001good morning and welcome to the march 23rd 2021 regular school board meeting which i now call to order our invocation this morning will be given by pastor lois robinson lehman from lakeland presbyterian church in saint petersburg following the invocation we will say the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem will be performed by the all county choral teachers please stand good morning good morning i invite you to pray with me source of wisdom and truth love and compassion righteousness and justice we get we begin today's meeting of the pinellas county school board by offering our prayers to you we seek your guidance as we acknowledge the great responsibility which has been bestowed upon us clear our minds of all other thoughts and tasks with which we arrived here today that we may give our full
002attention to the business of the day guide us to make our decisions without undue regard to whatever politics may be involved as we consider the weighty issues before us today help us to balance the needs of students educators school staff administrative officers and other support staff while recognizing the need to be responsible stewards of the resources which have been entrusted to our care we also carry the burden of providing the best education possible for all of the students of our county regardless of race ethnicity wealth or lack thereof we pray eternal one that our efforts may serve to make the pinellas county schools among the best in the country amen 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
003with liberty and justice for all oh mercedes oh r good thank you and thank you pastor layman we appreciate you being here today thank you pinellas county schools is a proud partner with the sandy hook promise and utilizes their know the signs start with hello and say something programs to teach students and staff how to prevent school violence identify at-risk behaviors and intervene to get help the say something program teaches middle school and high school students how to look for the warning signs of someone at risk of hurting themselves or others and how to tell a trusted adult when they need help every march thousands of schools nationwide participate in the say something week this is a great opportunity to raise awareness about the say something programs and to build the culture of looking out
004for one another at each of our schools members of the save promise club which stands for students against violence everywhere participate in coordinated activities so let's take a look at how the students at seminole middle school middle school celebrate this week we have members of our save club they're writing positive messages on the sidewalk in our bus circle today we have a sizable number of students that enter campus in this in this area each day and we want our students to see messages drawn by by their peers by other students so it's coming directly from students you know the purpose of these activities is to help foster that collaborative and caring spirit across the school we are drawing chalk for say something week which focuses on preventing violence in schools and looking for warning signs
005signals and threats which can be found on the internet and you want to mention something to a trusted adult if you see anything that is like out of the ordinary or violent i feel that it's important so we can raise awareness about things that can happen in real life so that students know that we can show how important say something is and i want to spread awareness to students so that they know how they can help so that individuals don't hurt themselves or others this is important because we like to keep the school safe and keep others safe from harming themselves or other people i feel that what we're doing today is going to help because it'll show students that they need to show they need to talk to a trusted adult if they do
006see anything that could be inflicted as self-harm or harm to others these programs are in all of our schools and we're so pleased that the students have really taken it to heart to get involved and to practice what they have learned we'll now move to the introduction to the professional and community organization representatives with isabella mascarenas our public information officer good morning good morning good morning madam chair members of the board dr grego and staff it is my pleasure to introduce the following representatives of community and professional organizations from the pinellas classroom teachers association nancy velardi president and from the pinellas arts for a complete education coalition victoria hagedorn co-chair today we have a presentation from the students rights and responsibility committee please welcome faith patterson anastasia godfrey from richard o jacobson technical high school
007and their principal martha giancola members of the board of dr grego and staff it is our pleasure to present the student rights and responsibilities committee report for richard o'jacobson technical high school at smile my name is anastasia godfrey i am a junior in the commercial arts program and i am faith patterson and i'm also a junior in the commercial arts program thank you very much for this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our school we are a district application program high school that supports every student graduating not only with a high school diploma but with one or more industry certifications as well our school offers seven different career technical education programs and a variety of industry certifications our gaming students earn software certifications in c-plus plus and unity and commercial arts students earn
008certifications primarily in adobe products our construction and electric students earn certifications through the national center for construction education and research and our marine mechanics students earned certifications through the american boat yacht council our veterinary students complete a 250-hour internship to earn their veterinary assisting certification at our school we have cows horses pigs rabbits and birds we have a partnership set up with animal services so we will soon have dogs and cats as well our vet students will be moving into a state-of-the-art new vet science building where classrooms are attached to the barn and animal enclosure it is a unique building that will continue to inspire our students into the veterinary field of work our nursing students are able to earn their cna ekg and lpn certifications just think of what a boost this is to
009the reality of their dreams being fulfilled in their future medical fields each of our career programs has an active advisory board made up of business partners in the community they help us make sure that our programs are staying on the forefront of their industry last year we were the only high school in pinellas county schools to be named a magnet schools of america emerging school of excellence one of the best things about our school is our teachers and administrators work hard to provide us with opportunities to participate in real world experiences related to our industry i worked with pinellas county schools office of strategic partnerships to create the logo for their get engaged in education initiative and i have a photo of it right here as you can tell the commercial arts classroom is like
010a real life design studio the pinellas education foundation approached students from the commercial arts program to design an interactive installation for finance park that highlights the contributions of mr jacobson to pinellas county schools as well as career possibilities for younger students to explore we are continuing to develop logos and products for many local businesses it is very satisfying to see our work displayed as we move throughout the community each year our gaming students participate in the next generation tech competition this is a district-wide competition where students develop games apps software and other real world products the students work in collaborative teams for months to design develop troubleshoot and produce their final product the grand prize for the winner of the competition is ten thousand dollars this year nine of the ten teams for next generation
011tech competition came from jacobson technical high school many of the students were so excited about this work that they got together over the summer to work on their own projects three students from our school were also awarded as winners of the congressional app challenge they were chosen to participate in a zoom awards call with u.s representative charlie crist in recognition of their hard work and technology skills we are so proud of our school and the opportunities we have available to us as students at tech high we will be graduating next year with a distinct advantage over most high school students being able to graduate with dual enrollment credits advanced placement credits industry certifications a network of business partners in the our community and the hands-on experience of working in our field will truly set us
012apart from the competition when we are applying for colleges and universities applying for positions in our chosen industry or enlisting in the military tech high has given us the skills to not only pursue our path after high school but to be a leader on the path that we have chosen we are excited to see what the future holds and we are grateful that we have the opportunity to be part of such a great school thank you for allowing us to share a little bit about our amazing school with you today we are we are tech very good thank you it's a wonderful report and we appreciate you being here there are a lot of good things going on at our tech high so all right dr grego are there any amendments to the agenda members
013we have one amendment to the agenda and that is i added 8.3 which as we discussed during our last workshop and that is the approval of the to waive the attendance portion of the policy given this year with covet policy 5420.03 and that's reporting student progress and class rankings for the second semester this board has exercised this exemption from last spring to this fall and now i'm asking that it'd be done again for this spring thank you as chairman i find good cause to add the request approval to waive the attendance portion within policy 5420.03 of reporting student progress and class ranking for high school second semester for 20 ni 2021 school year all right board members are there any items to be pulled all right so we will vote on adopting the agenda before
014we do that our mrs kane is not with us so our votes up until the time she's able to get here there's a problem that she's having at home and so our votes until she arrives will be reflected of the six people that are here so do we have a motion to adopt the agenda okay mrs long do we have a second and the second is done by dr carr so we have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as amended so all in favor say aye aye opposed say no and it passes unanimously thank you very much we'll move to the special order agenda and the first item is to recognize the recognition of the national school breakfast week which is march 8th through the 12th 2021. do we have dr grego
015do we have a presentation we do and i want to say that even though march 8th through the 12th is school breakfast week and i also want to express my gratitude as this board has many times to lynn guys and her entire department for the work that she's done feeding not only our students but this community since last spring the last nine weeks over the summer and spring serving over 500 000 meals breakfast lunches and even dinners and now as recently as last week or spring break or her folks were out there serving again to this community so those are things that aren't always on the front page or seen but those are the quiet things that i think truly make our district special and i want to say thank you to lynn and our
016entire team and entire department because they are relentless in helping our community so with that introduce lynn guys the director of food and nutrition services good morning good morning madam chair board members dr grego thank you for that introduction and stuff each year food nutrition celebrates national school breakfast week an opportunity to promote the importance of breakfast and students health and their well-being breaking the fast after sleeping provides the energy to start the day and to be ready to learn having something to eat first thing in the morning whether the nutrient-rich meal we have for you today or simply that cold slice of pizza that many of us remember over the years we have developed a lifelong healthy eating habit breakfast this national school breakfast week actually started in february where we were awarded 20
017breakfast carts drink barrels and laptop computers to serve breakfast at our schools these this was a legacy grant from the tampa bay buccaneers fuel up to play 60 organization and the florida dairy council and that grant carried us through the month of february all the way into march national breakfast week actually started with the virtual egg pop that is egg pop is a hard-boiled egg on a stick to show that breakfast doesn't have to be bland it can be savory and tasty we worked with a school students at azalea middle school we had chef paula from the florida department of ag virtually talk to us about the egg industry in florida and the nutritional importance of eggs again we didn't need to show the students it doesn't have to be bland so they took their
018egg and they dipped it in different types of seasonings and seasoning blends and they really enjoyed it the week continued with fun and games we had 14 schools that really got into national school lunch week or last school breakfast week the coveted prizes were the regulation size footballs that were autographed by professional football players from the seattle seahawks the detroit lions and of course tampa bay buccaneers we started the week we started the celebration with the buccaneers and the breakfast carts and we wrapped up the week with the tampa bay buccaneer cheerleaders the blender bike challenge was a competition between students at macmillan booth elementary and the tampa bay buccaneer cheerleaders it was held virtually with an introduction from agriculture commissioner nikki fried after that things got really exciting a blender bike has a blender
019mounted by the handlebars and you operate it by pedaling the bike so it was a challenge to make a wonderful breakfast smoothie both at mcmullen booth with the students and over over in the tampa bay bucks one place with the cheerleaders and captain fear of course our students won the event showed that breakfast doesn't have to be elaborate it can be simply a well orchestrated smoothie portable nutrient rich with yogurt milk fresh fruits and vegetables we can all come to score big when it comes to breakfast and with that i'd like to recognize the person who helped coordinate all of these activities and that would be tammy ayette who's in the back here she's our nutrition educator in the middle of all this coordinating all of these different activities she also managed to plant two
020more school gardens so with that we have a sample breakfast for you and we do hope you enjoy that they were prepared at largo high school from by that team with manager angie heat coordinating those again we do hope you enjoy them thank you very much thank you and on top of them we even have a football to kind of remind us of who helped with this past week but it looks very good thank you for remembering us and giving us a sample thank you we appreciate it very good and thank you was it tammy tammy thank you for everything you did to coordinate all of these activities i know it's not easy but we appreciate it thank you very much all right we will now move to a proclamation designating the month of march
021as youth art month do we have a motion okay mrs heinz hind and do we have a second okay and missiles long second dr grego yes march is always an exciting month not only with our information about breakfast but also our visual arts our youth art month and also you see in 4.3 the music in our schools month and so for the first one the visual arts month i'd like to call on jonathan ogle our pre-k through 12 visual arts specialist jonathan good morning school board members dr grego and staff thank you for recognizing the importance of a quality visual arts education for all students in our school district through this exciting proclamation here are several highlights in the visual arts i'd like to briefly share our art teacher's motto this year has been art
022never stops our k-12 our teachers have done an amazing job with their face-to-face and online students since august many have been able to provide art supplies to their students at home to complete our project assignments i'm proud to share that we have had all of our k through 12 district art exhibitions with 2d and 3d artwork on actual display at museums and galleries thanks to our determination and the commitment to our art partners we have two virtual award ceremonies coming up this weekend the taking shape middle school exhibition that the dunedin fine arts center and the word and image elementary exhibition at the morian arts center these will be through zoom and i'm happy to forward the link to you to view the pinellas middle and high school students student surrealist exhibition at the dali
