BCSC School Board Meeting: August 9th, 2021

001When I call to order the Browseburg Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees regular meeting for August 9th, 2021, please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me for a moment of reflection. Thank you very much. Consent items, Dr. Snapp. Members of the board, you have in front of you the approval of the minutes from the July 19th business meeting, claims listed, and super intense report. Request approval at this time, please. Second. I have a motion and seconds. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Communications first. Emma, would you

002please come on up front, please? Emma was an award winner, but we thought it would be better to show and not tell, and so we have a one-minute video to show of your handiwork. Hi, my name is Emma. I'm a sophomore in Troop 2108. I chose to do a theoretical sound design for the show The Nether by Jennifer Haley. The thing I'm most proud of during this design process was my creation of 31 individual and unique sound effects by hand. I used Ableton Live and a Launchpad Pro to create all of these effects. With that, the greatest challenge was learning new programs and equipment. This was difficult because it's something that I knew of, but I didn't have a lot of the concepts mastered yet. But it was a great experience for hands-on practice. I

003love being a sound designer because I love being able to influence the audience's perspective on the story from when they walk into the theater all the way up into a ballad. I just appreciate the community coming out tonight. from community school corporation we're going to present you this certificate of accommodation presented for first place finishes at the state thespian festival in january 2021 and sound design and overall technical theater design qualifying for the international thespian festival held virtually in july 2021 uh am i earned a perfect score for sound design in one first place emma also received the grace kelly scholarship issued by the princess grace foundation to continue research education and sound design congratulations Brownsburg Education Foundation report, Mrs. Neerman. Okay, the graduate brick walk promotion is back. $25 off the promo for the

004Senior Code Senior 2022. That's going to be the best price of the school year. It can be purchased for current students, alumni, or in memory or honor of a BCSC employee. Special price only valid through August 15, 2021 at midnight. BEF Designer Purse Bingo Fundraiser. It's presented by Adelsberger Orthodontics. August 17th, 2021, the event is currently sold out, but there is a waiting list in the BEF office if any tickets become available. And then there's the annual surplus sale, Saturday, September 25th, 2021, 8 to 10 a.m. at 310 South Stadium Drive, right here in the warehouse. And there will not be a Ford Drive for your school event this year. That will be back, hopefully, next year. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Dierman. We have the State of the Schools, Dr. Chesed. Thank you. As

005we do each August board meeting, providing you with information about the start of the school year. So the first is looking at school enrollment. You can see that most of our buildings have gone up in enrollment. The total at the bottom of the page does not equal ADM because ADM does not include preschool, but we do provide preschool numbers for you. If we do look at only our ADM schools as of last week, comparing it with the count today, the official count day from last year, we're up 333 students. As a reference, this time last year we were up 36 students, and the year before we were up 254 students. So up 333 is a pretty significant growth for us. This shows the movement of students from... Last year's grade to this year's grade and

006you can see where there has been growth I do want you to know if you add those up and they don't equal the right number It's because our students who are around for an extra year Who are finishing up the last bit of graduation things or a student our special education students who can go to school until they're 22 Are not included in those numbers Average class sizes at the elementary are provided here for you. If you'll recall, we like to keep our K through 2 between 18 and 22 and our third through fifth between 22 and 26 in the classroom. This is our middle school numbers. We like to keep those between 22. I'm sorry, not between 22 and 26, between 24 and 28. and then our high school numbers. It's important to know

007that these are averages, so we do have some classes that are smaller and we have classes that are bigger than what these are, of course. So this slide basically is showing you availability of classrooms within the district. At the start of the school year, at the start of the summer, we had 28 available elementary classrooms. We now have 25 available classrooms. I do want to point out that that does not include the six classrooms that are used that can be used as classrooms that are used for Learning Lab. So if we take those out, we're down to 19. I want to point out that... In the last three years, we have used 11 classrooms. So as we're looking at the way enrollment is growing, it is important to know that 19 is really not a

008lot of space left in our buildings. We're not giving classroom counts on West right now because West is under construction and there's really not any available space at West right now. We do have available space at the high school and at East Middle School. Positions that were added for the 21-22 school year, we added four certified positions at the high school, three at the middle school, six at the elementary, and one at early childhood center. Here's some staffing trivia of this is experience of the people that we hired for certified staff. Certified staff is going to include teachers, special education teachers, therapists, including speech teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, etc. And then finally, staffing and enrollment information. We've had a 3.5% increase in students with a 1.8% increase in teaching staff, 2.9% increase in support

009staff, 0% increase in administrative staff with an overall staffing increase of 2.3%. Happy to answer any questions that you have at this time. Questions for Dr. Jessup? Thank you, Dr. Jessup. Crossroads timeline, Mr. Voigt. So Dr. Jessup went through, just went through some enrollment information and that has an impact on our facility plans. This is some slides that I keep updated each year compared with our demographic study from 2015. And you can see in the upper left that K5 purple line, that's the actual enrollment. is at or above the high projection that Dr. Brodvig had. For some reason, the middle school lags a little bit lower. It's closer to the base projection. But grades 9 through 12 at the high school level, you can see we're tracking along the high projection. These are based on

010numbers from last Friday. So for the past year or so, we thought the crossroads, we'd be able to complete that building in the summer of 24. We had always planned on starting design work this fall with the aim of having construction beginning sometime in the spring of next year and being done probably actually earlier than the spring of 24. But because of the enrollment information that Dr. Jessup just shared with you, the classroom availability, we're looking at accelerating that project back up to bring it online in the summer of 23. That means that we're moving much more vigorously in our design process, things that we had thought we were not going to be doing until September or October, we actually have them underway right now. Mr. Hacker and I have been working on the finance

011side of it. This obviously also accelerates the financial steps that are needed, not by a whole lot, but things that were expected to happen in November, December, and January will start happening next month. We're looking to actually award a construction contract for structural steel in December. That's because that item right now has up to a 40-week lead time, and we have to get that work in place in order to be able to meet this. accelerated schedule. All the other construction contracts would be in January. And then we'd be starting to work as quickly as we could. As soon as the weather broke in March, we'd be starting work on the new site to get the project moving forward. Part of the reason for sharing this with you this evening is you're going to start seeing

012things in upcoming board meetings that are moving a little bit more rapidly than perhaps we had shared with you earlier because we're having to accelerate that schedule. There will also be some things going on concurrently that normally we would be having happen in a more sequential manner, but this time will be happening. concurrently the floor plan is very very similar to lincoln in fact it's identical for most of the most of the building the only areas that are really different from lincoln elementary school is this area right in the center it's the part that links the two buildings together so the future number nine would be linked to crossroads in that area and because we're shifting the way the site lays out a little bit we are having to adjust that area slightly otherwise the

013building is effectively identical to lincoln elementary school This is the site plan. There's still work to be done on this. In purple is the part that's elementary number nine that will not be built as part of this project. And you can see some of the property that we spoke about maybe even last month is on the top of that screen. This is the ultimate layout. Not all the things that you're seeing on that other property will be part of the crossroads project. So when we look at the schedule, by August the 20th, we're looking to get the floor plan actually locked in because the floor plan then dictates what the site plan is going to look like, and we have to get that floor plan done in order to be able to push some local

014approvals through the town and county plan commissions and drainage board. So that's an important date for us to hit. I mentioned in September we'll start seeing things happening that ordinarily we would have been doing later in the year. The first 1028 hearing right now is scheduled for September the 13th. We'll be at the board work session on the 27th. And then you'll see a series of other items that are bolded. December is a big meeting for us because that's when we'll be awarding that steel package and then coming back to you in January to award the balance of the contracts. This project is currently budgeted at about $35 million. That is part of the 22 bond issue. That part has not really changed. All that's happening is it's moving a little bit more quickly than

015we originally had anticipated, maybe six months or a year ago. It does not impact our tax rate. In fact, we'll continue to have a declining debt service tax rate. This is, I think, the 10th consecutive year that we've been able to do that. Accelerating the project does not impact that. All it makes it do is happen faster. And so it also does not really change the order or sequence of the projects that we have listed in our five-year facility plan. Again, nothing really changes there. We're just moving a little faster than we had expected. That really is the update, unless there's any questions. Questions for Mr. Boyd? On the east side of the property, if you go like two slides back. Turn your mic. Are we going to be able to put the new acquired

016properties, are we going to go ahead and demo those? Are we waiting until the second? We will wait until the second building comes on. Because I was going to ask the same thing. So nothing has changed with the homeowners we bought the land from? No. They'll still get the same amount of time? Correct. Okay. Correct. And then what are we looking at now? know we don't know for sure but the future number nine elementary what would based on current enrollment approximately what date would we be thinking that might be coming around i don't remember that far out ten years between reagan and lincoln and this is going to end up being six and so that kind of gives you a range so if that's in 23 could be anywhere from 29 to 33. Are we

017still going to have airport road access somewhere that way on that side? That's the expectation. Okay. And that will be part of the – we'll be taking this project as a master plan, really, to both the town and the county because we want to get the whole thing through the approval process so that we don't get halfway down the road and then find out something has changed in the future. So, yeah, all that will be part of that approval process here in the next several months. So the goal is this would be open for 2023? 23, 24. 23, 24 school year. And does this put off any other projects that we had on the timeline, the construction projects? No. Any other questions for Mr. Boyd? Thank you, Mr. Boyd. First reading of 2022 board meeting

018scheduled, Dr. Snell. I'm sorry, operations update, Mr. Hoyt. I almost forgot about that one. Operations update, Mr. Hoyt. I will keep it quick. As was mentioned earlier, West Middle School renovation and expansion project is moving along very well. We remain on schedule and on budget. All of our life safety systems, if you had been through that building just before school started, it looked much like the high school did a few years ago. And so all of our life safety systems were verified and made functional just before the time the staff and students returned. All of our key completion dates were achieved. The temporary drive for parent pick-up and drop-off is in place, and that seems to be working fairly well. We have established the temporary bus service for Lincoln Elementary School, I'm sorry, Lincoln Point.

