to address you and i would like to encourage some of the positive developments that were brought forward tonight for a special working session to revisit this issue i am here against the mass mandate and a potential vaccine mandate and as many are saying our position or mine at least is we simply want choice and when given the choice early on in the uh the school year what i observed at least at my son's school was parents overwhelmingly chose to not send their children with mass it was probably 90 to 95 percent of parents didn't do it and so this is being imposed on an unwilling population and uh you know regarding the vaccine again i just think it should be a
145choice and i'm not a medical professional so i'm not going to really comment on that but that the cost benefit should be considered and when you look at the risks at least statistically those numbers have been thrown out tonight the statistical chances of kids dying by covet are statistically zero but it sounds like there is some potential to encourage people to look into this we've heard from an individual who did experience a vaccine injury and there should be reason for concern when you hear comments even from the fda advisory committee panel member this gentleman named eric rubin said we're never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it i thought that was absolutely an astounding statement to say on public record i mean how in the world could they
146say that and not know when we're going to give it to 75 million kids in this country that's absurd to me but many people here like myself said we don't want to be here we're tired of this and um would just encourage people to let go of this lie and i have a quote for you all this is from sultanates and said in the lie has god has in fact led us so far away from a normal society that you cannot even orient yourself any longer and its dense gray fog not even one pillar can be seen i submit to you all there was ever a kernel of truth and this coveted response is now surely saturated in lies and i would say just reject this lie let's embrace the truth about this and reject
147the fear so thank you all for the opportunity thank you aaron waskwitz madame chair i appreciate you letting me come back up here my name is erin wasquitz i'd like to first start by offering my condolences and heartfelt prayers to the families of the children who lost their lives in our district in the last couple of weeks i can't even imagine what those families are going through but i can't imagine how many people are praying for them in our community i'm a mom in the district and a representative of moms for liberty laramie county i pulled my kids from lcsd one in the beginning of 2020 school year after attending a school board meeting virtually before the meeting i was on the fence with sending my two kids back to public school although i experienced
148nothing but amazing teachers and staff at freedom elementary the school board lost my trust during that meeting and i have been homeschooling since every time i come to a school board meeting i tell my kids i'm going to fight for them so they can return to public school i've been to every meeting since april and with every meeting i lose a little more confidence in your ability to properly run a district with each meeting i realize that this is nothing more than a public show but it's not just the meetings that have me losing confidence in a district i used to love lcsd1 has had some less than stellar news coverage recently coupled by lots of rumors there's a rumor regarding the funeral arrangements there's rumors regarding top administrators vanishing and then reappearing in buildings
149and of course the lawsuits and the lists might even go on but i don't listen to all of them the word transparency is used quite a bit in this room merriam-webster defines transparency as the quality that makes it possible to see through something such as the piece of glass it also defines it as the quality that makes something obvious or easy to understand such as a transparency of motives i do believe there's transparency in this room but not in the way that you are hoping for the transparency from the perspective from parents is that we can see right through you we can see that what we say in these meetings means absolutely nothing to you we can see that there that there are motives other than health for continuing to mask our children i truly
150don't mean to be disrespectful i don't think that any of you are bad people but i do think that when you work in a small group it's very difficult to have a dissenting voice thank you by the way to those who are talking against the majority i'd like to end by reiterating that there's a giant communication problem in this district and offer my services i have a bachelor's degree in public relations and communications i'd be happy to consult with you to see how you could bend this what's broken between you and the community thank you at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long-term suspension expulsions and personnel second all in favor say aye aye aye our toes know we are now in executive session thank you