001necessary to protect the immediate health and safety of a specific student or students. It also says the term invasive physical examination means any kind of medical examination that involves the exposure of private body parts or any acts during such examinations that includes incisions, insertions, or injections into the body, but does not include hearing, vision, or scoliosis screening, unquote. I've emailed each board member a list of titles, which by no means is all-inclusive, and a copy of Burlington's school board policy 5310, so that there can be no plausible deniability here. Each of you now has a legal, ethical, and moral obligation to do an immediate, full, and complete audit and provide full transparency of the curriculums, reading lists, and school libraries with all offending materials removed. You also have a responsibility to remove from office whomever
002is ultimately responsible in allowing subcarriage in the area. Thank you. My family moved to Burlington in July. We heard so many wonderful things about the school district, organizations, the club's offer, sports teams, and the camaraderie among the students, to name a few. We enthusiastically enrolled our three children, who were excited and nervous to be in a new school. A few very short months into the school year, I met some friends who invited me to a monthly school board meeting. I was very involved with our former school's PTO. I was looking forward to jumping in with both feet to our new district to help in any way I could. The date of that meeting was November 9th, and I don't really think I need to give it up. But as a new resident, I was shocked
003and wondering what I had gotten myself. But instead of letting that crush my desires to get involved, I allowed that meeting to motivate me to dig in and learn about what was going on in the district and the community. I took a class on the Constitution. I read a ton of books. I had seen it boarded. I learned things that I never in a million years learned. I observed things as well. Some of them are truly great, but sadly most of what I have observed is really not good. It's mediocre at best. A lot of it is what I believe to be poor representation of what a school district should be, and moreover, what a school board should be. There's so much noise regarding unity, yet every time I attend a meeting, I have a
004front row seat to the divided and even divisive school board, where members have often been overheard calling their peers' names. What kind of example is this? Are those of you who are seemingly so put off by members who don't think or vote like you holding your seat on the school board, why would you run for a position, one of great responsibility, I might add, that you outwardly show disdain for? Would it not be better to resign and let others who enthusiastically want to help take your place? As a parent, I am constantly learning my children, and they are constantly changing and becoming who God wants them to be. It is troubling to see the added unnecessary obstacles on a daily basis at school. There is a dichotomy that runs very deep in this district. These
005kids come up against it many times a day. Sorry, ma'am. Sorry to interrupt you today. Don't forget, Mr. Staling will raise his hand when he gets to about 15 seconds. I apologize for hanging out, but we have about three minutes left. Ryan, do we have an extra minute? Tracy, we'll stick with you. Ryan, do you have an extra minute? Good evening, board members. I want you to think about this for a moment. What would your reaction be if you had a high schooler that one day brought home a book titled Sex and Violence from their school library? Would you demand to look at it? Would you follow up with the school as to why this book is in the library available to students? Those of you in the corporate world, would your place of employment
006allow you to keep a book with that title out in the open? Now if the places you work are like mine, the answer to that question is no. Also, this book is not available in any other high school library in the county. Not Waterford, Newton Grove, or even any of the Racine high schools. Just Burlington's. In fact, the only other libraries that can be found in the county are the Racine Public Library and the Burlington Public Library, where it is in the adult section. So why is it available in our high school library? As I said, this book violates at least three district policies. I want to read an excerpt from this book and then tie it back to the policy violation. So the excerpt is, I locked the door and Colleen flopped against me
007on my unmade bed that we made out until her shirt was off and I was so hard I was almost sick to my stomach. But before I could test the idea of where she was on the sex thing, Colleen just shoved her hand down my pants and jerked me off. It's apparent that district policies were not top of mind when this book was approved and purchased for the VHS library. Now as I view it in the research, policy 5517 regarding sexual harassment is violated here, with this book falling firmly in the category of example 6, following some petty meth. That example states that sexual harassment would be inclusive of displaying pictures, calendars, cartoons, or other materials with sexual content. Now a book with descriptive sexual acts certainly fits that bill. This policy also, or this
008book also violates some heavy G of policy 5517 regarding personal boundary invasions. Now, example five under that subheading notes that showing pornography is a violation of personal boundaries. And based on that, I've searched in numbers I've seen in this book, it falls into that category. And lastly, this book violates policy 5780 regarding student rights. That policy states, in providing students the opportunity for an education to which they are entitled, the district shall attempt to offer nurture, counsel, and custodial care appropriate to their age and maturity. Now, a book that is in the adult section of the public library certainly leaves questions about age appropriateness. Three things need to be done here. One, this book has to be removed from our library. Two, an audit needs to be done of the library for any other books