019walkers that come to west middle school and we've also put a crossing guard in place we expect that to be in place until probably fall break we're being told that the roundabout will reopen uh in around labor day but that pedestrian traffic through that intersection may be delayed as much as a month and so we're planning on taking it all the way to fall break just to make sure we're in good shape there and then the only other thing i wanted to report is for the start of school it was generally smooth at least on the operations side and the second by the second day all All the buses are about 5 o'clock. That normally is what we do in the regular school year. So for that to have settled out in two days is

020fantastic. And then the Indiana State Police decided to have their annual inspection on the fourth, fifth, and sixth day of the school year. And so we had a 94% pass rate on the first shot. All of our buses were passed by the end of the day that they inspected them. And we are currently tied for the highest pass rate in Hendricks County. We were number one in the Hoosier Crossroads Conference. that's the update any questions for mr boyd on the operations update mr boyd now first reading of 2022 board meeting schedule dr snap you have a schedule for next year in your board packet we'll ask for approval at next month this is just the standard business meeting work session with the exception of march june october and december when we just have the business

021meeting and so just wonder if you have any questions or conflicts this time for it don't you sorry this is just presenting we'll move it next meeting right we'll adopt the next meeting any comments or questions on the calendar thank you dr snap next character education presentation you want to introduce i i do uh we're going to have tonight uh dr hoover mr who's principal at eagle elementary mr polisky who's principal brownsburg east middle school and dr degay who's principal brownsburg high school to talk about the character education traits that we've had in place for the last 11 years just to kind of give us a brief overview of what's taken place at each of their schools and the case of Dr. Hoover, well, he'll be speaking on behalf of all the elementary principals because

022it's the same at all the elementary principals that we do in kindergarten at Eagle. We do it at kindergarten at the other six elementaries. When Mr. Polisky speaks, it'll be the same that happens at West as well. So, Dr. Hoover? Thank you. So we just take a couple of minutes to talk about what happens at the elementary level. As Dr. Snap said, we've been doing this now for 11 years. And one of the important things is that the traits that we do in Brownsburg are the same for K through 12. We have a trait for each month. This month happens to be August's responsibility. So we define that as being accountable for what you say and do. At the elementary level, obviously, we have kids that are five and six years old. I'll be up

023to about 10 and 11. So we obviously do have different lessons for each grade level. And so starting off with kindergarten, we're really focusing on having the kids be responsible for words and actions and how it makes others feel. We're talking about the size of the problem. And then for each grade level, there's an objective, and then there's also activities that we want to incorporate that our counselors and then our teachers can obviously do throughout the course of the month. We're going to be using I statements and checking for understanding by using whiteboards and show of hands of different things. And then as the grade levels progress in grade one, we're talking about big problems versus smaller problems. And Kelso's Choice is a big part of our character education program at the elementary level. When

024we move on to grade two, we'll really get into how you're responsible for your own words and how it affects others. We're talking about things like what does that look like, what does that sound like, what does that feel like. And then we're giving them scenarios based upon. scenarios that would be obviously that they might come across in their in their daily education. And then we get into our intermediate grades. Obviously the kids are now 8, 9, 10, maybe 11 years old. And so some of the things we talk about is the consequences of their actions. We identify problems and we use skills for solution. We really kind of transition that problem-solving activities. We're talking about prior knowledge and inferences about different stories and so forth. We're doing a lot of questions. You'll also find

025a lot of comprehension built into our character education program because a lot of it is based on inferencing and being able to read body language and so forth. And then when we get into our fourth and fifth, we're really kind of putting it back on the child as what is expected of me, how can I make and continue my commitments when I make them to people, and then getting into fifth grade, can I identify my feelings to advocate for what I need and use of I messages, and we really spend a lot of time on getting the children prepared on. how to take accountability for themselves and how to make responsible decisions. Any questions for Dr. Hoover? Thank you, Dr. Hoover. Thank you. All right. Good evening. I'm going to talk about our lessons for

026responsibility at the middle school level for both East and West Middle School. And so in grades 6 through 8, we really try to build upon what they have started at the elementary schools with those same character trait responsibilities, so focusing on responsibility as an obligation. how that demonstrates follow-through with personal actions and promises that students make and so continuing to build upon those stepping stones that they start at the elementary level. Our objectives for this month's lesson, which we gave in all of our classrooms, our counselors and our teachers, two objectives were number one, to help students understand that I am responsible for what I say and what I do and number two, I am responsible for how those actions might make people feel and so helping them to expand upon those objectives that they

027had at the elementary school level so this month's lesson started off with a short video clip from the lion king where simba learns about responsibility uh and and kind of gets shared with that at one day he will be responsible for the entire kingdom and helping to talk students through what are some things that they like being responsible for and maybe some things that they don't like being responsible for and how we can work through those together and help them grow in those areas. After the short video clip, students are split into groups and they were coming up with responsibility recipe cards. So getting them to think about things like listening, empathizing, reflecting, apologizing, solutions. We get them to kind of build their own recipe for what percentage of those different ideas will help them

028be more responsible in their day-to-day activities. And then lastly, once they've created those recipe cards, we work through some student scenarios. So giving some scenarios of things that have happened in our building or helping a student work through. you see another student who may have cheated on a test or you're working through the responsibility of telling the truth to a teacher or something along those lines. And so they work through those student scenarios using their recipe cards and continuing to reflect upon that throughout the rest of the month of August. Any questions for Mr. Polisky? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Polisky. Dr. DeGay. Well, a little institutional knowledge for me. This is my 25th year at Brownsburg High School. I was nine years the assistant, and this is my 16th year as principal. And so

029I'd have to say we opened up the Senior Academy in 2009, and that was an opportunity to do Chainlink. That's our student government, Chainlink, where the name's Chain. Compassion, honesty, accountability, integrity, right now. That's what Chainlink, and it has stood. A year and a half to two years later, we decided to have character ed traits across the district, K-12. And so in 11-12, we had seven character traits. In 21-22, we have the same character traits. That's what we're teaching at Brownsburg High School. So here's a little bit of how we do this. We do this once a month. We build on what happened at K-12, our K through 8, and we have our teachers and our students, we have put together presentations that they've used over those last 10 years. This year it's been a

030change because we've also included the counselors, and I'll tell you a little bit why because it's right here. They're also going to help teach the character ed lessons with the teachers this year. And so that's a little bit of a change, but the character ed lessons haven't. So in the high school this month, just like all the other buildings, responsibility. We call responsibility the obligation to demonstrate and follow through the personal actions and promises. Ten minutes we will have a learning objective. Students will be accountable for the things they say and do. Students will own their words and actions. We follow this because this is also an objective of the American School Counselors Association. So in that 10 minutes, fifth period at the high school, the instructor, teacher, or counselor will read that definition. They

031will go over the objectives and reinforce the character trait of responsibility. We demonstrate the trait of responsibility by taking ownerships of our lives and acknowledging our power to choose what we think, including attitudes and mindsets. Say and do and our accountability and consequences of those choices. So what's going to happen in the classroom is they're going to go over a bunch of opportunities for the kids to look at ways to act better and have responsibility with their actions. They talk about a few of those ideas. Then they come in. They ask every student on a piece of paper to write down what their day looks like, what their week looks like, what are the activities that they're involved in. And so then as soon as students have... got involved in that, then we want to

032be part of the evaluation or just the conclusion of it. And that is we read each question that we've talked about and then we help them reflect on the responsibilities and how can they grow in that area. So what happens if you don't do your homework? What happens if you don't pick yourself up at home? You don't pick stuff up at home. What happens when you promise a friend and then you forget? So the character ed lessons that happen in high school have happened for the last 10 years and very much accountable all grades 9 through 12. It's the same lessons all the way through, and we make sure that's done once a month, counselors and our teachers, and we do that during fifth grade. Any questions for Dr. Degay? What's next month? I have

033it written right here. Responsibility next week, next month is respect, compassion, integrity, perseverance, acceptance, and citizenship. So respect is in September. questions thank you dr de gang you're welcome we we are now moving on to comments uh from patrons um before we begin the comments from patrons i think we've done a very good job over the last few months doing this but there's been there's been some substantial disruptions at other corporations around the state that i'm sure you've seen on the news so um because of those recent disruptive incidents during public comment at other school board meetings our school chief of police has asked me to kind of go back over the board policy regarding participation At board meetings, and I'll kind of just go through the policy, the school board recognizes the value of

034public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on corporation matters. The presiding officer shall be guided by the following rules. Attendees must register to speak during public comments upon their arrival at the meeting. Participants will be recognized by the presiding officer and will be requested to state their name, address, and group affiliation. And most of you, I think, have all put your address on here. Each statement made by a participant shall be limited to two minutes. And please assist us with adhering to the two-minute rule as non-adherence may lead to a disruption of the lawful assembly of participants. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No person may address or question board members or administrators individually. Additionally, the presiding officer may prohibit public comments

035which are frivolous, repetitive, or harassing, interrupt, warn, or terminate a person's statement when the statement is too lengthy, personally indirect, abusive, obscene, or irrelevant, request any individual to leave the meeting when that person behaves in a manner that is disruptive of the orderly conduct of the meeting. Request the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting. call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meetings as to warrant such action and waive these rules with the approval of the board when necessary for the protection of privacy or the administration of the boards of business. And again, I want to reiterate, I think over the

036last few months, everybody has done a nice job. People have, for the most part, stuck to their two minutes. It's just we wanted to review the board policy so everybody can hear it and know exactly what it is as we get going. I think we've added a shot clock over here on the front desk. So that will be a little bit more information instead of just saying your two minutes are done. So please, we'll get to the two-minute mark. I'll give you five or ten seconds to wrap up, but we're really asking you please to limit it. I think we have 30-plus people that have signed up to speak, so it's going to take some time, but we want to give everybody the opportunity. So to begin with, first on deck we have Heidi Roach.

