Bexley Board of Education Regular Meeting - February, 9, 2022

001[Music] yes i'll do that again in accordance with ohio revised code section 121.22 i hereby call the february 9 2022 meeting of the bexley board of education to order kyle would you call the role please dr baker here dr jade miss mitchell here ms pickerel here ms powers here thank you the next thing is our sign up sheet for public participation as we work to ensure that our public participation section is responsive to our community's needs as well as those of the boards to conduct business in an orderly and efficient manner we ask that those wishing to speak at public comment sign up at the podium prior to the meeting as always our expectation is that everyone who speaks will conduct themselves in a civil and respectful manner mr smith will you please collect the

002sign up sheet thank you and next up is the pledge of allegiance [Music] to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty [Music] there he is this is your moment members of the school board all of you it's great to see your faces dr fine school administration i just wanted to welcome you guys to this meeting space in city hall we are so pleased to be able to share the space with you to have you have you use it hope you're comfortable here anything you need let us know normally there's a snack box back there for those long meetings we'll make sure that you have that here as well but uh just wanted to welcome you and i hope maybe in the coming months to come by again and just

003give you a quick update on what's going on in the city but until then i hope you guys have a great meeting and again welcome to city hall and and thanks for being here thank you thank you thank you mayor kessler it's been a pleasure to work with you and collaborate with you you've been incredibly helpful since i arrived six months ago always lending a hand uh we appreciate all the work that your team has put in with our team to make sure that this is possible it is a great experience to have the opportunity to have more guests with seats so thank you we appreciate it thank you and welcome thanks guys you want to go forward towards we're going to have i'm going to make sure i get to a mic actually i'll

004sit from here so that we are heard we're going to have annabelle annabelle long's going to come up annabelle come on up to the podium if you want to bring your family and brad would you mind getting me my comments on there annabelle is a sophomore at bexley high school and we've got some really exciting news about annabelle annabelle is one of 100 students to be selected out of a pool of 10 000 to be a disney dreamer that is quite an accomplishment it is my understanding that you're going to participate in lots of great activities when you go to disney later on this month or i think in march you're going to be working with people who are amazing have had incredible successes has been on the journey and you were selected out of

005your intellectual curiosity your compassion your optimism and it is quite an accomplishment to be selected out of such a large pool you should be incredibly proud i know your parents are proud of you we are very proud of you and we can't wait to hear how your trip goes in march so if you would we'd love for you to introduce who you're with and tell us uh when is the trip thank you so much um i'm with my mom and my dad and um i really appreciate all that they've done in like supporting me um and the trip is from march 3rd to march 6th so i'll be going to disney world with like 99 of the kids and there's going to be like seminars and career opportunities and networking and i get to be

006part of a disney parade so i'm super excited for that and yeah annabelle that is such a big deal super proud of you you are the first disney dreamer i've ever met so let's give it up for annabelle thank you [Music] okay thank you we're now going to have our varsity girls soccer team along with their coaches join us by the podium we can come in just i think sitting in the aisle or hanging in the aisle we'll come in and get a picture here in a minute this team went on an incredible journey in the fall and i'm bummed that it's just taking us now in february to get you in here but we had some transitions of the board re-entries of the board and i know that you were making your rounds on

007some incredible successes as you uh have enjoyed the incredible journey uh you can see on the projector the accomplishments and there are many many more accomplishments individual uh but i think some really important things to touch on msl champions district champions regional champions state semi-finalists and i believe that game was at our dc our november board meeting we were live getting texts from folks that were there we were devastated we couldn't be there we know it was a tough battle i think it was a 1-0 but we couldn't be more proud coach scott james was also voted coach of the year and i think one of the coolest things is there at the bottom this team was the 2021 united soccer coaches high school team ethics and sportsmanship award so here's why that's a big

008deal wins and losses are awesome and being part of a team is amazing but when you're noticed and you are honored and recognized for doing the right thing regardless of the wins and losses that's a big deal so we're incredibly proud of that that's a big deal i had a ball watching i felt like i was part of the team i got to sit on the sideline on the track and to hear coach the way you all were very positive with one another the team was clearly evident and we're really proud i do have a quick comment unfortunately athletic director goldberger could not be here in person he's doing some other events around campus he had a couple things he'd like to to say i'm tremendously proud of what our girls varsity soccer team was

009able to accomplish this year winning back-to-back league titles capturing the district title with an incredible win versus granville then capturing the regional title and advancing to the state final four for the first time since oh nine it was truly a magical run what became evident to all who watched this team play is how much they cared about the team and how much they put team before self while there were incredible individual accomplishments achieved and honors received and all were well deserved this year's squad was truly a team congratulations to the 2021 girls varsity soccer program on a season that will be remembered for many years to come let's give it up for our soccer superstars coach james anything you'd like to add well thank you everybody for having us out here today um this is

010awesome uh it really is truly special to be a part of these girls even though we haven't seen each other in a while it's like we just haven't left off uh so it's been great so thank you for everybody um yeah that's i want to say too much well we're really proud of you i love standing out in the hall watching all of you come in because it does feel like that family has been reunited because you're all in so many incredible events and things uh get busy it's great to see you all reunited at least with those that could make it tonight so congratulations we're really proud of you thank you we're gonna we'll just let them take their picture [Applause] [Music] do we want victoria victoria stand up it's about them all right

011um [Music] hey justin all right here we go all right three [Music] [Applause] congratulations ladies thank you brad you can cut that now all right next is the minutes the board members have previously been provided with the minutes of our last meeting are there any corrections to the minutes may i have a motion to approve the minutes second thank you all in favor of approval of the minutes please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed that motion carries thank you next thing is approval of our agenda can i have a motion to approve the agenda second second thank you any changes or amendments to the agenda all those in favor of approval of the agenda please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you that motion carries next item is our board updates

012i'm going to start i want to thank the city for having us in this space and permitting us to use the space as our meeting space it's going to be great to be here i'm really glad that we're here i also want to thank brad pettit for doing all the work to get us set up on this end it made it really feel seamless and really appreciate all that work i am going to report on the legislative as legislative liaison to the osba just a few updates house bill 51 which i had not been paying any attention to primary primarily relates to adjusting the value of damaged property for tax purposes that bill was recently amended to include a provision that public bodies such as our school board may meet electronically and that if a

013member needs to attend from a remote place you know not not be here in person they can vote and so that's a change to the law uh if it passes it would be in effect only through june of this year so i'll let you know if that comes into law there have been no further hearings or legislative action on house bills 322 and 327 relating to the teaching or promotion of divisive concepts or on house bill 290 often called the backpack bill i will continue to watch those and and and other legislation that affects our schools my next report is about the covid watch team the superintendent's coveted watch team met on january 19th to discuss current realities what the district is doing well what might be done better and what we might expect to

014be coming next in addition to marguerite and me our watch team includes jason fine harley williams jill abraham and six community member pediatricians and epidemiologists who provide expert information regarding covet issues to the district's leadership on the watch team in terms of current realities we discussed the high student and staff absences at that time 10 percent of students were out per day and that about half of that was from covid staff absences absences ranged from 45 to 70 per day there was a discussion in the meeting of the increased number of kids being diagnosed and the two-week case rate at that time per hundred thousand was at its highest since the beginning of the pandemic discussion of what we are doing well included that we are keeping our learners in school with extracurriculars going strong

015that our staff is pitching in in multiple ways to support one another in a time when there's the staff is under real strain and that bexley's case numbers are consistently low compared to other districts in terms of areas of additional focus we discussed mental health issues and the impact of the pandemic on mental health there was input that managing covid is one means of supporting mental health in that discussion members of the team felt that in light of the high contagion of omicron masking continues to be an important part of our mitigation strategy i want to add that in the last two weeks i know this board has heard a lot from the community about um our sorry our mitigation protocols i sympathize with and i understand the frustration with the pandemic i am extremely

