001good evening i'd like to welcome you to the pocosin city school board meeting for august 24 2021 we will start with the pledge to the flag pledge allegiance to the flag for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice you uh do we have any additions or modifications to the agenda and we do not all right i'd like to start with presentations and reports uh with an update on our school opening for 20 21 22 with mr artie tilly a lot of information so i apologize for our tardiness um what we're going to talk about tonight tonight primarily is a law that was passed on the 30th of november by the virginia general assembly which the primary focus of this law was to have our students back to school full-time five days a
002week for the required 180 days or 990 hours there was also a sentence in the law that's what that first part says i won't read it to you but you can look at the second part was that we are to follow the mitigation strategy set forth by the center for disease control at the time this law was passed you'll look back in march everybody believed we were heading out of the pandemic i our board met several times after that and we were talking really about a lot of good news as we were heading out of the pandemic and more toward a more normal school year this year and i think that i don't want to speak for the general assembly but i think they believe that as well and this was good guidance things started
003to change over the next several months with the introduction of the delta variant which we're going to be talking a little bit about tonight and some of the information health information surrounding that so again our goal has been and will always be to have students in school in person learning from highly well-trained educators every day um 180 days for next year's calendar actually 181 days with a snow day built in and far exceeding the 990 hours of instructional time so this is just far from comprehensive these next few slides but this is local information state information and national information about what's going on with the delta variant around the united states um the experts are telling us and this is a slide that was provided from the um our commissioner of health last week that
004the delta variant is more infectious than previous uh strains and it's as much as two times more contagious and what you'll notice and i'll show you in a slide a little later that over 90 percent of what medical professionals are seeing now is the delta variant as opposed to the alpha beta gamma previous variants the color tells it all this is just a glimpse of the united states and i think some of those orange spaces that were in substantial transmission and had not gotten too high have already turned red this this slide is a week is a week old you'll see that just mentioning what we were dealing with in the winter up through april may was primarily the other variants and then you'll see now it's kind of been taken over by delta the
005blue line there on the right you'll see is like i said over 90 percent of the cases that people are being diagnosed with this is virginia data again about a week old you'll see it 27 percent i think that number has grown to 37 38 over the last seven day roll of increased cases of uh symptoms related to covid and you'll see that line on the right from june 22nd how rapidly to august first we've seen the variant take over this is a case this is a slide showing hospitalizations at 43.4 over a seven day roll and again a week old data that number is growing we're seeing increased cases of hospitalization with the delta variant all around the state you'll notice the second column there the eastern region these are just numbers we've been
006tracking all through the pandemic we look at transmission rates over calculated over a hundred thousand and our positivity rates and a new one is covered like symptoms being seen in the emergency departments you'll notice those numbers are at high levels level 4 well over 100 and the positivity rate is over 10 which is kind of the benchmark this next slide is um local data around the community on the peninsula you'll see all the school divisions just a few weeks ago as we were looking at this data some of us were in the low and moderate so very quickly has moved up into the the high rates of transmission locally these are all peninsula data um this slide shows specific to pocosin again it's a week old but you'll see those numbers starting to climb in
007our talks earlier in the work session we had discussion about could it possibly get up as high as the january of course nobody knows but we're hopeful not we are hearing some signs from medical professionals that they're predicting are leveling off sometime soon and that you know our fingers across we're hopeful for that i think they have seen that some on the west coast just very recently some leveling off in hospitalizations and case rates but that's our seven day uh per hundred thousand right at 144 which is um in the highest range of transmission just another indication of um well this these next few slides are are what i would consider good news um as we move toward trying to protect ourselves these are vaccination rates geographically and if you'll notice in the eastern region
008we're just under 50 percent of fully vaccinated you'll see that um high rates of vaccinations were occurring back in january and then those numbers started to dip and then we when delta was introduced we started to see people um also uh getting sorry about serious about vaccinations those numbers started to go back up again um these are in category by age group and you'll notice that in and of course this is virginia data right at around 52.2 percent of the total population has been fully vaccinated and um 64.5 percent of eligible 12 plus 12 years old plus population fully vaccinated this slide is a little cumbersome i'm going to pass to the next one that gives you the same information in more detail and again these are the communities around us and you'll see the
009second line there pocosin we have uh uh right at 294 students again this is a week old at 39.6 of our 12 to 15 year olds fully vaccinated and then the next age group that we serve 16 17 year olds almost 55 percent and the older population that number goes up 18 plus to 71 and i think if that slide continued is over 70 percent fully vaccinated for our older citizens so we could go on and on talking and drilling down and looking at what's happening uh with covid especially the delta variant around our country and the state of virginia and and even locally but i think everybody gets the idea i don't think anybody is assuming that this is not a challenge for us so now how does this affect our role of now
010bringing back on the 7th of september 2100 young people that we are charged with serving the experts tell us that we should use a layered approach these are levels of mitigation i'm not a medical expert so i have to depend on those folks to advise us i tell all my friends i know about teaching and learning but the last 18 months i've felt compelled to try to be an epidemiologist and i'm failing at that um but these are the things we've been told work and we have for the last year instituted these measures with fidelity here in pagosa the center for disease control the national institute of health the world health organization the virginia department of health the american associate association of pediatrics the virginia association of pediatrics all agree that these are the vaccination
011is our primary prevention strategy the more we get vaccinated the less likely of spread and in addition that universal masking is uh the next level of protection this is uh i won't read it to you but it's directly out of the um cdc recommendations for universal masking ages 2 and above and this is the american association of pediatrics the virginia chapter of the american association of pediatrics but what we all of this was going to be part of our conversation tonight and then last week august the 12th the commissioner of health in the state of virginia passed an order which doesn't which kind of takes the autonomy away from local school boards about making decisions related to masking this is the order of verbatim there are some exceptions that we can talk a little bit
