001so so this is okay um gotcha no no no no no no no that's okay this is where i'm going to put on glasses that's all right i'll get to it all right about that here we go okay thank you so much i've been saying that for two years on the way oh do you have a copy that i could use or yeah this is free from slime so um who's the in summary i know i can read that i'm okay with that one i don't care about physical distancing new exception in some key takeaways so in summary so here's here's a few takeaways and then i would go to this and then i keep reading and i don't need that and i go to you okay yeah that's great thank you i could just
002go on that nicer i guess good evening like to call to order this special called meeting of the bedford county school board ms johnson would you please call the roll mr johnson here mrs kirby here ms harrison here dr hicks here mr hill here mr lamy here dr amelie here mr chairman you have a quorum great thank you ms johnson do we have a motion to allow a board member to participate remotely in the meeting in accordance with bcps policy bdd so move all right we have a motion by dr hicks we have a second second second by mr leamy call for a vote on that all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed all right hearing none dr miley welcome thank you all right do we have a motion to approve
003tonight's agenda mr chairman yes i have a couple of questions before we get to that point um first off just want to confirm that action items on staff reports in item 4 will be taken in 6.01 following public comment is that correct that is correct okay second thing uh are we waiving the 25 minute time limitation uh during for public comment so that everyone who wishes to speak has the ability to do so this is johnson how many seven you've got a copy currently there are seven individuals signed up seven individuals signed up okay right my question stands in the event that we have others because typically when we finish you ask if there are others that would wish to speak are we going to stick to that 25-minute time limit or we can allow
004everyone to speak who who wishes to it's up to the board if you would like to hear additional speakers or if you would like to stick with our 25 minutes as required by policy either one is it's up to the board if anyone wants to speak and say they should okay in that case then yes we will extend that comment period beyond 25 minutes if necessary okay uh i move that we accept the agenda as presented okay so we have a motion by mr ling to approve the agenda as presented to give a second second second by mr hill any further discussion on the agenda not call for vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed all right the um the agenda as presented is approved unanimously do we have a motion
005to go into closed session mr chairman i make a motion that we go on to close session pursuant to the code of virginia section 2.2-37-11-a-1 to discuss the assignment appointment performance discipline and release of contract for specific school board employees and pursuant to the code of virginia section 2.2-2 for consultation political council retained by the school board for legal advice concerning school board procedures and personnel matters okay so we have a motion by ms kirby to go into closed session do we have a second second second by ms hairston any discussion not all those in favor please say aye aye all right then the school board is now in closed session and we will actually be going across the hall to the band [Music] room so foreign hello [Music] hello okay hello [Music] am i
006hello huh all right do we have a motion to come out of closed session all right dr kicks was on that one we have a second second second by ms kirby all those in favor please say aye aye are you opposed hearing none the board is now out of closed session mr chairman yes ma'am oh i just want to make sure i was still i had gotten into the meeting thank you yes ma'am welcome back all right um ms johnson would you please certify the closed meeting whereas the bedford county school board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the virginia freedom of information act and where section 2.2 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia requires a certification by this school
007board that such close meeting was conducted in conformity with virginia law now therefore be it resolved that the bedford county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open medium requirements by virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered yes yes yes yes yes yes yes do we have a motion on close closed meeting items oh we don't need to do that okay later on okay so moving right along do we have a motion on the consent agenda mr chairman i move that we approve the consent agenda as presented all right so we have a motion by
008dr hicks to approve the consent agenda as presented do we have a second second second second any opposed right the consent agenda is approved as presented staff reports the moment we've all been waiting for dr bergen 4.01 update pertaining to transgender students thank you mr chairman um we do have a presentation i'm just looking for to come up on the screen and this is the handout that we have as well uh yeah i want to make sure that the folks that have joined us tonight their screens on either side so that they can see the presentation yes and it's here in front of the board members on the screen that is facing you this evening i'm going to be providing an update for the board and the community about the vdoe model policies for the
009treatment of transgender students anyone who would like to review the information it's an entirety from the vdoe it's readily available online at the url that is listed on the screen underneath the title of that title screen it's important to note that the general assembly of virginia enacted legislation during the 2020 session that directed the department of education to develop model policies concerning the treatment of transgender students that would be in accordance with best practice in eight areas it's an important distinction that the word policies as used here is spelled with a lowercase p policies in a lowercase p is synonymous with guidelines practices or regulations as opposed to an uppercase p which corresponds to formal policy which the board must take action on before we review the different requirements of the law i'd like to
010first review the definition for transgender this definition is as it's included in the vdoe model policies so reading from the screen that is on this slide transgender is a self-identifying term that describes a person whose gender identity is different from their sex assigned at birth for instance a transgender girl is a girl who was presumed to be male at birth while a transgender boy is a boy who was presumed to be female at birth also it's an important distinction in the vdoe model policies that a transgender student consistently asserts at school a gender different from their sex assigned at birth in regards to communication it's the responsibility of the student in cooperation with their family to assert that they are transgender once a student declares the transgender school staff should communicate confidentially with the student
011and the family to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to determine the student's needs and address any privacy concerns school staff should discuss with the student if and how they prefer this information about their gender identity be shared some students may wish for the information to remain private while others may prefer that their gender identity be openly shared the degree to which others are aware of the student's gender identity will influence plans by the school administration and how to support the student with operational and systemic accommodations so back to the law to assist school divisions in working with transgender students the legislation from the 2020 session of the general assembly focused on the importance of the following as listed on this screen number one compliance with specific applicable non-discrimination laws number two maintenance of a
012safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students three prevention of and response to bullying and harassment four maintenance of student records five identification of students six protection of student privacy and the confidentiality of sensitive information seven enforcement of sex-based dress codes and eight student participation in sex specific school activities and events and use of school facilities activities and events do not include athletics as listed in the law so i'll start with those first three areas as highlighted on this slide as the board members are aware bedford county public schools as nearly every other school division in the commonwealth subscribes to the policy services of the virginia school board association to ensure that our division policies are in conforming to state law and that there are a number of policies in
013our division manual that already address non-discrimination as well as ensuring our schools are free from bullying and harassment for instance policy ac nondiscrimination has already been updated by the school board to conform with the law and now list gender identity among the other protected classes against discrimination as listed on the screen the purpose of this policy is to ensure that we provide equal and fair treatment to all persons and as underlined on this slide just for emphasis this commitment will prevail in all of our division policies and practices likewise the board has already updated policies gba and jfha both of which pertain to prohibition against harassment and retaliation towards students are staffed these two policies also now conform to the law and list gender identity among the other protected classes it's important to note that
014the vsba to date has not developed any so-called transgender policy since the board has already taken action to amend the policies that i just reviewed as we were required to do by law to add gender identity to the list of protected classes there is no further action required at this time of the school board with regards to updating our school division policy manual the next four areas listed in the legislation enacted by the general assembly in 2020 can all be addressed administratively through regulation and do not require changes to school work policy as part of a meeting earlier this week with all of our principals led by dr woodford and dr cornett we reviewed the administrative procedures to ensure that we will be in compliance as we always have with law in regards to the
015maintenance of student records identification of students protection of student privacy and confidentiality as well as our student dress code more specifically it was shared with the principals that schools should reading from this slide upon request allow students to use a name and gender pronoun that reflects their gender identity use the name and gender consistent with the student's gender identity on school records and documents change a student's name and gender designation upon verification or submission of a legal document such as a birth certificate state or federal issued identification passport or court order and maintain a record that includes a student's legal name and sex assigned at birth for purposes of standardized testing while protecting any inadvertent disclosure of such information with regards to the student dress code and access to activities it was also shared with
016the principals that students may dress in a manner consistent with their gender identity or gender expression schools must administer and enforce dress and grooming codes consistently across the student body requirements for attire for school related programs activities and events should be gender neutral and except for vhsl activities which will be discussed later in this presentation allow students to participate in extracurricular activities in a manner consistent with the gender identity the eighth and final area listed in the legislation enacted by the general assembly access to school facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms is perhaps the one which is most concerning to members of the community at least based upon the questions that i have received when i had been out and about meeting with our citizens so first and foremost as has always been the
017case all students are entitled to have access to restrooms locker rooms and changing facilities that are clean safe and in which students can comfortably engage in their school activities just to be clear it is now settled law that transgender students may access facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to students gender identity however however the law does not prohibit the school division from offering reasonable alternatives so long as those alternatives are available to all students consequently and this will be new this year in bedford county we have identified single-use bathrooms in all of our middle and high schools that will be available to any student who seeks additional privacy with regards to locker rooms also new this year students will not be required to dress out for physical education classes they certainly may
018dress out as they wish but they will not be penalized for not doing so they will only be required to have appropriate footwear for their safe participation for locker rooms that don't afford private changing areas we will offer reasonable alternatives or accommodations for increased privacy such as creating a separate changing schedule allowing access to a staff office for changing or even offering alternatives to in-person physical education i'd like to address some of the public comments that we've heard recently expressing concern that there may be some students who attempt to take advantage of the changes in law to as at least one speaker said sneak a peek in a restroom or in a locker room and i want to be very clear that any student of any gender who enters any restroom or locker room to
019engage in such inappropriate behavior will be disciplined for the established protocols and procedures as outlined in the student code of conduct lastly participation in extracurricular athletics are governed by the vhsl and regulations have actually already been in place for the past seven years to be eligible to participate in vhsl sanctioned activities student athletes must have undergone sex reassignment surgery and have undergone hormonal therapy so in conclusion our confidence level is very high that our administrators will be able to support our transgender students as they always have over the years on an individual basis while remaining in compliance with the law at this time we stand ready to answer any of your questions board member questions and before i do dr bergen i just want to kind of recap a few things we are providing single-use
020restrooms and all of our schools for any student transgender or other who wishes to use those and students who enter a restroom that is not their assigned gender bathroom can still be disciplined but a student who enters any restaurant any student of any gender who enters any restroom and engages in inappropriate behavior will be disciplined all right board member questions mr lamy dr bergen first off i want you i want to say preemptively i'm not trying to bust your chops okay i realize that you're not a member of the general assembly and you did not have anything to do with this legislation but i just i've got some notes questions and takeaways from reading through this this policy by its very description and title is heavy on transgender rights but what about the rights of
