001good afternoon good evening everyone um welcome i'd like to call this meeting business meeting of the laramie county school district number one board of trustees on august 16th 2021 at 6 pm to order please um welcome again and if you would please um uh join me in the pledge of allegiance please stand thank of you and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and again welcome everyone all right i need a bigger space up here um dr crespo are there any adjustments to the agenda madam cheer yes there are adjustments to the agenda i would request that we move um for smart start plan to just past b1 the recognition of the teacher of the year award i think there are a
002number of people here that are here for this topic and i want to make sure we address it as early as possible very good mr clerk and i'm sure i move to adopt the agenda with any agenda second all in favor say aye aye opposed no hearing then the agenda is adopted all right um currently we have uh moving on to item b we have recognitions of staff and students for outstanding achievements where we have this virtual today so bear with me we have mary quast um and jim yates and brian cox and we are here to announce our lcsd1 teacher of the year rebecca murray so let's give her a big round of applause [Applause] rebecca is joining us virtually as well as the other individuals first of all i want to thank mary
003quas um that helped put all of this together with several of our teachers and administrators that are part of the teacher of the year committee um i have to tell you this is my first year in being participating on that committee and it was quite an honor and a process it's important to know that um laramie county school district number one aligns the choice for teacher of the year with the state rubric and um so some of those quality have to have a nomination from either a teacher an administrator it can be a community member or a student and i'd like to also congratulate all of the individuals from our district that were nominated there were several teachers in our district that were nominated for teacher of the year and um some of my favorite
004nomination letters came from from children and parents so it was quite an honor to be a part of that group um at this time i'll read just a little bit about what mr cox francox the principal at uh johnson junior high said about mrs murray she's so she has shown to be a once-in-a-generation educator she had her instructional skills content knowledge and relationship building skills are second to none mrs murray is able to cater her instruction to meet the needs of every student which is incredibly important in education mrs murray is an exceptional colleague and mentor i could go on and on and on so the rubric is quite rigorous um they go through a process of the application and then they also do some interview questions and um there's ten interview questions and it
005they talk about how they impact students they talk about what they where they um where their passions are and one of the things that i found really heartwarming was their story and why they became educators these individuals have dedicated their entire life to public education and serving our students and our community and we as a board are incredibly proud of them and very grateful as a district to have them so now i'm done talking and we will get married floss on um to uh bring us up to speed and then hopefully hear from rebecca and mr cox and obviously mr yates go ahead mary we have mary she's she's there okay i can see her can you hear me okay so sorry okay madame chair members of the board we are just super pleased to
006announce rebecca murray as our teacher of the year for laramie county school district number one um now rebecca is an eighth grade english language arts teacher at johnson junior high and she's been at that school for more than 15 years she teaches seventh and eighth grade students reading writing speaking listening and critical thinking so all very important skills um for uh students to know uh we again we're just thrilled to have rebecca as our teacher of the year um i would state too that as the district teacher she has submitted her information to the wyoming department of education where she will be considered for the uh state teacher of the year award and we hope to hear soon about that um but without further ado i would turn this over to rebecca and she can
007talk about some of the great work that she's been doing welcome rebecca hello can you hear me yes ma'am well excellent i would just like to say thank you very very much for this award it is such a privilege working with teenagers they are funny they are at times incredibly childlike and then on maybe an hour later they are incredibly mature so it is just a pleasure to be recognized for this award i'm lucky enough to work with great teachers and amazing administrators so i have been guided and helped and this award is certainly not my own very good well congratulations and is mr yates available i am very good mr yates is with uh first education and and um i i couldn't tell you in the history of my history with the district how
008often i've worked with mr yates in first education they're incredibly supportive of our students um and also jim is the mr yates is the president of our schools foundation and that is uh mr wiederspahn sits now on that uh committee and mr yates you've got a little something for our uh for our teacher of the year correct i do the district has been kind enough to offer her 500 in credit to use in her classroom uh as part of her school budget but uh first education we know that there's more to being a teacher than being in the classroom so we are pleased to present her with a 500 gift card um the only requirement is that she do that she uses it for something that makes her happy outside of the classroom um this
009is my second year that i've been on the teacher of the year uh selection committee and it's it's always encouraging to see the quality of educators and um mrs murray is is the best that we have out there thank you so much mr yates and again thanks for uh thank you to first education uh for that uh gift card and also your time um and commitment historically in this district so thank you jim appreciate you um at this time would mr cox like to address yeah i would be happy to brag on miss murray for just a moment um is very very humble um she would uh not be the one to tell you that our at one of our interim y top assessment uh markings she had sixty percent of her students marking uh
010commissioner advanced and she doesn't teach all honors classes she teaches the gamut of it another unique uh factor about miss murray that you may not know is that she was a former instructional coach and so she often opens up her classroom to lab classroom visits throughout the district as well as serving as an instructional leader for student teachers first-year teachers and also just mentoring others in the profession we're at a very critical time in our profession where teachers um administrators and the like are in short supply and that pipeline that feeds that supply is dwindling so if it wasn't for for teachers like miss murray helping to inspire and coach that next generation uh we would definitely be um slowly coming to an end so she is not only vital to our school but also
011vital to the publication i couldn't be more honored to be able to uh work at johnson alongside her and just get to experience the joy that comes out of the students entering her classroom so miss murray you are an asset to our school and not say enough good things about you so congratulations again congratulations mrs murray if everybody will give her another round of applause thank you okay thank you um and thank you for sharing that so um at this time we will go ahead and move to on the agenda to the um amended agenda so we're going to have dr crespo present her start smart start plan that they're working on thank you madam chair how are you thank you for that all right um so thank you everyone thank you um ford for
012being here uh if you remember uh our smart start plan update over the last couple of months as we started last year uh lcsd1 was able to stay open based on uh the accomplishments of this district in order to keep school open for the whole year so as we go through we know our goal is to keep our students safe and in school we know that the way that that's going to happen is that we encourage everyone to follow our big four so here is the big four for those of you that may not remember our big thing is please if you are sick stay home if your kids are sick please stay home wash and sanitize your hands frequently mask up when possible and socially distant here are the quarantine protocols that were provided
013by the health department you can see that um individuals who are fully vaccinated against cloven 19 or those who have covered 19 within the last 90 days would self-monitor and those and do not need to quarantine after an exposure unless they exhibit system symptoms and then we certainly the recommendation would be that there's testing between three and five days after so very similar to last year we if you're wearing a mask and you have a close contact and there's a positive um you do not need to ice you would isolate and the other individual would self-monitor and you can see that that changes over time based on the masking our goal as i said is to keep our students in school all year one of the benefits here in lcsd1 last year was that we
014were able to have school all year round and we did have consistency throughout the year our students were in um the whole time with minimal quarantining so our operations department has done an incredible job i mentioned last year last meeting for summer cleaning our protocols this year will include hand sanitizing posters throughout school reminding students and staff of the big4 protocol posters reminding of the 643 protocol which we'll go over here shortly seating charts and contact trade contact tracing protocols and continued conversation and guidance from health partners we've already started our athletic and activities program and we've had an incredible incredible turnout um with our students already this year many of you may remember this is the same document that we have last year tier one for open which is where we are right now
015tier two would be if we're determined to go to a hybrid model based on the number of infection rates um etc and then tier three we would be closed our goals as you can see there are really to keep students and staff safe and in school and to ensure academic well-being for our students and our staff so based on our conversations with um the health departments as well as cdc guidelines and the state we're able to keep a six foot distance for for athletics and activities lunchroom we would ask that if you are within four feet so one students are in the hallway walking down walking down to the cafeteria going through the food line we would ask they would be masked the benefit is that most of our classrooms across the district allow for
016three foot distance therefore in our classrooms they would not need to be masked we're working right now in those classrooms that have possibly less than three foot distance so that students would have the opportunity to not have masks on in class our goal would be to limit the mask um implementation as much as possible one of the things that our instructional department did was look at within a seven-hour day what would that mass guideline look like so we would be looking at a two hour minimum without masks thirty percent of the day our mass breaks would occur during outdoor recess lunch and snack general breaks and additional time when necessary i think one of the benefits i think one of the benefits that we've discussed is that the level of masking would be significantly lessened
017our goal is to keep our students in school our issue is that quarantining becomes a problem so if we uh the last thing i'll share is that if we have a situation where a student under 12 is not masked they would have to go home for up to 10 days so that would be my the update for for right now what we would be looking at thank you madam chair [Applause] that's right okay all right please everyone i really need your help i sincerely i beg you i want to hear everyone please please we are ready to um at this time take items from visitors um actually we have um yes um that is not what i okay sorry all right thank you just one moment please um it is time for um our items
018from visitors the purpose of the board meeting is conduct the business of the school district in public it is not a public meeting the board recognizes the value of public comment on issues related to the operations of schools to ensure that our meeting is conducted in an orderly manner we ask that you address the board directly which is this microphone here please state your first and last name keep your comments two to three minutes so others have time to voice their comments keep your comments general in nature not directed at a specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for k-12 grade students add additional information or perspective and try not to be redundant while the board sincerely values public comment please note if any time the meeting is willfully disrupted and cannot
019continue in an orderly manner if the business of the board has not been completed the meeting will be recessed and reconvened at another location everyone signed you saw the sign up sheet um you can call the district um prior to our next board meeting we just we have our sign up today today so i'm not worried about that but we do have uh you have the ability to call into the district early and get your name on the list um and that is the admin office so if you would like to play it be placed on the comment list to address um discuss agenda or non-agenda uh topics that being said i have a list of individuals that would like to address the agenda topics tonight the first individual on the list is wendy bulk
020please keep your comments everyone needs to feel bam okay very good go ahead wendy uh thank you madam chairman wendy volk um just want to say i've shared a letter with you each go ahead individually publicly if you need to and um just wanted to say that i do applaud for all of your dedication i know this is not an easy topic during what we've done but i do want to applaud what laramie county school district did last year was we did not have to close down any of our schools and classrooms and that is kudos to all of the protocols that were followed and i do think with the masks it is going to be essential to go into this new school year implementing the mass recommendations and the cdc does say that they
021are recommending that universal indoor masking for all teachers staff and students and visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination status children should return to full-time in-person learning as they did here in wyoming and in cheyenne in the fall with layered prevention strategies in place so it worked successfully last year i would love to see us continue it thank you for your time thank you mrs wolf next up danny walker please if you'll hold your your comments and your applause we can get through as many people as we can uh jenny wacker thank you my name is jenny wacker and i'm a proud parent of a second grader here in the school district i felt it necessary to attend this board meeting to show that there are parents in cheyenne that are deeply concerned about the
022district's current plan to make masks optional i ask that you mandate masks in all our schools while the delta variant is surging the current plan to make them optional and strongly recommend them goes against the guidance of both cdc and the american academy of pediatrics it ignores the science on covet transmission in kids and in the effectiveness of masks it fails to give our youngest kids those who are unable to vaccinate a chance to avoid infection after over a year of sacrifice as i'm sure you know the delta variant is replicating itself at a startling speed across the united states and in schools already open and in session as of last friday more than 10 000 students and teachers across 14 states are now in quarantine because of coronavirus exposure please many schools are being