016grateful to our administrators and leadership team who have continued to read and follow the national regional and local information gather data listen to experts and consider how we should best support our students staff and district community dr fine and dr williams have continuously considered all of our mitigation strategies i'm so grateful for the time and effort the grace and the kindness that the volunteers on our watch team have given and continue to give to our district and our community and i have heard from our community on the gratitude our families have for those team members as well an important message that i am hearing from our parents is that communication clarity and planning are crucial to them the district is committed to providing that and we'll be working hard to make decisions regarding our mitigation

017strategies in support of our students and staff based on data evidence and clear measures and to communicate clearly as we move forward does anybody have questions on the board for me on my reports thank you great um thank you alicia uh yes i have just some updates on bef we haven't met uh yet but i'm sure everybody's starting to kind of hear the grumbles for bravo the committee met virtually last week i'm working hard on planning execution of the largest annual fundraiser it's been a two-year absence that we've had an actual in-person bravo um and so sponsorships uh all parent and sponsor mailings uh will go out february 14th you can sponsor go to sponsorship online i'll forward that email to all of you so that you can see that as well um we uh

018are in search of auction items for bravo um a request will go out shortly for that and then our meet our next meeting is not until february uh 16th at 7 pm and that'll be at the cassingham library so i'll report out in our march meeting on that as well and then i just have one additional report i had the pleasure to attend one of the afternoon sessions for the emoji group which is the um um student uh mentoring group that ms armstrong raquel armstrong our assistant principal at the middle school started about a year ago i had an opportunity to meet with the young girls there and talk about what i do for a living from a professional standpoint and it was a really really um therapeutic and uh cathartic experience just to see

019their young faces and then i got my swag bag at the game the other night and i meant to bring it um sit and show it to everybody but i'll be sure to wear my t-shirt um it's a beautiful t-shirt uh uh that represents everything that the group is about a water bottle and um a nice little carry bag so if you see me swagged out that's why uh so it was great to attend that uh and uh share a little bit about what those uh what that group is doing for um our young ladies uh here in bexley so that's great thank you thank you any questions for alicia thank you uh mines will be short the athletic uh board meets tomorrow for the first time and we have two key items looking at

020the substance abuse policy and the academic integrity uh policies and then of course i got a chance to go to the freaky friday uh performance by the theater department becky's done a great job as always with william bowman and so forth so just seeing them be safe and have fun and see my daughter get up there and have some fun was great too thank you the play is fantastic yeah yeah awesome any questions thank you margaret i went to the franklin county board member alliance uh victoria and i went to the franklin county school board member alliance meeting on january 29th the bulk of the meeting was a presentation from representatives of the vouchers hurt ohio who discussed their lawsuit filed on january 4th 2022 and the impact of vouchers on public schools under the

021current law the ed choice voucher system is not having an immediate impact on the district um that could change if the back backfill were to pass in its current form and i think victoria had mentioned that it hasn't had any movement um the vouchers heard ohio lawsuit asserts that the budge that the backpack bill that went into effect this summer has an expanded ed choice program results in an unconstitutional underfunding of ohio's public schools so that was really the bulk of that meeting and then um voting on new officers so that was my first um my first participation in that meeting and um so i'm looking forward to some more information and i think about you know broader franklin county issues and i just want to shout out to victoria and her support for helping

022me with the report to make sure it was concise anytime thank you any questions for marguerite join them yes so um there have been two meetings of the bexley recreation board a member of the school board is a voting member of that board um during the january discussion it really focused on the new creation of the senior center which is over on north cassidy it's sorry sorry 490 north cassidy the great part about the senior center not only is it going to have great programming but it will also it's a pilot program for two years and it will also have middle school and high school programming as well um when that's available so look out for that for children in the district um there is a ribbon cutting this weekend it's the 13th at 4

02300 pm um and it's just hopefully it will be a great pilot program and we're they're pretty excited about that at the february meeting a lot was discussed around the opening of the pool um the spring recreation programming and the ice rink um the pool registration will be available soon and they will have some lessons again this year which is obviously important for some of our students and they'll release their hours of operation uh in the coming weeks on the ice rink it's a really great experience if you haven't been able to go over there you should register before but these skates are for free so you don't need skates to attend they've had about thirteen hundred registrations as of the last meeting which was last week and the staff has just done a wonderful

024job over there to have another experience for kids in the community and adults i would check before you go if you're going to go soon they did have some issues with the last storm so please check in on that before you go over there um and that's the report and the next meeting is in march great thank you so much any questions for joanne thank you dr fine oh quinn i'm sorry i gotta get your man on there on my nose so this is a very busy time of year for student council as we have two big events coming up the first of which is a casual winter dance which will take place on march 5th from 7 to 9 and the theme of the dance is neon so we're going to ask high school

025students to wear neon clothing to the dance and we're also going to have neon decorations set up all over the high school gym and we also have a talent show coming up which is on april 1st and that's going to be at the end of the day uh at the end of the school day and in the coming weeks we are going to begin to start signing up people who want to participate and i would encourage if you have any high school students who have some sort of talent to encourage them to participate because we are we want people to sign up and participate and that's all i have great thank you appreciate it any questions for quinn quinn when was the winter dance again it is uh march 5th which is a saturday from

0267 to nine and will you be spending 80s tunes probably yeah a little bit we usually i may consider chaperoning yeah but only 80s hey no but no no hurts hearts that's awesome thank you um yeah yeah quinn i know i say it each month but you do such a fantastic job of speaking on behalf of the students i love when you're able to be here we also know that you have a lot on your plate doing a lot of great things so we appreciate when you are here and we understand when you're not so thank you sounds like some exciting things that are happening we're going to just uh touch on a couple things quickly it is national school counseling week is this week february 7th through the 11th and uh this is an

027opportunity for us to thank our school counselors for being amazing i think we've got nine in the district throughout the district that work on a number of things for our students our staff and we could not do this without them so we are so thankful for their passion their commitment their efforts and uh their presence so if you have time reach out to a school counselor and give them a big thanks it is also the next slide uh just a quick thank you to the city of bexley mayor kessler was here we're grateful the space is a challenge where we've been so it's nice to be able to conduct business here we appreciate the partnership with the city and we are thankful we also want to give a huge thank you to our snow removal

028team this was new for me that's my first superintendent snow calamity day and what i'm told is that was a massive storm when it comes to the cleanup and so i am incredible we our team is so thankful for our maintenance our custodial team we were on the phone quite a bit and they did an incredible job to ensure that we were able to open safely on saturday we had events early in the morning and uh we are thankful that that continued that still continues today and tomorrow morning with the refreezing so led by brett san antonio and bobby moore dr williams we're just so grateful for the work they've done that was not an easy job and they did a great job we also as you know february is black history month our climate

029committee continues to work collaboratively to provide effective resources for our students and staff to access about heritage and history months that can be brought to life in several of our environments the climate committee will continue to provide resources for all upcoming heritage and history months and we are thankful for the work of our climate committee our students and our staff to make sure that these resources are available for our community and then that takes us to a an exciting recommendation tonight you'll see a little bit later in your agenda we are i am recommending coach heath goolsbee as our next varsity girls tennis coach heath is amazing he is such a great human being a fantastic coach a fantastic educator he most recently coached our head girls middle school tennis program in 2020 he was

030the assistant varsity tennis coach at csg from 15 to 19. and he was the head boys varsity tennis coach at hartley from 2014 to 2017. we're really excited to see what he can do with our student athletes here as amazing as he is a tennis player and you can see on the right that's a picture of coach goolsby he was a four-year letter winner at wright state was a captain his senior year he is currently not able to join us tonight he is actually coaching our daughters tonight in basketball he's the assistant girls basketball coach he's also the assistant girls golf coach and i'm sure he does a lot more and as amazing as he is as a coach and as an athlete he's an even better educator he is a certified educator in bexley

031since 2012 he's an intervention specialist students and staff adore him we're thankful for for heath gilsby so you'll see that coming up a little bit later and i'm happy to answer any questions when we get to that part and the agenda but we're really excited to recommend coach goolsby he is a relationship-centered superstar a quick update on athletic facilities i think we've talked about this the last several months really exciting opportunities with the jcc we really have nothing new to report other than we continue to remain optimistic with our relationship with the jewish community center regarding the expansion and improvement of our athletic facilities which would be located on their property we're still at the phase of putting design and terms to paper and we are obviously working with legal counsel who specializes in this