037Good evening. My name is Heidi Roach. I'm a 39-year-old mother of three. My oldest is in first grade at Brownsburg, and we've had a phenomenal start this year, as well as he loved kindergarten last year. Absolutely loved it. The reason I'm here tonight is because last year, on October 23, 2020, I lost my mother. Six days later, on October 29, 2020, I also lost my father. This virus is real and it's deadly and it does not care about your politics, your religion, your ethnicity, your 401 account, your job title, and now it doesn't care about your age. It is mutated into a more contagious strain that is affecting our youth. Last year, we were fortunate that the virus seemed to skip over our future, our children. Now, across this country, we are seeing that it

038no longer discriminates. Please stop waiting for our youth to get sick or worse, to die. Making a change in this mandate is so vital to their health. Comply with what the CDC has recommended, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended, as well as the ISDH has recommended for what is best for our youth before you have a grieving parent in front of you at this podium. The pain of losing my parents to this virus, it has been life-changing. I can only imagine what one would feel after losing a child, and you have that power. You have the power to keep them safe. Thank you. Thank you. Angela Meyer. Thank you. I appreciate the timer. I was going to bring my own because I can be wordy, and I know you know that because you've read

039my emails. I really do appreciate that you take the time to read them and that you respond. I'm emotional following the last speaker because this is personal. But I appreciated you answering the question about the information you're weighing regarding masking. And what I hear is that the school feels that collecting independent data is more reliable than the hundreds of studies and data collected by health institutions across the state. country, and world, which have led to universal masking recommendations by the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Indiana State Department of Health. Giving more weight to self-collected data just because you collected the data is a form of a bias called self-attribution bias in statistics. My husband is the data scientist in the family, but he can't be here tonight. So I've already articulated my

040personal, parental, professional, and public health perspective via email, so I'm not going to belabor the point. Science isn't political or subject to opinion. This virus isn't political or subject to opinion. I understand the intensity of the situation, and the only thing that some of us seem to have in common at times is our need to be heard. This is mine. I'm a parent of a BCSC student and a Brownsburg resident. I'm a hospital worker and advocate for families whose children have special health care needs. And I'm asking you again to put the health of our kids first. Thank you. Thank you. Becky Secord. Before I start, just so we can clear the air, I got into a little accident on the bird scooters this weekend, so if you happen to rent one, please be careful.

041Okay, I was going to talk about mass tonight until I saw the political stunt the board pulled today So in the minutes you guys just approved by my name it states. This is my summary summarization here that Miss C chord is concerned that the criteria Criteria for entrance into high ability courses are being modified to allow black and brown students to qualify for classes this is by no means what I said last month, but Okay, so I was never concerned about high ability being modified to allow students of color to qualify. This is a gross misrepresentation, whoever decided to put this in here. What I said is that I was concerned. The criteria for the entrance in high ability is being reduced overall. That my concern, that's my concern. It's pretty obvious your own racism

042is showing here. As it is clear in what you wrote, you believe the qualifications need to be reduced so children of color can qualify, not me. Frankly, that's disgusting. I believe we can maintain high standards and be inclusive because my values tell me that all students, regardless of race, are capable and intelligent and do not need the rim lowered for them to be successful. Unlike you, I believe these students have abilities. I believe students of color can absolutely achieve the previously set standards for these programs. What the board entered into the minutes today demonstrates their own unconscious bias against students of color. These are your words in the minutes and not mine. You should all be ashamed. This is unacceptable. What you just said earlier or had somebody quote earlier that you need to be

043accountable for what you say and do, you should be accountable for this. This is not at all what I said, and now you have it down in the public minutes. I think it needs to be amended, and if you want, I'm sure she's over here typing what I said. I can either get you the speech that I said, or she can go in and retype it. This is unacceptable behavior from all of you. Thank you. The next one will be David Welch. My name is David Welch. I moved here recently on Dutch Elm Way. And I have four kids that I decided to move up and move from living in Pike Township for the last 40 years. This was a big move for me. And I came here because I knew that Brownsburg was a

044good school system, much better than, in my opinion, Pike. With that being said, I am concerned with what I've heard in the last four board meetings. I only spoke at one of them. I listened at the others. Now, my kids were at virtual all year last year, besides after spring break. After spring break, they were finally allowed to go in there. I want you to be careful of the things that you hear tonight. I want you to look at the records of California when you're hearing about the masks, how they've been under lockdown with a mask mandate. It still does not matter. COVID still takes over. Mask or no mask. You can look at those records yourself. I am concerned with what I hear about the DIE officer. I feel as though this DIE officer

045was perhaps... given a job that was not required, should not have been required of her. Quite frankly, if I may speak freely, I feel as though this was a partisan topic and as a school board you're not supposed to take sides and I feel as though this took a side. I feel as though your excuse for using her, I know I have got four seconds, was the n-word. No parent in here tonight is going to say that the n-word is appropriate. It's completely wrong, but you don't need a DIE officer to tell you that. Thank you. Kevin Poorman. Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak. I lost my father to COVID. Other people have lost family members to COVID. Things have changed. It's no longer the same virus. I'm going to ask you outright

046to consider the name of the corporation that we're here discussing tonight, the Community School Corporation of Brownsburg. Community is right there in the name, and you as board members have what I feel is a fiduciary responsibility to the children and to the community. And while that term has some loaded meaning in the financial sector, go with the broader meaning, please. And I want to encourage you to think about what is best, not from our own personal research, but actually from what the medical experts at the national, state, and state levels are saying about wearing masks in school. This is ultimately much bigger than the schools and our kids. This is a community school corporation, and we are part of that community. Our kids go home to multi-generational families, multi-generational homes, exposing people of all ages

047to the virus that they may have picked up at school. And while none of us wants to think about it, we may end up in a situation like other school districts have where we're having to deal with a situation where some child unknowingly brought the virus home to end a parent's life or a grandparent's life. So I want to encourage you all directly to put a mask mandate in place and enforce it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Parman. Amanda Cherry Hi, Amanda Cherry, Brownsburg. First, I want to thank the board for opening the schools in person while leaving the decision of wearing a mask at school up to the parents. I know these are tough decisions to make, but I strongly believe that the decision to wear a mask at school should continue to be

048left up to the parents to decide what's best for their children. Second, I want to express my concern about the content of some of the books that are being made available to our children through the school corporations library. One example is Looking for Alaska by John. Green which is located in Brownsburg High School both audio and hard copy and Harris Academy so children as young as 14 can obtain this this book with no parental consent or oversight here's a brief excerpt starting on page 126. Ms. Cherry we're not going to read excerpts from books here there's a challenge process that you could use in the school corporation but we're not going to read experts excerpts in a public meeting My concern is, and I understand about the obscenity comments and the board policies, but our

049children are having access to these obscene, sexually explicit books. And it's just very disheartening to me that these children can be able to read these things as young as 14 without parents being able to review it. So I would ask that we take a look at these library policies and reviewing these books that are being put into place because there should be some sort of oversight to prevent these books from being on the shelves and allowing access for these children. Thank you, Ms. Chair. Ann Mattingly? Hi, my name is Anne Mattingly. I am a local physician. I am the mother of a second grader here. This is a mask. This is not a political statement, okay? This is also... This is also not an impenetrable force that will stop all COVID-19, okay? This is a

050tool. This is a tool that we can use to keep our classes open and to keep our kids in school. It will reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in the school. It will reduce our quarantine burden from six feet to three feet, which will limit the burden on families. It will reduce the transmission of other respiratory viruses, which will pull the students out until they have a negative COVID test. As a surgeon, I am very familiar with masking and infection control. I have looked at the data for masking and COVID-19. And when combined with other public health measures, universal masking can reduce community spread of COVID-19, which is the basis for the national guidelines, the Indiana Department of Health guidelines, and even the guidance that we're getting from the Hendricks County Health Department. We were successful

051last year, prioritizing in-person education using a layered approach. The Delta variant is twice as contagious, so I'm not really understanding the logic of reducing our infection prevention at a time when we're dealing with a more contagious virus. The Delta variant has a... significantly increased viral load a thousand times in some of the studies. So that seems to be contributing to a more severe illness and a moderate to severe illness in younger patients. So in places where a delta is surging, pediatric hospitals are full. They are struggling to find beds for kids. They are calling people from across the country. People in Indianapolis are getting calls from other states trying to get beds, including beds for children. In our local community, I communicated with my colleagues, are seeing more COVID-19 than they've ever seen in the

