001uh good evening everyone welcome to the regular board meeting of the amory board of education uh we will now reconvene in open session we were in closed session earlier uh the first item on the agenda are the consent agenda items which i believe keith had this month yep okay and i'll make a motion to accept those seconds all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right the consent agenda items are approved uh the next uh matter are on the agenda is uh community comments uh are there any community comments tonight we have three people signed up good evening my name is lisa rilo and i teach english here at the high school first of all i'd like to thank you for taking our comments and i don't envy your tasks you've got some very
002difficult decisions to make i'm here to speak in support of a safe return to school a safe return we know that students learn better in person in the classroom and i have missed being with my students in person tremendously we've done our best with online learning in the very short amount of time that we had in order to prepare and if it is such a thing that we need to immediately go to online learning again i know that we will be better the next time because all of us have learned quite a bit but the reality is that we well i'll speak for myself because i don't want to pretend i know everyone's situation but in my own situation i went into teaching because i thoroughly enjoy the interaction with my students and it's difficult
003to sit in front of a computer even with even with zoom and various ways of seeing each other through a screen and teach so we know that students learn better in person i can teach better in person it's much more effective for me to have three classes or four classes at a time rather than 90 individual lesson plans that i'm working with and and we know that mental health is much better when we can be together in person and not feel isolated so there's just a couple of things that i wanted to say in association with coming back to school safely tonight on nbc nightly news one of the statistics that they talked about is that in may 34 states had mandated the wearing of masks in june all 34 states recorded a decrease in
004their number of coveted cases other states that did not mandate masks reported an increase masks not for everyone but for most people it's such a simple thing to do for some people it is not and i appreciated your honesty last at the last board meeting i know that for some people wearing masks is a trigger for trauma or there is a medical reason that they cannot wear a mask but for most of us it feels like an inconvenience but it's a health issue i i will be wearing a mask and i want to keep my students safe i want to keep my students families safe and i will have a variety of masks i will figure it out i've been experimenting with them all summer some fog up my glasses more than others well then
005i won't be wearing those all day but i will figure it out because i want us to be able to be together here safely in person but in the high school there is just no way that we can safely social distance in my classroom there is no way that i can have 25 to 30 students in that space and keep them safely socially distant so for me this is about health this is about wanting us to be able to be together to learn together and um i'm completely in support of us coming back to school but i really want us to be able to do that safely so thank you for listening thank you [Music] hi my name is soon gunther i really appreciate the opportunity to share tonight my respect and admiration for the
006amory school district is high and continues to grow this is an especially challenging time as you prepare to return for class with covet so thank you for your dedication to this essential work as an alumna of amory and now as a parent to a student here emory public schools is a large part of my life and i'm personally invested in its continued success you are in my thoughts and heart daily thank you i'm here today representing the group aim reunited we've been organizing locally around issues of racial equity and reconciliation as you all must know racism affects even the youngest children in the classroom in my daughter's 4k classroom last year in her words the black kid was also the bad kid suggesting implicit bias is present my niece in middle school regularly hears the
007n-word used by her peers this line of thinking negatively impacts black and white futures alike how can we interrupt that our mission in amer united is to build an embodied anti-racist white culture focused on abolishing white supremacy as defined by the ontario anti-racism secretariat anti-racism is the practice of identifying challenging and changing the values structures and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism we believe the school plays a critical role in supporting a culture of anti-racism that reduces harm to students of color it is the duty of educators and administrators to be aware of the effects of systemic racism in education and to provide a curriculum that is honest and inclusive for instance because we live side by side with indigenous peoples on ojibwe land we believe it's important to center the impact of colonization on indigenous
008populations in our study of thanksgiving honoring the truth of our shared history deepens the meaning of the celebration and moves us toward a culture of peace if we want to raise warriors for liberty and justice it's critical that our students are immersed in a curriculum that is rich in diversity and that they are supported by teachers who are educated and invested in dismantling racism in all its forms we would like to offer our energy and resources to aimery public schools in a few ways we can help you raise funds to support school libraries and classrooms with anti-racist literature and books centering diversity and racial equity organize and raise funds to bring guest speakers to school and help plan those events identify lessons programs and resources already in amory schools curricula that incorporate anti-racist principles and
009also provide additional suggestions there can we leverage the momentum of the national movement together can we partner with the board with teachers and staff students and parents to end color blindness in our classrooms and become a beacon for the culturally sensitive practices of anti-racism we believe that if we take these steps and do this generational work together our children's lights will shine brighter and positive change will be affected long into the future thank you for listening thank you thank you hi my name is sam bosley i'm a science and math teacher here at the high school i'm here primarily to correct some information that was offered last week during the public comments uh and support some of the other comments that were made in favor of required mask wearing for those that are able so
