Bexley Board of Education Special Meeting - February 19, 2021

001okay we are just waiting on ms mineo and then we will be ready to go so i apologize i don't have mr burno on here either so sorry we're waiting for her um mr farno and ms mineo and then we will get excuse me get started we have ms minnea with us and we will wait one more minute for mr barno i just texted him to see if he was having some kind of access issues like hurry up dude thank you right [Music] alicia did you hear anything back from him i'm pretty sure we were all confirmed for this time i know it's earlier than we normally do but we were trying to be respectful of some plans um all right well i'm going to give it a few more minutes and then we'll maybe

002we can start with our approval of our agenda marley he um is logging on now great thank you so much [Music] finished i really appreciate everybody's patience i know it's difficult sometimes with um connectivity issues uh so we will just do our best uh wow uh mr smith it's my understanding under house bill um 197 and 404 that mr farnock uh there he is okay so then let's get started um in accordance with ohio votes revised code 121.22 house bill 197 and house bill 404 i hereby call to order the board of education of the bexley city school district's special board meeting for friday february 19 2021 mr smith would you please call the roll mr bardo finally here ms mineo i'm here miss mitchell here mr powers here the snowden here thank you all

003right so starting off this evening um our late afternoon i just want to say thank you to our board members administrators teachers and our evaluation team uh for the oh as i'm starting us off i'm gonna step step back i will just i was about to tell you all that i've been brushing up on robert's rules of order but um i need to approve our agenda first can i have a motion to approve our agenda at 1b please so moved second thank you all in favor please signify by saying aye opposed same sign thank you that motion carries all right so moving on i do want to thank our board members administrators teachers and our evaluation team for the immeasurable amount of work spent trying to best educate our students in this unprecedented pandemic i

004also want to say thank you to our community for sharing your thoughts and concerns with us i've just stopped having written over 600 emails in response to community members this year and it reminds me of how fortunate we are to live in a community with engaged and thoughtful citizens it also reminds me that as a board member and as board members all of us we have sworn to make a decision that we believe is the best not for one individual but rather for every member of our district collectively especially our most vulnerable i also want to acknowledge that every decision we make brings challenges to many families i so dearly wish that were not the case but covet 19 has created this reality for us i can pledge to you that we will continue to

005work toward innovation inclusive solution innovative inclusive solutions to address those challenges as best we can uh finally i will just note that nothing is crystal clear every bit of data or research has some counter arguments somewhere as i've said from the beginning if you believe you have the perfect answer i submit to you you've not done enough research as a board we are making our best efforts to assimilate the information and come up with reasonable conclusions that are supported by science and our own experience this has been an awesome and weighty task and i thank everyone for their continued grit and grace as we work toward this together as i was saying earlier i brushed up a little bit on my robert's rules of order um but i'm not perfect so i appreciate everyone's patience

006as we work through this resolution tonight so to that end in order to encourage our discussion can i have a motion to approve and of course we will have discussion after the motions um can i have a motion to approve um item 2a which is the um recommendation to approve a learning mode um for last quarter for the last quarter of 20 21 21. bell lived thank you in a second sorry you'll have to onion i i'll i i does anybody else not want to second the motion to have okay i i'll second the motion only to to open the discussion about it thank you or i can thank you um all right so moving on um i want of course to make sure that we have heard from each board member and um i

007think i'll just start off with my gen uh actually i don't want to do that first i want to hear from dr good so dr good if you wouldn't mind giving us your thoughts on this uh recommendation and background of how you brought it to us please hope you're muted dan sorry my apologies you brush up on your robert's rules i need to brush up on my technology skills so well good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present a resolution this resolution would allow all of our students kindergarten through 12th grade to return to school full-time after spring break i feel very honored to be working in a district that has approached an increase in student-to-teacher contact time and consistency of instruction in a very thoughtful a very intentional fashion when i arrived

008in october hybrid 1.0 was in place students were divided into two cohorts each cohort would attend two full days of the week with wednesday being a zoom day for all in november our faculty and staff students parents and community partners began focusing on how we might increase the in-person learning experiences and together they designed hybrid 2.0 in hybrid 2.0 elementary students continued to attend in cohorts but every day for half a day and secondary students remained in their cohorts but attended every other day for a full day the increase in instructional time was significant and teachers and parents have anecdotally as well as empirically cited evidence that learning has increased in some cases exponentially and until just yesterday we had no evidence of transmission of covet 19 in our classrooms that's a credit it's a

009credit to the mitigation strategies in place into adherence to those expectations next week 88 percent of our adults who interact with bexley city school students in the school and recreation settings will receive their second vaccination this is an additional layer of mitigation while that staff immunization strategy is included in the resolution to shift to all end i will offer for the board's consideration an amendment that reflects two additional mitigation strategies the first is reads whereas the american society of heating refrigeration and air conditioning engineers publishes ventilation and acceptable indoor air quality standards and recommends five to six air changes per hour for schools and for schools that may contain viruses six to twelve air changes per hour the total number of room air changes per hour in bexley city schools facilities is 10.14 and whereas

010the minimum efficiency rating value or mirv of air filtration in schools is a rating of 13 or higher out of 16 and montrose and maryland elementary schools have a rating of 13. kessingen complex has a rating of 15. those strategies added to our existing strategies and any new strategies indicated in the resolution add layers of protection ones to call out include the d de-densification of spaces for a safe lunch since masks cannot be worn cannot be worn well while eating a reduction in hallway crowding during classroom transitions enhanced hand hygiene protocols when entering and leaving classrooms in the building and double masking of staff and students but with this following amendment whereas staff must observe compulsory double masking when closer than six feet to students in place of double masks staff may instead elect to

011use a single medical grade respirator such as a n95 or a 95 or a single knotted and tucked medical procedure mask and when six feet are further from students staff may elect to wear a single non-medical grade mask so every week we evaluate the available data for our district for the city of bexley for franklin county and the state of ohio to understand trends in covet 19 cases in school-aged children and in the larger community three epidemiologists and two pediatricians two board of education members the bexley education association leaders our school nurses the district's executive team and others comprise what we refer to as the evaluation team the epidemiologists and pediatricians on this team examine trends they examine trends in vaccination they follow surveillance reports of new more transmissible viral variants in our region they

012study the cdc's school guidance as well as the original research that underlies the cdc's recommendations the doctors on the evaluation team examined guidance from other policy bodies including the world health organization the national academies of science engineering and medicine and also from professional associations including the american academy of pediatrics and from infectious disease experts at brown and harvard universities the doctors also consult their peers around the country and the world i believe it is important to share a part of the consensus statement from the epidemiologists and pediatricians that serve on the bexley city school coveted 19 evaluation team they write there are reasonable areas of scientific disagreement between experts this is particularly the case for the concept of physical distancing in school the cdc has consistently recommended six foot of distance between individuals while the

013world health organization and other policy organizations recommend three foot these recommendations predate covid19 and are generally based on studies of other viruses in order for all in education to occur in bexley city schools distancing in our classrooms would have to be reduced because of square footage to three foot due to our sizes our team the doctors had robust conversations about the source the quality and strength of the data guiding the distance distancing recommendations and like the scientific and policy experts in the united states and elsewhere we did not always agree despite this we do agree that with the additional mitigation strategies noted above covid19 risk can be minimized during all in instruction given the overall success of bexley city schools in school coven 19 mitigation strategies including during periods of time where covet 19 rates

014in the community were higher than they are expected to be this spring we believe that the mitigation strategies proposed for all in instruction will minimize the risk of in-school spread our collective recommendation for all-in instruction comes after weighing all these sources of evidence and observing the declining covid19 rates in bexley franklin county and the state overall we came to conclude that the preponderance of evidence supports a careful mitigated return to all in instruction and the evaluation team commits to continue monitoring closely all available evidence and scientific guidelines and will amend this recommendation if needed i have invited dr abigail norris turner to speak specifically to the doctor's recommendation for compulsory double masking so that the board understands why this is included in the resolution for your consideration kyle could you make abby available dr turner

015yes i'm here can you hear me we can hear you thank you for joining us um so that sounds great so thank you dr good for that summary um i don't actually have a prepared statement about double masking i would prefer to answer questions from individuals who have them it's quite a large body of research or a collection of articles and other bits of evidence um that that go into that recommendation of double masking so um not knowing where the questions are may i ask for feedback from people who have them um maybe what we will do is um dr good do you want to is that was that the conclusion of your statements or do you have no no i wanted to provide that opportunity but if you prefer we wait until the end

016of my comments that's fine i would prefer that if that's okay um because i i wasn't i didn't know that dr turner would be appearing for questions so but i i think that would help me get a little time to formulate a couple of questions as well well you don't have to john you know so i'd like to add two more comments if i may the community's continued observance of the safeguards is very very important there has been much discussion about spring break travel and the potential for positivity rates and spread to increase following those periods when families let down their safeguards we were so very pleased we didn't experience in-school surges in cases following thanksgiving and winter breaks and so we plead we plead with our community to once again practice social distancing masking

017and hand hygiene protocols during spring break these make a difference in transmission and potential spread one other thing that makes a difference when considering a change in learning modality is providing our faculty and staff an opportunity to prepare for transitions from one learning modality to another we did this when we moved from remote to hybrid 1.0 from hybrid 1.0 to hybrid 2.0 and since we'll be using spring break to equip our classrooms our lunchrooms and gymnasiums for students attending school all day every day teachers and aides cafeteria workers and secretaries nurses and librarians custodians and maintenance personnel and so on would use monday march 22nd to prepare for that seamless reception of all our students on tuesday march 23rd so in order to ensure this i'm offering a third amendment whereas one additional planning day

018march 22nd is needed to allow bexley city schools faculty and staff to prepare for the transition to the all-in service model then it would be resolved that the board would ship to an all-in-service model beginning march 23rd and that march 22nd would be repurposed as an all-in-service model teacher preparation day student non-attendance day effectively extending the spring break for students by one day prior to their coming back full-time every day should the board vote to approve the district's shift to an all-in learning mode beginning after spring break we will launch soon after tonight's board meeting an internet forum an intense sorry an intent form for intent form that each family will be required to complete that form describes both the all-in option and the e-learning option and it asks students guardians to indicate which option