032work to assist us and guide us i believe kyle and i have a meeting with the folks tomorrow to continue the conversations we're grateful for the opportunity we're grateful for the partnership and we continue to update you as we know more but there's no action on tonight's meeting regarding the athletic facilities and that'll take me to a quick update uh regarding kovid a huge thank you to quinn and his peers his his classmates our students our families and amazing staff members for your patience and perseverance as we continue to move through this process we have seen many positive trends since our last meeting as it pertains to franklin county and bexley we continue to closely monitor the covet 19 situation both in bexley and across central ohio and we remain committed to keeping our students

033in the classroom with in-person learning our most up-to-date data lists bexley's seven-day case rate as 298 cases per 100 000. the seven-day case rate in franklin county at that time was 309 per 100 000 and the positivity rate in franklin county is at 18 which keeps our community transmission at a high incidence level although the numbers are trending down we are still experiencing significant staffing issues while we have worked throughout the year to maintain or increase our pool of available substitutes in all areas some areas continue to be impacted as you heard a little bit from victoria we are averaging 54 staff members out each day since returning from winter break this is a tremendous impact on a staff of roughly 340 members additionally we've had 35 students and seven faculty and staff members test

034positive for covet in the past 10 days on monday we had 157 students out of the district for a variety of reasons and today we had a total of 43 staff members across the district out we started the day this morning with seven unfilled positions although these numbers represent a great improvement the work of our staff from top to bottom to continue to pivot and rearrange coverage in order to support and maintain in-person learning does not go unnoticed we are able to move forward because of the dedication and the perseverance of our staff also as you have seen in recent communications the ohio department of health recently updated its guidance regarding contact tracing it is critical to know that schools are still bound by the september 3rd 2020. directors to order requiring reporting and notification

035regarding covet 19 cases and k-12 schools therefore schools must continue to do the following things we still must report positive cases to franklin county public health on a weekly basis we must send notifications to parents at the building or classroom level when there is a positive case we follow cdc isolation requirements to those with coven 19 infections we report any positive home test reports from parents staff and students to franklin county public health and we follow odh mass state of stay mass to stay and test the play guidance for known closed contacts for exposure within and outside of school settings we also have to notify and report any identified outbreaks or clusters to franklin county public health for additional guidance or mitigation strategies lastly it is critical that we continue to focus on protecting our

036students and staff so we can proceed with our goal of in-person learning this does not mean that we will not look at ways to ease some of our mitigation strategies although i am not recommending today to reduce any of those strategies i am committed to discussing a possible off-ramp for our protocols over the coming weeks and months likely starting with our after-school events we have discussed this desire in the past including at our december board meeting and will continue to process ways to safely provide a world-class in-person education to our students we will continue to keep families informed as we move forward and continue to monitor the situation very closely i'm happy to open up to the board for discussion dr fine i just have one quick question with the change in the contact tracing

037requirements we're not getting any support from our those agencies that are um requiring these steps and measures right all of the contact tracing that we do is solely the burden of our staff and resources correct yep we work locally to support that work and we communicate with them did they give any um [Music] any indication why they would ease um their requirements for some areas but keep it in place for schools i think it's just the capacity issue i i know the hours that are put in on a daily basis here in bexley i don't think they have the the capacity to support all districts in that type of magnitude [Music] okay thank you questions um yes and again thank you to staff who work every day very early in the morning to help accommodate

038any staff absences to make sure there's no excuse me to decrease the number of unfilled positions i will also say that from just what i've seen so far as a board member the staff administration act very quickly anytime a new recommendation or guidance is brought forth to them by the cdc the ohio department of health and local public health departments this is a very quick action and they have to think about it and they have to help staff also implement it on the back end it's not just changing policy but it's an implementation process as well so thank you for doing that very quickly i see those come up through the weekend and late at night so dr fine can you talk about the data points you're going to be using as you start discussing

039any modifications to covid mitigation strategies what are you going to be looking at yes so thank you for that question so we will there's a lot that goes into these conversations and we know that it's a conversation that a lot of people are interested in where we land we will look first we have conversations with our health departments so franklin county public health ohio department of health uh franklin county public health commissioner joe mazzola is a big part of of our conversations we meet weekly with joe mazzola and other area superintendents we have a conversation about local data franklin county ohio as well as their recommendations we also look at case rates positivity rates transmission rates i think an important piece that we and bexley will continue to look at is vaccination rates i think

040we've got a very high success rate when it comes to vaccination rates in our school setting we will also take a look at what the recommendations are from those health officials and health departments the other thing that we got to look at is the stuff that we mentioned a little bit earlier our our staff attendance our student attendance uh what's happening within our 43209 zip code but we are struggling as a staff it's when you have when you're averaging 56 staff members out and we celebrate on a day where there's only 40 that's telling us that the impact is real so that's an important piece as we take a look the other piece is we do have a phenomenal watch team that that victoria mentioned earlier we're thankful for our watch team it is critical

041to understand that the watch team is just like the type of resource we get from our health department and from the research and the conversations that we have they provide insight expertise insight that informs me as the superintendent it is a superintendent's committee they are not a decision-making body i take that information along with everything else and i take that and i either make decisions or make recommendations to the board of education i'm thankful for the watch team i know it's been a tough two to three years for the watch team and i know that the watch team has taken on many forms over the last couple of years but i'm thankful that they're there they are a piece of the puzzle that we take as we look uh to make those decisions uh we

042did have a meeting on november 30th we had a watch team meeting on november 30 to discuss off-ramping at that time and i mentioned at the december probably 13 14 days later at the december meeting our goal was to continue to look for that off-ramp and then omicron hit so those are conversations that we have we take that information and we make recommendations to the board of education so those are some of the the things that go into a decision like this and how do you consult with the staff as well on that yeah it's a great question so same with with our students i think our students is a really important piece we meet regularly with our union representation our union leadership uh they've done an incredible job and they we have conversations about

043how the staff is feeling what is what's being uh shared where how are they feeling and we have those open conversations uh there are times where our union representation may become a little bit more of a permanent fixture in that coveted watch team so that that's an important voice sitting at the table great and you answered one of my other questions in your discussion a few minutes ago um can you talk a little bit about what you see the process you mentioned the coming weeks you're going to start looking at how our covent mitigation strategies may be altered and modified or remain the same right based on what we're dealing with this is a very fluid situation as it has been over the last two years right it's been hard on everybody can you talk

044a little bit about what you're going to be doing in the next week or two yeah to think through as the numbers decline um you know and as the time is right to make decisions yeah we'll continue to do all those things that we just mentioned where we'll have conversations with our departments of health we'll have conversations with our watch team we'll we'll dig into the local data we'll we'll advocate for our vaccination rate being an important piece of who we are and what we do that's that's a celebration we should celebrate that and we're trying to have conversations and we're really thankful for franklin county public health but we want to make sure that that's an important factor as we have these conversations we will be pulling together our teams we will have conversations

045one of the first areas that i think makes sense and this is what i said in december is taking a look at our after hours events as a as a jumping off point that doesn't mean that we will definitely remove mass after hours before we get rid of mass k-12 setting during a school day but it's an important piece because we look at voluntary versus compulsory it's an activity where uh it makes sense but right now i don't feel today is the day to do that uh with with the numbers that we're still facing and with the staffing shortage that we're currently in but we're gonna have a lot of conversations we are committed to finding that off-ramp and creating a process for what that off-ramp is uh based on the information that we have

046yeah and thank you for saying that and thank you for working towards that i think we all want a plan on that and then obviously making sure that that plan is based on metrics and district specific data and the input from public health experts locally um your task force the community and teachers and students too so thank you for moving forward with that yeah and i appreciate you saying that we we are well aware of what's happening in other districts we don't make decisions based on what other districts uh are doing we we take it into account and we we have great conversations as superintendents each district is different um i think it's important that we make decisions for bexley uh that we feel will continue to keep our students in person learning in school