010the virus is spread mostly by inhaling respiratory droplets that are emitted when someone sneezes coughs or even talks almost all of these particles admit emitted from an infected person are easily blocked by the masks we're wearing right now not all of them but most of them some smaller particles that manage to get through can be slowed down just a physics thing and they'll drop a few feet in front of you rather than 10 feet in front of you people that wear them that aren't infected get some additional protection because larger particles coming at you are also blocked by the mask again not all of them but some of them so it's effective both ways mostly on the way out it blocks almost everything on the way out the comment was made last week that masks
011don't work because virus particles are very small but those virus particles don't exist mostly as individual particles they're part of larger saliva and mucous particles i'm sorry for those of you that are germaphobes it's a little squirmy but and they're floating all around us if we're not wearing masks based on research done at mit a sneeze mucus and saliva from a sneeze can be emitted from a nostril at 100 miles per hour and travel more than 20 feet so social distancing and hand washing is effective but it doesn't help you if you're sitting in a classroom and even one or two people are sneezing and coughing the particles are going to be everywhere they're going to be floating all around you if the classroom is poorly ventilated if somebody's infected pretty much everybody in there
012is going to get infected as well and research has shown that that's why there's very little infection outside not it's still not you know don't go to a pool party and stand shoulder to shoulder but there's been a lot of outbreaks in bars and offices poorly ventilated inside spaces with people uncovered you will have respiratory droplets floating in the air sometimes for hours people are going to get infected and get sick the mass aren't 100 but they work uh very well to contain that so we have to make sure we have correct information uh again nothing is a hundred percent but every legitimate medical and government source now agrees it's true back in january february march there was disagreement people weren't sure scientists weren't sure exactly how the virus spread we weren't sure we had
013enough masks but since then it's a hundred percent i you know i challenge you to find again a legitimate source start with the mayo clinic i think most of us in here probably trust them right we all know people or have been there ourselves but anywhere you look masks absolutely work to help contain the spread echoing you know what's already been said over the last couple board meetings and then i also ask you to consider the liability issues if other schools are requiring them of all who are able and i understand age medical conditions other factors but all who are able if they're doing that we're not and we possess the information that it can prevent serious illness you know i think that leaves us on the hook for some some pretty serious liability as
014well so it won't be easy i don't like doing it um but you know we have to and we have to do the online options for people for you know for kids and parents who aren't willing to do this or for whatever reason um you know have health conditions that keep them from coming back but i would again support people who've come up before and said every staff member and every student who is able at amory schools should should have to wear a mask when we come back in the fall so thank you okay there's no more community comments so the next item on the agenda are the administrative department reports you guys will be getting all the reports from me today so it's a hazing ritual i was told i'm just kidding you're not
015the new guy okay so the um a little sports update we do have the strength and conditioning program is continuing to go on we've had some very good success with that the organizational structure of that with the smaller groups has been so successful that they're even thinking about doing that long term into next year as well because the kids are having so much success with that we do have a couple of summer camps that are going on various ages throughout the district so that's a great thing past events last week was graduation week with graduation practice last wednesday night went great and then july 16th last thursday night we had a graduation ceremony which also went great tons of people we want to thank for that and it was a great thing other events or
016things going on we have floor tiling and carpeting going on both at the middle school and the high school the auditorium sound upgrades and improvements continue on and in all of our buildings and all of our departments and all the schools we are working very hard to plan for the start of the next school year okay uh those are all the administrative reports he got nominated for all of them okay all right the next item is the annual community education update by ms hendrickson i don't know why you didn't do my report for me mr gold you got to ask before i guess well good evening um tonight i'm going to talk about just a year in community education and kind of try to put in a nutshell how the last year has looked and
017talk a little bit about where we're going from here as you know community education is just a part of my job i also handle a lot of school district communications which includes everything from district newsletters to calendars and social media but we will talk about that at another time tonight we'll just focus on the community education piece in your board packet there was there's a two-page piece and the first page is called the 2019-20 summary review so i kind of want to go through that and i have a couple things to add to that so as you may know i normally put out two community education catalogs per school year one will go out late august and the other one goes out in mid-january so what i'm talking about today is a combination of both
018of those semesters or catalogs if you will so over the course of the last school year between those two catalogs and some other things that were added throughout we had 127 total offerings of those offerings 112 of those fell under the category of education and or enrichment classes workshops and the youth recreation and camps that we host there were five that fall under the category of just our recreation opportunities those are open gyms our weekend wreck basketball our rumble jumble open gym which is for little ones during the week our adult basketball league which is on wednesday evenings in the winter our open gym for pickleball which is also wednesdays in the winter and then power up open gym which we host in partnership with power up as part of the amory hospital and clinic