012about tonight but this is the order that all students and staff and visitors must be masked in all indoor settings on public and private school these are the exceptions you'll know why eating and drinking and sleeping but we don't have much sleeping in school exercising playing of musical instruments and the list goes on where we're getting the most questions is in bullet the last two bullets religious ritual and health conditions this is the quote directly from the order that is causing some of the confusion there seems to be some misunderstanding between exemption and accommodation the order actually says that any person who declines to wear a mask because of medical a medical condition or any person with a sincerely held religious objection to wearing a mask in school may request a reasonable accommodation so we've
013then tried to explore what does a reasonable accommodation look like and if you'll know if you've been around public education for very long you'll know we are notorious for accommodations we do that with for students with special needs we make accommodations when kids need things to be able to learn and so this is no exception what would be a reasonable accommodation but not an exemption to wearing a mask in school we've gotten several questions about this some the vdoe has said you could require you could offer face shields although the science behind face shields have has not been very supportive you could offer additional breaks from masking if there was a health condition and the last one which has been talked about the most is offer a virtual opportunity the challenge for that is if
014you'll recall last year we offered a fully virtual option to any student who chose that our parent who chose that in pocosin as most school divisions did and we had about 30 percent of our population chose fully virtual so we carved out teachers on the elementary primary level and then we lot to teach fully virtual and then as well we live streamed those courses in secondary schools so that kids could be at home learning while other students were learning in person this year all students are back we only had six students sign up for a virtual option in pocosin this year and we offered that through the virtual virginia online program and that is if those classes actually started today the deadline was in july we have had others who have requested can we get
015in now that we have to wear a mask and we have tried we have gotten a few more kids in but it's up to a waiting list in the virtual virginia program whether we can get additional students in we will attempt that if anyone requests but that is one accommodation that the vdoe is suggesting we're certainly willing to look at other accommodations where they would be reasonable the other big challenge is in the work of of contact tracing and quarantining what we found last year is that starting pretty early in the school year we would have positive cases in our school community when someone tests positive or has a indication of positive symptoms or the doctor issues a coveted test sometimes it takes a couple of days to get those tests back someone possibly exposed
016to that individual must quarantine until such time as a negative test is shown or they were have fulfilled the 10-day quarantine period we went through that multiple times last year some of you in the room may have gotten the phone call from one of our employees to say your child may have been exposed to coving and then we go through the process all advised by the peninsula health division in every individual case who should quarantine the rules for quarantining have been pretty specific throughout the pandemic if you're closer than six feet for 15 minutes or more cumulatively not consecutively you must quarantine we have employed that we had only 64 cases of covid in our schools throughout the school year last year which we think is phenomenal one's too many but 64 for 2100 students
017coming to school is uh pretty impressive and and and i believe and a lot of our leadership team believes that it's because of the um fidelity of our contact racing that we were able to achieve that the rules have changed slightly from the virginia department of health if you'll notice that second sentence an exception was created this year and again back to the original goal is to so that all students can be offered in-person learning every day they've moved that line from six feet to three feet enabling us to invite all of our students back if you'll recall last year because of the six feet we were required to toggle to a hybrid schedule so that half of our students would come on a day and the other half on b day and that was
018in addition to the 30 of our students being served fully virtually at home by choice so that was the only way school divisions around the state in the country could accommodate in-person learning in any fashion and still comply with the requirements for social distancing that rule has been moved to three feet which was good news for us and we have been in every building in pocosin and situated our desk at three feet apart and we are confident that we're able to come back to school and meet this benchmark of our students being three feet apart the extreme exception is at lunch where we'll be feeding large numbers of students and they will be unmasked because you have to take your mask off to eat we're working through the details of that we're going to be
019offering a lot of outside seating lots of expanded space to spread our kids out as much as possible while eating to again mitigate as best possible the spread of covet in our schools we work closely as i've said before with the peninsula health division we talk to them daily every case we run by them to make sure that we're doing exactly the right thing because we don't want any of our students to get sick and we the person who handles this for us who leads this is our director of student services which will be a brand new employee after tonight our board will approve the new director of student services who will assume this role beginning tomorrow this is an important slide um there's a misprint on here it says six feet that's old information
020that's now three feet the exception recently approved by the vdh allows you to be three feet apart but if you'll notice the students on the right fully mask three feet apart if a student tests positive for coving in the rules for quarantining and this is important information only the student who is covet positive will quarantine all the other students three feet apart from that student will come to school the next day following all of the guidance on the left if those students are not masked all nine of those students will have to quarantine and it's not a decision we make it's it's governed by the virginia department of health we will be forced to quarantine all nine of those students now this is imagine this is a third grade classroom so they're in the class
021all day together let's move this to sixth grade where that student in the middle goes to second period and then nine more students quarantine and then goes to third period and nine more students have to quarantine and gets through all day and we don't know that the student in the middle is positive until the next morning we will have had to quarantine 64 students from that one exposure based on vdh requirement for quant for quarantining contact tracing those are important features that we have to consider as we learn to mitigate through covid even with the three feet exception which again last year was six feet a significant challenge not insurmountable but significant so then the question is what do you do when kids are home quarantined we're still going to teach our students every day