047uh is the goal yeah thank you and that's would be my goal to even supporting any policies to keep everybody in school safely in person and in extracurriculars um so thank you for moving forward with that thanks [Music] other questions go ahead um so jason as you come to thinking about how you're going to articulate that plan in that metrics do you have have you thought if you guys thought about how you're going to communicate it because i think sometimes right there's a plan in place you've got some metrics you've come up with some ideas but i'm not sure that everybody's always aware with those articles have you thought much about it yeah i love that so we've actually started we know that there's a heightened sense of attention to this so that tells me

048i've not done a great job of communicating some of the things that being committed to finding an off-ramp still is not an off-ramp so we've got some work ahead of us we've actually started working on some of that communication because we also know that not everyone watches a board meeting so i keep referencing that i mentioned in december well perhaps 12 people saw it depending upon the evening so just because it's being said at a board meeting and this important conversation is happening doesn't mean everybody's getting it so we i will do a better job of uh formalizing our thinking and putting that whether that's our thursday communications a standalone email a newsletter but those are things that we want to communicate so that people have an idea so we're not surprising anyone at a

049march april may board meeting people hopefully will will have insight prior potentially there's space it could live on the website too so correct yep and we we do have a location on the website that's got some really good important data but that would be a spot where we would want to put some of our additional communication okay and and i want to really appreciate that how much emphasis you're putting on that it's the responsibility of the school district to not just keep students safe but also to keep staff safe and it's really been a challenge and so i'm and i think that the duress that the staff is under just on a day-to-day is something that i've been thinking a lot about and trying to figure out what is our role right in maintaining staff

050safety right as well as student safety and i'm wondering if i know that you have staff you have administrators and you have staff who are responsible for after school activities right right and that is an additional burden you know they've worked all day they've been there since early in the morning and there's been some challenges right in those spaces and it adds an enormous amount of pressure is has there been any thinking about in those after-school activities in terms of just saying maybe it's better not to have fans right yeah maybe it's easier just to have so that they we're not adding that pressure on to the staff i appreciate that question that is a conversation that we have frequently as a parent of a child who is playing in for bexley i'm thankful that

051we have resources where we do live stream every game and that is an option we don't want to go there that is not our plan that is not our hope we want families to be able to go and support their child if possible but we have had a conversation is this the time if we if we keep battling adults that are taking away from the moment for the child then what what what decisions do we need to make i'm thankful that we when when we ask people to follow along people have been great they've complied it is taking its toll on our administration it is a capacity issue uh so that is that is something that we've committed to i'm thankful for our administrative team uh we're at every event and i'm thankful for every

052event we've been to other schools where they're not uh administration and when things happen that's tough so yes i appreciate the question we've talked about it we are doing it's just like in-person learning that's our priority our next priority is that mental health well-being and our extracurriculars which we think is a huge part of that and we want our families in attendance but we ask that they they follow some of our guidelines when they're there right and making sure that that staff and administrators aren't overwhelmed are supported with having to manage adults correct um and so my other question is so in november you should you had talked about that you had sort of put together an off ramp yeah and and we're thinking about what that looks like now what metrics are going to

053be measured and i'm wondering like one of the things that didn't happen in november i think and i could be wrong is that there wasn't sort of an on-ramp right because nobody sort of planned for omicron right so i'm wondering as you're looking at developing an off-ramp are you also considering what does an on-ramp look like that's right because things change it's a fluid situation and so we can't look at it as though it's just moving in one direction and it's actually dynamic another great point i've had great conversations with some community members and we've talked about just that we we don't know what's ahead we we hope that there's a moment where we can offer up the masks but we also need to be communicating in that moment that removal of masks may be

054temporary depending upon what is happening so we do need to communicate not only an off-ramp but an on-ramp in the event and that is not our goal and it's not our hope we want to return to the normalcy quickly um but yeah and at that time in november we had conversations with franklin county public health uh the three things that they were looking at uh was uh less than 50 cases per 100 000 a uh positivity rate of five to seven point nine percent or lower and a uh low mild to moderate transmission rate for consecutive uh two to four i think it was it was four weeks and it's been changed to two weeks i think uh there is we were making that decision we have asked joe mazzola we've asked frank county public

055health who we greatly appreciate is this still the the recommendation that you have and are we considering vaccination rates so and the one last thing i think i have on that is thinking when you're considering the off-ramp one of the things that um is on that or is this idea of when kids come back you know they have five days when there's masking so if we move to a mask optional situation are we then expecting educators to then be monitoring you're on day three you're on day two i'm trying to teach english right like what are we asking educators to do in the face of when we move up optional or would we tell kids all right if you've tested positive you've got to stay 10 home all 10 days because we can't manage who's

056going to put on a mask and who's not yeah so those are conversations we're currently having we've processed that all the questions you've just asked we've actually probably discussed multiple times in the last week we do i'm very grateful for the superintendents that are are in the area we have great conversations with some that have different uh mitigation strategies and we talked about that how is your how is your staff managing this what are some strategies if we go this route so those are all things that we've talked about and that's going to be a big part of that off-ramp conversation because it's not just about the mask it's what what are the other unintended consequences that could come with that thank you i appreciate that any other questions for dr fine i have one

057uh thank you dr fein for this kind of recap on everything and you talk about a lot of different data points and metrics and so forth and a way to communicate that out and maybe show like you know week one week two and so on and so forth on the website but i was wondering how do you capture perceived mental health and so you know one thing we talk about is health and safety protocol so so so i want the staff so i think it's very powerful to hear that over 10 percent of our staff is out weekly the 34 out of or 54 or 340 people is over 10 but then how do you capture things like mental health you know or from a student perspective yeah so that's a really important conversation that

058we've had and that continues to be a theme from all of my conversations everything i'm reading that is a critical piece and we knew pre-covered according to our panorama data we knew pre-covered that we had some really concerning trends happening before this so we assume it's magnified so we continue to have conversations uh that's why national counseling week has been so important that we give gratitude with the work that's happening on the ground level we lean on experts we lean on resources and we try to have conversation to find out truly where are we and we're collecting that that information through surveys through conversations i'm getting ready to kick off i'm hoping maybe quinn could join us i'm going to kick off probably february march a superintendent's council where i'm going to meet with k-5

059staff members 612 staff members our classified staff and students we want to have conversation around that piece what is it how are we feeling what do you need uh and those sorts of things so that we can address what i think the entire nation is trying to address right now and we have been addressing we have been zeroed in on we are focused but it's it's a huge piece of this entire process all right thanks yeah i just have one more follow-up question when you mentioned earlier back in november when you're considering um an off-ramp strategy was that case load of i think you said 50 per 100 000 did that have to be sustained over a period of time and what was that qualifier there it's my understanding it was two weeks prior to

060that it was four weeks it was a four weeks uh stance we've had communication with joe mazzola so there was a moment when it was four weeks and we were inquiring could it is it two um so in that moment we were having that conversation we were looking for further guidance but at that time they are looking for sustained in writing i think it says four weeks of uh those levels thank you i can just add on to that that um that came from the cdc is my understanding and columbus public just adopt columbus public health just announced that they are following that same set of guidance and they're using the four weeks perfect stop thank you we're not under columbus public health but we do pay attention to what they're doing and i think

061that's it for me this evening thank you thank you um i do want to as we move forward through the agenda we've got section three the superintendent's part of the agenda um before i ask for a motion to assume to approve this set of items in the agenda i want to ask if there are any sections in there any of those items be through f that any board member would like to discuss if you'd like to discuss any of those we will pull them out of the consent agenda list and address them separately so are there any are is there anything in that section that anybody wants to pull out of the consent agenda or are we okay to just go ahead and look for approval of those okay um so for the items uh

062three b through f um may have a motion to approve in a second thank you um all in favor of approval of those please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you that motion carries so next we go to mr smith thank you uh i'll start off with the uh january income tax update school district income tax update uh this was the highest net collection we've received for any january the net payment was 7.78 higher than last year uh while it's great to see there is one volatile note on the higher than average refunds of this collection so it's the second column going right to left in yellow refunds of 224 thousand um mr pettit if you'll scroll down um to graphs that might be easier for some of our visual learners or visual