023museum was up during february and concluded in early march and now i'm proud to share that last wednesday we found out pinellas county had 17 national gold and silver medalists in this year's scholastic art and writing awards competition last year pinellas county art region had 12. finally our teachers are now using new technology tools that they've learned this year for having virtual art field trip experiences with their students these are coordinated with our art partners virtual tours and presentations are provided inside classrooms by the james museum the dolly museum the morning art center and the tampa museum of art on behalf of the visual arts department and all of our districts k through 12 visual arts educators i thank you for consideration of this proclamation thank you mrs hein would you please read the proclamation
024youth art month whereas the study of art leads to a fuller more meaningful life and whereas art education provides substantial educational benefits to all elementary middle and high school students and whereas art education develops students creative potential improves problem solving and critical thinking skills and brings to life what students learn in other subjects and whereas art education teaches sensitivity to beauty order and other expressive qualities and gives students a deeper understanding of multicultural values and beliefs and whereas art education teaches sensitivity forgive me whereas our national leaders have acknowledged the necessity of including arts experiences and all students education whereas our local art museums centers and organizations partner with us to improve the well-being of our community by upgrading visual awareness of the cultural strengths here in pinellas and in the united states as a
025whole and now therefore the school board of pinellas county does hereby recognize march 2021 as youth art month and we encourage all residents to support the youth in our community in their intellectual development through artistic endeavors and offer support to our committed art teachers signed this 23rd day of march 2021. very good thank you all right so we have a motion and a second board members are there any comments all right we have a motion in a second to adopt the proclamation designed designating march as youth art month all in favor say aye aye opposed say no and it passes unanimously thank you all right we'll now move to a second proclamation designating march as music in our schools month we have a motion to adopt okay dr carr do we have a second okay
026mr dudley thank you dr gregory thank you madam chair and both of these i want to just emphasize when we talk about our accomplishments both on the visual and the performing arts the center of all of those accomplishments are our teachers and i just want to say as we read these proclamations that we take that to heart and in terms of the day-to-day work especially over this past year where many school districts did not continue a lot of the art and music ours our district did and in amazement of their dedicated service they did a remarkable job as many of you have witnessed over this past year so it gives me great pleasure georgie spencer who is a now the teacher on special assignment for for arts for music education george okay before you do
027that i'd like to stop we're going to switch i was just going to use my teacher voice there you go i could hear you works either way is this any better wonderful here are a few highlights i love to share this year's national theme for music in our schools month is music the sound of my heart and our students and teachers have truly put their heart into their work this year our music teachers have done an incredible job providing instruction to both our in person and our virtual students many of them starting beginning students completely virtually take a second and think about that just you know starting beginning band completely online some really really really incredible work as dr grego mentioned more than 80 of our pinellas county school students made audition for and made
028it into the florida music education association all state ensembles which is truly incredible we had hundreds of students also auditioned for and be selected for our all-county honors ensembles which will perform in may our secondary orchestra chorus and band programs are being featured in virtual music performance assessments and solo and ensembles and all of our elementary middle and high school music programs continue to deliver incredibly engaging performances to their school communities it didn't stop so thank you for considering this proclamation and thank you for being an invaluable part of our music community here thank you all right mrs long would you please read the proclamation music in our schools month whereas the study of music contributes to young people's development through heightened skills in listening reading self-expression and creativity and whereas music education in the
029schools includes a broad range of types of music and active musical experiences and whereas music and the other art significantly enhance the morale and quality of the school environment and whereas it is the stated objective of the public school to prepare children for a productive role in our society and whereas the national association for music education has designated march as music in our schools month focusing on the theme music changes lives now therefore the school board of pinellas county does hereby recognize march 2021 as music in our schools month and endorses this observance as an opportunity to support the purposes and practices of music education and encourages teachers parents students and all citizens to participate all right board members are there any comments all right so we have a motion and a second to adopt
030the proclamation designating march as music in our schools month all in favor say aye aye all opposed say no and it passes 6-0 thank you very much and thank you right we will now move to public comment on the agenda members of the public have three opportunities to address the board when we're gathered for our meetings the first opportunity is to speak during public comment on agenda items the next opportunity is when the public hearing is when there is a public hearing most of which are policies lastly after the meeting is adjourned we will remain for public participation when speakers may address items pertaining to the business of the district during public comment board members are here to listen to you this is not a time for discussion or debate we will not take any
031formal action on information brought forward unless it is pertaining to an agenda item however the board and the superintendent may refer you to the proper staff person to help you through your concerns the board is committed to a standard of civility and decorum in the conduct of our meeting and on our electronic options please assist us in maintaining a civil constructive environment by confining your comments to the business of the district and refrain from intemperate or rude comments thank you mrs simon eddie do we have speakers for the agenda items board members and dr grego we have one speaker today on specific agenda items karina morrison will speak to 7.13 good morning thank you for allowing me to speak i'm i'm actually a second generation native of pinellas county i returned to st petersburg college
032after graduating in 1994 with an associate of science in early childhood education and 26 plus years of home educating my own children i am going back to st pete college to realize my third grade dream of being a public school teacher i hope to start the college of education in the fall and i'm finishing up my aaa this semester why am i telling you that i'm here on assignment for my intro to education class to see how the school board is operating and i want to thank you all for your service to our community for our children and our families and i also want to encourage the approval to apply for the 2020-2021 school improvement grant that's targeting recidivism i've also done some volunteer work with the clearwater mlk junior neighborhood center in north greenwood
033and i've seen personally how much it means to these families when we are investing in their children so that is why i'm here and i just wanted to thank you and introduce myself and hope to be working with you in a couple years after i graduate well thank you very much and make us your first choice absolutely okay thank you are there any others okay there are no others so we will now move to unfinished business we have a public hearing to consider the amendment to policy 2140 the independent citizens referendum oversight committee this is the second reading and there are no changes since the first so do we have a motion to accept okay we have a motion and a second okay and that was miss edmond okay dr let's let dr grego introduce
034it and then we'll see if there's speakers to this item dr grego yes board members thank you very much this item is one that was brought to this board during our recent board workshop and the context of it i'm going to ask leanne ice and director of strategic planning to just review for the public good morning good morning madam chair board members dr grego staff and community today we bring forward for public hearing and approval the amendment to policy 2140 independent citizens referendum oversight committee there have been no changes since the first reading as discussed at the board workshop in january and the first reading on february 9th the policy amendments being proposed reflect the updated referendum language which occurs every four years upon the citizens vote of approval there is an additional amendment this
035year in order to maintain current and active community membership on the committee the amendment recommends the addition of arts for complete education to replace the membership of pinellas county sac association inc within ic rock pinellas county sac association inc is no longer an active organization and arts for complete education demonstrates commitment to the implementation of the school board policy for referendum oversight and has been an active advocate for the arts in pinellas county schools for more than two decades with that we present for public hearing and vote of approval policy 2140 independent citizens referendum oversight committee thank you my thanks to the arts for a complete education in in terms of their support and advocacy over the last several decades and this is a very appropriate in my opinion addition to the ic rock committee
036so i agree mrs simonetti do we have any speakers to this item there are no speakers on the public hearing for policy 2140. very good thank you board members any comments all right we have discussed this and i think all of us were very much in favor of it so i appreciate the fact that it's being brought forward today so we have a motion that was made by mrs edmund no mrs long okay so we have a motion that was made by mrs long it was seconded by ms edmond and so all in favor say aye opposed say no and it passes 6-0 thank you very much we'll now move to the public hearing to receive public comment on the recommended instructional materials dr grego yes madam chair and school board members this is an
037item that is just open for as a public hearing as you know statutorily required to do this it's not something you'll be voting on and so just to explain the context of it to our to our public of my ass mr hendrick associate superintendent for teaching and learning to explain it thank you dr grego good morning good morning madam chair board members dr grego staff in the community it's our pleasure this morning to have a public hearing on instructional materials each year the state reviews updates and adopts instructional materials in one content area this year that content area is english language arts it's especially important this year as we transition to the new benchmarks for excellent student thinking or best standards the school district composed or built committees of teachers community members schools and district
038leaders to review instructional materials across each grade band the committee considered on average five sets of instructional materials or textbooks in grades k through five six through eight and nine through twelve in grades six through eight and nine through twelve decisions were made to recommend certain materials for adoption in grades k through five the decision was made to postpone the adoption as the materials did not align to the best standards at this time once these recommendations are made from the committees we present them to the board for consideration and a hearing to receive public comment on the recommended instructional materials for the 2021-2022 school year is required online access was made available to the public from march 1st through today to review these materials this hearing is to allow parents pinellas county school students or
039other residents of pinellas county to bring forward comments on the posted instructional materials that have been selected by the committees at this time we welcome public comments on the materials good thank you mrs simonetti are there any speakers for this item there are no speakers for this public hearing on instructional materials very good thank you so this takes us to the consent agenda do we have a motion to accept okay mrs long do we have a second okay miss edmond all in favor say aye aye opposed say no and this passes seven welcome ms kane all right so we'll now move to the non-consent and our first item is to request approval of english for speakers of other languages the esol add-on endorsement plan renewal you have motion second okay so we have mrs long
040making a motion miss kane with making a second dr grego yes madam chair and school board members dr karak has done an amazing job of elevating as you've heard from her in prior workshops of elevating and providing training to all of our teachers not just sea salt teachers and i'm i want her and i would like for her to express to this board what you're what just explain a little bit deeper in terms of what you're voting on today and also not only for this board for the general public in terms of how we service our teachers and our esol students dr karak good morning good morning good morning madam chair board members dr grego staff and community i am dr natasha karash the director of english learner programs it is my pleasure to seek
041your approval of the district csol add-on endorsement plan with your approval of this plan pinellas county schools will be able to continue to offer esl endorsement classes for our teachers free of charge the esl endorsement plan is designed to increase the level of knowledge skill and expertise of teachers working with english learner students raise awareness of the unique characteristics assets and challenges related to teaching el students this awareness is essential in planning and delivering instruction that meets these unique needs it is also designed to foster an understanding of the policies and guidelines to ensure implementation of comprehensible instruction grade level in standards-based curriculum at the level of each english learner's individual need to support their accelerated achievement the plan will be submitted to the florida department of education to see continued state approval and renewal
042for the period from july 1st 2021 to june 30th 2026. the plan has been revised to assure continued competence in teaching districts english learner students in a way that is responsive to their needs the previous add-on endorsement plans have been reviewed and approved by the pinellas county school board every five years beginning with 1995. the last plan was approved for the period of july 1st 2016 through june 30th 2021. the esl add-on endorsement plan provides an alternative training program to reduce the number of teachers identified as teaching out of field in the area of k12 esol additionally it also develops a pool of qualified teachers with this specialized focus i look forward to your approval of the plan in support of contin continuing to service the 7 456 english learner students in our district thank
043you thank you okay board members is there any discussion dr carr thank you dr clark i would like to express appreciation for your leadership in this area for so long ensuring that our teachers had their what was for a long time esol and then ell but now our el endorsement has been an area where we have worked very hard and i appreciate the your guidance and leadership and the direction that you're taking this program to make sure that all of those who are delivering instruction have what they need to provide to our students so thank you for your advocacy for our english learners thank you dr carr and i would like to express my gratitude and appreciation of our district leadership because we feel supported and we will continue to accelerate the achievement of our