021the non-transgender students [Applause] hey folks hey let's keep it down all right thank you um safety concerns i mean a sexual assault against a female student but i guess what's the term binary biological female student it's not a it's not a if it's a win it's going to happen and that concerns me deeply as it does i'm sure parents and guardians of of students that are attending bedford county public schools what about sexual harassment claims which will be unfounded about male students using their restroom who is that's also being patronized by a transgender male what about their rights how are we addressing that mr wingme there's a lot in that statement can can you just repeat one specific question and let me respond to one i thought it was clear what's going to happen with
022and like i said sexual assault is going to happen i think that this policy that came down from bdoe is going to facilitate that yeah um but what you know how how are we going to look that female student in the eye that sexually harass and say i'm sorry when we have the ability to prevent that from happening do you understand what i'm i'm asking but the premise of your question i think is because a student is transgender and there's a restroom that they are going to be a sexual predator and assault other children that's not i'm not talking about dr berg and i this isn't a shotgun blast no i'm i'm just wanting to understand the question if someone question is basic that instances of sexual assault when you have biological males and biological
023females using the same restroom it's gonna happen it's just going to happen but how do we prevent that so biological males should not be entering a restroom for a biological female excuse me transgender males yes this terminology is moving so you know what are we going to do to prevent things like that from happening we have a a transgender female using female restrooms how do we prevent instances of sexual assault from occurring the same way we stop sexual assault from occurring on any other day there's you know i'd like some answers because we are this policy doesn't do anything to prevent or lessen the potential for sexual assault in a female biological female wrestler and you know that's something we need to take into consideration as a division what happened another question what happens when
024the transgender student refuses to use a private restroom and insists on using like in the case of a transgender female wanting being offered the opportunity to use a private restroom and say no i don't want to do that i want to use the female restroom i mean what's how are we handling that if we have a student who's declared they're transgender and they consistently show that they're transgender and in private confidential conversation they were offered an accommodation to use a single-use restroom as would be available to any other student and they don't wish to use that accommodation there in your example i think you were saying a transgender female wants to use a female rescue was that your question how are we handling that the law says that a transgender female has access to female
025restrooms okay in the end okay another question in the instance where biological females are uncomfortable using the female restroom because transgender females are using the restroom and they opt to use the private restroom why do they have to seek accommodation when the female restrooms were designed for biological females and do we have capacity if there is a mass of biological females who say you know what i've i fear for my safety i'm going to use the private restaurants do we have capacity to handle that and what if they're laid to class i mean these are things that you know we need to think about going forward right now actually we need to be thinking about it but i guess the biggest issue i'm having is getting my brain around why the majority potentially would have
026to be offered an accommodation does that make sense and no one has to use a single-use restaurant if they don't want to so if someone wants to use a single use restroom they will not they will they will if they are uncomfortable using the female restroom because transgender females are using i i i can see it happening it's it's going to happen but you know then these students are going to be offered the accommodation which likely will be the majority so how are we handling that in terms of capacity i don't you it's all predicated on we i'm a contingency course action kind of guy so yeah we need to be prepared for that and i don't think we are frankly um what about harassment against students we had we heard from a couple of
027young ladies last meeting that made it very clear that they were uncomfortable using the female restrooms if transgender females were using that restroom what how are we going to excuse me harassment against those students because they're not embracing transgender no student will be harassed bullied all right another question locker rooms we have made dressing out optional but what if you as a student don't want to go to class sweaty and would like to actually perform some personal hygiene take a shower change clothes but you're they're uncomfortable doing so in a restroom where a transgender scoop or a locker room where a transgender student is present how do we how do we deal with that any student who seeks accommodations for more privacy we will discuss with that student okay again now that comes down to
028timing and capacity these are things we need to think about and you know i just again this isn't your fault i know that uh but these are things that we need to take into consideration right from you know if for another reason a safety and security standpoint and a logistical standpoint so these are things that we need to start looking at right now to make sure that we have an appropriate response prepared and school starts what two weeks on the 11th we're running out of time um i mean i talked to bob gibson down in russell county today he's a member of the school board and you know they voted to reject this they saw it as overstepping the government authority um in the judge's opinion letter he uses the word guidelines twice doesn't use
029anything that would lead me to believe this is the model model policy from the vdoe is regulatory in nature it is a guideline which tells me hey guys here's what we think you should consider um the the opinion was that the cases they were combined and they were dismissed because the plaintiffs lacked standing also in that opinion he stated that school boards have standing you know i think that opens up some options for us as a school board um the attorney general's office also said that there would be no repercussions regarding loss of revenue for school divisions that did not adopt this policy that's my understanding of what the attorney general's office said so what i'm saying here is it sounds to me as though we either have options we have options to either accept
030this or again and i suspect i suspect if it comes down to it there are other localities out there that would be you know open to joining a class-action law student against bdo8 to get this scratched that's all i got [Applause] miss kirby [Applause] uh uh i'm one that i will appreciate everyone's differences and i really um was in favor of the idea of a single use individual restroom for privacy purposes not just for the transgender student but also for the child that does not feel safe going to the public rest to the main restroom for bullying reasons um but something that you just said a minute ago that really triggered with me that i'm not in favor of this anymore because you said it was going to be offered and not mandatory i get
031it i i understand equality i understand everyone should be treated fairly but to some extent we need to make concessions how many transgender students do we have identified in bedford county because i know from my personal point of view and every one of these meetings and everyone who follows these knows that i relate things back to my home life and my own child has said mom i will not go to the bathroom all day if if i have to go to the bathroom with transgender students and i do not want my child to sit there all day long and not go to the bathroom that's just but also the same token for the transgender student i don't want them to be denied they can't be denied access but we need to do more than offer
032it we need to have a set designation that this is what will happen now and and you also said that we have identified single-use bathrooms in every school at least one how far back in the schools are we going are we have we identified one as early as before primary are we starting at the middle schools middle schools and high schools thank you other other board questions mr chairman ah dr mealy yes okay i just want to make sure you could hear me i'm so sorry i i don't um uh i i understand that this is a very touchy issue um and parents have a lot of concerns um i just want to add that i add on to um mr what mr mimi said that um you know some of these boards that you
033know i specifically went to the meeting minutes of several of the boards and and they did not actually vote they just upheld what um their policies that were already in place and and it is true that the um they are not going to come after school divisions in terms of their funding but the attorney general also said that no matter what happens the school boards will have to address the needs of transgender students and i'm not saying we're not at all i'm just i just want to clarify um that from what i'm reading these other school divisions did not actually vote they just uh unanimously agreed um i i could be mistaken but the ones i looked at did not actually vote so because they felt their transgender policies uh their policies already included trans
034supporting transgender students which i i really think is pretty much what dr bergen is is trying to communicate here thank you thank you other questions comments concerns from board members mr chairman dr hicks it doesn't appear to me that we need to take any action at all here tonight that that we already have a a policy in place that's been fully explained and with the uh um with the single-use restrooms uh that we should just go with that i agree um other other comments concerns questions all right my question mr hill yes my question is is if we don't take action on this this is your recommendation correct mr hill could you speak in your mic we can't hear you sorry usually y'all can hear me pretty good usually all right um if we this
035is your recommendation is that correct which part you there's no action being i'm this evening oh my goodness all i did was review the vdoe model policies here's my question if we don't take action on this does what you've just covered go into effect for before county schools i still i i i'm i'm i'm earnestly wanting to understand what you're asking me can you tell me what is it of the information i presented what is what is your question in today's world i have children and they are not intermingling with transgender students in the restrooms okay my question to you is it is if we do not take action either saying yes or no we agree to what you've just presented does this go into action for bedford county schools or do we leave as
036it is today and each principal is addressing each student individually not offering a public restroom that other boys and girls use but a private restroom that's my question to you so if we do not take action does this policy that you just reviewed with us go into effect our practice in my entire educational career has always been to have private confidential communication with the family and their child whatever they're concerned okay you're not answering it's a yes or no question so is this a yes or no if we do not take action on this is what you just covered going to be part of bedford county public school policy as of august the 11th when school starts if we what's new this year the only thing that's different this year than last year or any
037other year is single-use restaurants are available to all students that wasn't the case last year [Applause] i just need to guess right now marcus i'll give you an answer what is the yes or no question what is yes or no and i will say we will need to take action on this [Music] ladies and gentlemen i i i love seeing each and every one of you out here i really do and i appreciate you staying up with more outbursts we can't hear what's being said at the end of the table but please please respect it respect what was being said and control the outburst um you do have freedom of speech yes you do totally but we do not need the outburst um to clarify [Music] the current policy because it seems like what what
038was being done here tonight is to clarify the current policy plus to announce the addition of the private use restrooms is the current policy that the transgender student goes into uses the restroom of their birth gender or to their identifying gender a transgender student who is consistently identified transgender a biological male who identifies as a transgender female by law can and will access a female restroom if they so choose at school in an airport in a library any public facility that's the action of the 2020 general assembly any other questions comments concerns ms harrison um dr bergen i'd like to ask a question regarding student safety sure at our last board meeting we had a number of individuals and students who spoke regarding their safety and having served as a building principal i know the
039importance of safety of all of our students so in this case here with the single use bathroom many of the students had implied that if we were to enforce such a policy that they felt that they could potentially be violated they felt very fearful and they also felt that perhaps maybe students would come into the bathroom and talk them so my question to you is what are the methods that's in place to prevent such a thing from happening how do we ensure the safety of our students the same way we've all you were a school principal so you know that the entire school staff is responsible on a daily basis for ensuring the safety of students so monitoring of all facilities is the responsibility of school staff if an individual student feels that they are
040unsafe they would communicate that to their teacher or their school administration and the administrator would then take action yes but then take action now the single-use bathrooms that um you spoke of these bathrooms would be in all of our schools are just middle and hot middle and high and middle and high school and they would be used by students um transgender students who have identified themselves and just our regular students is that any student could use any students all right all right thank you unless there any other questions on this then we'll move on to the masking update dr bergen sure i'll just wait until that presentation is ready for you mr chairman yes dr emily okay you can hear me now we can hear you now yes all right thank you all right this