063folks um so on the right is the january 2022 payment um then going right to left is a three year average and then january so you can see in in those colored bars that with the exception of january 28 in the red all of those are pretty much higher than any previous january which is a positive and again the the one little note is the refunds are a little bit higher than the average but when you net it all out this was the highest january payment so that's that's good news on the third page or the second graph is the cumulative look so on top is 2022 sorry for the small print that's a theme of mine but 2022 you can see is trending higher than uh any any year that we've had recently and

064as far back as 2004 when this uh collection started so overall positive for the january income tax any questions on that we'll have one more payment in april uh next on the monthly financials this month in january we started to receive the first half collection of property taxes the variance on line 1.01 again sorry for the small print um but over to the right that variance is um basically a timing issue and should be cleared up by the end of the march financials the county was a little delayed in getting the tax bills out therefore the the collections were a little bit later state funding has had some catch-up payments in january that i've been that we've all been waiting for in the fiscal world we're still waiting on some final reports to see the

065total and complete impact of the new funding model at this point i'm hopeful i'll have a clearer picture by the may forecast i do expect the variances in lines 1.035 and 1.04 to be wiped out by the end of the fiscal year basically they've you can see line 1.04 a rather large variance and it's just pretty much where they're putting in funding buckets restricted so there's restricted on wellness there's restricted on gifted there's restricted restricted on career tech which we did not know would be restricted from the state a few months ago but between those two lines i do expect that variance to be down to zero or maybe even negative but there's still some reports outstanding like i said and we'll have a better picture by the may forecast line 3.01 and personnel is

066doing better than forecasted again that's always a hope of mine to be a little conservative with that line lines 3.03 to 4.03 is essentially a wash which is i believe good good and expected any questions on the monthly financials that's it for me tonight thank you thank you that motion carries thank you next we have our reports okay thank you tonight sam mcmasters will share the false summary of reported bullying and harassment incidents in bexley schools as a reminder ohio revised code requires school districts to provide semi-annual written summaries of reported incidents of bullying or harassment to the president of the board of education and to post the summaries to the district website to the extent permitted by the family educational rights and privacy act so i'd like to invite ms mcmasters up to provide

067the summary thank you good evening i will start with just a summary some may be a repetition from my report that i did in the fall from last springs data but just some reminders about the actual report are that when an incident is reported the building principal investigates it under board policy reports may be reported through either our online reporting system through email or in person parents can report students can report faculty can also make reports also when an incident is investigated and found to be unsubstantiated so on the report brad if you could scroll down just a little bit if an incident is found to be unsubstantiated it does not mean that the investigation found that the incident did not occur it just means that the investigation determined that it did not meet the

068definition of bullying harassment and or hazing and our board policy for the purpose of this report it's important to note that building principles investigate each report as it's made and as a district we have continued to review our reporting and investigation procedures to make sure that we are providing the most complete and useful data possible in the fall i reported and to you how over the course of the last three years we have made more concrete policies and procedures in terms of how we investigate reports consistency from our building principles in terms of their approach and how they report findings back to families who are involved in reported incidences of bullying and harassment the data that's reported in this report is required by ohio revised code but we also recognize that that data is limited

069what's most important is not the numbers or the data that's reported here but it is a summary of what we do in our practice so i'd like to expand a little bit on what that means for our district what we do in our buildings both proactively and response to the reports that we get ultimately is what impacts our students we have consistently provided training and support to our building administrators to ensure that we are recording and reporting accurate information our investigation processes and procedures have become consistent across buildings and we provide refresher training to our administrators on a yearly basis the information that's most useful to our building administrators and staff comes from that investigation process and the outcomes some of that includes things that we do in our buildings which are our principals meet

070weekly with our school counselors and our nationwide clinicians to review not only incidents which have occurred but observations regardless of whether an incident is labeled as bullying or harassment the teams then work proactively to identify supports for individual students create intervention plans and or safety plans this also provides our building response to intervention or rti teams the opportunity to review and identify any patterns in behavior discipline or reporting at the building level this includes looking for patterns related to student identity or experiences the work expands beyond the use of reporting in this report and it includes teacher staff at parent and student observations each building has an established positive behavior and intervention support team which implements and supports direct instruction of pro-social behaviors school-wide expectations and building positive relationships with students we know from the

071historical data that we have the data that we have related to bullying incidents is most accurate since 2018 when we standardized our procedures we also know this data has been affected by the pandemic when we were in remote learning for a good portion of the year and then when we reintegrated students back into the school setting we saw an increase of reports last school year we've also identified that it's more likely for parents to be the reporters at our elementary buildings they are more likely to use the online reporting system and we know that our elementary students are still learning self-management skills social and peer interactions and understanding the consequences of their own actions which could explain why elementary students have reported repeated behaviors which then are reported as substantiated incidents at the elementary level

072at the middle school we intentionally provide instruction to our students on using the online reporting system our counselors go into classrooms and demonstrate this several times throughout the course of a school year and historically we know that once a counselor goes in and does a lesson we are likely to get more reports from our middle school students after that lesson occurs in the classroom students are using the reporting system to report things that they see or that they experience which may not meet the definition of bullying or harassment at the middle school and high school level but we have continued to encourage our students to use their voice to use the avenue of reporting bullying and harassment or any incidences of misbehavior so that we can continue to investigate those and address them proactively within

073the schools we will continue to reinforce that concept of if they see something say something and if they choose the bullying harassment reporting system to do that we would prefer that over them having to make a decision whether or not something would rise to the level of bullying or harassment we also know that we do not get many repeat complaints by or about the same students we believe that the positive support systems that are implemented within our building teams prevent further incidences from occurring with those students this includes follow-up and check-ins with our school counselors our building administrators or other trusted adults in the class or in the building settings our building administrators have continued to focus on more than the number and the numbers in this report but on the human experiences of our

074students their safety well-being and willingness to engage in the reflection and creating a safe environment for all students and that's what i have yeah open it up for questions or comments thank you so much are there questions for sam i just have a quick question miss mcmasters if it's okay um i know you you talked about how elementary parents tend to be the reporters middle school will report after they've sort of been giving so given some additional education and support but what happens in high school high school we've found that some students report at the high school level i think they've had the practice of knowing how to use the system at the elementary it is introduced and reminded in our high school bulletin as well as when the counselors go into classrooms but we

075don't find that as many i would say we don't have as many reports at the high school but the ones that we do have or have had have been student reports and then uh real quickly in the refresher trainings that you do annually i'm assuming that we are incorporating uh dei support with uh mr braxton um but i'm curious is the professional development that we do for the staff is that included in their regular staff day or is that more like at the end of the school year like what's the annual training look like sure the refresher training that i was referring to was the administrator training that we do in the summer but our staff is also required to do annual training on our bullying harassment and intimidation policy and that's part of their

076annual public school works training okay and marcellus is new to the team so he has not been included in that training before but i will say we've incorporated those things into our rti manual so our response to intervention manual which includes aspects of dei work i have a question can you talk a little bit about the potential for maybe an increase in bullying activity in spring compared to fall so if you sent us data for fall and spring for the last three or four years and when i looked at fall versus spring i saw more activity in the spring is that just because the students were kind of you know excited to be outside now all of a sudden um or is there just what is your team doing now in anticipation of this possibility

077sure i think what's interesting is is that the data that we don't have is not great because of we saw an increase last spring after students came back into schools full time after being out so we certainly saw an increase at the elementary and particularly at the midland high school last year um so we can anticipate that and i think what i see in the buildings is the work of our response to intervention and our school counseling teams who are meeting on a regular basis to talk about um these incidences and and what to put in place ahead of time but i really think what we're encouraging is that students are reporting what they see so that we can respond to it i don't know that we have great turn data over the last i

078can't say in the last five years to to support that but it certainly thinks we'll take that back to our administrative team thanks i have a few questions um i want to thank you for taking the time and energy that it took to look at historical trends um as it relates to this topic and like all initiatives it's important to have a continuous improvement process in place so i'm curious as you've explored this topic more deeply in preparation for this meeting um so in first and response i know marcellus is new to the district but dei is not new so when you're thinking about the culturally responsive approaches you have what do you already have in place in what ways have you thought about that for this work specifically related to bullying and harassment yeah