022if you recall last year we had to be innovative of how we provided instruction to students who were not in our buildings either from quarantine or from choice for virtual learning or from the hybrid model where they were with us one day and at home learning the next day some of the tools we used was like especially on the secondary secondary level was a concept called live streaming where we bought high-tech cameras and multiple screens and our teachers tried to teach students at home and in person our teachers will tell you that's not optimal it was new form of learning most of our teachers if not all this was novel to them but they did a i think a brilliant job of accommodating our students needs as best possible in a challenging situation we also
023were introduced to a new learning management system called canvas for some people that's a cuss word and for others it's been a lifesaver it's been work it's worked very well for some students and some teachers not so well for others but we're learning through how to use again this brand new tool of delivering instruction making everything going on in the classroom possible to be replicated at home through this technology embedding videos and instructional materials and assignments engaging transition between turned in assignments and not turned in assignments all through this learning management system we are going to be open up opening up more opportunities for kids to have intervention periods outside of the normal instructional time in evenings and perhaps saturdays so again we can address learning loss and kids needs as we know we're going
024to face students who have to quarantine unless something miraculous happens in this variant leaves us so after all of that we are recommending to our board that we follow these guidelines all of those were in place last year with without exception um all of those were part of our success story i think in getting through a challenging time with with covet in our presence we will be reporting even though there's been learning loss in pocosin and around the state and around the country in the last 18 months our preliminary data that we'll be sharing at the september board meeting shows in comparison to the state significantly less learning loss based on our testing data than we saw around us and throughout the state so that's not perfect news but that is a glimmer of hope
025i think in large part to the enormous effort from our teachers who have done incredible work in in a challenging situation it's also a testament to families who rallied at home and worked on homework and canvas and all of that while kids were not in school so a lot of great work but our recommendation from our leadership team is that we follow those mitigation strategies and of course the one that we were here to debate and talk about and uh and uh kind of work through about the whole mask situation has been taken away from us by the commissioner of health um with an actual order that um we're obligated to comply with so that's it in a nutshell i tried to move as quickly as i could because i know that's a lot of
026information but questions i have one you mentioned um if you go back one outdoors so for recess will kids be able to have my school no requirement for any masking outdoors so our expectation will be uh unlike last year that's a good point it's helpful that last year we did because of the six feet of distancing issue we were unable to allow kids to remove their mask outside and this year there's no requirement for masking outside in the order so we will allow recess outdoor activities and we're going to encourage that that's another valid point we have a lot of great outdoor space and while the weather is nice we need to eat a lot outdoors and we need to have a lot of outdoor activity and as much instruction going on out there as
027possible i think the other thing i do want to point out is i know right now that our hands are tied because the commissioner of health stating that about masks but even when that goes away from a school bus perspective because it's that kids are still going to have to wear masks on schools i think parents just their hands are tied on that one too very good point that is a federal requirement by the transportation authority and that has been in place for some time even when the order expires in virginia and we're hopeful that happens soon we don't know when that transportation order will expire so to jump on the recess thing are they going to have equipment to play with this year oh yeah i thought last year they weren't allowed well there
028was a lot of if you remember last year we were operating on i think behind science that uh the disease could possibly be transmitted by inanimate objects so a lot of the extraordinary cleaning we were doing which we're going to continue to do filtered over to is it safe to have balls being used by multiple kids i think the science has evolved everything i'm reading is that there's really no indication that the disease is being spread by the use of equipment we are going to continue to do our cleaning um just as an extra precaution as well we'll continue with our health checks in the morning temp check we're going to do everything possible because we've already bought all that technology and we're going to continue to use it to make sure we're doing everything
029possible to make it safe for our kids but very good question i had a question about the quarantining and live streaming is that something that we could do i mean is that something we're really set up to do i know we can it's um as i said before if you were to ask our teachers they will all tell you it's not optimal oh yeah it's not our best instruction our best instruction is when our kids are in our classrooms and are engaged in learning collaboratively but it is a possibility we do have the tools and technology and our teachers especially on the secondary level have had a stab at it in um in delivering instruction through live streaming last year so yes it's available we're going to be looking at independent cases for example let's
030say a a 7th grade classroom two students are quarantined it may not be necessary to live stream that whole class for two students who are at home quarantining we've had forever long before coveted students who are absent for illnesses sometimes for multiple days but if that is a large number in the classroom half the class or the whole class it may make sense to deliver that class through live streaming as well we're going to make every lesson every day in every classroom available on campus so if a student is at home sick for whatever reason they'll be able to access the curriculum and this is not that is not a novel thing from kovit it was forced on a lot of school divisions by covet but as you know i come from a school division
031that's been a one-to-one division where students have been learning using that technology for eight or nine years and so that is not new um uh canvas has been a delivery system for example a learning management system used to deliver that kind of instruction even in normal time so those are good tools and we're going to get much better at using them but good question i just wanted to make one comment uh we we're going to welcome public comment but that's going to be in the next section so if you hold your question for that each of you will have an opportunity to any other questions from the board thank you all right now i would like to welcome dr christine hill who has just come on board to provide the instructional update thank you madam