019there were six trips planned i took two bus loads to mamma mia at the chanhassen dinner theater last fall we took a bus to mean girls which was a broadway musical at the orpheum theater a bust to the minneapolis home and garden show we were going to go to the music man at chanhassen that was cancelled and then we also have tickets to two broadway productions frozen and come from away also at the orpheum both of those have been postponed and pushed back to 2021 and then four events for the event category and that includes two of our youth rec fairs which we have held here at the high school we do two per year and we welcome every organization from girl scouts to booster sports to private organizations like the dance company or martial
020arts to come and share their information with students we hosted um a christmas carol live radio play with synchro festival theater and our annual prairie fire theater which was sleeping beauty last january um it's the goal of every catalog to at least offer of the offerings at least 10 percent of them are new obviously there are a lot of things that we've been doing forever because they always fill up and they're important but we always try to add some new things some new fun things we did this year we added candle making we added decorating furniture painting ghost hunting we found ghosts downtown depends on who you asks we actually talk to them i can explain that later we had a succulent class we offered in partnership with farm table youth yoga classes and then
021i haven't had dance for a long time but this year i found an adult or a man who came in to do adult dance classes and those were really starting to get going before before things were canceled so things were going great up until mid-march like everything else so of those 127 offerings due to school cancellation i had to cancel 41 of them refunds totaling over 12 thousand dollars in refunds um two trips were postponed to 2021 like i said uh registration estimated participants through march and that number comes from actual registrations most of it's pretty black and white but there's definitely a gray area there with open gyms though we track our open gym numbers um it's never exact we never know exactly how many people are in the audience for an event or
022who might attend the youth rec fair but it's pretty close and then this year for the first time i looked back and thought okay how many what would that number have been had we've been able to keep going with what was already planned and easily there would have been through my estimates there could have been numbers would have been another 450 or more easily but we cancelled some pretty big stuff this summer and spring pretty significant numbers um participants by age group and this does not include recreation or event participation about ten percent of our registered participants are under the age of five uh 29 elementary and intermediate school age about 13 percent middle school only five percent high school which is to be expected um over 30 percent 19 through 54 year old adults
023and then over 13 percent are over the age of 55. and i work with 48 instructors leaders different supervisors throughout the course of the year the school year so challenges um two significant challenges this year obviously that are ongoing excuse me obviously that loss of opportunity and not just recreational opportunity but um like dnr we have kids who i mean probably at least 50 60 70 students i'm not even sure i guess they didn't count up who are not getting their hunter education certification their boat safety certification the atv safety certification so all the community ed stuff isn't always just the fun stuff there are some other things that we do as well that aren't unfortunately um are off the table now for a while and the other challenge or challenge obviously is the financial
024piece the goal of community education is that the programming breaks even what we spend on catalogs instructors postage what else transaction fees and software we make up in registration fees and excuse me obviously that's not going to happen this year but on the bright side gives us an opportunity to step back reevaluate regroup and we'll see where we go from here how will things look this fall i really have no idea not really sure where we're going based on the decisions that you make tonight and as school starts then i'll kind of step back and look at community ed and we'll see um see what makes the most sense i have instructors who want to teach we've kind of penciled some things in for late fall i haven't made any promises we'll have probably some
025more online opportunities there probably will not be a fall catalog or there will be a very small version of one and we'll promote in different ways we utilize online promotions different things once we know if and when we can make some things happen as you know community education is valuable in our school and in our community has been for a very long time so we'll be back like everything it will look different that's not always a bad thing and it's okay but it will um lots of decisions yet to be made and hopefully we're able to i want to stay on everybody's radar and we want it we want it to come back when the time is right the second page of your um document is um just partners like community ad can kind of
026be broken down into three pieces i guess i have the the piece where i do classes and then the piece where i'm hosting and advertising for things that are already happening in our community and then there's the piece where i get to be a sort of a community liaison between things that are happening in our community in the school and bringing those things together so i just made a list of partners people that i've worked with for lots of different reasons um including things like design amory and that's kind of the part of one of the parts of community that i liked the most design amory was a large community project that we've been working on for over a year that's now postponed indefinitely it's really not about the school it's about making the community
027better and i'm thrilled when i ever get to play a role in kind of helping to make those things happen so hopefully design amory will be back at some point as well so do you have any questions i don't have a question but a comment thank you very much for how flexible you've been in thank you to all the instructors for how flexible they were as we hit march because i know it wasn't easy for you or for them with how unpredictable the whole thing got it was a lot of we'll let you know and i know you're still probably saying that but thank you for your efforts on that because that had to be pretty impossible to get done thank you sean thank you thank you all right moving on to the action items
