Valley View CUSD 365u Board Meeting 7/19/21

001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening welcome to the july 19th regularly scheduled valley view school board meeting we're asked to silence your phones rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance led by member one berduras under god indivisible with liberty and justice board affirmations statement ms pero if you would please our mission is to empower all learners to be college career and life ready and to develop grow and achieve as productive citizens thank you miss kinder agenda yes sir i would like to ask the board to approve the agenda as presented motion to approve second second motion seconded sharing discussion all those in favor say aye host same sign nice have it student staff recognition isha boys track and field state qualifiers romeoville principal kinder is dashing down the runway followed by bollingberg

002principal and coaches yeah even though i'm introducing the track that's about as fast as i got going in these in these ages so good evening president quigley members of the board superintendent kinder members of senior leadership members of the audience members of the community my name is derek kinder very proud principal of romeville high school and it's my privilege to introduce our head boys track coach mr scott harper who's going to tell you about joel's performance at the state tournament and his performance this year mr harper thank you mr kinder uh school board uh president miss kinder everybody here nice to see everybody uh i'm here to introduce uh a junior joel anyone he's been high jumping he just said since 8th grade this year joel qualified for the state track meet his best jump

003of the season was 1.93 which is six feet four inches which tied the school record so hopefully next year as a senior he'll be able to break it when we went downstate joel cleared opening height but then had a mishap and gave it his best shot on the second height and like i said he's a junior so he'll be back next year and hopefully we'll be here again to introduce him with a state medal once again joel anyone mr pascage good evening dr jason pescavidge principal of bornbrook high school and today i have the honor to present our coach coach lester thank you dr bezkavich board members everyone here thank you i'm here to introduce to my athletes that aren't here with us today tyler herring who's a junior qualified in the high jump and

004jaquan howard who qualified in 100 meter again we dealt with a very short season this year and uh these two athletes coming off of football football season in the spring did incredibly well for us um tyler tyler tied for second at the sectional and that was about his fourth time high jumping ever and he qualified for state it shows you the type of athlete he is and he just is able to try anything jaquan howard um again is one of our star football players is really really fast and has put in so much work on the track as well and he was so great for him to qualify the one athlete i do have here with us is brett wasik showed incredible adversity throughout the whole time i've coached him got third at the sectional

005meet qualified under time uh did okay at the state meet but he is a junior and he'll be back next year looking forward to a good cross-country season and hopefully back here for cross country and for track for brett so thank you brett watson moving on the agenda treasurer's report mr gazafi treasurer's action report 6.1 is the usual financial reports balance sheet summary revenue expenditure as well as the interim obligation payments for the month of june 2021 totaling six million nine hundred ninety three thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars and seventy eight cents for your consideration in action since he's already made his presentation i forgot the nutritional sewers we'll go back let's go ahead uh have a motion on this motion seconded all those in favor say oh is there any discussion member campbell

006yes member venegas yes member peril yes remember baduris yes secretary sakura yes and president quigley yes now let's go back to the nutritional services department spotlight which is up there yeah thank you president quigley one of our favorite things to do is spotlight our students staff community partners and tonight we wanted to share a brief spotlight of our nutrition services team who had continued to do an amazing job of serving our students in our community and have shown great dedication so we'll go ahead and share a quick spotlight of our awesome nutrition services team as part of valley view school district's continuing commitment to serve the community this summer vvsd nutrition services is again offering the summer meals for kids program for all children ages 18 years old and younger it's a great opportunity for

007us to offer this program it does what we love to do in value school district we love to partner with our community and get that community outreach which is so interconnected to our kids in our community so we are able to extend healthy meals to our community members throughout the summer again through the summer food service program we do open our doors if you will from 10 to 11 a.m to any community member under the age of the child can come pick up the meal or an adult can pick up the meals on behalf of the child this summer that the regulations are allowing us to to offer that it's um through july 30th july 5th we are off for the holiday but monday through friday from 10 to 11 a.m at door one at

008the following locations in romeoville irene king elementary beverly scoff elementary and av martinez middle school and in bolingbrook independence elementary j.r tibbett elementary brooks middle school and humphrey middle school when you come up we're going to ask you how many meals you need it's one per child um under the age of 18. we're going to give them a hot lunch like today was uh or yesterday was a hot dog they're also going to receive a fruit and vegetable to go with the lunch along with an offer of milk and then you will get breakfast for the following day along with a juice and a fruit the nutrition services department is always here working hard to feed kids so that's through the school year and that does not stop in the summer kids still need meals

009in the summer they need meals during a pandemic they may be more than ever they they're always in need of that so we are always here working hard um to give kids that help that access to healthy meals the summer meals program is just the latest effort by the vvsd nutrition services team to meet the ever changing needs of the community especially during the last year and a half during the covet 19 pandemic our team has been dynamic nimble and ready to serve throughout this entire time we closed our doors in march and within 48 hours we were offering meals to the community district-wide our teams didn't skip a beat we they were ready to serve curbside through the snow through the rain through the heat they loaded up on buses when we tried a

010delivery system when we came back into brick and mortar for students we had to reallocate staff according to needs and again they they were just resilient perseverance and what i would say is what really powered them through it all is they felt appreciated it really made us feel appreciated when we got all everyone to say thank you thank you thank you people returned the kindness some people would bring coffee when it was cold and snowy and raining some people would bring desserts for us we did have at some ice provide us lunch one day with salad and pizza and that was a very nice gesture the real reward was seeing our customer appreciation and as you said developing those relationships getting to know oh here comes mrs smith and i know she's picking up for

011her neighbor and um and her neighbor's two children and mrs smith would pull up and have that story to tell and the neighbor picking up the next day so anyways we developed all these wonderful wonderful relationships throughout the district with our parents and stakeholders thank you to our nutrition services folks [Applause] now back to the regularly scheduled bills payment number 6.2 gary good uh two schedule of bills for your consideration this evening as is typical at this time of year beginning with the scheduled bills for june 30th we've got five funds representing 2 million thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars and eighty cents motion to approve second motion and seconded clearing discussion hearing none seeing non roll call vote please member venegas yes member apparel no and i'm voting no or i'm abstaining i'm sorry

012because i'm on the h2o board that's for the country remember badouris yes member campbell yes secretary sakura yes and president quigley yes president quickly i would like to change my vote i am going to abstain on this one okay i apologize understood uh six point three gary six point three is the schedule of bills for the month of july we've got six funds representing three million seven hundred thirty seven thousand one hundred seventeen dollars and forty two cents for your action motion motion and segment during discussion hearing on seeing none roll call vote please member peril abstain member badouris yes remember campbell yes member venegas abstain secretary sakura yes president quigley yes mr gazafi the treasurer's information reports a summary of investments property taxes received the state funding update as well as the all schools

013trust account activity are contained in the packet a quick note on the state funding update you'll see on there we were owed two mil 2.5 million dollars in transportation and special education reimbursement happy to report that those funds have been received so they will be booked uh post june 30 but they will fall into the correct fiscal year uh so we are ending the year with just about 60 thousand dollars owed from the state which is uh quite remarkable but certainly welcome and so good news to report there any other questions state funding update gary there's two 29 548 issues over 90 days one's 181 is that transportation related that is a driver's education reimbursement for the prior year uh those typically have come in late i'm not really sure why you would think they'd

014want to just clear the deck so to speak but uh okay thank you state of illinois owes us 2.5 million dollars which is actually in our minds a good thing because it's been a lot more not too distant past so uh six point seven all stools crest anybody have any questions moving down the agenda consent agenda items miss kinder yes i'm seeking the board's approval on seven items underneath consent 7.1 board meeting minutes june 14 2021 7.2 board workshop minutes from june 23rd 2021 7.3 executive session meeting minutes from june 14th and workshop minutes for june 23rd 2021 7.4 gifts to romero high school and to the district from the library grant 7.5 student student activity contract approval request beverly scoff elementary with hr imaging 7.6 student activity contract approval request oakview elementary with interstate

015studio and 7.7 imrf benefits protection leave there a motion second motion is parallel seconded by you got it any discussion hearing none sing none roll call vote please remember but duress yes member campbell yes member venegas yes remember peril yes secretary sakura yes president quigley yes these aren't reports any and all from my right and you know from my left seeing none moving down the agenda audience participation i know some of you are here tonight to address the board so if you are this is the time you would do that so we would ask you come up state your name where you're from and keep your comments to approximately five minutes if you would please if you have information you would like to present to us electronically or otherwise please send it through the clerk

016or make copies available to the clerk also we thank you for your attendance either way we also ask that if you have comments that have already previously been made in your speech to kind of skip over those and address other things that have not been addressed thank you good evening i am a stay-at-home mom i we have been in this district for a long time from preschool up to high school paulette miller i finally made it to a board meeting last month due to life itself i listened to the board meeting and when i left i was not i did not leave with a happy feeling to see the direction that this district is taking and with that i will explain i'm going to keep it brief i'm going to try because i'm very passionate

017about this i'm going to touch on the three comments that struck me the first one mr president you made a comment basically you made a point to let everyone know that you had checked with your lawyers the school systems the health departments and and everybody that you could to make sure that your butts were covered that everything was covered to be honest i can i can appreciate that but honestly why do you need your butt covered so well with that said i'm asking you to remove the mandate of masks for our k-12 students all of them fact this covid has a over a 99 percent chance survival rate children have a better survival rate fact children are not proven to spread the virus fact making them wear a mask is harmful it's harmful to you

018and it's harmful to me and so more harmful to our children one it forces them to intake more co2 than is healthy way more it's harmful two it lowers their immunities to fight off sicknesses and three it harms them emotionally and let me tell you i can see this first hand another fact is that more children have died from the vaccine itself than covid the virus also fact is that covit is treatable therefore the immunizations are only approved for emergency use so why force our children to wear masks stop punishing them i'm asking you to let them live as kids let them breathe stop forcing them another point that struck me was when you said your mission statement was outdated i understand that i've worked in the corporate world before so change it but in