032chairperson um the purpose of my presentation this evening is just to bring you a brief instructional update um these will be more involved as the school year goes but for for now we are offering an open house this year and because of the current situation we have two options that we're offering our families both in person and virtual so um we have the dates up there our virtual session is on the first for all schools and then depending on the level either august 31st or the first for uh in-person sessions and we've deviated this year a little bit from previous schedules we have also previously had a back to school night later in september and so to honor everyone's schedules we'll be combining those events and so this will be an opportunity for students to
033meet their teachers tour the school building for certain grade levels practicing the combination with their locker ask questions etc this year we have a new reading strategy that we'll be implementing our teachers k through five have been trained in a program that's called letters and that stands for language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling and they were trained in strategies to utilize as interventions with students and so at our k-3 level there's a 30-minute intervention period built into the students schedules for students that need interventions in reading and in mathematics so that's a program that we'll be incorporating throughout this school year with training professional development for teachers et cetera on our website and i'll show you a screenshot here in a moment we are adding a new section so that we have one-stop
034shopping for all things curriculum and so it'll be a place for frequently asked questions as they arise from staff we'll add those to the list other instructional resources and tools and i would be remiss if i didn't give a big shout out to kim montalvo because you'll see in this next slide she did a beautiful job so because we are charting a new year this year she created this it's the pcps curriculum and instruction doc and so right now we have mocked up there'll be information around blended learning technology equipment teaching applications productivity tools other professional development opportunities vtss etc so we plan to add to this and expand throughout this year so that all of the resources our teachers need are at their fingertips um and this year we are starting a curriculum and
035instruction newsletter typically we all receive you know anywhere between five to ten emails a day from various organizations vdoe and we know that teachers and administrators are busy and don't have time to call through those emails so what i've done is create a newsletter where i can put all of that information in one place and send that to staff regularly i'll also share it with board members but i'll be providing updates on curriculum and instruction educational resources professional learning opportunities one of the the few good things to come out of covid is that there are lots of organizations providing free virtual professional development for teachers so we can work with them to provide them with certificates of completion so that when it comes time for re-licensure they'll be able to count the hours that they've
036spent toward those recertification points that they need and we will also occasionally i will receive information that might be of interest to our families and so i'm also including a section at the end of that newsletter and we're posting those to the pokosin website for families who might be interested and then finally in our september meeting we'll be providing you with a an update regarding two things one of course the sol data that have been reported to us from this last academic year and then the vdoe assessment they are incorporating a new um growth measure and so we'll be doing eventually pre-tests mid-year posts and end-of-the-year assessments in order to be able to measure growth to then determine what would be some appropriate interventions for our students to help close the achievement gap thank you
037dr hill are there any questions for dr hill school board this isn't exactly directed to dr hill and welcome by the way uh it's more of a question for uh superintendent um since we're talking about instruction uh crt and 1619 project is that currently being called or discussed in person city public schools no it's not on our agenda it's not part of the standard course of study um and we're not um it's not in any of our planning to institute any components of your grace theory all right um unless there are any other questions go on to our financial update with tara woodruff executive director of finance good evening chair sheila and members of the school board tonight i want to share with you the elementary and secondary school emergency relief or what we call
038three funding plan you might recall that we mentioned that we were receiving this before this is the third round of funding received under the american rescue plan or arp act the purpose of this funding is to help safely reopen and sustain the safe operation of schools and address the impacts of covet 19 by addressing students academic social emotional and mental health needs as required in the arp act divisions must develop a plan to include information on prevention and mitigation strategies opportunity for public comment supports for learning loss and supports for students social emotional and mental health needs the sr-3 plan will be online for review pcps was awarded just over 464 thousand dollars and was based on our relative share of the title one part a federal fiscal year 2020 funds we are required to
039use twenty percent of this funding for learning loss which equates to about ninety three thousand dollars the application for this funding is due september first and it's a three-year grant which must be spent by september 30th 2024 so we have a little bit of time to spend it so how we're going to plan to use the funds to address learning loss are the first three items on there we plan to use this funding for an enhanced summer school academy over the next two summers which would be similar to what we offered this past summer to provide additional remediation for students for additional academic support throughout the year mr tillett mentioned this after school saturday intervention sessions are planned professional learning and coaching for staff which will also help them address the learning loss other uses
040for this funding will include purchasing hepa air filters for all the classrooms and in order to meet social distancing requirements we need one more teacher at the primary school and one teacher at the elementary school we've also planned to have a long-term substitute in each of the buildings for this school year we did that last year and that worked well and the remainder will be for cleaning supplies such as disinfectant supplies and wipes and that concludes my report does the board have any questions ms woodruff and our next update exciting update from mr steve pappas executive director of operations [Laughter] good evening school board chairperson sheila and superintendent tillett so i'm sure everybody who's driven around town knows the most important thing going on today is what's happening with our football field and our team
041rooms so on the left is a uh the home we're still in the final stretch as that was taken just before this meeting today and i put it in this presentation that's our home team room be used for athletics it's on the home side of our field there's bathroom in the back that everyone will be able to use state of the art obviously and we just have to finish up we'll be ready to go on the right hand side that somehow between when i posted it and now [Laughter] if you would all just turn your heads 90 degrees to the right that is the away team we don't want them to be comfortable so they have to stand here is the new turf this was taken today um you can see two thirds like if