028the first action item is the resolution and addendum to add hra funding twyla sickink is here uh she is our personnel person and she is going to speak to first of all the rationale for why we're here and second what you're looking at in regards to her resolution and i'm going to turn it over to her and she's going to dazzle dazzle you with her knowledge dazzle okay um so what you're looking at is an amendment or an addendum to our hra post-retirement language and periodically we'll come up with this because when this was first devised we weren't aware of all the situations that would happen and one came up that we realized our language didn't work with the situation that we had our current language kind of puts an age stop at 65 nothing
029is lost at age 65 but our language actually prevented the district from contributing to a retirees hra after age 65 and as you know when our personnel action item stacia kirper is retiring and she told me it was okay to say she is over 65. i got permission but so our language didn't fit that situation so i worked with ebc who's our third party administrator to make a simple change into allowing us to make the contribution for somebody who retires after the age of 65 really um again these addendums are periodic and usually result from the situation that our language wasn't prepared for and so that's what's in front of you tonight is to ask for kind of a revision to the language allowing us to make those contributions do you have any questions you
030can't catch everything when you draft the language the first time around really and it makes sense this was um is there a motion quite a few years ago both to any questions approve the adoption agreement resolution and addendum to the hra reimbursement second all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right thank you i'll sign the resolution all right uh the next action item is the 2021 student academic standards so it is the time of year to make sure that we have the school board pass the resolution to have a standard so i'm very happy to say that the standards have not been cancelled and we are moving forward i would recommend that the amory school board approves the adoption of curriculum standards of course on an annual basis the school district of amery
031has k-12 english language arts and mathematics standards that are based on common core state standards all other programs are based on the most current wisconsin state model the wisconsin model academic standards as well as national standards so we'll kind of go through one by one common core state standards are programs that are aligned are english language arts and math wisconsin state model academic standards and the c3 which is college career and civic life framework for social studies wisconsin state model academic standards and next generation science standards for our programs in science and then wisconsin model academic and national standards in the following programs art music phy ed health and cte vocational i would also like to update you as of june 30th of 2020 we have three sets of standards that have been adopted revised
032and then adopted english language arts which helps the state's youngest students help build reading foundational skills with an emphasis being placed on understanding phonics through explicit systematic instruction secondly financial literacy which focuses on helping students understand and learn how to make wise financial decisions and finally in physical education which will further support wisconsin students through whole child development and focus on their overall well-being so our three departments of english language arts financial literacy and fyad will all be working on integrating those new standards or revised standards into our current curriculum this year so at this time i would like you to approve our use of the wisconsin state standards national standards and common core state standards i'll make that motion a second that okay all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right thank
033you sorry i should have asked for questions there was one final um document that i gave you and that was newly released by dpi and it is their phase by phase rollout that they plan to do with the revision of all of their standards and it's just phase one understanding what the new revisions are secondly is curriculum is matching our curriculum to the revised standards and then thirdly making sure that our assessment and instruction are reflected on the revised standards thank you thanks thanks okay the next item action item is the warrior bounce back plan okay you see two documents in board book the first of which is a resolution and that resolution reopens the emory schools september 1 2020 the scheduled first day of the school year 2021 and second you'll see the most
034recent version of the bounce back plan the only difference between the version of this plan that you saw last monday evening at our working session in this meeting at the session where you will be asked to take action is the mask policy and i will summarize that version for you at this time the most recent version that is there will be a requirement for all staff and all employee groups to wear masks while at work all students while on bus transportation will be required to wear mass and students k-12 will also be required to wear masks now i'm going to split students into two groups the k-5 group which is the elementary and intermediate group when students are in their cohort and for those who don't know what a cohort is say for instance second
035grade a classroom in second grade name your teacher when they're in that cohort they are not wearing a mask when they leave that cohort and go to another place they mask up in route to getting there and then once they're there as a cohort they would no longer need to be masked because they're still with the same kids once again 6 12 students would be required to wear a mask that's the only change between what you saw last time and what you're seeing here this evening i wanted to make sure you were aware of that so if there's any conversation now would be the time it was brought up in community comments sean that if we don't have um masks and we're not taking that action that that opens us up to some liability can
036you speak to that at all and what that's look like and we did talk about that in a in reopening campus and what that liability looked like and does that still apply here i would be happy to speak to that i've been on two zoom phone calls and a third tomorrow actually and all three of them were with legal counsel in one case our specific legal counsel which would be tri-core and lead home the other was with mike julka who is the lead attorney for the department of public instruction in all three phone calls they have the two the third will be tomorrow i imagine they'll be saying similar as what they said the other two times the liability for any district or any employer for that matter is if you are failing to follow