019the same meeting i got that you want to teach our children that racism communism and dysfunctional birds and bees is okay and let me explain how i came upon this the first one is racism my high schooler came home from school calling everybody a racist for every reason under the book now you tell me how that is constructive there is not one person in this room on this board that is racist i don't see it with my kids i don't see it with my family i don't see it with my neighbors it's not okay my kids have friends of all different ethnic groups and they're friends because of what's in here not the color of their skin socialism i know the high school taught socialism is a positive thing find me a country where that

020worked that it succeeds it doesn't this is the united states of america we are a free country today i don't want it to change and if you do then maybe another country is where you should find a home i'm sorry but that's the way i feel the last point i want to make is the dysfunctional birds and bees i don't know what is going on in the world today and i don't like it i don't like the fact that it's trickling down into our high schools somebody the story i got somebody donated reading material to our romeoville high school and when my child looked for a book for mother's day i got something in reference to a drag queen now i understand that's not the worst thing that could happen but i have seen reports

021across the united states of other things happening and that's only the beginning if this is coming through as a donation what's to stop it to coming through into the classroom ms miller we would ask you to sum up your conversation okay the third thing that struck a nerve is that you want to raise our kids it takes a village to raise a kid it takes parents to raise a kid i don't want you people raising my kids i want you people teaching our kids that's pretty basic i think as a teachers you are responsible to teach them reading writing arithmetic science and that life itself is to be taught by the families not their teachers so my final thought is this as a board of this district you have a choice you can choose to

022mask our children and make them i don't know what or you can let them live you can decide to go ahead with this communist marxism socialist teachings or you can stop it here i'm asking you to do what's best for our children not for your pocketbook and not for anybody else but for our children thank you for your time all right good evening mr chairman superintendent um fellow board members um so good evening my name is anthony jablonski and i'm a family i'm sorry our family's been a proud member of bowling brook for the past 16 years or so we have four kids that are currently in the valley view school district as i look around this room i want to point out a simple reminder that we're all here for one in only one

023thing really both all the parents all the super all the administrators the board members we're here for the kids let's all keep that in mind when we're talking about this conversation so there's many many facets of this masked nomas question but i wanted to focus on in on a few personal items from my family's perspective and then one key statistic so first off there are real physical impacts of mandating kids that wear masks in school let me consider the following two unprovoked quotes from two of my children the first one when i wear a mask i feel i can't breathe i get headaches and i feel tired this is from one of my sons that has asthma who knows exactly what it feels like to not be able to breathe for those of you on

024the board in the crowd that do have asthma you know how that feels it's it's a very horrible feeling of you can't get a deep breath this is what my one of my sons said to me one of my other son's son said i cannot concentrate i cannot focus while wearing a mask it's hard for me this was for my one son who's in honors level high school you know classes how do we expect our children to excel in our academics if they if there's such obstacles in their way we're setting up our kids for failure once again back to the kids it's our responsibility to consider the physical health and well-being of our kids second there's really emotional and impacts of mandating kids who wear masks three of my four kids have childhood apraxia

025of speech and have speech ieps they have worked very hard through great you know speech therapy in the school systems through many countless hours in the private speech therapies to get them to a point where they could be understood by their fellow classmates and teachers through this hard work and dedication this has led to an increased confidence throughout the years as we as we and most importantly others have observed when they have masks on their speech is further muffled and it's hard to understand them as you can imagine this is taking a major step backwards and the positive progress they have made throughout their last literally the last 10 years of their lives it will erase the many years of hard work it took to get them where they are today we fear their previous

026anxiety which there was real anxiety they had because other students and teachers cannot understand them will come back as a result of them having to wear masks in the classroom once again getting back to the kids it's a responsibility to consider the emotional well-being of our kids as well third switching gears a little bit i wanted to highlight a very important statistic that we cannot forget not to diminish those impacted by covert with underlying health conditions based on cdc numbers these are cdc numbers posted on their website the coven 19 infection fatality ratio in children is .001 percent now i didn't say one percent i said .001 percent to put this number into perspective this would be the odds of flipping a coin and landing it heads 17 times in a row it is clearly

027based in the cdc numbers covet 19 presents a near zero risk of severe outcomes to children with these numbers being almost non-existent why would we ever consider making masks mandatory once again better getting back to the kids it's it's our responsibility to consider the facts and make dedicated decisions based on the facts in closing we're just one family voicing our concerns of impacts of mandating masks to be worn in school in my small sample size of only four children you have heard real life examples of struggles we will have if mandated to wear masks in school just imagine all the other families out there that have children in similar situations that will be impacted by wearing masks you have heard me say a number of times already please remember why you chose to serve on

028the school board always remember to think about the kids i thank you for your time and strongly urge you to give parents the choice and make masks optional for the coming school year thank you very much for your time thank you [Applause] hello my name is gerald jerry miller um schools need to concentrate on reading writing arithmetic history gym sports music arts stay out of the parents job of teaching kids to be adults and values this is the parent's job not the nea teachers union the students a student didn't understand a subject being taught in class when the student asked the teacher the teacher said they had to they had to go back they had to go back oh if they had to go back they would fall behind with the curriculum that doesn't sound

029like room for more curriculum to me things like crt 1619 should not be taught in our schools these are divisive teach divisive and teach students to be racist this is the opposite of what martin luther king wanted or any person concerned with the with the children's well-being csc a comprehensive sexual education should not be taught to young children this is teaching this teaching teaches family values not good family values according to some parents me being one of them again this is what i call parents job not the schools saw a video on district 308 oswego illinois school district meeting the school the school board meeting came out and told the school board told the parents it wasn't up to the parents the parents don't get a choice they even went so far as to call

030the parents bullies when they are acting like dictators like hitler mussolini even most recent fidel castro see what happens when people are pushed too far if teachers can strike for pay benefits then we as parents can keep our kids home from school and protest in front in front of the schools just like teachers do we'll see how this goes first another topic why are schools pushing for children within over 99 percent survival rate to get experimental vaccines that the fda has not even approved the one of the dick one of the doctors who helped create mrna vaccines dr robert malone doesn't recommend it for children under not enough data yet especially with children getting things like myocarditis pericarditis just to mention a couple children should not be coerced into getting this experimental vaccine that is

031our choice as parents again they are the treatment there are treatments out there and there these treatments should be advertised more so that people are aware people own people's own immune system is better than any vaccine it can change to fight the variants we all know what what these treatments are in these and it's in this area look up bam they don't they don't let you almost die before putting you on a ventilator they treat you before it's serious this this experimental vaccine is not transparent enough side of side effects being hidden from us we raise our children not the nea teachers union not we we the parents quit pretending it's uh it is us unfortunately my children are part of the indoctrination time so us parents have to keep our children in the correct

032path i'm pretty sure we as parents will have to do more pushing back or take our kids out of school for these people out there don't just take the word of the school board or any other politicians do your research look look over not just google try search engines like duckduckgo watch videos on rumble not just youtube get different perspectives make your own mind when you ask for details on your children's curriculum they aren't and they aren't forthcoming to me that's a red flag do your research thank you thank you [Applause] good evening my name is ashley silman rodriguez and i understand that the topic of mask mandates is not set for agenda this evening however it is a concern that some have so i appreciate everyone listening this evening in regards to that i

033am a mother of elementary aged children my family's been in the community for 60 years i'm also the founder of the fountaindale library micro pantry i have my master's degree in biomedical sciences i currently work in the healthcare field and i also have an immunocompromised family member i have researched the issue of masks and covid protocols in an unbiased manner looking at both sides of the debate and came to the conclusion that masking our children is not the answer in stopping or slowing the virus therefore it should be optional for students and teachers in schools in turn forced masking actually hurts our children in more ways than one the cdc who and idph have continually wavered on recommendations not only for coven 19 but other medical advice as well however the one thing that has

034not changed is how children learn and develop curriculum and teaching methods that are currently implemented in schools have been deeply studied and put in place because positive results were seen in educational settings with these methods some examples include facial cues from teachers and peers learning in group settings using manipulatives and other techniques that covet protocols have contraindicated on the other hand there is little known about kova 19 and everything that is being recommended such as masks social distancing and plexiglas barriers to mitigate the virus are purely experimental or put in place to give people a false sense of security we would be doing the children in our community a disservice by allowing these experimental restrictions to override the highly studied teaching philosophies that are proven to be beneficial to their overall psychological physical and emotional

035well-being masking needs to be at the discretion of parents and guardians not mandated by a school board i ask that masks be optional for all of our valley view school district students and faculty and plexiglass barriers and isolation techniques be diminished i chose to homeschool my children this past year because i didn't agree with the protocols put in place but not every child in the school district has that opportunity i will continue to homeschool my kids but i would a lot like to allow them to be a part of this wonderful school district that taught me and allowed me to persevere in my life and have a wonderful education that allowed me to achieve a graduate degree and become successful in my career in the medical field thank you thank you evening my name is

036christy benanski and i have a son that is a senior this year at romeoville high school i'm here to also ask that masks be optional i had a situation that i'm sure not many of you may have come in contact with but in march of this year my son tried to commit suicide because he was masked this is something that really hits home for me it was the hardest phone call i've ever had to make to 9-1-1 to have them come and remove my son from my house he stated that the masks take away his identity his freedom and his right to live a normal life and i truly agree your face is your identity that is the first thing people see and if you're covering half of your face you're not seeing the true

037smiles from the kids or anything to that i that idea kovid 19 is a 99.8 percent survival rate we had covet in our house this year during winter break two of my family members had it my son and his girlfriend both survived their only symptoms was a fever and a loss of taste and smell no one else in our house came down with kovid we isolated we did what they said to do but i'm just asking that the valley view school district think before they mandate masks i don't want another parent to go through what we went through my child didn't want to live he he couldn't stand being masked he inhales the fibers it affects his lungs it affects his throats it affects basically everybody i know there's a lot more kids that are

038suffering and maybe they're not going to come straight out and say this is the problem i have depression and anxiety with masks is very high and it's high in the teenage years um a suicidal student will not tell you they're suicidal the signs are there but if we don't look and we don't pay attention we're not going to know i don't want my child or any other child to be a statistic of suicide also on july 17 the illinois state mandated that not masks they stated that they will not mandate any masks in school i'm also asking that the plexiglas be removed that classes return to normal class size that kids are able to interact with each other not three feet apart it is very crucial in development for a child a teenager going through