019and whether or not the students will be participating in school lunch we've asked that these forms be completed by midnight on wednesday so that we can build our rosters equip our classrooms assign our teachers adjust our lunch schedules and bells if necessary and so on the information about all in any learning is also available on the website as is a link where readers can place questions that will be considered for a frequently asked question document we'll also include links to the information in the district's newsletter so i am happy to answer questions of the board as well with me this afternoon is chief academic officer joel abraham our director of staff and student operations dr harley williams and the director of technology brad pettit that's the end of my presentation thank you thank you dr

020good um all right well then i guess um we'll probably just start right in with questions um and we'll i guess further address them to uh dr norris as as need be but um a board if you have questions of dr good um or our other administrators you can just address them directly to him um i'll i'll go ahead and go first i had a couple questions for dr good um in regards to the the new resolution um i hadn't i i saw the email from earlier but i hadn't seen the language for the resolution so um in regard real briefly in regard to the additional day starting on the day uh the 22nd of the 21st whatever date starting on that tuesday um that i guess what i'm trying to figure out what is

021that day what is that day i know you talked about a little bit in regard to that just that one additional day because it kind of is a little background before you were here dr good back when we were talking about hybrid versus distance back in august one of the things that i think a couple of people brought up but specifically myself about moving the school the year back starting a week later to see if the numbers would trend down a little bit before we voted to go all in or hybrid or distance or hybrid uh we would our we had already lost a couple of days we were losing some days already of what kind of what we had agreed to and my understanding was every day that we're losing of of instructional time

022is is hard and now we've had two calamity days um does this in in your opinion and i i haven't i'm not making an opinion on one way or the other this additional day coming back to where if we do vote to go all in as a regular school day um is is this something that you think is is is fully necessary i know that you think it's necessary but what what are the kind of the downside of of missing another instructional day that again that we've had discussions in the past about how critical it is not to lose any more days than we have to it is it's a great question mr barnum and i would suggest that it may be a lost day if we don't do it um so thinking about spring

023break is the time where we'll be removing some permanent fixtures from rooms for example we have some wall mounted shelving the house the old hot box computers and then the large monitors we're taking those out we're removing um the storage carts for our laptops other furniture we've invited teachers this would be a good time to purge if they have cabinets they're not using to create more space again to accommodate greater distancing of students so imagining that they don't have that day they return from spring break on monday the 22nd and suddenly have additional 12 or 15 desks in their room and need to think about how they would arrange those desks i can tell you from having taught elementary school that's particularly challenging because i need to be able to organize my seating with known

024social patterns node reading groups and so they need that time michelle's laughing because she understands and um that's what the way people would use that time like imagine i also taught science at the secondary level and so the ability to prepare those labs and have them set i wouldn't have the time to do that right to show up on monday morning and just then see i have five additional lab tables where am i gonna put those i now have to get the equipment out and set it up on those so it could well be we would lose that day anyhow just organizing classrooms okay that that helps um because i again i i know that it's critical and this was discussed in back in august so thank you for that um and and as uh

025other board members are aware uh or at least everyone is aware that i i have a couple of concerns about the resolution as written um one well at least the one that's on board docs and i know there's going to be some revisions the question that i have maybe this is for dr good or even dr turner or anyone since i was i'm not on the evaluation team the uh the compulsory double masking the way that it is written currently it appears to me to be way overbroad in regard to what the cdc recommends and i've spent a lot of time trying i'm not an expert in masking but reading the there are certain double masks that are appropriate some that aren't so that's the first question is to the the the compulsory nature of

026a second mask um uh so that that's the first question what is the what is the underlying basis for compulsory double match for all staff and students i can take this if you want or or thank you yeah okay great um great so this is a this is a great question and i'm i'm grateful for the chance to just talk a little bit about this about this topic so um and i think many people have similar questions to those that you have mr barner so i'm i'm happy to take the opportunity to just kind of fill in some of the gaps of how our our group of five um of epidemiologists and medical doctors you know the subset of the evaluation team came to this recommendation of compulsory double masking so the first one is

027building on a piece of evidence that i think most people now accept related to covet and that is that masking in general we know is an effective strategy to prevent transmission a second piece of data to add to that though is that there's a large variability in masks right there's a lot of evidence now showing certain masks are higher quality and others are lower quality double masking is a way to bring the minimum standard of mask quality up to a to a to a much higher level right so it's taking what was um really variable just with all the materials that that come into the school with all the different types of masks that people have access to and bringing them all up like a big step into into being a more robust protective intervention

028um and the the reason why it's important to increase our masking right now is that by going all in we're kind of introducing or we're entering two periods of uncertainty right um where where it's in our interest as this is the opinion of the of the five folks on the on the subgroup of the evaluation team it's in our interest to improve our masking because of those areas of uncertainty and one of them has to do with um the the new viral variants that we um don't know if they're in bexley but we um have reason to believe because surveillance data suggests this um that at least one of them is widespread in the united states and we know that those are somewhat more transmissible variants um and so better masking is better control of

029the respiratory droplets of a potentially infected person um who's maybe transmissible in a school environment and the second the second change the second area of uncertainty is that the reduction in distancing from six feet to three feet um means of course that you're closer to your neighbor you're more likely to breathe in you know the breath of your neighbor um you know in that setting and in addition you know the whole goal of all in is putting all the kids back in school at the same time right so there's also more kids in the classroom it's not just that the classroom is the kids are closer together it's that there's more of them in the room so the the probability um or the the potential um that somebody in that room um could be infected

030increases that's that's the world where we're living some some people in our community will have covet right um so double masking provides another level of reassurance um to this idea of of an extra level of boundary and extra protection extra mitigation factor in in face of those two pieces of uncertainty in the all-in environment so in regard to that so uh and maybe this somebody else can answer this um you know being being on the school board for my eighth year now kind of i wouldn't call myself a policy expert but i do have a legal background too and the way that one the way that this is written i i don't know how enforceable it is and this is something maybe dr good or somebody else can can maybe explain to me how this

031would be enforceable and then if you see a student or staff with a mask that doesn't have to mask are we taking that mask off to check to see if it's compliant because under the cdc if it's an n95 they recommend not double masking also not double masking over with two two disposable masks or surgical masks or hot medical professional mass from what i understand and also i do believe that there is there is also medical studies on the other side saying that double masking doesn't provide very much if any additional help but with that said my question is from a policy standpoint and from the way that the resolution is being proposed compulsory double masking of all staff and students what exactly does that mean so maybe dr good or or maybe dr williams

032or whoever could answer how would we be enforcing a double mask mandate um if the board passes it as written i can speak on the situations we've had since i joined the district where we had i know of two students that weren't willing to wear their masks and it resulted not in exclusion [Music] it resulted more in i don't want to say isolation you're providing them an alternate state alternate space to work while we work with their family to help them understand the importance of masking ultimately there were issues contributing to that but none of us anticipated and we were able to provide mass that were acceptable in the student forum there so that was one one situation i can share john that i talked with our student advisory my student advisor about this on

033wednesday it was it was kind of interesting we they were very chatty um and they were saying how much they missed the other cohort we miss our friends what you do doctor again they said well what do you want and they're like can't they all come back and i said what's it worth it to you thinking i could solve our financial loads but the um they said well what do you what did you have in mind and i said what what if what if we imposed a double mask for that additional layer of mitigation of additional layer protection and i was really kind of surprised and it sort of broke my heart their response they said you know dr good we would wear three or four masks if it meant we could be with our

034peers again and i thought i'm not so certain it'll be as difficult and enforcement and i thought well that's all well and good for adolescents because they want to date the other cohort i know what's going on there but then i a fourth grade girl wrote to me yesterday and i won't use her name but she asked if she could meet with me because she felt like this was taxation without representation and they were studying civics in fourth grade and so i went down to see her i sat with her her mother was present as well but didn't participate in the conversation and and we had a great dialogue about it and i raised the same issue about if it meant that your peers could return um your friends could come back and she had

035a similar response she thought it was it was well worth the the effort um so kyle's kind of been doing his own experiment here in our hallway double masking to see how cumbersome it is and how burdensome it is and it's actually less of an inconvenience that initially i anticipated as well in fact when we read the epidemiology and pediatrician's consensus statement the war president i kind of shuddered initially thinking oh double mask and um you know what and i just didn't speak for marley she didn't shut her really i shuddered and but i i thought this i don't want to wear a double mask so i've been trying it too on closed doors in case maybe he'll um i don't i don't know that it's going to be as big a disciplinary issue as

036we anticipate we would have masses available for the students as well and they seem quite willing to do what needs to be done in order to be with their peers again it kind of speaks to you know their cry for supporting their mental health at this point too i know that's not scientific but it certainly is a feeling i get when i speak with them so the mass that we supply for students who forget their mask they're the disposable the the ones that the disposable mask correct that's correct so the way that i understand the cdc guidelines those both of those kinds of masks it is not appropriate to double those types of mass up so if we have a student that shows up to school the that doesn't have a mask or forgot it

037or what have you then we can't then according to at least what the cdc guidelines say um those having two of those disposable masks on together are no more effective than having a single mask so what would we do about that and and again i appreciate the information and and as you know these these are not personal against anybody but i guess what i'm trying to figure out is if a teacher or an administrator sees a kid with just one mask on are they going to go up to them and get a close look to see whether or not it's a n95 or is it one of the fake n95 masks which don't work or what have you it's easy to see if somebody has one mask on but my review of what the cdc

038says is pretty much it's having a disposable mask with a cloth layer over the top or if you have a cloth mask that would be a double cloth mask or a gator did it be doubled up over that that would be sufficient for a double mask so i guess what i what i'm trying to get at is if a kid doesn't show up or if the kid doesn't let me ask this question if a kid shows up for school and forgot their mask which i'm sure it happens quite a bit what are we going to do do we have do we have additional cloth mask are we going to give them a disposable mask and say it's going to be okay how are we going to handle that so one of the things that you