079okay so our and i would say that's where we have implemented things with our response to intervention teams and how they are taking into consideration um student experiences student identity when we are working to make develop support plans for students so that that's already embedded yes correct and is marcellus or it was uh leisana part of that initially and is marcelo's going to be part of that going forward so i think it's a part of what we're all doing as an administrative team so i think we integrate that work with everything we're doing so response intervention is not standalone so yes when we work together as an administrative team we incorporate marcellus as part of those conversations as well as all of our administrators okay and then based on your report you there was you

080made some substantive changes in 2018 right based on some things you've learned previously so when you were looking this at this what did you learn about the refinements the district made in 2018 and how are you continuing to refine going forward so those were mostly procedural things that we changed and i think what and i was not part of the process at that time but what my understanding is is there was inconsistencies in how we were reporting things in powerschool so we did some changes in the coding in powerschool so that we were making sure that every report that fell under that policy was being flagged correctly in powerschool so that we could pull that data in an easier way so that we can compile that data so that we can look at it as

081a team um previous to that each building administrator was keeping their own data and information and it may not have all been getting coded the same way in powerschool so we adjusted our power school coding made sure that everything was getting coded accurately in there but also making sure that our our notes related to incidences were tracked correctly so in 2018 those changes that was kind of where that you were like all right there's a challenge let's fix it and sometimes so what changes have been made since 2018 and i think in terms of thinking about how um well yeah i guess what changes since 2018 and then another so one of the things that we noticed was that for some of our students this was the only place they were thinking to make a

082report of of anything this was the place to go to to say hey i've had something that i wasn't comfortable with and i want somebody to know and so even last year um kristen robbins was a huge advocate to say we need another system in place so that when kids want to have a conversation it's not necessarily a report of an incident or bullying that they have a way to make that connection and so actually marcellus says he put that together this year and put that into action and so our students many times are now using that system to make a connection to have somebody to talk with versus listing you using this system that we've had that's very specific to bullying so we've created different places for kids to um be able to express

083concerns um we've also added the safe school hotline this year which is a place where kids um can report concerns about peers and suicide so again previously some of those things would have come through this system and so we've we've got different tools and our kids are using these different places to make connections so you've created multiple pathways to have this conversation all right and so when you um what are you learning about how the process about how things are collected to and responded to um across um consistently between the schools or not consistently like as you're looking at this what are you noticing about what's happening between and among the schools one thing that i that i'm noticing is the development of the plans plans of support so both for um kids who might

084have reported an incident or or the person who's considered the the perpetrator for a lack of a better word the person who who um created a challenging situation for someone else i see a lot more consistency across our buildings and creating plans for both sets of kids so that they can successfully acclimate back into the school setting or whatever it is and they feel that they have the support of a trusted adult um in the building and throughout the building so that's one thing as i see more thoughtful plans that result it's not just this is the end of the situation we've talked about it but it's really a tool that helps support kids as they move forward so that's one piece that i see um i think an area of continued growth for us

085is is just the communication of the investigation and the writing of the report to make sure that we've got some a really great format that we were even working through this week that we think will be something that's helpful but that's an area where we continue to grow so that we make sure our communication of our investigation is also clear for parents on the receiving end so one of the things that you're learning through this process in the last couple days has been that you have some policies in place in some of the schools and you're expanding that to some of the other schools just to communicate between the schools but also to the parents more consistently um all right thank you i will say um the lack of communication is probably the the one

086of the biggest uh hindrances to sort of moving our efforts along um as a parent who's been on the other end of that and waiting for a phone call or just a follow-up or an email so um as you're thinking through your processes i think making it especially in the time that we're in right now where staff are already stretched then making it accessible easy consistent and something that is standardized will be easy for them to access and go in and put that information in and it's shared right away um to the parties that need to know will be helpful so that's that would just be my feedback there any other questions or comments for jill or sam i just have one question you know to me it's also not only that kids and parents

087feel comfortable reporting instances and that they're investigated properly and consistently but on the back end it's also important to make sure children and students are repairing the relationship so can you just go through kind of an example of the steps you take you may make a plan but what are some of the follow-up steps to really make sure that their relationships being restored to them working together to do so if possible and i think that's a follow-up on school counselors week we do rely heavily on our school counselors and our nationwide clinicians in the buildings to navigate and to to facilitate those processes with students and so it they are all handled on an individual basis but they do take steps meaning our school counselors take steps as part of safety plans meaning teaching kids

088the skills on how do you respond when a situation happens or what would you do next and then also bringing kids together to have those restorative conversations and so our school counselors are engaging in those conversations with students with students and parents um and and with groups at the elementary particularly the elementary group but also at the middle school great thank you can i you made me think of something i'm wondering about where the district is in their implementation of restorative practices from a k-12 that's a great question so one thing that i would share which has been really great and having marcellus this year he meets with uh district administrators monthly and provides professional development around a variety of um important topics and we had one of ours uh i think it was november

089maybe would it be possible to have marcellus yeah that would be great about what he was doing yeah is that all right i'm sorry michelle is the but it says if that's the word that he's leaving then it would make sense that he's speaking as he's coming up um and he'll talk a little bit about his work with administrators but also in terms of his work with the climate committee and how they go back into buildings yeah hi everyone yeah so i think a few things just add on to what's been added is that we have understanding of this tool not just in terms of what we look at the number of incidents because the number of incidents going up or down is not necessarily an important part it actually might be representative of the

090education that we're providing so for instance if you have go from five to ten it might not mean that hey we've had an increase of bullying it might mean hey we provide that in that education for students to understand exactly what's happening so that speaks to the feedback tool in particular because what we notice through the education is that oftentimes students would say here's an issue that we're facing however i'm not sure arises to what bullying would be hence why we put a feedback tool in to say hey we're not asking you to make that decision what we're saying is come to us so therefore we can have a conversation about that we can provide that education and we can connect you to the resources that you may need um as far as restorative practices

091that is something that we have put into place for our executive leadership team and for each teacher so each teacher within the district has now gotten in a prompt and an understanding of what restorative practice and what sort of justice is and so what we're trying to do is when you think about restorative justice and we're using the chicago public school system that's what we're basing off of the first thing you have to do is make sure that executive leadership and administration have an understanding of it and then the next thing is to make sure teachers have an understanding of it so then that will be able to translate into our understanding of what are we going to build with students in particular so oftentimes that leads to things like peer circles that goes back

092to dr fine's comments where we talked about what does this advisory group look like we are now able to use that advisory group to say hey we have dedicated student leaders here in which we can build those restorative circles which then you are able to circle back not only do they get the education they can now pass it down to all of their fellow peers and then that builds the collective communities therefore reflecting what's happening in that tool thanks marcel i appreciate you so the goal is to sort of use those restorative practices strategies in order to respond to and you guys are sort of at the beginning stages of that yeah we're at the beginning stage of integration there so first we're doing the integration as far as when we think about administration faculty

093and staff appreciate you um miss abraham i'm assuming that by the time um you know you're in the administrative team work through um not only the executive leadership team and admin teachers down the students at what point will you need support from the board of education because one of the things that i've always been challenged with is you know we have it have begun the the constant discussions of including restorative practices and this is what we do but there's what we say we do then there's policy and then there's practice and so those things are not always aligned and my my hope is that we're working towards a permanent alignment of those things so i don't know you know where i know it's early um and i appreciate the the work that you've been working

094on because you've had these conversations since you've even come into the district um that we're we're now at a monthly training stage but where are we in terms of like implementation and bringing recommendations even to the board of education and some of that i would i would include marcellus in the response to that the one the one thing that i would share that would be most beneficial to us in this continued work is right now is time in the sense that we we can't pull teachers for extended professional learning um because because of the setting and so it's been hard to get extended momentum too that the one thing that we've done is we've committed uh the one staff meeting a month that principals are running right now we've committed it to the climate committee