044english learners thank you thank you any other comments all right seeing none we have a motion made by mrs long a second by mrs kane to approve the english for speakers of other languages esol add-on endorsement plan renewal all in favor say aye aye opposed say no and it passes 7-0 all right the next one is to request approval of the yamaha marine products training program agreement is there a motion mrs long made a motion second okay mrs kane dr gregon yes ma'am chair and school board members you got a glimpse of the richard o jacobson technical high school earlier in this meeting through the video and also listening to our students that from the what they call tech high and we have a lot of programs there that are just taking off as you
045know that school is only a few years old and mr giancola is doing dr giancolo is doing a remarkable job there this is another example of a partnership between the program and the industry out in out in our community and how we're supporting it i'm going to ask mr mark hunt who is the executive director of career technical and adult education to talk about this partnership with with the yamaha and with the marine mechanics program at richard o jacobson high school good morning mrs cook school board members dr grego and staff the yamaha marine products training agreement before you this morning represents one more industry partnership formalized in the form of a major manufacturer's involvement with our technical programs yamaha marine is one of the world's leading manufacturers of marine engines and powertrain products and
046through this agreement marine mechanics program students and the teacher at richard o jacobson technical high school will have access to the most current marine engine and powertrain technology technical data and material the marine mechanics program at pinellas technical college clearwater is already an affiliate of yamaha marine and this agreement will support the connection between richard o jacobson and pinellas technical college to smooth that transition for students from high school into post-secondary education and the workforce and as you heard this morning from tech high students career and technical education is thriving in our district and we ask your approval to expand this partnership with this program very good thank you board members any comments dr carr i have an another expression of credit i had the opportunity to go to tech high school at the start
047of the school year and see the marine air lab and it is just an incredible tribute to the work that you've done mr hunt in moving our vocational technical education what we hear in the community so often is vocational our technical education programs and so often we hear as board members the importance from our community and constituents of us including and emphasizing vocational and technical education and it seems every time i am speaking i have to keep adding to the number i think we had 72 certification programs and then 80 and now i'm being recognized as a district nationally for being one of the top districts in career technical education so thank you for for this and for making the connection to our technical schools so that students can more readily transition from high school
048to technical school so thank you good thank you all right we have a motion by mrs long the second by mrs kane to approve the yamaha marine products training program agreement all in favor say aye aye opposed say no it passes 7-0 mrs simonetti there is some question as to whether or not we voted on the consent agenda board member have we done that yes i have it we have voted on the consent agenda that's correct chairman chairwoman cook the vote was on the consent agenda the last unfinished business the public hearing on the instructional materials did not do not need a vote okay correct all right good thank you just wanted to make sure thank you very much i'd hate for all those agenda items not to have been voted on all right and
049then we go to item 8.3 which request approval to waive the attendance portion within policy 5420.03 reporting student progress and class ranking for high school for second semester of the 2020-2021 school year do we have a motion mrs kane and mr dudley is a second dr greco yes madam chair and school board members i want to first of all thank you for exercising this exemption for this last year and i know leanna eisen is here to explain in details i know the board is very familiar with this attendance issue and in the middle of a pandemic that we want to back off of and certainly give as much grace for our students and families that we that we can so leanna if you could explain it to the public it's specifically with the agenda item
0505420.03 hi again madam chair board members dr grego staff and community we're bringing forward for approval a temporary waiver of the attendance requirement to qualify for high school final exam exemption as outlined in policy 5420.03 reporting student progress in class ranking high school this recommendation is specifically for second semester of this school year 2020 due to the ongoing health and safety circumstances due to covet 19 pandemic throughout this school year families students and staff have been asked to not come to school if they are not feeling well or exhibiting any symptoms associated with covid19 these recommendations are still in effect therefore we recommend waiving the attendance requirement to qualify for high school final exam exemption again as we did in this second semester of last school year and first semester of this school year by
051doing so high school students have the ability to exempt second semester final exams as long as they meet all other exemption criteria within the policy at this time we request approval to waive the attendance portion within policy 5420.03 reporting student progress in class ranking high school specifically for second semester of the 2020-2021 school year thank you any comments we did talk about this at the workshop so and in past as we have done so rather than reading it again since it was just read to you we have a motion by mrs kane a second by mr dudley all in favor say aye opposed say no and it passes 7-0 thank you very much we now move on to the next portion of new business with items introduced by the superintendent dr grego thank you madam
052chair and board members i first of all want to say welcome back i hope you had a restful and much deserved spring break i know it's been a busy time even in the middle of the spring break but i think we all need a little bit of recharging along the way and so i know our principals and teachers and students too needed the same so welcome back i also want to say that some of the busyness over the holiday season and the spring break was a thanks a huge thanks to dr threadgill the chief medical officer of the community health centers of pinellas who offered on the week before and the week of spring break and continues to offer vaccines to any age employee of pinellas county schools and dr threatgill has done an amazing
053job of obtaining those vaccines and specifically for our school district in addition to that thank you dr cho and for his continued effort to to man and have the state sites in pinellas county three of them in our pinellas county health centers and also in addition to the fema sites that many of our employees went to in tampa as well as the private sites at cvs publix and walgreens so within the last few weeks we continue to communicate that and i want to thank our communications department beth harandeen and her entire staff worked tirelessly before during and you probably some received some messages even as recently as yesterday and today to continue to remind that there are appointments for those who so choose and there are appointments that are readily available also prior to the
054holidays i've received tremendously positive feedback on the medical advisory group answering a panel discussion that we attach to those notices quite honestly surprised me of the positive responses of people who still you know have questions we're so close to this but it was well worth it and doctor cho dr massena and dr threadgill dr kopeck and sarah o'toole our own employee who all all of you were able to watch that it's it's still it's still on our website and i encourage anybody who has some questions these doctors and sarah o'toole ours are held ahead of healthcare in our district certainly did a fabulous job of of answering the most commonly asked asked questions of that this past week also i had the opportunity and we gracefully accepted the opportunity to travel to tallahassee to represent
055our district specifically on the continuation of lakewood elementary school this is our seoul school that was rated two years ago is enough but we i feel very confident as we did last year and we were greeted with much support in terms of we provided them a tremendous amount of data in terms of the growth that we had last year the growth that we have this year and our commitment to continuing on and improving to ourselves and to the tremendous scholars at the lakewood community that they can do it we've had tremendous stability in that school the principal has looped a lot of the teachers there we also reviewed our map proficiency year over year one school that has lakewood has a 13 percentage point increase in ela english language arts and a 14 point increase
056in mathematics and 92 percent of our kindergarteners are projected to be on level this year too so we're we're really hitting it on all cylinders there and we're going to continue to do so without trying to slow down and i want to say i say that because lakewood is representative of our schools throughout our district we're not going to slow down or hit that pause button in any way i want to also express my thanks and i know that as a school board association i think your conference is this week ours the superintendent's conference starts tomorrow and thursday so i will be a little bit tied up as president of the association this year tied up over the next two days but it is virtual so i will be in my office but i will
057be conducting that so we're looking forward to an exciting two-day conference with the superintendents much needed we have a lot of folks joining us from the state leadership especially that it's in the middle of the session the other thing when i talk about spring break and the busyness of our students i want to thank our teaching and learning department mr hendrick and all of the executive directors for really challenging our students and to remain engaged and when we look at it we had over 200 000 logins and clever over spring break and over a million elementary elementaries in our just in our elementary school students read over 1 million minutes and finish 45 000 digital books on my on so you know our students could be engaged and we need to continue that lifelong love
058of of reading plum walsingham jamerson elementary schools read the most minutes in our middle and high school students participated in subject-specific contests including english language arts science social studies and mathematics i mean many of you i left at your desk top area that level up in terms of some of the progression that we're doing we're using our one-to-one devices and our pcs connects in a very meaningful way not just here's a device and i wonder if we're going to use it but we're we're working to really steer steer our students use in high schools our reading and language arts was the area with the greatest participation as students across the district answering over 140 000 questions and vocabulary competition and others so we had something special for each and every age configuration and i just
059want to thank the teaching and learning department for for truly engaging our students and our families over this spring break i know today we recognize the food and nutrition workers but i also want to recognize catherine jarrod who was appointed to the national school nutrition association and child nutrition reauthorization task force this is quite an honor this is a national panel that catherine was chosen to participate on there they will they will be reviewing the healthy hunger free kids act and identify portions of that legislation needs to be adjusted ms gerard has been involved with pinellas county schools food nutrition department for over 17 years is currently serving as a supervisor for over for 10 years and so congratulations to ms gerard for your participation on this very esteemed national panel i also want to
060express to the public and to this board that our summer bridge registration opens today and as we share it in our last board workshop we are looking at offering a very robust face-to-face summer bridge program in accordance with the district's health and safety protocols most all of our elementaries our middle and high schools summer bridge programs will be taking place from june 21st through july 15th some a little bit shorter due to the longer when we moved the school year back as a later start time in last august and so we're obviously going to have a later ending time i want to really steer our families or participants to the our website sign up for elementary and middle school summer bridge programs reservations.pcsb.org just go to our website it's a very prominent the location of
061these and we're also offering a lot of high school summer bridge by contacting your schools these are more subject-specific course-specific sometimes where students need truly need to make up a credit perhaps something didn't go as well as planned throughout the school year but we have a summer bridge site on on our website certainly the pcsb.org forward slash summer bridge and it'll steer you in any which way i know the board is excited as i am too about the numerous camps enrichment camps that we're offering this summer we also have a separate attached link site to that where it's pcsb.org forward slash summer camps these enrichment camps are designed to expand the academic learning you heard from our arts and our music individual specialists today and they're they're across the board and we value them as
062as much as as any others so i'm pleased that we're we're rolling out a very very robust summer program also as you know the college and career days that we've had virtual huge success i've shared that the results with you i want to thank lynn moet for really working on the same behalf for students with disabilities our esc virtual college career and life fair is this thursday march 25th and i can anticipate as just as as successful of a college and career fair that we've had we've had two so far this is very personalized information for students with ieps in terms of the providing their effective services to them and their families there there's really a neat twist to this one though through march 25th families can preview information videos about agencies and many other
063things so you don't have to wait to the 25th you can go online and really watch a lot of information videos and then live on march 25th from 6 to 7 30 you can participate in the table talks that will take place very similar to the college and career fairs that we have again i want to steer people to our website because it's it's very it's placed there in a very prominent location as i placed at your desktops i mentioned before the pcs connects level up activities they're going to continue next up is families from grades in grades it's students from grades four through eight to discover free online art activities it's very appropriate as marches arts education and this is from seven to eight on march 30th so we're going to continue these and
064the response has been very very favorable and i think we're going to continue to hone on it refine it and so forth but i couldn't be more proud because a lot of the things that you've heard today whether it's dr karak or others those are things that as a district we are extending ourselves to do it's not required but we feel like it's going to make for much more complete education and certainly training for our teachers and our students thank you board members that completes my report thank you all right items introduced by the school board attorney i have a report this morning that is always a good sign and then we will move to items introduced by school board members there any items all right i have one the new board training for new