039this i don't know if i would have survived a pandemic in my teenage years i don't know what any of you have survived a pandemic in your teenage years we are burdening our children with something as simple as not having a mask no mask no burden that's how i feel this is coming from my heart i don't have cdc statistics i don't have anything i'm a parent who in march had to call 9-1-1 and ask no lights no sirens because i don't know what my child will do and just to have to follow that was severe and it hurt i just want to leave you guys with just this one thought have any of you ever had to call 9-1-1 for a suicidal child because of a mask or because they're just depressed because of

040what's going on in the world my other thing is and i want to just leave you with this thought until you've had to follow that ambulance that has your child in it because they want to die i don't think any of you guys are going to understand how it feels just i'm asking that masks not be mandated for the 21-22 school year and that be put on for next vote our children deserve better mental health and masks are a big thing and it really hits close to home when it's in your home thank you thank you hello my name is terry campos and we were told outside that the mask optional voting on it is not on the agenda so we would like it to be on the agenda for next meeting and i'll also

041email you guys to ask for it to be on the agenda i've come here today to speak on an important topic regarding next school year and that is regarding mandatory masks the cdc just came out and said that their guidance important word guidance is that school is open in person however if you are vaccinated then you do not need to wear a mask but if you are not vaccinated then you need to wear a mask and still social distance why why would we do this to our children school is hard enough for kids especially teenagers and now they want to be medically segregated separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated punish those who choose not to get the vaccine because of medical or religious reasons or have valid concerns over them when enough 16 to 24

042year old mostly males have had heart issues after receiving vaccines that the cdc had to hold an emergency meeting discussing these adverse reactions there's room for concern and my teenage son falls in that category they tried this at my work i had to sign a paper if you're vaccinated and if so you would be randomly asked to show proof of vaccine and if you didn't sign it you had to wear a mask i took a stand and was told i had to take a leave of absence or i'd be fired if i showed up again without a mask well i no longer work there i stood up then and i'm standing up now for my kids we need to stop this medical segregation last year we did e-learning and that failed our kids we should

043have stood up then but we didn't and when the school said we can go back but have to wear masks i set my kids back in masks even my four-year-old because i knew that being in person was better for them and even though i knew it wasn't about health then and it wasn't necessary then i did it because i wanted so badly for my kids and they wanted so badly to go back but now we know better study after study after study shows that kids aren't affected the same way by the virus they will be okay in fact studies show that kids wearing masks actually cause more harm than good my four-year-old does not need a mask and it's crazy to say otherwise also i'll add that i did look at the will county health

044statistic today nobody's died under 10 nobody last year my son was sent home because he had a stomach ache no fever no cough no runny nose he still had his taste and smell and yet he had to quarantine for 14 days unless i made him get a test that he did not need he had to quarantine for 14 days and they also made his sister quarantined for 14 days that made no sense to me then and it still doesn't make sense to me now vaccines are readily available for anyone who wants them and for those teachers who get it and for those parents who get it for their kids that's their choice and that's fine but if you believe the vaccine works and you get it to protect yourself and your kids then it shouldn't

045matter if an unvaccinated kid or teacher doesn't wear a mask because that's what the vaccine's supposed to do stop you from getting coveted or let you have a mild case so i beg of you to look at the studies and stop this don't force our kids to be masked anymore they don't need it and don't force our kids to be medically segregated it's not right and embarrassing them and shaming them will not encourage parents to get the vaccine if they don't want it i will also add that the mask mandates the temperature checks all the shutdowns they're unconstitutional they were unconstitutional last year and they're still unconstitutional if this is on the agenda and you guys can vote do the right thing vote for max optional freedom is the most important thing and i choose

046freedom every day over safety thank you board and parents um my name is rick van buren my wife julie and i have been residents in bowling brook for 16 years we currently have oh sorry thank you hey how are we doing we currently have two children in the bowling brook high school and i know this pandemic obviously back in march was something new for everybody we also have a restaurant so we have been dealing with all kinds of changes we're all adjusting to things trust me we've had a lot of challenges you know one of our sons had coveted before again mild symptoms had a fever for 12 hours that was it we didn't we didn't segregate him we didn't do anything in the house and none of us got it again i know everybody

047has their own personal experience with kovid other people have no issues other people that obviously have major issues and i know everybody here you've heard a lot of statistics from the cdc and different and i've been doing research myself on covet and what's going on and doing my own research not not listening to social media not listening to facebook not listening to the news because i want to know personally what's going on and what decisions i need to make for our family and that's where i think you know we're here tonight to talk about the mass mandates and i think some of this stuff i i don't i feel kind i feel bad that you guys are in a position that you have to make a vote on how we should what we should do

048with our kids and these are medical decisions i feel should and all of you like it if you you're talking about doing something a medical procedure for your child that should be between you and your child and your your personal health care so the the fact that we got to this point in this pandemic where we're at a school board meeting having a discussion with you guys about what we should do with medical procedures for our own children like i i don't know how we got here you know but we are here and i don't i don't think children should be wearing masks i think they've suffered enough for the and they've sacrificed so much like everybody has but the children they only they only get one childhood you know once you become an adult

049you have lots of time as an adult but this is their only childhood like one son missed his you know the eighth grade graduation we drove through in a car and got handed a sign and he went and took his picture and that you know he can't he doesn't he's not gonna get that back we're not gonna get that experience back and people we've seen with different kids it affects every as you've heard stories here tonight i mean it's teenage suicide is the second highest death rate for teenagers and with just the pandemic alone the stress on everybody and then the kids they have to go in and wear masks and again talking about segregation like we we moved from the city of chicago into bowling brook community because of the diversity because we wanted

050our kids to have that diversity and and it's been awesome and now it's you know like this summer we had to make a decision that we didn't want our kids to be doing the saliva test and we understand you know that should be optional again this medical procedure we should have some kind of say in and our option was to either let our kids go to football camp which they they needed to do they wanted to do they need to be out there playing with their peers and we had to go against what we believed in order to allow them to play football this summer so i don't know what the plans are for this school year but i i just ask you that you know let's can we all get back and including you

051guys and i don't think this should be on again on your plate to be deciding for us like it's it's unfair but it's just where we're at and i just you know asked it can we just you know let the kids get back to being kids and have this year and a half they can't get back it's gone that's one thing we can never get back we can't get more of is time right and that time of their life is gone so i just ask that you guys you know think about all the comments tonight and just think about it again we all said pledge allegiance the american flag and that's you know that we are in a free country and we shouldn't be mandated to do things that we don't feel comfortable with or

052put our children in situations that they're not comfortable with so i just ask that when it comes to massive worlds and asses make it optional people that are people that feel safer with it and more secure and that's a health choice for them and their family great i like the division that goes on these days with people deciding over a vaccine or a mask or like it's i don't to me it's crazy i don't again i don't know how we got here but i don't want our kids to have to suffer anymore they shouldn't have to take the burden of this anymore i think they need to get back to normal and you know we need to help them do that we're we're the ones that have to help them do that so i thank

053you for your time and again for everything you guys do and again i'm sorry that you guys are in the position to have to make this decision because i don't think it's fair so thank you thank you hi my name is rosetta spielman and i've lived here in bowling brook for it's going to be 17 years now i have a beautiful young granddaughter that is in the valley view school district i actually work for the valley view school district in one of the lunchrooms and i'm not here as an employee i'm here as a loving parent a loving grandparent and i even have my child with me tonight but i'm so against these babies wearing their these masks for one it makes them sicker it harms them it's literally there's been a study and i'm

054not a big statistic thing or anything but there's been studies that they've taken these masks off of not just children but adults too and there's more germs in that masks than it is for them to breathe the fresh air that god has given us our best immunity is the immunity that god gave us inside of us and i can't let my granddaughter go back to school if she has to wear a mask or if the school board is going to force that she has to have a shot that's going to kill her i have a good friend that her husband was forced to take the vaccine because he needed a pacemaker he got the first vaccine he was a little okay he got the second vaccine within hours he was in the hospital on a

055ventilator for 55 days and he died he died i don't wish that on anybody and the school board should be on the parents side not on the government side not on the political side you'd you're here for us you're here for our children fight for our children so that they get back to normal life normal life plexiglass is not a normal life covering your beautiful smile is not a normal life my baby girl needs to breathe fresh air everybody hears child every person here needs to breathe the fresh air our father in heaven decides when we go not a shot not a school board not another human being it's god in heaven that decides when we go and if he's going to take us he's going to take us no matter what in this thing

056about racial diversity come on where is that educational that's showing division instead of unity valley view school district is about unity you say it yourself we're about unity but teaching that this race is better than that race or this race has to do this and this race has when you put a color in front of your race you're racist we're human beings we're created under the same god and i don't know if if you appreciate me talking about the lord like this but this is my heart jesus christ is my savior not the valley view school district board members jesus christ is and jesus christ is everybody else's savior so when he calls us home he made us if i get cut i'm gonna bleed red if you get cut you're gonna bleed red so

057please take the vote let our babies be babies let them be back to normal they lost a year of their life my little girl was in the house for a year on a zoo meeting that even when she didn't understand something the teacher didn't go back if she got kicked off the zoo meeting because of the internet the teacher didn't go back so who was teaching her it wasn't her third grade teacher it was grandma i was teaching her when that teacher was being paid to teach her and if my little girl didn't understand something the teacher asked at the end of the day how do you vote how do you feel about what happened today give it a one or a five a one meaning that it was really bad a five meaning that

058it was excellent my little girl gave it a one the teacher asked her why do you give it a one and she said because i was bored because in the teacher stopped her didn't let her continue the teacher told my granddaughter my little girl that let me tell you why you were bored the reason you were bored is because you're a boring person where does that come in with the school board how does the school board feel about that when the school board forced me to keep my granddaughter in zoom and then when she gets kicked off she gets told that she's a boring person she's nine years old she deserves a life she deserves to be nine years old she deserves to have the freedom that god gave her not the punishment that the

059school board gives her to have to wear a mask because i'm not sending her back if you guys say that my baby has to wear a mask i will be the first to head up one of those marches in front of jonassock elementary school and say this is not right my child should have the freedom to be in school because my taxes pay for it by the way my property taxes paid for it so she has the right to be in school and to be with her friends and to be a happy little girl not a little girl that's sitting behind and looking at an ipad and saying that the ipad is her best friend because she was put behind a computer for an entire year so please the love of mothers and fathers grandmas