052last 18 months. Kids can get COVID. Kids can get sick. Kids can end up in the hospital. This surge will eventually end, but this is a tool that we can keep our classes open, our schools open, and our kids in school. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Mattingly. Sarah, is it Wollner? Am I saying that right? Hi, my name is Sarah Wollner. I have two students who attend Brown Elementary. I don't really want to follow that because that was awesome. I have a whole thing about how I want you to amend the mask policy, and I agree with every single word that that awesome, awesome lady just said. Comparing case numbers, if you're comparing case numbers between this year and last year, it's not a valid comparison. A case this year can spread to more students

053and faculty. faster due to two factors the delta variant and the current optional mask policy if a more contagious virus enters the classroom and most of the students are unmasked the spread will almost certainly be more far reaching last year the spread of the virus was minimized while in school due to the safety precautions that were in place those precautions specifically masks are no longer in place I had quotes here about the American Academy of Pediatrics and all of those people. I'm going to skip that because that's already been belabored. I do want to say that masks only work to their full capacity if everyone is wearing them. Please know that I do not want my kids wearing masks forever. I cannot wait for them to return to some semblance of normal. We are not

054there yet. The data proves it. I wish we were more than anyone. The number of COVID cases in Indiana and Hendricks County has shot up over the last few weeks. Last week alone, with most schools not in session, there were over 350 new cases in Indiana schools. Last week alone, most schools are not in session yet. It is your job now in a leadership role to make the schools as safe as possible for children and teachers. implementing a mask mandate is necessary at this time. I implore you to implement a mask mandate for at least the children under 12 who can't get vaccinated, but preferably for all K-12 students. Being a leader takes courage, and now is the time for that bravery. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Weiner. Wyatt Kentner. Good evening

055Brown Community School Corporation Board. My name is Wyatt Kentner. I have two children that attend Brownsburg schools. I have a master's in environmental science from Indiana University and I'm an emergency preparedness coordinator for a fortune 50 company. I'm in charge of managing responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, oil spills and as of February 2020 pandemics. We have 18,000 employees that we're tasked to take care of and institute guidance for on our board. And I understand the position that you're all in. And in fact, you're in an even tougher position because you have the added emotion of parents being concerned for their children. And so I respect and appreciate all the consideration and diligence that you've given to this topic. The one thing I want to point out, though, is it's not consistent across the board. what

056type of masks children are provided with. It's up to the parents to decide what type of mask. The board's not debating whether or not we're going to mandate N95 respirators, and they're going to be purchased and provided each student clean and fresh every day. We're not mandating that every hour the children will swap out surgical masks. Children will not be allowed to touch their face or use the mask to wipe the desk. We're not mandating that parents wash and launder those masks every night. bleach solution, certain type of detergent, whether or not that has fragrance in it that may or may not irritate their lungs. We're not mandating any of that. And I've seen an inconsistency across the board. Now, I mentioned my qualifications. None of those qualifications matter except the one. I'm a parent

057of a child. As a parent of a child, I get to choose what my kids eat, how much sleep they get, how much exercise they get, all factors that help to determine their health. I respect the board respecting my opinion as a parent to determine what's best for my child. I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Lindsay Horvath. Thank you. I'm a mother of three, an elementary student, a middle schooler, and a high schooler. Brownsburg has single-handedly taken my ability to protect my children out of my hands and put it in the hands of other parents. By making e-learning not an option any longer, and masks are an option. So in-person learning is mandatory and masks are optional at this point, completely overlooking the source control, which is increasing a focus on infectious individuals wearing

058masks rather than only the susceptible wearing masks. We all know families historically send children to school sick because they don't have adequate child care backed throughout the week and often send children to school on fever reducers to mask symptoms of ailment. These parents are also not sending their children to school with masks, allowing COVID to spread. It makes no sense that there's not an option. There's an option at an elementary level where others have also pointed out there's not even a vaccine available to protect our children. With this month's character trait being responsibility, it's your responsibility to protect our children. I know everything comes down to politics and money. So if we want to talk about that, then if our kids aren't in school, they can't take the necessary tests. Our school relies on heavily

059for our funding. So let's be proactive and mask up our children so they can stay in school and focus on a high attendance rate. There have been more COVID cases this year so far in our schools than we've been in school. The number of days. I don't know if everyone has the ability to access that information, but sit on that for a minute. We've had more COVID cases than the number of days we've been in school. What we are doing is not working, and I implore you to protect those who cannot protect themselves with one simple action, making masks mandatory. Thank you, Ms. Wallman. Donald Horvath. Good evening. I recently had the opportunity to email a member of your board. I will not name names just because we're not supposed to directly interact. I was

060told in this email that within the date that I emailed was within 48 hours of school starting. I was told that you can't move that quickly to make the mask mandatory, to enact it for everybody so everybody was aware of it before school started. And I was also told that something like that. was not going to be done unless the school board was there to vote on it. I see everybody here now and I see that there are a lot of people here speaking out saying the masks need to be mandatory instead of optional. My wife just went and to her credit, she's very emotional about this. We have three children, but I personally have seven emails from the school in the last eight days. telling me there have been positive COVID tests at each

061one of the schools my kids are part of. I kind of see that as being a red flag that what we're doing probably isn't working. And I really see a lot of people here with doctor in front of their name. Obviously, you're highly intelligent people. This isn't something people are making up. We need to figure out something that's going to work because right now we're not doing anything. I have an eight-year-old who was scared to go to school because She was afraid she was going to get COVID and die. How do you handle that conversation with an eight-year-old? You don't. They just don't have the logic centers right now to understand what's going on. I mean, it breaks your heart to have to deal with this. I have a 14-year-old who has the same idea.

062She doesn't want to be around people because she's afraid she's going to get COVID. And she just started high school. Like, things aren't tough enough. I wear one. I'm fully vaccinated. My boss just told me that it's mandatory for all of us to wear them. We had a strict policy that if you weren't vaccinated, you had to wear one. Now we all do. It doesn't matter. What are we doing? When are we going to make this happen? I think she's trying to let you know that nobody started the time. No, no worries. No worries. I can feel it. So in conclusion, we just need to figure out something that's going to happen for everybody. Because right now, I have two children. Three children ride buses. Two of them are telling me that they get on

063the bus every day. Masks are being worn until they sit in seats. Federally mandated that we have to wear masks. So something has to change. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ripper. Stephanie Stout. Hi, I'm Stephanie Stout, and I have two elementary children in Delaware Trail. I was here at the last board meeting to beg you to reconsider the position on masking based on the CDC guidance and the AAP guidance that at that time was specific to unvaccinated children, hence children at the elementary level. Since then, that guidance has been expanded to cover vaccinated children as well. The point being that students should be masking. And I realize that this is a difficult topic. There are many emotions among the community. It is not an easy decision for any of you to make. What we have

064to remember is that the benefit of masking isn't about just the individual. It's about protecting the community. And so although I respect that it is a parent's choice to determine how they're going to protect the health of their own child, it isn't their right to make that decision for all the other children. And so that decision falls to the school board. And at this point, the school board needs to have the accountability and the responsibility to recognize that their experts, their own experts in our county, in the state, as well as our nation, are recommending masking universally across all ages of children. So at this time, I ask you once again. Please reconsider making masks mandatory. It doesn't mean that they will have to be mandatory forever. It means that we are going to act

065nimbly and responsibly as this delta wave hits. We need to take action quickly. We cannot afford to wait and watch what happens with our numbers. Hopefully... Nothing bad happens, but we can't rely on hope here. We must be proactive and take steps based on our expert guidance. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Steele. Deb Bagan. Deb Bagan, Brownsburg. I have two children that have gone to Brownsburg schools. One graduated in 2017. The other is a sophomore. And I know there's a lot of people here to talk about masks tonight, so I don't actually plan on talking about that because we talked about that last month. I actually came here to talk about a history lesson. I was really glad to see the character traits stuff on the agenda tonight because that's what I want to talk

066about. In 2012, I sat in my son's freshman orientation for parents in Brownsburg High School. And when it came to character traits, they flashed up tolerance on the screen. And I was sitting next to my son's best friend's mom, and she leaned over to me and she goes, I really don't like that word. And I said, I don't either because that word should be acceptance. She's an evangelical Christian who really, and I love the family, they are closest friends, some of our closest friends. She believed that it was okay to just not care, I don't have to accept other people and their differences. And I told her, I said, I prefer that word to be acceptance. I'm so glad that word actually today is acceptance on that board, right? We want, I don't have to

067like everybody I deal with. I don't have to absorb everything that everybody else does. or believes in or whatever, but I want them to accept me for who I am. Last week my son attended his first day of his freshman classes and two of his seven teachers had the nerve to ask what his preferred name and pronouns were. He came home and I said, how'd that make you feel? And he said, you know what? I don't go, yeah, he doesn't go by his formal name. He goes by a nickname. He's like, I was thrilled that out loud in a classroom, I got to tell somebody what I preferred to be called and to hear what other people preferred. So thank you and please keep up that kind of work. We have a long way to

068go in this school district. John Dispinit, saying that right, hopefully. Thank you, sir. Good evening. I just want to tell you, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you guys. Also, all the efforts you have made in this past year to keep us, our kids in school as well as educating them at the same time. You guys do a great job. Hope that you hear that more than just negative comments throughout this past year. I have two children currently in Delaware Trail and one more coming next year. I have nothing but good things to say about Delaware Trail. The school, the staff, everybody there worked very hard to educate our kids and be accepting of everyone. I'm here to oppose the mandate of forcing our children to wear masks and to keep the