023forced back into virtual learning we wore masks all last year to avoid this and now we are being asked to risk it again i hope not our children are not invincible most cannot advocate for themselves we have to stand up to protect the health and well-being of our children families are depending on you to follow the science and protect the health and safety of our children in our community our children deserve to go to school without worrying about getting sick and spreading the virus to their immunocompromised unvaccinated or otherwise vulnerable family members and friends and neighbors we should not ask our young kids and their parents to choose between going to school and staying healthy and safe our school district was highly successful in preventing the transmission of covid last year i ask that you
024please listen to the experts the people who do this for a living the epidemiologists the virologists the public health specialists they are whom we should be listening to about mass this is a health crisis not a political charade i ask you or i tell you that these decisions are in your hands and i thank you for the caring concerns that you have for our children if this decision that you make will keep a single member of our community from suffering serious health issues or death is it not worth it thank you for your consideration thank you mrs watkins all right the next individual up to speak is sue eppley sue eppley thank you um before i speak i'd like to point out to the board that it's very hard to hear in the audience with
025all the abusive statements and the back talk that's happening behind us okay at this time please use your own children please i want please we have to have orders so everyone feels safe to speak no matter what please please mrs eppley please go ahead my name is seward pelting superintendent crespo members of the board thank you for the opportunity to address this meeting i've been a family child care provider here in laramie county for the last 30 years in that capacity i recently received the updated coven 19 guidance for early childhood education settings and child care programs from the wyoming department of family services our program serves children aged 10 and under with the recent increased number of positive topic cases in laramie county we have implemented a strict mass policy all children over age
026two wears mass all family members dropping off are picking up wear masks my family and i are required to wear masks as well while at the program this policy is both indoors and outdoors while the cbc state's mass are not necessary outdoors as long as physical distancing is in place we all realize physical distancing for children under six is as foreign as them as calculus is to me it simply doesn't happen our mass policy is how we are attempting to protect the children in our care and prevent them from covet infection there's a problem though it's pointless for us and other child care programs to take these steps if their siblings and other close contacts who work in our schools are not required to master child care is a vital piece of the infrastructure of
027our community if we are unable to provide care because of a program closure due to covert exposure or a verified case of covid there is a crack in that infrastructure each child care closure has a ripple effect the closure of my program alone with the capacity of 15 children would impact laramie county fire district 1 laramie county fire district 2 crnc including the icu dyna noble state of wyoming administration amr ambulance service cary junior high east high school and laramie county school district administration i was so proud of our school district taking the bold step to implement mandatory mass during the last school year and it worked i'm asking you to make that same choice again put the children's health and safety first listen to those who have been tasked with providing guidelines during this
028pandemic especially the cdc and the american academy of pediatrics whether you personally support masks or not or getting vaccinated or not you are tasked with keeping the children and staff of our district safe our families are counting on you we are counting on you but most importantly the children are counting you and a very short personal note my daughter is an icu nurse here in cheyenne she is unflappable she and the members of the staff in the icu are already showing signs of ptsd i ask you on a personal level to do what we can thank you thank you all right the next individual up is ross um we need to hold our applause so we can get through this it's c-h-o-a-t-e i'm sorry if i said that wrong ross thank you excuse me thank
029you thank you actually i didn't really intend on speaking because i figured there would be a lot of other folks that kind of have the same belief that i do okay just go ahead and address the board because we're going to hear you thank you i want to start off though with the pledge of allegiance a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and for the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty that's right with liberty do you know what liberty actually stands for the right to choose people out there that want their children to have masks and i agree with that if that is how you want to raise your children i am all for it however if we start letting our politicians including
030the school board make decisions for us where is it going to stop first it's with mass we're too skinny we smoke we don't exercise how many choices are we going to let our politicians make for us on the behalf of us because we want to give up a little bit of liberty for security i don't go that way that's why most of us moved here to wyoming so i guess i want to end this a little bit early with a quote from franklin or from uh hang on here from benjamin franklin any society that will give up a little liberty freedom to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both thank you heather casey thank you hello my name is heather casey i have two children one is a student here in lerman
031county my daughter will be starting second grade in one week at gilchrist elementary and what's discouraging is to realize that as a second grader she has never experienced a normal school year never instead of looking at the facts about copin 19 and the minimal effect on our children our children and our freedom to choose how we raise them is weaponized by the government most notably the cdc when you whom you guys have decided should be the decision maker on how our kids will reenter and go about this school year the cdc is supposedly backed by science yet there is no talk of therapeutics herd immunity both of which are looked at extensively in other diseases their only ploy against this virus is the vaccine and the mandates the mask mandates there's no data to support
032that the masking works to stop the spread of the virus we know that healthy children are not affected by this virus teachers and other adult personnel within the district you've all had a chance to be vaccinated that's your choice the perpetual use of fear is doing nothing but destroying our people's individual discernment and the example that it sets for our children is scary i'm standing here to tell you not ask you but tell you that whether or not my child wears a mask should be my choice and every other parent's choice in this community we're coming up on being two years out from the start of the cobin 19 outbreak and it's a continuous hamster wheel of fear fear perpetuates chaos and with chaos ensues control this is not about health anymore this is about
033politics control and funding but guess what that's right and you know what two can play that game if you continue to attempt to make health decisions for my child i will pull her from the school district [Applause] aaron you gotta tell me i'm so sorry i am still struggling um aaron it's w w-a-s-z-k-i-e-w-i c z and y squared next time there's a spelling test thank you and thank you aaron for understanding i appreciate that my name is erin nowaskowitz each and every parent in here has the same primal instinct when it comes to their children protect them at all costs i bet you even had this instinct before they were born protect them at all costs you pray for your children you pray before you go to bed that god will guide you to raise
034them and protect them and if you're anything like me those same prayers cross your lips several times a day every good parent wants what's best for their kids and they want them to be safe and healthy that's why a piece of cloth has become such a hot button topic we all want what's best for our kids the thing is is that my instinct for my children might be different than yours my instinct tells me that forcing my children to wear a piece of cloth over their face for eight hours a day is an unhealthy choice and therefore not safe while another parent might feel very strongly that it will protect them and therefore keep them safe the desired outcome is the same protect our children at all costs for the last 18 months we've seen
035many different statistics and studies surrounding coped while these are amazing tools the big problem with statistics and studies is that people tend to pick and choose how to display data they pick and choose which studies fit their narrative and they throw the rest out and then we argue and get nowhere i'm not going to change your mind on masks any more than you're going to change mine i'd like to leave a document with you when i'm done here you'll see that it's a rather old document but unlike the statistics and studies i just mentioned this particular document is cannot be disputed i have a copy today of the declaration of independence in this in this timeless and undeniable document you'll find a statement in there about inalienable rights inalienable rights are those rights that are
036given to us by god by your creator now what i believe and what i think the guys who created the document believed is that god created my body god created my children's body and therefore my inalienable rights pertain to my body and my children's body god gave us air to breathe therefore one of my inalienable rights is breathing fresh air ladies and gentlemen of the school board you do not govern my body my children's body or the air that we breathe i ask that you let parents instinct prevail this year and let masks be an individual choice i ask that you stand up for the inalienable rights of each person that created that god created who attend your school district and let masks be a choice [Applause] all right you guys have seen the wyoming
037constitution article 1 section 38. all right let's go one better then let's go wyoming statute 14206 protection of parental rights the liberty of a parent to care custody and control of their child is a fundamental right that resides first with the parent all right you guys are forgetting this it's the parents choice if they want to match their kids or not and that's what it should be period you guys need to start thinking about what you guys are doing commit crime all right this is a wyoming statute not is it is it ever been brought up here before there it is think about what you're doing [Applause] mrs bond please would you like to address the board thank you hi thank you my name is rochelle bond i'm a family physician and i think more
038importantly a mother of two young children my son just turned four and my daughter is almost six so she'll be starting kindergarten this year um you know it's interesting because i actually agree with a lot of the statements about autonomy obviously i'm wearing a mask i think we know what side of this argument i'm on but i think autonomy is it is about choice but i think i believe that my autonomy has i say a limit but it stops when it crosses your um your ability to live your autonomy and i think when we don't if we don't require masks then we are infringing on the autonomy of everyone else to be honest we can't breathe excuse me um yeah can you speak a little i'm sorry can you talk a little closer into this
039absolutely thank you please please um yeah and i love that we're teaching our children to bully i hope they're not watching this please yeah um [Music] i think i think a lot of this is about risk and benefit right so i think and and a lot of talk about fear and i think that the people who want masks are afraid that their kids and the community are going to get sick or that people we see in the icu there's going to be more of them and more people dying but i think there's also this fear that i'm hearing tonight about our liberties being taken away um but to me it's just about how you know like the woman you just spoke before i agree with pretty much everything she said like we do have this
040primal um instinct to protect our kids and to me that's when we practically implement that in a school setting or in any public setting it's about risk and benefit the benefit has been shown it's strong it's big it's a big benefit and the risk to our children i just i'm not seeing it this it's not even about like studies showing it i mean my kids are four and almost six and they can wear a mask you know it doesn't keep them from interacting with the other kids um it doesn't it doesn't keep them from having a rich experience what i what i want is for us to get back to basically normal life and if we have to wear a mask for a few more months or a year to do that i think it's
041worth it you know i want hey you said not to interrupt don't interrupt me um you know i want my daughter to go to ballet i want her to take swimming lessons i want i want my kids to do what everyone else wants to do and i think mass is the best way to do that so thank you thanks very much thank you all right our next person up in order please be respectful whether they agree or disagree with you please be respectful so we can get through this list angela smith hi my name is angela smith i wasn't really planning on saying anything but i felt like i wanted to come up here and just say that i have a eight-year-old in the district i have a younger one that he is in a
042private school i definitely do not support the mask mandates i feel like it should be an option for each parents to decide whether to mask their kid up or not and i will tell you my eight-year-old went through school all last year and he told me mom if i have to wear a mask i don't want to go back to school so i'm just here to tell you that if you mandate masks and you don't give us the choice i am fully prepared to pull my child out of the district and do another schooling option please take the kids off at the mask off of our [Music] so to kids um to the mic please heather i know i saw you earlier now i appreciate it we can keep it together so heather can talk
043thank you good evening madam chair and trustees my comment tonight will look a little different than usual i've come in front of you all several times over the past five months and each time i bring data and literature to back up my stance on unmasking our chil children or at least giving them the option you guys have heard tearful testimonies from kids you've heard countless testimonies from parents and i think that should have been more than enough yet here we are again i know with confidence that putting a mandatory mass mandate back in place for our district is the wrong choice but blaming the cdc guidelines makes it an easy way out here's the thing you guys we don't want to even pack masks i don't want a mask in my kid's backpack so seeing
044that maybe 30 percent of the day that's too much i don't want to wash and launder and pack masks anymore i don't have to worry about putting them in a ziploc so having it even be first a requirement for a certain part of the day is too much to me and like many others in this room i'm just baffled that we start school in a week and i just finally heard the smart start plan or the startup plan uh that's just to me it just it leaves parents with little time to make a plan b but in my case i've already been planning the plan b um but you know it's i saw one of those slides said that if you've had a covered vaccine or have had covet in the past 90 days the