060grandpas let our children be free to breathe the air that god gave us to breathe because that's what we're meant to do [Applause] that's what we're meant to do so please let our babies breathe thank you good evening i'm kelly underwood and before i get started with my speech i just wanted to first thank you all for listening to us this evening and especially thank you for putting together the video that you showed us at the start of the evening i really enjoyed it and i really enjoyed seeing familiar teachers like trish fredrickson and brenna hill and all the students that we're familiar with in all these awesome schools and the major point that i wanted to make was nobody was wearing masks in that video that's why it looked so awesome you could see

061their expressions and see the joy that they had to be in our buildings in this district okay i've had four children attending all of these schools in this district for the past 15 years i've accepted or my children have accepted countless awards on this very stage um a single four-letter word brought me here this evening that word might not be what you think it is it's actually love it's love for my country love for my community and love for my children i would love for each and every one of you to open your minds and your hearts and listen truly to what each of us has to say this evening i believe masks should be optional for the parents who have a sense of security in my opinion maybe a false sense of security to

062have their children wear masks all day in school it's their choice and this district prides themselves on giving students and parents choice the option of choice so if parents want to send their kids in a mask and they have that option good let them but it should also be our choice for the parents who believe that masks are harmful to students that we should not have to force our children to wear masks i pulled my kids out of this district last year and i've been pto president at scoff for all the years that my kids were there i've been on the calendar committee i'm an involved parent i pulled them out of here and we homeschooled because this district i wasn't happy with what you guys were doing last year at all they want to

063return to school my daughter is behind me and she's going to speak after me she wants to come back she wants to be with her friends and her peers and her marching band and her volleyball team but my husband and i are not going to force her to attend here in a mask it's ridiculous here's all the reasons i believe that it is harmful for children to be wearing masks so sorry i realize that you might not agree with my opinions and that's okay there are other parents in this district that have different opinions most of us here tonight are of the opinion that mass should be optional that doesn't take away the option for those parents to mask their children are some other choices that are being acted upon in our district such as

064some students choose to use a male restroom when they are biologically female and vice versa that's something that maybe i don't agree with but it's their option and their choice and this board has given them that option there are also students who are born biologically female and when they have their time of the month they don't want to use feminine products this is happening at rhs this is happening where the student does not feel that they want to use feminine products and they bleed on the student's desk chair or the bleachers from class to class as the day goes on and that's unsanitary in my opinion but apparently those students are allowed to exercise that choice to do that all day i can't even believe we're arguing about a choice of whether or not to

065wear masks when kids are allowed those options during the school day sorry i lost my train of thought so again if you believe that the students should have those options i think that they should also have the option of whether or not to wear a mask even if you don't agree with it like i said there's things that i don't agree with either but you guys are all about having options and choice and i think there should be an option of not wearing a mask masks also do not work covered virus particles are a thousand times smaller than what a surgical mask can filter i used to work in the er at edward hospital in payless hospital i come from the healthcare community and i'm telling you it goes against all of our training i

066teach cpr in this community for romeoville fire department for plainfield fire department i teach bloodborne pathogens i'm telling you it's not how it works um it's like tossing sand literally through a chain link fence cloth masks are even worse surgical masks even come with a warning and i quote does not protect protect against covet 19 transmission i have photos of surgical mass boxes for the clerk when i'm done speaking and cloth masks are even less effective after receiving and reviewing all mass studies the cdc recently concluded and i quote there is no reduction in viral transmission with the use of face masks masks spread illnesses in 2008 the famous anthony fauci if you follow mainstream media you all know who he is co-authored a study about the spanish flu his own findings were that most

067of the 500 million people who died during the spanish flu actually died of secondary pneumonia caused by wearing face masks the normal level of carbon dioxide exposure for a person is about 400 particles per [Music] what did i say that was million i'm i'm just like nervous sorry at a thousand particles per million you start to lose brain function the maximum allowable level is two thousand particles per million anything over two thousand is unacceptable a german study of over twenty five thousand nine thirty children recently showed that after nine minutes of mask wearing levels reached up to 25 000 parts per minute that is unacceptable 2 000 is unacceptable and i just wanted to bring up another point and i do have all of my studies with me i can hand them over to the

068clerk if you would like to review them i didn't pull this out of my butt and i i just would like to say ma'am i don't i don't know your name but you've been coughing i hope you're okay um and i noticed though when you coughed like you removed your mask and you touched your mouth and then grabbed your water bottle and took a sip and i don't blame you for doing that at all but then i watched you ask the gentleman to your right for his water bottle and touch your computer and touch everything at your desk that's how the germs like were making it worse you just coughed into your mask withheld all of that bacteria and germs on your face and then you touch it and touch everything else and kids are

069gonna do the same thing i would do the same thing i'm not trying to like single you out or anything but that's what kids are gonna do too and it's just gonna be a more harmful spread of germs i truly think masks are harmful for our students i think that they're damaging them in in emotional ways and just to touch on the suicide rate has gone up over 900 percent especially in the age group between 11 and 19. where are our kids when they're 11 to 19. they are right here in our schools their suicide rate is up 900 percent what do you think that's about please please please please do some critical thinking and see what makes sense to you it makes sense to me to keep my kids home if this district does

070not unmask our children thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] hello hello oh hello please state your name morgan underwood i'm a former student of romeoville high school i'm a junior now mass make me feel unheard isolated punished trapped and most of all suffocated i can't think i can't think i can speak for everyone sorry i think i can speak for everyone in the room when they when i say this has been the most strange year any of us have been through what you guys are calling as of right now it's not school it's isolation in a different environment stay six feet apart mask over the nose sanitize your hands after each touch of a doorknob that's not what school is supposed to be as much as we all hate it we see as an escape

071from our home our chores our parents our siblings it's a place we can go for six hours a day and have an escape and be with friends and learn new things we should be able to run around and be able to catch our breath and not have to stretch the elastic from our ears this has been the hardest past few months of my life these months have felt like eternity everyone asking how is school and it's always and i don't know and now i'm going through the obstacle of having to switch schools because my parents don't think our district is good for my mental health and i don't blame them our lives are already depressing as it is and wearing a mask on top of it is just like we're literally being suffocated i'm being

072suffocated every single day i feel like something new is just gonna one-up the previous day i had to isolate myself when all i wanted to do was hang out with friends sorry and be at school i never thought i would have that feeling i'm sorry and when school came back in person it's just like isolating yourself in another room i cannot tell you how many times i've thought to myself i want things to be normal again or wish life wasn't like this anymore and i'm 110 positive i'm not alone in this no one wants to live like this seeing everyone in mass is just so upsetting being one every day is even more upsetting i can't catch my breath and you just feel restrained during band after sprinting across the rhs football field a football

073field our field director told us if you need to catch your breath pull down your mask from the bottom otherwise you can take it off but face your head towards the ground at a 90 degree angle i'm sorry but the hat not only is that just flat out stupid but how do you expect us to catch our breath with bending over they even always tell us since you start banned in middle school stand up as tall as possible and have your lungs reach your full capacity it makes no sense whatsoever and here i gathered some inputs from fellow students that from the past year went to rhs and they stated how they felt in a mask student number one hearing that recording on the intercom felt incredibly dystopian and so unnecessary i didn't have a

074lunch period i couldn't even pull down my mask in class to have my granola bar i had to run to the bathroom to wolf down a snack and get back to class i just felt so restricted and confined student number two throughout the day i felt sick wearing my mask and i felt like there was more germs on my face than without wearing one because we would end up taking it off and putting on somewhere that already has a lot of germs and putting it back on and breathing in the same germs i couldn't breathe i did sports such as badminton and we wore masks and i was about to faint with one on all the sweat that was built up in the mask for me sweating just felt gross and caused more and more

075acne and skin problems some people have breathing problems i have breathing problems throughout the day i literally cannot breathe taking a test i'm already stressing and sweating my butt off trying to do good but i can't take a deep breath because the mask is blocking me from doing so i feel i feel like i'll get bullied without the mass though which is unfair but i'd rather not have one on and not care what they think i know what my own health is like i can help myself and i don't need a stranger's telling me what telling me to wear a mask or not they don't know what my medical life looks like if you want to wear a mask then so be it but if not that's perfectly fine too i don't judge do what

076makes you feel safe number three wearing mass affected my learning due to not being able to understand my teachers and have to constantly ask for them to repeat themselves vice versa as well along with that i did not have a lunch and eating in class was no longer something i could do to massive policies so that was frustrating wearing a mask was a really terrible experience in my opinion sorry this is student four i wasn't able to eat and it was much harder to focus i got more headaches and was hungry during the day because of how it was set up and in my personal opinion wearing a mask and seeing other people wear one around me feels so surreal well it did at first now it feels normal and that's how that's not how

077life should be it shouldn't be normalized not seeing half of someone's face that's half their expression that's half of how we communicate like all expressions you have on your face right now we all have them as a student living through this and trying to make the best of it i shouldn't feel forced or feel wrong for not wearing a mask or being vaccinated when ethically it's no one's business thank you [Applause] good evening i'm standing here in front of all of you as a concerned mother concerned nurse and concerned citizen marianne turski at death huh can you give us your name my name is paulina a deaf camp survivor said last year auschwitz didn't fall from the sky just like that and if you do not know the history i would like to remind you

078how segregation have led to the death camps first in germany jewish people were forbidden to sit on benches and parks after that they were forbidden to enter public swimming pools nobody said nothing next they were not allowed to shop before 5 pm then jewish children were forbidden to play with german kids like that from month to month slowly step by step freedom was taken and then there were enough voices to resist the progression of the step of further segregation this was a beginning and it ended in falling human ash why do i tell you all this like i said i'm here as a concerned mother what i'm afraid more than mandatory masks and i would love to see optional masks in our schools is medical segregation based on vaccination status i cannot allow for medicare

