WSSD School Board Meeting - March 9, 2020

001I now call the March 9th meeting of the Wallingford swathmore School Board to order this evening Gerry Ballas is unable to participate tonight so we have 8 voting board members present this evening in the opening as you're willing and able please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance all right thank you so first we usually start with the student representatives report but I'm gonna just ask you to wait just one minute I wanted to open our meeting tonight with a few comments before we move to the student report over the past week our school district families and community have been wrestling with some challenging issues and some of you have been touched in touch with the board through email and other communications about coronavirus field trips sleep in school start times and what

002we're doing is a district around diversity and inclusion among other issues and I want to make sure everyone knows that we receive your messages and read each and every one of them certainly you know today stands out in particular the corona virus outbreak has been occupying the minds of many recently I work in health care it's certainly occupying many of our minds and it has many people on edge it's a rapidly evolving situation and the district is following it closely several districts in the region have already been forced to close this week due to contact with cases we are going to spend some time talking about this issue later this evening particularly as it relates to some domestic and international trips for our students and so that will come during new business this evening and

003as I mentioned the board has also received email and communications regarding some issues around diversity and inclusion and how can how can we ensure that we foster an open welcoming supportive environment for all students and this came about from recent discussions at SRS about the diversity of books available for students in our classrooms and decisions in process is about how books are selected and I think we'll certainly have some members of our district community here this evening that wish to speak to this issue and I just want to say we welcome your comments however I also want to take this time to just pause for a moment and speak to the issues of diversity and inclusion and I think one of the highest priorities for any school in our schools in particular must be making

004sure that every single student feels valued respected and welcomed the community we create in our schools is critical to education and development as children grow into young adults and these are important values that we must uphold in all aspects of our lives and in our schools and I hope that what can come from this recent discussion is a strong commitment by the district is seeing that these values are translated throughout our schools I look forward to hearing from those that wish to comment this evening and I can tell you that I do know the administration is looking at this issue to make sure we have procedures in place that support these goals and you can expect to hear more about this as a focus topic at one of our upcoming meetings so thank you at

005this point I want to move on to our student representatives report I do want to point out that our student representative sama just qualified for nationals and speech and debate so congratulations sama so she didn't know I was gonna do that so she might be embarrassed but let's have the student report thank you members as asleep in school start times task force will host a community town-hall meeting this Wednesday March 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the High School Auditorium the event will be an opportunity to provide community members with an update on the sleeping school start times investigation and for community members to provide feedback regarding the proposed plans everyone is encouraged to attend tomorrow Tuesday March 10th the ASRs diversity and inclusion clerk will meet at 5:30 p.m. in the asuras library assess community

006members including family teachers and staff will meet to discuss ways to make the school more inclusive and welcoming for its diverse student body 4th grade students at SRS are visiting Harrisburg next Thursday March 19th to tour the Capitol and learn about the state's government and finally SMS will host international night on Thursday March 19th from 7 to 8:30 p.m. this biannual event is open to all SRS students of families international nee is an opportunity to teach SRS about the meaning cultures the maker community says special if you want to host a table for your country or region or perform song or dance sign up by this Friday nve's Read Across America night last week was a wild success with around 663 students parents and teachers participating the event was followed by a Read Across America

007day in school where students were our readers oath in the morning listen to mystery readers and read throughout the day finally this year's Envy's Got Talent is taking place this upcoming Wednesday March 11th at 9 a.m. followed by a 6:00 p.m. performance for family and friends there will be fantastic dancers outstanding musicians great singers comedians and more on Tuesday March 17th West will have its annual go for the greens event during lunch to encourage healthy eating on Thursday March 19th 4th graders at West will visit the Brandywine Museum of Art to observe and appreciate local artists and finally on Friday March 20th students at West will put on their annual talent show straw theme in middle school is the winner of the 2018 to 2019 stem Scholars Program and capitation recycling competition executives from the

008Philadelphia Eagles in Brax get the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas and leading producer of biopolymers in the world will award a 25-hundred dollar check to Stratman middle school on Thursday March 12th during an all school afternoon assembly the middle school would like to thank faculty advisor Miss katlyn Locke for her awesome leadership and at the high school last week we held our annual blood drive all together with the hard work of volunteers from seating council the safety team the Red Cross and of course the donors we collected 121 pints of blood enough to help 363 people yesterday was the last production of the musical Chicago the cast left the audience feeling razzle dazzle for their spectacular singing and dancing and finally in an unfortunate turn of events the French exchange trip has been canceled

009French students were supposed to visit their exchange students in France over spring break but the school deemed the trip to too risky while the students were not reimbursed for their plane tickets they will receive vouchers from the French travel company to tour France another time and on the bright side French club will still be visiting the restaurant Marrakesh in the city next Thursday March 19th the sample Moroccan cuisine thank you thank you summer that takes us to the superintendent's report thank you dr. Grandy and I'm actually so happy there are people in the audience tonight because you would have gotten my email yesterday giving you updated information on the coronavirus in that email I indicated that all of the superintendent's were briefed by a group of individuals from Delaware County Council Delaware County Emergency Management

010the Office of inter Community Health and we received our first collective briefing well let me report we had our second briefing today we all gathered again and in that particular meeting we had the Delaware County Medical advisor Tim Boyce who was leading the Delaware County effort dr. Taylor from counsel our County Council Lorie Devlin from the inter Community Health Office and then Kristen Faust from the PA Department of Health almost all of the superintendent's were there and we brought individuals who are also on our safety teams with us to be fully briefed in that meeting we received a report from the Department of Health not more specifics than what you're reading in the newspaper or seeing on the news now but she did give us an update we also received guidance to stay open there

011was no cause for concern to close schools at this moment and and I say at this moment because the situation is unfolding every day and with every new briefing that we get and also for all of us to be vigilant and focus on those items that I put in the e blast to everyone to avoid the close contact to make sure we wash our hands often clean and disinfect keep our distance and most importantly for us as adults or for our children if we are sick to stay home they reiterated those items to us and then we also talked as a County talking about that if there is something that affects one school district it will very much likely affect all of the school districts in the county so one of the things that we

012are going to do is very shortly collaborate on a pandemic plan for the county that would include the county officials as well as all the school district superintendent I anticipate having that available to our parents very quickly the other piece that we are doing we left the meeting as a group of superintendents saying that we were going to all go back to our districts assess our own readiness level and then come back with our plans by Monday at the latest so that we all would know what every other school district is doing in the event we do have an emergency the bottom line of what we were doing was agreeing to commit as a group that we would plan together and the planning is so critical because it's not just what we do in the

013schools it's what the emergency officials do for all of us they were talking about having that continuity of government plan we are one of the recipients of that so we have to work in collaboration with all of the partners let me also take a moment to talk about the collaboration that we have with the Department of Health and I do get questions and I know the board has gotten some questions about what do we do if we think we have exposure or we think we have a risk that we should be concerned about and a risk could be an employee may have had contact with someone someone may be travelling from another country and coming back into the United States someone may be a friend of someone who knows someone else who may be exposed

014whenever we're aware of a situation whether it involves an employee or a student we are in regular contact with the Department of Health I can't tell you the amount of times that I or I and Gina Ross who is our Director of Student Services has been in contact with the Department of Health we don't leave anything up to chance we don't guess if a person should be here we check with the Department of Health and that involves our students who may be traveling or any of our employees if they are in contact with anyone or traveling so I want to assure everybody we do take the time to speak with the Department of Health on any one of those items than us and saying we are talking with them frequently [Music] one of the main

015pieces that they did talk about in our meeting today is that every one of the contacts that they are talking about in Pennsylvania are through direct contact it is in a situation where we have communities spread and that was one of the most important things that they said because if we are at community spread that could be what some would say is a game-changer that really does change how we look about the coronavirus but at this point there has been that direct contact that could change five minutes from now I stay tuned to any of those briefings like you all do but know that when the Department of Health or Emergency Services does want to speak with us we know we will get a request to jump on a phone call or to go there

016in person which is what we did today and we as a group of superintendents are staying in contact very regularly so know that as I get more information I remain committed to sending the information out to parents so you got the one briefing yesterday I'm giving the update now and as I get the release from Tim Boise I will send that to families as well so you can expect ongoing updates on this topic and dr. Randy I don't know if you have any questions on anything I didn't cover but I was trying to look through all my notes to see if I covered everything that I think we've been contacted about okay thank you thank you so as I mentioned you know we will have a discussion item during new business about this topic a

017little further and we're hoping to actually have a public health expert also join us remotely if we can make all the technology work so that takes us to board announcements the board did meet prior to this meeting this evening an executive to executive session to discuss negotiations personnel and a safety and security issue so that takes us to our focus topic for this evening and tonight we do have one focus topic which is an update on the sleep in school start time study and before I have dr. Palmer introduced that I just want to take this moment to thank the administration because I know this has been a tremendous amount of work to look into this issue and this is something that the board did charge the administration with doing is undertaking this study so