045quarantine policy doesn't lay out for you but how are you guys monitoring that how do you know who's had covet 19 in the past 90 days so is that just something we say on our policy or is that something we're actually going to do one of my concerns this whole time is we're ignoring natural immunity we're treating like artificial immunity is better and it never has been and it never will be um you know to me it's it's just not even just about the masks anymore it's it's so much more it's you know we keep hearing that this is for the health and safety of our kids but two of the big things that stand out to me that our board has voted on is taking away sports for elementary school kids and now mandating
046mass for kids as young as five to me neither of those are about their health and safety in fact it's the complete opposite so you know as of tomorrow tomorrow morning my kids are disenrolled from this district [Applause] i have a plan b and my my kids are gone until you guys gain our trust back and until our district makes some massive massive changes from the inside out you know and what makes me sad is you guys are losing great kids right i mean my kids all just post for a minute they're healthy vibrant smart pacesetter kids they're energetic they're the kids teachers love your district will miss our kids i know they will because these are the kids that make our district strong they're the kids that make families want to move here right
047but the problem is we can't keep them in the district with even 30 of a mask we just can't so i'm removing my kids from the district but i'm staying with these guys and i'm showing up i'm holding you guys accountable so just because my kids are gone i'm gonna be right here because i want my kids to graduate from this district like i did it's my responsibility to love and protect my kids to guide them to keep them stable and safe and tonight i need to act on that thank you take a second here um please keep we're running out of time please keep your comments you've been great at keeping that two to three minute thank you so much um please make sure and i this is on me because i've been calling
048your name but if you could please state your your first and last name that's on me i should have had you do that all along but i've been calling your name so i skipped that part but if you could do that that would be helpful and uh if there's any additional information or perspective um uh that would be great and please could we just finish up with being respectful no matter where we are in the spectrum here let's just get through this public comment at this next time please have missy spy uh spear s-p-i-e-r um please address the board missy is she here why can't we all scream they're violating their own policy because you don't have to register your name according to their bylaws so it's very infuriating excuses okay to hear that these
049parents are up here fist the off excuse me please they are so angry nobody is being hurt this is so public and this is our kids that we've cared so much for and you're gonna do what you want anyway we give so much for our kids we care for their their health their education their brains we want all this stuff we try to put into them and there's so much put on these stupid masks that the rest of our sports are taken away but make sure you have a mask you've got to be kidding me my kids are wonderful in school i have three girls in school and they just absolutely love it straight a student wonderful in sports lots of friends i don't understand how this is going to make such a big difference
050and it's infuriating that we're all standing here trying to support our kids and make and grow and educate good people for our society and it's all about this piece of crap in our face we want to be listened to and we're not being listened to if this is what we want for our kids this is what we should have if it wants to be some parents want to have mass i'm totally good with that if we want to separate for three feet do that and i'm good with that but it's not being listened to we don't want this it should be some kind of public poll opinion something it's not and it's not that it's well this is what this it is take it or leave it i guarantee you you're going to see a
051hell of a drop in the attendance of our schools because we are considering taking all three of our girls out because we don't want this just for a mask this is dumb if we have healthy kids and it's infuriating there's no more flu we've been cleaning more that's all it took clean more kids are nasty just clean up a little more my kids are not horribly nasty clean a little more i wipe down all kinds more we've gotten sick a whole lot less we don't wear mouths clean more sanitize bleaching whatever i just want the best for my kids in this is not thank you thank you missy marcus please marcus hey um the next person on the lyrics marcus is he okay i couldn't see him back there thank you awesome thank you for
052the opportunity to address you today my name is marcus crawl i did prepare some remarks my son goes to hobbs i am here in staunch opposition to the mask mandate there are three principal reasons for that one they're not needed two they don't work and three i believe they're actually detrimental to the health and well-being of our children number one on the no need topic the cdc national center for health and statistics cites zero covid deaths in wyoming among the zero to 17 age group there's literally no threat to these children that is the cdc's own data there have been 354 deaths in the entire united states in that same age demographic from perspective there are 73 million young adults in that group so your odds of death from covet if you are under 18
053or 4.8 times 10 to the minus 6. do the math on that it is ineffective the danish study published in march of 21 of this year in the annals of internal medicine cited no statistical difference in masking there were 4 800 participants in that study it's a population-wide study no difference and as is my opinion there's not much data here but i believe it's detrimental to the health and well-being particularly the psychological well-being of our children to create a climate of constant fear and anxiety these kids are going through tough times already if you're pre-adolescent especially your life is changing you gotta show up to school every day with the fear of something that should not be there there's no reason to be afraid of this and i've cited those statistics please recall that 70
054to 90 percent of communication is non-verbal and i think we are removing a lot of that from these kids they should be able to interact with each other it's a time for socialization and when you take away 70-90 of their ability to communicate that's a huge detriment and speaking from my own perspective my son he wore it all last year and he hated it he tells me it affects his ability to breathe and so how is that in his best interest it's not so in closing i would just say as if you are educators you should rely on logic reason and evidence and um covet has obviously moved past that it's a it's now a political issue and it's it's almost a dogmatic religious issue for some people and i would say reject the dogma
055trust the data and say no to the mass please g i believe that's a g-a-b a gable or gabe chuck thank you i apologize thank you chuck gable will you answer questions no no okay but uh you have the choice right now to sit there with a mask or not a mask yes we're just asking for our children have the same choice to their parents just like children are supposed to there's plenty of studies done everyone's come up here and said it mass stunt development children especially young children they need to see the face they need to see the expressions to learn so all you're going to do is get children removed from your school eventually and they're not going to be there anymore then you've got to lay off it's going to get smaller
056and smaller but the point is you have to give the parents the choice because right now the only choice is keep these kids in school or take them out of school that's the only choice we have and i have a feeling most of these people are thinking about taking them out you got like 10 people to keep them in now with that like where are we going at what cost are we keeping mass on our children think about them possibly future stunting their growth very little evidence shows that he helps children probably no evidence at all but with it here we are all these people fighting for it so all i say is give the parents choice that's it that's all it takes a little bit of conversation going both ways now i have one
057question i don't think you're an answer what happens when i send my child to school without a mask every day you said you'll send them home but how many times if you could answer that today that'd be great because my children will not be going to school with a mask i want to know if you're going to kick them out on the online program kick them out suspend them something because they're not going to have a mask it's my choice my children's choice they don't like it i'm going to keep it that way and i hope the parents do too because eventually i think you're going to kick more than half the school out it's going to be real interesting because you can't fail them like we did on the island online you guys didn't
058fail anybody so if you kick them out i don't think you're failing again so just think about it you're going to kick my children out eventually i think but i don't know if you could answer that for me today that'd be great what happens if they show up repeatedly without a mask thank you um james um bowers i'm madam chair and fellow trustees i'm speaking loud because i know it's tough to hear in back then i'd like to point your attention to the core values right there on the wall one of the pieces i'll point out is talks about maximizing learning opportunities and it says we will maximize learning opportunities by making data-driven decisions you may have seen that i shared with you earlier this morning i apologize for the late notice some information that
059was put out compiled data from the american academy of pediatrics we heard that referred to earlier today as well as the children's hospital association uh it talks about a handful of things but largely related to kids there have been 4.3 million cova cases nationwide 371 deaths let's put that into perspective 0.00 have resulted in death okay let's keep that number in mind let's also consider hospitalization beyond just stats the hospitalization rate for those kids in the u.s since the beginning of covid 0.004 in the trailing 12 months 281 people have died from copen just looking 12 months and let's also look at some other risks that we take every day interestingly the iihs insurance institute for highway safety indicates that 844 kids 12 and under not all the way 18 12 and under will die
060annually in vehicle-related incidents so i'm not saying covet presents no danger but i believe there's perspective to be gained by understanding that by taking off our political hats and looking at the data which is what we're saying we're going to do based on our core values we can see what dangers actually exist and compare those with those that we already consider acceptable risks each day when we do that what we can see is that our kids are three times more likely to die on the waste on the way to school getting hit by a car or in a car than they are in class without a mask what i'm asking you to do is please when you're taking cues from your health partners which you've already done but also in the coming days i'm hoping
061that you'll hold science in greater esteem than the political pressure that you're feeling and please use that to guide your decisions going forward and please avoid the hypocrisy by not following your own core values thank you thank you she lives on taft avenue i'm sorry i i'm not exactly sure what the last name is so nicole on top avenue thank you and if you could state your last name it was just hard to read for whatever reason here thank you very much my name is nicole diesing c-i-e-s-i-n-g thank you um a lot of what was said here tonight i was gonna say so i'm going to skip to what i think is really really important to my family if you don't know by now your jobs based on our base are basically on the line
062people are listening learning with home school last year i can tell you i did a lot of civics learning did a lot of constitutional learning i learned my rights your rights my daughter's rights i'm better prepared now to do this though i'm terrified just as you commit to teaching and learning we also commit to teaching and learning our children sorry i'm skipping around i again as i've learned a lot this last year myself between homeschooling covid medical teaching masks i've also learned another word dyspinia breathlessness you're probably asking yourself exactly what dyspinnia breathlessness is i know i did the quick definition discomfort from breathing that's without a mask discomfort from breathing shortness of breath can't catch your breath uncomfortable unpleasant terrifying it's a respiratory infection that my daughter has it's not tachnia it's not hypernea
063it's not hyperventilation but it's difficult labored uncomfortable terrified breathing we went through asthma specialists allergy specialists the regular doctor specialists i saw everybody i couldn't figure out what was wrong with her she couldn't breathe she couldn't catch her breath i know all of this now because one of america's best pediatric pulmonologists in the united states at national jewish hospital hospital in denver told me that my beautiful daughter my 11 year old daughter now has it and will have it forever juvenile dysfunction breathlessness learn it because it's happening to our youth and it's happening because they're wearing masks every day you're masking our children they are developing more and more different types of bacterial respirational infections matter of fact in the heart of covid in january lily was the eighth patient that day to be seen
064by this specialist specialist american specialist the leading pulmonary youth specialist the eighth patient again remember this isn't part of covid they were only seeing emergent patients that's how my daughter was emergent she was the eighth and only patient seen that day and they were all diagnosed with this disorder i don't know about you the fear in my daughter's eyes scared me to death it scares her to death she still can't breathe i'm almost done this is just the beginning if you continue to mask our youth their immune systems cannot tolerate it thank you thank you through the mask if we could just finish we only have a few more please thank you very much liberty thank you hi i'm liberty robbins um so when people were up here with mass talking all i could hear
065was bumbling how are my kids supposed to learn when their teacher is wearing a mask and they can't hear or understand this how do they learn but more than that my son has a speech problem how is he going to overcome his speech problem if he can't see how people are talking he went to summer school with no masks he was happy no one was sick i never got a single alert the kids were talking i had a teacher tell me that those three days that they didn't have masks the kids were talking more than they had ever heard them talk you we've muzzled our children they have no voice they get into trouble if they don't wear them my name is liberty my mom named me that for a reason i believe in america