042i put the third pano shield in you you just wouldn't it wouldn't make much sense but this is where the field is today and what's really interesting is that all the hash marks and the numbers as well as any arcs have to literally be glued in place so while everything else is like a broad loom arcs numbers hash marks etc they trim this they come in here with snippers and then those are hot glued in place and that's where we are today and on the right to help save money we reclaimed all of the little black pellets that get swept into the grass right now this is just grass and it lays down just like easter bunny grass but as soon as we sweep the pellets in it adds six pounds of weight per square
043foot and you can see there's a ton of bags there those bags are like chest height on me there's a lot of black pellets in there that saved this community a lot of money reusing those so we'll move on to the middle school renovation this is i think the fifth such presentation what you see here is the auditoria a two-week progress on the left you can see where they've got the one wall that's tall and then on the right you see the that wall has now been completed and there's an opening where those two gentlemen are standing you see it there just to the right this is the hvac at the east wing first you have to put the curbs in those are the things that always leak in a roof and you put them
044in and then they fly in the hvac units and there you see them flying them in with a crane here is the west end three days apart in come the devices and then three days later they're sitting on the roof here's the auditorium lobby walls full height and today that picture of that roof scaffolding is it was in place today so that's really progressing nicely this is just showing the new admin building so you go where is that well the admin building is that portion that formerly was the library it's between the west wing which is the wing closest to our downtown in the east wing which is that area closest to back river so here they have the vapor barrier put down and then they put the concrete down and they're smoothing it all
045out next picture is that same space but now the walls are going up and if you drive by picosin avenue which i did again just before i got here this picture on the left is what you see from pocosin avenue the other side is from the inside of the job looking towards pokosan at me so you know it's a big project and like any project there are costs so one of the things that happens is change orders and there are three things that cause change orders hidden circumstances just things that we didn't know the extent of how much asbestos and believe me we had the corner on asbestos underground soil bearing issues i'll talk about that in a minute authorities having jurisdiction in in the trades we call them ah ahjs so the water company
046um fire departments in our case our fire department has been great they haven't caused us to have any change orders but water companies have and dominion power has and and folks like that and then owner initiated changes and the board who came on the tour saw that saw that when we abated in the west wing which used to be called the old building the west wing when they abated that room they actually had no choice but to sever the chicken wire that was holding up the laugh and plaster and as soon as they did that the walls literally not the not the bearing portion of the walls but the surface of the wall literally started just falling off the walls the contract called for patching and painting i can assure you that it you know
047there was no amount of patching or painting that could have hidden this blemish so we decided as the owners that we needed to fur out those walls we use skinny metal studs and then we put sheetrock over that was a cost that we really didn't expect to have but it was the right thing to do those are the three reasons for change order so by the numbers the original contract to do the modernization again it's not a brand new school was fifteen million seven hundred and sixty three thousand three hundred dollars we established a contingency fund for change orders and the unexpected of seven point five percent or one million one hundred and eighty six thousand to date we've already expended one million sixty four thousand we're not done change orders are still coming in
048to that end what we are doing the administrative team superintendent tillett we have been working with our architect to see what now we can eliminate from the project such things as small walls as you enter that you help you decide which way you're going but you could also sit on them those may go other things but the problem now is something you know one hand we hear think you can't get anything there's a supply issue on the other hand everything we want to eliminate seems to already be here so we're working through that but we're trying to eliminate those things that we can to minimize how far we go over that and that concludes my report mr pappas uh does does the board have any questions about that comments actually if i may i will
049just tell you that you know what so you a million dollars how have you spent a million dollars already in your changes i can tell you that soil um we've spent five hundred thousand dollars on soil because the soil we had was not not good enough to support the weight of the structures so that all had to come out go to a special landfill new soil had to come in had to be compacted that's a big chunk of what we did here unexpected as you remember the three criteria spent 160 thousand dollars furring out the whole west wing 56 thousand dollars to support the windows if you go by the school you have these gigantic windows well in 1930 how that was done every room is different i can assure you two by four here
050a piece of oak here a piece of steel there and those things have all needed to be dealt with and asbestos abatement in pcb abatements another 230 thousand that's the lion's share that's 900 000 bucks of this change orders thank you mr pappas all right now we have uh in our next section we have public comment uh we have a lot of folks we are happy to see you here and always welcome you to make a public comment uh in the interest of time we would like to uh ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less that will allow everybody a chance to talk and as it is we've got a good crowd and happy to see you here so who do we have first our first speaker this evening lee okay
051all right brandon paul good evening everybody thank you all for letting me get up here uh real quick i want to get some feedback on mike what i really like to say is as we look at the numbers on what's happening with cobit we're real clear on what's happening according to the cdc back in beep back in 2020 roughly 330 kids died of the coronavirus 2020 and that is absolutely devastating that's not something to joke about and absolutely masks should be mandatory because of that but that's not what i'm here to talk about tonight that's not my biggest concern realistically what my concern is is what we're doing this year if that number were doubled it'd be 600 kids if it were 10 times that 6 000 20 times if it were 40 times as
052many kids that got covered and passed away last year it would be nearly 12 000 students that's unacceptable what's really unacceptable though is according to the department of education 15 000 kids were molested in public schools in 2020 so what are we doing about the predatory teachers and kid diddlers in the school now i know you guys are doing a really good job at teaching classes and telling them not to touch kids awesome keep that up but since we lost 330 kids last year and we can all assume that that's too many kids what are we doing about 15 000 we're gonna put people in masks over 330 great tragedy no doubt about it can we institute a type of chastity belt for your predatory teachers so they can't diddle our kids cover their privates