039know we really cannot do unless the board passes this resolution is make purchases for the purpose of implementing the resolution so we could in fact purchase additional mass that meet those requirements um i honestly i would appeal to the parents the of the children to you know help help them understand the necessity of this and the utility of it in practice before school began this year that's what we did in all 31 of my districts we began rehearsing across the summer how do you prepare to go to school how do you mask appropriately and so some of it's an education i think for a while we would have to have a grace period until students um fully complied with it but then of course we would make those available as well um another question that

040i have in regard to staff being included in the compulsory double masking staff that will be vaccinated and will have been at least i guess it would be three weeks at least probably of the ones who have chosen to be vaccinated which my understanding is that the the full effectiveness of those vaccines will be there what's the purpose of having someone that's vaccine double mask if they're within six feet of someone and again i don't know if there's science behind that maybe dr turner you could answer that i would answer them to let dr turner answer because i'm afraid i want to make certain my answer is the same yeah i would say that um we discussed this uh just yesterday in our in our evaluation team subgroup um to this very question because you're

041you're exactly right that people who are vaccinated are you know expected to have um extremely low risk of serious disease of experiencing experienced disease from covin what we don't know yet um but we hope to learn soon but we don't know yet um with clarity is that people who have been vaccinated um can't can't get covet um and therefore can't transmit coping what i'm what i'm trying to say is that people who are vaccinated may still be carriers of cobit and if that's the case then we would want to have a masking strategy in place so that that person couldn't transmit to vulnerable people around them now a really important consideration and this is true about about this question but it's been true for the last 11 months is that um what the what the

042evidence looks like today could change in the next few weeks and this very question about um the risk of people who are vaccinated being able to to transmit um kobe 2 to other people this is something that's an active area of study and may change but right now the recommendation um for vaccinated people is that they continue to to to wear masks um i just want to make clear mr barner just to make sure that it's clear to others that um we we amended um the first draft that we had submitted around compulsory masking for staff and students um we amended how we how we thought about staff in particular and i know you referenced the distance which is true that that we stepped away from double masking for people who could maintain six feet

043of distance but we also introduced um language that was separate from double masking so there as you pointed out there are other um somewhat somewhat complex somewhat complicated methods that are equivalent of double masking to cdc one involves like a way of tucking and tying the you know the the um strap um that that there may be staff who would choose to do that instead and that these are things that we would like really like to look at in the next few weeks um and understand you know kind of what is as good as double masking for for staff that that would seem to be much harder to me than for students but for staff in particular so so in that in that same vein so if a of a student from what i understand

044with the the cdc guidelines and i'm not relying solely on the cdc for for everything um and a lot of this stuff but at least if we're we're talking about double masking in the cdc um one of the things that is recommended um in order to make the mask better fit and filter is like you said that i think they call it knot and tuck basically tying it so it fits better and to have the the make sure that the the metal piece in the nose is down better um are we are we saying that we're not going to even leave that type of since we're mandating and again just a generic compulsory double masking of all staff and students saying no matter what mask that you have on even if you do the the

045top or whatever or you have a a triple layered um mask that's a single mask are we still saying that they have to to do a double mask i guess what i'm struggling with is not so much some of the science behind it that you talked about dr dr uh turner but the the policy and the enforcement of it that that were as a as a policy making body um we have to take into consideration all of these aspects not only the science but the policy and and the effect the practical effect of of what we do so i guess what what i'm trying to figure out is if if uh if if we're doing compulsory double masking of students even if a student follows the cdc guidelines in particular with a single mask that

046that's not going to be acceptable i i don't know who can answer that question but that's just the general question i have with the compulsory double mask i mean i guess i would just say that the cdc's guidance for nodding and tucking is a is a medical grade surgical mask that isn't the kind of mask that most of our students are walking around wearing um it's not it's not taking your cloth mask um or the ones that you can get at cvs and doing a special tuck it's a it's a there's a quality issue related to that um and that's why we suggested that alternative would be appropriate for staff where it's a little bit easier to guarantee some kind of quality that it's done with the correct kind of mask to me and again

047as you as everyone knows i'm not connected to the policy implementation side of this but it sounded much harder um you know there's a lot there's a lot more there's a lot more considerations or a lot more variability um in managing these things for students such that compulsory double masking makes that actually much easier on the student side um with with with what we have um whereas on the staff there could be more more discussion about options that would meet cdc guidance so the three the three-ply mask that that the cdc talks about um knotting and tucking the three-ply mask um that would actually violate if we if we approve compulsory double masking even if they had a three-ply mask that was properly knotted and tucked or was a mask that had a mask fitter

048or a brace over it to make it fit better that would actually be in violation of of our of our resolution i would i would i would assume since technically it's not a double mask it's a single mask that's a three ply mask and that's just the kind of an observation maybe more than a question but maybe it should be a question if somebody has a single three-ply mask and properly knots and tucks it is that satisfactory for the compulsory double masking or not i was curious on that same friend um whether dr norris for the turner sorry norris burner um if if what we're really talking about is compulsory um double masking or cdc equivalent of double masking like kind of to mr burno's point that when i look in maybe for the benefit

049of our public what what we're looking at is i don't know kyle whether you can pull this up or not but on the cdc coronavirus 2019 your health fast effective masks is um kind of the area that we're looking under and there's like five things that say how you do do it and two things that say how you don't do it um correctly and one of those things that you that they say is fine is add additional layers right and i think that's where you guys were coming from um with two of layering it again and again um so that it cut it provides more protection i know there's also another cdc um paper that's called maximizing fit for cloth and medical procedure mask to improve performance and reduce stars and i believe dr turner

050that you all relied on that as well i understand that it has in its footnotes that it hasn't been it might not be generalizable to children but in general it talks about specific double masking which is a medical grade mask with a cotton mask over it um and i'm not i kind of see if mr burner was talking about that it's um i don't know whether we'll be able to replicate that and i'm and i'm okay with not knowing that this moment um i feel like at a policy level i am happy to as a as a policy person pass a policy that has a generalized statement and then have our administration like we do it with everything else figure out how to make it work on the day-to-day operations of things so in my

051way of thinking it makes sense to have some language that might say compulsory double masking or cdc equivalent so that we're we still have the coverage that's provided by some sort of double mask but we're more a slightly more specific about what we're talking about when we're talking about double masking um because their own documentation says that like two paper masks are not good or that you shouldn't the the that that is said on the on the general um how improve how your mask protects you it says don't double mask and then their own maximizing fit for cloth says don't double up um the the n95s so to me it it might just be a matter of saying compulsory double masking or cdc equip or you know cdc equivalent of double masking for staff and

052students um charlie i'm on the cdc website and i you know i'm looking at cdc.gov right now and they give a list of recommendations not requirements for recommendations and they they show pictures of what they consider to be um acceptable type of masks they they specifically state the ones that are okay the one the blue and whites that you see everybody walking around in is in that list of okay and then they show examples of what's not recommended and i guess where i'm struggling with is the cdc has a list of recommendations but not requirements and we're asked to trust the science which is all based on recommendations not necessarily requirements and now we're creating a requirement the recommendation is six feet but we can maybe do three feet the recommendation is one mask but

053we're saying oh well we should do two um and i don't understand why we're cherry picking some some of these things we're saying well we can reach five of the things that the cdc recommends but this one thing we'll do will make a difference and there's no as much many articles as we can find that says double masking works we can find the same amount of articles that say that it doesn't make a difference so what science are we supposed to trust and maybe that's for dr um turner and i apologize i believe i've been calling you dr norris for forever so i apologize for that that's no problem at all um and i appreciate the question so um a number of responses and i'm i may not have i didn't take notes as you

054were speaking so if i don't address all of them please ask again so um i think a couple a couple points so the first is that i'm uh one person representing these five um and we together came to a consensus document so i i don't wanna speak um on behalf of those colleagues um and and give answers that would represent them because that's i'm not able to do that right so i'm telling you um how i'm looking at it and how and how i see it we are changing how close kids are in school um except for the distancing change um we're doing everything we already have been doing everything in bexley schools um that adhere to the cdc guidance around schools reopening and the only difference is the six feet of distance for our

055group we really felt that we wanted a compensatory safety mitigation that directly addressed the fact that kids would be closer together and there would be more of them if there used to be 12 mouths and noses in a room breathing the same air for a class period now there are 24 and what we saw as a way to improve that mitigation was the evidence around double masking um i i don't i don't think um that there are equivalent data on both sides related to double masking there's not as much data about double masking as i wish there were um but that's true for almost everything about covid we have the data we have instead of the data that we wish we had um and so i find and others in our group found compelling the

056idea of adding double masking since we're taking away a a practice that has mitigated covert risk up until now in our district i do think that there's some questions around changing how we talk about this language um to make people understand what's what's permitted and and or what's effective and what's not so you know a couple times it's come up this idea that you shouldn't put two n95s together that's really important guidance that we would put um or one should put in really clear writing about what's what does this mean and what doesn't it mean and i i think that's great work for the next few weeks um the the point of putting it into this um recommendation from our group was that we want to improve our game on masking and this is a

057way to do that we want to make it better than it is given that kids are going to be closer together and why not make it a recommendation instead of a compulsory statement um so now this is just me as a public health scientist which is that recommendations don't have the same uptake as requirements and for us to really control kobe transmission for for from my perspective um having as many people do it as possible is what we would want and that works that comes with with a requirement not a recommendation which lends me to the follow-up um on what mr mr burno said you know how will we enforce it and dr good i'll be honest i kind of got a little prickly when you said that the one of the examples you gave

058was some isolation while you worked with the families and the student to help them understand um the importance of wearing a mask you know compulsory results in some sort of enforcement and disciplinary action and i think if we're going to set a policy then we need to make sure that our administration and our staff and our faculty have a means with which to potentially enforce it that's fair balanced and takes into consideration all the factors that happen i mean i've seen our own adults not necessarily wearing masks walking around the street you know like the way they should so i it just when we start putting that in language and policy then we're saying we expect you to enforce it and then what does that look like yeah so i'm the way i hear it