095which are teacher leaders that work with marsalis and so that has been our commitment to continue that learning but we need more time and unfortunately it's not something you can give us um but marcellus i would if there's anything you would want to add to that sure yes um one thing that we often think about when we think about policy implementation is top-down and bottom-up of the understanding so obviously top-down would be what's happening with the school board however what makes that so a policy can be passed but when we think about the ease of implementation we have to have buy-in and so what we're trying to do is make sure that each principal feels comfortable with restorative practices therefore they're able to pass along to their leaders and so i think that's why what

096we're trying to do is spend the remainder of the year making sure that when we mention restorative practices in this district you might not understand it robustly but you understand where we're going to so that way we're able to go to the board and say what we've got given the primer to every single person in this district about what restorative practices is and now when we think about what does this policy review look like which is done by our board of education we can say our district's ready to do this and we have some kind of metrics to be able to look at that and look at the response which is what we've what we've talked about beforehand but obviously what we need to do is have that data and not only that data but

097have that analysis and equity-minded analysis and otherwise we're not actually able to implement it we would just be thinking about how much time would be you could pass a policy it might take six months now we can pass the policy it might take three months because we're prepared to provide that professional development in a very unique way and proper way wonderful i really appreciate it thank you marcellus for the sorry the restorative practice if that'll live somewhat in that equity plan that is being created yeah so um within the work that dr fein and i've talked about we actually haven't been talking about today it will be included within the equity plan which has been passed down from the equity policy so we will have the definition and also there's a powerpoint that is uh

098present throughout the district so a lot of that work will also be there and not only will have definitions we'll be talking about the way in which you can implement it because we want to make sure it's a community we are bexley city schools so we want to make sure that it's housed for the students the staff and the faculty is not just one group doing it thank you appreciate it thank you very much i really appreciate all the comments and questions as well as that really helpful and thorough report to us super super helpful and i'm really happy for what's being done on those issues thank you so next on our agenda is approval of the high school curriculum handbook we had a first reading of that last month i had some questions about

099the prerequisites and teacher recommendations for students enrolling in different classes i appreciate that i got a lot of information that was shared back with me and included in the information that went home to parents about those issues the teacher recommendations are a useful guide but not an absolute for choosing courses going forward does anybody want to have any does anybody have any questions about the handbook if not can i have a motion to approve it sue me second all those in favor of approving that item 5b please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you that motion carries we are now at our public participation section of our agenda the board welcomes the opportunity to hear from our community members we encourage your participation within certain parameters when you come to the microphone please

100state your name and address our policy requires that you limit your comments to five minutes public participation is an opportunity to be heard but it is not a q a session with the board as the president i'm responsible for the orderly conduct of the meeting and the appropriateness of the subject being presented again we ask that all speakers be civil and respectful how many how many people do we have signed up tonight kyle five so that will work within our guidelines we have a 30 minute limit and at five minutes per person will be fine so kyle i'll ask you to call the names and ask each person to state their name and address i'm sorry we have four one individual signed up twice i believe if okay according to the policy i'm assuming um

101first person is solved arrow can the person have signed up just speak at this just go ahead and speak i'm just curious so they have to take turns so five minutes per person and then at the end of those sketches as you know when we get to the end of those five if we are if there's time left in the 30 minutes then somebody can speak again uh solidarity 124 south remington tonight and over recent many months we have been repeatedly informed of coveted statistics for our school district coveted cases coveted case rates etc what is unfortunately left unsaid is that these numbers are devoid of context or accuracy what are we counting exactly cases what is a case is that an illness is that a disease not a disease who makes that determination how

102many people test positive and with what test what is the test accuracy what is its positive predictive value false positive and false negative rate who is qualified to answer these questions no member of the board has ever seen fit to ask them at least in public session we now have a statistician on our board and maybe now would be a good time to start many have repeatedly insinuated that forced masking of children is in fact one of the primary reasons why our school has stayed open this winter this winter i have attended numerous away middle school basketball games throughout the city many if not most do not require masks so if we are open because we force masks on kindergarteners against their parents will how did worthington christian stay open this whole time how about

103new albany for the last six weeks how about the whole state of florida dr williams was asked last month if coveted transmission was happening in the school as is usually the case there was dissembling and speculation to which he answered in part quote we get information sometimes on the covet information forms that people share close quote this statement offers hallmarks of someone trying to get an answer other than the only accurate one which is i do not know the school has no idea how many children have been infected with this incredibly mild viral illness they have no way to accurately evaluate where those mild infections have occurred nor are they qualified or trained to do so they know only whatever private medical information families have chosen to share with them what percentage of the total

104is that no one can say in the end we can debate statistics all day but it is beside the point this administration and board have illegitimately forced themselves into the private medical care and decision making of district families for far too long my son has been tested for coven two times in the last six weeks why is that did he have signs or symptoms of illness do the people making policy know the difference between signs and symptoms did his parents desire medical testing what about his pediatrician my pediatrician texted me last month i will not mention her name quote we have to start treating this like flu in every other illness stay home when you feel sick fever free for 24 hours i know you know that close quote and i do know so there

105is a consensus of opinion between myself my wife and our child's doctor as to the appropriate course of action for my son yet he underwent invasive and unnecessary diagnostic testing anyway and to add insult to injury had to miss actual time in school to do so why because some combination of dr williams dr fine joe mazzola and this board says so in what universe is the unlearned opinion of that combination of individuals to take precedence in keeping with this theme we have the bexley health pledge an unsigned document which states among other things that if a student has a single symptom of potential illness including but not limited to headache nausea or fatigue they will quote notify my health care provider and complete the bcsd confidential reporting form i will separate myself from other people

106as much as possible and stay in a separate room and away from other people in my home close quote who wrote this nonsense does this board endorse it i assure you that my child's pediatrician does not in fact endorse the idea that i should pledge to notify their office every time any one of my children has a stomachache my wife and i have managed to raise three well-adjusted and healthy kids to near adulthood without ever following any of these dictates before separating my kids and my household because they have a headache as any member of this board ever inquired as to the source of this absurdity certainly any family is free to contact their medical providers whenever they see fit to do so but who exactly is making this pledge and where does this administration

107get off giving such advice to parents are they qualified to be giving medical advice such as this certainly not it was embarrassing and disappointing that bexley failed to lead last year and one of the absolute last suburban school districts in the city to reopen now we appear to be headed towards being one of the last to even contemplate lifting mask requirements it is far past time that this board takes its appropriate role in dictating private medical decisions of bexley families that role is none thank you mr dara i do appreciate your engagement on this issue next thank you kyle david koplansky i didn't come with much prepared but i want to thank you all for having this meeting and welcome us to share our opinion i'm sorry can you just state your name and david

108koplansky and your address thank you member of this community since and uh i think that's important because um i live at 2524 bexley park right across the street from where i grew up and i've lived in this community never feeling the way i do today and that is feeling dramatically polarized for my community to the point where if i mention that i feel that i would like my kid not to wear mats at school i'm considered an outlier and i feel that the reason that's happened is because there is a board that's making a decision that a parent should make and i've been waiting for the right time to stand up and say something when the information was obscenely obvious that mass do not have the efficacy to permit a board to do harm to

109my child in other words i do not have to prove that there is harm to my child you have to prove that wearing a cloth mask in school is going to stop the spread of a disease a disease that we know does not hurt children and you can say what about staffing you can talk about other issues unrelated to the fact that my child and many others are suffering at your hand for doing this mitigation that does not make sense it doesn't even make sense on cnn anymore they're telling us you have to have an n95 mask this does nothing so are you going to force our kids to wear n95 masks that would be the logical thing to do is that at all sensible sustainable no it's worse they can't breathe in those i

110work in a doctor's office i have to go with a mask i take mine down every so often to breathe our kids don't for eight hours a day it's abuse i think a lot of us feel that way and we're sad i can sit here and cry about it some of you just think you're doing the right thing by making our kids safe you're doing the opposite thank you doctor i appreciate your coming in and sharing your thoughts next monique katieman i'm sorry [Music] kadenian [Music] my name is monique kademian i live at 2524 bexley park road i have three kids sixth grader a third grader and a three-year-old david who just spoke as my husband good evening dr fine bexley administration and school board members and community members i am humbled to read a