037an order you are going to be on the hook you are going to be liable say for instance in the middle of april we said we know that there is an order for us to stay home we're going back to school you would be liable you would not be covered by insurance in any way shape or form further the burden of proof in regards to how kovid was tran how covert was transmitted would be difficult at best to prove at this time and the lawyers have said that it is very likely a very difficult proposition to say it was contracted here the only case that mike zulka had seen thus far and that meeting was held approximately a month ago was the case of a registered nurse in a hospital setting where they were in
038litigation against the hospital that they worked in but in regards to school systems that's in in no way would be we be liable unless we're failing to follow an executive order a state order a mandate from a county a mandate from a city a mandate from our government that's what we have been told twice and probably again tomorrow or third time and a lot has changed since the past in the past week i know a lot of school districts in the county were under the old recommendation of mass being strongly required but not mandatory and i guess that's not only changed for your recommendation but and the leadership team's recommendation but well a lot of the other schools are are getting on board with man there are a lot has occurred over the course of
039the last week there are 39 schools in sisa 11 and to understand asia that means the schools that make up northwest wisconsin 39 districts there are nine schools in polk county as of last monday there was one school of 39 one school of nine meaning polk county that had a mandate for kids to be wearing mass and that was a mandate 5 12 grades 5 through 12. as of yesterday eve actually as of this morning of the 39 to my knowledge there are nine and there is a lot of conversation going on my estimation is by the time we get to september 1st you're probably going to be close to 39 out of 39 and here's why there are really three things that are happening in a school environment well there are more than three
040things but three big things that are happening in the school environment for the dynamics of this first social distancing we had that conversation last time it's a tough proposition to socially distance in a school environment it is in some cases nearly impossible the second is for us to create systems in our environment where we're sanitizing and disinfecting and doing everything we can in regards to mitigation efforts and we everything we can we've got on the list so we're going to do those things and then the third thing is the wearing of mass and if we can do that of the three that's the easiest of the three to keep our students in our staff safe now there is a lot of research out there that's saying that kids don't transmit this illness that's not true
041recently as of today the research says that students that are of the age of 11 or older spread the illness in the same exact fashion as an adult does and if that's the case and they're not wearing mass we're putting our students and we're putting our staff at risk and i don't think any of us are interested in that so a lot's happened in the last week yeah i just think that if we don't require students to wear masks that you might you might have 50 of kids that choose to do that if it's only recommended and i i mean you know nobody likes them obviously the kids aren't gonna like it but if you require it then they'll do it if you recommend it you know i think they'll get used to it i
042think that you know people will kind of like well it's annoying but it's better to have a mask on and be back in school and really that's what we want to see is kids back in school and hopefully staying back in school and not having a mandate or having to shut down or having the quarantine whole class or a whole grade or whatever it is the whole high school or something so you know i would rather see the requirement that kids wear masks and allow us to be back in school in person and hopefully stay stay here i do think we need to add a few words to the language that you know that there will be exceptions based on a student's iep or medical condition you know i consulted with an attorney today and
043the two immediate caveats that you need to have to any policy are students that have a medical condition that's documented by a doctor so a signed note stating they're unable to wear a mask for x y or z reason in the other category of students that have an iep and they've documented there both of those are legal binding documents and we're by all means going to follow every one of those recommendations and i will offer one other thing and i'm sorry to cut you off aaron we're going back to school five days a week so if we're going back to school five days a week and we can't really reasonably expect to socially distance really well and we're not wearing masks i think we're asking for trouble and i also offer the following apple best
044buy costco starbucks cvs kohl's lowe's sam's club walmart home depot in 36 states are requiring mass a lot of people are going that direction because the research is very clear it will help stop the transmission of covet 19 and that's what we're trying to do i think i want to say that i do echo aaron's sentiment of we want kids in our school we want kids here five days a week we know that we need them here for their best education i would argue that when you talk about private businesses mandating masks and saying that it is because the research shows that the spread slows the spread of the virus i would argue that that may not be the entire reason that those places require masks now they want customers to feel safe and i
045also have a strong problem with using that we are going to put masks on our children and reopen schools safely i think that would be safer not safely because that gives people a very false sense of security and if we're saying that we're going to put masks on our kids and we're going to open the school safely but yet we're not requiring 20 of the same kids to wear masks just because they're in a cohort i'm i think that sends a wrong message and so i think we need to talk about being safer this is one measure to be safer along with other measures that can be taken and those should be spelled out it is our job as a board to write policy the people that have come here and expressed that they would
046like to see masks in their classroom to reopen schools safely um i hear it and i really want that it is also our job to follow what the majority of the people want but we also have to think about when we're writing policy how is that policy going to look how is it going to be enforced who's going to enforce it and are we creating more problems by mandating something for kids 100 percent versus based on what if um can i respond quickly because i'm going to lose train of thought because there's a lot of topics that you brought up the the first response that i would give is i'll channel lynae seaman she said from the get-go when this whole thing began way in march is we're never going to create a safe environment