069current status of being optional. I guess another better word for optional would be our choice. We applaud choices. We talk about having choices all the time across the board. I would say our society in general want choices made every day of their life, especially personal choices. So I would propose that we keep masks as a choice for kids all ages and let their parents decide what's best for their families. Those that want to have a mask on, let them do that. Those that don't, let them do that. That is their choice. We have had our activities in the past two weeks before school that would cause those spikes, not just schools in session. People want to talk about being 12 and under don't have access to vaccines, but allowing people above 12 that have the

070ability to have vaccines not to be masked. So there's inconsistencies as we talked about before. And we have proven fact that vaccines and masks do not save lives. So I would appreciate if we all as a society just do not have so much emphasis on one thing. and then focus on how to remember the other side in all situations and be able to keep our choice available to each other. Thank you. Thank you. Christy Thornberry. I'm going to take this off. Thank you, Board. I appreciate it. I sent you an email a couple of weeks ago before school started. My concern, I had a daughter last year who was in middle school who had COVID. We did everything, mask, everything else. She is currently one vaccination into school. And a mask always because I can't

071get her vaccinated. I was told that because of last year, the mask mandate was by the governor. This is not a political issue. It is our children's health and their wellness. I wouldn't go to the governor to ask about what I should do to take care of my children or anybody else's children for that matter. I know they've said the doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, the Indiana Health. I am a breast cancer two-year survivor. I would not go to my doctor for care. I had to go to my oncologist. And you know how interesting it was to have to sit and put doctor's appointments off last year? Because I had to be cautious and cautious about my health and also my kids. Because I didn't know if they'd bring it home to

072me after beating cancer. I sure as hell am not going to die from COVID. I was a warrior for a reason, and I'm still here for a reason. And second of all, I'm going to bring to another fact. A whole school district that I'm from, that I graduated, Greater Clark County right now, has 1,000 kids quarantined. They started the same day we did, or within a day or two. So, please. I know there's a lot of people that don't want masks. I don't want 1,000 kids in four or five days home. I do not want another year of everybody being home. I don't want kids missing Macy's parades. I don't want kids missing basketball, football, everything that they know as their childhood. But most importantly, I want healthy children, and I want them safe. Thank

073you. Leah Porras. I'm going to read this or else I won't get through it in two minutes. So bear with me. Okay, first off, I'd like to thank you for working so diligently to protect the health of our children last year by mandating use of masks in the buildings and doing all you could to mitigate the spread of the virus. With that being said, my name is Leah Porras. I'm a parent here in Brownsburg, but also a scientist. I have two children that attend Brown Elementary School. Professionally, I'm a research scientist. As we all know, masks are optional for students in all grades in all buildings, and there's no virtual option for this year. With this in mind, I ask you to consider the mask situation in those student populations that are not eligible for

074vaccination. Masks are designed to mitigate the spread of this virus and protect the people around the person wearing the mask from the virus. The mask does not effectively protect the person wearing the mask from the virus if others around them are not vaccinated. and not wearing a mask unless the mass happens to be something like I'm wearing in 95. Both of my daughters are ineligible to be vaccinated this time as are all students under the age of 12. While the original variant of this virus did not seem to be impacting children negatively, the new variants are particularly delta. And this strain counts for up to 85% of all COVID cases in Indiana. It's 200% more transmissible than previous variants and produces up to a thousand times more viral load, meaning one infected individual can infect

075between six and ten others without proper precautions being taken. This variant is as contagious as the chickenpox. I'm concerned that the school board's decision is putting the younger children, those under the age of 12 and ineligible for vaccine at this time, in harm's way. Following the newest CDC guidance in July, all individuals should be wearing masks while indoor in communities where the spread of COVID-19 is high. As of last week, that encompassed the majority of the state of Indiana, including Brownsburg. I am required to wear a mask at work all times. I am fully vaccinated. Sorry. I'm asking as a mother and a scientist that you do the same for the children under the age of 12 until the time they are eligible to be vaccinated. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Charlie Moorhead.

076There are many great things the school has done for us students in the past few years. Supporting the rights of transgender students, swiftly handling racist remarks written on social media, mask policies, contact tracing, and the choice to do school from home. I couldn't possibly think enough for those who have helped enact these policies, including our DEI director. These are things that Brownsburg does and should stand for. We stand with love, not hate. We stand with flexibility and progression, not conspiracy and regression. I ask you guys please to continue this trend. These are things I believe Brownsburg has stood for in the past. I have confidence in our representatives that they will make the right decisions regarding what is being taught in class and the steps we can take to stop the spread. And I just

077want to leave you with this question. Are you here to continue to build, grow, encourage, and nurture a community of health, progression, and responsibility? Or are you here to just further polarize our community and tear it apart? Lisa Fergus. Hi, everybody. My name is Lisa Fergus. I have two students. I have a sophomore and I have a middle schooler. We moved here, we settled down here eight years ago after being a military family for 15 years. So being new in town was always hard, but we felt really secure knowing that the kids were at school with all of these teachers and administrators. Today, we feel that that security has been threatened by an outside invader. I'm here today on behalf of my middle schooler requesting at least kids 11 and younger be required to wear

078a mask. I would have been grateful if the sick person who infected him with RSV at eight months old had worn one because he might not be high risk now. I would have been grateful if the sick person three years ago had worn one when he was infected again. This time he wasn't so lucky. So instead I get to tell you what color purple his lips were. and how he was gasping in his car seat, or what oxygen sounds like hissing out of a child-sized oxygen canola, and how fast respiratory distress happens in children. So I am here to affirm that I would do anything I can to make sure none of you ever have to experience that. All we are asking for is the same consideration. My last comment is directed at the board.

079The vocal anti-mask groups here tonight use a faith-based belief as the foundation of their position. Not requiring masks goes against all current medical and scientific recommendations. By all appearances, in deferring to this group, how can one conclude anything other than the Brownsburg School Board is establishing a religious preference? Thank you. Thank you. Forrest Fergus. Uh, hello? My name is Forrest Fergus. I'm currently a sophomore at Brownsburg High School. Okay. Uh, sadly, I feel compelled to come up here and address some of the, um, Facebook rumors about, uh, certain subjects at the schools. More specifically, a radical leftist agenda. What I think is happening is a humongous misconception. What's actually happening is that the schools some teachers have opted to ask students for their preferred name and pronouns Which is in my opinion just accepting who

080that student is Which should not be mistaken for promoting a radical liberal gay agenda The school is not preaching communism to your children Keep in mind the teachers last year had to teach an in-school and online class And they only had eight weeks to get ready for this year. So when do you think the teachers had time to not just plan, but also implement a radical leftist gay agenda into the schools? That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. Keely Stewart. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you all. I'm here to talk about some interesting books. I know you all have heard about the books that are in the libraries and the schools. I came tonight fully intending to read an excerpt from a book

081to you all. But knowing that there are children in the room who have access to this book at school, I decided I wasn't going to do it. Regardless of what the board is asking me not to say here, I will say that the book that I was going to read is so grotesque, it highlights a rape scene. This is not something that I think that our children need to have access to in the school. Here's my reasoning. Yes, kids need to know about drugs, rape, sex, all of those things. But they need to hear it from their parents. They don't need to hear it from books that glamorize it and make it into something fantastic. The book that I wanted to read to you tonight talks about drug abuse, drug use, and how good it

082feels. What do y'all think of that? It also talks very, very in-depth about the rape scene. where a young woman is being put in a position. She's in physical pain, emotional pain. She's crying out for help, and yet this goes on. And this is a book that my kids could check out at the library because somebody, somewhere, has allowed these books to creep in. I find this really upsetting. I know that none of you are going to respond to what I'm saying right now, but I want you to think on that for a second. Just think about it. Think about what you would say to your child who talks about the glamorization of drugs. Think about what you would tell your child who is reading a book about a graphic rape scene. What if that

083child had been raped? That's trauma that we are giving to our kids. Please wrap up your comments. Thank you very much. Matt Stewart. I'm not going to talk about any of that stuff, so take a little break from that. However, I am pretty upset with the school board and with the admin in general, and here's why. I have two kids that have come through the high school system, graduated a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old. I currently have a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old in the Brownsburg school system. So I've kind of got out of the volunteering in the classrooms and working and reading and doing all that stuff with teachers. Now that the younger kids are coming up, I kind of started to get back involved. And with all of this stuff that we're hearing about tonight

084going on, I prefer to educate myself on why or why not we aren't doing some of these things. I would like to hear it from you guys, and I think it would be nice if there was some communication medium on the site that would give us that ability. We don't have that. It's hard to get why the school is doing this, why the school is not doing this. We got a thing, you know, home that says CRT is not part of the curriculum and we're not teaching it. Well, why are we not? What is your guys' stance on that? I feel that same way, and I feel like you guys have failed us as parents to be able to educate ourselves. I don't care what Cook County Schools are doing or Hamilton's doing. I care

085what you guys are doing and why you guys are doing it. And I think for us to be able to learn that from you and have more ready access to things like that, whether it's on a website, whether it's better communications from you all, and I know that's a monumental task for you to communicate with. As you said, 10,000 students and 20,000 plus parents, but I think that has been a failure. And I think that would help alleviate a lot of these fears and it would help me educate myself to be able to come down on one side or the other of what we could do. So I would ask you to put that as a priority, communication to parents, students, and everybody to bring everybody kind of together to know at least what you're