053i know what you're thinking can't do that they got to go to the bathroom right i see that thought in your head they're going to be overheated they've got to eat it's really uncomfortable guys we're all in this together we've got to make sacrifices for the best thing that can happen to these kids in the future we have to it's 15 000 kids people my gosh i looked at the numbers over the past 10 years about shootings in schools now depending on where you cut that number depending on if you like gang-related stuff off-campus stuff and kids under under 18 of which there are 72 million in the country we lost 330 of 72 million over the past decade it's around 12 000 kids that same 40 time number that were shot can we institute
054flack and kevlar in schools every kid gets a flak jacket sappy plate fronts sappy playbacks side sappys they're heavy don't laugh christy i've worn them a kevlar is an eight pound piece helmet but if it saves ten thousand lives guys what are we doing it's not even that much money we just saw how much money we're throwing out i can get you flack and kevlar at gi joe's a lot cheaper than that hey my son cannon he's six years old he's incredibly clumsy jeremy how clumsy was done in high school you played basketball with me and jumped pretty clumsy right kid's worse than me falls down the stairs it's terrible why can't we put these kids in like helmets and stuff motorcycle helmets stop the kids from falling down that's my point like this is
055if any of this seems ridiculous to you you're right we're treating 330 kids like that's the mainstay of the country and we're reorganizing their education we are changing their development over numbers that shift all the time magically three feet is the number now not six feet i don't think coronavirus changed and look i know most you're on the same side of this as me right we want to take reasonable effort to stop this but we're beyond reasonable now when do we push back you guys are on this panel to push back we need you to push back we know what funding looks like if you're not going to push back then i'm going to have to run and i really don't want to do that because i am not cool enough to get up there
056and do what you guys do already i have heard awesome things about you from doug steins down in kdh he loved what you did man we were so stoked when you got here but please let us know what we can push back to the nonsense the government's pushing down so we can teach the kids and keep them safe thank you sir thank you appreciate your time next person we have david jellison i don't know if i'm pronouncing that right i apologize good evening my name is david jealous and my my son elijah is five years old and about to start kindergarten at the poke host in primary school recently the state health commissioner mandated mass me warn by all k-12 students that mandate is unconstitutional and i'm here to urge you to push back on
057it by whatever means available it is unconstitutional as explained in the email that we sent out last monday both unicef and the who co-published documents rejecting mass for 12 for children 12 and under and the eu and uk cdcs have also rejected mass mandates for children according to the cdc data the flu is three times more deadly to children than covet but we have never shut down schools and we've never taken away parents rights because of the flu the university of waterloo has published a peer review study that shows that commonly worn mask the cloth mask that is commonly worn is only 10 effective the paper mask that everybody wears is only 12 percent effective and the best in 95 mask are only 10 are only 50 percent effective when it comes to exhaust rate
058exhalation filtration efficiency the study also shows that simply using hepa filtration systems create the equivalency of everyone in the classroom wearing an n95 mask so i encourage the board to look into procuring hepa filters we called the assistant principal today to ask about mass mandated exemption forms as our son has an iep due to his speech disability he has gone through speech therapy twice a week for almost two weeks now for almost two years now he has worked so hard to be where he is today but he has he still has a long way to go it is difficult to understand when he's wearing a mask and everyone and even more importantly he can't understand his teachers if they are a speech therapist at the coast in elementary school or primary school has taught him
059to look at people's mouths to better understand what they're saying and how to mimic the sounds the vice principal told us that even though he has an id and is enrolled as an efmp member that he would have to observe or they would have to observe him for four to six weeks with the mask on to verify that it was detrimental to his learning this is unconstitutional and it goes against the american with disabilities act this this negligent policy will cause emotional and mental harm to my son in the worst days he would physically hit himself because he was so upset that he couldn't understand those around him and he couldn't understand us i'm under i'm i'm terrified that you that your unconstitutional policy will bring him back to such a dark place where he
060literally beat himself up over it this mandate is irresponsible some parents will disagree with me and they will want to mask their children that's their choice i'm asking for the same freedom to choose what's best for my son and for you to show you care more about my child than you do about this ridiculous restrictions thank you thank you thank you mr gelatin [Applause] alicia douglas tonight i would like to speak towards our children wearing masks and before you roll your eyes and tell yourself the governor and the public health order has already decided that for us let me remind you that despite the mandate that was put out we are grown free thinking adults who can make decisions for our community and our children without help from richmond i'd like to put up a
061picture of my daughter when she was at her worst my daughter suffers from severe eczema and speech deficits although she is on a very good medicine and by looking at her currently you would not immediately know she suffers from dry itchy skin year round that flares when adequate airflow and moisture is not available throughout last year she would come home take her mask off and her face underneath would be red inflamed and require multiple steroid creams over several days to remove the rash the next week we would deal with the same thing over and over in reference to the speech deficits we found out during her kindergarten year that she has hearing loss and that has attributed to her poor speech she is working very hard with school employees as well as an outside speech
062therapist and has improved greatly but her teachers tell her to watch how a sound is made watch the structure of the mouth as a word is said in order to replicate that sound how is she to do that when the faces are covered how are the teachers supposed to be able to correct her when needed when they cannot see her mouth and how she said the sound on the alternative her teacher cannot easily understand her while wearing a mask as her speech is not only behind but is now also muffled frustration for all parties i ask you why should my child be subjected to this on a daily basis in order to gain her education why should she be physically uncomfortable or feel and at times be unheard due to a muzzle on her face
063i'm requesting of this board if you are not inclined to tell richmond to stop dictating the decisions of our parents to put in place simple exemptions not accommodations exemptions to the mask rule that the parents can sign off on without any further question these exemptions would be religious health when communication is inhibited or when the child has trouble breathing or cannot readily remove the mask without assistance i understand that some of these are in there but as the prior gentleman just said that's requiring proof by the school to accommodate that exemption these exemptions need to be in place without that school approval it is our parents choice not the school boards not our teachers i request these be put in place as a form of parent choice that so many in this city wanted but