047in the emory schools a safer environment there are some things that we can do and we've listed some of those last time and this time that would create a safer environment in regards to staff i have heard from quite a few staff and i know that you might have heard from some i've also heard from quite a few community members that are concerned about the safety and well-being of their kids are the logistics that we need to work out in regards to the wearing of mass and when and how and so forth yes there absolutely is the first action we need to take here is to make that a requirement the second action which i contend is a daunting task is to work out the logistics surrounding that but it looks so very different from
048building to building from cohort cohort the group that i've heard from the loudest in teaching staff are specialists those who travel from group to group or have multiple groups that come in to see them there are teachers here that over i heard from one this morning that'll that'll see 500 kids over the course of a monday through friday that's one third of the district that person is obviously at greater risk than someone that sees the same group of 20 second graders all day long certainly we have to create the logistics that shoulder their safety as well your point is very well taken char absolutely and i think we understand that not everybody is going to be happy i mean if we require masks there are going to be people that are upset and if we
049don't require math there are going to be people that are upset and we understand that there are people that you know are on both sides of this issue we just feel like we have to make the best decision and ultimately our staff don't have a choice other than quitting their job they have to be here with the students and even if a parent or family strongly opposes masks they're not the ones that have to be here every day with the kids especially those upper grades that are changing their kids you know every hour or so and seeing so many different kids so i feel like we need to do what we can to um to help protect and make it safer again we don't know i mean we just don't know what what's all going
050to happen and we don't want to see anyone have serious health consequences from getting this disease um but um you also have to we also have to do our best to move on with life and and uh and try to get everyone back to school so i feel like you know as much as it's going to make some people upset you know we do have that option of distance learning um if a family is refusing to participate with masks on but i kind of feel like we need to uh honor the requests of our staff and there are staff that also don't want to wear masks that is true that is true um but uh i feel like they're more of the opinion that you know i'll do what i have to do to get
051back to my classroom so i'll use cheryl meyer's words if wearing mass for everybody gets us back five days a week i'm all in favor and she doesn't want to do it any more than the rest of us do and that is our ticket back to so to speak to get us back in action i don't see it any other way i don't think this decision can be based on um where you're saying that there are people that's going to be upset whether we mandate them or there's people that's not going to be that's a whole separate issue none of this should be about politics or how somebody feels this should really be about the safety of our kids all of our kids the mental well-being of our kids the physical well-being of our kids
052our staff but we need to realize that when we make this decision that we are going to affect negatively a certain amount of kids that is true some of those kids will have documented need and those kids will be easier to identify and then some of those kids don't and they'll have trouble with that and we hope that we have high enough quality pupil services and i believe we do and i know we have high enough quality administrative team and supervisors that we can help kids work through those issues because they'll exist that in combination with having been absent from us for the better part of six months is going to have a damaging effect on them i get that absolutely but we can help work through that with them but to throw the whole
053thing out because we might have those issues i would rather adopt it and help those kids work through those issues and i know we have the staff here that will help them do that i agree with yashar this decision needs to be made purely on medical science and safety and this is the safest option we've got and once we do that we'll be safer than we were before we won't be safe that is for sure there's a lot of moving parts on this just i just want i just i just want people to know and understand that when we if we vote to go ahead and approve masks in this plan that we make every effort to accommodate those students who cannot wear them for a variety of reasons i know we're going to have
054negative health impacts as well with kids not being able to wash masks where they're going to be we have to figure out a plan how to dispose of masks if they're disposable do we need to think about switching masks out after a couple hours of the day i think we could see increased cases of strep throat and bacterial infections from wearing these masks and distress to parents of our younger kids if they're going to put their kids in reusable masks that those masks need to be washed not only for their own child's well-being but for those of others if those masks are being laid around we just have to if if we're going to mandate that i just urge our administrative team to come up with all of those details i agree and i don't
055want to steal brad baumgartner's thunder he shared with us this morning administrative team when we met about this topic that we need to take this just as we do most other things is an opportunity to educate our kids you can educate elementary school kids about the values of hygiene in the same way and i know i speak confidently for tom and saying some middle school kids could work on hygiene too and that would be an opportunity to do that and we can use this across the board as an educational tool not as a punitive measure we're all in this together by all means it has to be an educational tool and the logistical questions that you raised are they're all very legitimate questions that we're going to have to work through the details on and