065school board members is tomorrow and it is online and so you should be receiving if you have not already received the link to get onto excel event if you need if you haven't received it you need it let me know because i can share that with you and also our june conference for all school board members it's a joint conference with the superintendents and our school board attorneys and several of the other committees it's going to be face to face they're planning on it being and it's here in town not here but it's in tampa so it's easy for us to get there it's june 9th through the 11th on june 9th it's committee meetings and the board of directors meetings and the sessions for training are on the 10th and 11th so be watching
066for that registration opens up pretty soon i think it's right after this happened so if you're interested we're going to try it in tentatively i think is probably what they should be saying face-to-face but the plans are that it will be be handled that way so anyone else all right dr corbett are there any requests from school board members no man i'm sure i recorded no request today all righty good and our school board evaluation will be after we have finished with all of our public participation comments and so at this point i will adjourn the meeting thank you very much and we will then begin with public participation mrs simonetti do we have speakers hello excuse me do we want to we did receive the public comments from let's talk do we want to
067yes she's going to mention that we have our okay yes sorry mrs simonetti should the question was about the comments that we have received online the online comments were emailed to all board members prior to the meeting so you have those and they will be captured in the minutes as well good thank you and our speakers today for those in peer person comments board members and dr grego we have 33 speakers today under our general public comments our first speakers nancy velarde morning good morning i would like to express my sincere gratitude for the extraordinary efforts made by this district to facilitate the educators receiving their vaccinations the cooperation between school administrators and their staff and faculty to provide coverage and time to get the vaccines was also must appreciated these are perfect examples of
068the cooperation i have long hoped for in this county and it makes me very hopeful that we're moving in a positive direction more evidence of this is you're agreeing to provide electronic and virtual methods of submitting public comments to your meetings for your employees since many of these meetings are held in the morning while they are working they have long wanted a way to communicate with you this is a wonderful change especially for those who are still concerned about traveling to this building during a pandemic in the future those comments should be shared during the meeting as well as being attached to the minutes i've already written to you to thank you but i wanted to do it publicly toward the end of this week the district is also conducting focus groups to discuss a
069new format for a climax climate survey this is yet another step in collecting valuable input from your employees who share our mutual goal of constantly involving into an even better school system the insights of those in the classrooms are critical to assuring that we become the best we can be and continue our growth as a premier learning environment for all students pcta expects to be involved in discussions about the various uses for the additional funding being provided by the american relief act these monies can be used to add to the one-to-one computer goals we share for our students as well as replenishing ppe for the remainder of the school year school year among other things we are very hopeful that the district will include us and make use of the input we provide from the
070teachers to determine the best ways to further improve the safety and health protocols of our schools again thank you for the movement toward true collaboration and for the respect it shows for the work done by your very dedicated teachers and staff we look forward to working side by side with you in the future in all future endeavors for the continuing betterment of pinellas county schools thank you and thank you our next speaker is ava domico good morning morning hello my name is ava dimiko i'm 14 years old and i'm here speaking on behalf of my friends in public school i do not go to public school but my friends who do are affected by the decisions made by the school board and so am i know a six-year-old boy who came home from school one
071day with food from his lunch inside his mask that's not healthy i've often seen people with infections on their faces from wearing masks which proves they trap food sweat and spit and become breeding grounds for bacteria especially when students don't wash their cloth masks or when they re-wear paper masks this is not sanitary for children or adults bacteria doesn't just come from wearing them i've also seen many kids touching playing with and dropping their masks and putting them back on right along with all the germs they've collected from their hands or the ground masks send a message of fear by requiring students to wear masks you're telling the community that they should fear children this is a false message because according to the cdc quote fewer children have been sick with covid19 compared to adults
072end of quote it is also sending the message to children that they should be scared of each other which again is false according the pin to the pinellas county data dashboard about 4500 cases have occurred in children 15 and under this may sound like a high number but there are a total of nearly a million people in pinellas county this is four tenths of one percent of the population this shows that children are less likely to get covet 19 than adults are like i said i don't go to public school but when i'm out in public with my family i've received dirty looks and comments because my family has chosen to abide by the county guidelines and not make us wear masks however since kids wear masks to school people assume that children should wear
073masks in public and when we don't they get angry at our personal choice so your choice doesn't just affect kids in public school it affects private and homeschool students too thank you for your time and please consider the facts and make the right decision and not require children in schools to wear masks thank you our next speaker is tracy kepler good morning good morning i'm here today because pinellas county is essentially denying my children the right to their free public education that my tax dollars pay for they're denying them this right unless they wear a mask a medical action that can have negative health consequences and that has never even been studied for the long daily duration that kids are currently being asked to wear the masks for lisa kane excluded this school board is
074letting our own their own irrational fears and false narratives rule their decision-making not what is best for our children and not based on science last week governor desantis held a round table with several extremely well-respected world-renowned medical experts and i really think you all should listen to it all four experts agreed unanimously that children should be in schools without masks or social distancing they repeatedly pointed out the complete lack of any empirical data excuse me supporting the effectiveness of mask mandates anywhere and on the contrary they gave evidence of places where children have successfully been going to school with no masks or social distancing and no covet deaths they also referred to data on children's extremely low risk from covid that children are not significant spreaders to adults and that children and most teachers do
075not fall into the high-risk categories for covid please watch the video on that topic the fact that every single graph comparing mask mandate areas to no mask mandate areas shows the same exact curve of covet cases and deaths whether there was a mandate or not should tell a logical person that masks have no effect yet you the people in charge of educating our children teaching them logic and critical thinking are looking at that data and still choosing to force our kids to wear masks all day every day forcing them to wear something that could have serious and permanent negative health consequences despite it being shown to have no actual effect on coveted spread i wonder how many of you have worn a mask for seven hours straight five days a week as long as you
076continue to mandate our children wear masks i think you should have to i think you should see how you feel with the headaches fatigue who knows what other damage from reduced oxygen and increased co2 not to mention all the extra bacteria you'll be trapping around your mouth for future tooth decay and gum disease issues although i'm sure you'll fare a little better than our kids since at the very least you should be old enough not to constantly touch your mask all day thus depositing more germs and bacteria on it the way children obviously do the truth is you have no idea what long-term physical or mental effects this experiment is having on children and the fact that you're continuing to do it when even the experts have yet to produce data that shows it has
077a true effect is criminal please unmask our kids thank you thank you our next speaker is rachel goody good morning good morning my name is rachel goody and i have four children enrolled in the pinellas county school system and one of them being my youngest girl with special needs i'm here today to advocate for my children and appeal to the school board to allow our kids to learn and flourish in the school again my four children have been in person since the start of this academic year and we had completed the previous school year virtually as had everyone learning virtually had been very challenging especially for one of my kids my children miss their friends they didn't like having to sit in front of a computer for hours at a time and we are all
078very grateful when they went back to school to some sort of normalcy for them when the school year started there were many who stated it would cause a massive explosion of covid throughout our state this simply didn't happen in fact as the second semester started pinellas county schools moved more children back in january with no surge a common day described by my kids we arrive in class all to have our friends separated segregated and behind plexiglas everyone is masked it's hard to understand the teacher and the teacher has a struggle to understand us we go to lunch only three at a table again separated by plexiglas unable to really communicate while we sit in a very quiet cafeteria even when we go to pe or recess we're required to maintain separation and cannot play normally
079one of my daughters she had to play tag with a pool noodle is there's no contact during this year we've had to deal with unusual circumstances such as my other child being chastised by a teacher for simply sharing a pencil with a fellow student in need or my middle school student who has banned class outside in a mask he's in a fundamental school so he's in pants with a slit in his mask trying to play his french horn my last child has to carry a backpack that's over 20 pounds because there's no locker for him i'm appealing to the school board to allow our children to return to complete normalcy when they go back in august for the next academic year it's my hope that this year will provide my kids with the ability to
080interact with students develop the much needed social skills they need as a community we all have embraced diversity however in our schools we have very limited individuality we're segregated and they're masked each day should the school board decide to maintain the current restrictions this will be the third academic year impacted as adults we have looked back fondly on our milestones and our experiences in school right now they can't even do a field trip i feel terrible for the ones who are graduating with no prom as a junior nothing looking different this year 13 years of schooling no celebration the school more might the school board may think that this is a small and unfortunate decision that must be made during this very unique time however as reported by the national public radio in february the
081country is seeing a surge in mental health issues with our students the cdc reported two and a half times the suicide rate has gone up with our students the mental health crisis is becoming a public health crisis i'm just urging the school board to please reconsider going back to complete normalcy thank you for your time our next speaker is jason haynes good morning hello is that right i'd like to start off by just saying thank you for having these meetings open this up to the public so you can get a tone on the parents and the community my name is jason hayne i'm a lieutenant paramedic with the city of clearwater fire department my wife sarah haner has been with pinellas county schools for nine years we're both very invested in the community we care
082like you guys about our children and their well-being we're advocates of the public school system we want this school system to be successful and do well for all of our children and with that i'd like to just give you a little bit of my thought and many parents out there like me we recognize and understand the value of mass when coveted first started and what we are trying to accomplish with that which was to stop the droplet spread and keep our children safe and get them back in school so we can resume some normalcy obviously a lot has happened when education science-wise from when the pandemic first started and what we now know about mask is that at best they're inconclusive as far as the droplet count that is prevented and the effectiveness of the
083mass we also know that science continues to evolve and now we're being told potentially that two masks is better than one and really the implication behind that would be that one mask really is not that effective there are several studies one of the most recent that duke university just put out is that the face gators that we wear that are made of spandex and polyester are not effective in stopping the spread of the coronavirus and the gators are approved by pinellas county schools to wear to protect our children we know that there's a lot of variables with the mass right how it's worn the compliance of the children what the material is how it's clean and does it fit properly all of these things go into the effectiveness of the mask and so i think
084we potentially could agree that at best it's somewhat controversial inconclusive and out of respect for your position you do have a liability to protect our children and i recognize and appreciate the steps you guys have taken to keep our children safe and to put them back in schools it feels very liability driven what we know now about the side effects of the mass is that in a percentage of our children it does cause fear and anxiety that is somewhat subjective some kids obviously have no problem with it they think it's fun they think it's cool but we also do know that there are many children that have fear and anxiety of the mass when they get out of my vehicle to go into school at the car line and they've forgotten their mass there was
085a small panic attack oh no i forgot my mask and as a parent that does grieve my heart and i know i share that feeling with many other parents to see that moment of panic as if they will be disciplined or potentially catch a disease that will kill them thank you we know that this delays and inhibits learning thank you your three minutes has expired if there's more that you want us to to know you can give it to us in writing and we'll share that with the board you can sure yeah thank you okay thank you our next speaker is tommy king good morning good morning hi my name is tammy king and i have been a student a parent and a grandparent in the pinellas county school system for 50 over 50 years
086now and today i'm actually honored and a little apprehensive about speaking to you today my apprehension comes from the fact that you cannot see my facial expressions and i can't see yours so as when you speak it's it's comforting to have that kind of confrontation which in return makes my thoughts and sharing much easier which leads me to what are we actually teaching our children are they learning what are they actually learning feeling and comprehending when their teachers are communicating with them did you know that a scientific american study found that facial expressions such as smiling can improve moods thoughts and learning did you know that smiling relates or actually relates endorphins which up but helps a person feel happier and more positive did you know smiles motivate a person and boost their self-esteem helping
087them utilize their talent and passion did you know that a teacher's smile generates a positive learning ecosystem that supports their vocal contact and skills in a stress-free manner did you know some children only see smiles from their teachers and friends at school because of a dysfunctional home life recently i had a conversation with my grandchildren their sixth in ninth grade and they've always been happy to go to school and happy to experience all the things at school and just yesterday my granddaughter i'd asked picked her up from she goes to a charter school and she had mentioned that she didn't like school because it was hard to communicate with her friends and her teacher without seeing their smile also did you know lastly i trust that a plan going forward to address the psychological damage