018we appreciate that so thank you dr. grandi I see I see mr. crawle at the podium and let me introduce him Steve Carla's our assistant principal at the middle school and he has taken over the facilitation of this board goal from dr. Sudhir le Jones and Steve my compliments to you it has been a very smooth handoff between dr. Jones and yourself this evening know that we are on the next leg of our investigation of the sleep and school start times goal that we have we have done a lot of preliminary work at this point and I sent you yet another email over the weekend so that you would have information with talking about where we are in our review of this topic knowing that we will have a comprehensive report to the school board

019so that they can be fully informed of what are all of the issues associated with this particular topic before they would ever consider taking action this evening is a critical part in our process to getting that report to the board we are at the development stage of where we have some ideas that we've presented to the community and we are genuinely looking for feedback we've asked if you have feedback send it to us in writing talk to us and consider coming to the town hall listening event but tonight is an opportunity for Steve to update us on the progress where we started how we got to where we are right now to where I sent you the information over the weekend and what are our next steps one of the reasons that we did this

020tonight in addition to having the town hall event I wanted to make sure we had as much opportunity to have the information put out to our families so that we could elicit feedback this evening we're taping our presentation we'll have it on our website so anybody who can't be here tonight or isn't watching at home can't see it people can review it we'll have the PowerPoint up there but we will have the full video and we are going to do our best to videotape the Town Hall as well so that people if they cannot make we'll be able to still get the same message Steve you can take it away Thank You dr. Palmer good evening to the school board board president dr. grandi superintendent dr. Palmer and to the Greater Wallingford swathmore community can

021you guys hear me okay okay thank you for allowing me to take some time this evening to provide an update to the community on the process and progress that the W SSD school start times committees have made to date however Before we jump right into where we are now with our progress I want to take a few minutes to refresh the community why we are here it is simply a fact that sleep and school start times for students have been gaining more national and local attention there's considerable research that supports the idea of moving start times later for secondary students in an effort to better support their mental and physical health natural changes in the body beginning with the onset of puberty set in moments set in motion some disruption to this to the natural

022sleep cycles the teens experience when compared with that of younger children and adults for that matter the timing and delay in the release of the hormone melatonin is one concrete example of how and why peak wakefulness lasts longer and why secondary students often don't fall asleep until late in the evening and this is also why this disruption in their daily circadian rhythms or their sleep wake cycles is not simply corrected by trying to catch up by sleeping in on the weekends or napping here and there for reference these statistics were taken directly from our own student survey administered in the fall of 2019 to 8th through 12th graders of the eleven hundred and fifty students that responded you can see that 46 percent reported going to bed at 8:11 p.m. or later 61% of students

023surveyed they felt that they usually get too little sleep and 53 percent of students surveyed said they feel tired during the day for several days a week and the understanding that this is an important issue for adolescents and now and has been recognized by medical and health organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Sleep Foundation and even though this is becoming a more well-known problem it is still reported that most teen students are getting less than seven hours of sleep per night regularly slides will catch up the joint state government Commission report on sleep deprivation in adolescence was published in October of 2019 this report included the advisory committees recommendations the most important being noted that districts should give consideration to later start times to secondary schools further recommendations included gathering

024robust data and making evidence-based solutions as well as making sleep health literacy a component of the school health curriculum and that brings us to Wallingford swathmore in May of 2019 at the school board's request the district embarked on investigating fournette one slide further you're almost there you got it good job teamwork the district embarked on investigating and exploring what later school start times could look like in Wallingford swathmore several district and school based committees were formed with over 50 contributors including students parents staff and school administrators we reached out to other local districts to use as a resource hosting a panel event with members from the Radner School District and we brought in dr. Wendy Troxel a renowned behavioral psychologist with an emphasis on sleep studies to present to our community the broad-based approach of

025this investigation is supported by some of the numbers that you see before you for committees that were created to conduct research analyze logistical data to evaluate the feasibility of scheduling and start time scenarios eight presentations were given including community engagement events school board updates and those delivered to faculty and students over over 50 contributors provided input and feedback to our committees and over 90 transportation scenarios were analyzed and vetted by our transportation group members through the collaboration of work and and work of those committees a list of priorities for the district was established such as maintaining the high school block schedule minimizing lost instructional minutes for student athletes striving to keep activity bus runs for middle and high school students and moving the start time to as close to the recommended time of 8:30 as

026possible understandably so we need to meet our state mandated instructional minutes and the district also prioritized the preservation of the quality of our music program by trying to keep a minimum number of minutes for practice the high school scheduling think tank began exploring potential school start time and schedule changes with 46 ideas initially emerging when these 46 ideas were further analyzed for transportation needs and for meeting the necessary daily instructional minutes unfortunately all of them had to be eliminated as either the increases in busing were too significant to consider or they did not meet the required instructional minutes towards the end of 2019 it became clear that the district needed to pivot and start with a new approach which was ship which was shifted by looking at potential start time transportation scenarios first basically transportation

027was the key cog in all of this the district contracted with trans finder to independently determine the number of buses needed for number of scenarios an in-depth report of over 200 pages of analysis providing 47 new transponder created busing schedules was provided to the district and it allowed Wallingford swathmore to vet them for busing costs instructional minutes and the time in between the bus runs to create our school-based schedules in each of our schools it was at this point in the process that the realization of changing high school start times without affecting other school start times was going to going to be next to impossible unless no budgetary constraints existed which they do by the end of January 2020 only four of the forty-seven trans finder' created schedules were remaining with all of the others

028being eliminated for similar reasons as stated earlier school based scheduling think-tanks at every level in the district began to look at the four remaining ideas this step in the process coincided with the last school board subcommittee update after further verifications of bus runs by trans finder and our own District Transportation Department two of the remaining four ideas also were eliminated as they added either a total of seven or nine more buses than our current total fleet of 35 one of the remaining now two ideas was tweaked slightly by fifteen minutes to allow for a current total of three remaining ideas three remaining start time ideas originally coined terms ideas a B and C these current three ideas had each of their trans finder transportation projections verified again by our own W SSD Transportation Department they

029were then presented to the sleep and school school start time task force on February 25th starting the process of gathering community feedback okay so if you have the handout in front of you if you find the part that says feedback the next slide actually takes a lot of that same information so if this isn't work and you can kind of reference that as I'm speaking the process of gathering feedback is an important one as each time we consider or encounter this step new questions arise some of the most common topics that feedback questions and comments have been related to were to be projected on the slide but you can find them in your handout from the parents and community we have heard questions about the possible ripple effect that could now touch elementary and middle

030school start times and packed on the participation in school-based music and athletics an impact on the alignment of dual enrollment programs such as the vocational school and quite frankly the impact on the budget and tax increases students have reported questions and feedback related to concerns about having enough time late in the day for other commitments and homework athletes missing classes and the logistical issue of getting to school if no one was home to drive them if they missed the bus which to which I would say you have to get up earlier teacher feedback varied from emphasizing the value of the block schedule student-athletes missing instructional time and the effects on their own workday schedules and the impact on their families and commitments outside of school the process of continuing to gather feedback and community and

031stakeholder feedback will be an important one to our process of completing the most comprehensive report to the board by the end of April our next formal opportunity will be on Wednesday March 11th at 6:30 p.m. at Strath Haven High School where we will host a community town-hall event and listening sessions for the dual purposes of informing the community and gathering feedback from stakeholders here is a quick look at our current start and end times noting the length of the day and the number of buses required to transport our district students using these times please note that the length of the school day is not equivalent to the mandated instructional minutes as that is reliant on the internal building schedules and program programming of specific schools we currently have the need for 35 buses in our

032fleet for those who are not aware the high school runs on the block schedule with 480 minute classes per day fifth block which runs from 205 to 3:05 is after the school day and it is a unique time that our high school students have to attend clubs seek extra help and to participate in the music program for which they actually receive high school credit this opportunity allows students to fulfill arts credits after the school day is over freeing up blocks of scheduled time for other classes electives and other academic academic opportunities in future years the middle school similarly to the elementary schools runs music programs before the start of the school day the middle school academic day begins at 7:50 and concludes at 2:30 with extra help clubs and afternoon music ensembles beginning at 235

033some music programs beginning as early as 2:20 and the Advisory period connections at 3:05 athletic practices begin allowing middle school students to practice until 5 o'clock until the five o'clock bus picks them up the high school day begins at 735 and ends at 2:05 with fifth block options including extra help clubs and the credit earning music program the majority of athletic practice start around 3:15 and allowed the high school athletes to also ride the five o'clock bus next up is idea a which does achieve the 8:30 start time for the high school the high school fifth block now runs from 3:05 and ends at 4:15 it's down here at the bottom at which time the majority of athletic practices will begin idea a has a small impact on the elementary start and end times as