056they certainly do look different from building to building but it's not to say we can't work those details out with success because you know who's going to be our biggest help i think our kids are going to be our biggest help they're going to ask the questions that we don't have the answers to and that's going to help guide what we need to come up with because they're the ones living it so they've always been our biggest resource and they will continue to be through this not to insult the middle school population hopefully i haven't offended any middle schoolers i'm guessing we'll hear more about that at the august board meeting is all the details yep well i will certainly bring them back to you we're meeting next wednesday and thursday as an administrative team
057and leading off the day is all of these details that we're talking about right here and now and that'll probably take the better part of the morning to work through them we're working through all sorts of other details too how do you do recess how do you do pickup how do you do drop off how do you do after school care how do you do fill in the blank there are lots of things that we've never done before we're having to create plans for this is just the next set of things we've never done before so that kind of brings me to my next question and i don't know that we really have addressed it in this plan um you know we've said no volunteers no parents but then we also said we opened the
058campus up to other groups to use the facilities and community had we just heard from have we made a decision or do we need to make some kind of a decision about outside groups using the school building after hours you know different groups using you know community ed groups are different sure what we have tried to do on this is chunk this situation into here's the next group of concerns we have to address opening clubhouse addressing the use of facilities after we get to july 1 until we get to sports and then once we get to sports what do we do with groups in september have we communicated our plan with them yet we have not but are we set to in august we're obligated to and we will but to do all of this
059in totality and get it all organized before the rest of i don't i don't know that anyone's capable of that but yes absolutely in the next item on the list after this meeting is athletics what's happening there jeff our athletic director jeff ferdin's got a meeting with the middle border conference athletic directors tomorrow the polk county superintendents and the athletic directors have a meeting next tuesday to determine what athletics looks like because you have athletics firing up here in the better part of two weeks are you practicing how are you practicing if you're practicing are you playing how are you playing who are you playing where are you playing all of those all of those questions are going to need to be answered by this district we are making district decision that is what the
060wiaa has told us all decisions in regards to how you practice and how you play are a district decision so that's a pretty daunting reality because what we decide and what our neighbors decide could be dramatically different and that creates animosity about the topic so we're trying to work through those details as a group as a polk county group and as a middle border group because about 75 percent if not more of our competition is middle order competition but that spans three counties piers saint croix and polk and that's eight schools that do it perhaps eight different ways polk county is going to be on the same page but we don't play unity in saint croix falls typically we play ellsworth and new richmond so it makes it hard so that's the next set of
061information to come your way but we still haven't figured it out because the wiaa hasn't figured it out and nor has the middle border figured it out another thing we've never done before well through media and readings and that you know the mask wearing does make a difference i i think that's a common ground we can all be on i understand not encumbering on people's uh rights and needs and so we need to develop that too as we move forward if we do decide to wear mass i implore the parents and guardians in the community to help us make this successful because without them saying we need to help our kids come to school face to face to continue learning it's going to be a struggle i mean it's one of those things that we
062can set our policy this way but we need the help of everybody to help make this policy work for everybody and so the conversation has been great and that's what we need with that i would make a motion to approve the resolution or the bounce back policy second okay any further discussion all right all in favor to approve the lawyer bounce back plan say aye aye anyone opposed right the uh do we need to make a separate motion for the resolution i think that's what keith as you didn't think you said resolution the resume we're not done discussing that the resolution takes care of the bounce back it does it gives us the summary of the yep it gets us back in action on september 1st and hopefully that document doesn't get any longer if
063we have 17 other scenarios it will be onto page 3. okay all right next item on the next action item are the extracurricular contracts as i just indicated we have sports firing up here in a couple of weeks our fall sports extracurricular contracts are sent out to staff that are or sent out to our coaches and advisors for those activities the word from the wiaa as of friday this past friday was nothing has been delayed nothing has been cancelled so we can't assume that it's going to get delayed and canceled and not send out those contracts we're sending them out as if we're business as usual or playing ball games might that change it might and at that point we might have to come back to the table and talk about how we do our
064extra extra c contracts with language if we have an eight week delay for instance are you paying them their full salaried amount for their extra c if they're only coaching four of the 12 weeks or whatever but we don't know that right now we only know we're full speed ahead and we're starting a couple of weeks so i would ask your approval for sending those contracts out to those coaches and advisors here this evening the extracurricular contracts are not just sports contracts they'll correct advisors too pardon me advisors too in extra in extended contracts those types of things things like ffa those types of activities i think there's a list of all the yes there is the activities and um you know including a lot of non-sports activities that are on board book and again
065i will say that we still have one available volleyball coach position open at the middle school for those who are i know you feel at a conflict of interest but we could work with you that conflict of interest you know i'm sure you would have opted in [Laughter] right is there a motion to approve the extracurricular maybe just before the vote i'll make i just want to make a comment that i will abstain from voting on the extracurricular contracts because i have a daughter on this list yep okay is there a motion to approve the extracurricular contracts i'll move to approve the extra killer extracurricular contracts back okay second okay all in favor but dale say i i all right anyone opposed all right they're approved thank you uh the next item are the 2021