088that has been done to the children which our future generation is being implemented in closing i just want to share that a smile is a curve that sets everyone straight thank you thank you our next speaker is dawn lechner good morning good morning i'm reading a prepared statement by a pinellas county social media influencer about the force mast and it's not okay today we cross a full-year milestone of our kids being forced to wear masks all day long how is it that under the advice of dr cho the county commission writes into its ordinance that kids under 18 shall be the sole medical discretion of their parents when it comes to masks yet under this body advised by the same doctor you've all concluded to force the kids in school to wear masks all day
089regardless of their parents medical choice when we look at the coveted numbers in the counties both in and out of florida with non-masked kids in schools they are not higher and in some cases they are actually lower the teachers union needs to get a grip the seasonal flu is in fact statistically way more dangerous to kids yet we never force them to wear masks for that and why is that we all know why this is i've seen many instagram snap and tick tock videos all year long on the insides of pinellas county middle and high schools when these kids leave classrooms they are in no way social distancing or keeping mass mess on the hallways nor when they leave the building yet when they sit inside the classroom they must there is no logic here
090this is propaganda and you all know that when you leave this building i want you to think about this as adults some of us put these masks on and it sits on our adult sized nose with about an inch of triangle space to suck in our own air but think about how small the little kid's noses are they barely stick out past their mouths so these kids all day that mask right up against their nose and mouth with very little or none of that triangle space that we adults have they also take shorter and faster breasts this is not healthy not physically mentally emotionally or educationally there is more to prove negative effects of mass on children than there is even the theory of protection from cloth masks what is being perpetrated on all of
091these kids is actually disgusting medical precautions are a parent's choice not as school boards imagine if we had made kids with hiv wear masks we are partici participating in black plague theater for car sars cov2 virus with a 99 cent 99 survival this presents a troubling danger to all our children as we can no longer identify them in schools just two weeks ago a brave little girl was bullied for the fifth time in two weeks and nothing can be done this time as the students can't be identified since they are wearing a mask this is a direct assault on our children's right to be protected by pinellas county schools to date more kids have been seriously injured in pinellas county schools by assault than kids getting ill from all of kovid let that sink in
092you are trading our children's safety from a serious injury for the false security of a cloth mask for a vivish which is 99 innocuous this is nothing but theater at the demand of the unions thank you our next speaker is eileen posh good morning good morning i want to talk to you about your responsibility to the students in your school district the florida statutes title 48 k-20 education code chapter 106.147 prohibits bullying and harassment each district must adopt and review a policy prohibiting bullying and harassment the policy must be implemented in each school by the principal the pinellas county school district does have such a policy it ensures that all students employees and volunteers learn and work in an environment that is safe secure and free from harassment of any kind the policy defines bullying
093as systematically and chronically inflicting physical hurt or psychological distress on one or more students or employees and may involve but is not limited to teasing social exclusion threat intimidation stalking including cyberstalking physical violence theft sexual religious or racial harassment public humiliation and destruction of property the policy defines harassment as any threatening insulting or dehumanizing gesture or written verbal or physical conduct directed against students or employees pinellas county school district policy states we are committed to providing a safe learning environment and will not tolerate bullying or harassment of any kind seminole middle school's mission statement stipulates they will provide a safe and positive educational environment that is conducive to a hundred percent student success one of their guidelines is to have respect for self and others the administrators of the school have created the policy now
094it needs to be enforced we all know the children can say nasty and hurtful things to each other but is up to the adults to monitor the situation teachers need to watch and intervene students observing the bullying need to know it's okay to report the behavior to someone in authority without fear of reprisal principals are responsible for disciplining students who act aggressively toward their victim we entrust our children to you and we expect you to provide a safe haven by not confronting this bullying you are complicit isn't that what we're told every day kids who are bullied struggle with self-esteem maintaining relationships and often have trust issues they often develop depression and anxiety and avoid social interaction the stress brought on by bullying can exacerbate health problems such as skin conditions stomach and heart issues
095kids who are bullied suffer academically each year five and a half million kids skip school at some point during the year because of bullying they're more likely to drop out of school smoke drink alcohol get into fights and be arrested how can you look yourselves in the mirror knowing all the consequences of bullying in our schools you're supposed to be guardians of our children it's time to own up to your responsibilities thank you your time is up thank you and again if there are other things that you need us to hear you can give them in writing you can give it to us and we'll all receive it our next speaker is eric weather good morning good morning how are you i just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak today you never
096guess what i'm going to talk about but i'd like to comment on the health and safety protocols for the remainder of this year and for next year you know i think we've been doing a lot of good things as a school district here you have specifically some of the protocols put in place for this school year i know it was tough decisions but you know the increased sanitization of the facilities has been fantastic and research has shown that having kids that have symptoms staying at home and not going to school that's the most effective way to you know reduce the spread of any virus really i would say moving forward i'd like to recommend reconsidering the mask mandatory mask requirements to be you know optional for for students reason being is research has shown on
097adults it's limited on on kids obviously but on adults about 70 of individuals wearing masks for prolonged periods of time can experience headaches things like a hypoxic condition within the body can exist and that's you know that's not great for our kids right we've also seen you know skin irritation as some of the other speakers have have mentioned and that's just kids playing with their masks all day and it's not a great environment for them to learn and so i would i would recommend reconsidering those for next year or earlier if possible to you know remove the mandate for mass i appreciate you guys taking care of our kids and expect that you'll keep doing that thank you our next speaker is anne-marie weather good morning morning i think it's still morning my name is
098anne marie and just so you have a glimpse into my point of view i am a former teacher of pcsb and now a very active volunteer i have seen a lot in the last 16 years and have many opinion have had many opinions on various items but have not once come here to be honest i've always felt it often seems to fall on deaf ears as the speaker speaks and there's no response from the board i wonder why they do it but now i get it i have to speak for the many like me last summer i sat through every one of your live workshops and meetings i listened and i waited and i heard all of your discussions on if we could go back to school then the school district not the board presented
099a plan after much discussion fear and questions most of you were still reluctant to agree to send our children back to school granted that was a tough decision and i empathize with that and wouldn't you agree now that you absolutely did what was best for children the anecdotal evidence of children who have not gone back that are struggling in so many ways is sad and disheartening the cdc itself now encourages children to go to school during these times that wasn't written in the language initially my point here is that the cdc did not explicitly say go back to school but you all were ahead and we did i'm here today on behalf of my children and many others who are ready to take the next step back to what school actually is today i focus
100on visitors on campus and returning my right as a parent to choose if and when my child will wear a mask it's time to pull back the fear veil just a little bit more much like you did last summer on march 17 2021 per the cdc the cases of covid19 and school-aged children was 17 out of 100 000 and if you compare that to our district size of around 102 000 000 students that is only a 0.00017 infection rate there is consistent proof in the data from the cdc that the infection and thereby transmission rate among the youth is incredibly low so why then the six and a half hour a day five day mass use why when they are walking outside is it on when they can take it off at pe i understand
101that you might not likely take full steps in this school year but for this school year as we enter the upper 90s in temperature no child if their parent so chooses should be forced to wear a mask to get from place to place when they are outside think about the logic of this like i said at pe they take off their mess because they're outside so why then must they wear them outside in other scenarios this with the removal of the six feet physical distancing and removal of physical barrier recommendations just put on the cdc's website seems to me like an area to be reconsidered for this school year moving forward dr grego and school administration i specifically urge you to present to this board with least restrictive ways to move forward and lead the
102way next school year as you did this we have proved to the critics that we can go back this year now let's for the good of our children move on with some more stakeholder involvement and a least restricted educational environment once again thank you our next speaker is myla lambo hi my name is maya limbo i am eight years old and now a homeschool student because my parents don't want my face covered just to go to school i miss my friends and teachers and i miss being able to see their faces as a homeschooler this has been the best year of my life i've been eating healthy food playing outside with my sister and getting more time with my family and of course not having to wear a mask but i'm sad for my friends
103because by wearing masks it is hurting their healthy immune systems and they are being forced to social distance kids need to be outside playing in the sun with their friends they need to be eating healthier food like fruit vegetables and they need to be drinking water all the time me and my little sister just started meeting up with other homeschool families i can see their faces and we are allowed to breathe we are allowed to play without worrying about social distancing when i'm out with my sister in stores people are so happy to be able to see our faces the kids i see in stores with nasa on have very sad looks in their eyes and seem confused why they are having to do this all the time it's time to put a stop to
104this so more kids can return to school without wearing a mask unmask our children and let their smiles free thank you for your time today happy easter thank you and happy easter to you our next speaker is susan bucci suzambuchi out there susan boochy hi good morning susan bucci from tarpon springs so recently i met a few retired a two superintendents and a few retired teachers and they all couldn't be happier that this was all behind them now because of the decisions that you are all faced with today we know you care about our children and it can't be easy for you right now with all the polarization going on and i've just never seen so much division in my 64 years so i have friends that worked in for pharmaceutical companies in the pr
105with marketing and they know firsthand what goes on behind the scenes they've made millions of dollars planning with pharmaceutical companies you know putting like with like in the movie industry and songs and tv a word here a word there a sentence a paragraph they said it took 10 years to get the public used to the idea of taking a diet pill they never would have done it took 10 years and i know they know what they're talking about because they did it for a long time and you know they were at the top of their fields so part of what's going on is fear and fear is selling and they have us all out of our minds with just you know what we have to do you know putting on these masses part of it
106and we're just playing it to their hands by doing it so we have to really just stand up and say no you know the pharmaceutical companies are making i don't know how much money they spend billions of dollars in advertising and they get a say with what they do and how they control us i had covid friends of mine have had covert all seniors none of us were hospitalized we followed a protocol there's treatment available we don't have to be that scared there is treatment available and we have to understand that there's a doctor joseph mercola dr david brownstein the highwire.com is a website you can go to and this man he interviews people from all over the world tops in their fields they're not they're not influenced by pharmaceutical advertising dollars and so you're
107getting the truth we don't have to be afraid so i thank you thank you our next speaker is denise lewis welcome thank you for listening i appreciate the time to be here and to share with you my thoughts i noticed that you began this meeting with a community reverend or pastor or member of the clergy and so i would like to start what i'm going to share with you with the verse of scripture which is found in proverbs chapter 31 verses 8 and 9 and this is actually the reason that i'm here it says open your mouth for the dumb or those who can't speak for the rights of all the unfortunate are those under the care of someone else open your mouth judge righteously defend the rights of the afflicted and the needy you
108have taken parents rights away from making the medical decisions for their children which is unjust unlawful unnecessary i won't go into all you've heard all the stats all of the science you can find signs to support any any viewpoint you want to but i would like to read you a letter usually when i speak it's not like this i usually speak in front of hundreds of people i have a group of people i work in health and wellness i'm a grandma i'm actually a graduate of pinellas county schools i went to belcher elementary i went to oak grove middle school and i graduated from clearwater high school for some reason i'm really nervous to speak here today when normally i'm not but i would like to read you a letter from one of my family
109not my family but one of the families that's in my organization okay all right it's right here okay i am heartbroken this morning i need your prayers i need your love i need your support my son has been struggling with covid with the school schedules changing with all of the rules and regulations confusion sadness i know lots of kids are struggling but lately his mental health has been deteriorating he's been saying things that make us believe he may harm himself we are headed to the emergency room with my 11 year old i am crying my head off i'm trying to stay strong but i feel like i'm crumbling into dust he's my baby even though he's 11 i still see him as that six week old who i rescued i can't think straight all i