066i believe in my rights and i mistakenly had hope that this year would be different that my kids wouldn't have to wear a mask they had the last three days without a mask he had summer school without a mask i was like yes it's happening they listen to us no and you don't tell us until a few days before school starts it just it feels so cowardly to me it feels like you haven't listened and so i sat there and scrambled i'm like okay maybe i can afford private school i just started a new job i can't homeschool what about after school care oh my god oh my god what am i gonna do i know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna save my money and they're going to private school next year i can't
067take this anymore it's enough [Music] more than that i'm a mental health professional that's my job you have given them anxiety depression and then you take away their sports on top of it no outlet no outlet for how they're feeling and it's gonna be awful how these kids are gonna turn out i just i'm sorry it is so i'm with the rest of these people standing in the back maybe being a little bit too loud because they believe in something we want a choice if you want to send your kid in a mask i support you if you don't i support you give us our rights back our liberty a choice to do what we want with our children please thank you amber buchanan thank you good evening my name is amber buchanan um we
068just recently moved here um from torrington a place where we did not have masks in the school for the last six weeks and i would really prefer not to revert back to that because always forward that's my philosophy always forward and now we're not always forward we're going back and there's never an end so i know you guys aren't going to have any dialogue but i'd like to ask you what is your threshold what is the magic number that you guys look at because any elected board will have a guideline to go by so what is your threshold what's your number so so um sorry gold standard for healthcare is mayo clinic so they put out a study saying this is august 21 saying that transmission rate contraction rate of coping 19 amongst children under
069the age of 19 is significantly low and in fact out of the total population of the united states of coba cases children under the age of 19 is 13 they take up 13 of that it's pretty low so laramie county right now is at a 14-day average of 508 confirmed cases so if you do the math and i know that you guys are looking at science because math is science right so if you look at that number there's a hundred thousand seven hundred and seventy people in laramie county that percentage is point five percent now i guess if your threshold is a half of a percent and that's what you guys use to mask our children then i guess that's what you use but i haven't got that number yet so i decided that i
070would get vaccinated for my child there's a time and a place for masks healthcare absolutely totally get it but not our children when the contraction rate transmission rate is that low why our children i vaccinated for my child because i know that he needs to be in school without a mask for him to learn and have academic excellence that's what we need that's what every parent here wants it's it was my choice because i knew that's what was best for my child if that's what's best for my child how come you can't the people that want masks that don't feel comfortable that's fine they have that option they can wear masks but i don't want my child to wear a mask i don't want to go backwards thank you and i apologize um on red
071fox jesse thank you and this will conclude our public comment i say no point of clarification i signed up to speak did you skip my name um okay i'm going to read you wyoming state statute point of clarification under robert's rule of order which this board operates under under bylaws excuse me wyoming state statute 16403 a member of the public is not required as a condition of attendance to any meeting to register his name to supply information or to complete a questionnaire or fill out any condition priests present at to his attendance a person seeking a person seeking recognition at the meeting may be required to give his name an affiliation my name is jamie lean and i am standing up for wyoming state statutes and i want to know that i get a chance
072to speak because i was on a list hello my name is jessie rain i have four kids and i work for the school district and i respect everybody's position here i understand that we all have a place and like everybody said we're trying to do what's best for our family um so i work for the school district and i last year we went through the process wearing the masks all year my children myself and i just seen um working in the schools i seen the it's like it's like oppression on these kids you know they're the ones that that do enjoy the masks you could say are sad and and scared and fearful and my children are not and they hated it and i work at the school where my daughter was at she's 12
073years old and i would see her pulling off her mask trying to breathe in p.e and get yelled at to put it back on and i just seen the division that it caused between teachers and students just constantly you know the teachers that's their job they're trying to do their job pull your mask up get your mask on get your mask up and masks fall down when you're talking and when you're working and when you're moving and and i just seen the division that it caused and it hurt me and i uh this year i i i work for the insurance we have our own business and i i work for the insurance for my family of six and um i don't know what i'm gonna do this year i told my husband i'm not
074sure what i'm going to do i it was so depressing just seeing all these all these kids myself every day all day wearing these masks and we followed the rules and we still ended up with covid and we got through it um we i got really really sick and i don't usually get sick but i got through it and it didn't it didn't stop any of us from getting it we still got it and i remember back in um when i was pregnant with my daughter she's 12. uh the swine flu came out and i was scared to death of that and i stayed out of walmart for six months trying to stay away from it well i ended up getting it um and i got really sick and a lady that was as far
075along pregnant as i am in my same age she died from it i didn't i got through it but i got bronchitis i ended up in the hospital very sick but i never got it again you know 12 years i never got anything until i got this coveted and i'm hoping that i built an immunity to it and that uh you know i'll be okay and my children will be okay um but my son um the first week he had to wear the masks he had asthma attacks all night we had to hook up breathing treatments all night and my kids are very involved in music and speech and debate and mock trial they do lots of stuff in the school and i don't just want to pull them out and this year i'm i'm
076worried about that you know i don't know what i'm going to do and and i was thinking about this and i thought you know america is the land of the free and home of the brave freedom means not under the control or in the power of another brave means ready to face and endure danger or pain showing courage and i thought about wyoming as the quality state means being equal in right status and opportunities and i feel like being forced to wear a mask is teaching our children we aren't free we aren't brave and there's no equality and i want to show my kids better than that they're good kids you know and so thank you thank you very much [Music] very good there will be a second opportunity to address the board um after
077um there's a second opportunity for public comment if you go ahead and take a seat sir what's that pardon when's that um it is on your agenda item it comes at um after the consent agenda and it is actually on um f on the consent again i'll just be quick sir thank you please if somebody here wants to force my child to wear a mask here with me thank you all right i challenge you thank you see how that goes if you don't have the gumption to do it by yourself don't get coward and try and get others to do your dirty work committing criminal act thank you sir all right moving on to take that carrot out of your opportunity for public take that federal carrot i'll be here please and listen to my
078parents second opportunity for public comment thank you mr clerk mr clark oh the consent agenda thank you very much all agenda items listed with the designation of consent agenda will be considered in a routine items by the governing body and will be enacted by 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 remove a motion from the consent agenda oh yep i do actually i'm not on the consent agenda rich sent me out a little bit further so we will be doing that um we have upcoming meetings the staff picnic is cancelled we have the first day of school on august 23rd august 24th at 5 pm wsba fall roundup
079meeting albany county school district number one september 9 2021 tentative wsba training for lcsd1 trustees september 20 2021 5 pm work session 6 pm board meeting now i have individual board communications and reports does anyone have anything to report seeing none i would like to make the comment earlier when we started i did not mr bolin is unable to attend tonight and is not going to be joining us and has been not joining us on zoom so i should have made that comment earlier i apologize um now we are moving on to reports from superintendent and staff thank you dr crespo thank you madam chair i'd like to call mr bartlett up if he we have a great announcement today and i would just like him to have the opportunity to share that i think
080one of our guests stepped out can you turn it up so as i was saying adam chair i'd like to introduce our two new sros we have sergeant rod pete over here he is going to be uh overseeing the entire crew as you recall we do have 10 sros in the schools and we also have officer gray hutchinson who will be at central high this year we're excited to have these two gentlemen we're very fortunate to have the high quality officers we do in school working with our youth so if you would please give them i'm here for my second update i would like to share that we've been very we have a presentation for the 100 day plan update which i will be posting on the website you can follow along where i've been
081a number of places really um enjoying the community connection have had lots of individuals share thoughts and process we'll continue to do that over the next 30 days and then come back and do another summary uh our goal would be the first 30 days we spent in the community um and the next 30 days we'll be in departments as well as visiting every single school and talking to all staff uh and then i will come back with a summary report for that followed up by a narrative which will then move us into our strategic plan moving forward uh that we would that we'll be working together on getting that going that as i said that plan is will be up on the website tomorrow and there's a uh there's also a map to see where
082where we've been and what we're doing and the feedback that we're getting so we'll make sure that's all available for you tomorrow that's it for the superintendent's report madam chair thank you very much thank you now we're ready for the consensus can the board ask some questions of about the superintendent's report oh yes absolutely okay thank you we normally do that yes when we're waiting for it thank you okay so may i go first yes please all right thank you so much and and dr crespo i appreciate your report um but i have some questions because uh i know that a few weeks ago we thought that the announcement for whether or not we would mask would be on the 20th and you stated tonight sort of the plan that you and your staff have
083come up with um and i was wondering about one of the folks that spoke tonight asked about the threshold and that's a question i didn't think to ask about last time is do we have a threshold or do do you and your staff have the threshold with regards to allowing choice um amongst our students once the you know because last time we heard from the county health official about the three the three tiers of his measurement and i i wondered if uh if that threshold has been established in our own protocols trustee clawson thank you so much for that question i don't know if you remember you did ask that one actually the last time as well so that's a great review for us those three areas that you just mentioned are the ones that
084the county health department looks at um and from that we've been able to talk to them about the six foot distance versus the three foot and then the four foot distance because of our classroom size we don't anticipate that the students would be wearing their masks in their classrooms what they've asked us is so that we don't have to quarantine that they would add that they would wear their masks during times when they're in a large group setting or walking to the cafeteria or things like that so that when we do have to contact trace which we have to do through the health department which would normally happen if we had measles or chickenpox or any of the other communicable diseases that we'd be able to contact trees those individuals trustee do you a few
085more specific questions i'd like the answers to um so i appreciate that answer so you're basically saying like in the junior high and high school settings when they're moving from class to class okay um i'm really curious about the six foot distance for athletics we we know the cdc has said if if we're going by the cdc guidelines which we are we know they've said three feet so i wondered if you could elaborate on that and i have one more question so i'm going to just ask it now um and that was um you s you stated um or you showed our quarantine policy i believe is what we were calling it and i think it was from last year but it's it's been it's been modified in in the sense that or at least
086from what i noticed it's been modified um to to state that you can self-monitor if you've been exposed um as long as you're vaccinated or you've had covid within 90 days and unfortunately as we've learned in the last several weeks those vaccinated can have coveted and spread covered just like anyone who's not been vaccinated so my question is is that maybe we could look at that again because it's really differentiating something and unless unless i'm mistaken i i would i would ask that we we rethink that now you know based on the last few weeks information we've learned so uh thank you very much for that question trustee that guidance is coming from the health department so the graphic that i shared before with the masking is the same graphic that was shared the smart
087start plan hasn't has not changed the alignment that we've been able to do is to release some of the requirements based on the guidance so when we think about that document with the masking that actually is cdc guidance done in a visual format so that families don't have to read through the whole thing if they get a call about contact tracing they're able to follow the pictures to say well my kid had this and my students didn't have this and therefore they don't have the warranty yeah what we're trying so that document is not from lcsd1 we helped the health department through that guidance development the quarantining information and the contact tracing will come from the health department so if a student has to quarantine the questions that they will ask would be based on
088how close were you to that student did you have your mask on was it more less than 15 minutes what does that look like please and then families would then have to quarantine their children for 10 days which is really at the end of it is what we're looking at trying to keep kids in school absolutely and if we're able to mask them um when they can't keep food i understand and that's your second question can i just do a follow-up right there just i'm just saying it might be helpful as a board for us to consider i understand that's a that's a that's a document that's coming from our county health but based on what we know um i don't think any of us would dispute that cdc is announced three feet is a