086thinking and why you are or not implementing MASC, why you are or not implementing a certain curriculum. Then we can go based on what you're doing and go from there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Brian Weidner. Good evening. I have two students over at Brownsburg West and I do not come to you tonight as a public health official, but I will say you've heard plenty tonight from those that are in the medical field and I know plenty of other communications suggesting that masks are imperative for our students. I do want to come to you though as a 21 year veteran of the classroom who is heading back to my own classroom next week. and unfortunately won't be seeing my students faces. It makes me sad but I am also celebratory in the fact

087that my administration at Butler University saw that student health was imperative for every single one of our students and that masks are one more tool that are going to help keep our students in the classroom where they belong. As an educational researcher my focus is on the relationship between teachers and students very specifically looking at social emotional well-being and how non-verbal communication fits into that. A message that I've heard regularly is that with the mask on, we lose the ability to engage with our students in that social-emotional learning. And I will agree that the mask certainly inhibits some of that. But the reality is, I can make that deep connection with you by that look in your eyes and connecting that way. By using my arms to say, I am disappointed. We're not quite there

088yet. And by using gesture to say, yes, you have it, finally. We can still teach all those important social, emotional, mental, developmental steps to our students with or without a mask. But importantly, with that mask on, we increase the chance that the students are in the single most important place for their academic well-being, for their social, emotional well-being, which is in the classroom with us. When we take the masks away, we increase the risk that we are going to have more students in quarantine, more students sick, and more students not in our classrooms. I wear a mask here today not because I'm concerned about anyone here getting me sick, but rather because I'm worried that I'm one of those breakthrough cases that will make everyone else sick. I ask you please take masking seriously and

089re-implement our mask mandate. Thank you. Reverend Beth Scriven, did I say that right? All right. You're in like the 10%? All right. Good evening. I'm the Reverend Beth Scriven. I'm a resident and homeowner in the town of Brownsburg, and I'm also the pastor of Good Samaritan Episcopal Church here in Brownsburg, a congregation that includes many children, teachers, and staff in our district, and which partners particularly with Harris and Alpha. As a person and as a faith leader who cares deeply about giving every child an opportunity to thrive. I am so grateful to see the work that Brownsburg schools have done to honor our students' experiences and futures, particularly through DEI work. And I'm incredibly concerned that this commitment to honoring every student's well-being may not now extend to requiring masks or to creating equitable opportunity

090for online learning if students are immunocompromised, if their families cannot afford to do online learning in other places, if their families are not comfortable risking their child's health by sending them to an indoor environment full of unmasked people. The question about online learning and that equity is so much less if masks become mandated. It evens the playing field so much better. to have everyone be able to be in the classroom and have a safe enough learning environment that they feel they can participate fully in that learning. So with Delta on the rise and all of the medical and scientific reasons that you've already heard here several times tonight, I ask you again not to wait until it's our children dying to choose to protect them. Masking is so simple to do and I know was

091so effective as a part of the layered strategy here last year. I ask that we look to repeat that success rather than gamble on whether we can be successful without them now. Thank you. Kristen Fertlick. I do have a book that I want to discuss with you this evening. It's this book, Something Happened in Our Town. This book is present in four. Brownsburg schools three elementaries and over at Harris Academy So the good reverend that it does work with Harris should want to know about this book It's recommended for ages four through eight It's at Brown Lincoln Reagan and Harris it profiles a story of a police shooting Where a white police officer? Shot an unarmed black man it opens with a scene where a child is questioning parents after the child heard the story

092from a news report. After school, Emma asked her mother, why did police shoot that man? It was a mistake. Yes, we are. It's open door laws. No, it's not. I'll give you a chance to describe the book. I'm perfectly happy, but we're just not reading books tonight. The child asks questions. It was a mistake. The cops shot him because he was black. Emma was confused. This is an egregious book. It has been challenged by police unions. You have it in elementary schools. How do you think your SRO officers feel about this book being available to students? What about law enforcement officers' children when they are sitting at circle time and their teacher is reading them this book? How do they feel? This is the tip of the iceberg. This book goes on to describe slavery

093in terms that we might find in the 1619 Project. This is CRT on steroids. And yet you tell us. Please wrap up your comment. This is another example of the lies that we get told constantly. Find it in your libraries. Thank you, Ms. Berkley. Chris Dan Beebe. Good evening. My name is Kristian Beebe and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of many educators of BCSC. For the past few months we've been called liberal elites who are trying to indoctrinate children with a socialist worldview. We have frequently been reduced to nothing more than caricatures at these board meetings and on social media. The truth is that the over 600 educators in Brownsburg schools are people just like those who try to vilify us. Most of us live in this community. Many of us send our own children

094to BCSC schools and carry the same high expectations for their education. We go to the same churches. We sit next to each other at our kids' games and recitals. We drive minivans and pickup trucks. We support candidates from every political party. By all relevant measures, we are among the best, if not the best, in the state at teaching students reading, writing, and math. However, we know that employers demand workers who not only know academic skills and traits, but who can also demonstrate skills we teach through social-emotional learning, like responsibility, integrity, and perseverance. We also know students learn both academic skills and employability skills best when they feel like they are part of a school community that reflects their personal experiences and provides them with appropriate opportunities to reach their full potential. The sole reason we

095embrace social-emotional learning and equity and inclusion initiatives is because we know that this is the best way to graduate students who make positive contributions we all want them to make in our community and world. Claiming that we don't know what critical race theory is or that we simply don't understand or have control over what we are teaching is incredibly patronizing. We know what we are teaching, and it is not CRT. We are experts in our fields. We spend hours preparing single 30-minute lessons. We research the background of concepts we teach so we can answer any questions. We teach age-appropriate lessons in things like history, sociology, and literature, but we don't plan lessons to reflect a specific political ideology. We don't choose teaching materials because they come recommended by either the NEA or the Heritage Foundation.

096Brownsburg teachers design lessons with the needs of our Brownsburg students in mind. Stop listening to outsiders seeking to score political points by making us out to be villains. Stop listening to people who are only telling you what they assume must be happening in our schools based on what they've seen in the national media or heard about in other districts. Instead, listen to Brownsburg students, listen to your neighbors who are Brownsburg teachers. This is our community too, and we love this community and its children. Laura Susek. Hello, my name is Laura Susek. I have one student now at Brownsburg High School. And I'm not going to reiterate all of the reasons you guys have heard today, but I just ask that you please institute a mask mandate in the schools. for the health and safety and

097well-being of all of our children. I ask that you take the character trait of responsibility seriously and your responsibility to be leaders for our community and to oversee the health and well-being of all of our students. I also applaud you on all of your work towards diversity, equity, and inclusion in our school system. And I would like to remind you that the mask issue is very much an issue of inclusion, particularly for students with disabilities and students who have immunocompromised issues that would put them more at risk for contracting COVID. I think that's a very important piece of the conversation that we're not hearing a lot of about that we need to give more attention to. So thank you all very much for all of your work and for listening to all of our comments

098tonight. Thank you, Mrs. Husserl. Reverend Eric Allen. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight to address you all. Dr. Stamp, board members, it's a joy to be with you. I come speaking as a parent and as a pastor in the community this night. I have three kids, one at the high school and two at Brown Elementary School. I'm here to ask that you reinstitute the mask mandate. I know that this has been a difficult issue. Certainly, as a faith leader, that has been part of the divisiveness, the hostility that I, amongst many others, have had to work with and work through. We continue, though, to work through it by focusing on our mission. And Dr. Snapp, I know that as you have addressed the clergy group that meets quarterly with you,

099you have spoken so highly of the importance of being in school, of having that in-person education, and also the importance of the ways in which we offer a high level, the highest level of education in Indiana. And so as we look to do that, I would ask that you consider this from a missional standpoint and consider what will get us the most kids in school? What will help us maintain that high level of education? Thank you very much for your time. And I'll just say a preacher with a minute and a half. Please don't bring that to the next meeting. Dave Tinky. I'm Dave Tinky. I've been a Brown Progression for 13 years. First of all, I want to commend the school for their hiring more teachers on a percentage basis than staff and administration

100and putting the resources into the schools to teach the students. And I want to highlight a couple of famous studies that have happened over the years when students were divided by artificial means. In April of 1968 in Iowa, a third grade teacher performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. She made the brown-eyed students put construction paper wristbands, arm bands on for the blue-eyed students so the blue-eyed students could be identified because they were lesser students than the brown-eyed students. The results of this experiment were that by the end of the day, Physical violence took place between the third grade students. Children fight, argue, and hit each other. The second day, the teacher reversed roles. This time, the

101brown-eyed students had the construction paper on their arm, and they were told that they were lesser students. The same results happened. Three years later, Stanford University carried out a famous experiment called the Stanford Prison Experiment to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness in the prison environment. They brought in 24 students, selected 12 to be in each category, 12 to be prisoners and 12 to be prison guards. This experiment was supposed to last one to two weeks, had to be terminated by the sixth day because of the physical violence that took place. These experiments show the artificial categorization of people and what they do to personal interaction. A personal story. My friend and former co-worker were alike in many ways. We're both tall and enjoyed sports, both ruptured Achilles tendons, which I don't recommend.