079segregation vaccinated and masks and vaccinated masks we are teaching our kids about respect equal rights for all no discrimination based on skin color religion tradition culture and even sex right now therefore i beg you please do not implement mask regulation that would segregate our children based on vaccination status and if you do not know what the segregation will lead to and you know history i just presented to you i will also tell you this it will lead to fear hate bullying peer pressure anxiety depression and evil suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts would you assume the responsibility for those outcomes i'm here also as concerned nurse and i will say this only particulate respirators may i repeat may be effective for droplet terms transmission splatters abram microorganisms currently n95 masks are 95 percent efficient in preventing

080of tuberculosis sars and influenza fundamentals of nursing this is what they were teaching me at northern illinois university page 699 ninth edition so let me tell you surgical masks or cotton masks do not protect from us from sarskoff no this is what they were teaching me i have bachelor's degree therefore please do not make our children to wear masks unless they want to unless they want to something to think about for all of you and all of us our children are being told that covet 19 is dangerous and kills and if they're gonna catch it bring it home they're gonna kill grandpa and grandma and everybody gonna die and then they go to lunch room take all day masks and eat their lunch peacefully tell me desk of it 19 has a lunch break too

081what are you teaching our children what are we teaching them do you think they are that stupid they are not they see that it's just not right something is wrong why can't i why i have to put masks in this room but i can take it off in that room they see it they are smart kids and please do not tell me about ability to get covet 19 vaccination i'll alcovet 19 experimental vaccination they were they are not improved by fda they are not they received emergency use status only they are experimental products and clinical strikes will not end until 2022 and 2003. moderna and pfizer already got attacked with myocarditis and you know that from even mainstream media and recently last week jj was johnson johnson was stacked with guillain-barre syndrome i will not

082go into details regarding virus vaccine adverse events reporting system but there were already 11 deaths 11 000 deaths reported to vars to include 12 deaths among 12 17 years old children health defense robert f kennedy jr i am a nurse with bachelor degree and i will not get covet 19 vaccine unless you will find me a doctor who will sign a legal document stating that he the doctor will take full responsibility for any side effects after covet 19 vaccination or any other vaccination full responsibility financial medical therapeutic and you know what i cannot find a doctor like that and you know why federal bill s17 for firm from 1986 signed by president reagan and it is title 3 subtitle 2 part b i have it you can print it you can look that up provides

083that no vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from vaccine related injury or death resulting from unvoidable side effects this bill was never revoked never you will not find a doctor who signed a legal form that he's taking full responsibility in addition i don't know if you know prep act from march of last year gave extra protection to all covet 19 vaccination manufacturers from any liability nobody is responsible for it so please do not segregate our children do don't tell them about the vaccines they are our choices to teach them what is best for them according to what we believe in in summary please make masks optional for our children please do so please do not do not segregate our children based on the vaccination status and please do not

084push more fear propaganda we the people demand freedom of choice and some school districts boards already give that freedom back to these students please follow the steps thank you thank you [Applause] good evening everybody i i won't be speaking for so long good evening good evening parents um musk yeah i'm wearing mascara soul it was kinda illogical huh for the record your name alexandra la buddha it was kind of illogical because they had to wear it in this in the classrooms but they didn't have to wear it in the cafeteria or if they were playing in bands they were wearing masks with holes in them i don't understand the logic of it it doesn't work and i don't know how how can we accept that other thing is that e-learning was actually for one thing

085good because we as a parents got to see what our kids are taught at school and sometimes i will tell you it was scary i'm polish i was born in poland when poland was a puppet of russia socialism it was at the first place i know how it works yes and many of you polish community is huge in here at romeoville and bolinbrook we know it all right now i'm in america i'm at citizens and i'm scared what other kids are taught at school because this is socialism and socialism doesn't work and socialism is only a covered for for communism so this is scary so i would like to ask you too to not indoctrinate our kids please they don't have to have it topics that were like started with the teachers sometimes and the

086fights on zoom and zoom classes were horrible and i really don't want my kids to learn that i don't want them to be told that if somebody is rich part of the money should be taken from them because they don't need five yachts for example who gives you who gives you the right to decide what is too much maybe this person was working for the whole life maybe this person was trying so hard and open a business that finally worked maybe this person is giving other people thousands of people jobs and you're gonna tell them that this is not right that they have five yards this is not for us to decide this is socialism and one thing that is so in socialism we had it in poland yeah healthcare was free wasn't it we

087were all equal equally poor we don't want that anymore we want our children to have better lives that's that's why we came to america please do not indoctrinate our kids teach them history but let them decide what they wanna and how they wanna think thank you so much have a good night evening good evening i'm jim fisher i have three kids scratch that two kids one actually walked in his graduation this year so you guys are having some success although there's a lot of things aren't pretty and one of them is masking and spitting so but before i get into the quick detail i want to just go back a year a year ago this board voted that our kids must go remote and they must do it immediately and there's one person on this

088board that voted yes we should open the schools can you raise your hand just to which board member actually voted to let the school stay open thank you and i i do also want to point out that i see steve's big smile don't try to hide it i see james jt i see your big smile and i look into the crowd usually there's only like five people here and three of them are here to see their award for their kid so this is you guys cause this these people want to have control of their kids you're not doing it you're taking away a medical right that they have so it's not on the agenda today it should be you guys should walk away from here at least voting yes or no instead you guys are

089hiding behind your lawyers you're hiding behind the teachers union where's the teachers union representative today is are they in the crowd exactly you know what when you guys voted no to open schools the teacher using union excuse me they presented 60 percent of their people said let's shut down the schools and guess who you listen to the union not the teachers the parents are here today please listen to them okay so here's the deal you guys are supposed to be representing this crowd sixteen thousand students i look out there there's most of the people have no mass i look here and the people who are going to vote whether or not my kid must go five full days a week with a mask there's only two not wearing a mask every one of you don't

090have the courage to stand up and take the mask off so try to consider that and i know roberts rules the law you don't have to have something on the agenda to vote so when you we leave today i really hope you guys at least vote to let the kids not spit let the kids not have a mask and move us forward to get back to normal you are adults representing the community we're here to ask you to do so thank you hi i'm camille my name is camille holcomb i grew up in bolingbrook i've only not lived in the vbsd school district area for four years of my life three of which were in florida and one was in willowbrook anyway i grew up in this school district i went to bolingbrook high school

091first graduating class in the new building i went to jane adams i had wonderful teachers but i'm not going to put my kids in via vvsd i have a two-year-old and a five-year-old the five my five-year-old could be going to kindergarten i'm not going to put them in bvst i'm not going to put them in public schools because i see what schools are doing and i still see how my school board is has done so far i went to school for education i have my degree in preschool to 12th grade education with the specialty in art i was a manager at a learning center for over a year i taught in a private school in the preschool classroom and i helped kindergarteners learn how to read and i taught art as well in elementary in

092a private school i wouldn't even want to teach in this environment i could i love teaching i love students children are my passion and i and i know you guys love kids too i mean that's why you're on a school board you know because you love kids and you love the community and um i under it is a extremely i can't even imagine what you guys are going through as a board with what you've you know some of you just voted on and um it's got to be incredibly difficult just being thrown in this position you're getting information from every which way and you know the government's not been doing a very good job at um being consistent and i we don't blame you for that you know it's not easy and i i sympathize

093empathize with you guys and but children need consistency they need stability consistency they need patterns they need to have a regular schedule that going back and forth and changing one week and another week it's maddening and i can understand how children would be would be psychologically affected by that i mean their entire lives are being ripped apart and changed every which way you know one month one week to the next i mean they never know what to expect next i mean the anxiety of that but i also you know i sympathize with people that are you know terrified of getting ill you know in the beginning i was terrified my husband works in hvac so he go he he's he works in a profession that goes into people's houses for his job and we are

094a single income family because i homeschooled my children i wanted to raise my children i didn't want to put them in daycare because i wanted to be their mother and i wanted to love on them as long as i could so um but you know in the beginning i was terrified because you know i saw what the news was saying i saw what they were saying online and he was going to these people's houses and nobody knew what the truth was and what was a lie and you know i was like get away from me the first week that everything was starting to shut down locked down and he's also immune compromised so i was even more terrified for his health so i and i unders so i understand that side too i mean when

095my husband gets sick when he gets a cold um a cold is not just a cold it's a sinus infection and that could end up put him in the hospital and when he's in the hospital his his white blood cell count goes off the charts and they have to give him iv fluids the day before our honey we were supposed to go on our honeymoon he was this was years ago but he just came down with something random and he was in the er for a whole day for something mild so i understand you know the decision you know what weight is on people's shoulders surprisingly my children got kovid and i did but my husband didn't so what are the odds right but they just they had a fever in coughing and throwing up

096but for a day um anyway so i there there was one thing that somebody said uh that i kind of want to go back and revisit because it wasn't totally correct both the cdc and hold on and the and idph they're not saying that masks are required they're saying that they're recommended for students in schools if they can't get the vaccination or if they don't want it whatever their parents decide which it should be the parents choice the family's choice so it's recommended and what we've learned throughout the past year is what words mean what required means what mandate means recommended it means you have the freedom to make them optional and one of the schools in southern illinois you know they decided to go mask-less or optional before the rulings the the recommendations the

097guidelines were given out and you know idph like threatened to take away their money their funding school funding and they've since idph has since rescinded their statement they've given a letter to that school district saying we apologize we don't have that authority they don't have the authority to take away our funding and i know that's terrifying too because you have to think about like you know what do we do if like somebody wants to like sue us for whatever they can't so um i just ask that you give the parents the right to choose what's right for their family either way and that either way whether a student is wearing a mask or isn't they shouldn't be discriminated against i mean i don't want to see the kids that wear masks to school get bullied

098by anybody either um and i honestly don't think at that once the schools do open um hopefully full time um i don't think that the kids are going to be worried about that either because they're going to be so elated to see their friends again hopefully their smiles so thank you i appreciate you guys for listening to us other school boards do not give parents this much time plainfield pst 202 gives 20 minutes max with two minutes per person so you guys are like you guys are getting uh ice cream right now so i thank you so much for your time i don't want you guys to be here for forever but you know we look up to you guys you know i know you guys are wonderful people and i know you guys do