041evening members of the executive team most notably the two of us sitting here myself and dr woodford will be sharing some information with you regarding a return to learn health and safety plan for the 2021-22 school year so right off the bat i want to be very clear that i have two very important overarching goals for the school year and i think we all have these same goals one to ensure that we are able to keep all of our schools open for in-person learning five days a week for students remaining in their school and meeting with each of their teachers on a daily basis and two that we will be able to maintain athletics and all of our extracurricular activities throughout the entire school year before we talk some more about some of the plans
042that we will be bringing forward for your consideration for accomplishing these goals i'd first like to review the current trend of covid19 transmission as you're likely already well aware health officials are concerned about a trend and increased transmission as a result of a new delta variant of covet 19. on the slide is a map from the cdc's covet data tracker website which shows the rate of transmission as measured by number of new cases per day and percent positivity using a seven day rolling average for 100 000 individuals for both of those measures you'll notice as indicated on the screen here the vast majority of the states in the south and the west by the cdc's definitions has substantial to high transmission rates which are indicated in the colors of red in comparison with the moderate
043rates shown in yellow in the midwest and northeast and the relatively low rates as shaded in by blue towards the center of the country when you drill down on that cdc map you'll notice that many of the counties in virginia are shaded yellow which would indicate moderate transmission of coded 19. well about a third of the counties in virginia including bedford and all of the counties that surround us are shaded orange or red which would indicate either substantial or high transmission rates as measured by the number of new cases per day and percent positivity as you're also no doubt aware from media coverage with vaccination considered to be the number one health and safety mitigation recommended by every medical organization health officials are concerned that not a large enough percentage of the population has become
044vaccinated as indicated on this slide as of today just about half of the population 53.4 or 4.5 million people are now fully vaccinated in virginia if you drill down in bedford county the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated is slightly less to date than the state average with just about 32 000 people or 40.5 of the population in bedford being fully vaccinated given the concerns with the delta variant and the corresponding increase in cova cases the virginia department of health continues to emphasize a layered approach for the prevention and containment of coca-19 that begins with vaccinations followed by masking physical distancing and good hygiene practices last week the virginia department of health and the virginia department of education jointly released their latest guidance for covet 19 prevention in virginia pre-k 12 schools i'd
045now like to spend the next several minutes walking you through the recommendations from the vdoe and bdh for your consideration as one of two recommended options from the administration for a health and safety plan for the school year the interim guidance includes a five-step decision-making process concerning school operations the first of the five steps is to evaluate the level of transmission of covet 19 in the local community by looking at the average number of new cases per day per 100 000 persons over the past seven days as well as looking at the percent positivity in the past seven days and then applying a color-coded scheme reading from left to right of blue yellow orange and red in regards to number of average cases per day low transmission in blue is defined as fewer than nine
046cases per day moderate transmission defined as an average of 10 to 49 cases per day with substantial being 50 to 99 and high transmission being 100 or more on average per day the percent positivity ranges are reading from left to right five percent for low between five and seven point nine for moderate eight to nine point nine for substantial and anything greater than ten percent considered high transmission also in this decision making guide if the two indicators the average number of cases per day and the percent positivity are at different levels then the guidance is to use the indicator with the higher value to determine the level of community transmission so this is a screenshot just taken from the covid 19 data tracker website for the virginia department of health that shows the average number
047of new cases per day over the past three months here in bedford county as indicated by the yellow line running horizontally along the bottom of this bar graph the average number of new cases remained relatively flat and low throughout the county for most of june through mid-july but has been increasing daily over the last two weeks at an average of 12 new cases per day on a seven-day ruling average per 100 000 individuals for a total of 143 new cases within the last 14 days this would equate to roughly 70 new cases each week so back to the metrics as defined in the interim guidance from vdoe and vdoh with an average of 12 new cases per day and the current percent positivity for bedford county which stands at 12.6 percent bedford county would be
048considered to be in high transmission since the guidance is to use the indicator with a higher value to determine the level of community transmission step two of the decision making guide for school operations from this interim guidance is to evaluate the percent of the population that's been vaccinated including school-age students as shown on this screenshot also taken from the vdh website in bedford county the highest percentage of vaccinations to date have occurred with the older population with individuals with older individuals approximately 70 percent of whom 65 and older are now fully vaccinated however the percentage for the youngest individuals who are eligible for the vaccination which would be 12 to 15 year olds or our middle school student population stands at about 15 and for 16 to 18 year olds or our high school age
049students the vaccination percentage is just around 20 this means that when students return to school in a couple of weeks we can anticipate that 2 out of 10 students in middle school or high school will have been vaccinated and 8 out of 10 rollout step 3 of the decision making guide for school operations is evaluate the level of impact on schools using three criteria as they're listed down the left-hand side of the slide those include transmission within a school student absenteeism and staff capacity a high impact which is indicated in red along this slide would include multiple outbreaks within a short period of time over multiple classrooms or grade levels which would then result in high student absenteeism and potentially critical shortages of staff of course we won't be able to make any of these
050determinations until our students and teachers have returned for the new school year step four of the decision making guide is to understand your community knowing that students benefit from in-person learning our top priority as i indicated at the start of this presentation is to safely return all students to in-person instruction and keep them in school five days a week however we'll also need to assess the feasibility of certain prevention strategies most notably mask wearing knowing that some of our students may be more hesitant to return to school than others the fifth and final step of the decision-making guide is to plan and implement layers of prevention strategies the guidance from the vdoe and the dbh emphasized nine key prevention strategies as listed on this slide and they include promote vaccination consistent and correct use of
051masks physical distancing screening testing ventilation hand washing and respiratory etiquette cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities staying home whenever sick and getting tested and contact tracing in combination with potentially isolation and quarantine in regards to masking the interim guidance from the bdh and the vdoe as it was published last week was for all elementary school students to wear masks while indoors as well as staff members who work with elementary school students regardless of their vaccination status until such time that a vaccine has been approved for use with children under the age of 12 and that there's been sufficient time for children younger than 12 to become fully vaccinated for middle and high school students the zdoe and the vdh recommendation is that students and staff members who are not yet fully vaccinated wear a mask at
052all times while indoors after this guidance was received by public school administrators just this past tuesday the cdc updated their mass guidance and they're now recommending that all teachers staff and students visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination status wear a mask daily since the guidance from the vdoe and the vdh was released before this change and guidance from the cdc there's now a discrepancy in the mask recommendations and the interim guidance from vdoe and bdh and i'm told this will that the state guidance will now likely be updated in the coming days to then become consistent with the cpc recommendation another important health and safety mitigation strategy is physical distancing the guidance from the vdh and vdoe as it was for last year and continues to be that elementary school students continue to be
053spaced three to six feet apart from one another to the greatest extent possible while indoors along with universal mask wearing and for high school and middle school students also three to six feet of fiscal distancing to the greatest extent possible while indoors along with masking for individuals who are not fully vaccinated in periods of high transmission the guidance is that six feet of distance be maintained between students at all times contact tracing is another important component of the guidance from the vdoe and vdh but with an updated definition for determining close contacts in general as was the case last year the department of health will continue to recommend that an individual should quarantine if they have been within six feet of someone who is suspected or confirmed to have contracted coveted 19 for a total
054of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period however new this year in k-12 settings an infected student will not be considered a close contact if both of the students were wearing masks and other prevention strategies were in place as noted at the bottom of this slide this updated exception does not apply to adults in k-12 settings however individuals who are fully vaccinated as well as anyone who has tested positive in the last 90 days will not need to be quarantined after being exposed to someone with code some key takeaways then from this vboe vdh guidance include students benefit from in-person learning and safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall is a priority vaccination is currently considered the leading public health prevention strategy to end the covenant 19 pandemic promoting vaccination can help schools
055safely return to in-person learning as well as extracurricular activities to include sports masks should be worn indoors by all individuals aged 2 and older who are not fully vaccinated consistent and correct use of mass by people who are not fully vaccinated is especially important indoors in crowded settings when physical distancing cannot be maintained localities need to consider and monitor community transmission vaccination coverage screening testing and occurrence of outbreaks to guide decisions on the level of layered prevention strategies schools should continue to maintain at least three feet of physical distance between students within classrooms combined with indoor mask wearing by people who are not fully vaccinated in order to reduce transmission risk when it's not possible to maintain a physical distance at least three feet it's especially important to layer multiple other prevention strategies such as
056indoor masking other important prevention layers include screening testing ventilation hand washing and respiratory etiquette staying home when sick and getting tested contact tracing in combination with quarantine and isolation and cleaning and disinfecting protocols students teachers and staff should stay home when they have any signs of an infectious illness and be referred to their health care provider for testing the care many schools serve children under the age of 12 who are not eligible for vaccination at this time therefore the guidance emphasizes implementing layered prevention strategies to protect people who are not fully vaccinated including students teachers staff and other members of their households cobit 19 prevention strategies remain critical to protect people including students teachers and staff who are not fully vaccinated especially in areas of moderate to high transmission levels and lastly locality should monitor
057community transmission vaccination coverage screening testing and occurrence of outbreaks to guide decisions on the level of their layered prevention strategies so those are the recommendations as we have received them as they're available online for anyone to review from the vdoe and the vdh they were written to be in compliance with the cdc at the time they were written again they will likely be updated to include the latest guidance from the cdc i expect that will be out in the coming days what we would now like to do is offer an alternative for the board's consideration for a health and safety plan so that you now have in front of you the recommendations from the vdoe and the vdh and a another option that we've developed as an executive team and for this part of the
058presentation i'm going to ask dr wood two percent um as dr bergen has done an excellent job of reviewing the vdh and bdoe communications and recommendations and the guidance from cdc um we're going to offer a recommendation and as he said an alternate approach for the board to consider as dr bergen has already stated our goal is to keep students in school five days a week in person for learning and to offer robust extracurricular activities in which our students can participate and we know that the only way we can reach these goals is to continue to do everything we can to mitigate the spread of proven 19 in our schools so to achieve the two goals we we have this year we believe that the recommendation from cdc for all staff and students to wear
059a mask in k-12 settings is the best option obviously this guidance is designed to protect our youngest students who cannot be vaccinated at this time and older students that represent the age group with the lowest faction nation rates who may choose not to get vaccinated by doing this we will be able to provide critical in-person instruction this year and keep students in school like we did last year at the height of the pandemic we know that there are many that are concerned about the level of mitigation that has been proposed by the cdc especially as it relates to the wearing of masks therefore we have developed an alternate alternative plan that would allow more flexibility than the cdc recommendation and would use school and community positivity metrics to guide the level of mitigation in the