059through your words i would get prickly too so actually just the opposite is the way that it occurred the individual was um removed from the classroom but we didn't throw him over our shoulder and carry them out they were invited out they were brought down to talk with the principal they actually worked in the principal's office while we talked with the family to try to understand what were the barriers to either understanding the importance of this or was it an issue of not being able to secure the equipment the mass and so on it was a very humanistic response to it it wasn't i knew after i said the word isolation it wasn't going to communicate what really happened i thought it was a very gentle and humane approach and it didn't didn't embarrass the

060child so um and i i mean that's the way i operate i think here you use that restorative justice protocol when whenever you have these situations to try to try to deepen your understanding about the roots of the behavior and not necessarily apply a common protocol of punishment or discipline but we don't have a policy of restorative justice in bexley we have some good intention but we don't have policy around that it doesn't mean one can't practice it but i don't know that as an organization we have that as a as a stated practice i think we have lots of good intention but it's not a stated practice and it's not always done in our classrooms and you know so we could probably have another conversation about that restorative justice and what that looks like

061in its different forms um and you know pbis is a form of restorative justice as well and so we do use pbis in places it's about the quality of the interaction and the awareness and deepening of understanding and the personal relevance of the choice the individual's making and in all of those steps we find out again oftentimes what we didn't know and it helps us to help them make a different decision in the future and sometimes it's a change in our own behaviors so whether or not it's a policy or common practice here i've observed that that very humanistic interaction occur to help people make different choices thank you um was that were there um follow-up questions for dr um turner on this i'll jump in really quick okay so first of all i i

062liked marley what you had to say about um i don't know exactly how you said it cdc equivalent or requirement equivalent i like that especially because i feel like if the recommendations change we don't necessarily have to rewrite the resolution to be in line with what the recommendations are that that that spoke to me um do we have anybody that doesn't and that is like mask exempt now for any reason so it stands so in my mind it stands to reason that that same that that opera there is an opportunity if someone truly can't for whatever reason double mask or follow the guidelines that they're there there can there are exemptions as there currently are that's that's dr good you're nodding can you like verbally confirm that that's correct okay you give a little bit

063more depth to that answer there's um we do allow for certain exceptions and we have them written as i recall in the handbook right and we do have current students who are availing themselves of that is that correct that's right okay thank you can i just add something real quick jump on what michelle said you know as i look at this and and you know we don't have a chance to discuss this other than in in these meetings um so i appreciate everyone um kind of my thoughts on the resolution i just cut and pasted the bullet points obviously there's some things now that dr good has added but what about why why not just language rather than specifically referencing double masking why can't we put in required masking of all staff and students in

064accordance with cdc guidelines on masking and then that covers everything and just like michelle said from a policy standpoint it doesn't require us to keep coming back and rewriting rules if the cdc changes their guidelines you know i i think that that that maybe helps solve the issue because the way that this is written um again from a policy standpoint from a legal standpoint it it's it's way over broad and it's and it's making the the compulsive the the language of compulsory double masking does not sit well with me from a policy standpoint from a practical standpoint and from a parent in the district standpoint about how that would be implemented enforced and from a practical standpoint an administrative handling of that so if if we as we've required all along for our return to

065school in whatever mode and especially hybrid obviously we're requiring masks in in accordance with uh i don't even know if we have specific guidelines i'm not sure why this is being put in here other than what dr dr uh turner said about closer distance but if we if we yeah john i think that that's the just to respond to that i think that that's the distinction for sure is that because we're coming back closer and with more children so you're doubling the amount of kids and you're shrinking the space you know essentially in half um that there wanted to be they wanted to have an additional um mitigating strategy and i don't think that just saying and this is my personal opinion but i think it would be shared by um the medical team which

066is that um i don't think saying cdc guidelines for masking is um is thorough enough because as we've just seen there's all sorts of different ways to mask and i think the point is to have a more um rigorous mask than than just the current mask regimen so that's why i like the compulsory double masking or cdc like mass as you say masking right now is compulsory right so compulsory double masking or cdc equivalent could help us get to that like if it has several layers in one mask like you were pointing out if it's got three then why can't we do that and and i'm not and you know we can disagree on this i'm not at all concerned from a policy standpoint i think it's more typical and more in line with our

067statutory duty as policy makers to set a more broad broad guidelines and then have the implementation of it follow from the administration um so i feel comfortable with with language like that that then um that then is put into practice by our administration and the other thing that i keep thinking about is that we do have another board meeting um in the first week of march that if there were if there needed to be changes around this you know if we started to look at how many masks we could actually purchase and there weren't enough for all sorts of sort of issues you know that may come up in the next month um that we would have time to address those as well i appreciate that a little bit and just add my support for

068the for what you're proposing marley um i i i think we we have already you know from my perspective on the policy issue we've already got a policy that requires masking i think we need to also consider clarity for our community and requiring our community every member of our community go to the cdc guidelines every day to figure out what's required i think is asking a fair amount that that probably doesn't make sense for most families the double masking part of the reason that i support that is that that was one of the one of the bullet points that the um five doctors and epidemiologists told us that in their consensus reaching that was part of what permitted them to reach the consensus to support dr goode's proposal that we have had this all in

069discussion today and so i would be reluctant to kind of pick away at that and not honor that entirety the entirety of what what that group has told us in their estimation is a way of because we would be taking reducing on the continuum the the distancing piece in the classrooms we would increase the masking piece i think double masking permits that it permits our community to understand what's being asked of them i do agree michelle raised the issue of exceptions our current requirement is masks but there are exceptions so if there are students who can't breathe well that way they're going to be there's going to be a need for exceptions and i think that also will continue to honor what's being proposed here to have double masking with exceptions and i would support

070marley's additional piece of you know double masking cdc guidelines and you know this notion of exceptions i also think that the proposal to amend the piece for the teachers makes sense and i understand that is supported dr turner by the five of the five doctors and epidemiologists who have looked at that and provided us with that piece is that is that right yes that's right so i think that makes sense it permits our teachers to have a louder voice um when they're six feet away it permits um our teachers who are vaccinated to to wear a single mask in that circumstance um i think all of that makes good sense and is supported um by what our our team is telling us makes sense in in that mitigation strategy i was muted there just to

071jump in really quick i have to say like that that to i'm glad victoria i appreciate what you just said and that's really you said it much more much more effectively than i did but that's really i wanted to clarify that's where i'm at too is i don't think we should step away from the double masking but i like the idea of like i don't and i don't want i definitely don't want families going to the cdc guidelines every day to determine it but i like that i that piece of like just making the language just a little bit different assuming you know that that's that's what i meant so anyway doctor go by chance um do we have any data of the schools that have been all in since august in the 4329 area

072particularly st charles csg bishop hartley and on the outskirts academy because we have quite a few bexley community members that are academy students um granted they have the six foot capability because they have less student body but that is some data points that we could be referencing you know where are they sitting on potential double masking and for the other countless other areas central ohio school districts that have even more students than what we do in bexley what data have we received about this sort of idea around double masking yeah i don't have that information i can tell you the bexley st charles and csg they are not double masking actually i'm not aware of any of the franklin county districts that are double masking but i can i can check that and share that

073with the board and you're right i'm glad you pointed out that you know it's different from district to district and school to school because when you look at for example if you watch the state of the city last night st charles talked about that they have large gathering spaces where they're easily able to accommodate the six foot distancing uh st charles that are csg the same um when we look up new albany's a lot of times used as a comparable and yet we also know that they don't have we have 95 percent of our families attending in person and new albany has far fewer percentage much less percentage smaller percentage families attending in person so their square footage goes a little further so again it's a district by district understanding if they're able to maintain

074the six foot given that our my understanding is the double masking is to help not to accommodate for but an additional mitigation layer because we will not be able to maintain six foot at all times we will do our best to do that by the way but it's it's just not a guarantee it is for lunches and obviously for phys ed and those sorts of activities i was just going to ask you to elaborate on that a little bit dr good just briefly about lunches i know that's an area that's been of significant concern since people do take their mass off at lunch and it's my understanding that the district has figured out how to have um six feet of distancing and maintained for all lunch time could you talk just a bit about that

075i'm happy to do that so actually this uh the operations group looked at the gymnasiums and have ordered collapsible tables that find chairs and also partitions so that they could safely distance students while they're eating and they remove their mass so again they have the distancing present they have the physical barrier between them as well and i don't i wasn't here when it happened my understanding is the vex education foundation was gracious enough to purchase coverings for gymnasium floors so that we're able to do um put those tables in there without damaging the finish too much so yes we've we've been talking about that we're also you know hopeful that this will be after spring break and the first you know spring will have arrived and so warmer weather would invite opportunities to eat outside

076and i do know that in october and november and even a couple days in december when we had warm weather it was fun to watch so many of our students actually be outdoors without their mass but appropriately distance and still be able to you know be social and that's something they're missing so so hopefully we'll have a mild spring and we can take advantage of that but we do have the plan for accommodating them inside it was interesting when we talked with students about other things we could do you know do we need to lengthen the time between classes so they have more time to be very intentional in their distancing and some of the faculty with whom we talk said no they really have plenty of time now the students said the issue was

077more of the arrows were they expected to follow the arrows on the floor i don't i wasn't here when they were put down i'm sure they were put down for for a good purpose and and probably worked that for that purpose but there's their their suggestion was if if you just have to stay on the right side of the hall when we walk down it we can pretty much keep the distance from each other instead of having to use one staircase at one end of the complex to go up and staircase at the other end to go down and you can get off the elevator and you have nowhere to go because there are no arrows that lead you away only into it and so they had some good suggestions too and i think the

078more we involve them and involve their voice and the faculty's voice the the you know the more reasonable accommodations that we can make that is one thing that strikes me about this uh resolution that i'm a favor of dr good is the um is the that we don't start till after spring break i mean i understand the purpose of it was to make sure that um our teachers were fully vaccinated and that their vaccine had time to kick in um and that won't happen until march 13th which is the first day of spring break so um i i understand that that's the reason for doing that and i support that reason but i also think it builds in this very nice time where we can start to do um you know think creatively and i've