099things in your own lives that help better the community i know people that work within the district and they know you personally and they have said very good things about you guys so i just want the parents to keep their hope in you guys too i want them to be on your side because they will be on your side thank you thank you [Applause] seeing no other comments moving down the agenda miss kinder portraits of a learner okay i know this is not the uh report that everyone came for this evening um i do appreciate all the voice and input from the community members and parents that are present this evening and with everything that we do that is an important component is partnership is voice from our stakeholders parents community members students and staff

100and that is vital to us in valley view school district this item that i'm seeking the board's approval on this evening is for portrait of a learner and strategic planning services which i had presented information at a previous board meeting on june 14th and this is essentially a process that we will be engaging in to re-engage with our community and re-envision what it is we want for our learners when they graduate from valley view school district there's a lot of comments tonight that dealt the deal with the the current situation with covid with pandemic response and the last year and a half that's really what we've primarily been focused on is health and safety crisis management dealing with a pandemic that no one is repair prepared for as an administrator as a leader as an

101educator as a parent it was all things that we've been learning and planning for of course that's going to remain at the forefront health and safety and the decisions that we're making and moving forward and at the same time it's also my responsibility in charge as superintendent of valley view school district to think beyond covid beyond the pandemic and looking into the future and evolving together as a community and as a district for our learners every learner every day so this process that i am proposing that we engage with is essentially about community engagement re-engagement partnering with our stakeholder groups from parents community members business owners students staff so many individuals to really talk about what it is that we want for our learners and what is are those things that are most important for

102them when they graduate and go on to their post-secondary lives what does college career and life ready really mean so what i'm seeking the board's approval on is to engage in a partnership with battelle for kids a non-profit organization that will bring us to a point of engaging in a community in a re-engagement effort with the community and then using that to be the vision that helps us reengage and elevate what it is that we're doing in valley view school district to best prepare our kids for the real world for life beyond high school from the visioning portion we would then engage in strategic planning process to help chart that course and so the details were shared with the board at the june board meeting june 14th board meeting those are available in the board

103packet as well and i'm seeking the board's approval on the partnership with patel for kids to partner in the portrait for a learner process and strategic planning services is there a motion so moved venegas campbell campbell venegas any discussion questions hearing nonsense vote would be in order member pero member venegas yes member campbell yes member beduros yes secretary sakura yes and president quigley yes mr gazafi property casualty we've got five action reports for your consideration this evening beginning with our property casualty student accident and educators legal liability program renewal with the help of our broker alliant we have extended our coverages for one month to better position the district for the renewal meaning the renewal lines of coverage and associated premiums will now cover the period august 1 2021 to august 1 2022. according to

104alliant overall renewal increases are in the 10 to 25 percent range and it's not just limited to school districts or public entities this is the particularly the case with cyber liability insurance where rates have been impacted by the ever-increasing cyber attacks and lack of sufficient controls even though we were implementing mfa or multi-factor authentication during the next several months we received a coverage quote at a cost that is almost double from where it was one year ago at this time we're recommending we move this coverage from access to chub slash ace with one million dollars of cyber coverage once we implement mfa it's believed the limit will increase to two million dollars with full implementation of the mfa controls we're also recommending that we don't uh renew the excess liability follow form coverage which provides

105an additional five million dollars of layer of coverage of overall protection for the district uh above the 10 million dollars that our excess uh provides us carriers are continuing to leave this marketplace and those that remain limit or exclude many coverages that are previously covered and those that do remain those that do remain do so at a premium that is prohibitive and that's in the premium summary that's attached in the exhibit at this time we're recommending that we keep our liability coverage with liberty mutual our property coverage with affiliated fm our pollution liability with iron shore storage tank liability with nautilus and our student accident catastrophic coverage moved to guaranteed trust life due to a more competitive quotation overall our insurance program will increase by eighty four thousand four hundred ninety eight dollars or nine

106point four percent at a total cost of nine hundred and eighty two four 450 so the recommendation is to approve those services uh approve alliant insurance services to procure and provide those coverages as illustrated for a period august 1 2021 to august 1 2022. is there a motion so moved second motion and seconds any questions or discussion gary that we thought that was going to be a lot higher didn't we i mean you were kind of we we're we're recommending the drop of the uh the access follow forum coverage that's about 107 000 last year it was 67 the year before it was 50 and four or five years before that it was 32. um what we're told is that typically if there's a suit of that magnitude they're going to follow they're going to

107sue for the policy limits of the coverage i think the highest to date at least what they're telling me is about 9 million that's a very catastrophic loss obviously but we would still have coverage up to the 10 million limit so this excess has really become prohibitive and if it comes down if the markets soften as they sometimes do we would certainly consider that coverage again but at this time it just doesn't make sense thank you we have a motion and second there's no further discussion a roll call would be in order member venegas yes member apparel yes member beduros yes member campbell yes secretary sakura yes president quigley yes devices uh next we have the technology devices uh laptops for paraprofessionals uh we've determined that the provision of a one-to-one laptop device is warranted

108to ensure parapros can meet the needs of the new needs of their role we saw that during during the pandemic the chromebooks that where they were provided just weren't robust enough to provide the service that they they felt they needed so we've got a lot of feedback from the parapros throughout the district several grade levels those chromebooks that were purchased back in 2019 will be utilized as spare and loaner devices for the grade levels two through five we are recommending a unit a purchase of 275 devices uh total cost four hundred and five thousand nine hundred dollars for the two two in one laptops this is a touch screen device that can be used also as a tablet for the pair pros to support enhanced technology needs as illustrated motion so second motion and second

109any discussion was this brought to us before gary no it's a good question um typically we would bring it to you as an information report but due to the uh the um demand for all things computing uh we are recommending that we take this straight to action i did uh not mention that these this would be covered primarily from esser grant funding as well as federal emergency connectivity funding so there are two grant sources this would not be local dollars so i think that's important for consideration um but again we just didn't want to wait until uh early part of august uh to place the order and that's why it's coming to you straight for action any other questions please member beduros yes member campbell yes member venegas yes member apparel yes secretary sakura yes

110and president quigley yes next is the renewal of the caretaker agreements for the purpose of implementing the use of facility dogs in two of our uh buildings um we entered into these annual agreements uh for consistent or up-to-date daily use of uh service dogs this agreement includes a provision of a payment of 750 stipend per semester to the dog owner for the costs related to the care of the dog and safety including liability insurance dog health and continued training in return we receive uh they agreed to become responsible for the school's support dog both during and outside of school hours and assume all liability these agreements have been reviewed by both our insurance carrier and our district attorney this is the i think second year of these renewals are these agreements rather we are recommending

111approval of the renewal of these caretaker agreements for facility dogs at rc hill elementary and lukanzik middle school through a motion second motion and seconded in discussion real quick vote please member campbell yes member venegas yes member apparel yes member bedress yes secretary secora yes and president quigley yes next is a recommendation for approval of intergovernmental agreement and amendments to the iga's existing igas with the village of romeoville we've had numerous discussions going back as far as march of 2020 regarding the amended language while the fields were in construction phase and through completion these accompanying documents have been prepared by both parties legal counsel and reflect the terms of agreement between the two parties there are four documents being presented for approval first is an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement dated july 1st of 2009

112this is the original iga referenced in our long-standing agreement between the two governmental bodies that address shared usage of both parties facilities the amendment states that the district and village shall meet annually in february of each year during the term of the agreement to discuss a the performance and administration of the agreement and shall include any discussion of any proposed capital improvements and costs to the outdoor facilities at romeoville high school associated with agreement and shall be mutually agreed to by the district and the village b any scheduling issues pertaining to the fields will also be discussed and lastly the existence of construction or modeling or renovation that would limit or affect the availability of this of the fields for use by the parties second document is the first amendment to the 2009 facility agreement

113exhibits a through e this is where we add the new ball field complex to the iga and adds a five-year licensing agreement for use of district facilities for parking for romeo fest and or rib fest third document is the athletic facilities redevelopment intergovernmental agreement uh we shared this with you at the march 22nd board meeting uh this kind of outlines or does outline the district's um are the villages use of the facility for for their own use and third party agreements and there are several bullet points listed there school districts shall maintain first and primary use of the new athletic fields the village can schedule ball field usage between may 1st and october 31st monday through thursday from 6 to 10 30 p.m third-party tournaments can be scheduled uh can schedule ball field usage between

114memorial day and labor day a usage fee will be charged to each game on the field for the village of romeoville and third-party tournaments with a 15-game allowance built in for in-house team usage use of the ball field lighting will cover an additional charge for night games after the allowance the village also agrees to reimburse the district for costs associated with the design and construction of a new water main line that ran north of the property at romeoville high they also agreed to provide a payment of one million dollars for the installation of field lighting at the new complex lastly we've got the first amendment to the intergovernmental agreement dated august 16 2017. this removes the temporary status of the modular office building located on the grounds of romeville high school this was placed on

115the campus as you may recall as a means to address the shortage of space for the district's bus fleet and accompanying accompanying drivers we've reviewed this like i said extensively for almost a year and a half between the village and the district we've had staff time attorney time uh and both parties agreed to bring this forward to their respective boards for consideration of approval and so this time at this time we're recommending approval of the four documents as outlined the amendment to the intergovernmental agreement dated july 1st 2009 also known as the facilities agreement the first amendment to the 2009 facilities agreement exhibits a through e athletic facilities redevelopment intergovernmental agreement and the first amendment to the intergovernmental agreement dated august 16 2017. is there a motion to accept so moved second motion and seconded

116is there any discussion uh just a comment i want to thank all because i know there's a lot of behind the scenes things with the village of romeoville trying to get this right uh thank all the people at the village roomville people on our staff our attorneys what have you there was a lot that went on into this and it's taken a good deal of time these are great facilities they should be shared and working with the park district in romanville uh very much appreciated and so on and so forth so uh i also actually have a common president quickly i also want to just thank you guys for getting this done with the village of romeo bill because pony romeoville pony baseball association also uh is going to benefit from this and it's part

117of that uh intergovernmental agreement so thank you very much i appreciate that what just one final comment a lot a lot of work uh we try to get it as close to perfect as possible but there's just a lot of moving pieces and thus the need for that amendment where we are going to meet annually to just try to you know make sure both both parties uh interests are represented and uh will continue to just evolve and and as it does typically over the years or so no this is great thank you very much yep working with park district community groups all kinds of things so if there's no further comment we have a motion and second roll call vote would be in order member venegas yes member pero yes member badouris yes member campbell