060alternative recommendation our goal was to create a decision a decision matrix based on real-time data from community and schools we would use the vdh school metric dashboard for bedford county and monitor the seven day positive case count for one hundred 000 people i have provided a link to the school metric graphs for your convenience before we share the database chart let me explain a little bit about the information that we as a team looked at to arrive at the metric cutoffs on the school metrics page from the virginia department of health we examine the current positive case rate when you're on that site the two charts that you have before you can be found in the center of the page these are charts for positive case counts and the percentage of tests that are positive
061over the last seven days as dr bergen previously stated if the two indicator cases per day and percent positivity are at different levels the guidance is to use the indicator with a higher value to determine the level of community transmission in our discussion however we decided to focus on number of cases per 100 000 people within the last seven days due to the fact that it's closest to real-time case data in bedford county the positivity rate can show trends over time and the vdh weighs positive case counts higher in its algorithm for the total composition score for reporting cases therefore we will focus on the top graph to assist with decisions about levels of mitigation as you can see in this graph there is a small blue section at the bottom followed by yellow followed
062by orange and then at the top red these colors correlate to levels of transmission obviously blue is the lowest transmission yellow is moderate orange is substantial and red is high transmission as of last saturday july 24th we have 77.47 positive cases per 100 000 people which indicates that we are currently in substantial transmission just as a comparison point during the same week last year the positive case counts were 87.6 per 100 000. so we started last full year with a higher positive case count than we are at right now if we continue to look at some data from last year case counts remained under 300 per 100 000 until we got to the holidays in this chart you can see that the week of december 5th 2020 there were 274 positive cases in bedford county
063this data trends about 7 to 14 days after thanksgiving our highest point in case counts in bedford county occurred january 16 2001. the number jumped significantly after thanksgiving and christmas holidays and the week of january 16 the positivity rates increased by 470 cases in five weeks two of which students were not even in school during this time our schools remained open and instruction continued using strict mitigation strategies by february you will notice that the positivity rate began to decline and went back to 240 cases the week of february the 13th this is probably due to the possibility that some people in the community were getting vaccinations our teachers were beginning to get vaccinations our staff were and it was also the end of the holiday season so we saw that case counts began to return
064to lower standards for sorry for perspective this week we are at 77.46 cases as we enter into this school year we know we have a few advantages that we didn't have last year vaccinations have been available for our employees and students over the age of 12 if they have wanted them if trends were to match last year we can predict that high levels of interaction without mitigation will lead to positive covet 19 cases so as a school division we would want to monitor holidays and the effects of any loosened mitigation strategies that we might offer and we also know that our students and our families know how to respond quickly to any type of threat of covet 19 and our students are very good at mitigation such as mask wearing hand washing distancing and cleaning
065protocols before we look at our proposed tier mitigation plan there will be some universal strategies that are in place no matter what level of transmission we are in and also no matter what tier or whatever plan you decide to go with we will continue to have enhanced cleaning of restrooms and high touch areas we will be screening all visitors to the schools we will encourage staying home when you're sick requiring mass on buses which is a federal requirement related to public transportation implementing traffic patterns during trans transitions to allow distancing and directional movement in the school using the school metrics related to positive cases in the county we've developed a tier plan that increases mitigation as cane as case counts increase in the first two tiers mask will be recommended for unvaccinated individuals and three
066to six feet distancing will be implemented to the extent possible the difference between the yellow and orange tiers are really more limitations when case counts between 50 and 99 occur limiting such things as field trips limiting volunteers in the school more managed transitions to ensure social distancing and making sure we have one directional flow in our hallways once we reach a hundred cases we would require math for all k-12 staff and students and have no visitors no field trips no outside groups using our facilities and we would be eating in the classrooms instead of the cafeteria if we reach 300 or more cases we'll move back to cohorting students into groups that do not move during the day the only difference this year from last year would be that these students would stay in a
067cohort group with a homeroom teacher but they would receive synchronous virtual instruction directly from their teachers for example if students go to homeroom or to a learning coach they will sign on and during their first period time slot their first period teacher will be online live teaching the students wherever they are in real time the movement to the next class will be a virtual movement and not a physical one at this critical management tier parents may even opt to allow their students to work at home instead of at school three remember that over 300 was right after the holidays and if you look back at those case counts so based on our case counts today we would start at school in the orange tier that would mean that we would be recommending mass for unvaccinated
068individuals trying to maintain three to six feet distancing we would be limiting volunteers and limiting field trips we would be asking for outside groups to submit health and safety plans and we would be saying that any sports or extracurricular activities would require proof of vaccination or assigned consent for coveted [Applause] screening with all of the updated guidance we've shared tonight i want to be clear that contact tracing and quarantine requirements have only changed slightly with any choice to loosen mitigation strategies we will see possible increases in contact tracing and possible increases in positive cova cases in school at any tier if a student or adult meets the requirements for quarantining they will have to do so when contact tracing school nurses will base decisions for quarantining on appropriate mask use physical distancing activity type and
069vaccination status changes to past quarantining requirements include the removal of required quarantining for anyone that's not showing symptoms and has been vaccinated or has had covet in the prior 90 days in addition students who are within three to six feet and wearing masks correctly and consistently with other prevention strategies in place will no longer have to quarantine i want to note that this only applies in k-12 indoor classrooms as a final reminder our schools teachers and central office staff are committed to the goals of in-person instruction five days a week and participation in robust extracurricular activities um and we are happy to answer any questions you may have at this time absolutely miss kirby's first and then mr hill dr woodford would you please clarify for me um you said we'll be starting off in
070the orange but it states that masks are recommended for unvaccinated of the individuals that means they're recommended but not required correct correct so if we wanted to send our kids to school without a mask at this stage they do not have questions correct correct thank you mr hill um i feel like this is the same bull that was handed to us for winter sports it's the same bull and never once in this policy did i hear give the parents a choice and let them we keep going over these statistics about coba but i've never once heard statistics on flu common cold heart disease headaches whatever else you know all of these things around cdc recommendations i i have to make a statement is there any recommendation from the cdc about closing the southern border before
071requiring my kids [Applause] we mentioned vaccinations for these kids i can tell you right now my kids not getting it [Applause] and we owe these kids a public education so we've got to come up with another options nobody's talking about the deaths the side effects the enlarged heart the effects on girls menstrual cycles from these vaccinations but yet we're sitting here talking about it's a requirement shame on this staff of making this recommendation [Applause] this whole document and these statistics and having contact tracing it's the same bulb last year you need to go into school some of your nurses called bull on it they're gone because of it and the leadership said you will think as i think or else this is not scientific this is somebody's opinion i'm not in support of it i
072absolutely do not agree it should be the parent's choice the other thing i'll mention nobody ever said anything it's in in the news seems as if the staff has missed the message that vaccinated people are getting covered even after wearing a mask why are we requiring this we cannot live in fear and all of these directions of getting off the bus changing this doing that are we going to ask our students to hop on one foot and look ahead and do this and i mean let them be kids i have to use this because i have a password that repeats this over and over and over wash your hands and don't lick door knobs you'll be uh [Applause] mr hill was up at all uh dr hicks and then mr leamy yeah i have a
073question we are starting in the uh substantial risk or orange category but but if we get over 100 and move into the high risk category do we automatically uh go to the to the new uh guidelines and we have to meet and vote again on that um so if the board decides that they want to use the alternative plan then it would be a decision we make when the metrics are updated on saturday the executive team would make that decision on sunday and communicate with parents and staff so it's whatever you vote on as far as an alternative plan and i want to be clear no one on this staff is saying any student needs to be vaccinated we said that for sports or extracurricular if a student is vaccinated then they won't have to
074do random testing so i just want to be clear about that we're not telling anyone they need to be vaccinated [Music] ladies and gentlemen we would all like to hear what staff has to say there will be time for public comment in a few minutes so please keep it down let's listen to staff and board and then we'll get to you okay [Applause] okay well first off ditto to everything mr hill said he and i see eye to eye on this completely um especially especially regarding masks this has gone on entirely too long the choice to wear or not wear a mask resides with the individual over 18 and over it resides with the parent or the guardian of a minor student period [Applause] and second thing you know i wish i could take credit
075for this analogy but i saw something i grew up watching you know charlie brown great pumpkin you know scraggly little christmas tree all that stuff um and i just remember lucy van pelt lucy always jerked the football out from underneath charlie brown well lucy is the government and charlie brown is the public you know the goal posts are always being moved on us and it's enough's enough miss harrison yes thank you mr chairman um as i said earlier when i asked a question and i stated about the safety of the students i still stand very firm on our students safety i think it's very important that we keep that first and foremost but also in light of that i believe that it is the parents decision that they should make in terms of the students
076whether they want their child to wear a mask or not now now with with that said it is also very important that we take under consideration we realize that if there are cases and our numbers are going up then we have to keep the children's safety first and foremost and when that arises we have to put safeguards in place so i am all for initially allowing our parents to have that right to make the choice in terms of wearing whether they want their child to wear a mask or not but we must have a rubric in place to ensure the safety of everyone teachers students and everyone as they're in the classroom teaching we want a normal classroom a normal school year for these children we all want our children in school but we want
077them to be safe that's where i stand on it dr mealy you have anything uh yes i i agree with miss harrison i would like to start the school year by giving parents the option of having their students wear masks but if the numbers continue to go in the wrong direction then we do have a responsibility to do everything that we can to ensure that these students remain in school and safe while they're in school so i i i i hope and pray that these numbers turn around um but if they don't i agree that we need to have something in place already i i like the database decision i don't like we have to do it i don't want anybody to misunderstand i don't like that we we have to look at these things
078but i believe that we do and to have a metric in place so that everyone fully understands what's going to happen if numbers change and date changes is is i think really important that way there there's no there's no confusion there's no no community members who feel like they we didn't say the right thing it's right here in in in this slide and i think it's really important mr limi i hear my honorable colleagues throw around terms like allow the parents to and give the parents the rights to well that's not our place all right that's inherent that inherently resides with the parent this board this board does not have the power nor the moral right to determine what parental rights are [Applause] dr hicks the the number of new cases per 100 000 has
079more than doubled in in the past week and the and the percentage of uh positive tests has uh has doubled in the past week and has gone up five-fold in the past month uh if uh if this continues to go up at this rate then uh i think we will we will soon be at the uh at the high risk uh category so i am definitely in favor of the alternative approach that uh the staff has recommended it's really neat i saw i saw i see a cdc statistic from the cdc website uh was it yesterday from 1 january 2020 through 24 july 2021 now i'm saying this with the caveat that every life is precious and every death is a tragedy but 340 people between the ages of 1 and 17 died of kobe