079been so impressed by our administration our teachers um figuring out creative ways to make um make this work this year um and so i do appreciate that we'll have that time and and can really work at making our best choices then um i guess i also just wanted this to in thinking about this i just want to recognize that this you know this resolution isn't perfect um because covet doesn't really allow for perfection you know really about it cova doesn't allow for perfection um but i do believe that we should be back in school all in um so i want to acknowledge that um this doesn't fully this like everything probably is a compromise of trying to pick and choose the very best pieces that we can if if you want to have kids back

080in to me i have a trade-off of figuring some mitigation strategies um it does not comply with the with the cdc report that still favors six feet distance but it does comply with these guidelines you know from very many other reputable um global health organizations um you know including the world health organization the brown and harvard um pen device explained guidelines and and our own you know very risk i i call our evaluation team risk diverse they are they really come from all um all points and it's supported by all of those who that's another um guiding point for me and also i'm encouraged by the anecdotal evidence of many schools across the country that are open and have been able to do so you know within reasonable safety guidelines so or um so i

081believe that our the proper mitigation can work um and i'm in favor of trying it here under these circumstances marley one of the things that we did do when this was rolled out to the bargaining leadership earlier this week or to the bargaining unit earlier this week we posted a link where they could place questions and suggestions so it's a they put them there and as we research then we respond to them and every all the staff have access to that and you know it goes through a typical cycle so this is yet another change and everybody kind of has the same initial response to change we're a bit alarmed and uneasy but because it changes become kind of the norm during this pandemic um that was a very tiny window of alarm and then

082the sorts of contributions were great suggestions other things we can do they really don't even need to be mandated and or recommended but more john to your point could be administratively implemented and i think even the compulsory double masking if we find you know if the evaluation team can help us understand exactly what that means so i still don't know the answer to the three-layer mask so why are we proposing that dr good in this resolution if we don't know what it means no it because it was brought up um by one of the board members the three layers i hadn't ah i am sorry so i want to jump on what alicia just said i've been thinking about this and and kind of what marley said earlier you know we're relying on and i

083think this is how i like to operate is relying on our administrators to to enforce so when we create a resolution that has very specific things in it um and i lost the resolution but um there are some things in there that i don't have in front of me um specifically well where it talks about the the the staff being vaccinated what what that again from a policy standpoint legal background standpoint i'm not sure why that's even in there because of course we want our our staff to be vaccinated if they choose to be vaccinated um for whatever reason they're not um it almost seems to me that we're going back and forth and discussing um and and i'm having issues with it because there are things in there that are very specific that were

084that we're telling that are talking about going all in but if if something's not included in there that means that we're not enforcing it or that it wasn't important enough to put in the resolution and all in i'm not really sure like enhanced enhanced um hand hygiene protocols at the entry and exit isn't that just an administrative thing i mean if we said we want to do all in with all appropriate safety safety protocols and precautions then it appears to me that a lot of stuff in this resolution is something that that the administration like the bell schedule i i don't want to tell uh for instance mr caudle at the at the middle school of how what his bell schedule should be i mean we're saying we can't reconfigure it but maybe he's fine

085with the configuration of the bell schedule at the middle school that he thinks it's safe enough even when we are all in i this is where i'm struggling with it and i'm not saying being critical of people's opinions but what i'm being critical of i guess is why we're why as uh miss mitchell pointed out why we're putting all of this stuff in here when even as as ms snowden pointed out the double masking thing is is we're thinking up we're getting this from the the doctors on the on the um evaluation team but it's not really based on any guidelines that are out there's kind of what we think should be done which again gets to the point of we're we're putting things into resolutions and policies that aren't really based on anything specific

086but kind of what we think we should do um mr i don't even interrupt you but i would like to just respond to that quickly this that language comes from from all sorts of health organizations including the harvard brown city i think is where most of those come from and and i unders i appreciate what you're saying that we're definitely skating like oh we're skating a little bit of a razor's edge here because i the reason that i think it's important to have this much detail um and i don't think it's you know finite detail as i explained earlier i think these are like um bumpers you know kind of detail and to me that's important because we're gonna ask if we approve this we're going to ask parents to tell us are your kids

087going to be in school are they going to be out of school and i think it's really difficult for a parent to say okay you said all safety protocols will be followed um i guess i'll send my kid like i've heard from people and i think this is a reasonable response i'd like to have some bumpers up around what reasonable is so what reasonable to me and that's why i asked dr good um you know if we could include the the part about the air filtration most almost all um widely accepted guidelines talk about air filtration and i wanted to make it clear that it's we're not just relying on opening the windows when we can we have robust systems um and that's what these specifics say what i hope they do is give our

088parents assurance that this is what it will look like if you decide to send your child here um and if you if you read these and you think that's not enough for me then you know that the e-learning is a better option for you but i'm just i feel like that's something that our community has asked for and it seems reasonable to me oh sorry i'm just going to add on one sentence which is that i had the same thought process on some of this that you may be having john which was do we really need to add the air filtration we're already doing that do we but but i think marley's point is well taken that um i think a lot of our community families have said to us i need to understand what

089your plan is and i think it is very helpful to be as clear as we can about what we're what we're doing and what the expectation of and so for that for that reason i do support putting as much as is in here in here that plus you know that that answers the question for me about the air filtration and the other things that have been added um for me the rest of it is because these are the mitigation strategies that i think were intended to be enhanced in order to reduce the you know to be willing to go all in recognizing the the necessary reduction in the distance piece i understand glad michelle and to just to add on to that when we decided when we made the decision in in august to do

090you know to do what we were going to do we had it like laid out as like a learning plan and then i feel like we voted on a resolution to drop the plan and then we had the appendix the appendices whatever but that so i don't really feel like this is that different because we had all that stuff laid out before it just wasn't a it was just a plan a document and not the resolution itself right am i remembering correctly incorrectly anybody does anybody else want to weigh in no i think you're correct so when we voted to go to hybrid we didn't have we didn't have all these things in here because i thought the plan that we had approved had all the all in and the other stuff and and i

091think that the concerns that i'm having is is just a matter of construction of you know what like when somebody writes a statute and they put specific things in there and but they don't put something else in there the the construction of the the the way that it's written would mean that there are things because they're not included that they're either not going to be enforced or not important which obviously we can't put all of those in one resolution um i'm kind of bouncing off of what you said earlier snowden about keeping keeping the things in general terms as a policy um and saying essentially we want to we agree with all in and and these questions that i'm asking about this i'm definitely for all in that's not my question the kind of position

092i feel like i'm in with that we're putting things in here that one are overstepping our bounds but two that i'm not necessarily in in agreement with that they're being put in there so i feel like i'm putting being put in a situation that um and i'm not blaming anybody i just feel like i agree with all in i'm definitely supportive of that but i'm not supportive of all the things that are being put in the resolution that that again i one i feel like that they're overstepping or bound to i think that they're um they're not not clear of what we're putting in there and in three um you know just to be transparent um you know the advisory committees that we have and all kinds of things including the evaluation team are exactly

093that they advise us the five of us are the the five that were elected by the public we're the ones that have to make not only decisions based upon policy and information that we get from an evaluation team but also that information that we have on our own and and i feel like at at a certain point we appreciate the evaluation team we appreciate the tons of work that miss noted and miss powers and dr good and everybody else has been on on those evaluation teams including dr turner it just feels like that you know and i'm not trying to be critical but well this is what the doctors the five doctors on the evaluation team said so i feel uncomfortable in in going against that i i don't i think we're we have to

094take into consideration everything and that's not just what um and i'm not being critical of anybody on the evaluation team but we have to take into consideration everything from policy standpoint from a public standpoint from a community standpoint from a parent standpoint and and i'm i feel very awkward and because i very much support all in but i don't know how i can support a resolution that i think is is overstepping what we should be doing right and i think you've come to uh um to the crux of it right that we i think each have our own opinions on this and as you say that's how it's supposed to be as a board um we come with our own experience background and um and and that's what we're voted to do and to do

095um another thing marley i'm sorry to interrupt you the other thing that that i'm a little uncomfortable with is um and i understand that um we'd received some some of the information this morning and you know with everything i i'm not blaming anybody i certainly will and continue to extend grace to everyone but i i haven't even read what the resolution is going to look like with the additional stuff in it and i'm a little uncomfortable um in in and i know that it was it was brought up mr smith can you um can you add in this are they already in there so we could see exactly what um dr good and and let me just as as mr smith's trying to do that let me just make a point for our public this

096as i said you know it's kind of it's a difficult process um and we escape another line um which is that we want our public to see in advance on board docs what the resolution looks like but as you can hear things are changing daily it with cove at 19 and we also um are it's necessary to have many opinions so our all of our staff and and um administrations our doctors um and and so make it's like making sausage throwing stuff in we wanted to have the the um resolution up for people to read but then i think it also causes community confusion when the resolution gets changed throughout the day um or after it's been put on so this is our attempt to keep it as it was and now change it through

097a live meeting we may decide that that's not the best way of doing it um it's again it's just our our attempt to be as transparent as possible and and maybe even more so as clear as possible about what we're doing um so mr smith can you it's difficult right because can you start at the top so we can all see um how this would get added okay so what you're seeing right now the highlights were dr goods recommendations so the unhighlighted sections would be um mirroring what's on board docs would you mind copying and pasting all of that um and and shooting at an email to board members so we can manipulate it individually as well is that hard to do i can email this document to you is that is that what yeah

098that's all i want i don't mean that we should have any editing rights i just mean that it's hard for me i'm like oh wait where did we say that and i i keep trying to you know control the screen which isn't working hey marley um well um kyle is working on that it just occurred to me a process that i had the privilege to participate in when i went to the um the legislative voting process so they had their resolution and each section of the resolution like you know call it a bullet or whatever proposed changes were um listed in there and then they put each part of those up for a vote versus just here's the resolution as it is um and you know you had to vote for all the things you