064was taken away by richmond and the overreach that it has extended us thank you next speaker doug mcleod good evening so tonight we've talked a lot about uh the tyranny being opposed this coming from richmond um one thing that's interesting about this country is anytime there's uh some imposition of progressive politics it always seems to come as an edict doesn't seem to come through democracy but this whole year we've been lectured to about the importance of our democracy and yet yet another edict has been issued and that's that uh young women in our school will be subjected potentially to biological males both in their sports teams in their locker rooms and in their bathrooms well next you're gonna have two kids in the school system in a couple years i'm gonna have four one of
065which is a female and i uh i don't really like the idea of this uh lack of democracy i guess i should say so as we said you know part of this job of the school board is to push back against these unpopular unconstitutional edicts and i think we need to do that here too thank you speaker my name's dave dean this month represents 20 years brought my family 20 years ago this month to pagosa it's because of the schools i just want to thank you we love pocosin schools they're awesome i wanted to share one thing when uh before we came here i used to live in portsmouth with my family i've got four kids and uh i used to i come home my wife and i both work two jobs and four kids
066were exhausted and so i learned how to manipulate uh my daughter i could bark like a dog and she would run wherever she was in the house she would come back to me and it wouldn't it wasn't a big dog it's just a chihuahua i'd go and then she would run back and i learned to manipulate her to get her to come back by using fear there's no dog in the house nothing that could have bite her but as soon as she'd hear that sound i didn't even know where she was she would run back to me and then what i've seen here tonight and that was terrible what i did i was tired i was late i was a bad dad but what i've seen here tonight with superintendent tillett the numbers that he's
067showing don't even apply to the children it's like we're barking these numbers out we want to know how does it affect our children and our grandchildren the 330 deaths is tragic but that number is nationwide and the flu killed three times that many we didn't close our schools we didn't put masks on our kids over the flu and we shouldn't be doing it for this because it just doesn't affect them i just want to close and say a quote by oscar wilde he said children begin by loving their parents as they grow older they judge them sometimes they forgive i'm afraid if we don't do something to protect our kids we have no idea what these masks are going to do to them they create fear our kids we're raising a generation that's going to
068be fearful of a disease of anything they breathe it's like a barking dog so i just ask that our kids please act help us i came this is pecosint bull island we're the people that stand i'm asking you to stand up we're here to stand with you we want to fight this we have a governor who doesn't care about children he's even admittedly he's a murderer of children please that's what we're begging you tonight thank you [Applause] other speakers this evening all right to the consent agenda oh i'm sorry i thought you said yes we did no i'm sorry no we do know my mistake yes okay uh miss tesla will read the consent agenda now thank you um consent agenda includes approval financial reports approval of personnel action authorization to change appropriation to accept
069and expend funds in accordance with attached requests approval of minutes of june regular meeting approval of minutes of july special organizational meeting does the board have any questions about any of these you revert you have reviewed those in your board packet all right uh may i have a motion to approve those so move second it's the second i'm sorry i couldn't see thank you mr ingram aye mr goodell aye mr freeman aye mr jordan aye mr childress aye vice chair hessel aye chairman chief hi mission passes seven zero have other matters for consideration next we will start with consideration of approval of health mitigation strategies for year 2021 2022. uh mr till do you have anything more to say about that's our presentation all right that's that's our presentation and so uh would have any
070more questions about that or comments before we uh vote on that if not may i have a motion to approve the consideration of approval of health mitigation strategies madam chairman is there a way that we could table that uh area of matter for for further uh discussion um as a board as we continue to gather information do so you know as quickly as possible it's a question for uh mr king can we start the new year without a strategy in place all right so we have uh then a consideration of approval of appointment of deputy clerk of the board all right and uh do we have anything to say about that are we everybody's read the board packet do i have a motion to approve so moved and a second second thank you ms rymers
071mr ingram aye mr cadell aye mr freeman aye mr jordan aye mr childress aye aye chairman sheila aye motion passes for dr hill to be the deputy clerk of the board 7-0 all right our next consideration is of approval of the second reading of changes to our policy manual do we have any discussion about that or comments and if not may i have a motion to approve the uh consideration of approval of the second reading of changes to our policy the move do i have a second second okay thank you also mr ingram hi mr goodell hi freeman aye mr jordan aye mr childress aye aye chairman sheila aye uh our next item is consideration of approval of the of the authorized signature and absence of the division superintendent and uh if we do we
072have any comments or questions about that particular approval all right ben do i have a motion to approve that so moved second and a second all right miss household mr english rumors all right sorry mr goodell aye mr freeman aye mr jordan aye mr chairman aye vice chair hussell aye chairman sheila aye passes seven zero and our last matter for consideration before we move on to that next item can you go back to a for a second because and this is a procedure thing and going back to what i'm sorry a okay okay do we have to vote the table that or we just table i mean how somebody's kind of glanced over that and said you know there was a suggestion to tablet but then nothing was decided i mean no procedurally or i
073mean what do we need to do procedurally the table is because i guess i'm asking we had a motion to table it and this also uh agreed with that so i took that as a okay but there was no vote but we didn't vote all right shall we do that then okay i'd like to have a vote for consideration to table the health mitigations for 21 22 to a different time and date before school starting mr ingram aye mr goodell aye mr freeman hello mr jordan hi mr childress hi vice chair hustle aye chairman sheila hi motion passes [Applause] all right i'd like to go on to uh our last item under matters for consideration and that is the consideration of approval of 2021 2022 calendar adjustments uh any comment on that note uh pretty
074self-explanatory in the reading file um what we did was we repurposed those 11 days half days built in the calendar for professional development and collaborative work from our teachers you were loud and clear from our instructional staff last year the neat those days and so we uh moved some days around so they coordinated better with the calendar for our like close to end of quarters for example as as teachers could work together collaboratively so um as you heard loud and clear from our staff very important times within the the functional year for our staff to stay homed and so we didn't add any days or delete any days from previously approved calendar we just repurposed them and moved them around calendar as indicated on the draft great thank you mr tillett are there any other