080my point here is we're talking numbers here that's a very low number that for our student population uh you know that needs to be taken into account we you know [Applause] i understand the alternate recommendation i i understand it and it is apparent i do get concerned when i see the numbers however part of my concern is that we are basing a lot of numbers on the community and the county as a whole a lot of these people that are causing these numbers to rise have no contact with are not in the same household as the student that or or the teacher or the administrator or whoever is in question anyone that is in the school so we're basing these numbers on something other than what who is in or that is within our realm
081to make a decision on all of our neighboring counties are closed within close proximity franklin roanoke campbell by the time they have said that the parents need to decide am not going to vaccinate my child and i want a mess to be my option my question would be and looking at the metric that you have what would be the significance from the 99 to the 100 like would if we moved these i mean why did you choose red as the category which mandatory masking would begin instead of maybe the i don't know pink teal whatever color that is on the far right as a group what we were looking at was the trend data from last year um and we looking at last year's trend data we were 19 weeks of our school year actually
082sorry 20 weeks that we were under a hundred case counts per 100 000. um so that was a large amount of our school year that we were on the positive side where we could offer the optional mass the other 50 percent around those holidays we went over that hundred up to the 300 so we were really basing it on trend data from last year knowing that we can't predict if that data will be the same or not but that's what we were looking at so that's why we chose the 100. great thank you any other questions right at this point we will go to public comment before we begin just a reminder the public comment portion of tonight's agenda is limited to 25 well we're extending that potentially individual speakers are limited to three minutes
083while anyone representing an organized group will be allowed five minutes provided they are the sole speaker for that group or organization speakers are asked to state their name address voting district and organization or group if applicable the school board is here to listen to your comments but will not engage or respond to speakers during this period please remember that this is a public meeting and that we expect all speakers to refrain from any foul abusive or hateful language mr edwards will serve as timekeeper for individual speakers with a ringing bell indicating that a person has 30 seconds remaining and a second bill will ring indicating a person's three minutes have expired mr edwards will also serve as timekeeper for the cumulative period when mr edwards three-minute timer bell rings please discontinue speaking and allow the
084next person online to come to the podium should you be unable to finish your comments please send or give them to our clerk ms johnson and she will share them with board members mr edwards mr chairman seven individuals uh scheduled before this evening and they also include state delegate kathy byron who will lead off tonight other speakers who have scheduled previously include richard white matt ferguson dina yock veronica schakowsky glenn smith tiffany foley and teresa pregnant mr chairman following those eight individuals uh would you if we have others that wish to speak wish for those people to come up and state their name and then proceed the board has indicated this much okay okay great from the great 23rd district delegate byron 22nd i'm sorry thank you my name is um delegate kathy byron and
085i represent the 22nd district which is a very big portion of bedford county delighted to be with you all tonight and to be a part of this discussion dr bergen i don't believe we have met yet you're getting a quick dose of what bedford county is all about and i can tell you from representing for 20-some years that bedford doesn't have life liberty and happiness as you drive into bedford for no particular reason and they value their liberty and we have very strong families here that believe in their liberty and their constitutional rights so with that i want to say thank you for giving the opportunity to speak this evening as there are many here who want to address you i'm going to keep my remarks brief i do want to say that i was
086here to hear the families and i'm 150 behind each and every one of these parents as i know as i know all of you have i have heard from parents who are very concerned about the guidance being promoted by the virginia department of education disappointingly though not surprisingly that guidance is unworkable impractical for school divisions and would violate the rights of our students and contradict science what was passed was an anti-bullying legislation dr bergen we did not pass a law in 2020 that said we had to have bathrooms available for transgenders in public facilities and if we had you would have heard a lot more discussion than we had we were presented with an anti-bullying legislation and i would also remind everyone that public facilities you have a choice children do not have that same
087choice when they go to school the department's guidance bears no resemblance to the presentations made to the general assembly regarding what was characterized as anti-bullying measure i was among the many legislators who opposed this measure precisely because we feared the department would misuse it in an attempt to impose unworkable and unrealistic requirements on our school divisions the department's guidance on these matters confirmed those fears unlike the virginia department of education bedford county schools and this board have a record of listening to parents hearing their concerns and crafting policies for our school that are best for all the students today i'm asking you to continue that tradition by voting to adopt the guidance from the department by voting to to vote no on the guidance from the department of education and listen to the parents and
088follow what you have been doing in the past and ensuring that each of the students that their heart mind and body feel protected when they go to school each day to learn i want to thank you for your service to bedford your continued efforts to ensure our schools serve our students and respect the parents and the values of our community i urge you to listen to each of these parents tonight and their constitutional right that they have to protect their children while they are in the school place and i assure each of you tonight and thank you for the comments that i'm hearing from many of you up there to make sure that our children are protected that next year anything remaining of this and the department of education if we're in the majority are
089going to be gone we are going to make sure that parents continue to be in control of their children and have the authority to raise them the way that they feel is best fit thank you [Applause] thank you delegate byron [Applause] thank you delegate uh richard white i hear a lot of discussion on masks and so but i never hear anybody bring anything about data so i actually wanted to offer a copy to all of you on the board i'm just sure if you'd like to make a copy of it i do want this background those are the top three randomized control studies uh americans excuse me the journal of america journal of american medicine um it's a and the wily academia there's 35 000 doctors and nurses they did randomized patrol studies and um
090excuse me the throat is really dry and they came to the conclusion that um masks unfortunately are not effective in hospital settings um and the main reason is because the seal can't be maintained around the face and n95 are the only types of masks that actually work and again they can't be touched or tampered with or the seal is broken so therefore the transfer of disease is likely to happen so i just wanted to give that to you all so that way you have the actual data if you have any questions you can look at it and make copies of it please give it back to me that's really all i have to say um but i appreciate your time and uh thank you so much thank you matt ferguson all right good evening everyone
091matt ferguson here and i have two daughters one daughter is in elementary school and one will be going to elementary school i represent the fifth district and i want to start out by saying yes i do appreciate everything that you all do but at the same time parents have major concerns when it comes to our children and keeping them masked with a face diaper on their face all day long [Applause] and i'm very concerned because from what i understand the school day is going to be even longer right now my daughter gets on the bus at seven o'clock in the morning gets off the bus a little bit after two o'clock so if we extend the day it's going to be even longer and she says daddy i can't breathe sometimes i can't breathe and
092i pull my mask down i'm not upset because i know teachers have to do what they have to do to be in compliance but i sure as heck do not want teachers telling my daughter when she wants a breath of fresh air to keep your mask from your nose to your mouth and don't move it [Applause] so speaking with many many parents in eastern bedford county i'm here to talk about how for our children's sake we are pleading with each and every one of you to make sure masks are optional for the upcoming school year this decision as a couple of you have mentioned should be left up either to the student or the parent their mental health is much more important than worrying about someone that's got a cough and a sore throat that
093tests positive for covet 19 we need to get our kids back to normal and i think i i'm happy that this many people are here but i think there's a lot more people out there that totally agree with us and for whatever reason they should be here to let you know that this is not right there's going to be many people that are going to agree with us but i do understand some disagree virtual learning is a possibility we all want our students learning to be a great experience that we want socialization where they can actually see their friends faces learn how to read and write by watching a teacher's face because i learn by reading lips not by looking at a math a mask again please allow our children to breathe thank you [Applause]
094thank you mr ferguson no weather update tonight not tonight okay wouldn't be the first one dina john yuck sorry thank you my name is dina yach i'm the mom of four that range in age from 24 to eight all born and raised here in bedford county so i've got quite a bit of experience it runs the full gamut from college age all the way down to elementary school but i'm here tonight to stand up for my eight-year-old who is at thomas jefferson elementary and i insist that the board allow parent choice and make mass optional i implore you to use common sense for your vote not fear i am done for one sitting down and allowing my child's well-being to be sacrificed in a game of political play and if you are not aware the
095kids of bedford county have spent this entire summer in summer camp sports camps vacation bible school the neighborhood pools the neighborhood parks in their friends backyards and they are doing just fine if you want to discuss this increases and make up your charts and matrixes and graphs let's talk about how many people are being hospitalized what's the severity of the cases how many deaths are there you cannot do this to our children brace strictly off of an anticipated number you need to take into account our specific area we are masking and we are mandating out of fear the one number and the one statistic that nobody has discussed tonight and that has not changed in a year and a half children have less than one percent chance of even contracting covet less than one percent
09699.975 who do get it will survive [Applause] just on july 28 a couple days ago the cdc director was on cnn and stated that this new delta variant poses no new risk to children there is no evidence of any new risk so that number one percent stays the same what are we doing here what are we doing roanoke franklin county bodytalk just voted in favor of parent choice as was already noted if you don't you are harming our kids you're harming them physically emotionally development developmentally and they are going to pay for the decisions that are made tonight from a physical perspective just recently a study at the university of florida took the masks that children had worn all day and they were coated in bacteria fungus and filth our children in this area are
097developing asthma allergies chronic sinus infections all from the mask their own breath is dangerous to them in that mask more dangerous than their likelihood of getting covet we are about to see developmental delays the likes of which no one has prepared for our kids need to see their teachers faces and their smiles they need to read expressions they need to breathe air they need to laugh they need to communicate they need to interact with their peers they need to play together they do not need to wear a muzzle all day this county is going to realize the major academic setback when they start back in two weeks but what i believe teachers and administrators are not prepared for is the emotional psychological and developmental delays so i ask you do not muzzle our children let
098us as the parents decide what is best for them you were elected to your positions to represent these people on in this county not to dictate to us i would implore to parents parents we need to stand up stand up to the school board in the pta in the classrooms we need to apply common sense and stop being dictated by fear we need to be our children's voice board members if you are honestly here for our children and their well-being then take the masks off if you want to protect them physically emotionally and mentally let the parents make the decision allow the parents to exercise our god-given constitutional right to determine what's best for our child's health we need to act out of common sense i believe that what we do to these children this
099school year will have a profound effect for years to come and we will all have to answer one day for what we have done here and the decisions that are being made and we need to make them with common sense not fear thank you [Applause] thank you veronica schakowsky my name is veronica chacosky address 303 westwood drive forest 24551 i'm here today to stand with the majority of my fellow bedford citizens parents and teachers and students concerning the ongoing mass mandates for our school children and teachers over the past year it's become increasingly evident that the coronavirus pandemic and all of its related height is just the next rung in the globalists and communist scheme to once again enslave humanity it's all about control and this was blatantly evident in the presentation tonight honest statistics