099didn't like and all the things that you did and in particular um there was a pretty robust discussion about whether or not um what language would be used around um diversity equity and inclusion and you know so it was put out to everybody to vote whether or not that should include um a far broader type of language to bring in like everybody into the fold or was it going to be specific to a dealing with racial issues um and so possibly going forward either with this it wouldn't be possible for this resolution but going forward when we have lots of different um you know things it might make sense for us to be voting on um our resolution not in its entirety because uh like mr bruno i i have wanted to be all in

100or close to all in since the fall and voted accordingly but i don't necessarily agree with compulsory language um and it it i i haven't been satisfied with the responses of how that's going to look sorry i'm getting a little one talking to me at the same time um and so i i i think it's really important for us to not just and then we're getting them 24 hours before you know we go into a meeting because things are ever-changing and meetings are happening and a lot's going on and i understand that but it's really really difficult um when we're getting you know a small window of time to look at it small window of time to dispute it and then it's either well it's in here and either you want our kids to go

101back to school or not that's not the question that really really isn't the question we are being given recommendations by us by a task force or an evaluation team that we need to weigh whether or not it makes sense and how when we put this policy in place if it will be you know able to be implemented all of those things you know we can debate practice over until we're blue in the face you know whatever i it just to me it just it's it's really really frustrating when we get resolutions like this all inc it's i feel like i'm being told by the evaluation team what my vote should be and that is not what they they were not elected to the seat to do yeah i find that really troubling well i don't

102share that um but of course i don't have to um i feel like this is my independent judgment based on taking advisement from experts but remains my independent judgment i do um i do hear your comments on the resolution there's a lot in here um it is what we have tonight before us and so again i'm gonna stick with robert's rules and um and ask for a vote on this resolution um but going forward um i'll i will you know as as president that's my responsibility to set um the resolutions and and and i will um i'll make an effort to to parse things out better so that maybe votes would better represent your um your individual board members thoughts on specific items but as it stands tonight we have the current um the current

103um resolution in front of us um which includes right so and there's a lot in there um marla can i just interrupt you for a sec there and make two comments one of which would be to address some of the language in the resolution that's up on the screen and another that offers something in in connection with what alicia has just said that for me the decision about all in is difficult for a lot of reasons and um i think we all come at these decisions based on data and what's best for our students and um you know and i know we've all heard a lot from our community and no matter what the decision the board makes here this evening they're going to be people who are disheartened and and and i think we've

104all tried to hear all of the different perspectives but as somebody who starts with with data and i think we all do one of my concerns last week was that the cdc guidance says you should have six feet or more of distance and and based on what the cdc is telling us we should not be going all in um and and so that's a real for me that's a that's a that's something to really struggle to overcome um we you know we have traditionally as a board talked about what franklin county is recommending and what different you know organizations with authority around this particular covet issue are recommending to us and and today we're sort of struggling to find a way to get com i'm personally struggling to find a way to get comfortable with

105going all in because i think that it's in our students interests and early on i talked about the american association of the aap um you know like psychologists you know pediatricians and they were talking a lot about mental health issues and how important that mental health how important being in school was so i'm trying to find a way to get comfortable with all this difference in what the guidelines should be and for me it would be hard to make a vote to go all in without having the pieces around it that for me provide that swiss cheese that has has you know permitted us to be so successful in protecting our students and our teachers and our staff in the buildings so um it's just a i'm not i'm not i'm not trying to just

106listen to one group or another group i'm trying to find a comfortable place where i could support all in with the safety measures that would provide the difference for me between not having that six feet of difference of distance so that you know i totally agree with you it's really hard to want to go in one direction but to have pieces in the resolution that may not be exactly what each of us would want and this is not the first time this has happened you know for me earlier in the fall there were pieces in a in a motion i didn't want you know we ended up having divided vote on it and that that's going to happen um and and at that time my thinking was well our community is divided our board's divided

107you know that's that's how it comes out sometimes and it's hard um so i just wanted to add that kind of recognition of what you're feeling and and um you know that it that it's i agree it's hard and you know i wish there was a perfect solution thank you um so we have emotion on the floor um but it needs to be amended and i'm going to state it um myself so that there's no ambiguity to it um at least that's my hope and intent um so can i have a motion to approve marley i still have questions we can still have conversations i just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing here okay okay so a motion to approve uh actually i'm not ready to well okay emotion to approve

108the uh resolution as presented on the screen currently by mr smith with its included um highlights editions and with the addition that under the all-in definitions it would include compulsory double masking cdc approved equivalent and that would be the resolution and it's in in its complete form okay and so mr smith can you add that with a color please yeah can you see where my cursor is masking and what was the right cdc equivalent what was that first part i'm sorry or cdc equivalent um okay so this is what kyle just emailed us this is what kyle just emailed it with this with that one edition um and that excuse me so i would like to entertain a motion to approve uh this resolution as shown here and i think it's just some quick clarification

109though are you saying or cdc equivalent of double masking or cdc equivalent of masking of double masking thank you so if we need to be more clear um yeah because the way i would read that just my like brain i'd read that as okay as long as i'm in compliant with the cdc recommendations on masking i'm compliant and that is not what your your intent is correct well i think again you know we're working with imp perfect data and imperfect realities here because i'm not sure that the cdc this is going to have to be further discussed um but i'm comfortable and i'm looking for a motion in a second to see if everybody else is with saying compulsory double masking or cgc equivalent thereof kyle if you can kind of add that right yeah

110kyle can you add the word thereof after equivalent um of all staff and students um and then right so that would be the language and with the understanding that yes we'll have it you know we're gonna have to put out information about what that is um and and if we can't do that then by next board meeting then we'll have to address it then before we go back to school and i propose that we put a comma after students there um in that line that kyle just revised and said provided however comma and then have staff must observe because otherwise to me it's a little at odds we got a bullet point that says that they have to double mask and then we've got another bullet point that changes that a little bit and i

111would just put them into one bullet point thank you you want to tell kyle that language again please so paul i would just go from there um provided however comma and then just take the staff must observe the next fuchsia language that you have there and get rid of the bullet that's what i would that's that's it that's clear thank you all right can i have a motion to approve the resolution as it's now shown on the screen can you just um give me can you just look up a bit this is exactly what we just received okay yeah so marley i i have to come back to the i still have questions for dr good so so if we can have a motion in a second on this one then we'll have a question

112okay so in a second thank you so much that was a motion from ms powers a second from ms mineo and now sorry can you any questions for dr good all right so i'll go because i have i have um i have several questions okay so um i appreciate the timing the the the march 23rd timing um i appreciate the march 23rd timing it makes sense to me even though other districts are going back sooner thus it gives us the window for the the two-week window for the vaccine to be that hit the maximum the 95 capacity protection it makes sense to me um lost my train of thought um it has oh i know this is a question so the evaluation team is going to continue to meet weekly so at any point in

113time we can review the data the data will be reviewed and say this is this is not as effective as we thought it was going to be or we need to we need to consider new data that's correct yes okay and so one of the things i feel like so i feel like i do feel like we have heard from a certain we we've definitely heard from the community some people are ready to go like yesterday some people are ready to go after spring break and some people feel like we should wait for the window after the two-week break i i am appreciative of the fact that you shared after christmas vacation we did not see a surge in cases um and this is a question i think probably more for dr turner one of

114the things i think that one of the reasons i think i'm in support of going after spring break is because honestly i don't i don't see how we can parse out like if we in two weeks after spring break is after we go back all in two weeks after spring break and we see an uptick in cases there's no way to determine if it's the mode change or the we were on vacation change because we're changing two variables um do you have any thoughts on that or what i mean how how are we gonna look at that data or we're just gonna wait till that data comes and then c interpret it as as it arrives does that make sense dr turner um i think what you're asking is if we saw rates change would

115we know it's because of a change in instruction mode or or because of travel i guess that's a better way of saying it yes um so we won't we won't know what what we will just keep doing what we always do which um is checking the data every day both um in the city and the county but also um that are occurring among school-age children in the district and the contact tracing and case investigation that happens with individual cases in the district um to understand where they came from and um the contact tracers who are employed by the school um do a really amazing job understanding those data so so it's often it's often possible to tell with a lot of confidence where the case came from um and so yeah we talk about these

116individual cases every week okay thank you for pointing that out that's a great point sometimes it's not even necessarily the numbers it's the story behind the number that gives us the information and i like the fact that you said that we're looking we're always looking at what everything else what everyone else is doing i think that idea that other districts are doing this this information i think you know we already talked about the fact that st charles clearly has different square footage than we do and so you can't necessarily make a one-to-one comparison of what other districts are doing because the there are variables that are you know different and unaccountable for but i like the fact also that i think if other districts are going back march march 1st or whenever they're going back

117they all have they'll hit that two week mark before spring break and if they happen to see an uptick that's information that might be available to us in our decision or our future um reviews and considerations so thank you for answering that question i i really appreciate the clarification um okay so here's another question i have and this is probably a doctor good question all right so it is entirely possible that we'll have families that will choose to um not participate in the all-in if we choose to go in this direction and so their option would be to um enroll in the plp is that correct correct okay and so tell me so we're three-fourths of the school year and tell me about how that will look can you answer how that will look for

118students who are switching from hybrid to e-learning and their courses are not available um through the plp specifically i'm thinking of like some ap classes right so i'm going to ask our chief academic officer jill abraham to respond to that provided she's still on the line because she's waiting on her latest grand baby today thank you so actually ms mineo what would happen then for students any student that was looking to make that shift for our elementary middle school students it's much easier to enroll them in schools plp and they would work with an assigned case manager as our other students have previously who would connect with them weekly help monitor their progress through you reference specifically what happens if you're a high school student who perhaps doesn't offer a course uh our ap course

119is not specifically in schools plp and dr boyle at that point would work with student family and high school staff to see what can we do in terms of an individualized plan or specific plan that might allow the student to participate there are some instances where we just would not be able to provide that course within schools plp or in an alternate way um thank you that's helpful thank you um one other question i have and this any and all can feel free to join in and answer this question okay so um i always take the information and kind of like the feedback we get from the community and then i measure against the barometer of like my own children and so i was really surprised the other day when i said you know if