034they start 15 minutes later at 9 o'clock and end 10 minutes later at 3:40 we do not anticipate a major change in music and activities at the elementary level with this scenario as a 9 o'clock time would still allow for these activities to take place before school in this scenario the middle school schedule remains untouched with little-to-no anticipated effect on activities and athletics idea a requires an anticipated increase of three buses bringing a total number of buses needed to 38 on this graphic you can see that the 830 start time for the high school the academic day ending at 3:05 and 5th block running from 3:10 until 4:15 an estimated 310 once they walked to get there some 5 minutes of transition at 4:15 allowing athletic athletic practice begin at 4:15 I'm sorry at 425

035allowing 10 minutes for transition from the end of 5th block to athletics and that's the same practice as we do now a 10 minute gap from them to get to athletic practices if we were to keep the framework of our high school day similar to what it is now which we would have for this scenario this would indicate that the p.m. buses to pick up students would run at 3:05 at the high school for 15 after fifth block and 6:30 for student-athletes Steve this is unusual that it's freezing up I don't think in any board presentation I've seen that it has frozen even once but now it's poison that's right I don't know well it's given time for people to process what they're hearing all right idea here we go okay idea B is quite

036different the proposed start and end times of all three schools are changed with the elementary day running from 7:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. the high school is able to achieve an 8:15 start time ending their day at 2:45 with fifth block ending at 3:45 the middle school starts at eight forty fifty minutes later than the current start time and the academic day ends at 3:20 idea B requires an anticipated increase of four buses bringing that the total now to thirty nine the day in a life scenario of one middle school student now has the academic day starting at 8:40 meaning the old start time of 7:50 is now when before school music programs would begin instead of 7:00 a.m. the academic school day at 2:30 for the middle school with music ensembles extra help clubs

037and athletic practices now beginning concurrently at 3:25 this is a significant change for the availability of options for middle school students for after school what should similarly be noted is that with the elementary school date now starting at 7:30 a.m. here before school activities such as music clubs and meetings would now be moved to the after school time a high school students academic day now begins at 8:15 ending the school day at 2:45 fifth block options such as clubs extra help and music begin at 2:50 and run until 3:45 10 minutes later athletic practices begin begin finishing in time for student athletes to catch the 6 o'clock bus which is an hour later than where it is now IDs see is a slight variation of the previous idea B but pushing everything back by another

03815 minutes to accommodate the high school with the ideal 8:30 start time as recommended by health organizations the elementary school day would start at 7:45 and end at 2:30 an hour earlier than the current start and end times this scenario player plays similarly as idea B with regards to the elementary times as well with a 7:45 start time before school activities like music clubs and staff meetings would need to be moved to the 2 after the a cadet after the academic school day which ends at 2:30 the middle school day would run from 855 to 335 an hour and five minutes later than his current start and end times and the high school achieves the 8:30 start and the three o'clock end time with fifth block running until 405 because of the times of day

039and other out-of-district bus runs IDs C requires an anticipated increase of five buses bringing the total in the fleet needed to 40 middle-school students participating in before school music would need to be at morning practices by 8:05 fifty minutes before the school day starts at 8:55 at 3:35 when the school day ends students would head to their after-school music seek extra help with teachers go to their clubs and athletic practices which like idea B are now all running concurrently the high school day begins at 8:30 ending the academic day at 3 o'clock with 5th block running from 3:05 to 405 for music clubs and extra help athletic practices will begin at 4:15 making the late bus run arrive at 6:20 to pick up student athletes to transport them home the process moving forward we plan

040to present our findings in a comprehensive report to the school board at the April 27th school board meeting right now and as mentioned before we are now in full listening mode gathering input and feedback from the community we will continue to investigate the impacts on athletic music and activities programs alignment with dual enrollment programs such as the vocational school teacher contract implications as well as budget needs and tax implications please join us on Wednesday March 11th as a similar update to this eating will be presented in addition to listening sessions to hear stakeholder input and feedback dr. Brad wall guest a parent and member of her own community who also happens to be a board certified sleep expert will also be joining us to share some information about adolescent sleep research you can also email

041feedback and questions to school start time at WSS dor G in the event that you cannot make it on Wednesday evening we will do our very best to capture stakeholder input and feedback in a report to the school board before I close I would just like to remind everyone here in the room and everyone listening at home and everyone in the community that no recommendations or decisions have been made thank you for allowing me to present our update and progress this evening and I will do my best now to any answer any outstanding questions that the board may have not usually such a big round of applause before we open things up for questions I do want to bring up one concern and not two I know the administration and the task force is like

042totally prepared for Wednesday evening to like move forward but to throw a public-health wet blanket on this maybe I think that at this week in particular I mean one of the recommendations is to try to avoid unnecessary large public gatherings and I anticipate there may be this may be a large public gathering bringing a lot of community members into the school I would just like to you know have you open this up for comment as well as in our questions is strongly consider not cancelling this event not postponing it and just moving it ahead a little bit once we get a handle on what the right timeframe would be that might affect some of the the timeline that you just laid out but I would kind of open that up for comment to other board

043members in addition to questions you may have for mr. Crowe is this is it a conversation that maybe we should revisit after we hear from our our colleague who's gonna join us for public health update sure so we could maybe we'll then take this time if people have questions about the specifics of some of the ideas that were laid out and then come back to the question of postponing at that time does anyone have questions or comments thank you for the the update and all the work that you do on this it's not so much a question because I know the answer to this but you giving three options up there but in reality those four options we're thinking of here and one is not having a change too so when people hear this I

044want everyone to know that option a B and C are just three of include that don't include no change at all so when we have the town-hall meeting if be it Wednesday or whenever it is or even if you have feedback on email we want to hear from you if you don't want to have any change and the reasons why as well sure so yeah no I think that's a good point to bring I think we haven't focused on the new ideas we've been so focused on trying to figure out how this could work or we were gonna make it work and you know that was it was more difficult than I think many of us realized and I think that's why we saw that pivot midway through the year in our approach of how

045we were trying to solve the problem with that being said I think that that's comforting for people to hear and I think that's also part of the process of and discussion of you know what what is best for the community be it one of the new ideas that we're vetting or you know not changing school start time so thank you for that okay and just to clarify I just want to reiterate if if this does get cancelled no decision is gonna be made without an event like this it just pushes everything back so by default we may end up running out of time yeah and I thank the board for actually pushing you know the initial timeline back of trying to make this work in the 2021 school year to the 21 twenty-two school year

046I think we've already felt under the gun and that was going to be a tough thing to you know tough nut to crack per se and I think with that movement that gave us more time to think about what we could accomplish in the following year and certainly I don't think that we need to make any decisions by the end of this April especially considering we have you know other local crises and national crises with health okay so just to reiterate because this is nothing's happening next year anyway and option D is maybe nothing will happen even for the next year there's no rush to do this on March 11th right okay from the schools that have already made this change there were a few in the area is there a way to get information

047about how they feel that community or the students athletics you've just as you took those surveys yes they're students and how they feel after having made the change I would have to check to see if there are surveys that they have completed post making the change I know radner's in the first year of doing this and there's other local districts that are looking at voting on this for an upcoming school year we can certainly reach out to them we do have contacts with some of their district officials to you know see what continued feedback they have received from their community afterwards I think it's you know depending on who you ask and you know if they're a parent student I think it's all over the board but they certainly might have metrics that we could

048look at do you know if we have the event archived on the Star Times website because I know we had some visitors from other districts I think both of the events in the fall the event where dr. Troxel came in and spoke to the community was videotaped I think also the panel event with Radner the Radner officials and students was also videotaped and I believe that is on the school start times website already I will double-check that tomorrow but I'll get back to you dr. grandi I'm pretty sure that it's uploaded for people to view great so I would encourage people there's a lot of great information on that website and I think now that we have some specific ideas on the table I think interest is is rapidly increasing in this issue and we

049had some events in the fall that I think had a lot of great and metimes already encouraged people to pull up the videos of those events if you want to get a little more background on the issue and then I think Marilyn I think it would be very helpful to have have some experience from the other districts I know we had the panel discussion last but now they've had several more months of living with the time change and I would like updated information to that end the Legislative Council for PSP a is talking about getting a forum together in the spring that would allow for more direct sharing of the feet on the ground and involving the school administrators so that they can directly one-to-one sort of share information so that's that's already happening the

050architecture of that because one of the issues that often comes up is the impact of changing the start times on athletics and athletics may be moving around on its own because of the other districts that have been that have been shifting their times as well and so having some information about that would be sure that was a good segue because I was gonna ask one of the most common questions we have is how impact athletics and I know we talked about Radnor has changed start time and I know many other Central League schools have are starting to look into it so often opt you know do you know what other central leagues are currently schools are looking at a change of start time such that it might be in the future almost every other Central