100show that mask wearing does not make a considerable difference in the emission rate of the coronavirus and that the coronavirus does not pose a higher risk than any other virus disease or sickness also the policies that are set in a local school district should be up to parents not an overbearing department of education or cdc so i respectfully demand that you take the masks off of our children stop making them breed their own waste stop making them be minions of an overreaching tyrannical government and let them along with their parents have the freedom to make their own decisions about their health and well-being and what risks they are and are not willing to take it's time for the people to take back their rightful power thank you [Applause] thank you ma'am glenn smith my name
101is glenn smith i'm from virginia byway here in bedford uh i i would like to say something about this transgender issue i it seems to me that this is something that is being thrust upon us it is going to the extreme let me hasten to add that i think every student every person needs to be treated with respect dignity and as much as possible their needs in a reasonable fashion met but i don't understand one thing and i wonder if i might ask a question not for argumentation but just a yes or no answer is that allowable at this point no during public comment only members you can share but we cannot respond okay well i'll just i'll just uh mention this if i understood dr bergen right it sounds as if a transgender student
102one who has been so designated and apparently has met the criteria to to be considered transgender if he or she wants to use the let's say the restroom or the locker room opposite his or her biological sense that is allowable that really blew my mind for students now i can see perhaps for adults i mean it makes no sense there to me either really but if particularly if there is some other accommodation available but to me i think we need to stay where we are if the policies in this county are in conformance with the law then i think maybe we just need to stay where we are and do what i understand russell county and perhaps campbell county did and just reject this thing [Applause] thank you thank you tiffany foley i'm short but
103mighty [Music] um so i sorry you start my time over again um okay so miss yacht blew everything i had to say out of the water completely 100 behind everything she said um so my name is tiffany i have been in healthcare for 17 years over the past 15 of those years i've been in the emergency department um i've seen this pandemic as it's evolved the whole time and i can tell you right now i'll throw some more numbers out there for you along with mr what uh lemy said out of 34 million cases in the u.s of covid 600 000 deaths a little over 600 000 deaths which is again regrettable 406 ages 0 to 17 or 0 to 19 i can't remember which ones they were so mine are a little different than
104yours but so putting that in a bigger perspective okay um bedford county the population of bedford county 79 000 okay a little over or a little under 7 000 cases of coven 1 107 of those were ages 0-19 they had 110 deaths in bedford county deaths ages 0-19 no deaths so children get sick they've probably had coronaviruses as many of us probably have their whole life and a study showed that children are less likely to contract transmit or die from covid than any of the adults that are getting this coven the delta variant coming along great but uh it's it's not about how many cases there are it's about the severity of the cases the sickness that these the hospitalization someone mentioned it's all about that and i'm telling you from my experience we are
105seeing a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients getting coveted still so and and let me remind everyone that the cdc while they get reports of the vaccinated individuals that have these breakthrough cases they're not reporting those in the numbers anymore so the numbers that are rising and the problem of the unvaccinated people is because the vaccinated numbers are not in that count any longer so i like i said miss y'all blew it out of the water she said everything anyone is in agreement with here um and that's really all i have to say thank you theresa pregnant hello my name is teresa pregnol i'm a forest resident my concerns tonight regarding the model policies for the treatment of transgender students are many the model policies are a direct hit to parental authority and religious freedom
106following is a small sampling of the proposed policies now keep in mind there are no religious exceptions or accommodations for those in the faith community from page 12 the policy states first paragraph school divisions will need to consider the health and safety of the student in situations where students may not want their parents to know about their transgender status there are no regulations requiring school staff to notify a parent or guardian of a student's request to affirm their gender identity this encourages schools to keep secrets from parents page 12 also states bold paragraph school personnel shall treat information relating to a student's transgender status as being particularly sensitive shall not disclose it to other students and parents again this disregards parental authority parental rights are ignored on page 17 of the policy the bold text
107states for any school program event or activity including extracurricular activities that are segregated by gender school division shall allow students to participate in a manner consistent with their gender identity this blatantly jeopardizes the privacy and safety of our students and the last page 17 and 18 last paragraph in the bold first paragraph the school staff should not confront students about their gender identity upon entry into the restroom access to facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to a student's gender identity shall be available to all students this eliminates privacy and safety in which we've discussed we must continue to keep privacy and safety in these bathrooms and locker rooms i would suggest that the majority of parents and guardians here in bedford county disagree disapprove of this radical push to eliminate differences between
108females and males and the brainwashing of our children and grandchildren [Applause] this policy creates a special class of students with special rights and privileges we might as well acknowledge that that neglects and supersedes the rights of every other student and provides yet another avenue for division among students the bottom line is according to the assistant attorney general melissa scharns representing virginia department of education there is no enforcement mechanism within the model policy statute meaning there is no punishment for a school board if they fail to pass these inclusive policies i urge our bedford county school board to vote no in regards to implementing this model policy for the treatment of transgender students we have a choice here bedford county i encourage the school board to vote no thank you that being the end of our
109scheduled speakers we have other individuals that would like to speak all right yes sir if you please come up and state your name uh my name's chris ashman i live in bedford county uh mr leamy's district um i'm a father and a husband and um i'm also a u.s army vet yeah right thank you um i served eight years to defend this constitution and the rights of everybody in the country and what i hear is classic government knowing better than you do and that is not america i'm sorry we know better for our children and who we are better than any bureaucrat any hired politician or superintendent okay mr superintendent i know you're new but you brought up a great point earlier your great point was understand your community you said that on your slide
110and i want you to know your community is not behind what you're talking about all right so and this and not only that but i hear a lot about students but also staff i mean you're telling staff that they have to put their health in jeopardy because of a virus that affects less than one percent i'm a carpenter i deal with fractions and percentages and some of these numbers don't even show up on a ruler i can't even cut it with a saw i mean to be that accurate i mean we're talking crazy numbers that we're throwing everything out of the water so transgender you mentioned earlier consistent people who consistently identify as our world what's the consistency do you make the decision on monday and by tuesday you can use bathroom or i mean
111how consistent do you have today is there a document you sign i mean i don't so you need to clarify that a little better how will you know who is vaccinated are you going to start checking people at the door having it on their record i mean you know i i that's a question i have i mean it's different than an mmr shot or anything like that we're talking boosters and all that other stuff um can my student identify as vaccinated if a student can identify male or female can a teacher or a student identify as vaccinated because i have been vaccinated with other vaccines so i'm vaccinated so that blows that whole thing out of the water so you need to maybe clarify that a little bit more um how close to a zero
112percentage amongst the population do we really have to get to to start talking about this stuff i mean we're like again you can't even measure almost what the percentage of the population is and we're still dealing with this stuff it's so close to zero photo finishing here um why do you care if you're vaccinated why do you care about the unvaccinated are you just not sure about your vaccine i mean seriously if you're got the flu shot and i didn't nobody's ever cared about my flu shot um and uh one more thing why are we trusting a government that allows illegal aliens just to come across the border not test them send them anywhere they want to go in the country and voluntarily deny a vaccine a president who in november said he wouldn't take
113the vaccine and now he's taking it it's the same vaccine he said he didn't trust but now we want to listen to everybody right a dr fauci who flip-flops more than a politician does right and i don't i don't this doesn't make any sense to me cdc even said listen and i'm going to go back to carpenter right i work with houses i remodeled homes i wear these kn 95 masks hand and drywall you know i take it off i got drywall all up around my bag on face so if drywall dust and all these other things are getting through these masks what are we doing you know what i mean what are we doing come on let's start using our heads a little bit here and stop playing games and actually listen to common
114sense and stop trusting the government all the time thank you [Applause] thank you and just as a reminder be listening for mr edward's bell at three minutes yes sir uh my name is eric sims i'm from big album virginia uh first of all i start off with a prayer for the bepper county school board coming how to be proud of believers so first dear father be at this school as they make the decisions or don't if they know you they know what the right decisions is because it's all in your book if they know you they know what to make well lord be with them as they make a decision we come to you and we pray amen all right now you think about this i got three daughters from the age of two to
115um to 10 years old right they're getting ready to start going to school and middle school everything else you mean tell me in my future i got to worry about a guy coming in there for my daughter and you know what i put on a skirt and say i'm um female i can walk up in a female bathroom i mean i ain't a pretty female but i'm saying if i put a skirt on and say i am i can walk up in there and you mean tell me that you trust them to not to touch my daughter at all you trust them a hundred percent not to come in and let my daughter touch their shoulder weenie or anything like that you trust me and then we supposed to sit back here and send our
116kids to school that y'all teach them what y'all want to teach them anymore we don't have a say-so in this no more well america this is america people each one every one of us is freedom we're supposed to be free as american people out here it's time for us as christian people as christian people to use our freedom and come back free again and stop letting people like him tell us what we can and cannot do that's all i got to say we don't listen to y'all we don't listen to y'all no more we're done it's time to open our cage up and let's get free y'all to enclose us it's time for us to get free it's time for us to use our freedom and take us in as christians people and take a
117stand against people like you and you and we're going to stand we're going to come highly y'all come to the southern virginia we ain't in northern virginia no more thank you good evening david beauregard right here from bedford town of bedford mr johnson you stated earlier that and in other meetings that you cannot answer during public comment um you did take the oath to and swear to the us constitution and to appalled and support that did you not okay and you did the same for the virginia constitution okay ladies and gentlemen i just want to show you an example of the plan i just want to show you an example of the lack of the respect and upholding their oath he said they cannot answer commonwealth of virginia constitution bill of rights article one section
118two people are the source of power not the board we don't need to stand here and ask them to do something we need to direct them to do something the very term representative the very term representative indicates that there is someone that they submit to someone that they get their orders from the people are the source of power article two that all power is vested in and consequently derived from the people that magistrates are their trustees and servants and at all times amenable to them amenable means liable to answer accountable and then the phrase follows that at all times so he is liable by his oath to the constitution of virginia to answer at all times mr johnson this is an all time did you swear to those constitutions to uphold those and support them
119as i said the board is here to listen not to respond we're happy to talk to you after the meeting okay there you have it okay would anyone yield another three minutes to me is there time they can be removed from the meeting i don't want to do that i'm just trying to make a point we don't have to stand here and ask them to do something the power is within us they are there as our representatives and except with several they are not for us parents or citizens we have to assert our authority the closed meeting is a violation of the constitution they do they take the minutes but they do not allow the public we cannot see that and i want to ask you another question is mr bergen the superintendent that we
120want for our public schools okay one other one other suggestion it is my suggestion that we the people make a directive to the board not for a vote but a directive that they reject the transgender model policy until and and also the crt and any other policy but specifically the transgender and the crt until december of this year and on and under the discussion of the people and open discussion and questions with the board that is my recommendation if you agree stand up [Applause] so mr johnson and the rest of the board respectfully we the people want the transgender item rejected not voted on we want to reject it this evening we want the crt rejected this evening we're not asking you for a vote as our representatives we are giving you a directive board