075uh comments or questions about that all right um do i have a motion to approve that so i moved a second please all right farmers mr ingram aye mr goodell aye mr freeman aye mr jordan aye mr childress aye vice chair hessel aye hermann chealer aye motion passes 7c next section is communications and other matters by the school board or the superintendent mr tillett do you have anything further down nothing so all right and uh so we will start with mr ingram thank you yeah i'd just like to thank the kiwanis club for welcoming 25 new teachers this morning at tabernacle united methodist church and also want to thank the church for sponsoring that and allowing that function to happen i also want to thank all the parents that came out to pour their heart
076out for you know to be the voice for their students it means a lot and very much thank you mr ingram mr goodman doctor good day um no comment really just uh new to the board first meeting again i thank parents and public commenters for coming out and sharing their views those are very helpful and i just look forward to serving the board thanks thank you mr good deal mr freeman i'd just like to thank everyone who came out speak tonight your input's important and so thanks for coming out that's all i have all right mr jordan just wanted to welcome some of our new teachers to the school system and we have some new instructional staff and at the school board office and welcome to all those folks as well and having two young
077kids in the school system you know i want what each wants is a safe environment of learning for our students and staff and you know looking forward to to the coming school year and you know there's going to be some challenges there's probably going to be some give and take that has to take place with with every member in our community to get through this school year but i'm looking forward to a successful school year and i think we'll make the most of it is in pokemon city school so i was really pleased with some of the efforts that we did last year being ahead of the curve in most instances by sending our elementary school kids to school and giving them a chance to be in school from the start um when every other
078um to my knowledge public school around the area um you know elected to go the virtual route so you know these are these are very difficult decisions that impact folks in our community it's a community that i've grown up in and a former student here myself you know this position comes with a lot of responsibility and just know that we don't take this position for granted in this role um you know it's a very thankless job at times because very rarely do i ever get an email actually i've never got an email saying how great of a job we're doing so um but that's okay that's what comes with the territory so um but i'm excited about um you know this year and and our our students and staff being in school five days a
079week um and uh excited about our athletic program starting football starting on time albeit our high school team isn't actually playing this coming friday due to a covet issue impacting southampton but i'm looking forward to seeing them on the football field here soon so and best of luck thanks thanks mr jordan mr childress board for about two months now just got here and i've noticed from the community from the teachers from the board members here everybody is very passionate about the kids education especially you guys who came out here and you guys who have sent emails and it really does make me excited to see how passionate everybody here on the board the already is the teachers that have sent us so i look forward to trying to help you guys out and make sure
080that we have a good school system this year thank you miss elsa so welcome to all of our new teachers and staff dr hill glad you're joining us i want to echo a lot of what mr jordan said a lot of hard decisions lately i really stand behind what we did last year um appreciate every one of you that that came out tonight and spoke all the text messages emails facebook messages calls that's why we're here and a lot of times it is thankless but i'm in the same boat i've got two kids in the school system and it matters and it's definitely an important decision lots of important making not only one mass versus mass the mitigation strategies but a lot of other decisions that are going to be coming down the pipeline and
081we definitely want to know what our community thinks you're you're important why we're we are here excited about sports that are happening super excited about the new field can't wait to get the rest of the bull off my personal yard um so thanks for that mr pappas and i know about those black pellets because they are still all over the place um so if anybody in the community wants any more bull from the old field come on out to my house and get it but other than that i'm looking forward to a great year thank you miss helsel and also dr hill to our team resume is amazing thank you and i'd also like to welcome our two newest board members dr goodale and cj childress coming on board you're coming on board at an
082interesting and very challenging time when we're appointed to the school board of pocosin we swear an oath to support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of virginia and that we will faithfully and impartially just discharge the duties incumbent on us according to the best of our abilities well when our founders wrote the constitutions both of them they no doubt realize the words of that document would be up to interpretation therefore becomes really critically important for us charged with making policy to seek advice from those with a deeper and wider understanding of the law as it as as it pertains to school boards i want to thank our attorney brad king who's been been uh very supportive of us for many many years with his professional knowledge of the law
083and for advising us uh today and many many times before glad you're here as a board we need to do the important work of making policy so that experts in the field of education our superintendent our teachers our principals our administrators can make our schools places of inspiration for our students of social growth making learning fun and fulfilling we need to make sure that coming back to school also is safe for all our students with a multi-layered covered transmission mitigation strategy that mr tillett and his team would like to put into place we want to move on to make our schools even better than ever when artie talks about building a strategic five-year plan for pocosin schools it's so exciting you can't imagine how something that i can't even conceive of starting would be exciting
084and when he talks about it it's a it's just a thrill and the reason that's going to work so well is that we need all our stakeholders parents teachers and students working together to build in the exciting possibilities that will move us forward so please let's work together for a better tomorrow so i want to conclude by thanking everyone who shared their concerns and observations and research and heart today and in the past weeks over let's talk emails phone calls all kinds of communications and mr tillett i believe there's nothing we cannot achieve with if we don't without working together we can face this together and we can move forward thank you uh and let's see what we have next do we have any material for board review or may and we do not fight
085then this meeting is adjourned the health mitigation strategy is that going to be a closed door proceeding amongst the board or is that something where parents we don't make any policy decisions in private those are all done in public moving into a closed session now so thank you folks for coming and we will talk with you later