110see is my son his dark eyes no smile not even sure why he's alive he's confused i need a miracle he didn't ask for this the whole quarantine remote school schools changing suicide is up in our children thank you do the right thing next speaker is jeffrey caputo good morning good morning the potential harms masks can cause to youth outweigh not only the health benefits but also outweigh the risks to them and the public rather than if they are not wearing masks i have emailed the school board and i have the prepared written statements here if anybody wants a copy everything stated today is based on legitimate source material referenced and quoted in those documents the school systems in sweden and denmark during the pandemic and still to this day do not require masks both
111have proven that youth are not likely to become severely affected by the virus nor are they likely to transmit there has been a low incidence of severe covet 19 among school children and children of pre-school age during the pandemic there is significantly lower transmission of sars2 to children than adults child deaths from stars 2 are rare swede and denmark have proven all this further there was no higher rate of infection among the school children in sweden who had no school-wide matched mandate whose schools were never closed for children under 16 as opposed to finland whose schools remained closed during the pandemic so there was no difference between one that was closed and one that was open with no masks in infections considering that sweden had no mass mandates there was no additional household risk for
112the elderly co-residing with children still in school during the pandemic in sweden during school sessions of the four months through the peak of the pandemic that nasty peak they had of deaths the icu coveted cases were one child in 130 000 for teachers risks for being icu coveted amongst preschool teachers and among school teachers were just 1.1 and .43 respectively the likelihood of potential harms of masking youths is inevitable facial emotional recognition that's fer and reading faces in general is considered one of the most primary faculties in the neurodevelopment and to the development of basic psychosocial skills in youth since mass cover most of the face it's not a stretch to conclude that fer that is facial emotional recognition in youth it's not a stretch to conclude that it will be ultimately impaired and or
113damaged as a result of constant mask wearing if the fer faculty is disrupted it is linked to psychopathology as both a precursor and byproduct of disorders considering that fer is developed structurally through childhood and adolescence and since masks cover most of the face then the masking of youth will inevita the masking of youth will inevitably impede or damage their fer development this is likely to cause a spike in mental health care costs pinellas county-wide particularly due to the need for a massive volume of potential diagnoses due to such an important neurodevelopment and psychosocial faculty being disrupted in the youth county wide it's therefore no exaggeration that the constant consistent masking of children and adolescents will be detrimental to their thank you can leave that with a person out there and they'll get it to us
114our next speaker is gina casa welcome hi thank you okay i'm going to bring up facts from the governor desantis roundtable talks with epidemic epidemiologists from around the world dr atlas stated that our country was willing to sacrifice its children out of fear and this is the biggest tragedy of the pandemic fear is the contagion the cure cannot be worse than the disease per governor desantis masks in public is not evidence-based science masks are harmful and have caused a great social division dr atlas stated children are not significant spreaders to adults masks are not effective for their own protection or the protection of others this feeling was unanimous across the board surgical mask boxes state this product is not a respirator and will not provide any protection against covin19 or other viruses or contaminants the
115cdc did a study on masks in may of that masks do not stop the spread of viral infection dr gupta from oxford stated masks have very high negative impacts on children and are deeply damaging the virus models were extremely wrong with their predictions and none of our hospitals were overwhelmed the media right now is talking about cases and not deaths we cannot sacrifice our children because of fear of some adults our children are suffering suffering psychologically and the damage will take a very long time to repair all these epidemiologists at the governor's health discussion stated teachers are at absolutely no risk from our unmasked children i just ask that you allow them to return to a normal life with the normal sports proms graduations and that is all thank you thank you our next speaker
116is david happy welcome i'm here on behalf of the 1500 members of pinellas watch school board what are you doing what are you doing masking these children none of you sitting up there are medical doctors you're not my kids doctor none of you are doctors how is it prescribing my healthy kid to wear a mask any of your business school board members you're you're elected we voted for you tell you what why don't you have the courage to take a straw poll right now and if 51 of the parents say you should resign then resign we don't want you as our representatives there's no reason for these kids to be masked i've seen parents come in here for a year and be as gracious as they could possibly be to you too gracious you're harming
117our children you have no data no science no facts no study no medical evaluation no psychological evaluation all you have is junk science the recommendation of dr cho dr cho whose county has received tens of millions of dollars in cares funding to keep this going that's your expert that's your conflict of interest expert that you're listening to you don't have the credentials none of you to advise me to put a mask on my child teachers are not dropping dead in pinellas students are not dropping dead in pinellas it's a virus you know what there's been a virus every year in our schools since we were in school we've accepted this nonsense for way too long because you know what at the beginning we thought y'all knew maybe something we didn't know we were wrong we
118were wrong to ever allow you people this much power you've abused it you're abusing our children you should all resign you should all resign you need to unmask these children we don't have confidence in you anymore you need to unmask these children unmask these children thank you our next speaker is jeannie coffin hi i have a lung disease so i have to hold this open so i can get air because i have a lung and heart problem and if i don't get enough air my heart beats too fast and then i can't breathe so that's why i'm holding it open not to be disrespectful well i wanted to tell you that i didn't know about this until this morning at six o'clock and as i was drinking my coffee i got on the internet and
119the first two things that i looked up was about the mask and in europe the center of disease prevention and control their evidence suggests that young children do not spread the virus easily we have a researcher here in the united states and he was just on tv this morning as i was drinking my coffee god does have a sense of humor he doesn't answer prayers he came on and it's his name is boomer r collins and he has proof that the cdc has made false numbers for the covid that they have moved the real deaths at people so let's say they died they were in the hospital for a heart attack and then they got tested for covid and then they died they were tet they were on their death certificate they would put down
120covid and then the heart attack so we will never know what the real numbers are and that is so sad because without really knowing the real numbers and the real truth and how do we how do we come to conclusions or to fix this problem without the real numbers so second of all like i was telling you i do have copd and i've had bypass and i have an irregular heartbeat and i was near death and i ended up getting on this experiment drug and it has changed my life i don't take any more steroids i'm not on it i only do one inhaler a day but i was on nebulizers four times a day so i couldn't really go very far because i had all these drugs and i couldn't walk without breathing but
121these two specialists of mine put me on zinc vitamin d c elderberry and i have not been sick after six months of being on these this vitamin cocktail i don't get sick anymore i was in the hospital for colds for pneumonia it's just been amazing what these cocktails do so i truly believe we could we should be advertising this instead of these masks that really don't have anything to do when we have things that really do work my doctors also said i need to get healthy so he they said to keep my weight down and to keep physically strong well i have a grandson that i take take to school how can you run around with these things how can you stay strong with this mask on you thank you our next speaker is jonathan
122riches all right good morning jonathan riches i am with community patriots of pinellas county i am here for a free speech for alicia i'm also representing born to ride 45 i'm a president trump supporter i'm here today because outside this building right now there's about 30 people rallying in support of alicia who is a student at seminole middle school she was bullied by other students in her school she brought the attention of her bullying to dr mcmahon the principal sixth grade principal also dr moss michael moss and they paid no attention to her and you know i find something very interesting at the beginning of this meeting you emphasized about how seminal middle school was say something to say something program week where if you say you know stop bullying and violence in the school
123system alicia and her mother said something and she was ignored i call on michael moss to be fired i call for dr mcmahon to be fired alicia was wearing a trump hat and she got bullied harassed inside the bathroom in seminole middle school she locked herself in the cell and her bathroom stall and recorded it recorded it i heard the recording hundreds of other people heard the recordings she took it to doctor who mcmahon who called trump a racist her mother took it to dr moss who made her erase the tape erase the evidence of bullying what is going on here in pinellas county what is going on because yesterday we were in front of the school there were 30 of us we're in here to support we're here to support alicia say no to
124racism you know what they said on the tape they were calling alicia a cracker a hockey and the principal done nothing about it so imagine listen all forms of racism in this school should not be accepted no student should be subject to being called a crack or a honky they should be disciplined suspended or possibly expelled get it together pinellas county taxpayers and patriots are tired of this they're tired of trump supporters of people supporting a past president getting harassed no no child should be subjected to being harassed because they support trump obama clinton whoever it's your right it's free speech it's freedom of expression it's one of our presidents stop it because more patriots like me are going to come out and speak about it there's going to be more protests outside as far
125as masking we know mandatory masks are unconstitutional make it optional our wonderful governor great governor ron desantis he said we need more civics teachings in the school system not critical race theory we need more civics we need more appreciation and love for law enforcement for our first responders thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is audra christian good morning hey guys how you doing i'm back again i wanted to let you guys know that my throat hurts just from wearing this mask for the last two hours what is that last two hours waiting to speak and i thought i don't even know how you guys do this all day and then i remembered that you don't i've been to your back office you're full of garbage you don't wear your masks
126all day but you require teachers too and kids too i just think that's really wrong so last time i came in i had asked you guys to learn to be honest right be honest with yourselves be honest with the public stop towing party lines stop sucking up the agenda and just be honest because that's what you are hired to do i swear you guys project right like when you guys said civil discourse you know we're back there laughing at you because we're like civil discourse was that kind of civil like the time the mom was thrown to the ground with her 13 year old daughter out in the hallway you can hear the screaming on the tape from people in here speaking when she was thrown to the ground for not wearing a mask as
127they walked out of the building right thrown to the ground you can hit the little you can hear the little kid slap the ground with her body when the officer threw her to the ground i was here i remember it you know so like it's kind of interesting that you're like civil discourse because you honestly don't mean it you guys double speak a lot now i have proof of double speak do you know that people know who you are they know your faces and around town i get sent photographs of you guys in places of business inside this building not wearing masks if you're going to make a child who can't help themself wear a mask you need to do your part tape it to your head keep it on because you'll see how very
128unpleasant it is number two the sunshine laws and workshops i have requested multiple times multiple times let's have a workshop where we actually have discourse because at this point we just yell at you guys you know ignore us for an hour or two and then you go home you might you know drink or binge whatever you do to get over the stress but what i'd really like to do is a workshop i have requested multiple times to be invited to the workshop for a period of about five years that's half a decade for those of you who can count half a decade i've been requesting to come in so david kopersky where you is david kaperski out here hey i would like to be invited to a workshop sir i'm officially requesting we have an
129attorney now who's willing to work with us i want to be invited to the workshop i want a parent workshop event where all y'all show up all y'all answer questions and we have civil discourse i was told by caprice edmonds that we can't do that per the sunshine law that's a half-truth i don't know if she was ignorant of it or if she just didn't want to meet with us you can meet with us all together you just have to record it make it public so once again start being honest guys okay let that be your lesson for today the word honesty h-o-n-e-s-t-y honesty perfect our next speaker this morning is lindsay schultz good afternoon hello board members my name is lindsey and i am the parent of two boys who attend sunset hills elementary
130i stand before you like many other parents have today asking you to finally end the mass mandate our children have been denied personal autonomy long enough and parents have been denied the right to decide what is right for their own children it is not the responsibility of my second grader nor my kindergartner to make a teacher a parent of a student or anybody else for that matter feel safe and that is all masks really do offer a false sense of security if any of you watched the recent roundtable discussion governor desantis had with the medical professionals then you would have heard i believe his name was dr gupta say it is not necessary for children to our mass to protect themselves or others in fact they go on to say mass do very little to
131prevent the spread of the virus we all pay property taxes that fund the schools and spend hundreds of dollars every school year on supplies and snacks for our classrooms we deserve to be heard on this issue and at least come to some sort of compromise if you continue to ignore our repeated requests i'm sorry i lost where i was if you continue to ignore our repeated requests on this issue then i suggest you guys start allocating some money for classroom supplies because we'll stop providing them you can't choose to accept our financial contributions but continue to ignore our repeated requests on this issue in closing i would like to thank miss lisa kane i wish she was here today oh she is okay i'd like to thank you for being the only member of the
132board who has not abused your position of a power abused your position of power and believes mass should be a parent's choice so thank you miss kane and as for the rest of you shame on you for turning this into something political thank you thank you our next speaker is yvette go good afternoon hi so let's be clear the facts are the facts the average death rate before the rona was 79 years old i want y'all to process this the average death rate last year with the rhona is 79 years old with 2.9 comorbidities 70 of the deaths are over the age of 80. did you know that we had a hundred percent increase in suicide last year did anybody know that we had a hundred thousand suicide deaths we had a thirty percent increase