118yes secretary sakura yes and president quigley yes last action this evening is in a recommendation to approve three separate agreements for before and after care programs at ten of our elementary school sites the following community agencies will be providing services for the upcoming school year as follows bowling brook park district at jonas salk and pioneer elementary joliet ymca bj ward independence j.r tibbett oakview woodview irene king and hermitson and shamrock club cheryl simmons jamie mcgee these agreements have been reviewed by all parties as well as our legal team they shall begin operation on the first day of student attendance and continue through the last day of student attendance for the 21-22 school year and will self-renew for successive one-year terms thereafter subject to the termination provisions listed within the agreement before and after care programs

119are also being offered at early childhood rc hill elementary and beverly scoff elementary these are existing agreements in place and will be brought forward for approval after they've been reviewed and updated at this time we're recommending approval of the agreements between valley view school district and the bolingbrook park district juliet ymca and shamrock club sheryl simmons as presented subject to attorney review and approval is there a motion second motion and seconded staring discussion roll call vote please member peril yes member beduros yes member campbell yeah member venegas yes secretary secora yes and president quigley yes ms nash thank you sir um action report 12.1 is our consolidated action report for certified and classified personnel this evening we're seeking approval on 130 items for certified personnel 47 items for classified personnel five items for classified administrative

120personnel and eight items for certified administrative personnel personnel second motion and seconded their discussion hearing nensing then roll call vote please member but duress yes member campbell yes remember banegas yes member apparel yes secretary sakura yes and president quigley yes before i move on to the next item i just would like to first of all congratulate all of our new hires and welcome them to the valley view school district and take a moment to recognize some of our new administrators who have been in the audience this evening and i will just ask if they would stand and wave to let us know where that you're here when i call your name ravel pollock she will be our new human resources director she's here in the audience tonight welcome marcie dominguez-short is our new grant administrator

121for the district i know she's right there also arisely medina is our new director for bilingual education [Applause] amanda dykstra is our new assistant director for elementary curriculum she's here this evening also and i believe andrea heil is here as well she is our new administrator for core content for pe health and drivers at bhs so congratulations to all of you and thank you um action report 12.2 is job descriptions these three job descriptions were brought for your review back in the june 14th board meeting that would be the job description for assistant superintendent for human resources supervision aid and homebound special education teacher and we are seeking your approval this evening on those three member apparel yes member videgas yes member campbell yes remember beduros yes secretary sakura yes president quigley yes action report

12212.3 is a resolution authorizing the dismissal of educational support personnel employee for reasons other than other than reduction in force this evening we are seeking your approval on resolute resolution number two two zero one cell move thank you second motion and seconded clear discussion roll call vote please member venegas yes member apparel yes member beduros yes member campbell secretary sakura yes president quigley yes number 13 superintendent's information report ms kinder okay thank you um as a standard i have an update this evening i'd like to mention that this is an information report with information pertinent to the development of fall planning and updates on guidance that has been released there's no board vote occurring this evening okay so just in brief i'd like to briefly touch upon some celebrations health and safety updates um link

123that to fall planning and the updated guidance that has been issued from the cdc and then adopted by isb and idph and then just communicate regarding next steps so one major highlight celebration that i love to share is we had over 2 500 students participated in summer learning programs and they were rich robust engaging experiences and our kids had a great time just being at school being with their peers learning having fun exploring from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade so we are really excited for all of that to occur and we had great success with the programming and look forward to growing it and continuing it into next summer so thank you to all the staff that supported that all the leaders that supported that to make that happen and to our kids

124and families who worked with us through these developing new programs and new partnerships as as is typical i'll continue you know as i have during the last year and a half of giving health metrics overview we continue to be in a good place at a region county and local zip code level and we continue to monitor this and we will do so we know locally we're in a good place in phase five our test positivity rates are low most metrics remaining low the one red that pops out there is with new cases which has seen an uptick and there are some surges being reported in other counties throughout the state and in neighboring states as well so those are things that we will continue to monitor as well as pediatric cases and information as variants

125develop and what is occurring with that so we continue to monitor that and then in district this is actually the first time we currently have no cases being reported at this time so we will continue to monitor this and report this we will continue to maintain our dashboard that is available online and this will be a very important tool to watch these metrics as we look at community transmission as well as in-district transmission rates those can be one metric that continues to be important as we monitor and guide things as we move forward vaccination clinics continue to be available through the will county health department we held three clinics in district with our part with differing partners we will continue to look for other opportunities to present these for those families that are interested in

126this for themselves or their children for ages 12 and up information is linked in there and we are pleased to continue to continue to maintain these partnerships to offer this for the families and the children who do want the vaccine we will be collecting the covid19 vaccination information through online registration so that will be available in our parent portal and it will update our student health records we encourage families to submit that information now we do have a small percentage that have submitted that but that will be important as it relates to contact tracing and quarantining and isolation because that will be a factor based on vaccination status so it's important for families to share that information with us if they choose to have their children vaccinated as has been previously determined full in person

127instruction for all students is the is what will be occurring this fall remote learning as i communicated previously is available for those with the medical circumstance that have meet the criteria through the homebound instruction process there's a process available for that and that review information the forms are due by july 23rd for review and so that will be for students who meet that medical criteria and then remote learning will be provided for quarantine and isolation for students who are either covid 19 positive or have been a direct contact and it will be different than what has occurred in previous remote learning but will provide as much support as possible for students who are in that situation so as everyone knows and many of our guests this evening have alluded to the cdc guidance that has

128been released illinois department of public health has fully adopted the most recent cdc guidance that was released on july 9th and isb in the illinois illinois state board of education and the illinois department of public health have fully adopted this guidance which does bring a lot into consideration at the local level at the local school district level but does create some clear parameters regarding the guidance as it relates to health and safety protocols in the school district just a few key takeaways from this but the priority is returning all learners to the physical classroom a plan for layered mitigations and a plan for ongoing monitoring at the local community and school level and this refers to transmission rates which i mentioned previously vaccination coverage the percentage of those vaccinated in the community in the school

129as well as testing screening programs testing or point-of-care testing that's available and then any outbreaks that may be occurring it's important that that layered mitigation plan connects to that monitoring plan and it's important that we have the ability to scale up and to scale back on mitigation strategies that need to be in place all throughout the past year and a half i've taken a very firm stance that we over plan that we are prepared as possible and now knowing going into the fall knowing that having strategies in place that we can essentially increase or decrease or adjust allows us great flexibility the absolute priority is returning students to school but not just returning them but keeping them in school with minimal disruption and creating as much continuity as possible one of our parents this evening

130referred to the you know changes of this week to that week of going back or going that and the absolute goal is a fluid school year with continuity with limited disruptions the idea of quarantining the idea of isolating when one is coveted positive those things are not going away so as much as we would like to believe it the virus is not gone we have no way to predict we don't know the trajectory we don't know what will develop with variants we do know that one positive case can affect hundreds of students if we don't have strategies proper strategies in place we also know that with proper strategies in place one positive case could just affect that one individual and not require dozens of other students to stay home for 14 days so when i

131talk about continuity and learning it's not just the health of that one individual it impacts all the people that are around them so when we talk about having different mitigations in place i'm going to talk about those in a second it's it's going to be critical that we look at our plan for those strategies and how our how we're doing with metrics do we are we staying in a low transmission place are we able to scale back are our rates ticking up in the community our rates inside the district ticking up and so and in turn we need to put some stronger strategies in place we need to be able to be reflect um to be flexible we need to be able to be responsive and so that is what i will continue to emphasize

132as we make decisions so that we can have our kids back in school and that we can have continuity with their their day-to-day learning and support promoting vaccination we'll continue to communicate those opportunities if we are currently discussing holding another clinic in addition to the three that we completed physical distancing per the cdc guidelines and recommendations will be that will be targeted at three feet distancing and that is what we have been planning for in our classroom spaces and our other spaces as well it's important to note that that distancing guideline is um not an absolute right you do your best to achieve that with having all students in place as the greatest priority and so we will continue to have that in place cleaning and disinfection which we've done a phenomenal job ensuring that

133that's at the highest level we'll continue to maintain that as well as ventilation from our facility operations team continuing to be at the at the forefront and ensuring that we're doing everything possible in those areas hand washing and respiratory etiquette of course will continue to be emphasized and encouraged and so will symptom screening and staying home when you're showing any signs of illness those will be critical things that we'll need to continue to partner with our families on because we don't know what could potentially develop in the future contact racing is still in effect for the upcoming school year and that is in combination with isolation for those that are coveted positive or have a family member who is covet positive and then quarantining if you've been in close contact so the idph guidelines are

134currently in place and if those change or have different criteria applied based on vaccination status based on masking or other strategies then we will of course implement that in our contact tracing effort but this has been a primary tool that our school nursing team and our administrators have taken on to really lower risk of transmission and you know we will have positive cases but the important piece is that we minimize risk and keep that as low as possible to keep everyone safe now um you know obviously the topic of consistent and correct mask use comes with a lot of opinion perception experience emotion and we know this and we recognize this we do have a couple areas where it's very clear in the guidance regarding masking and then they're the more general component is an

135area that we are working on fully synthesizing to address so one of the areas where it's very clear per the guidelines is that all individuals will be masked when riding in a school bus or in a school vehicle and that will be in place for the 21-22 school year for all bus riders and all individuals in a school vehicle for example driver's ed in general outdoor masking is not required so that's an area where that's been lifted and the guidance only states that if it's particularly crowded or a high risk situation that masking be used the requirements or recommendations for indoor masking will be based on transmission levels vaccination status vaccine coverage and availability so i don't have the specifics to share with you this evening as this guidance is relatively new we are going

136through the final stages of determining what that will look like and essentially what you can envision is that we will have criteria attached to the expectation for either the requirement or recommendation for masking based on what's going on what is the current status and that's really critical because things could be really great right now we're in the blue it's a low transmission cases are relatively low um but we don't know if or when that could change and so we are looking at what that could potentially look like and we'll have updates for you within the next two weeks same for screening testing regarding cases and clusters and outbreaks we have piloted the saliva based testing shield at the high schools in high risk situations for high risk activities sports band theater choir and we are