111letter to you written by our community's beloved teacher mrs diana pryor who is unable to be here tonight the majority of diana's 20-year tenure in baxley was at cassingham elementary teaching second grade until her retirement in june of 2021. she has been and continues to be a champion for children and i quote losing face saving face finding face bexley school board thank you in advance for your concerns and considerations i have been engaged in many many ongoing conversations with parents about how the school year has been progressing for their children the high concern regarding the stress and emotional overload that their children are carrying seems daunting this anxiety is hugely impacted by the stress of wearing a mask my reactions and insights are as follows the emotional intelligence of a child can be defined as

112the working ability to perceive and manage their spirit frame of mind and personal disposition within real life situations this particular intelligence is considered a pivotal starting point of a child's development and is generally a significant factor in ensuring academic success parents who are here advocating for an optional mass mandate are speaking to the declining emotional intelligence of their children quite simply there is concern about the short-term and long-term mental health impact and educational strain being placed on today's masked students these are sensitive times in an elementary child's formative years in which language and emotional development are rapidly flourishing children rely on facial expressions to interpret what they hear they respond to facial cues to interact and respond appropriately to teachers and peers while some children are able to circumnavigate and make adaptations with the limited

113constraints of masks most children need the availability of facial cueing to be a paramount factor in their learning scaffold this direct and personal part of human interaction is the underpinning structure and true heartbeat of a school environment and should not be underestimated in the beginning the fear of the unknowns and the desire to protect all of those in the school environment reigns supreme rightly so but now there is a shift a shift of a greater concern to the emotional psychological and learning health of the children with the ongoing mask requirement this is a valid concern on the impact of each child's early developing skills of personal attachment and socio-emotional processing bexley you've done an amazing and outstanding job of protecting our children and adults in these unprecedented times and for some families their preference will

114remain that their children continue to wear masks as it gives them a peace of mind to know they are more protected but for many families seeing the emotional wear and tear on their masked child far outweighs this practice please consider allowing masks to be an optional health practice diana pryor finally the last time i sat before you a slide presentation entitled 2020 2021 by the numbers a year in review and a look ahead was shared the racial disparity and mental health data presented was very concerning we had 32 suicide attempts in our community in one academic year and 97 of our children seriously considered suicide no one can argue that there is a mental health crisis among our youth we ask the leaders of this community to be fearless and make the changes needed to

115save the lives since march of 2020 our kids have had their activities stripped friendship strained their education and overall development has been arguably suffered we have seen the world of a carefree and all too quick childhood shrink as it's been invaded by plexiglas barriers six foot spacing pods on playgrounds masks double masks virtual tablet learning quarantine and isolation our current district priorities as outlined during the september board meeting are as follows one belonging equity and connection to wellness development of the whole individual three academics personalization of the learning experience however this means nothing without so supportive action behind it we are asking you our elected leaders to make proactive decisions that foster these objectives what can you do better to help our students feel a sense of belonging a sense of togetherness and connection what

116can you do better to to develop the whole and healthy child and show commitment to providing personalized learning experiences this is your elected responsibility your mandatory masking of all children eight hours a day five days a week regardless of individual circumstance does not foster these district priorities has harms your children i'm sorry i have one more paragraph short minus can i continue your mandatory masking of all children eight hours a day five days a week regardless of individual circumstance does not foster these district priorities has harm some children and does does have the potential to harm others the masking decision should be left to guardians of each child and whatever that may be deserves respect and acceptance by our district our community and our children in closing we know that results and success in life

117are the cumulative effects of daily practice and decisions childhood is precious and short its experiences and memories mold us let us not lose sight of the overall well-being of children when many are already struggling let us not forget that it is the societal duty of adults to protect children and not the reverse as our dear mrs pryor writes this direct and personal part of human interaction is the true heartbeat of a school environment i would add life and its power should not be underestimated thank you for your time thank you for sharing that letter and on behalf of the board i do appreciate your coming and providing your input patricia goxton i am not a physician like the last three you heard from but i am a mama bear to a sixth grader and a

118fourth grader here at bexley i'm also wearing the theater masks that we have our stage performer performers wear so a few weeks ago i reached out to the board and to dr fine regarding the bexley theater arts mass policy my daughter had questioned why she was allowed to play basketball without a mask but for theater rehearsals and performances she was required to wear one and on days when theater was journeying at 8 30 at night we know the students were subjected to wearing masks for 11 hours a day the theater policy needs revision and review after my conversations with board members and dr williams last week i felt defeated i didn't think there was time to make any changes in our upcoming performances but five days later a lot has changed in ohio there are

119418 school districts out of 609 who are mask optional just last night in upper arlington their school board approved to go mass optional in schools on february 28th they've also allowed for after-school activities including theater to go voluntary masking starting today in order to convey we are ready for change we are delivering delivering a petition that has been signed by 438 concerned bexley residents this petition has been signed by bexley teachers nurses physicians lawyers but moreover these are parents who are asking for the board to give parents back their legal right for each individual family to decide to mask in schools dr williams has shared that bexley is close to 90 percent vaccinated this is an impressive number and many parents have vaccinated their kids so we can return to to normalcy our kids have

120done an incredible job the past two years they have pivoted changed and adapted and now it's time to teach them how to best live with covid19 we owe them this policy revision the petition asks for change in schools to take place on february 22nd thank you for coming in i appreciate it so we did have one more additional repeat speaker spot i'm sorry we have a we've got to stick within our guidelines which is to have the people who sign up speak that was as embarrassing as when you did it to me a few months ago so as i've discussed earlier the numbers presented repeatedly are meaningless without context and have not been demonstrated to even be understood by the board or the administration so as i did last august i would present some actual

121data that is meaningful to our community and to our families today i received numbers from an employee at children's hospital here in town there have been a total of pediatric admissions to nch since march of 2020 that's 710 days okay that's just anyone with a positive test even if they got hit by a car that's a total of 1.8 admissions a day i am a physician and many are not i will just tell you that that is a minuscule number if not for all the attention most parents and children would have no idea that this virus even existed in their midst it is in keeping with normal respiratory illness season in the winter time in the last four weeks there have been 206 admissions to nch which is 7.3 a day vastly lower than numerous

122other respiratory illnesses the burden is minuscule of note surveillance testing meaning testing of people with no symptoms whatsoever was seven percent positive nationwide for the last month that's higher than the metric that dr fein mentioned as a potential off-ramp those are people who are not sick are they false positives who knows they're not sick but the surveillance rate is high enough to keep us in masks forever it shows the fundamental disconnect between the attempt to analyze clinical information about pediatric medicine by this body and how it is not up to the task frankly dr fine said earlier we don't do what the other schools do or some such thing to which i say why not if there is a school in columbus ohio that is 10 minutes drive away from here that has been open

123for a year with no masks why are we not calling that school and saying what did you do and what can we do you did it the kids at worthington christian who beat us twice they're all alive they seem fine to me they seem fine to all of us but apparently we lead by being last and to something miss power said earlier kovid has not been difficult on children i'll say that again covet is not difficult on children your actions in response to covet are difficult on children covid is not difficult on children you know what is difficult getting threatening letters from the principal about don't eat on this ski club bus because we might have to cancel ski club we get those letters every single week why getting letters incessantly telling us how many

124people have a viral illness in our midst that is stressful on children covering your face all day is stressful on many children but covet is not covet is a mild viral illness my pediatrician agrees i agree and my wife agrees and these parents agree and my guess is their pediatricians agree too we decide and we have decided so when you're ready for covet not to be a burden on children make it stop being a burden thank you i appreciate your comments next next item on our agenda is um the appointment of the bexley library board trustee we have we did this last week also we have a new uh trustee who's taking on finishing up someone's role um jim wilson is there any desire to discuss this or can we go ahead and have a

125vote hearing no desire to discuss i'd like to entertain a motion to approve item 7a on our agenda so second thank you all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you that motion carries we do not have an executive session this evening so we are at the point of our agenda where we can adjourn can i have a motion to adjourn in a second thank you all those in favor of adjournment please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you that motion carries we are adjourned