009that are in violation of district policy and have the word sexual content in them. And three, a robust vetting plan needs to be put in place for future library additions. I'm formally requesting these actions be on the next board agenda. Thank you. I've never attended his weddings, I should, but I've attended the voice of my concerns at times. For example, I remember thinking about class I said we would. Peter may remember me from country theater days where his children performed in plays and musicals with my daughter. Or the entire part may recognize my last name because my father worked for some more work. And her name was mentioned as a staff member. The board may also remember my name from about five months ago. Did I send a letter to everyone? That letter was about
010meeting again in person since it was voted to attend school five days a week in masks. I also touched on a personal incident that happened with my son. My daughter probably wasn't worded the best or had as much thought into it as I'm speaking today. I'm here today to apologize in a way for that letter. After I attended the meeting in August where a lot of people voiced their concerns about voting on whether or not to put masks in school this school year, I realized some things that are really going on in this district. I'm here today to publicly say to the board that I am also here to say that while I may not always agree with decisions that are made by the district or staff within the district, I was contacted a couple
011of weeks before the school year started by one of my daughter's teachers who I didn't even have a conference with or meet in person last year. I was asked if I would have my picture taken in support of the staff of the ASB because I've supported the youth in this community in the past. I happily accepted the invitation to have my picture taken along with my fiancé and my daughter to be part of a video that was shown to the staff at BASD in support of them. The video was shown to staff at their back to school meetings prior to school starting. The message was simple, we support you. I'm here today to say I support you. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank you all for the time that I had to
012speak. I do respect that your vote came in for the mask option. Given the entity we have in D.C., we need to be thinking, people, of what the next shoe to drop is. We're going to be forcing mandates, and they may hold your money back. I'm here to ask you that you're going to need to ponder your recent question. Are we free men or are we slaves? And what is it that holds you as a slave? Because if we don't make the right decisions now, it's going to affect our generations and their progeny as well. Now, you just stated that we are in good shape financially. I wouldn't worry about something that's unconstitutional and they can't throw down here on an edict that's not passed through the legislature. So don't bow and cow to tyrannical
013government that is unconstitutional. I implore all of you to take this in mind when things, the next issue drops. Because granted they will not stop, as I won't stop. Won't stop attending these meetings from here on forward to hold everyone responsible. As it is our civic duty, and it's my duty as one who follows Christ, to make sure that that's happening. I learned long ago as a young man, through a father who cared, that we all have choices to make in life. Whether that choice was very small or as near adulthood, he never told us what to do. He always suggested that we weigh heavily. The scenarios that could happen should we choose one way or the other. And he said to critically think about those ramifications because your choices will follow you for the
014rest of your life and beyond. Given that, I just want you folks to ponder those things going forward. What will you choose? Thank you. to be able to tell you how happy I am. Unfortunately, I'm not able to do that that day. But I am going to tell you some of the reasons and some of the good things that this is here. Because I did choose to stay in New York and raise my children here for a reason. And that reason largely was the Mind Story program I mentioned earlier. And through that program, my special needs children were helped greatly. But before entering Montessori with a regular IEP program, they were not. And they were not receiving the proper that they needed to be able to achieve the goals in place. There are wonderful teachers
015within the district. There have been many teachers that have helped and supported my children and helped them grow and that my children will not be in the place that they are today. However, I wish that those were the only stories that I had to tell the university. Unfortunately, they are not. I have many other perfect stories that you've all heard before. I won't go into the details of them tonight, but you could be heard now. And as we've all heard, there has been accusations, and the key word there is accusations made against players from the Burlington football team. I think it is completely outlandish that whoever issued this statement, that the ADF... BASB posted to the Burlington page and sent out to parents, used the tragedy of 9-11 to deflect from what happened. Well, may
016or may not have happened, let me correct that. At this point, it is an allegation. But to use an event that devastated this country as they did. Diversion from what may have occurred on Friday night is disgraceful. And whoever issued that statement should be ashamed of themselves. In the school district that is reading the sex and violence books to kindergartners, which I hope they are smarter than to do that, that as well is disgraceful. However, I do think that... There's a difference between pop culture, as stated in the statement, and urban culture, and the district needs to realize those things. This morning I was informed that my daughter was placed on a 14-day quarantine because she and the dance team were possibly exposed to a COVID-infected student this past weekend. It's my understanding that many