133in drug overdoses but you're not getting that from the mainstream media that's not happening the pediatricians came out last year on mainstream media saying that children were not affected by this virus so i might not have kids in school today and if i did they would not be in public school i would be homeschooling them how dare i as a parent to send my child to a school to be masked and taught by teachers who are masked so this right here and what you're wearing on your face is not normal this is and stop making it normal we are social conditioning the children and it's been a year unmask our children what you all are participating in and how you lay your heads down at night is the psychological dismantling of our children that's what
134you're participating in so if you can go to sled go to sleep at night and have a good night's sleep then more power to you the mask symbolizes and is bringing about the deletion of self-identities and destroying human interaction our children are now being raised in fear fear of each other fear of the world of illnesses of viruses and even the air that they breathe they are being taught to fear everything and prolonged fear is terror and terror becomes trauma which could last for a lifetime and will so the psychological damage being done to the children is irreversible and y'all are participating in that i am a parent of children that i raise and i fed them so if you're not going to go and buy their groceries and control what people put in their
135mouths whether it's a cigarette or alcohol you don't need to be controlling what our kids put on their faces i refuse in closing and by the way we're in a case demic right there's no deaths remember that these children are not affected and they are not spreaders so i don't know why you guys are holding firm to this but i refuse to let my now grown kids think what's happening now is normal and okay because it's neither normal and i will continue to teach them to resist resist the nonsense with every fiber of my being so please make a decision to unmask our children and at the very very least let it be a choice god bless thank you our next speaker is alicia smith good afternoon i'm alicia smith i'm 12 years old and
136i attended seminole middle school since i started school back in january i have been bullied and targeted because i wear a trump mask hat and t-shirt last year during the pandemic i was diagnosed with alopecia areata it's immune deficiency and i had to shave my head since all of my hair fell out in big clumps so i was scared to go back to school so because i was in fear i would get bullied and even and for for my medical condition not only have i been humiliated and discriminated against for my freedom for my freedom to speak and free speech for my support because i support donald trump our former president i was humiliated at school because i wear trump a payload i had a difficult we had a difficult time identifying identifying one of
137my attackers because he had a mask on it made it harder to identify them it should be my choice if i wear a mask it was my body and my right to to make my own decisions please help me change the way that bullies are handled and please help me out at that so that future victims don't feel victim victimized over and over for someone else's actions i am tired of being attacked and physically being ashamed verbally verb for expressing my support for a former president is not political statement it is historical fact and you're and you're not protecting my civil right because it's your political posture i want new policy policies put in for victims who have been victims of bullying i was attacked four times once in the bathroom and two times after
138school well three times they pulled down my night gator and chilled my hair and they humiliated me in front of the whole school thank you our next speaker is cynthia smith good afternoon good afternoon my name is cynthia smith i'm alicia smith's mom i have i am ashamed of the way the administration has handled the attacks bullying attacks on my child i had went into the office to talk to dr moss and dr mcmahon not only did they re-victimize and blame my daughter and bully shame her they accused her of bringing it on herself they accused her of wanting this they accused her of being a racist the way that the administration handled this is not appropriate and there needs to be action done and there needs to be discipline with these people they're taking
139care of our children how can we have people who are telling our children that it's their fault because they are choosing their their first amendment right their civil rights to wear what they're allowed to and they're telling them no they can't because somebody else physically attacked them i had to listen to that video of my daughter in that bathroom it was a minute long i cannot imagine being a 12 year old girl listening to girls threatening to beat her up saying that they hope she gets covet the fear three people on the other side of the door how would you feel if that was you at 12 years old how would you feel that was your child the way the administration handled this it needs to be done differently we need to have different rights
140for our victims she has a safety plan but she's the one who has to leave early she's the one who has to change classes why can't we discipline these children if they're going to continue to bully they need to be removed from the school there needs to be something done and stop re-victimizing and victim shaming our children for other people's actions it's not allowed you guys teach for the first amendment you teach them about civil rights they speak up and they do it and you punish them how is that fair isn't it our job as the administration to be there for them dr moss alicia went to go see dr moss he told her she told him about the video he refused to let her go until she deleted the video to go back to
141class she was scared she deleted the video but she had it saved on her phone in another spot this is unacceptable he destroyed evidence he made my daughter not feel comfortable going to him in the afternoon when she was attacked three more times i ended up calling the pinellas county sheriff's department because she didn't want to go back to the school administration and talk to them because they did nothing she says they didn't even pull her out of class to talk about it again it was that brief moment in the hallway and that was it thank you our next speaker is joe ann marshall hi i heard this story a couple weeks ago and it broke my heart because i experienced it in with my three kids in broward county school specifically parkland schools and
142i say parkland schools because they were run by the parkland parents and not by the broward county schools my kids were bullied from kindergarten up through high school all a lot of kids were it was never dealt with the bullyers were empowered and they kept on doing it and we all know what happened in parkland schools you guys need to get it together my daughter was in pinellas county schools for five years she got bullied nobody did anything let's just shove it under the carpet you need to get a plan together this is heartbreaking she's trying to express her first amendment freedom of speech by wearing a trump hat and she gets assaulted if i walk out of here with my mega nation shirt on and somebody assaults me can they just say well you
143offended me it's your fault this is ridiculous i don't want to move up here and live in pinellas county and see the same stuff happen up here that happened in broward because it's heartbreaking and that's heartbreaking to listen to a story about a child like that you see something you say something i saw something and i'm saying something do something about it thank you thank you our next speaker is daniel amend good afternoon good afternoon commission board members superintendent i'm going to be short but sweet the unelected president is now in office the charade is over the mass don't work it's time to pull the plug on the mass program what you're doing to these kids is awful i have two kids one going into jacobson high next year the other one going into middle
144school and they have suffered due to the due to the masks and also not being in school was even worse but it's time to pull the plug on this it's crap and they don't work i think that can be shown you can cite your sight and stuff but the fact is you can see the results across the different nations and they don't see whether you use them or not there's really no difference in fact the ones that do the more lockdowns have more mass compliance tend to have more problems it seems to me so i would suggest that if you all want to get reelected to kill this thing next year get back to normal you're going to pay a price for this either in this life or the next one because you're going to
145be responsible for what's going down with these kids minds i've seen it i got one at home that's struggling and the crap's got to stop so good luck god bless and hope you all do the right thing cheers thank you howard pardon me our next speaker is elizabeth fox good afternoon hi i've been here before a couple of times i'm a grandparent so i have grandchildren in the pinellas county schools and i've asked this question before and i still have not gotten a valid answer what metrics are you using to make your decisions all i ever hear is you're listening to dr cho and even dr cho has a different recommendation for children at the county level than you have here so again i know this has been brought up and yet you still continue
146with the masks for whatever reason i'm not entirely sure i heard dr grego earlier say that the vaccines are available for all teachers in the pinellas county school system if that's wrong then i misheard but if that's true you have absolutely nothing to prevent you from removing these masks from these children and allowing them to breathe in school you've heard i'm not going to repeat what all these people all these good people have stated their science there are emotional reasons everything why i can't ever get an answer from you guys when does it end and in regards to the first amendment trampling the first amendment rights of that poor little girl that was just in here you all should be ashamed because that's just wrong and maybe it's not you in particular because you weren't
147at the school and handling it but if you don't handle it then you should be ashamed and that's all i have to say thank you thank you our next speaker is isaiah neal welcome stuff all over this podium good afternoon i'm here to stand with alicia from seminole middle all students and staff should have the right to free speech without fear of bullying from students and control tactics from the school principal bullying and gaslighting do not lead to student success which is the mission here of pinellas county schools right i am here to share a success story for oh by the way with that i am asking for and if it's not being done already an investigation into the video and the erase video and the meetings with the doctors and the principals involved there
148dr mccarron i think dr ross i'm here to also share a success story for my daughter this time last year she was wrapping up a successful year of kindergarten at high point elementary today she would be there in first grade but in thanks to your mask requirement for in-person learning i withdrew her and her funding from pinellas county schools and i've been able to obtain a family empowerment scholarship from the state of florida which i applied for at stepupforstudents.org this morning i dropped her off at her new private school with a full scholarship directed towards school choice and empowering me as a parent to choose the best learning environment for her which is there by the way they are a mask optional school and the headmaster said his enrollment numbers have been going through the
149roof this year as they are now near capacity i look forward to her enrollment there at that elementary for through middle school and then high school as well lastly i'm here to demand that you unmask our kids and make masks optional for students as you look towards the plan for next year which because i'm sure this year is finished and written off with with the with the mask requirements but for a few reasons the pinellas county commissioners have written an exemption allowing for parents discretion to decide for their own children why aren't school parents not afforded the same discretion here as mentioned what are the standards and factors you're looking for to change and eliminate the mask requirement we need straightforward objective definable transparency from this board student success which revision states should encompass body
150mind and soul not just the physical and body health and as a knee-jerk reaction to address the physical aspect of student health your mandate was adopted but what is the mass doing to the mind and soul we're losing human connection and personal touch students have gone this whole year without seeing a smile from their friends special needs students aren't able to see the full facial expressions of their teachers depression substance abuse youth suicide and physical harm is on the rise have we consulted with mental health counselors psychologists trauma survivors in considering the health and wellness of our students holistically and how the masks may be negatively affecting them the cure can't be worse than the disease and finally just to close we need god and i know that the meeting was opened in prayer but
151i'd like to offer this prayer as over the school so if you'll pray with me god as a country we need you as a county we need you as decision makers as a school board administrators and parents we desperately need you and we ask for you to be in this place for your truth for your strength and for your hope to be in this place with us in jesus name amen thank you our next speaker is keely gleason good afternoon good afternoon it's scary being a parent we are responsible for little humans lives to keep them safe to protect them the best way we know how that's our right and our responsibility as parents part of those rights and responsibilities is to make decisions that are in their best interest up until they become an
152adult from things as small as what they're going to eat their clothes they're going to wear and in the grand scheme of things those are very small decisions with little to no repercussions but still our decisions as parents to make nonetheless just as we make those minuscule decisions we also make life or death decisions most importantly including health care once again still our decisions to make as parents my kids have been in care whether they were at day camp or daycare throughout this entire time 2020 with no masks and guess what no covet case is there my oldest daughter and i both have severe asthma and since starting back at school having to wear a mask she has been out with chest problems numerous times just recently struggling to breathe but it wasn't just due
153to her asthma it wasn't strep throat wasn't coveted it was a bacterial infection in her lungs i also have a first grader she touches her face unbelievably amount of times a day as most five and six year olds do just like you and i most do without even realizing it so i put masks in our children when it has even been said by dr fauci himself that frequent touching whether it's to itch or move the masks increases likelihood of spreading infections from exposed areas like your hands and face this is a recipe for disaster we send our kids to school to learn that trusting you guys to keep them safe in the schools with their staff will do what staff will do part to watch our children but who are any of you to decide
154what is best for my child or anyone else's child and considering their health it's not for school staff or a board of members to make health care decisions especially not opposing the parents the choices of any parents every child is different every parent is different and we should all have a choice in the matter a choice not everyone can afford to homeschool i myself am a single mom and my kids have to go to school even though wearing a mask is against my choice these are our children we have the ability to make these decisions and have them carried out while being able to send our kids to school for an education so who are of you who are any of you to take that from us and from and for what a political advantage
155our governor and his board of health officials have deemed masks not only ineffective for children in schools but also harmful for their development do the right thing and i'll mask our children or at least give each parent and child a choice as they very well should have thank you our next speaker is deborah williams welcome hello thank you i've been here before this is my third time i do want to say it's a strange experience when you come to the building as an outsider just to let everyone know you kind of feel like a prisoner rather than a guest and i felt that needed to be said because that's been talked about by just about everyone that's been in this building the way that we're treated it's just it's very disempowering it's very strange so