066board meeting dates we need to make a change in our 2021 board meeting dates we erroneously or i erroneously scheduled a board meeting on the monday of march 15th which is spring break i'm not so sure that we're going anywhere but if we are we probably don't want a board meeting that night so we moved it up a week to the eighth and that was my oversight i will use 19 as my standard excuse on that one a lot going on i'll make a motion that we change the march meeting date health ticket all in favor 15th to the say is that correct yes okay um all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right the board meeting dates are approved uh the next action item is the bus purchase okay mr tom olsen
067is here this evening he you'll see the three bids for a bus purchase and tom's gonna talk to you about those and give you a recommendation tom has been anxiously awaiting this moment all day i'm sure just chewing out the bit yup you were very excited so walk us through those three if you could please do you need a copy of yeah i don't have a copy okay my recommendation is the wisconsin blueberry all-american and we received two other bids and those two other bids were from nelson bus service the thomas bus in mid state which is an international rear engine they call the pusher bus and the reason for your recommendation would be why should we go with your recommendation well the last bus we purchased was a bluebird all-american with air brakes air
068ride and that's been a good bus because i'm driving it it's really nice ride getting rid of the the leaf springs in the back it makes a lot smoother and cheaper and repair and stuff our ambition is to each and every year bring you a new bus purchase because we have to continue to refresh that fleet or eventually we're going to be getting six buses at one time and we don't want to do that so andy's shaking his head no we don't want to do that so we want to continue to do that so i would recommend that you go with tom's recommendation for a new bus purchase and and all of our buses are bluebird correct except for one we have one thomas bus a couple years ago we purchased autonomous bus so that's
069another reason why it kind of makes sense to get a blueberry and it's all about the service and all that stuff and we found out that thomas bus it's not very good people don't know either and bluebird they change personnel down there so they're a lot better now since we went to thomas bus that one year might make a motion that we approve the bus purchase for the bluebird bus second okay all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right uh the purchase for the bluebird um under from wisconsin bus sales is approved thank you tom all right thank you thanks tom all right you can stick around for more speaking if you'd like can't get out of here fast enough the next time you should move him up there you know yeah he's
070gonna say well you should uh all right the last uh action item is uh personnel personnel you'll see personnel listed there i gotta grab my personnel sheet here so i can speak with a little more knowledge so all the way at the back okay we have a retirement and i'll speak about that in a moment stacia kerper then we have new employee in athletic contracts for catherine bartel in general music and band nancy edgett tritt lead cook at the intermediate mackenzie gamache 8th grade volleyball leslie jacobson 8th grade english drew johnson 8th grade volleyball and peggy lundgren for custodian at the mid at the intermediate school and after you take action however you see fit then i'm going to speak to you about stacia and i'll just make a comment again i will abstain from
071voting on that the personnel action all second okay all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right personnel action is approved thank you stacia kerper she is retiring she met with me last week thursday and i think if i would have talked long enough she would be coming back she was hemming and hauling am i doing the right thing should i do it shouldn't i do it and all i said was you should be con getting congratulated left and right for the work that you've done around your sail off and the sunset with happiness 39 years in education a couple years in forest lake a couple of years in clayton and then 32 years here i asked her a couple of questions what are you looking forward to and she said she loves to
072quilt she has grandkids that she's going to be spending some time with and she was super excited for that and i asked her what are you going to miss and this is of all the people that i've ever asked that question of this is the for me the most gratifying answer i've ever heard but i think it's probably true of nearly all of our retirees she said all of the kids for all the years that i taught who said to me i can't do it i can't do it i can't do it the aha moment when they did it and how exciting that was and then she said the best thing that's why i came to work every single day because that just fired me up and if you know stacia she does not lack
073energy we talked about her at graduation here the other evening her email stated in her retirement and i stated this at graduation dr seuss once said don't be sad because it's over be glad because it happened and that is stacia in a nutshell right there so congratulations to stacia kirper on her retirement thanks mrs kirper for all your years you've had touched a lot of kids and i think all of anybody that's been involved in education and sometimes you can teach for 10 years and get bogged down and all of the day-to-day stuff and forget that that's really the reason that you went into education in the first place is to watch that light go on in those kids when they get it thank you yes stacia was the first teacher that i came to
074volunteer when my kids came and she welcomed me and i looked at the room and saw chaos but such organization and energy and the kids just loved her to pieces all three of mine did when i mentioned her name at graduation i was looking out at the graduates you probably saw it too there were faces that lit up because they remember mrs kirper kindergarten's dr seuss because they lived it 12 13 years ago it was awesome to see yep such an impact a career well done we will greatly miss you though right there's no reason to go back into closed session so i will take a motion to adjourn i'd love to adjourn the meeting is there a second second okay all in favor say aye aye aye aye roe call aaron yeah char yeah
075dale yes keith yep yes we're adjourned