137making some determinations based on where that tool should sit in our toolbox meaning will it stay in just those high risk areas or is there no need at all will it need to be remain remain as an option if rates should increase to a substantial level or as an alternative to lower other mitigations i think of it as you know looking at the flag on the beach to determine if it's safe to swim or not if that flag is changing you would take some additional strategies all the way to staying out of the water to not going too deep to wearing a floatation device you would think about what strategies you would use to lower your risk of being at harm and so we need to keep our eyes open to what flags are waiving

138and if it's safe to swim and that flag is blue our strategies can be lessened and we can go in and have fun and do what we would normally do but if that changes those conditions change then we need to be smart about what other tools we could use to ensure that our students and our staff are safe as possible or we minimize risk as much as possible so in particular these two strategies for mask use and screening screening and testing that is information that we are finalizing and i'll discuss that at the closure of this this evening so the goal of keeping students safe and physically present in school will remain and of many comments that were stated this evening when we of course consider physical safety the health and safety we of course

139consider emotional safety and the number one priority in our district is the responsive and caring culture that ensures the physical and emotional safety for everyone in our learning environment so that will continue to be at the forefront just to reiterate we are looking at a proactive approach that allows for a responsive implementation of strategies based on changing conditions we'll have we'll we're doing a final synthesis of official guidance and statements that have recently been updated and issued such as the american academy of pediatrics and other organizations we're in collaboration with health department medical professionals legal experts and local school districts and of course consideration of stakeholder input many of um many of that we have heard from this evening and others as well we are planning with our health and safety committee and then we

140will update our fall plan and district protocols we anticipate communication to the district community the week of august 2nd and then obviously that would be follow up and reiterated in a formal fashion at the board meeting on august 9th and so that is just a kind of brief touch base of where we are with fall planning and enclosing some key reminders for key dates key information that's available online related to calendar registration and back to school is linked in this presentation as well that is available online and we will continue our communication efforts from the district social media platforms and website and continued updates moving forward from there as we know everything is extremely situational and in terms of crisis leadership crisis management crisis response it is important that we have contingency plans it is

141important that we are responsive and nimble and our absolute goal is to return to school the strong return and to stay in school despite any changing circumstances that could happen in the community in our schools or in a farther reach around us so that's the you know brief update that i have this evening and i'm happy to provide any information any additional information thank you anybody have any questions moving down the agenda 3.13.2 k2 fortunas for fountains what is it fountas that is k2 um fontes and panel interactive read aloud and mini lesson adoptions i'd like to invite executive director pre-k5 maria burgos and director of literacy pre-k five karen hess and two teachers that are there for back up and support thank you thank you superintendent kinder good evening president quigley members of the

142board senior leadership and members of the community we're very excited to share our continuous work with fantasy panel classroom and also excited to share our next steps in curriculum implementation additionally we'd like to thank our two teachers first grade teachers from bj ward which will be sharing their voice on curriculum implementation uh we're here to present the continuing work of building our balanced literacy curriculum in kindergarten through second grade the interactive read aloud and mini lesson these components of fontes and pinell classroom help teachers create a supportive learning environment for literacy and promote the love of reading for our students this resource helps teachers continuously improve literacy instruction throughout the use of culturally relevant materials that reinforce key literacy learning karen and let me get the clicker that's important good evening thank you no that's

143okay oh am i clicking in the right direction there we go so since august of 2019 teachers at bj ward elementary have been piloting all of the components of the fpc balance literacy program and the board has been kind enough to allow us to move forward with our whole group options including shared reading phonics word study and guided reading as well to this date we have trained 171 staff members in those areas of adoption many of the teachers and our elementary planning teams as well as the elementary administrators in the district have voiced their support of moving forward with adopting these additional components of fontis and pinell classroom we have successfully been able to add the whole group learning experiences of shared reading and phonics as well as that guided reading which is a small

144group piece the interactive read aloud and reading reading mini lesson that we're bringing to you today will just help to systematically tie together the entire literacy block for our students in kindergarten through second grade it will also increase their reading comprehension and their vocabulary through the read-alouds that are presented we have some quotes here but i'd actually like to step aside and invite our two first grade teachers from bj ward to share exactly why they're so supportive of this adoption hi my name is janetta peterson i've been teaching at bj ward first grade i've been teaching actually for 21 years now and i've had the privilege of using these fpc resources for the past two years and um i do have to say that the two components we're talking about today i feel are the

145most beneficial and meaningful for both the students and the teachers i'm just going to share a quick story about something that happened this past year while teaching um a variety of mini lessons from our little from our mini lesson book on folk tales we stressed the um we read from our shared reading and our interactive reading loud a variety of different folk tales and the we talked about the different features of folk tales and we talked about how um what they the students noticed that were similar and they you know discussed the different variations of folktales and one of my struggling readers went with an interventionist and they just happened to be reading the three little pigs it was a coincidence nothing planned and when she came back she was just glowing her face lit

146up because she was so proud of herself and she felt so confident because everything that we had been talking about in our mini lessons she was able to carry over when she was working with her intervention she was able to recall all those different things that we had talked about in class and she just felt so so positive and so confident about reading and to see that in someone that's struggling it's just amazing and fbc it does that for our students because of this resource the interactive read-aloud we are given 120 i know first grade is given 120 very diverse texts that are at our fingertips and we use them not just once but over and over and over throughout the year and the kids are just you know dying to read them again and

147they want to read them on their own and i can go on and on with stories of how our students my little first graders have just enjoyed reading because of how it's all put together using that mini lesson book and all the resources that fpc allows us to have hi my name is kathleen barney and i've only been with valley view for this past year but i've had the privilege of being on the first grade team here at bj ward and working with the fontes and pinel curriculum and as i've been teaching for 10 years so i've had experience with other literacy curriculum and i have to say that fonteson panel is by far my favorite it's easy to implement i taught remotely all year and i was able to adapt that for my students

148and the specific two components with the interactive read-aloud the texts are diverse many of the texts act as windows and mirrors for our students which was so important with our students and one of my favorite things i just want to share quickly there's so much i could say but is that at the end of the year we were reflecting as a class and so many of my students said that their favorite part was the books that we read and the majority of the books i read were from the curriculum and it's cohesive and goes back and forth from each component of our language arts time so thank thank you so much so the teachers have very wonderfully you know really sold you on the beauty of this program i do just want to point out

149you know there are six principles there's a reason and a plan for why we chose fonteson pinellas classroom to tie together our balance literacy program as was noted in their stories it connects to our interventions it connects to our assessments and it's really just valuable for all of our students um these are just the two components at a glance i won't read every piece of text here to you but something that would be key to know is that the mini lessons are really that whole group model that the teacher does to help the students understand how to become a strong independent reader and then the students actually practice that in the classroom and the interactive read aloud is probably something a lot of you are familiar with you probably did it with other children in

150your life where you read to them you pause for discussion and you really pointed out important pieces of the that text to those students one of the other reasons why this is such a valuable program for our students and our staff is the fact that these supports that are provided are intentional they help our teachers really move in a way of mastery to fully reach each student and their potential and help them to know how to differentiate for those students we have a really brief 45 second clip just so you could get a snippet of what this might look like in the classroom and we'll go ahead and show that now that they're tasting batter do you know what batter is batter's ingredients batter is part of the ingredients to make what okay the cake

151right how can you tell or what do you notice in the illustration that tells you that they feel happy now let's think a little bit about the book zomo the rabbit what did gerald mcdermott do to make this book fun and entertaining and funny and joyful and wonderful turn and talk that's just a taste of what it might look like in the classroom and we hope once the pandemic has now started to die down we can actually show you how this really looks in the future with our students here in valley view i just want to remind this board you've seen this before but just to show that since the teachers at bj ward started to implement fontesompanel classroom they did see growth within their students and while we haven't been able to collect data

152on this level since we were remote last year we will continue to monitor that and we believe that this additional component is going to just increase that growth for our students and then the last thing i just want to point out as well is that we do have a comprehensive training plan for our teachers we're offering just lots of flexibility and options when it comes to their training for this school year so we'll continue to offer things flexibly throughout the year as well as some self-paced options we've offered for teachers job embedded professional development with our coaching coordinators and just allow for choice also within the curriculum and so we feel that that's a really strong support for them so we thank you so much for your time and just want to ask if you

153have any questions anyone have any questions if you do later you know who to find thank you thank you good job ladies thank you ladies appreciate your time and effort on bringing forth that recommendation board policies okay give me one second it's frozen okay i am from information report 13.3 is just part of our standard practice of reviewing and updating board policies there's three presented for your review 5.140 6.80 in 6.100. if you have any questions regarding these policies you can feel free to reach out to senior administration or attorney wagman before we seek your approval at the next board meeting thank you and job descriptions that miss nash yes uh information report 13.4 is a job description for a homebound teacher similar to the special education homebound teacher that we presented earlier we will

154be seeking your approval on this job description at the next board meeting once again if you have any questions take a look talk to ms nash and let yourself be heard moving down the agenda number 14 legal services report no report thank you sir uh aft report apparently no report valley view council report same valley view office personnel council report in the old business before the board this evening hearing none seeing none any new business before the board this evening same we have our freedom of information act requests online if you have questions see mr blaney any questions from the public on actions we have taken this evening moving down the agenda any announcements by the board any announcements by the administration any announcements by the public motion to adjourn would be in order oh

155i do have an announcement a neighboring community board just voted in for mask optional and that's plain filled um i thought that that would be very pertinent for this meeting too thank you make you be aware thank you good enough to have much appreciated uh if there's no further announcements by the public i wish everybody a happy rest of your summer i want to thank our staff and everyone for the efforts they've put in thank our community members residents people who have kids in the district and what have you for attending tonight your two cents is very valuable and it's more than two cents more like ten dollars worth uh in my opinion we appreciate it and look forward to moving this thing forward this has been a long slog for a lot of people

156and hopefully we'll get back to as close to normal as absolutely possible so thank you once again and if there's no further business a motion to adjourn would be in order so moved thank you motion and seconded all those in favor say aye aye opposed same sign thank you very much thank you you