051League has a start time so that do I dunno Lower Merion is looking at it I think voting on it this spring or that was the anticipated idea Westchester is not in the Central League I don't believe but I think that they were also going to be voting on it sometime in March outside of those two and Radner to my knowledge I'm not aware like none or jumping off the top of my head but I can email you a list what's that upper upper bar Bobby Garber yes correct any other comments or questions all right thank you thank you all right so that takes us to audience recognition so this is the time for response to items for action on the agenda so just to clarify the coronavirus discussion is under new business so that

052would be in the comment period later if people want to make comments about the field trip issues and whatnot so is there anyone who would like to speak tonight related to topics that are on the agenda okay so that takes us two minutes so our first item for action is the approval of the minutes from the February 24th regular business meeting and I so move do we have a second Kellie any discussion all right hearing none all in favor say aye hi all those opposed say nay any abstentions item passes 8 to 0 okay we have 10 items for action this evening and personnel are there any that anyone would like separated from the rest okay so let me read through them we have the approval of six retirements we have three certified staff retiring

053Kathleen Laird a second-grade teacher at West Mark Taylor a school counselor at the high school Arminia Kubiak a first-grade teacher at West all three effective at the end of the day June 19 2020 we have three non-certified staff retiring Ralph Harris and electrician in the operations department retiring March 31st Marcella Adams instructional supported SRS retiring end of the day June 17th and Mary Luzhou an executive administrative assistant and student services retiring August 31st we have a change in salary status for Patrick Clancy moving from master's step 12 to master's plus 30 step 12 and Kelley Marion moving from master's step 8 to masters plus 30 step 8 leave the approval of compensation for school nurses serving on the district Wellness Committee is stipulated at a rate of 37 dollars per hour not to exceed 25

054hours per group we have the approval of the 2019 2020 Spring Athletic supplementals as stipulated we have the approval of the 2019 2020 activity advisor appointments there are three as listed in the agenda we have the approval of compensation for high school frosh dance chaperones and this was previously approved but now the names of the chaperones are on the agenda for approval we have the approval of a non supplemental theatre position for the 2020 spring musical at the high school as listed in the agenda we have the approval of one conference request as listed in the agenda and finally we have the approval of the 2020 Elementary and Secondary summer school appointments as stipulated in the agenda do I have a motion Jaypee do we have a second shell any discussion okay all in favor

055say aye hi all those opposed say nay any abstentions items Pass 8 to 0 that takes us to curriculum where we have three items for action we have the approval of the 2019 2020 school year related service provider contracts as stipulated we have the approval for homebound instruction as stipulated and we have the approval of a professional services agreement with effective school solutions to provide specialized clinical therapeutic services for the period July 1st 2022 June thirtieth twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty-one and an amount not to exceed two hundred and forty four thousand four hundred ninety dollars plus four thousand dollars per mental health professional for extended school year all items in this section err is attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion Kelly do we have a second Marylyn any discussion

056questions is this our second or third year with ESS I believe it is the third year and I guess I'm wondering or hoping that we're collecting data on the utilization services for our students and if we're collecting any outcome data on the the quality of treatment that the students are receiving and I would have to ask dr. McCullough to get that but I do know when we had gone to the start of this school year she had provided me with some clinical data so that I had an understanding of where we were like once we had finished the year all that we had collected but I am not sure about all of the outcomes that's the part I'm hesitating to answer you on and I'd rather get that directly from her okay favor say aye

057all those opposed say nay any abstentions the items pass eight to zero we have four items for approval and finance we have the approval of a fee proposal and additional services fee if necessary for appraisal reports as listed in the agenda we have the approval to enter into an agreement regarding the assessment for the property is listed in the agenda with the approval of a plus quotation for the purchase of wireless access points contingent on the receipt of great funding and inclusion in the 2020 2021 district budget this will authorize the district to add additional wireless access points throughout the middle school building a rate is expected to pay 40% of the cost the net cost of the district is estimated to be 30 1993 dollars and 92 cents it's very precise we have the

058approval of a service agreement with the Chester County Intermediate Unit to provide a network and systems technician as stipulated in the agenda again all of these are is attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion Jayne do we have a second Michele any discussion questions since the wireless access points going into the middle school you know just being in the high school this weekend and all the parents running around saying why can't we get cell service in here because the musical is there any or we what's our plan there are we doing understand I'll actually take that one I spoke with mr. Finlayson before he left a couple of years ago I had asked him to look at our service in all of our buildings the buildings that we have the most

059difficult time getting service in are the high school and SRS and it's a function of the structure of the building at that time he was looking to see if we could have put what I'm going to call a booster on and the cost at the time to get an increased level of service was exorbitant and it was not something that would solve the problem it would get better in certain spots but not totally and before he had left I had asked him if he knew anything else that might be different in terms of technology he did not but I don't think we shouldn't continue to explore it there's not a quick fix for our lack of connectivity sorry and it's not an intentional thing no it is not it bothers me too and I'm in

060the building I can't get service either so we have not put a LED dome too much cell phone use any other discussion on that item okay all those in favor please say aye hi all those opposed please say nay any abstentions items past 8 to 0 okay so that takes us time for audience recognition for topics that are not on the agenda for action this evening so we do have time for comments from the audience for things we didn't just vote on and just as a reminder only district residents or taxpayers and speak and buy the purpose and the purpose of public comment is to address the board on matters that may come before the board for its consideration anyone who would like to speak we do just want to remind you that that you'll

061need to go to the podium and whatever you you do say will be broadcast and recorded and the recording will be posted on the district website and we just ask you to state your name and address when you do go to the podium so is there anyone who would like to address the board if you yeah I think the podium will so uh my name is Nate Amelia gallo and we are from SRS and before we read the letter which we have wrote to dr. tuck I would like to say that I'm aware that I'm aware that the books have been returned but just but we still feel that this matter needs to be talked about so yeah I recently received the news that all of the lgbtq+ books have been removed from our class

062or a library I don't know exactly why you decided to do this but I do know a little about it I'm aware that the family has complained about having lgbtq+ books for whatever reason but I feel strongly about keeping these books one reason is that one of my best friends some of my best friends who go to SRS are part of the lgbtq+ community even though some families have complained about having lgbtq+ books in there in there or their children in there but I think we should keep these books because SRS needs to represent all the lgbtq+ people out there in some countries it is against the law to be LGBTQ to be lesbian gay bisexual transgender and more also some Hubbell phobic people of kicked their children out of their house because their children

063were LGBTQ plus it is also important for the children to understand that it is okay to be LGBTQ plus and they need to learn that as to not be discriminated and inclusive and to be inclusive to the people who are part of the lgbtq+ community and and I think it was not right to handle to handle this in this way we should talk to the families who complained and we should figure out the better solution than to take away all the books about people who are LGBTQ plus some kids even resort to hurting themselves because they thought that being LGBTQ plus is wrong so please reconsider your decision to take away all the books that represent the lgbtq+ community and make SRS an lgbtq+ friendly school I'd like to say one more thing before we

064leave the podium I go on a bus at SRS at the end of the day and I saw I have been discriminated against on the bus before for being LGBT and I just feel that we need to have stricter guidelines against what people can and cannot do against these types of things as it is a very serious matter and children can get very hurt by this I just want to thank the two of you for having the courage to to write your letter and to take the podium today I think that your experiences are incredibly important for everyone to hear about and at the same time I think you're setting a wonderful example for not just your own classmates but for many adults in the community as well so thank you is there anyone else

065who would like to address the board good evening my name is Jill Fenton I have a son that's a fourth grader at SRS my son has two parents we're married we live in swathmore we live in the same household we're both women we're both white our son is black we are a transracial family formed through adoption of our son Cooper at birth you're gonna hear things tonight you're gonna hear clear credible compelling testimony on why as the board it's so important that you rigorously press the administration to bring forth proposals to you in policies for your approval in your review that will ensure that we have an environment in our schools that will protect and nurture our children to become the best possible versions of themselves but what I want to talk about right now

066is the need for this board to rigorously and relentlessly demand that the administration is held accountable for implementation of these policies our children need adults to create policies and processes that will allow them to become the best possible versions of themselves but they are these policies are largely invisible to the children and as our young friend just pointed out children are much more highly influenced and affected by what they see and feel and experience on a daily basis from teachers staff bus drivers peers specials teachers the all powerful and mighty lunch ladies and so because of that we have to step up and we have to really do a much better job in making sure that these policies aren't just words on paper but they become part of what we do and what we see