120we go back all in who's who thinks that's a good idea and who doesn't and one of my three definitely indicated that was something that he found like that would give him anxiety over and so that's just represent that's just one third of like my particular household so let's extrapolate that out and say okay we know that there were there's that percentage that percentage is going to be out there what have you guys started to talk about supports um mental health supports for children who want to come all in because academically they and they socially even they know it's the right thing but maybe you're feeling a little bit anxious about the increased perceived increased risk anybody i'll respond to that what i would say are our school teams have been responding to this really

121all year at varying levels and again anxiety in a couple of different ways sometimes anxiety and not being able to be in school and other for other students it's the anxiety of coming back into school in the presence of covet and so our teams have worked diligently our counselors have worked really hard to make connections with kids and families and sometimes in the development of plans that help support kids in being able to do so so if somebody had a student that was feeling anxious about that first thing that i would encourage them to do is to reach out to their school counselor and or their principal to see if they can think with the school team in regards to what might be helpful in providing supports to those kids the other thing is we

122obviously still have our partnership with nationwide and our clinicians and again they offer a different level of support so we've been we've been planning for students all year uh in different levels of concern and this would just be another opportunity to reengage school staff and to think with families that's the best help support students in this transition thank you for that that answer and um and michelle and as many of you asking it i just do want to note that dr turner is going to have to leave us at the clock so if anybody has any last questions for her doctor turner can i ask one more quickie absolutely thank you um all right so going back to the double masking this is this is i'm okay so i'm prefacing it with this is an

123in the weeds question i'm not necessarily saying that we have to have an answer today but um so the double masking just so i have in clear in my mind the cloth mask goes over the medical the wiry mask is that correct the the most yes the the what the cdc is talking about or what the study that they did it looked at the percentage of particles that are blocked by a paper mask that we see a lot of people wearing the percent that are blocked by a cloth mask and then the percent that are blocked when those two things are used together the paper underneath and the cloth up and and the numbers for just the paper or just the cloth is about 50 of particles are blocked it was between 51 and 56

124percent and when you put them together 85 percent of those respirator blitz are blocked i just had the picture thank you very much for that answer i just had the picture in my head what's going gonna look like and so i'm like i said i'm prefacing this with 100 it is an in the weeds question and maybe it doesn't need to be answered here so i will again so first of all i'll say so when we switch so when we the elementary students will be eating lunch at their desks the way that they did when we were in the uh aabb model is that correct that's a question for dr good okay yes dr good sorry thank you very much dr norris anyone else for miss uh for dr turner okay thank you very much

125dr turner for your assistance tonight and throughout this i'm sorry so um go ahead dr good give ask the question again the elementary students will be eating lunch at their desks is that correct or they'll be eating in the cafeteria or that's to be determined yeah go ahead i was going to say dr williams would probably be a good person to respond charlie you in there i am yeah we we haven't we got some details we have to work out right now i mean we're using this is a launching point we haven't come to any decisions but yes one of the ideas we're considering is having uh the elementary students put as many in the rooms that could eat at six feet of distance thing and have an overflow areas in the middle school gym

126uh possibly in the cafeteria uh we're meeting monday with the castingham complex step because that's the hardest one to organize since there's three schools that use a very small area but i think the important takeaway is is that whatever our plan is the final plan we come up with there'll be a six foot minimum between students when they're eating unmasked okay dr williams thank you so much so i haven't really thought about that fact that like we can't do it the way we did it before because we're changing the dynamics and we're not having six it's not going to be six feet necessarily the way it was before so thank you for that so that last little plug that i'll put in here is it's like i said this is in the weeds thing but

127um first of all whoever the middle school stuff is that decided that the kids needed to have their masks on their little lanyards around their necks yay i thought that was the greatest decision ever my kid has never once lost his mask because it's around his neck but i feel like if we're gonna do a double mask and one of them is a disposable mask that's a lot easier to like lose misplace or whatever and so i'm just putting that plug in there that that'll be a piece that like i look forward to seeing how you um address that all right thank you those are all my questions hey dr good i have a question for you i know you said um 88 of our staff have now been vaccinated but we're not requiring the

128vaccinations correct but we will make it compulsory for those staff members then to be double masked if they are not if they've not at least been vaccinated because that's one that's a third potential non-compliant cdc step so they're within the six feet of students yes yeah um so how will we enforce that how will we know when that is or isn't happening how how how do you see that happening so actually the recommendation is that any staff that are within 60 of students go ahead and double mask in the rest of that paint there are a couple of other ways to achieve that same level of protection so um certainly we have been i shared this language with the ea leadership the better they're supportive of that so i don't i don't think it'll be

129an issue again you know i know you maybe you don't like the way i like to talk to people but i i kind of like to address those situations individually and try to determine what it is i don't disagree i don't dislike the way you talk to people i just i'm trying to clarify what what happens with the 12 percent um that's all and some of them some of them have actual medical reasons you know one time people were pregnant were recommended that they not get the vaccine others have had surgical procedures we actually have 20 additional staff members that have indicated that they would like to participate whenever that first round comes around again so it's a great question thank you can i ask a question about the language that we've been talking about

130in the double masking we had talked earlier about the fact that they're currently we have room for exception so that students who need an exception to the mask wearing um you know or a change that we would grant that and i think we've recognized that there may be students and staff who need an exception to this policy and i'd like to kind of think about including that language in this document so that it would be something like except where an exception has been permitted by the administration i i assume that those exceptions are decided on by administrators um um compulsory double masking etc so that we capture and hear the ability um and the recognition that there will be some exceptions for that we know we're going to come and i'd rather recognize that here

131and and just to jump on that real quick before you answer dr good the the exception language that would be for all staff and students um i'm assuming i was proposing to put it at the very beginning of that bullet point so that it would cover everything that came after it just as a drafting thought i don't know what other people you know is that sure i'm trying to just capture what we're currently doing and add it into this in terms of exceptions that's a good point um so maybe at the beginning victoria are you thinking at the beginning of thinking right yes right right at the very beginning of that bullet point um permitted by administrative exception compulsory masking or cdc equivalent of all masking students except as any exceptions as may be approved

132by the administration you know the district administration i don't i don't know what the right wording is on that piece dr good people is approved by the district and it's more likely to allow school nurse nurse to advise me in that regard i don't claim to be a health professional so but they could easily say this child has asthma this adult has this condition and so on which is what we do now but i like memorializing it by the district by the district administrators and you would get that i mean i don't want to just say the district because i feel like that's a little broadly allocated to the school nurse that's not a problem sorry while you're on that one could i mean just be because you're about to vote on it should we

133maybe put a period after when closer than 60 to students period and then start again in place of double masks it's just it's not really it's like a really big run-on sentence now the english teacher in me sorry i can't even sorry dan your your audio is a little garbled for me um can we let me get the language that you that we want to have in front of the compulsory double masking uh victoria do you have that i i is tyler are you able to make another yeah so right at the beginning of that right yeah right before compulsory um i i'm proposing accept any exceptions as may be approved by district administration yep that last part as may be approved by district administration comma yeah that's yeah yeah dr good i appreciate what

134you're saying my father was an english professor but but this is the lawyer in me says that this is okay the way it runs on but but i i hear what you're saying to further the english conversation c or cdc equivalent thereof of all students we do those two to go together right you put a comma after their thank you yeah okay um good all right marley to be fair though like this process may be um painful but it's loads better than when i first got on the board and we used to rewrite resolutions let's hope that's better yeah this is this is uh this is like a retro night at the school board going back and and and wordsmithing everything but it's but it's important because uh despite maybe some beliefs we don't have

135a chance to discuss these things um in any kind of secret meetings or anything so this is sometimes especially when it's an issue like this the only time that we have a chance to do this so those that are watching um and um assessing mr smith's typing skills as well um because i'd be nervous over watching somebody watching me type can i add another question for the for the five of us um and everybody else who was worried about language all in is defined for purposes of this resolution as and we've got these bullet points it never says five days all all students in all buildings do we need i mean that's what we mean by all in right um do we need to say that or am i just being hyper well i mean

136i don't think we need to state it and this is just my personal opinion um because i think we understand what traditional school is um in terms and this all in concept really is just because of covid 19 what i would wonder though and i need to go back and i can't scroll it um is does this language reference for this school year you know how we did with all the other it does at the bottom it'll say that too oh okay okay sorry applies to this year and it goes through this year okay so i think all in is fine because it references a point a specific point in time victoria that's just my opinion okay um all right we do have another matter we have to discuss tonight um and so since we

137have a motion in a second and that motion includes what is currently on the screen which was my purpose in stating them that way um so that mr smith can refer back to it with a date time stamp so just to be clear let me restate it can i have a motion to approve the language as it currently stands in our resolution um for the learning mode for the last quarter of 2021 school year so moved second thank you all right we've had a lot of discussion and i feel that we're ready for votes so i'm going to call that if this doesn't um if this doesn't result in a in a um in a vote we can are in an agreement by a majority of the board members then we can have another conversation

138but as it stands now um can i have um actually ms snowden real quick i'm sorry there's one more thing since we have a new motion the one i just kind of i wasn't sure where i could bring this in but i just want to state uh i have disagreements with the way the language is but in in a certain sense um since we've talked about it a lot just so it's clear for the record because really our record is our vote i'm very it's a difficult decision for me but from my perspective even with the restrictions that i don't think are appropriate i all in is better than not being all in from my perspective and i appreciate and i don't discount anybody that doesn't want to go all in or have their kids

139to do that so my perspective is that it's best and the overwhelming view from my standpoint is we need to be all in if we can get in the last quarter of the year so um you know i'm i'm going to support this resolution only simply because all in is better than not being all-in the only other thing i wanted to add is this um nobody on this board from from where i sit and what i've been here for eight eight years is doing anything other than trying to do what's very best we appreciate every all the efforts and and that can't be said enough from everybody on this call from the evaluation team and everyone else so my questions and my criticisms and whatever they may be taken as are only simply because i