121my name is james macdonald i live in bedford county i'm a proud veteran father husband and i've got four kids that go to bedford county public schools last year i stood idly by while i watched my children go to school muzzled they killed me my daughter would come home she had a rash on her face from a mask when we took her to the doctor and the doctor told my wife and my child she doesn't have to wear a mask as a doctor's excuse she brings it to the school what does the nurse the marxist nurse at the school do she says no you can't you gotta wear a mask or we can we can segregate her six feet above away from everybody all the time she's seven years old it doesn't work like that
122for this reason and many many others masking my children will not happen vaccinating my children will not happen the board their school board or the superintendent whoever is in charge of this decided that online school closeted closed in may signing up for it closed in may you can't sign up for it now now that you've told us that we can't have our masks on our kids have to be masked i'm asking for the board if you're gonna make masks mandatory or potentially mandatory in any way that you just say hey look if you'd rather opt into this online situation opt into the online situation so that my children don't have to suffer again a whole nother year wearing any stinking muzzles thank you as a mother of four in bedford county public schools and one
123who's been active in all the schools my children attend i'm thankful for the opportunity to get to speak tonight i actually had my four wiggly boys with me tonight and they did not last this long into the meeting but they did make posters saying how they felt about wearing masks in school my son ben is holding one now that my nine-year-old wrote that says my mask gives me headaches my six-year-old said he missed seeing his friend's smiles that's a hard one for mom to say out loud that one's mine my parental rights do not end at the school's front doors and one of my other sons said i can't focus when i can't breathe if i had more time which others did tonight i would share with you countless research papers psychological reviews and accounts
124that would point to the damaging effects that our learners are experiencing by wearing masks oftentimes the best evidence to show you is the ones that we see in our own lives since i have just a minute to share with you i will instead tell you what our family has experienced i've enrolled all four of our children in the in-person learning options this past fall our children have always enjoyed done well and thrived in school and some of you who sit behind that desk know that from a first-hand basis last year one of my children started suffering from anxiety attacks and severe headaches another one of my children who's been an ab honorable student his entire career suffered issues with focus throughout the day and the mask made him feel light-headed and unable to maintain attention
125in his classes he struggled to reach anywhere near his full potential both the drop in performance and increased anxiety have been attributed to the mass mandates one of my sons requires additional assistance to reach his full potential at school and two days a week with only two days a week being the in-person option for him was also not enough i urge you to quote follow the science to see that children are not super spreaders of covid but the mass mandates are spreading fear and anxiety in their lives i would wager to say i'm not the only person in this room who's trying to raise a child who's brave who stands up for what's right and who has a sturdy foundation based off of a wonderful education available to them in bedford county public schools i'd
126also venture to say that we would all like the officials we've elected to represent us to truly represent what is best for our children my rights as a parent as well as the rights of other every other parent in this room do not end at the entrance to their classrooms it only takes one person being brave to give others the courage to be brave i'm not afraid to be free for our students anymore and to say no to mass mandatory masking reject the dangerous transgender agenda and the critical race theory teachings i know i'm not the only person in this room who is a for who is going to be brave and you will continue to hear from those of us who aren't afraid to end my time someone i greatly admire martin luther king
127said there comes a time when one must take a position that's neither safe nor political nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right and for me as someone who knows and loves the lord i know that voice inside of me isn't just my conscience it's what god tells me to do and i would ask you all to do the same thank you ma'am ma'am ma'am before you leave for the record could you just state your name so we have that for the minutes yes i'm sorry amy sneed thank you ma'am good evening my name is eric klinger i have a daughter getting ready to go to forest middle and three sons at new london first of all thank you for giving us the time to extend the comment period
128going back to your first slide dr bergen i read that my daughter has a right to attend i'm not quoting it right but she has the right to go to school and not be in fear she has the right to go to the bathroom and not be in fear i also understood you correctly you also suggested that any young man biological young man that enters a female restroom will be dealt with reactively my daughter is a competitive gymnast she's been doing this for about five years i followed the sport of gymnastics far more than i ever expected anybody that has has undoubtedly heard of the usag that did not promote and allowed a culture of emotional physical and sexual abuse to hundreds if not thousands of women and young girls i don't know what it's
129like to be an adolescent girl i listen to my wife and my daughter's coming into a very confusing time a lot of girls are going to be self-conscious trying to deal with all of that as things change what i have not heard tonight is how are we going to protect our young girls larry nassar was dealt with for the crimes he committed against those young women it does not take away the emotional physical and sexual scars that those women have to deal with hundreds were brave enough to come forth at the trial but what about the hundreds and thousands that were not i will go to hell and back before i put my daughter in a school that is going to be reactive and ignores the warning signs that will come with this transgender law
130and puts her at risk we cannot allow our young girls who are already going through a confusing time in their life to sit there and be afraid to speak and to go to school every day and be afraid to go to the bathroom it just can't happen and i know there are hundreds of dads that would stand behind me and they've already been here tonight that need to we'll stand up and if you can't tell us this will be my recommendation for the board if you can't provide us an answer on how you're going to provide a safe environment for my daughter and it's my recommendation to the board that dr burgin be removed from this [Applause] position [Applause] hi my name is emily lindy and my eight-year-old son gabriel would like to say something
131okay immediately after covet hit my child was diagnosed with a severe emotional disorder and he was severely distraught daily and unable to cope with his uh without being without his fellow classmates fortunately schools did open back up in august last year but he couldn't return to normalcy he needed excessive assistance and support from faculty and staff to implement accommodations just to allow him to pass and to be somewhat happy at school it was not the school or the community's responsibility to prepare for all possible situations and emotional needs for my child as he is in the minority this should be the same for the transgender students the population majority should not have to bend to the few the transgender students should have to go through the same requirements as i had to in order to
132implement their accommodations not the other way around we need to protect the majority of these kids from this as long as we can we all know what this is the life of everything that's out there that we're protecting them in their little hearts now regarding masks if the goal is to protect the students they're not getting sick the 350 approximately and 75 million children that is not a statistically significant number and i'm a data analyst and the people in here will know that as well that it's not statistically significant so you cannot base decisions on that decisions and guidelines claiming that they are at risk and severely impact their emotional physical health can not be made on that number and if the goal is to protect the staff they can be vaccinated if they choose
133it is not the responsibility of my child to wear a mask that does not work to protect from a disease that is not impacting them and is on the decline leave the responsibility where it belongs and let the parents choose [Applause] we need to stop the masks and return the schools back to normal it's good to be here at liberty high school and i noticed that of the eight people on the stage four are masked and four or not and i say great choice for the board has choice whether to mask or not i would like to use my time and ask that you would join me in prayer gracious god our father i pray tonight lord that you would rescue this nation from the hatred that so deeply divides us and that you would
134rescue our children from any and all who would use them as pawns in their own hateful and hurtful agendas i pray lord that you would also speak to this board tonight about protecting our children's privacy modesty and safety from those who seek to put them in harm's way i pray lord that you would help this board to see beyond the agendas that have been imposed upon them by higher authorities and that they would recognize your authority god and your love for all our children and i pray that you lord would cause this prayer to speak to their hearts on behalf of all the concerned parents educators administrators here tonight and more importantly on behalf of all the children in bedford county lord our children belong to you and we place them in your care in
135jesus name amen ma'am what's your name i am christina coleman thank you come on down the mic is open my name is jesse nichols i'm from the huddleston area let's see so covet if i understand correctly is one micron the m95 mask have three micron holes in it so if you have one micron it fits inside of a three micron hole is that correct okay i'm no i'm not trying to be stupid i'm being serious so if i have a mask no offense but blue ones that are have a hole of 10 microns then that one micron goes right through it dr fauci in february of 2020 in response to an email to a young lady or some age asked her doesn't he she asked him does the mask work february 2020 he said it
136does not the mask you buy in the store do not work you can go look that up online that's not something i made up all of his emails are made public correct okay so if the high priest is saying that they don't work why do we still force it on people okay has anybody here worked in a radioactive city where you go into radiation you have to work in high radiation places okay if you go you have to have a respirator fit you cannot have a beard in a respirator fit do you know why common sense that radiation you can't see it just like you can't see the coronavirus it will go around through the beard and you're going to inhale radiation that's common sense if you're wearing these masks and your eyes are fogging
137up the air takes the path of least resistance it's coming through the sides it's coming through the top what in god's name happened to common sense in all seriousness we don't we dr falchi has told us they don't work and when he is challenged on that in front of the congress he's wearing two masks and he's vaccinated he they're lying to us why do we trust the government for anything and i realize most of you are government workers okay next thing um let's see the vaccine israel is the second most vaccinated country in the world it's 8 million people that's approximately what's in virginia is that correct but they live in the size of new jersey so they're all compacted together okay the most vaccinated they are going into another lockdown in july they have
138had 31 deaths of people over 60 25 of them were vaccinated okay did you know that as of july 12 the cdc their own website tells us that over 6 000 people have reported dead after taking the vaccine did you know that sir over 6 000 people have died after taking the vaccine whatever happened to hank aaron nobody ever told us what happened to hank aaron okay uh let's keep going thank you all right why the obsession with mass and we know what it is it's a symbol of your compliance it's a symbol of allegiance it it says i'm on the team i'm part of the program with all due respect to you that awareness if i was an 80 year old person i might put one on but it's about enforcement all of this
139is about control it has nothing to do with science when they say listen to the science i want to fall over in the chair they're not dr fauci is saying that herd immunity doesn't matter anymore that's as old as time hurt immunity okay here's another thing the cdc do you realize how many people they probably killed when they said do not use hydrochloroquine think about that they told your doctors not to use we have used hydrochloric and since the 1700s for respiratory viruses but donald trump mentions it once and now we can't use it no more that's why would i trust anything the government says sir why would you trust what the government says we are not a nation of laws that is the myth we are a nation of political will and wherever the
140people drive that's where the politicians go the fbi investigates whoever they want horowitz when the uh trump administration and it had all kinds of stuff on people from the previous administration not one of them had been brought to court the fbi investigates who they want laws don't mean deadly squad don't tell me that you care about the law when nobody else does we are a nation of self-reliance we we kicked the other government out so we could do it ourselves that's what we believe in southern virginia um and then here's this is just the thought i've had we love the hunger games the little girl with the bow and arrow right everybody's pulling for the little girl with the bow and arrow nobody's pulling for the government can you watch divergent it's the little girl
141we're pulling for robin hood a a a story as old as old in this country nobody's pulling for the sheriff of nottingham they're pulling for robin hood why when it happens in real life do we go with the crowd and not rely on ourselves and certainly parents to make their own decisions the transgender thing i would say that most people here probably most of these people on this board are christians or at the very least do not have a an animosity to christianity why are we discussing transgenderism if you're a biological male you go to the male bathroom if you're a biological girl you go to the girl bath it's sinful if you're a christian you do not need to debate that that's common sense what in the world happened to common sense we don't