102We had two sons, like Ritter's frozen custard. He had darker skin tone than I did. One day, this was decades ago, we were discussing what was a hot topic at the time, whether the proper nomenclature was black or African American. And I'm trying to be cool, and I say, what would you like to be called? He looked at me, responded, Eric. Simple, easy to spell, E-R-I-C, rolls up the tongue with two syllables, and describes him perfectly as an individual, Eric. I hope we teach our students to teach everybody as individuals, Eric. Thank you. Rhonda James. Rhonda James, Danville. We go to Brownsburg schools. Critical race theory and social-emotional learning don't have a time slot in the daily routine as an actual class, but it's oozed in through language, terminology, references, and subject matters. No need

103now to try and finally be transparent. This community is aware of the word crafting that goes on, and with this comes a backlash, as in an article on the Chalkboard Review website, there is a record-breaking education exodus in Indiana. Students are leaving for private and home schools options in the wake of factors from mask mandates and learning loss to critical race theory and social-emotional learning. Parents' concerns are met with apathy, derision, and scorn, and again, back to the word crafting that evades direct answers to concerns. So private and Christian schools have seen climbs in student enrollment to the point of some needing waiting lists. Doing things in the classrooms like asking children to fill out surveys or any other type of assignment that is not shared or available to the parents causes mistrust across the

104board. You can find opt-out forms for your child in regards to the pushing of racism, sex education, filling out surveys, or transgender enlightenment. Any of you can ask most of us speaking how to find these forms. As Rhonda Santa said to the current administration, just do your job, which in the case of the school systems, do right by our children and grant them the gift of true knowledge so they can go forth and prosper. There's Purple Parents for Indiana where you can find these opt-out forms. They also have a Facebook page. And I just noticed in listening earlier on to this character education that caught my ear. I always taught character education in my home to my children. I don't know exactly why that's part of the curriculum, but that's the way I think a

105lot of parents prefer to teach character to their children is what they believe in their homes. So I may have misunderstood exactly what that meant, but I hope not. Thank you. Thank you. Rick Santeri? Santeri. Is it Santeri? Yes. Okay. Pretty easy. All right, I have two children in high school. I was going to read a book as well that's located in the high school. It's called The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Miracle. New York Times bestselling author. The Holocaust denying New York Times bestselling author. The Ukrainian genocide. Denying New York Times best-selling author. Okay, that's who we go for our authors apparently Let's see so in this book It's pretty disgusting it's pretty graphic Seems like it's two teenagers having sex for the first time and just described all about it And just

106one part of this, just a couple sentences. We're not reading books here. Why are we not reading books here? This is in your library. Why can't I not read the book here? I'm happy for you. You're okay to describe it. We're not reading books. I'm reading a sentence. I'm not reading a book. I'm reading a sentence. We're not reading sentences out of books. Why not? Because we're not. It goes against board policy. Board policy, when was this enacted? Yesterday? When was this enacted, this policy? Alright, yeah. He fiddled with her bra. It took him a moment to work the class. We are not reading books in class. And she smiled as she kissed him. She was wet. Officer. Her fingers found his jeans. She undid the button and pulled down the zipper. Drawing away to

107check his expression. Baby, he murmured. This is in your high school. I have daughters in this high school. You think I want to read in this filth? And you find it appropriate. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And the teacher that came up here said, well, we love our students. Ask your students. Why can't we ask you? Why can't you make this information available? So we're not guessing. Your time is up. You can't have it both ways. Your time is up. Please take a seat. You can't have it both ways. You hide the information. Sir, your time is up. Please have a seat. Thank you. American Marxists, every one of you. Zachary Hunt. Hi, my name is Zachary Hunt. I have one kindergartner in Brownsburg. I'm here just to advocate for a mask requirement, especially in the elementary schools.

108where the children cannot be vaccinated at this point. I think that we need to be working towards preventative measures prior to an outbreak, putting in measures that would prevent an outbreak so that we don't have to worry about being reactionary, but instead we're being proactive. There are a lot of positive externalities that come with having a mask mandate. Obviously, on a normal flu season, normal RSV season, we wouldn't require masks, but there's a benefit of having masks where the transmission of these respiratory diseases are lower. So that's a benefit. Kids who are not just getting sick from COVID, but sick from other diseases would be out of the classroom less. We've had a lot of tough discussions with our pediatrician about what we should do. My wife is pregnant. We've got another young child at

109home. And our pediatrician is suggesting that our son would be safer and it would really be an ideal situation to pull him out of school under the current conditions. And we don't want to have to do that, but that's what our doctor is recommending. I'll close with a quote for discussing Dr. Jerome Adams, who's a doctor. He's a Hoosier, former Indiana Health Commissioner, and the former U.S. Surgeon General under President Trump. He's been proactive asking for mask mandates throughout schools. He has a daughter in schools and he said, discussing her quote, that he's at the mercy of local officials to protect his daughter from COVID-19. So I'm just asking you to do the same. Thank you. David Wyant. Good evening, David Wyant, PO Box 513 Brownsburg. Took a bite here before I came up. Again

110on transparency and inconsistency, the first young lady that spoke this evening regarding the availability of books at the library was a resident here and she noted that students as young as 14 could check out those books without print up and set. Yet the president of the school board indicated that reading those verses would violate the meeting's code of conduct and obscenity standards. And as a result, you cannot read these in this forum. That seem odd to you folks? Now even with a sophomore present, I'm sorry I didn't notice the sophomores here, I would say that we're all adults in the room. I'm still kind of perplexed as to why we're not able to hear these quotes for ourselves and judge as individuals their content. I would ask that before the close of this meeting, President

111of the Board provide additional details in the rationale resulting from the public not hearing these books and their excerpts. Beyond what you just recently said to another resident? Because you said so. That doesn't apply at my house because you said as the president you're gaveling that person because you said so, sir. That's what you did. Do you realize how, I will just go with inconsistent that looks to have more enforcement come in here to suppress someone trying to get transparency. Anybody else concerned? If I can't get it to the school board, why can I not get it to the classroom? Where else am I going to get it? Where would that be? Have any thoughts? I would like to hear your thoughts as board members, as the president and Dr. Schnapp, before the conclusion of

112this meeting. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Wyatt. That concludes comments from patrons. We will now, seeing that there's no old business, we will move into new business. The first one, recommendation to approve additional appropriation resolution, Mr. Hacker. Thank you members of the board tonight We are coming to you for request to ask the DLGF for additional appropriations for the purchase of the land sale that we discussed last month at the board meeting So due to the requirements of posting and advertising the need for distal appropriations at least ten days in advance of the hearing We could not do that in time for the last board meeting and come to you tonight. And so again asking for request of additional appropriations to use rainy day funds to make the purchase of the two

113properties and totaling 989 000 do you have a motion so moved i have a motion to second any questions for mr hacker hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed motion passes A recommendation to authorize publication of a notice to taxpayers for the 2022 budget, the school bus replacement plan for years 2022 to 2026, and the capital assets plan for years 2022 to 2024. Mr. Hacker. Thank you. And so one of the first steps of the budget hearing, or excuse me, budget process, is we must advertise those three items. Form 3 is just the total budget for the main three funds, operations. debt service, and education fund. And so that's what the form three will be. And so if we will, Mr. Voigt can cue that. I think our projector

114might have died. While he's doing that, I'll continue to just fill the gap in with dead time here. And so what this is just this is the maximum amount that we right now intend on spending with the budget and so we'll advertise high as Things might continue to change throughout the early fall again as we discussed last time ADM It really isn't finalized till September 17th and such And so this advertisement will be submitted into gateway as well as on our website So you can see their debt service fund which is really the estimate and maximum number two there and mess Excuse me maximum estimated funds to be raised in line three and so this is just really the first step in september we will do the hearing on this but need your approval to

115advertise as well as the bus replacement plan and capital assets plan for the 2022 budget ask for your approval for to advertise these three items got a motion to second any questions for mr hacker hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye all opposed Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Hacker. Thank you. Recommendation to approve new neighborhood placement. Dr. Jessup. Thank you. We have a new neighborhood. Phillips Manor is located between, on 136 just east of Northfield Boulevard on the west side of town. It will consist of 70 homes, so we ask for approval for it to be sent to Cardinal Elementary, West Middle School, and Brownsburg High School. Second. Motion is second. Any questions for Dr. Jessup? The last time we've done that, John, do you remember? Point eight. It was point eight.

116Any other questions for Dr. Jessup? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Dr. Jessup. Discussion regarding COVID procedures. Dr. Snap. Where to start? Let's start by a couple things. The information that is going to be shared tonight will be shared with all parents tomorrow. And so... You're welcome to take pictures of it tonight, but you also get an email tomorrow afternoon. We're just going to look at some numbers, and so we can pull this one up. And I appreciate all the work for Vicki Murphy. So what you're seeing there, everyone, is this is elementary prior year to current year. And so the dark blue numbers are the positive cases of COVID, and the light blue numbers are the number of quarantines. from last year. You can

117see over there kind of in that corner right there, those are the cases from this year which are four positive cases with 42 quarantines and so you'll be able to compare this year over last year. That tracking period ends Friday at 4 p.m. And then we start the next week. And so they align week to week, what goes through there. I can tell you since Friday at 4 o'clock, noting here that we had for the prior first week, 4 and 42. From Friday at 4 o'clock, we've had seven additional positive cases and 93 additional quarantines. That's not including those. Those are in addition to these. And that started on Friday at 4. All right, so this is the middle school. Once again, this year compared to last year, this year is in the light blue

118and dark blue. This year is in the orange and cream colored. Last year we had zero, but this year we're seeing six with 137 quarantines from Friday at 4 o'clock until... Today's count, we had zero additional cases and zero additional quarantines. Let's go to the high school. The high school, you can look there and you can see this year over last year again that this year we had one case with nine quarantines, but since Friday at 4 o'clock, we've had five additional positive cases and 55 quarantines at the high school. So this is a summary of all the data thus far for this year. So you can see that last year about this time we had one, and that number shows 11. Quarantines after the first week of last year were 31. This year is