017of the girls had this quarantine imposed upon them as well. It was explained to me that the district policy is to quarantine even if a student is healthy. Quarantine that student for 14 days. Apparently, Burlington's policy is that a negative test will not change this arbitrary 14-day period. I was told that this is because some people may not be able to afford a test. that a negative test will make no difference. Policy is absurd. A negative test from a healthy student should permit an expedited return. The hypothetical possibility that a family might not be able to afford a test is not a reasonable objection to quarantine healthy students. Considering a multi-million dollar budget, the district should offer free testing to any families who can't manage the cost of a COVID test. or maybe post a
018bake sale. Earlier Superintendent Plank applauded the district on its adaptability with its handling of COVID. This policy needs immediate correction. Thank you. like you are not people. And honestly, it's very disgraceful that people can't follow simple rules when stating their concerns, number one. So while I don't agree with everything that is decided, I do want you to know that there are a lot of people that thank you for not simply walking away, for simply doing your jobs that you are here to do. Lost my train of thought. With that being said, this is what I can say. To realize that the loudest people are not the majority, that there are over 10,000 people in this city, and a few that, you know, cannot behave themselves, and come here to treat you like you are dirt
019for doing things like following CDC guidelines. and following procedures that have long been in place and that people with expertise have indicated as what you should do at this point. I really, really want you guys to remember, you guys and girls and friends, I want you guys to remember that The people that are bullying you, that are calling you names, that are disrupting these meetings are not the majority of the people. And that even if I don't personally agree with everything that has been said, I personally thank you and I commend you for having the courage to sit here every month and listen to the insanity that is being thrown at you. Thank you. I'm a student from a relative high school. and I'm also part of the Burlington football team, I'm a captain on
020the team this year. And I'm up here from allegations on Friday of racial slurs being used in the game. We play a lot of different teams and a lot of racially diverse teams throughout the season. One of the examples being we played poorly, perfectly fine this year. And we played that game. Game ended and it was completely fine. We even got a coach text from him. We got a text to our coach from Portland congratulating on how good we were in our sportsmanship and how good some of the players were in the react. With these allegations, there's been no proof that anyone has said anything on either team's both ways. There's no proof. They're all just speculation allegations and hearsay and bullshit. different than the last couple seasons as we have an approach this year
021and he's really pushed on increasing and bettering our culture as last year we against Vostocia had the same problem. But we play these other racially diverse tunes and we don't have any problems but when we get to Vostocia it always seems to be wrong. We're pushing this culture this year that we're professional in. We don't need to talk to him. We can let our playing do the talking. We've really built on that. I think we have a really great group of individuals out this year. I'm sad to be up here talking to you guys as we're getting a bad name and bad rants because of this. We're getting a lot of shade from our right because of this. I don't think this team displays what's being said and what we've been doing this season. We're
022doing really good this season. Everything's been positive. We've had really good majors. It's kind of a setback, you know? We've been doing so good this season. Everything's been so positive, and here we are. I just want to say that at the beginning of the season, we signed kind of a student handbook or a code of ethics that discriminates or that puts all of this talk to the ground. We're not supposed to be saying any of this stuff. The group of individuals out there this year I think is a really great group of kids and I can't see them doing something like that. And I just want you to hear from a player, from a student, from someone on my side with a perspective and not from someone else. It is difficult to stand up here
023and I commend all of the speakers for being able to do so. I commend all of the board members for being here and doing a job and recognizing the teaching staff and all of the staff in all of our district schools. My wife and I moved here 25 years ago. We've been foster parents in this community for 20 years. Not once have my children, and we've adopted five children with special needs, all students of color, not once have my children talked about their peers degrading them or having bad experiences. Not once have my children talked about their teachers in such experiences. I want to commend the teachers who wrote the email today. I felt that that was an incredible writing of... correspondence going out to family members because what I want to say you know
024the special education program here we moved to here 25 years ago when my wife and I were educators so we opened the world into other school districts For years, my children in other school districts have had racial slurs thrown at them by teachers and students and were cut down because they were in a special education program. We moved to the school district two years ago, and my children are in the accelerated programs now. My son was in the lowest math class in eighth grade, and by testing, he scored into the highest math class as an African American student. And so I'm very proud of the district because I feel that the teachers give my kids so much courage to be who they are and to celebrate whether they have special needs or different skin colors.