140think as we all are trying to do what we think is the very best for our district so i think that's an important thing to say before we make this vote but i am going to support it one other side note um there people always talk about and this i don't know if this is appropriate or not but i'm going to bring it up so okay um is it isn't it isn't it ironic that we're voting to go all in doing it virtually the reason why we're doing this virtually is to allow the community to participate because we can't jam into the community room and we have all of us have had meetings at the school in person so for those who think that we're doing that the irony is lost on us that's going

141on um if if the transparency wants to be out there i just want to let you know that we have met in person we've had executive session in persons together for hours together in the same room it's not lost on us that we can't have meetings like this to where we can have 100 200 or even 300 people watch um in the community room so the reason why we're doing this by zoom isn't because we're somehow afraid of covet or whatever may be the speculation it's so that we can let the community see what's going on and hear what we're talking about um and i think i i just wanted to make sure that that was said along with the other part so i don't know if that's appropriate or not but before we vote

142i wanted to make sure that that was that was clear that we that we're here doing this uh for the best of the community and not for any personal reasons or anything right and just a clarifying point there john thank you for bringing that up is that the fact that when we we did do a one board meeting i feel like where we were all in the same room at the same time and the feedback was like people couldn't hear us because we had to wear masks and then of course we had the feedback from each other's computers and so that is that it's that ability to hear us please thank you um so we have a motion in a second i think i'm ready to call the vote um all in favor please signify

143by saying aye hi hi any opposed name sign is really good work thank you that motion carries i cannot thank you all enough for your dedication to end time and energy to this district it really makes me choke up a little bit when i think about how hard everybody's working um all right so we have just one other matter to properly come for the board tonight which is our superintendent search discussion i don't expect this to be a long conversation um ms powers has been doing an immense amount of work with our um firm brain associates our search firmware and associates and she has um been setting parameters for how we will be advertising our our position to um prospective applicants and she has i think one question and a um and a recommendation for

144us so miss powers thank you ms snowden let me go quickly just generally regarding the superintendent's search we have started to gather important input from our stakeholders on what qualities and characteristics are most desired for our new superintendent there's information and a survey link on the district's website bexleyschools.org at the board of education tab under superintendent search the survey is available to all community members all stakeholders and is available there until eight o'clock in the morning on march 1st so i encourage everybody to to participate in that survey we've also scheduled a number of focus group meetings that will take place by zoom throughout the day and evening on february 25 and february 26th some of the meetings are for specific targeted groups and two of the meetings are for all interested stakeholders so everyone

145who is interested is invited to participate the information for those two meetings is posted on the website um thank you to tyler for getting that up there information gained from the survey responses and from the focus groups will help to shape the desired profile of our next superintendent the issue that's before us tonight is that our search firm has asked us to determine a base salary for purposes of advertising the opening this is because some of the postings where we would like to let people know that we have this opening require in order to post there we are required to put in a base salary so i want to start by thanking kyle smith who has provided a ton of assistance to me and working through the issues and i had to help from ray

146and associates as well and i thank them too our discussion tonight is just about what we would post in our advertisements as a base salary or a base salary range so the the base salary does not include benefits and other amounts that go into a total compensation package those things that would not be included in the base salary are things like a retirement pickup medicare pickup annuities a bonus structure amount those are those are things that are would not be in the base salary our current base salary for our superintendent position is 168 300 so that's the current amount that we have ran associates has said has answered my question about how to you know what what they would recommend on going to what we would post they think that um we should start the

147thinking on what an appropriate salary might be by adding maybe three percent to our current base to get to a starting point for what we would put in there because our our amount would be for next year they also recommend that we could consider publishing a small range in our advertisements they don't recommend a large range so we could simply publish one number or my recommendation is that we publish a small range that would give us a little bit of flexibility and make it a little more comfortable and coming up with the right the right proposal if we were going to publish a range we might want to start with something that is in my view about where we are right now that 168. so that that's a place to start for me because it

148would permit us to not go out at too high a number in attracting somebody and and making a commitment to pay somebody who might have a little less experience but then i would want to have a top range that's a little further out so that the top end of our range would be maybe in the neighborhood of five or six percent higher than where we currently are five percent higher would be about 177 thousand six percent higher would be about a hundred and seventy eight thousand so that would if we went from one sixty eight thousand to one seventy eight thousand as a range it would be a ten thousand dollar range the higher numbers i believe would permit us to attract candidates who are the most qualified that would be interested in you know

149applying um through these postings we could top out at a lower number but i would be a little concerned that we you know might be cutting selling ourselves a little short so my recommendation is a range of 168 to 178 000 and my considerations in putting that proposal forward to you is to uh you know my my different considerations include wanting to attract the best candidates being competitive not starting too high or committing too high but also recognizing that the total compensation package would be negotiated in the contract discussions and that's not what we're doing tonight we're just looking at a range for these advertisements which would be a commitment but but but not a total package commitment hey victoria really quickly did you um are do we resolve whether or not we're going to

150advertise in some of those other publications um because that also is gonna where we advertise we'll net a particular um group of candidates as well yeah and so that we have not you know i am happy to resolve that issue myself as the board appointee on this issue but i'm also happy to bring it to the board for discussion um my thinking was to advertise everywhere that ray so ran associates attached to their proposal something that was their propos you know this is where we recommend you advertise and then there were some additional ones that they weren't recommending but they were making them known to us and then there was a third category where they recommended that we advertise but but we would do the posting because it's cheaper for us to do it as

151members of those organizations so my thinking would be that we would um follow their recommendation on all the places that they recommend plus the places where they recommend but we would do the posting and i wasn't going to do the other ones but i'm happy to circulate that to board members and um you know if you if you want we can discuss that at our march 2nd um meeting because you know the the ads i don't think they have to go up before that um i'm fine with having you make the making those decisions yourself um but if anybody um i guess we we have the opportunity to discuss that now does anybody want um i don't think it's fair to have her do it right now but does anybody want her to bring it

152to the march meeting how about if i do this why don't i circulate what i'm currently thinking and then if somebody wants us to have a discussion about it at the march meeting they can say that that's fine as long as it goes just directly to you for all of you to remember this we wouldn't want to have any conversation that's not in front of the brain email back just um in regards to the salary compens um that you will be noting can you give us an idea of what i knew you did some comparative district um approaches can you give me a little bit of an idea of what those look like a good question yeah and and i was hoping that i would have that right in front of me let me see

153today real quickly um new albany 175 grand view heights 175 gahanna city 163. um similar districts throughout ohio shaker heights 175 wyoming 159 chagrin falls 156 chagrin falls is actually looking for a superintendent currently um and then those are somewhat similar to us in size as you get bigger the um the salaries get a little bit bigger but and those are what they're paying this this this right here yes i appreciate the similar district size because that's a really good um comparison point any specific districts you're interested in um can you just tell me kyle what's the top salary in the state of ohio for a minute for a superintendent um i don't know the top in in ohio it's columbus city is probably it and they're 242 000 of salary i think esc is

154higher too in total compensation they would be but in base salary right and i'll just throw out there that columbus city is like that's the biggest district of the state right right that's correct yeah so that means like that's a good comparison so let's play the other side of it kyle what can you tell us like what some of you don't have to name any specific districts but can you tell us like what the lower range the lowest the lowest range that i'm looking at is 147 000 okay thank you and it's um a small district or um that would be a i would say a comparable size district but i would say the um different community makeup the demographics of that community is different than bexler and we've always fell in you've fallen you

155guys know um sort of in that middle of the road like not top 10 but maybe top 15 in terms of pay salary like i'm just recalling that spreadsheet kyle am i recalling that correctly uh yeah as long as i've been here um we've been in the range of um like the the 10 11 ranking that's what i thought yeah like 10 to 13 in there yeah victoria really quick i just want to clarify what you said i i feel like you said that ray and associates suggested a small range window is that right right and the ten thousand dollar range that you're suggesting falls in that small i think it's at the big end of their small to be honest with you um and and i'm i'm kind of at the small end of

156the big right i hope not they they were telling me what the range of some other i asked them to pull some that are currently advertised and they did that and they were like oh that's too big a range and it was like 30 000 was too big i think they'd love it if it was very small and and at first i was sort of in in favor of you know smaller but when i started thinking about these numbers that kyle has just told us i don't want to not i just want us to be able to pay them appropriately based on their experience and all of that and i don't want to have people not be interested in us just because they think they you know whatever so i felt like that gave us

157enough flexibility to be competitive but without going out at a number that was more than what you know i i appreciate alicia's point that you know we're not trying to be the leader in the you know we want the best superintendent but we we want to recognize that we have a smaller district we're valued we're shopping for value um you guys should all go into marketing does not need um that does not need a vote we just needed to give her some um parameters on that so victoria you're um i think what you can hear from us is that the your recommendation of 168 to 178 is within a range that we're comfortable with is everybody feel okay about that everybody's nodding thank you all right can i just say something about miss powers real

158quick yes you might oh wow we just had up did you see that too i saw that it was great texas smith may have to leave us but go ahead mr powers has been on the school board for just over a year and the amount of work that she's put in and that maybe is an example of i'm not patting myself on the back at all but i know all how how how hard all four of you work and the fact that the research and on everything that we do that that ms powers has put in the amount of work just in the last year on everything and now the superintendent search i just wanted to publicly recognize how much work behind the scenes that goes on here that when she comes to us with

159these numbers and especially having someone like kyle who who is always great with providing that information but the amount of work that you've put into this um i feel like we're in very good hands of having you lead this so i wanted to make sure i recognize that for you as well that's very kind i really appreciate it i get the support of all of you and all of kyle and so many others and so um it's just a great honor so but thank you definition of uh baptism by fire so all right thank you very much for um for that mr barnett it was good point all right so there's no other matters that probably come before the board can i have a question mr i would note that um while i stopped sharing

160i revised board docs to reflect the revision of the um resolution thank you revision the revised resolution is on board docs as you voted on it oh thank you without highlights i took the highlights off of it not so colorful anymore okay thank you very much mr smith i appreciate it um all right so given that can i have a motion to adjourn please thank you second all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye aye any opposed name sign that motion carries thank you all very much for your heart thanks bye guys thank you goodnight everyone