119188. Because you're here tonight, I'm going to add those numbers with our current numbers from Friday at 4 o'clock. We had an additional 148. quarantines since Friday at four o'clock until today. So that's 148 plus 188. That gives us 336 to date. Kind of a bearing of what we had last year. For all of last year, we had 4,410 quarantines. So those are the numbers if you're looking at a full year comparison. Positive cases, we had 11 last week, but since 4 o'clock, we have 12. And so last year, we had a total of 414 positive cases of COVID. And so this gives you a realistic look of where our numbers were a year ago compared to now. I think two things are important to note. Number one, we want... our students in school we

120want them to be safe number one and then number two we want to make sure that we keep our students in school and that's important and so when we look at and you can see on all the charts and this will these will be identical these are what we'll share with you tomorrow is that you can see the first full week of with quarantine rules in the classrooms reduced to three feet with masks you can see a significant dip uh and then continuing of the number of quarantines and cases throughout the year so i think it's important to present all the information like i said we'll share that tomorrow with all the folks what you've seen tonight and then plan to update this on a regular basis knowing that what you'll see tomorrow is just

121the week to week but you've got some additional information tonight from friday at four so i want to share that information with the board as we've been into school for a week and we have some comparative data for the board to discuss Thank you, Dr. Schnapp. I want to start off and we'll open it up for comments from board members. We are not taking a vote tonight on masks. I know that will be disappointing to many of you. One thing that we've talked about is we wanted to see two weeks worth, two full weeks worth of where this is going. It's obviously not going in a good direction. I am for masks at this point and think we're going to need to get back to those. But we're going to look to see where we're

122at this Friday. From a transparency standpoint, there may be the potential, depending on how the numbers come in, that we have another board meeting next Monday. People talk about transparency. I just want to put that out there. The possibility of there being a board meeting next Monday to possibly change our process on masks. And I know, again, a lot of you may not say what more information do we need, but we've gone into this. We went into last year being one of the first school corporations in the country to start in person wearing masks. We were successful. We didn't have to cancel any school days in the entire school year. We went in. We're going in trying this process. When we made the decision in June, we made it. in june when there are about

123four cases a day in hendricks county we made the decision to try to let parents know ahead of time as to as to how we were going to start the school year and obviously now things have have changed considerably so um the biggest issue to me obviously is the safety of our children is obviously the biggest issue to me but another issue is is just the sheer sheer amount of kids i mean already 300 plus kids that are that are out on quarantine and as a community and you know Our teachers don't get credit and all of our employees don't get enough credit for five, six years in a row leading the state in scoring and tests and being the top school corporation in the state. And the only way we do that is by

124having kids' butts in seats. And by quarantining 300 plus kids, even if you can disagree with me on masks and the science and that's fine, but the problem is by not being masked, if somebody is a close contact within six feet, they have to be quarantined. That was the rule for most of the year last year. At the end of the year, they changed that down to three feet if you were masked. The number of kids we had to quarantine went down considerably, probably 70, 80% of what we would normally do because we can get three foot space in between kids with masks on. So that's, again, we don't have to agree on the science part, but I think we can all agree that having kids in school that are quarantined, rather than being quarantined,

125is a very important thing, and by wearing masks we can do that. But as a board, we've communicated on this. With the administration, we've communicated on this. We want to watch to see what the numbers are these next few days. And I think you'll be hearing back from us one way or another as to where this is going to go. And again, if we see the numbers continue to climb, again, we oftentimes get accused of not being transparent. There is a potential for a special board meeting next Monday. We're just putting that out there. And I just kind of wanted to give all of you my thoughts and kind of give you. the thinking behind what we've done we spent a lot of time we are a very data driven corporation um i know we

126have tons of data from in studies from from outside sources and we wanted to see how how it is affecting our school corporation we have a lot of school corporations now reaching out to us saying how is it going what are your numbers looking like and i think a lot of school corporations look look to us as to what we do since we've been so successful so um from my standpoint we're we're going to take the rest this week see where those numbers are we may back be back in here next monday night but i just wanted to explain to you kind of where we are how we're here why we're here and why we're not taking a vote on it tonight so that's kind of my thoughts other board members have comments or questions

127I guess I would probably, in the interest of transparency, also say a couple of things. I do think some of the language that was communicated in some of the books tonight is probably of concern to all of the board members here. And I appreciate everyone speaking and those of you who shared that information. And I would agree. with Eric in terms of we all have different I think stats and information when it comes to the science clearly students probably learn better in their seats I also do think there is the concern also for the inhibiting of communication when students have to wear the mask and I know there's data that that has been shared and you know the anxiety depression and the other things that can be caused also so it is a complicated decision

128it won't be an easy one with whatever happens if we have to meet again but I know everyone up here is going to give it serious thought we all have kids in the school and so it is personal to all of us also so but and i will just say thank you for everyone who spoke tonight i'm just kind of in the order we're kind of doing covet procedures and then we'll do board comments on that i'm sorry you're perfectly fine i'm so but i bet for right now any questions regarding the covert procedures you're you're fine thank you anybody any other questions or comments regarding code procedures from board members i just want to um Kind of echo what kind of what Dr. Snap and Mr. Hilton said. I do believe K through five

129should be mandatory with masks because they do not have the option of being vaccinated. And to be transparent, I do hope we do have a board meeting next week to have to vote on it because I think that is the right step to go for the health and safety for all of our children, especially K through five. Thank you, Mr. Wells, Dr. Frege, or Ms. Heffernan. Any comments on this issue? It's going to be important to weigh all the pros and cons of any matter, and we'll see where it goes. Comments on this? The same. I mean, I asked for additional data and a little bit more time to look at the numbers and understand a little bit more the state of where we were at last year, the inability to test and get positive

130results back from the kids and how that looks compared to data right now when the ability to test is much different. So I just want to have a better picture, a broader picture before making any kind of decision for our kids. Any more comments on that? Hearing none, Superintendent comments, Dr. Snell. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. I would like to address the books tonight since that was an important topic to a number of people and a number of things. First of all, there is a board policy about the review of books. In fact, one book that was mentioned tonight, Something Happening in Our Town, is currently under review. I encourage those parents that have those books. It's a pretty easy process. You just talk about it to the principal, and then we go through that part

131to take a look at those books. I will tell you that from time to time, books get through, that we don't want in our school and we don't think are appropriate in our school. And so we appreciate your partnership in that to help us through the process. I do think it's important that... And I, quite honestly, I'll just have to say this. I caution the motive if we want to get up and read vulgar books in a public setting when we have a process to get those out of the library to do that. I would encourage you that that would be the first step, to explore the process, activate the process. talk to the principal, meet with the review committee. I will tell you, in 12-year history, many of the books that have been brought

132to our attention have been removed from circulation. So there is a possibility those books will be removed from circulation. Do that as a first step. I understand your frustration with some of those books. And if it's not responded to, I understand in a public forum that you want to spread that information. But if your goal really is to remove those books, from the library so kids don't have access to it. Speaking to the board is not part of the process. You're welcome to do it, but to accelerate that by talking to people. So I want to encourage you that there is a process in place, the board policy. It's online. You can see it. You can go through that. We're going through it right now. I also want to talk about the book that one

133patron shared tonight. And it's currently a book that's under review. But to say that this is the tip of the iceberg, I don't know that that's accurate. The book concludes, and I'm not going to read it to you because I don't think I should have a privilege that you don't, talks about who you should invite to birthday parties. And while it begins with some parts that are certainly questionable and worthy of further discussion, it ends with being friends and who you invite to birthday parties. And so the tip of the iceberg is there's more than what is often displayed. in the time of the public patron comments. And so it's important to give a full and accurate portrayal of those things. And I think that part, when that happens, that's disappointing. We all deserve better

134than that. We all deserve a fuller picture so we can really look at all those issues that are there. So a number of people talking about masks and no masks tonight. We understand that. I think the board responded appropriately. I think you hear what is... quite potential for next Monday. We're going to watch that closely. We're taking this next week, so depending on the board action, we will be able to respond promptly and quickly to that. So I do thank you for your comments and understanding. And if you have questions about that process, I'll be around. Feel free to ask me afterwards, and we'll help you do that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Snapp. Board member comments? Any additional comments, Mr. Wells? Nope. Mrs. Dierman, any additional comments? Nope. Dr. Friege? Ms. Heffernan? Thank you

135guys all for being here and sharing with everyone and celebrating my birthday with me. This is a great birthday present. And I just want to thank everybody for the comments, and we do welcome them. We spend the time on them to do it. Dr. Snapp pretty much explained the book process. I want to encourage you, if you do have an issue with a book, please challenge it, pursue it to the process. It will be reviewed. It will go through the process. It's just we don't want to get into a situation where I don't think it helps things to sensationalize and read excerpts from books. And there is a process, and they are looked at, and they are polled if there's an issue, and we do look at that. But, again, the behavior that you've seen

136in many board meetings around Central Indiana. I think we can say I just because the reason I love this community and we all love living in Brownsburg and we all love Brownsburg schools is just because we can all come in here today with many different takes and many different positions but respect each other and I thank you for that. Again, we will get information out. We'll continue to provide information. I think we did that all last year to try to be as transparent as possible with the community as far as letting you know what the numbers are. We didn't have to come out here and list out every single number, but we want all of you to know exactly where the cases are and those types of things. So again, thank you to everybody. If

137I now ask for a motion for adjournment. So moved. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.