156i thought that was really important to tell you all as you i'm sure you don't get the same experience that we do i'm a lot of two kids here in pinellas county they are no longer in your school system due to the overstepping school guidelines that you put into place last summer i couldn't bear to send my joyful and happy kindergartener to her first year of school to be emotionally and socially stunted by these so-called safety guidelines so my kids are now safe from this conditioning in a school where parents and students are respected and healthy medical decisions are not forced and my kids can get a quality education without the fear agenda being constantly projected on them every single day without them being sent the message that they are walking germ and disease factories
157on a daily basis they can be kids they can learn they can connect and thrive and this is what all children in this district should be experiencing and there's no reason that they shouldn't all be equal in this and that's why i'm here i'm here to speak up on behalf of those parents and the students and the teachers that can't be here that could that haven't been able to make it because of work or other obligations or a lot of these teachers have the fear that if they come here to speak up and tell you what they're experiencing and the difficulties and the harm that they are seeing done to these children that they will be they will lose their jobs that they will be fired and that's that's really unfortunate you know so you
158don't have transparency you don't have honesty that's really really a problem i'm also a health professional who's been in the field for over 12 years i've been teaching preventative health practices and i have a really strong gut feeling that you board members you don't actually know or understand what health actually is how it's achieved how it's maintained that's also a problem if you did we would not have seen what we've seen take place in these schools i just want to thank lisa kane your compassion for the children in this district your use of logic reason common sense you seem to be the only one who actually gets it i just want to applaud you for that everyone please applaud lisa she's been amazing thank you the rest of the board members here in this room
159you've been apathetic in the face of endless amounts of data numbers professional health and medical warning about the trauma being inflicted onto our students in this in this district by forcing mandatory masks cover half of their faces five days a week for seven hours a day or more our children along with the teachers here thank you unmask the children it's time our next speaker is sweet gonzalez good afternoon hello hello it is also my third time approaching here and it does feel a little bit like a prison we enter a room with police officers and as parents we have to be babysat by a police officer in every each individual room because i guess we may become out of control but what originally brought me here was seeing your police staff lie about an assault
160that got removed and then just seeing how they were overstepping their bounds it wasn't originally a mask issue until i saw that the outcoming of information wasn't being taken on by the individuals here and actually i have to stop the entire time that deborah was talking these two gentlemen here were clicking on their laptops writing stuff down and answering emails why do you have a place where we can come and talk to you when only half of the people are looking at you and even less than that are probably listening because they're doing something else that obviously is important it needs to happen right now and they don't have other specific office time to get to those emails or write down those specific things that's so disrespectful i don't know how we're supposed to teach
161another generation when the adults can't be respectful but we've got police watching us because we're going to be disrespectful the science keeps evolving but the new information isn't being taken in you know you're supposed to teach children people are supposed to be learning all the time we get new science in and nobody's taking into account that we are abusing our children now to have that information and to still tell our children that they have to mask up and do all of that is child abuse and that's what you're asking us to do is abuse our children because it fits a certain narrative that you guys had before all of the information came out i can understand in the beginning and that's why originally i wasn't here for that in the beginning wear the mask stop
162the spread but after a year when does it end after the science comes in and tells us that it's not only harming our children but it's not providing any benefit where does it end but other than that you weren't voted in as leaders not one of you were voted in as leaders you were voted in as a representative and if you don't understand what the word representative means it means to represent those that have voted you in so as you can see by the numbers and the people that continue to come out here that group outside that has been coming for six months for our children by seeing the amount of people that are coming in you need to vote with what we are asking you to do do as a representative and represent what
163the people are doing because month after month after month after month mothers and teachers are coming here to ask you for something that you're refusing to vote on be a representative and represent the people nobody voted for your opinion we voted for you to represent ours that's the whole point of being a representative of the people but more than that your officers need to be trained to not be able to lie about a mother here they need to also offer an apology to a child that they harmed and these gentlemen need to learn what it means to pay attention thank you thank you as clarification this time is for people to address the board and i do believe that each of the board members are listening so we have our next speaker yes our next
164speaker is jeremy kench good afternoon good afternoon i want to thank everybody that did show up as sheriff that they did because everything that i heard was pretty dang respectful and honest and it needs to be heard there is a group of people outside it isn't just for that child though i mean there's still a small group and i mean i guess my three minutes needs to be used with my sound like this because i mean i'm hearing that the charges are supposed to be dropped here soon or something's supposed to happen with all this stuff but i just want to clarify the videos the sounds this man refused me on the 27th to enter this meeting because i didn't have a mask that's all four of us getting denied you want more i mean
165i've got the video and the audio of my family entering this building and this man doing what he did and then the sounds after that of my wife's phone being thrown on the ground and tossed around by your mandate people last night at november november 9th at midnight you cannot legally hold on to anybody accountable for not wearing a mask today i want somebody's jobs mr ken mr kench if i can interrupt you for just a moment no i know you addressed the this is the time to address the board not to address anybody else in the room thank you about your employers you have these people that don't de-escalate situation that he assaults and texts my wife and then shortly after that the other officer takes and here's your other video the screen here's
166your sound to match with your videos that you have and there's nothing being done about any of this it starts up here all this bullying starts with you don't control your upper powers and allow them to bully your children we are not able to hear you address the board i can't hear you address the board so would you please turn off the video you can get it anytime you want when is something going to be done when is something going to change is something going to happen about this these children get harassed by everybody every day and you've got no support by your board by your building by your superiors by your officers your own entity i can't have charges pressed i mean i'm off and i want a citizen's arrest on him if not
167him somebody else hire up what do i have to do civil rights are being taken your charges are about to be dropped i can't wait i don't want them dropped i want a trial i want a jury to hear all of this crap that use guys allow and promote under your building and your roof because it wasn't about a mask that day this man never approached her said put a mask on she had a mask on she repleted back to this building to help somebody else out and heat and dig i remember you from last time on recording people this man assaulted my children and my wife for no reason and he still has a job and this man is supposed to be the leader of all this how are you your own entity and
168i cannot tell city police county police anybody to come in here and arrest somebody in this building because you are empowered under this roof but when you're out somebody else your powers are lifted you don't do this crap on the streets you all take your masks off and beat just regular people on the street but in here you do your little things because you got this whole control this whole power issue what is that about you're supposed to be here for our children taking care of our little ones and giving them a proper future and education not making them scared to death and have this fear i'm scared to even come to this building at this point worried about entrapment being set up at some point but i'm not gonna stop putting my voice out
169thank you our next speaker is heather patrick is heather patrick present good afternoon next year we can't do this how many more kids need to kill their kill things need to themselves my friend's kid killed herself three months ago three months ago a 12 year old hung himself that's disgusting you know whose heads that's on you guys you know why the kid is not able to have normal functioning his epilepsy came back he couldn't handle it anymore this kid went without epileptic seizures for almost five years until we put him back in a mask for a year we took away his programs and he killed himself how disgusting is that like why are we doing this where's the science where is it there is no science you have adults okay i have breathing problems we
170had another woman who had a heart condition come up we can't do this i know for a fact i see cops i see firemen i've been out without a mask on i go to publix every day third time i've worn one only because we have to it's out of control everything about it you're disrupting the children tell them how much you don't like the mask say it's scary scary it's scary when you can't see people's faces it's scary when kids can't see a smile it's just not normal the bullying the madness every time we have a meeting we're all coming every time there's more people outside more people inside this is out of control when is it and what is it going to take next school year this can't happen there's more of us that
171abandoned together that are going to do homeschooling we're not gonna come back to pinellas county schooling we're done this will be the last year my kid has got so many programs and so much going for himself he can't do anything now you guys have literally ruined a generation of children ruined how can you go up well i'm gonna keep the mask on again screw those little kids in their futures and their dreams and everything they've worked for everything so what about my friend's skin huh the body's still sitting on ice because of covid i hope you all think about this every time how sad if you had your son your daughter your neighbor's kid hang themselves because their epilepsy came back i have nothing more to say to you people i'm disgusted our next speaker
172is laura that's what she baker that's what she said there we go good afternoon thank you for your time and consideration i have come today as a parent of a pinellas county student and i want to voice my descent against the current black blanket mask mandate for all students i vehemently disagree with this policy and i ask that it not be approved for the next school year parents should be allowed to make the decision to mask or not mask their children it is not the place for the board to dictate this decision for our families thank you thank you our next speaker is liz frond let's call the name again is liz franz present okay thank you good afternoon i'm a little short hi i'm liz franz children cannot wear their masks properly they touch
173their masks constantly therefore they contaminate it with more bacteria and viruses let's see sorry children wearing masks dehumanizes them it embraces their expression and discourages communication the children need to see what kids and adults are feeling part of socialization is from reading and interpreting interpreting facial expressions kids need to see smiles and be reassured there is joy in everyday lives thankfully covet has spared our children but the same can't be said for the flu virus during the h1n1 in 2009 358 deaths occurred yet as of october 21st with covid the children 0 to 17 years old 108 children have died that's less than one tenth of a percent of all u.s cova deaths most kids don't have symptoms and don't have to be hospitalized the children cannot learn speech and letter sounds without observing the
174lips and the facial emotions which deprives the kids of enriching the conversations as an injustice that we will pay for in the long run mass teach our children to live in fear they ponder their thoughts that they can't breathe the air because it will kill me or make me sick this is what kids are thinking and it's not good masks are bad for the body mind and soul let the parents decide whether masks are appropriate for their for their children and this credit is given to amy young thank you thank you our final speaker today is ashley stoner good afternoon that's good thank you hello my name is ashley stoner thank you for allowing me to speak i have never masked my children in this whole year that we've this has been going on i
175kept them home and did the homeschooling that didn't work out my two oldest ones are honorable students very good students and they were failing they were having f's in every single class my 12 my 12 year old has been singled out numerous times in school for his mass being improper he's telling them he can't breathe they are not honoring mass breaks in middle school the teacher actually told me how can we when we only have 48 minutes in the class not my problem they're masked at pe all day long he's gotten into an incident that the assistant principal told me that we would have to homeschool them again or take them out and put them in the online schooling if we can't follow the rules they've only been back for two months my seven-year-old daughter
176has been sick twice hasn't been sick this whole entire year she puts the mask on she's extremely sick she now has breathing issues every day she's got asthma so bad that every single day i took her doctor she's not sick it's allergies and it's the mask she has blisters all over her nose she literally cannot breathe and it's just insane what's going on because it's not fair i can't breathe the sun i'm panicking right now i'm sweating of course it might be nerves too but it's just not fair they're not honoring breaks they're not allowing kids to literally at lunch my son's got in trouble twice they have to finish eating their food and immediately put the mass back on they're allowed to hang out with friends none of this not to mention it's literally
177sorry it's it's literally affecting so much going on in the school system and they don't care i got a phone call the other day about my eight-year-old again and they are like we care so much we want to help you i tell them my kids can't breathe the mask on they need to have them off at pe well if they're not social distancing they can't have their masks off i find it crazy because i go to adventure island and you have to put a mask on to walk into the door as soon as you get in the door have it off the rest of time how is that stopping the spread of covid it doesn't make any sense the masks literally don't work and we cannot breathe with them on i don't understand why the
178school bird board is doing that and you guys are doing it because you can because people don't have choices i next year and pulling all four of my children out of schools and i will be looking at private schools because there's numerous that give you the choice where there's risk there must be choice always but that's all i have to say so thank you so much for your time thank you okay then this ends the portion of the public participation thank you very much and we will do our evaluation as soon as people could get up here you