142have to go over the edge because governor nothing seemed to right thank you thank you well since you've already spoken so as far as the vaccine is concerned so this is this is uh interviews with dr michael yaden robert malone is the inventor of the rma mrna technology i don't know if you all know that uh and brett weinstein is a evolutionary biologist 30 years practicing so um there's guidelines for the fda they're supposed to be following and i don't know if they're following them at this point but the maximum allowable deaths is 150. that's that's my understanding so based on the viirs database which is the aggregate data that's collected for ag for deleterious effects and deaths so far the us says 11 300 as of july 16th um that's well beyond 150. globally
143i think we're at 110 000 now and as far as deleterious effects we're 1.3 million now i don't you all are entitled to do what you want but i think that needs to be taken into consideration and i don't know why the fda is not bothering to address this issue since they're the ones that gave clearance for emergency use but i think that's something that people need to be aware of and you can back check that data dr alba malone dr brett weinstein and dr uh michael yaten who's the former vice president of pfizer by the way so that's that's all i want to share thank you thank you hello my name is tamara webster from the 6th district of bedford county i am a proud mother of two boys one who has graduated and
144one that will be graduating from bedford county public schools i have volunteered my time with before county school since 2000 and enjoyed being being able to be a part of my son's education classes activities field days and helping the teachers my interactions with my son and the students were memories i will always cherish what i've learned from students going to the restrooms locker rooms that they have a difficult time rather it rather it was having to go real bad didn't want to get sick around other people or having the girl female issues being embarrassed now schools are wanting to change the policy where students have no privacy the policy was boys get caught in to the girls restroom locker rooms or girls get caught in the boys restroom would be expelled i feel that allowing
145this policy to be considered is asking for sexual harassment cases to arise god created all americans as men and women boy and girl so i am here to ask is this going to be legal what consequences will become from the days of air schools entering schools i hope that all stay safe and healthy and thank you for letting me speak tonight thank you my name is dorothean hubs i think in school district 7. anyway um these things aren't consistent we know that in across the united states there is effort to cause teachers in even kindergarten to start children questioning their biological identity and first of all that shouldn't be but you're not even the guidelines don't even have a individual bathroom except starting with middle school so it just doesn't compute another thing you say
146that the uh there are about five things they have to do they have to get a doctor's of whatever certificate or something that they have changed biologically they have to have about five things that you've read about but um if that is so and they have all these identifying things that they are biologically i mean they are changed then why can't they use this special bathroom and only the special bathroom that's my question thank you any any final speakers now we'll go ahead and close the comment period got one more one more okay come on down hello i'm margaret riley this is my daughter she goes to bedford elementary and i just want to talk on the subject of the transgender um i really really hope that you guys vote against it because i personally
147as a parent feel that you are endangering my daughter when you are saying that a guy could go in to a girl's bathroom just because he identifies as a girl like and i'm i guarantee you if anything were to happen to my daughter and i'm sure some of these parents would agree anything happened to their child whether it be a boy or a girl there will be lawsuits is that something you want i hope i hope that you guys please do not endanger our children thank you anyone else not we'll go ahead and close this public comment portion tonight's meeting and we'll move on to uh item six additional action items do we have a motion on the masking issue mr chair i would like to recommend that we reject the proposed policy and give
148the parents the option of masking and return to school back to normal [Applause] so we have a motion by mr hill second okay and second uh by mr hill motioned by mr hill second by mr lainey to reject the proposals would okay yes we'll we'll vote on this separately okay so any discussion on the recommendation mr chairman uh there's a question if i may please ask dr bergen and dr woodford um and it's in regards to um the database decision your metrics that you all have in place here if i understood afterwards with you correctly you looked at data in terms of determining the metric based on last year's information is that is that correct okay as i stated earlier it is certainly my belief that our parents should be given the option to make
149the decision regarding whether they want their child to wear a mascara i decided to wear my mask that was my decision that is my right to do so um and i think that the parents should have that option but i also believe that it's very important that we keep our students and our teachers it's not just our students but it's our teachers it's our other staff members that we have to also keep safe as well and so with that said my concern is what i'd like to ask is can we take another look at the metric here because if i'm looking at the data that you all have provided me with then it looks like it's last year's data and we we've created a rubric here which now places us in uh orange and if
150we're in orange then if i'm understanding it correctly then there is no option for the parents to make a decision when their children return back to school no no so we're we're in this one okay then i stand corrected i guess that's where i needed that clarification from you all so currently we are aware yeah in the second column we're in the second column yeah okay all right all right look we are mighty close to the red and we'll be there okay yeah so we're in beyond we're in the orange mighty close to the red though and i'm afraid wouldn't have any time other questions comments if not i will call for a vote so all those in favor of um mr hill's motion please say aye aye aye opposed no okay ms johnson please
151pull the board ms harrison no dr hicks no mr hill yes mr johnson yes mrs kirby yes excuse me mr lamey yes dr miley dr emily can you hear me hello yes ma'am we were pulling the board for mr hill's motion unknown thank you ma'am you have four yeses and three no's mr chairman so the motion to not require masks is approved for three do we want to consider separately the metrics for other uh safety mitigations in terms of enhanced cleaning um timelines restrictions mr chairman yeah i just reject my vote was to reject the entire entire policy okay that is correct all right okay any other action items tonight yes mr johnson um i'm deeply disturbed by the model policy that the virginia department of education sent down on several fronts first it does
152not address the safety and emotional concerns of non-transgender students and more disturbing or of equal disturbance to me is what i heard delegate byron say earlier to where this started out as not anti-bullying legislation and was twisted molded and turned into something by the virginia department of education that the legislature did not intend so therefore i move that we reject the model transgender policy of the bdod all right so mr lee has made a motion that we reject the model policies lee second by ms kirby any discussion would you like to speak with our attorney and maybe revisit this at the next meeting make this action item at the next video [Applause] i i'm not withdrawing the motion any any other discussion on this uh mr chairman i'd like to ask um another question of
153dr bergen and dr whitford uh in terms of uh our current practice and policy that we have in place in our school division we know that we have students that have identified themselves as being transgender is is that correct or is it not correct yeah we've always had students so we have always had and we currently have and we have a policy or we have a procedure in place for those students is that correct we do have that um i would suggest that the plan that we already have in place and what we've been doing to uh support these students that we continue with that particular plan that would not be interrupted by this motion okay miss kirby no no okay all for clarification we will still keep the individual private bathrooms open for those
154that want to use it correct is that part of what we're deciding tonight with the motions is that your intent is doing it that's what's in place today if i'm that wasn't the place and we'll but we'll what i asked earlier if the current policy was that if that the student can use the bathroom that they identify with as opposed to biologically it was stated that and this is our current policy so if we're going to stay with that current policy do they have to go to the restroom that they uh that they are biological with i thought you said earlier they could go to the restroom because they are identified with so what is our current policies what i'm asking so if we reject this what are we actually rejecting are we still going
155to will our current policy still allow the transgender student to go to the restroom that they identify with so let me let me if i can go back mister the intent of your motion is that you want to my motion is to not in any way shape or form impact what we have already approved for policies for bedford county public schools what i am doing and you know what delegate byron said again deeply disturbs me that the bdoe has taken what started out as anti-bullying legislation and turned it into some political stuff and my motion is to reject the vdoe model policy [Applause] seeking clarification here so mr lainey has made a recommendation here and if i'm understanding he is saying that he wants us to continue with the current policy that we have in
156place to to address my motion is specific to the model policy sent out by vdoe this right here everything else stays in place that is in place today so we just continue with the policy that we have in place and we're not voting on that we're voting to reject what was presented tonight so current practices would still remain in place but we were just voting to reject the model policies from the dom right and just to clarify current practice is to allow transgender students to use single-use restrooms if in consultation with their families and the school principal it's always been our practice yeah so he's gonna practice it but let me please clarify for me if it again i went around to the word that current policy was it was to offer um but if
157they choose to not accept that offer and want to go to one of the main restrooms as transgender students still love to go to the restroom with our current policy that they identify with or do they have to go to the restroom to which they are biologically so and that's what i i'll take the direction of the school board and make sure that i provide that direction for administrators so by the intent of this motion are you asking that the administration will not allow students to use a restroom unless it conforms to their gender by by birth this this motion impacts only with the bdo he sent down it does not impact current standing policies that the county has okay okay so if a student who identifies as transgender uh just i'll use an example
158just for clarification if a biological male identifies as a transgender female and chooses to use a female restroom the law the law says that that that if we do not allow if the schools or a place of business or anyone in this country does not allow a transgender person to use the restroom that matches their gender identity that is discriminatory that's what that's what the law says so but i i i would i would welcome a legal opinion on this matter too so i'll take direction from the school board mr johnson hold on one second dr emily are you done i am okay all right dr emily yeah i'm just very concerned about that as well i am not an attorney but i think we might be placing ourselves in a in a very tenuous
159position because again i'm not an attorney but um that is my understanding that this is the law we just cannot say you can't do that um so i think the legal some legal uh advice is is would be very proven for this board uh because you know we could end up with a a lawsuit and and you know because we don't i don't think any of us sitting around the table know the legal answer to that to what uh dr bergen said i mean i that is my understanding but i think we are remiss if we do not get legal uh i agree with dr mealy that that this is not something that that needs to be decided on tonight and we should seek advice from our legal counsel ms kirby mr chairman i would
160suggest that we go ahead and proceed with mr limi's motion as far as the doe recommendations for tonight however reserve the fact of referring of talking to council and considering our current policy but mr chairman yes dr emily uh i'm again concerned because that place is staffed in a very awkward position or potentially we're saying by our vote that you know we don't want you to follow the law again if that is correct we don't want you to do that i'm not sure we should be asking staff to do that again without legal input here none of us are attorneys i mean i know that emotions are high and people have very strong feelings about it but we are a land of laws first and you know to all of a sudden just say we're
161going to choose not to follow that um i think puts us in legal apparel here in terms of you know people suing us and which could cost a mountain of money that may or may not be covered by our insurance because we didn't seek legal advice any final questions comments concerns [Music] go ahead and call for a vote on this all those in favor of mr leamy's motion to reject the model policies but not to affect our current practices please say aye aye opposed no for denied no food tonight okay ms johnson miss harrison no fortunate dr hicks no for tonight mr hill yes mr johnson yes but i still want to hear from legal counsel mrs kirby yes mr leamy yes dr miley no for tonight you have uh the eyes have it with
162four as opposed to three nodes so the model policies themselves are rejected um but we will we will still consult we go we can still consult legal counsel and have that right next meeting any final any final action right now i'll call for a motion to adjourn the motion by dr hicks to adjourn do we have a second second second by mr hill all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none tonight's meeting is [Music] adjourned