025I'm really proud of them. I'm really proud of the teachers. It is family members. My sons, two of my sons were at the football game on Friday night. And racial slurs were thrown at my sons by parents. over and over during the entire game. And one of my sons was picked on because he was sitting with Mexicans and they obviously have bad influences of parents at home. My kids are taught to love and I'm really proud of them. I'm proud of the school board. I'm proud of the teachers. So, thank you. I just wanted to thank the SAB for the statement that they put out regarding the alleged incident on Friday evening. I'd like to read a part of that statement and then just end with a brief comment. Burlington Area School District does not
026tolerate racist behavior. We take all allegations seriously and complete thorough investigations. And when warranted, we assign discipline. Link to the statement of 2020 consequences, which I read through and I very much appreciated that as well, so thank you for that. It's disheartening to us that we even need to conduct an investigation. The district alone can't control the individual actions of over 3,000 students, which I fully agree with. Instead of directing anger at the district, share frustration with the parents who allow their kids to use racial slurs. Be angry at what kids get exposed to on social media and through pop culture. The school district will hold students accountable, and the community needs parents to hold their kids accountable, too. It's time for everyone, parents, students, community members, and leaders to step up and do the
027right work to ensure every person feels a sense of belonging. And that's just a small part of the statement. My comment is that I particularly liked the part about social media and pop culture. I believe that we need to recognize, though, that time is also influential. The amount of time high schoolers spend away from their parents, with teachers, peers, and coaches is impactful. I return to the idea of social media, music, and learning environment for the influence it has on high schoolers in particular. When four of the six rap songs that pulled up on the top 2021 rap songs list today have the N-word dozens of times in them, when it's okay for some people to sing, read out loud, or say that word, but not for everyone, then I come to the conclusion that
028there should be a zero-tolerance policy in BASD for the N-word from any person. I want to thank the board for your time. Just a couple of brief comments here on the subject that have come up in the past at board meetings. The first is related to critical race theory. I've probably read 30, 40 articles at least on critical race theory. Just a reminder to the board, not that you haven't heard it many times before, critical race theory has never been taught K-12 in the United States, including, I'm sure, Burlington's area school district. I trust that our highly educated professionals, teachers are teaching accurate history, which is of course the goal. The second is related to mask policy. And in mask policy, I commend all the efforts the board has completed to this point. And in
029certain areas, the Delta variant is raging. Our medical systems are overwhelmed. And I hope that the board keeps the option open if we need it to strengthen the mask policy. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda is board communications. And I guess I'll start out before anyone else does. I just want to take a quick acknowledgement of the passing of a former board member, Bill Noble, who served on Burlington's school district for nine years. And he passed away in August. And I acknowledge him. It's hard working for the board member. I just wanted to mention that. We noticed. And I'll send the board a communication letter. Okay, I just wanted to say that I had a retreat coming up to the high school. Troy Everson has the sweetest dog named Troy. I don't know
030if you know about it, but goodbye, Troy. He's a therapy dog, and I was just watching some of the kids react to him. I thought, what a nice idea. I think it's great. I just want to commend him on that. I've been to a governance conference talking about school boards and so forth, and I'd like to share that another time because this meeting is getting very long. Also, this last weekend I attended Madison to the WASB meeting, and they were talking about the why of education. And at the next meeting I'll cover that too. Thanks, Lizanne. Yeah, here is one of knowledge by the football game. I was asked Friday. I just want to thank you. It's like the Berlin Saginaw. Chief Anderson is team with the police department. Chief Babe with his team and
031fire department sheriff's mailing his department for really great experience. The community all had to come together and remember September 11th. Any other more questions? This is super important. Yes, thank you, Peter and Laura. I'll keep it brief since you put some comments earlier for me as well. I would certainly want to just make sure that since our last meeting did start this new school year, it has been very energized beginning of the school year, which is nice. It doesn't hurt that we've had some great weather and a lot of us have spent the whole course. In addition, if you could have the opportunity to... the staff and the students at this real-time Park Street Motor School. That was certainly an incredibly special night. Board Member LeShaw's comments about Friday. Also, speaking of VHS, there are
032open houses this week. They have 360-degree-to-money board members. Also, a week from the 2nd, if you have not yet seen, they're very, very awesome at engaging the new playground at Cooper Auto School, the playground you can serve for a couple of hours. Thanks, Steve. Taylor, will you do the thanks statement of those please? The Burlington Area School District Bank State and Recreation Report for August 2021. Total beginning cash on hand is $1,257,998.57. Deposits, total deposits $6,893,158.07. So each total available cash on hand $8,151,156.06. Under expenditures and withdrawals. total withdrawals are seven million five hundred eighty five thousand seven hundred eighty nine dollars fifty percent total pending cash on hand is five hundred sixty five thousand three sixty seven oh eight and of course that adjusts with bank statements so i couldn't form a motion to