089safe distance or i'm sorry that i'm getting mixed up uh anyone would dispute that we've heard in the news now and it's been it's been announced by the cdc if that's our if that's our guiding light that um the vaccinated are just as much at risk as the unvaccinated so i'm i'm what i'm suggesting is that if that's our guidance we can as a board decide what we take and not take from our county health officials documents you know what i'm saying and i'm just putting it out there and then if you wouldn't mind addressing my second question about six feet with sports especially since our fall sports i think it's only basketball wrestling volleyball that's indoors and i mean if you watch volleyball they're not they're not that close to each other there's i
090i'm a little hesitant about us having this six foot rule as being a hard and fast especially with sports my kids play sports and they're working out they're breathing hard and i think that's the last place you know that we want to have them breathing in their carbon dioxide and sweating and working out that's a great thank you class and that's why yeah so that's actually a great clarifier for us the six foot distance is when the students are not when the athletes are not playing on the volleyball court they have enough distance where we're asking them to mask is when they're sitting on the bench [Applause] what the what the health department has asked what the health department has asked us is that in order to not quarantine the students or the athletes please
091we really want to finish this let dr crespo answer trustee i would appreciate it because i i would like to learn the information so if you would please let the superintendent answer yeah i i really need to know what this what she's recommending so the health department has recommended that when students are sitting on the bench or in the locker room if we're using locker room access that they mask if they're close together if they are on the port or if they're playing they do not have to wear the mask the reason for that is the contact tracing and i'll keep coming back to the quarantine and i and i will share this repeatedly we try to not quarantine kids because our goal is to keep them in school and every time we have an
092out we have a situation where there's a contact race that child or those children around them will have to be quarantined for up to 10 days that's 10 days out of school so that's the reason why this has become such a tough conversation brittany's got some questions no are you good now thank you alicia please let's go ahead and that was several thank you thank you dr crespo i you know when you were talking i was i think you were talking maybe quickly because you were trying to get through things but it was a little loud and i i was i was struggling to hear what you were saying um so i was hoping maybe you could go back over and i tried to write it down real fast but i just didn't catch it
093kyle can you bring up the slides yeah if you could um so i want to as well i'm sorry man no go ahead i just want to um share that it's important for the board to understand that we do not do the quarantine it is not it is not our decision so the quarantining comes from the health department we do not have that authority we're taking the guidance so that we can keep our kids in school so if you look at the slide that's up there let's see if we can run through trustee smith just so that which one you're talking about or do you would you like me to go through it a little bit slower maybe a little slower um but i in particular was i was i just couldn't think fast enough
094to hear what you were saying about the minutes that they were sure you know you talked about outdoor and lunch and snacks and breaks and but then we also have the three foot distancing hopefully in the classroom where there is i mean that is that hard and fast if you can just sure one of the benefits of being an lcsd one is that our class um lists and our class size and enrollment allows for us to for the most part keep three foot distance in the classroom that being said what the health department has stated and helped us with is that if we are able to mask students when they cannot do three foot distance traveling in groups going to the cafeteria salad bar whatever that looks like then we are able to keep the
095kid the masks off when they do have three foot distance which is far less than the original six foot distance that we started with please let it finish thank you when they're outside they when they are outside they absolutely do not have to wear their masks we would ask so they all hang around okay please let dr crespo answer trustee alicia smith's question we have business that we need to do i appreciate your help let's get the answers so the reason the the purpose of the quarantine of the guidelines that we're using for the three foot the four foot and the six foot distance is so that when there is a contact trace we do not have to send everybody home we don't want to close the school we don't want to have to say
096nobody had a mask on our kids didn't have a mask on you have to quarantine 150 kids for 10 days or 70 whatever the number might be at the time so the protocol that we're looking at right now which is by the authority of the health department please so the document that trustee claussen had asked about is this one this one came from the original health department conversation the changes whether or not the contact tracing is tight enough i i believe trustee smith the one that you're talking about is this document so what we're working with right now is that if a student is within six if they're in in a locker room on the bench and they cannot keep six foot distance they should have a mask on in order to not quarantine if
097they're four-foot lunchroom they're going through the salad bar or they're together and they're they're not in their group that they would normally be in class we're asking them to consider wearing them to wear a mask this will avoid the quarantining this plan was already approved remind as a reminder last year the reason that we were able to stay in school is because the smart start plan was approved by the board you were aware of what the circumstances were and the health department has helped us try to loosen the guidelines so the kids can have some flexibility still keeping quarantining in the forefront and then the last one is the three is the three foot children so i hope that answers your questions [Applause] [Music] order please trustee smith had one more question and then please
098i i actually i unfortunately have a lot of questions and i won't ask them all because we've got a lot to do and we do have a lot of folks here who want to talk if you always just let us talk for a minute then we can get on to the public comment but it's it's really hard with people yelling and i i would i would laugh i would like to hear what our audience members have to say um i'll just i i think you all probably know i don't want a mask i don't want my kids mask i have an eight-year-old who is he had a hard year last year so these details are really important to me um as a parent as a board member obviously because we're we're making decisions and we're
099doing things that affect a huge community so i i would like to ask a couple more questions and i thank you dr crespo for taking the time to to do this with us um so we talk about every two weeks we're going to be addressing numbers does this plan with the three foot distancing and the when they can have masks and when they can't does that ever change are we with with the two weeks that you're addressing or we would we ever lift this i mean are you are you thinking that there's a time where we would say you know what kids don't need masks anymore so certainly as we talk to the health department on a regular basis and those three areas of cases hospitalization infection rate go down then we can lessen what
100that looks like because there's less quarantine i don't it's not a district decision we're not saying margaret doesn't say this is what we're doing it's really based on it's really based on the quarantining guidelines and what the health department is willing so that we don't we're not closing down a school it's it's that balance there's nothing there's there's nothing other than making sure that those numbers stay where they are and hopefully do not continue to go up so that we can we can um contact trace in a way that lets our kids stay in school let me ask one more question please so with the contact tracing i was under the impression last year that the the state and the counties stopped doing contact tracing maybe because it was overwhelming for them but they stopped
101that but i've always been a little confused because we kept it up in the schools but my understanding is that is the only sector of wyoming society that kept up with contact tracing is that am i off i don't know you you weren't here yet but maybe somebody else knows i can only speak to the schools i'm i'm not aware of what the what that looks like outside of the school um i and and through the guidance that we're being given is that statewide i don't know statewide is that that's uncomfortable contact tracing is that statewide or is that just in this county i don't know that either i only live in this country i'm sorry i i don't want to give you you know so i wouldn't anticipate that it's a statewide conversation since
102districts across the state are having them but i can't guarantee that thank you all right can we go ahead and trusty crossing did that take care of that for you thank you madam chair um trustee smith asked one of my questions very good thank you very much now thank you dr cressboa for that clarification finished with the board reports all items listed on the consent agenda um with the designation of ca are considered to be routine items by the governing body and will be enacted by 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 remove a motion from the consent agenda seeing then madam chair i move to approve all
103motions listed as consent agenda second all in favor say aye aye opposed no motion to pass the consent agenda passes that moves us on to future business the next regular board meeting will be held monday september no that's for architectural services for roof replacements at various sites second all in favor say i i oppose no motion passes madam chair i move to approve a contract with edwards general contractors incorporated from mccormick junior high school emergency generator replacement second all in favor say aye aye opposed no motion passes now do we are we finished now so um yes the future future business the next regular board meeting will be held monday september 20th 2021 at 6 pm and a work session will begin at 5 pm the business of the district is done we are now
104ready for public comment again i have a list state your first and last name the purpose of our board meeting is to conduct the business of the school district in public it's not a public meeting the board recognizes the value of public comment on issues related to the operations of schools to ensure that our meeting is conducted in an orderly we ask that you address the board directly please state your name your first and last name please keep your comments two to three minutes so others have time to voice their comments please keep your comments general in nature not directed at a specific individual or individuals and please remember that it needs to be suitable language and content for k-12 grades students additional information or perspectives try not to be redundant while this board sincerely
105values public comment please note if any time the meeting is willfully disrupted and cannot continue in an orderly manner if the business of the board has not been completed the mill the meeting will be recessed and reconvened at another time or location so if you would like to make public comment in our future meetings there will be an opportunity to sign up i sincerely appreciate everyone doing that next on the list for our second certification could we put a list out for those that came late no this is where we are thank you very much for asking shannon ashby would you like to address the board shannon ashby thank you shannon hi everyone i'm shannon ashby i have three children in this school district i wanted to talk to you guys about the new curriculum
106that you guys have implemented on our children it is called witten wisdom for anyone that does not know i have a lovely poster board for all our parents to see oh sorry guys okay um i just wanted to say our children are very impressionable especially uh kindergarten through fifth grade um these modules are nine week long modules and the first one that started that really affected me was for second grade second graders are going to be learning some interesting things if you guys don't know what it's what it's about it's called uh civil rights heroes and in one of these books it talks about the about a child going to school when she was in first grade thank you so much and her name is ruby bridges and if you take a look at the
107middle picture right here in the black background there is a lovely word that starts with an n i don't know about you guys but i certainly do not want my child or children to know and experience that type of information in their curriculum i am i'm hoping that uh i have people that also feel the same exact way i don't know why it is considered a second grade curriculum when we sit here and talk about the racism that was portrayed a while ago at such an early age i do believe that this needs to be discussed but not in the second grade when there are inappropriate words being drawn on the books on the walls because my children are going to be asking what does this mean what does that word mean and what makes
108matters worse is the teacher the teacher asks and points out that specific word not the word itself but mean slurs that black people were called back then what i'm asking did any of you guys ever take a look at this curriculum before you guys implemented this because it says the board voted on this and it's going to be implemented into our program this coming fall this coming school year as in next monday it starts i don't know about you guys but i had no idea about this information this curriculum that was being taught that's going to be taught to our children the picture up here up the top corner civil rights this is a still images of a video that our fifth graders will be learning about civil war shannon thank you i just want
109you guys to be aware of it and i just want to say shame on you guys if you guys had no idea about this thank you [Applause] i'm late i'm a single mom i arranged for child care to be here and i'm appalled that i can't sign up to speak with the rest of the community and that half of us are being censored and i'm going to tell you as a director of an organization i will raise grassroots funds to sue the school board and enforcement and i am disgusted as a single mom that i came here and i cannot speak i am not happy thank you actually that's not hard all right listen listen all right i understand that the rules are we you guys did the sign up sheet i appreciate that could
110we like be mindful of our times please please thank you thank you please excuse me thank you would you like to start thank you hi i'm janelle johnson um i sent you an email expressing my concern that this curriculum went in wisdom was a form of critical race theory and that the book seemed very inappropriate for elementary students you assured me that it was not crt well if it's not crt if it's not critical race theory then why are children in the second grade learning words like white superiority white mexican inferior as well as sent a sentence that reads a young white boy pointed at her and yelled go back to your mexican school i do not believe that children see race or skin color unless they are taught to do so and uh older
111children but my seven-year-old has no no right doing this you say it's not crt then why is it anti-american the book george vs george is an embarrassment to the truth and to the integrity of our nation's founding parents please read this book um this book is a slap in the face to our brave heroes like george washington and the sons of liberty not to mention the entire idea of fighting for freedom from tyranny i know america is not perfect nothing on earth will be people are flawed but there has never been a freer country and yes the revolutionary war was necessary despite what the author wants our nine-year-olds to believe many questions came to mind while reading this book and here are just a few why do fourth graders need the viewpoint of a tyrannical
112king why do fourth graders need to hear about rape scalping the idea that indians ate their victims and that romances may have occurred between british soldiers and american people in their homes occupying their homes and another one why are you intent on feeling filling young minds with doubt about the freest country the world has ever known you say it's not crt then why is it so anti-bible the book starry messenger read in the third grade says this by upholding the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe he had gone against the bible and everything the ancient philosophies had taught galileo went against the roman catholic church at that time not the bible very different i believe that god created science but of course i do not expect you to teach that
113in school but at the same time i do not expect you to disrespect my beliefs you also assured me that the books were not inappropriate for elementary students so how soon would you like your children learning about murder and suicide here are some excerpts from the book walk two moons read in the fourth grade so he if he stabbed us in broad daylight maybe one of our neighbors would discover our bodies and take us to the hospital before we bled entirely to death and here's another one later when i was doing my homework i found myself doodling in the margin of my english book i had drawn a figure of a woman with wild hair and evil eyes and a rope around her neck i drew a tree fastened the rope and hung her i
114don't want my nine-year-old reading this book i already mentioned some of the material in george versus george the book shark attack read the eight-year-old seems a little graphic in my opinion i didn't read every book in the curriculum but i found plenty of disturbing material and the few items that i read there are thousands of wholesome books that have been used in the past and could be used i am curious as to why you chose these books with disturbing messages thank you happy sci and when you guys sign up you can print that would help me i'm so sorry you have lovely handwriting thank you yes thank you basically um i sat for a while trying to decide what i wanted to talk about tonight obviously i do not want mass for my children that
115is the main topic i wanted to ask a few questions knowing that you will not answer them why have parents concerns over the new curriculum and how why have they been ignored and why is it that it's a form of crt but you are telling us it is not do you plan to give parents an opt-out form so that they can decide whether or not they want their kids to be to be taught as an appropriate curriculum if so when will that form be available if not why number three why have our concerns regarding kids wearing masks this year been ignored obviously you've heard that a lot tonight why are they not being given the choice to wear when or not when the surrounding districts are choosing to have them as a choice just like
116laramie county school district 2. i understand that you are receiving emails and possibly even phone calls from parents and staff that want the mass to continue but for those of us that do not want the mass to continue we feel our voices are not being heard which is why we went to the which is why we want school choice for masks we get that some of them are afraid and they feel that the piece of cloth that they made at home or bought at a local store might give them some comfort and sense of security but for those of us who actually understand that those thin pieces of cloth don't work and actually cause more problems than they solved we want to be able to have our kids in school without them how can one
117district allow choice while another won't why do teachers and staff feel like they can't stand up and ask these questions about the curriculum and the mask use for fear that they may lose their job is that the environment that we want for our teachers and staff we want to believe you have our kids best interest at heart but right now it doesn't feel that way when teachers and staff that we know and we talk to say that they cannot stand up and ask for these questions themselves you as a school board were elected by this community because at one time or another we believed you were here to be the voice of a community of our kids i voted for a couple of you because of the things you said while campaigning i thought you
118would be a voice for me and my kids because you expressed the same concerns we had we feel like you have not stood up for those very concerns that you gave and that we gave your support to we do we don't want you to agree to everything and we want to have some pushback when you are opposed i did see that tonight and i appreciate that we know it's hard being the minority but we also want someone to stand up to the bullies that are on the board and we don't want you to back down when when things matter we want you to fight for us some of you say that the that you're against crt but have you taken the time to read the books that have been bought for this curriculum this year
119if you had you would know that it actually is a form of fear crt that is being taught in our school i as a parent pledge that i will be more informed and more aware you have made it very clear that these meetings are not for our benefit but for your own you do this as sort of a show to put on in front of us to make it seem like you're listening when in fact we don't feel you are you have opened the eyes to so many in this community as parents and i hope you are ready for the fight ahead of you we will not back down we will ask questions thank you we will come to every school board meeting and we will speak when we have our chance our eyes are
120open and we are now awake thank you cathy please thank you sam hi my name is pam pafford and i have three kids in the school district two at east and one at kerry and my oldest um which is crazy for me i believe is a senior and i want to make sure that he has a fantastic year and i believe that is without masks for all my kids but i also believe that anyone that wants to go and wear a mask more power to you i wanted to say a quote from an interview when you're in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is and often there
121are unintentioned cons unintended consequences people keep filling with the mask and keep touching their face that is from fauci an interview i don't know the whole interview but what he is saying is what we all know it doesn't work kids are touching their face more a couple other things 2017 to 2018. 186 deaths pediatric deaths i could find from the flu 2018 to 2019 136 2019 to 2020 188. i was only able to find a flu death for 2020 to 2021 of one now going back to the numbers for math with kids and i do understand that yes 423 kids passing away is not okay and it's very sad but i also understand that anova's pcr test was recalled not all the pcr tests but that one was so we don't even have an accurate
122account my guess is that a fairly large amount of the 423 deaths from covid were actually influenza i also understand as a woman that took care of a husband that passed away in 2015 of cancer of what it means to have to take care of someone with a immune system that is also that or it can contract diseases and sickness but the boogeyman has been around for people like this a lot longer than coped and covet is never going to go away no one is saying that it is here it is here to stay it keeps mutating i don't believe it will go away you said in your big four one and two stay home when sick wash hands and sanitize well that's common sense i think when you have children so i don't know
123why that's even there if you're not teaching that then maybe you need to go back to parental school i don't know um and also for the people that want to wear a mask i support you we tell you you have that choice you have the choice right now to wear your masks that's great teachers that's fine but you tell us we don't have a choice not to that's not okay this is america the home of the free because of the break we have a choice our kids have a choice suicide went up 250 percent wyoming's suicide rate is alarming also our test scores are not phenomenal and what is this going to do for further down the road it's not going to help it we'll just keep going lower so please no masks thank you
124krsp please help me out s-p-i-e-r thank you so my name is jeremiah spear we have three daughters in the school district and uh actually it was just recently brought to my attention about the books and some of the stuff in this written wisdom that's pretty alarming in my opinion um you know actually just hearing some of the stuff that's in it is actually kind of appalling and i have to admit i never even knew that this stuff was coming this is actually my first school board meeting because i had no idea this this junk was going through and i don't want my kids to even hear some of that stuff in my opinion educators need to teach math english social studies let us raise our parents or our kids that is my job and my
125wife's job as a parent to teach our kids that stuff you know this whole critical race theory is kind of crazy i i couldn't believe some of that stuff i don't know if you guys saw my wife earlier she's black you know our kids are are mixed i mean we see all this stuff and both her and i are both shocked that i've even had to come here and see this stuff and it's it's kind of embarrassing um the other thing is is i'm actually going to be coming to quite a bit more of these meetings and i'm going to do a lot more research you guys are going to probably hear quite a bit from me because i think this stuff is kind of appalling so that's kind of all i had to say
126i just wanted to make sure you know please i think he's thank you and i apologize i miss that thank you hi my name is uh dwayne bazzanet and i'm uh the director of child evangelism fellowship here in town and one of the things that we do is we run public school bible clubs for anybody that signs up we don't make anybody go um but we are looking to go back into the schools and we've been denied again this year we've denied all last year we understand but i'm just trying to find out why we're being denied again we have lots of volunteers that want to go in and walk with these children teach these children i also heard and i want to know if it's true but the same time we were being denied
127gsa was being allowed to meet which is their right but we should have that right as well we love teaching the children we love connecting with the children we love teaching them about our lord and savior jesus christ and we are really wanting to go back into the schools so i'm just wondering why we're being denied and they're being allowed and one of the reasons i was told we were denied was because we're not considered essential how is gsa essential and we're not because they're going off for something they believe in we're going off of our faith it's the same thing so gsa is the gay straight alliance so um i'm not saying anything bad about them they have their right to me but i'm just saying we have our right to meet as well
128so i would just like to have an answer that from somebody that's saying why we're not allowed to we're being denied again i was told again last month no in september ask again in october i was told that all year last year and i emailed every month and i got the same answer so that's all i'm looking for just an answer thank you thank you lizzy barnes please lizzie barnes lizzie barnes please thank you hi there i'm lucy barnes superintendent and board most of what i have to say has been said so i won't take too much time i i was just thinking of what else i could offer sorry to you uh i am a teacher and a parent i want to see public schools succeed i want to see children succeed um i
129can speak from a classroom perspective i was just looking at a few statistics on my phone about masks and how even the best masks are only eighty percent effective when they're worn correctly most of our children in our classrooms are not wearing the best masks they are not wearing clean masks they are not wearing them correctly they are dropping them on the floor putting them back on teachers can do a lot to help with that but that's just how kids are and so uh just that that's my two cents there uh the the curriculum is some is a fight that i'm gonna keep coming back to fight because it does not belong in our schools especially in a community like this that you were elected to serve wyoming's suicide statistics are horrific and if you
130think that serving our children dark uh really hateful self-loathing messages is going to help with suicide rates and and where the deaths are really counting kova does zero i don't know what suicide deaths are but it's bigger than zero i think we have a bigger service to cert a duty to serve in that area and kova none of us know what to believe with covid but i think that speaks for itself there is no science that says one way or another and if you're going to go home tonight and act like your hands are tied you're you're not going to be reelected just to uh represent us and it's i really i any of you who would go home and do that uh act like you you don't have a choice here to be to
131be the servant to our community and to our children and to to tomorrow say i do have the choice to to give you parents the power again otherwise i don't know how you can sleep at night and there's a lot of parents here who are going to keep coming back and making sure that you hear that message thank you thanks on rugby drive lane on ruby lane [Music] thank you it's just hard thank you very much lane thank you my name is elaine klungnus and i found an article in the wall street journal from august 2020. in february the centers of disease control and prevention recommended against wearing face masks and instead urged americans to take everyday preventative actions like staying home when sick washing your hands and these recommendations were guided by the government
132desire to conserve medical mass for health care workers so what i'm hearing here from all these people and all the research that i've done is it sounds like you people are siding with consensus science and not fact-based science now i'm going to go into some other things here as well and the guise of hiding behind the health department each and every one of you are going to be held accountable for what the outcomes are this covet mess and when it comes to the psychological the dermatological and the respiratory i think there's going to be countless and i mean countless of class action lawsuits and i think each of you are going to be named as defendants when this starts to come thank you and i would be very concerned about that so this came from
133a uh pulmonary website that i found the cdc and the who while surgical masks provide a barrier against large respiratory particles they are ineffective at providing protection from small particles surgical masks also do not prevent leakage around the mask when the user in here inhales therefore surgical masks are ineffective and do not provide enough protection when uh performing direct care for patients with kova 19. they don't work there's press everywhere if you elect to go find it now if you're in the other camp and you want to surround yourself with the narratives that you like then that's what you're going to believe this is this is an everyday mask you can buy a walmart this is what it this is what you're wearing we have 34 seconds sir thank you information and treatments regarding dietary
134supplements and that's what this category falls under have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration and are not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent disease or health conditions you guys need to stop and the next group that's going to be held accountable accountable along with each of you is going to be our health department [Music] the last name is domingo and it's n-a-a-i-c-q-u-e thank you can you tell me how to spell or how to say your anik it's like unique but with an a very nice thank you hi my name is anik domingo i'm gonna just read a little something from america's front line doctors about masks um it's a myth that masks prevent viruses from spreading the overall evidence is clear standard cloth and surgical masks offer next to no protection
135against virus-sized particles or small aerosols the size of virus particles is much too small to be stopped by surgical mass cloth or bandana a single virun of sars cov2 is about 60 to 140 nanometers or 0.1 microns the pore size in a surgical mask is 200 to a thousand times that size consider that the cdc website states surgical masks do not catch all harmful particles in smoke and that the size of smoke particles in a wildfire are 0.5 microns which is five times the size of the sar cov2 virus wearing a mask to prevent catching sar cov2 or similarly sized influenza is like throwing sand at a chain link fence so i just don't see how you guys can't have the logic to see especially with wyoming wind keeping sand out of a chain-link fence
136i mean your eyes are exposed unless you're wearing glasses if somebody sneezes and they're not wearing a mask or they have it on their hand like you can't prevent it and the safe start plan claims to keep staff and kids safe but at what point do you realize solution the solution is worse than the problem following man for guidance on how to live is our first mistake we need to follow god and he made our bodies so magnificent our bodies are created to fight viruses illnesses and much more even cancer let our bodies do what they were designed to do fight off covid and a house divided against itself cannot stand this is more true today in many ways but it seems that only one view is being heard and one view is being chosen
137for all of us so let us choose we want to choose for our children if we can't choose counselors teachers pe teachers secretaries principals including all of you will be out of a job so let us choose and keep our kids in school without masks we don't need you influencing them in any way with curriculum as well with any of your agendas and keep people employed brown okay angie wendling angie windling thank you angie guys uh my name is angie wendling i'm a mom of three and a wyoming native you know when our children are faced with difficult and complicated questions in school we teach them that facts matter we ask them to critically analyze and think for themselves and to create an original response that they can explain and defend so let me remind
138you of a few facts surrounding covet in general as well as how it relates to children covenanting poses almost no risk to school-aged children they don't they have a greater chance of being adversely affected or dying from the seasonal flu than they do from cobit 19. did anyone on this board suggest that kids wear a mask for the seasonal flu as the flu is actually more dangerous to them than covet 19. the cdc and the naih and the aap are issuing guidelines that are contradictory to the very research they pay to conduct mainly that face mass are ineffective at preventing the transmission of the seasonal flu because flu particles as it was just talked about are so small that they escape in around and through facial coverings have you ever wondered about the health effects
139of people being forced to breathe through spit and dirt soaked rags all day and how it relates to their respiratory system i know a man that did his name was dr fauci in a glorious example of hypocrisy he published research in 2006 that concluded that the majority of deaths during the 1918 spanish flu likely resulted from bacterial pneumonia which was the last time the mass population utilized the use of face masks having a k-12 school counseling endorsement i'd beg you to stop and consider the possible emotional side effects of teaching our children that the air is toxic that the people around them may be contaminated or sick and that they must hide their humanity in order to feel safe when concerned parents write in and call to this district and show up to the board
140meetings we are met with the same canned response that you are monitoring the situation and working closely with the state health department do you realize in doing so you are throwing logs onto the fires of frustrated laramie county two parents and we're not going to settle for the same shallow response that is void of fact reasoning and basic human decency we're asking you to critically analyze the data read peer-reviewed scientific research see if those things line up with the the regulations that you are receiving from the laramie county health department and at the end of the day do what's in the best interest of our kids and not roll over and play dead for the laramie county health department it is also completely disrespectful to all the families in this district that you have drug
141your feet on this issue of mass guidelines until the last possible minute before school has started at the very least this mandate should have been discussed and voted on at tonight's board meeting so that we can see the reasoning behind your decisions and watch you make the choice in front of the people who elected you here we are yeah here we sit in front of a board that is seriously considering mandating a procedure that is proven ineffective and potentially very harmful i know this speech may fall on deaf ears but in closing i'm begging each one of you to take some time dig into the truth about respiratory transmission use that knowledge to make your decisions be guided in truth instead of forced into fear because if you don't as a laramie county health board
142as a laramie county school board you have the potential to be more dangerous to our children than this virus [Applause] um so i didn't have a spot to like sign up or anything but i wanted to share um the students point of view because we've only heard from parents i i don't think any of you realize how hard this is it's so hard to breathe you it's hard to make friends you can't understand anything anyone says you don't understand how hard this is you have all your procedures and stuff like oh you can stay six feet apart but it's so hard you don't even understand i don't even think that any of you could survive one day in my school with all the math and all the stupid things you have us do you cannot
143do it you couldn't okay you don't understand how hard this is so as a student i don't want mass i don't want sanitizing i don't want any of that i just want to have a normal school year again so like please just listen to all these people don't don't ignore us because that's not okay [Music] thank you brittany it is brittany correct yes it is britney spear i'm actually here to address the board in regards to the long-term suspension of my son ryder spatana from laramie county school district number one on may 24th 2021 an incident occurred between my son and another student after school hours and not on school grounds the incident involved included some social media usage um it took approximately 43 minutes for the thing to be posted and taken down again
144before and after school out it was after school hours and not on school grants according to page nine of the district handbook it states that the school does not tolerate any form of harassment sexual harassment intimidation bullying or violence on school property in a school bus at a school bus stop or school sponsored event program or function where the school is responsible for the child the incident at hand involving my son occurred after school hours not on a school-sponsored social media site or using a school-issued device the long-term suspension of my child was a severe overreach by the district involved in this incident currently the recommendation from the school board is for my son to start at the educational student annex program until january 14th of 2022 again for an incident that took place on
145may 24th of 2021 this is not an equal opportunity yet in education the student atec is only in session from 9 30 to 11 30 a.m during the week the rest of the program is done independently at home the remainder of the day the program only focuses on one subject at a time for the semester before moving on to the next subject with no options for elective courses because of how the student annex program is set up it automatically sets the kids to be behind in course requirements when they re-enter their school my son will have a certain subject knocked out of the semester but will enter east high school behind in other core classes he will also be required to take election extra elective courses to meet the requirements to graduate since none is
146offered at the school this is absurd to me he is being set up to fail and start behind essentially for the remainder of his high school career my son already missed the last six days of the 2020 21 2021 school year he was suspended for the remainder of those six days i am here tonight requesting that my son be given the equal opportunity to start the 2021-2022 school year at east high school and join the rotc program which he signed up for which will help him in more ways than the student annex program well i'm requesting that a formal investigation into the mishandling of this incident by multiple district employees which i emailed everybody on the board here about earlier today be investigated i'm in attendance to fight for my son's education and to give
147him an equal opportunity has every parent is here tonight you have parents threatening to leave the district i am begging you to let my son attend and give him the opportunity to show that he can be a good student that he made a tremendous mistake but it should not affect his education an incident that took place outside of school should not affect his education at all thank you thank you i'm sorry if i didn't get that right thank you please good evening my name is brooke bolgren thank you lcsv1 for allowing us to be here thank you for the job you do and the time you spend serving our community quote okay let's talk about risks the risk is there the risk is obviously less the younger the child but it is not zero now
148a lot of the initial concern before we had adequate vaccines for the teachers for example was what kind of risk for the teachers being exposed to and that's what motivated a lot of the initial mandates with regard to masking and social distancing in the school end quote that was a direct quote from dr hartman which he stated on record during the work session on june 21 2021 he said it himself that the masks were put in place to protect the teachers this means the students were forced into masks and it was the kids responsibility to protect the teachers how awful to put such a burden on our kids and i'm ashamed of myself for falling for it i want my kid to be a kid she shouldn't have to worry about these things and if
149i heard correctly if anything is less than three feet in the smart start plan that's when the mask is required i'll consider myself a helicopter parent for wanting to protect my child but you'll also see my first grader walking down the hall like this to ensure that she does not have to wear a mask i'm so thankful that we ended the school year with optional masks last year and i'm here tonight to ask you to follow the current cdc guidelines which include quoted from the cdc website due to the highly contagious delta variant cdc recommends universal indoor masking by all staffs teachers and visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination status the cdc is recommending indoor masking but not requiring it also they also imply that visitors are allowed at the schools which i feel
150should be readdressed from what was stated at a previous meeting that no visitors would be allowed at the lcsd number one schools this decision is going to be up to you the board of trustees to put forth the final say last year the blame and decision making was passed around and no one would take responsibility for it unlike last year you don't have county and state public health orders or cdc requirements to fall back on this is your decision the best decision to make would be to allow everyone to choose for themselves all sides win i promise you i'm sorry those who want to wear masks can and those who don't don't have to i promise you would surely hear a quiet down from this audience and from the emails you receive if you choose
151to allow continue to allow the parents students and staff to make the choice for themselves it's going to make your jobs a lot easier one question i have that i would appreciate additional information on is in regards to the march 2021 lcsd number one warrant register which states the school district paid the laramie county health department 82 three dollars and seventy-five cents i'm just interested in what services this payment covered and from what i could find the last time a payment over five hundred dollars was made to the county health department was 550 in june of 2018. i'll admit i may have missed payments in between but i would and i'm sure the community would appreciate a general breakdown of what that payment covered and whether or not that cost was budgeted i would also
152appreciate a follow-up email in regards to this thank you michelle hayes i'm michelle hayes i addressed this board multiple times last year most of the time receiving nothing back these two ladies here that didn't have mass fun were the only ones that i ever saw try to fight for us for the parents that wanted rights we are not asking that you say no masks at all we're asking that we have the right to choose what is best for our children you guys have the right to sit up there with masks on we want the right to decide whether our kids do or don't those masks last year were nasty most kids were used the same mask over and over they stomped on it they drove on it they threw it in the car are you
153aware that you're not supposed to touch your mask at all without washing your hands you aren't supposed to touch this part at all only the earpieces every mask that is disposable it's one time use it's not wear for six months those masks were accomplishing nothing last year we attended the laramie county fair had no issues the governor's wife was there she didn't have a mask on either she was fine again this year we did frontier days for a full week we did county fair again for two full weeks and i don't know if you guys have ever attended fair as a participant those kids don't social distance they share snacks they share drinks they're hugging they're playing they're rolling they are being kids and it is phenomenal to see covid was nowhere out there and
154again the governor's wife was there this year at the biggest sale that we have ever seen that place was packed six hours in when we left and still going strong this is wyoming we want our rights we want our kids to have rights i'm sorry but you've got to do what we want and that is to let us decide what's best for our children not you guys thank you i'm sorry one minute i have to go my wife works nights i thank you for holding an in-person meeting i just want to say we kind of have the rules follow or not i'm sending my children without a mask thank you i don't know what to what happens when students show up completely without a master's feeling everyone here my name is jamie lean handout 5a
155on day 5 of the 4th grade curriculum mind you this is an english language arts program directions use the lyrics to follow along with this song ain't nobody gonna let me try that again ain't gonna let nobody turn me around that sounds like some phenomenal phonics let's try again with the first grade book alicia has the most beautiful curly hair of all my friends curly hair i i'd like to choke alicia elizabeth likes her more than me i hate alicia two weeks on this lesson it's all about mr whiskers it's about a pet that dies why do you need two weeks on a book about a pet that dies here we go on day 24 of the civics lesson that's been brought up a white young man yelled go back to the mexican school you
156don't belong here day 19 i see many white people yelling at us why are they being so mean i want to cry hand out 19a narrative comparison i see so many white people yelling at us and holding signs why are they being so mean i don't understand why they don't want me to go to this school how about day 24 of the same book children at the mexican school are inferior to whites with personal hygiene scholastic ability mexican children are inferior to their economical outlook in their clothing and in their ability to take part in activities of the school why students are superior to mexicans these statements are not denounced and they are and they as they are false in pages that follow day 27 and day 28 these statements are read again and again
157students are to ask asked to write a narrative from the point of view of sylvia which is the young mexican lady as she listens to these words they must do this writing assignment twice day 27 why did the mendez family fight for desegregation handout 27a they fought so white people would stop thinking they are better than mexican people here's the pictures where the mexicans are depicted as their farm animals determined uh surrounded by flies in a dirty pit with their lunch there's a sign here in the center that says no dogs or mexicans allowed i don't think that's appropriate let's move on to fourth grade curriculum his mother sitting in the station wagon with the man as she leaned across and kissed him kissed him with a short blonde hair it was not a friendly
158pec but a kiss a kiss where it turned his head over to the angle and put her mouth against the mouth of the blonde man who was not his father and kissed mouth to mouth and then brought her hand up to touch his cheek and forehead and they were kissing and brian saw it saw this kiss that became a secret that his father still knew nothing about let's move on to page 116 of that same book to where he wanted to die he had settled into the great gray funk deeper and still deeper until he finally in the dark he had gone into the ridge and taken the hatchet and tried to end it all by cutting himself let's move on to some statistics the summary of the teacher's manual is 506 pages mad and
159angry and suicide are addressed 154 times sad 79 scared 19 heartbroken eight a miserable seven happy is only addressed 41 times [Music] which one of you i want your children your grandchildren hi marguerita good to see you again i hope your grandchildren don't learn this i hope your children especially though the ones the wet mass wears i'm mexican i don't smell i do what i do to treat people decently i served people decently i hope you do not allow your children to think of me okay and i'm sure not raising a victim my son is six he's about to be seven and gonna go into first grade he is no victim he does not need to hear that crap that happened so long ago okay shame on you graceful because you should you know what
160i've earned the freedom to stand right here because i signed the dollar line to die for all of you and i do it again in a moment in any any moment because i want my son to grow up in the united states that i know thank you very much thank you trisha please my name is trisha lean i am a high school student here in cheyenne well i'm homeschooled now but um i am also a swimmer at the high school and personally masks were awful and i don't understand why we don't get the freedom to choose if you want to choose to wear a mask that's fine but if you're wearing the mask why are you so scared of me like you're protected with the mask so if i choose not to wear why are
161you afraid of me because you're protected right and when we're swimming we have to wear masks as soon as we get out of the pool when we swim the 500 in a competition which is 25 links by the way you have to put your mask on right after you get done swimming that event i cannot tell you how many girls were puking when they they can swim that thing and practice easy peasy double triple quadruple back we swim that all the time in practice and then we get to the meats and we have to put our masks on immediately after and we're throwing up we're sick we can't breathe we can't compete in our next events because we're too sick because we can't get any air in after we're competing and exercising at our fullest
162capacity and with the critical race theory my little brother is biracial he is half black half white he is adopted i love him i don't want him to think that because i'm white i hate him i don't hate him in the slightest i have respect for him he is a wonderful person he really is he's in eighth grade he's a wonderful kid i don't want him to think that he is hated and that he deserves all of this because he is of a different ethnicity than me he's my brother i don't care where he came from my fourth grade brother he's white he is like me but he doesn't need to be teaching this stuff like he doesn't need to be taught this stuff to hate blacks and hate all of these people or stink
163that she's wrong because he's white and he's a bad evil person just because he's white that's wrong that's bullcrap that does not need to be taught i really you need to stop this because it's not okay it is not okay you're white she's white she's white she's white are you just going to say you're evil because you're white in this fifth grade module module one it says to try and picture the characters at the events and their minds as they listen coyote monster please picture this as an adult discovering that the monster had eaten all the people coyote tricked the creature into eating him once inside he first cut the monster's heart and then cut up his body when he was done coyote washed his bloody hands and sprinkled the wash water across the valleys
164across the clear river please think about that thank you very much can i have the white will yeah i gotta go so it's all i promise you guys it'll be less than three minutes less than one clawson and smith thank you guys very much please because of everybody that showed up here is against this monster excuse me thank you so much mr claire you shut the meeting down last time if we did not have order i will not be able to do this mr career you will need to leave concede your time you will need to lead please applaud please [Music] [Applause] [Music] mr wilkes family jerrick jared or jared please help if it's hard w-i-l-e-s or w-i-k-e-s help me out here they are on four mile they may have already left all right chris
165brown please chris brown thank you madam chairwoman uh trustees thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to speak this evening my name is chris brown my wife and i have lived here in cheyenne for 20 years we have a sophomore and a fifth grader in the district i'm here this evening to speak in favor of requiring mass to start the school year indoors if there is not an appetite to do that district-wide at least please give consideration to requiring that at the elementary age where vaccinations are not yes thank you mr please brown please madam chairwoman we've heard twice tonight from both sides of the discussion that the cdc recommends universal mask wearing indoors in schools i want to note one other health expert's opinion please mr brown please thank you madam chairwoman
166on sunday francis collins the director of the national institute of health stated to fox news that and i quote anybody who tries to tell you don't worry about the kids the virus won't really bother them there's not that's not the evidence and especially with delta being so contagious kids are very seriously at risk end quote he also noted that nationally 2 000 children are in are in the hospital with code right now many of them are in icu i agree completely that that number comparatively to the amount of folks that have gotten sick now nationwide is small but if we can take simple preventative measures to make sure that not one of the children of the parents in this room get sick or has to be hospitalized why wouldn't we do that from our perspective
167it seems like such a minor inconvenience i would agree with the child that spoke just a little bit ago this has been very difficult for everybody in this room and everyone has dealt with it because it's been a worldwide pandemic no one alive has dealt with something like this it's a public health emergency and so on behalf of my wife and i what we respectfully ask you is that you please listen to the health experts and those trained to deal with situations like this as you make your decision thank you very much thank you mr brown amy lance amy lance please amy land please amy lance everyone needs to feel safe to speak please please hi i'm amy lance my son will be starting as a kindergartner this year and as he says he's so
168excited to go to the big kids school there are three things that i want for my son for his first year of public school i wanted to learn i wanted to have fun and i don't want to have him wearing a mask over his face as many of these parents in this room have said it should be the parents choice some parents may think it's better for their child to wear a mask to school and other parents may think that it's not and that should be the parents choice i spoke with another parent just now and she said she has a student who's in track and field her daughter had to wear a mask for five hours on the bus going from here to gillette they couldn't take their mask off to eat or to
169drink unless they stopped and then she said it was in january and they would get off um at a stop and that's the only time that they could eat or drink um i didn't realize how bad it was for students in schools students just need to be kids and have fun and learn um these mass mandates for schools across the country have just been driven by fear and control they're not driven by scientists the so-called experts have been telling us and they are not driven by what is best for children the flu is more dangerous to children but we've never masked them for that virus of course we can take precautions for any virus or a variant that might pop up viruses are a fact of life and we shouldn't let these viruses and fear-mongering
170around them continue ruling our lives we need to challenge irrational decisions and stand up against authoritarians and unelected bureaucrats the place to start is here at the local level you are elected as board of trustees to do invest for children so i hope you help keep kids free and let them keep being kids without mandating them to wear masks thank you very much and i'm sure i moved to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long term suspension and expulsion all in favor excuse me i didn't get my chance to speak okay so i i was the one that was speaking up in the back to make sure everybody had their fair chance too so i'm chair board thank you so much for being here tonight
171and listening to us but when i say that you're listening your name james harmon thank you jane so i've got two kids in the district as well i came up here and voiced my opinion about the uh the old pd thing and after school program obviously our voice wasn't heard in that sense too but i feel like you guys listen to us up here right i've watched body language in the back of the room i know that this is long it's hot i get it sweating a little bit too and sorry if i smell but it's hot here we're here for a reason because we believe in our kids and we trust you guys we put you guys in this office and i feel like you listen to us but you don't do anything from
172this point because we don't get any response back you've heard multiple people here talk about they email you they call you and they need zero response back and i'm i know it's everybody and i can't address one person i just say it as a group right the problem that we have that we don't have trust for you guys right now is because when we do ask questions we don't hear anything back i've come to the school board meetings i've heard the questions that are asked here over and over again but we never have a here's a q a i brought it up last time we were here about the text program q a here's your answers back on what you're asking right that's important to us so i know that i can't i can ask
173you guys questions and i'm trying not to be redundant and i think everybody else covered a lot of this but i really like to know about this medieval policy because i haven't seen anything about a measle policy so if you could inform me on that i would be delighted to hear that okay your masks right you have the fair choice to wear a mask or not wear a mask that is the great freedom about this country talking about my other brother and sister in the military crt that stuff is another aggravating part for me because i've served side by side with people from every race and every color and that's something that doesn't come up because that person next to you and that foxhole is a person you trust it doesn't matter what background they
174have who they love what their religion is but right here in the school system we're teaching people to not get along with each other because of their skin color so that's wrong in so many different levels the other side of this too that i get so frustrated about because this is our voice this is our time i understand that you guys have family to get home too we have family to get home too but when we have the moment to take it this is the chance that we get to be part of the community you guys have asked us for so long to be involved more and you look at this room i know half of people have left already because they've got families to get home too but that's what you guys have asked
175from us but we still don't feel like you're answering our voice and getting back to us to understand why we're coming up with these decisions that's right and so until we get those answers from you guys as a total we're not going to have trust and that's where the dialogue comes in maybe we have to sit in the gym next time because we have so many people in here and we have an open question for them because we want that trust with you my kids are my main priority of my family to make sure that they have a successful future and it's right here i moved from texas in 2009 i lived in cody and moved here i'm raising my family here because i love where we are i love wyoming and this is home
176to me but if you guys don't help us make this home that's where i'm going to find my kids somewhere else and i'm going to take myself my money and my business somewhere else that you guys don't get the benefit of thank you my name is linda easterwood and i work as a foster grandparent in a school here in cheyenne wyoming okay and i'm here to tell you that i have had a birth i view of these children with these masks you are talking health you are talking you want them to be well well they are not going to have any help or have any wellness from wearing a mask that they're constantly touching and pulling on and turning around and wearing on this side then wearing on that side sitting down putting it on
177the ground putting it back on pulling it here pulling it there putting it up here they do not keep those masks on their face and yes the teachers do the very best they can to obey them thank you and have these children in these masks that they wear them probably it's impossible and now what you're talking about they don't wear them here but they wear them there very confusing nobody's gonna know what they're doing or when they're doing it it is crazy and as far as a crt i agree with the person that said if you go home and sleep at night if you allow this to go on in our schools thank you i'm sorry i will pray thank you