067and what we say and what our children's experience what good is it have books in the library or in the classroom that embrace gender diversity gender nonconformity gender fluidity sexual preference and then to have a young girl repeatedly teased because she doesn't conform to some bogus stereotype of femininity and be teased on the playground in classroom for looking like a boy and often in earshot of staff or a teacher and they missed the opportunity for a teachable moment the four cornerstones of SRS do you know what they are right kindness courage self-control and manners and yet our son who has two moms is constantly told and teased that he's going to be gay someday because of it Cooper doesn't see anything wrong with being gay it wouldn't be a problem for him if he was

068he just told he just told me the other day that right now he thinks he'll marry a woman and it'll probably be Yolanda Adams Cheryl Knox or Diana Ross in that order but the most frustrating thing and Cooper cries about it he doesn't understand why would kids say this to begin with and why doesn't somebody stop them and how is it possible folks how is it possible in a district that is progressive enough to have every single fourth grader participate in an all african-american living wax museum to have a black child here from the time that he's in kindergarten that we don't see color here at SRS to hear it from teachers and staff my wife and I have heard it in IEP meetings and I guarantee you that every black brown child in that

069school knows that color matters and if you don't see color and you say you don't see color then you know what they're hearing you don't see me and if you don't know Cooper and haven't had the pleasure of meeting him he's 10 years old in fourth grade he's taller than I am he wears a size 9 and a half shoe in a men's large shirt Cooper has looked like he was in middle school since he was in second grade now imagine and you have to imagine this because if you don't parent a child of color you can only imagine this but imagine having to talk to your second grader about the fact that when he is out without the umbrella of your white privilege he's going to be seen as a threat in second grade

070and having to choke back the tears where you have your second grader practice over and over my name is Cooper Fenton I'm 7 years old I have nothing that can harm you please don't shoot me in the event that he's ever profiled by a policeman that looks just like his mom or his mommy or most of the people in this room and the people on this board words matter friends actions matter our children learn from them in action speaks louder than words to kids so I ask you please step up and be the difference thank you for listening is there anyone else who would like to speak okay please go to the party good evening and thank you to the members of the board for the opportunity to address you tonight my name is Melissa

071Kennedy and we have two children in the Wallingford Strathewen Myung Fritz Arthur school district my oldest is a 7th grader at Shems a transgender boy and one of the bravest people I know um he struggled with gender dysphoria throughout much of his tenure at SRS and I have often spoken about how very very grateful I am to be living in a community that is so supportive and accepting and I truly believed that until last month so I'm sure that everyone in this room can identify with how powerful it is to read about a character in a book we're an experience and a book that you can relate to it can make you feel more human it can make you feel less alone can make you feel seen for me that was Meg in a wrinkle

072in time with her nerdy clumsiness and all of her faults and of course Joe and little women and children and adults need to see themselves reflected in the media around us and at the elementary school level it is arguably one of the most important media is books books on the shelves and books in the library but people like my son just like many other LGBTQ youth they rarely if ever come across a character that's like them that has the shared experience of their life and their struggles I said I'm sure you all know is it's popular to report in the media the incidence of depression and suicidality in LGBTQ youth is concerning Lehigh around 43% by most reports and that's largely related to the social stigma not the actual experience of being LGBTQ but an

073accepting community can change that even one accepting adult can reduce suicidality by 40% and that is where the school community can make a difference that is we're creating an accepted and inclusive environment environment and the school can actually of lives and an inclusive environment includes a diverse book selection I have and I don't think that these are mature themes these are books about people like my son who started struggling with his gender around the age of four and who attended SRS as a girl who looked like a boy for all six years that he was there it's people like Jill's family these are your students your peers your neighbors the people in your community and we can literally save these students eyes with the messages that we convey and to that end I'd like to

074applaud the administration for returning the books to the classroom because that was the right move to make but I also want to emphasize the damage that was done that was by removing them in the first place because words can't be unsaid as we know messages can't be on scent it's like that old classroom demonstration where you crumpled up the piece of paper and then used to move the back out it's still wrinkled it's still damaged and the message that was sent was that being LGBTQ is somehow wrong and that even wanting to learn about that experience is something that's questionable and so that's why we're here tonight to impor the board you as the board and we as a community to take steps to ensure that a situation like this does not occur again because

075right now today we're a school community who are acts of discrimination against LGBTQ students occur it may not be who we want to be but it is who we are and so we is a group of concerned parents and community would like to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths and start having some awkward conversations so that we can start progressing towards who we want to be and I really hope and I really believe that who we want to be is a truly inclusive and accepting school community where and one where a policy supporting transgender and gender expansive youth is not just a document that we can access on the website but something that the students the administration and the staff live every single day in every interaction that they have with the students because inaction matters and

076a policy is one thing but stepping in when children are being teased on the bus or when messages are being stated in the classroom that's the difference that we can make in these students lives so we ask the that the board rigorously hold the administration accountable for intentional consistently appropriate implementation of inclusive policies because the children are watching and we're watching too and we support this effort because for a lot of it us our children's lives depend on it thank you good evening can you hear me great my name is Mary huff and I have twins 17 year old seniors they're about to leave you're going why the heck are you here right I'm here because I am a homophobic lesbian and why that's important let's talk about why it's important because of the kids

077in this school district without that literature without understanding what will become of these children later on then you're creating your part of the issue I don't believe a majority these people here tonight are people who don't believe what we're all talking about I think if it if there's somebody else I'd be surprised we are the team that should be there working for this prior planning prevents poor performance and that's what everybody's discussed in regards to policy and the reason I bring this up is 12 years ago my kids were in first grade at wess my son's godmother was supervisor at the Attic the LGBTQ organization in Center City I donated $1,000 to have an in-service done at West because I was concerned about my kids moving through this school district even though I heard it

078you know swathmore Wallingford very progressive but I came from West Texas I'm homophobic and I'm a lesbian what about those straight people out there you know I'm like can i really trust them so I wanted to help teach and help this at least the teachers understand what it's like so you're wondering did that happen no the principal said to me and my partner she said you know this is really wonderful we think it's great but I think we will decline this request this was at the same time that the transgender student in Ardmore that whole issue I don't know if any of y'all remember that back 12 years ago was going on and she's like oh this would cause so much trouble in this school district and I was very upset about that at the

079time but my kids they liked it here they've had a pretty good run although at times you know it took my kids till they were juniors in high school to have friends juniors in high school to have good friends should that happen no because I know about the underlying homophobia my two straight kids you know I have suffered in this school district and I think it's important that all of us have this voice all of us tell you tonight because as much as we love this school district I don't I wouldn't be doing my due diligence for the younger kids coming up unless I told you my thoughts on this so thank you for listening thank you for the ride it's been fun go to music man that's where my kids are trying out tonight

080so let's hope it works thanks so much thank you sorry anyone else who would like to make a comment please good evening members of the board dr. grandi my name is Michael Raphael I live at 4:04 drew Avenue here in swathmore I am one member of the group of parents and students that came here tonight to share our concerns arising from the removal of three books from a 5th grade classroom at SRS and I'd like to take a moment first since I'm just one of many to have those who are here on that issue to please stand to show the board who's here for what thank you all as you may know the three books at issue are George by Alex Gino Ivy Aberdeen's letter to the world by Ashley herring Blake and when Aiden

081became a brother by Kyle Luke off it is our understanding that when concern was expressed about one of these books not all three a building administrator at SRS directed that all three be removed from the classroom simultaneously and exclusively because of the single thing they have in common they all feature lgbtqia+ protagonists the speakers before me have done a much better job than I ever could addressing how the removal of these books and the deeming of lgbtqia+ themes issues and characters as inherently mature or inherently violent is tantamount to making those themes issues and characters taboo which in turn results in the harmful uttering of our lgbtqia+ children I therefore wish to address the progress the district has made thus far what still needs to be done and why it needs to be done first

082with respect to the district's progress it is our understanding as my daughter's classmates said that the three books have been returned to the classroom in addition to that their appropriateness for our fifth grade readers has been confirmed by the district administration and I do want to note I don't believe that that was ever really in doubt George is on the fifth grade shelf at the s.res library Ivy Aberdeen's letter to the world is available through 3rd through 6th grade students through the Scholastic book club with which the district partners and when Aiden became a brother is a fountas and pinnell level n book aimed at 3rd graders the district has also acknowledged to my understanding that the books removal did perpetrate anti lbgtq ia plus stigma we have also heard that the district has recognized

083the need for policies and procedures to ensure the availability of books by diverse authors and featuring diverse characters ish use themes and perspectives we are glad for that progress but recognize that more is needed for the district to ensure that its libraries are inclusive I respectfully suggest that we must first begin with an equity audit to learn where we are right now in terms of the diversity of our school and classroom libraries from there the decision making process policies and procedures for book acquisition and parent challenges to books need to be both transparent to the community and designed to include diverse books and the implementation of those policies must involve people who not only bring to bear perspective from their own diverse communities but who have been properly trained and vetted and qualified to ensure

084that their involvement diminishes rather than increases the effect of both conscious and unconscious biases on the district's books elections because if you'll allow me there's anything that our current political environment has taught us no matter what your policies and procedures are if you have people involved you don't believe in them they're not going to be enforced we believe that at least these are necessary to ensure that unlawful and discriminatory censorship does not happen in our school again finally the speakers before me have discussed the harm that the removal of these books caused to our communities lgbtqia+ children and they've done it again far better than I ever could so I want to point out how important it is to all of our children to experience books featuring a range of authors excuse me I believe

085that so a lot perspectives characters issues and themes so they can access the full richness of humanity representation for underrepresented peoples and content in media is vitally important not just for the underrepresented but for those of us who are already like me plenty represented when those of our children who are privileged white heterosexual and cisgender have the opportunity through reading through books like George or IVD Aberdeen or when Eden became a brother to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is not like them it helps build the vital cognitive skill of perspective-taking and that skill is in my experience a foundational component of empathy understanding and civil discourse the inclusion for which we are advocating therefore isn't just the right thing to do for those who finally get to be included it's a benefit

086to everyone in our district because it makes all of our children more insightful more competent and more kind and exclusion like what we saw with the removal of these books for the last three weeks is commensurately harmful to our community we therefore ask at the board ensure that the district treats its continued progress towards undoing the harm of this anti lgbtqia+ censorship with appropriate seriousness urgency and transparency and finally I have two gifts for the board one is a collection of the various emails and letters that have been sent to the board and the district over the last three weeks and I'm sure that you have many of these perhaps not all so I wanted to offer them up and in addition I have six copies each of George and Ivy Aberdeen's letters to the

087world for those who would like them free of charge so anyone else who would like to address okay please um my name is Alex Mele I'm a senior strive in high school my name is Grayson I'm also a senior at South Haven some of the board members were here last year another we've a couple new ones I actually around this time last year made a statement to an empty room that was really surrounding the ideas of diversity and inclusion and I can tell you that is a senior strat they've in high school I actually didn't go to a luncheon school here I came here I moved here in seventh grade and we do live in a really really accepting community we do and that's a great great thing but as you heard from the students

088as you heard from the parents as I'm sure you could hear from some teachers because I hear from you know some of them it's not talked about enough not nearly enough the idea that there are people that are being ostracized in the world is something that doesn't get talked about enough period and diversity inclusion you know both Greyson and I've made efforts in high school to be involved in clubs that talk about that stuff but I'm not sure if that if we were that we'd actually be exposed all that because with all due respect to the sleep study I'm just just girl we've done an amazing job I've heard about the sleep study at least 10 or 15 times in the last year too I can easily count on one hand the amount of times

089that we've had seminars or days or surveys collecting information about the Q youth about the feelings of black and brown youth it's not even high school I can count on the number of times that we've talked about mental health which you know clearly does not get addressed enough and it's it's one of these things it's just you know it can go there's there's a lot of particulars that you know you've gotten into and I don't you know only seven anyways to us here but what we really have to Center - what it's about is the kids because we are a school district um local government and that's great thing we're all active community members and that's also a great thing but you know at the very end of the day you're not serving higher ideal

090you're not serving something super complex you're serving the little kid in a classroom who thinks they're weird guess what they're not we hear they're really normal and it's really hard for them to grow up and be surrounded by people that are constantly telling them they're not normal it's really hard for them to look at TV and see people calling people names it's really hard to beat an environment where you're called names when all you're trying to do is get an education and I just you know I just think that I want to realign everything we're about to leave stressed even high school and I can tell you overwhelmingly it's you know fast words been a positive experience but I have a little sister I know you there's younger kids there's people being borns but we

091moved in the district and I can't tell you what bit what a big advertisement it is for this district for this board for community members to stand up for these issues because they're just basic human rights it's really not it's actually really not that complex and guess what I bet you these elementary school students know it a hell of a lot more better than some of the adults in the world [Applause] I originally wasn't gonna come up here but after hearing everyone I'll share their stories and everything that they had to say thank you for doing that because it gave me courage you know to come up here I've been at Strath haven for all 12 years of my education and you know my experience wasn't always a good one my freshman year of high

092school I came out as transgender to everyone at the school and for you know since then it hasn't been it hasn't been good I went through a very long time in my life where I could not go to school without having panic attacks and I couldn't come home from school without you know thinking about ending my life that night because of all the bullying and harassment that I had to go through just because people didn't understand people didn't accept Who I am and I the past two years I've been educating I've been going around to like different places I've even spoken to the school here about you know my experiences and like how we can bring LGBTQ topics more into classrooms and I brought it into classrooms but it's not enough because people aren't listening

093when I go into classrooms when I talk I'm just that weird LGBTQ kid you know like people don't really listen and it hasn't it hasn't been easy for me because of that and we need to normalize this in classrooms we need more people who are like me so that me being 13 years old and sitting in middle school afraid to show the world who I am that would have never happened to me and listening to all these stories and thinking about what could happen if we don't change something that other kids could end up like me is heartbreaking because I would never want any other student any their child to go through what I had to so the message that I want to send out tonight is that visibility is beyond important it is vital

094to not only the mental health of the students but education so thank you there anyone else who would like to make a comment hi Don Dan connect my elementary school kindergarten teacher also proud parent of transgender son I just wanted to relay to you that and obviously live here he's the alumni and we'll be watching this and hopefully I'll make him proud I just want to say that teaching kindergarten it's just about every other day that someone mentions to someone else in the room oh you're wearing girl colors or you shouldn't be doing that and how nice it would be to break open my book that Matt buys me every year for Christmas that I have not shared in my classroom only with parents who have children who are gender and questioning or who have

095transgender children themselves would it be able to open up with with a book and be like hey let's read the book boys wear pink how nice would that be so I just want you to know that it's not just a middle-school thing it's not just an elementary thing it's a real life thing and not only do these kids are transgender questioning or gender questioning children do they need to see that they're accepted but our regular typical sis kids need to see that transgender kids gender questioning children are just as normal as they are and I'm telling you reading a book about do boys wear pink is not going to turn anyone transgender or anyone gay that I know of but it would definitely would be a great opportunity to have a conversation with the kids

096in the classroom and to be able to say you know some children do prefer to wear pink and that's okay which is what I say anyway but it would be nice to have a piece of literature to back it up and also when there's a conversation that we had earlier this year I should say we didn't have the conversation the conversation happened in the in during the snack time and my teaching assistant I were sort of looking at each other the children were saying I heard that men can marry men and they were like who can they really and I heard that oh can women marry women and like mrs. Duncan and I was like oh ask your parents ask your parents I because I didn't want to be brought up here so I just

097think it's a lot of good that can come from having great literature exposed to our children and to be able just like we do with any other topic be able to talk about it in a very comfortable age-appropriate level and it really comes down to choosing good books good selections and being very careful with our speech and our intentions that's all okay anyone else like to comment okay I just want to thank every my name is Roland Redick souffle as you fly what I'd like to say is I've got something I think you should all think about so we've all been thinking about we've all been having this discussions about how we treat lgbtq+ people in this world and I feel like I feel like after all this you need two distinct how can I

098help help someone I have a sexual person what I see them like how can I like what could I do to make this world a better place for someone who is like like for me like I should be able to think like I'm a straight white man male like I need to think about how I can help someone who is not who's not my sexuality and I think I think that we all ready to think about someone besides ourselves and I feel like like in important ways this is thinking about like like how like how about how your what position you're at like it like a student or someone on the on this on the on the school board or a teacher or a parent or right alright a principal or a teacher yeah something

099like what your rule or permits you to do to help people I just want you to just to think about that and I got night just think about what I said about what I said about like how can you help people or just try to help more people okay okay well said my name's Pam Lieberman I more my kids are almost almost out of the system and as you can see here from the caring and eloquence of the children who have the courage to speak up and come to an adult meeting and as Rowling showed us young children elementary aged children are curious exceptionally bright they absorb everything around them verbal and nonverbal and I know that there are an occasional you know diversity programs in the middle school on the high school but but

100when you get to that level if the kids who are white and the norm they think oh well now let's talk about those other people I just think that we need to give the credit where it's due to the younger children they have the compassion and to started learning that we're all humans just makes them even more compassionate and you know better humans [Applause] anyone else who would like to come so I just want to thank all of you for coming out I want to thank all of you for sharing your stories I want to thank the kids in the room for having the courage to go to the podium again I just want to say how important I think the voices of kids can be and tell your classmates do the same thing but

101I think you've given the district I think the board a lot to think about and we really appreciate that as I mentioned at the outset of the meeting we have asked the administration to really look seriously at our policies and implementation and we'd like to have a discussion about this topic at a future board meeting not too far in the future I don't have a specific date yet but we won't have another conversation about this so thank you moving on to old business and then we'll move on to the Rona virus discussion do we have any old business okay we do I don't know if this is technically old business but I'm gonna do it anyway usually we can tell how overburdened dr. Palmer is with all of her duties because she didn't mention the

102musical and usually she mentions you know all the great things that went on so I just so sorry it was cab ulis I was just gonna say a shout-out to all the kids who aren't on stage you know all the ones who make the production happen and all of the support that makes that makes the space for the kids to be able to shine on the stage and in the pit which was also on the stage this year so a big shout out to everybody involved at every level and all the parents that support the programs and get their kids rehearsals and all of that other stuff so to everyone who didn't get applause this weekend [Applause] okay so we will move to new business and as I mentioned we want to have a discussion

103today one of the more pressing decisions is that we have some field trips that are planned at both the middle school and high school and that actually an elementary trip as well and you know I think given everything going on with concerns around coronavirus and how you know populations are mixing and travel and exposures to potential higher risk situations I think we want to have a conversation today we won't be voting today about taking an action on a field trip but we want to have a conversation today I've invited a colleague from the University of Pennsylvania we'll see if this we've never tried this before we'll see if this works so dr. kinesio is a associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and family medicine and community health and an epidemiologist and for those that

104didn't catch the article in the Philly Enquirer this past weekend I think there was some great background on on how to think about decreasing risk that dr. Kanodia was quoted in that article so I I begged and pleaded to see if she could spend a little time with us tonight I know she's been probably waiting on that video for awhile so thank you dr. kinesio can you hear me okay okay yes okay so to kick off this discussion I'm gonna ask dr. Palmer our superintendent just to set the stage just for a moment to just review some of the travel that is planned and then I thought maybe we'll turn things over to you for a few minutes to you know offer some of your comments on how we might think about what considerations we

105might think about in terms of next steps okay thank you dr. Grande in terms of big trips that we have upcoming and in terms of timeliness I'm going to go through just the types of trips that we have just the big ones not the smaller ones so the first trip that we have coming up is our band it takes place on March 21st through March 24th it involves 230 children and it would be set to go to Orlando this year the next trip we have is for the high school I'm sorry for the middle school it would be the exchange trip going to Germany Germany is currently on a level two state advisory and it involves 17 students and that one would take place in May we also have another trip that is sooner than

106June will be our Williamsburg trip for npe it is all of our fifth graders we've got about a hundred students 53 chaperones and seven staff members going on that trip and going back to Germany we have a trip in June for the high school involving 17 students and then we have to middle school trips Quebec City in June for 42 students and then Costa Rica in June for 23 students so it is a significant concern for us as we're looking at all of the travel advisories and the spread of the corona virus we are monitoring this but we are also trying to balance this is a wonderful opportunity for our children they are board approved trips we would love them to go we don't want to cut off the experience but we need to make

107sure our children and our staff are safe I think that sets the stage great thank you dr. Palmer's so doctor can you see oh do you think you could perhaps offer some some general comments for the board and some considerations that we might look into as we kind of think through our options here I know the data coming out of China South Korea Italy and here that it has come time for us to Institute what we call social distancing vectors because we have iris have to use public health strategies that may disrupt our normal daily routines you'll hear a lot about our attempts to isolate and to quarantine people and those are early strategy and are very important strategies for limiting the rate of new infections so it's important for us to think about the

108curve I don't know if you can see me I talk with my hands yes we see a picture of the curve of new coronavirus and this is the shape of the curve in China and now China has a very strict social distance Orange an incredible job I'll be reporting measures to control environment and to limit its we here in the United States are on earth far as we were we've been delayed in testing over the next few days an increase what we talked about in the apology is we want to flatten that curve that's the leave like this we don't want a fast you're out free that fast here is an incredible strain on our health system and will exceed our capacity to promote their hospital setting so totally comfort not for Jam that unlike

109me are calling upon our to think about this as a way to swallow the spread the virus that causes over nineteen so what this mean for all of us this means being very talking about these early days the of Kovic 19th as for the fire and we do not want to throw gasoline you don't want to add and the an epidemic real is anything anything that moves new populations in contact with one another and so travel in particular was a real challenge for the control in the short term to limit large either to limit travel to try so that we're not providing an iron hurdle drown or take so many people in call me in the past about their own Emily and schools are asking about and I think as we begin as a community

110to engage very active part contain the spread of a disease and namely one we want to protect our families and the people we love and that means saying our families engagement and learn large group gathering and in travel to we want to protect vulnerable member of our own communities we want to protect a killer our elders and the chronic illnesses who are highly susceptible adverse outcomes if it infected is the causes Toby thank you and third in considering travel we want to think about the possibility that we may need epidemics isn't where we may reinforce infection to our home communities in addition if we consider travel with large group then the larger the group the greater the opportunity for one member of that group to become infected the great potential of that group to have

111its own movement restricted for people to get stranded or quarantine in remote locations away from their families away from their usual sources of medical care so I think I'll pause there these are all the considerations that Public Health well be will be thinking about its making recommendations I think for your school community it's important to think about one's own family it's important to think about vulnerable people within our home community it's important think about communities we may visit and it's important to think about really trying to act early and change our behavior now so that we can flatten or really try to relieve the pressure that our health systems will certainly experience in the coming weeks and months I'm happy to take questions great thank you doctor can you see oh and before I ask

112if if board members have questions you know I think that you know one way we might think about this is is dr. Palmer laid out a series of trips and each of those trips involves a certain set of dates that have implications I think in terms of cancellation and so we might be able to think about the trips that require more immediate decisions and then we might be able to think about trips where a decision could perhaps be delayed somewhat to see how the situation evolves and you know how that kind of shifts thinking perhaps are there folks who have questions for dr. kinesio and then once we move past that point I'm I like spring her loose and then we can have a conversation here hi can you hear me Wow okay yeah hi

113I have a question it's more to lay to rest a misconception that I've been hearing people say that when the weather warms up it won't have an effect now clearly that that's people that has nothing to with virology but could you explain that that about how weather would affect or wouldn't affect something like this they have no way of knowing for sure with this new virus Holley point declining incident in months we don't know yet if this iron will per month I read every I think this matter aboard the heat but feeling we didn't see we can't thank another one way or another and we certainly not count unless to by a time we need to act now in every one possible and to really risky in gauge in and in staying home with anywhere

114else thank you okay thank you for being here I just have a quick question kind of on the heels of the last question you just filled it can you you can hear my voice okay okay on the heels of the last question are we seeing lower incidences and states that do have a warmer climate are you yes have it in the u.s. is it and we cannot count on any numbers that we're seeing from across there's high variation across in the number of quest kits available and the number of tests that can run and I absolutely that was our increases because we will large increases in thank you sure yeah hi I asked I'm gonna ask another question so in Delaware County there's at least one confirmed case and in the Philadelphia area we are

115starting to get some confirmed cases in places like Italy or Iran or other places where it's gotten really not out of control but much a higher amount how long did it take from just a few cases to get to like a much larger amount where they went for the trip and it ran appreciably during that they were air and has since escalated dramatically now the entire country has restricted movement and ism is on lockdown so there will be the United States a dramatic increase in fighters and in the number of cases we see and I think it's very very important for educators and parents and the board to be communicating actively with our children about not to shock them but to prepare them that we need their engagement and their cooperation and that we will

116do everything we can to life is normal for them so in Italy it went from almost nothing to two weeks ago to where it is now and we can't blame that on the normal Italian administration abilities because in China the authoritarian regime and also a collectivist spirit allowed for very extreme social measures and people complied with those measure and there were there were there were strict enforcement of those measures Italy is a society much more like ours that I their prizing of Independence and freedom of movement and democratic ideal and me that it's going to be much more difficult to implement some of these measures in Italy but we should learn from them that there's an inevitability to the increase in the number of cases in the number of fatalities - unless for being rigorously

117in the early is of an outrage thank you any others all right thank you dr. kinesio we appreciate your time so you know I would suggest to the board that we have some trips that are imminent that in particular the high school trip to Florida is is beyond imminent in terms of the timing of it and involves a very large percentage of our student body traveling to a very heavily visited area by people from all around the world frankly and certainly all around the country and I think if our first consideration is really thinking about the health and safety of our students first and foremost but frankly also the health and safety of our entire community you know I I don't see how we can responsibly continue to have that trip move forward I think

118there are some other trips that probably requires some decision-making soon and I know dr. Palmer can certainly share with the board what the deadlines are for different trips in terms of you know what percentage of dollars can be refunded and those types of issues many of the trips do allow for a significant amount of recovery of funds most of the trips don't allow for a full recovery of funds but certainly want to open this up for discussion if we do want to move forward with taking action then I suggest that we schedule a board meeting for later this week to do that so just to clarify if any action would be done at the board meeting later in the week correct we won't vote on anything this evening so what we're in in the discussion

119we're basically needing to decide are we coming back to make a decision do we do enough of this feel that we can't we need to make a decision and not just say they go on as continue yeah I think that the purpose and not voting tonight is I think you know obviously this impacts a lot of people and I want to make sure that people have an opportunity to like if the board has particular thoughts and perhaps intentions about what we might do I want to give people the opportunity to to weigh in on that and and attend that board meeting this is a kind of jurisdictional slash procedural question I mean I know that we had to approve the trip to begin with but is it the administration's call as a first matter to

120cancel it and then do we are we being asked to approve the cancellation like what are we actually what's our responsibility because the board does approve the trip it would be unusual for me to just go against what the board has already approved it's different when the entities such as the French exchange trip canceled on us we didn't cancel on them but I can make a recommendation to the board based on safety if I would like you to cancel it but you've approved this trip and it's ready to go we've already collected money for it students and parents have the expectation that they're going so it's more of a visual I mean we're not compelling the trip we didn't require the trip to have no but you've authorized the trip to go where I would

121be going against the board's motion well we've authorized it we haven't compelled it I mean we've said yes they can go so I'm just trying to figure out right we and and to that end we did have one or actually two trips that were approved we had went to China and want to Peru that the board approved but it was not running because of lack of interest here these were already money was already collected for them right I get that it's just yeah I think you're probably right absolutely great to be on the same page you know good to have another meeting let people be heard etc etc I just want to be clear about what you know the board's role in our quote unquote Authority is okay so actually I think that because the

122board created this trip essentially and that it would be up to the board to decide to remove this opportunity it's not up to the administration to unilaterally make the decision to simply cancel it so in that respect the jurisdiction is the board's the board has the authority the board is the one that's going to make this decision not the administration the universe would be canceling trips and the others gonna be the sleep and start times a change I think we need I think we do need to come back and I wasn't suggesting that we didn't I just wanted to be clear about this so I'm gonna agree that we need to have that meeting but I'm also gonna state that it's there are 500 school districts in the state of Pennsylvania and there are 50

123states in the Union that seems a little bit ridiculous that this level of the decision is falling school boards then I think it should be coming from a Department of Health at some level but it's not so we will meet yeah I just have one quick question is there another advantage to cancelling the first trip the most pressing trip to Orlando Florida I can see that there's a certain amount of refund up to 48 hours but is there another advantage to cancelling it closer in time such as logistics or planning for the school so is there a reason to do that closer in time that I need to get I'm not aware of earlier this week Henry per burgnik pina taro and I got on the phone with the travel agent there's no advantage okay

124thank you I'm sorry one follow-up is there a way not that it would be dispositive but is there a way to also unless we've already done this make sure that the band knows that they're the most pressing trip and to get some feedback from those parents perhaps that's I mean not just one email but you know so they collectively know and do they already actually I'm going to impose on NIC because he is here he wrote a full email to the parents last week so that they knew the board would be discussing it this evening and that we were and I was having significant concerns with it but I thought Nick from your point of view I don't know if you're getting a tremendous amount of feedback I did get some feedback and sorry to

125put you on the spot but I thought it's helpful if the board is going to make a decision sure I'm Nick Pina Tom the band and orchestra director of the high school yeah we the parents and families and anyone who gets emails for these on for those going on the trip got an email from me earlier I guess it was Friday explaining that we were considered the district was looking at the safety measures that the government was talking about and also what we would do and just let them know that we're going on is planned but there's the possibility that the trip could cancel based on safety safety concerns we have 230 ish families that are attending the trip or student near fact separate families with students going I have heard from five formal families

126and I know that dr. Palmer has heard from two and the general consensus of those five is that there's a concern rather than I hope we go so that the five families and it's only five out of 200 in something are concerned that you know about safety more than than actually going but and they also pass along to whoever has to make the decision that they that they're very sorry that the decision has to be made that's really helpful thank you one thing I would like to say to the board dr. brandy has heard this but all the rest of you have not and Nick has heard this and Henry Burke has heard it when I'm looking at all of these trips I really do want the kids to go my children had taken field

127trips I accompanied them I really want the trip to go but I have to weigh the public safety aspect in the case of Orlando the scenario I had asked the travel agent on the phone was we may be able to get all of our children and our chaperones who are parents and our teachers who are also chaperones on the trip and they're fine they get to Florida they get stuck in Florida because something erupts in Florida do you even have hotel rooms for 14 days for this many people if I get them there and can't get them back that's one scenario the other scenario we get them there they have a great time they come back and they get sick after they're back and they're in our school there are 1,200 children at that point

128and all of the families this is not a casual decision and every day is I'm seeing more and more health threats coming closer to our area I'm losing more sleep over this but genuinely I would love them to go that's one side but I can't past the health risk and can I get them back and can I get them back into the schools safely without having a bigger issue than just the 230 students that's a huge number and a huge risk so when you had asked does it make a difference to cancel earlier or later we didn't bring it to the board tonight we wanted to have more time to learn more about the progress but also to have the board have an opportunity to think about it but that's just one of the things

129I'm thinking about when I look at the Orlando trip I have different thoughts when I'm looking at the International trips but that's what's going through my head on Orlando and it's not a casual thought process this is one of those decisions where we're going to have people upset no matter what decision we make I'm not happy to make decision but I'm more than happy to be to have to to make the decision and I think when we come back to another board meeting and makes us to talk about this I it will be a tough decision and we will be getting emails beforehand and after and I do hope we do hear from people before and some people won't be happy but when this first started I thought oh this is just gonna be like

130SARS which is also a type of coronavirus and with SARS nothing came about but we had a very different public health response to that and this is becoming something else come back and talk about it and we do I think I'd like to hear from people to email a board at wsst org I know plenty people have that email but I don't know but seriously we'd like to hear because you know it's like if we only hear all the people that are negative or only people that are super positive that is not a good cross-section if if you are thinking well I think it's probably okay but I'm not sure that's still an opinion we want to hear because that is a valid opinion too so when we do have the next meeting which would

131be soon it's not going to be like something wait for a couple weeks I hope no I know so I would suggest that we Rican excuse me reconvene on Thursday evening to hold another board meeting I think that gives a few days for people to weigh in but at the same time doesn't leave families hanging until next week to figure out what's going on so it's just enough where I just want to give you my two cents because you know I do that I work in a continuing care retirement community I'm on those same daily calls about this issue and it is right now it's all about social distancing and I know you hate me but I have two seniors who are gonna go on this trip and they will be miserable if they don't

132go but I can't afford my daughter I'm an older parent she's petrified that I'm gonna get sick that she's gonna get sick and she's gonna make me sick and she's like mama I don't want you to get it and I'm like I won't because but I'm working in that risky population of older about 560 older everyday older adults every day so I just want to go on record because I may not make this next meeting because I know the trips about ten days away that I'm one of those parents who haven't contacted you yet that I really don't think this trip should happen because I know how those teenagers are I know how they are when they're on a trip they're not going to stand six feet apart and they're going to NASA and they're

133gonna play it universal and they're gonna be on planes and they're not going to wipe down the trays you know so I just wanted to let you know I I think you're looking at it the right way and I hope you cancel Thanks thank you so let's plan on Thursday evening at 7 p.m. to convene I think that we have to go through this and make sure we understand each and every trips timeline in terms of decision-making I do know that the high school's trip to Germany has some financial obligations that are imminent and so that may have some urgency to it and I think that there's perhaps a couple other elementary trips that may are at least one Elementary trip that may be implicated so we have to spend a little bit of time

134going through each and every one but I the intent here is for the community to know that we are going to seriously look at some cancellations on Thursday so with that is there any other new business thank you I am in addition to being a school board member the PSB a liaison and I would like to bring to all of our attentions that our section which is section eight has a local event coming up on March 30th of this year from 6:00 to 8:00 at East Penn School District and then again on April 7th there that would be redundant they're both the same type of meeting from 6:00 to 8:00 at have it from middle school in hammer town and we are all encouraged to attend if possible if you may firm ation about summer

135stay tuned Corona Corona permitting but if you want more information about what they're going to cover the individual sections you should contact the SBA directly thank you Thank You Jenna any other new business I guess I on that same vein Jen do you know if there's an opportunity to participate electronically I do not think at this time that they are doing electronically but as we know with the rapid change of everything it is possible these may not happen or they may go to doing them electronically I can verify that you would think they probably would be doing it I don't think so okay I'll verify the answer to that question all right all right any other new business all right this meeting is adjourned