033accept the bank statement we made the second day discussion all in favor of hearing that one paper say aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye
034aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye Make a motion to approve the August check register as presented. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. All right. Thank you, Jim. Personnel. Earlier this evening, the school board personnel committee met in closed session to approve the resignation, retirement, and termination. and appointments of certified staff, non-certified staff, and extracurricular staff. And we had a total of 49 people fall into those categories. Given the late hour, I don't think we're able to go through those, but it's available on our agenda. The personnel committee recommended that we approve all of those resignations, retirements, terminations, and appointments. So I entertain
035a motion by the board now to approve them. I just wanted to take a very brief opportunity. One of the retirements just had approved by the Board of Education is knowing Marine Works as an exchange. Should be with us. Donations through the Mr. Doan. Do you want to do the high school ones? A video program that is used by a number of our programs. utilize that for the game field, but our student athletes are also able to utilize that for making their highlight games this year with recruiting and whatnot. It's also the cameras, as well as some of the cameras that you see out at the stadium, that utilize training for some of the games. So that was very generous. One that really made my day at the start of the school year was Andy
036Daburr out on McKenry Street there. $2,700 he came in. He knew it's been tough on families, and he paid $2,700 for students that needed support. school supplies, string bags, things that's going here. Stuff like that makes you speak. We've got our counseling staff and our social workers aware so we can really make sure we identify students and we utilize those funds. So very generous of Andy. Swing fire oral club has started already. We have a lot of play auditions and that's a separate part of the operands program. They've already got their cast going. Auditions going on our jazz and show player programs. We got a $1,000 donation for them from the St. Troy chapter. And then $75 from a former student, Eric Santos. He actually gave $150 for a play called Steel Beach Thunder. the
037mic but it gave 150 000 dollars for our share program split between vhs and carcher and then uh really cool livestock association uh mr eisenberg got a really nice box of school material for livestock dating uh it's a curriculum it's you know the units and how they go about taking the various livestock and used for classroom for FFA, but more probably in our neuroscience classes. And that's probably one of the $200 values. So really, again, donations that really are going above and beyond to help really make it exciting to go do what our community does for us. So please accept it. Thank you. I guess I'll entertain a motion to, I covered the first one, but I mentioned it. We could have an economy come here. You can make a wave. Our new middle school
038principal. I'm sure we'll hear from you soon. But I entertain a motion to approve our donations. I move we accept these very generous gifts. Okay, motion to be made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye please. Opposed, nay. All right, donations are accepted. We have a student travel place. I'd entertain a motion to approve the barbershop. Any motions have been made in the second. Any discussions? Hearing none, all members have been opposed. Opposed, say again. I apologize, we're at the end. Twice I've been looking at you. to there were eight local answer period that has questions and answers. The due date for your proposal submission was July 30th. Now that John just reached interview, he does his process, all the follow-up questions, reference checks, all those basic information, basic criteria were
039met, brought to a bunch of mentors, secure file transmittal, all the satisfaction and all the solutions for them. It really came down to... Fees and earnings. So if we kind of just focus on this little chart here. So the three we looked at were Community State Bank, Greenwood State Bank. So there are fees and taxes based on the services that we use. And then there's an earnings credit to offset. So if we look at Greenwood State Bank, the net cost for the point at that bank was zero. So there was enough earnings credit to cover our anticipated costs. The other two banks were... We still have to pay a monthly fee, but that would allow us to keep a lower bank balance, so we would be able to invest more in other avenues. So the
040Greenwoods also has a money market available to us, which I know isn't great, but a lot of the other avenues we have right now are earning points. We want to maximize the earning potential as much as we can, and then all of the banks here are able to take advantage of it. state here in Tijuana and that also there are no issues. The congregation for the HSA hearing. There are still other accounts we have related to like our bond issue, small scholarship account, and we still have the state local government investment pool that we use. We're not looking to replace any of those, just the three accounts that we're currently in charge of. So again, we recommend that we go with Greenwood State Bank for an entertainment motion for a new bank. i do think
041the green one is down second okay lucian's made the second any discussion everyone in favor say aye aye aye three weeks is the date we're going to file that future meeting dates steve reference before we are meeting again for a special board meeting on the 27th of september two weeks from now i also point out that there's going to be a closed session personal meeting to go through a superintendent evaluation about several months and then At the special board meeting, I was going to make clear that there's no public comment, as we traditionally don't. But there will be a public comment again next month at our regular October board meeting on November 11th. That being said, I entertain a motion to adjourn. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor?