WSSD Board Meeting 07/20/20

001Good evening, everyone. I now call the July 20th meeting of the Wallingford Swarthmore School Board to order. Pursuant to Policy 006.1, we are holding this meeting remotely, given the current public health crisis. In opening, I'll start with a Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I'd like to start by asking our Board Secretary, Ms. Figueroa, for a roll call. Mr. Ballas? Ms. Cimino? Here. Dr. Downey? Here. Dr. Huff? Here. Mr. Kudas? Here. Mrs. Lentz? Here. Mr. Orsetti? Here. Mrs. Walkman? Here. Dr. Grandy? Here. Mr. Orsetti? Here. Mr. Berman? Here. Dr. Palmer? Here. Did we have Mr. Ballas? I couldn't hear a response. Here. Okay. Great. So

002we have nine voting members. Correct. Okay. Nine voting members. Great. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. I want to start the meeting this evening, you know, by making a few comments. I know obviously school reopening is top of people's minds right now, and that will clearly be the focus of the meeting. I do want to mention that we had planned to meet in person this evening with appropriate public health measures in place. However, last week the governor issued an order restricting indoor gatherings to a maximum of 25 people. And given that the board, including Dr. Palmer, Mr. Berman, Ms. Figueroa, the district staff that are assisting with meeting logistics, and the district staff who are presenting at the meeting this evening, and even just a few members of the public that would wish to speak would exceed

003the requirement. I would like to thank the board for their support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So that this meeting could proceed that limit, we did decide to continue to meet remotely this evening. But to those tuned in this evening to view the meeting, thank you for taking the time to do so. As you all know, the major challenge in front of us is the reopening of school for the 2020-2021 academic year. And the challenge is how to reopen safely and effectively, meaning that we strike the right balance between health and education concerns. We must open in a responsible manner. And many people in our community will have different ideas of what that means. And everyone's point of view is valid. Some will feel very strongly

004that their kids should not be in the school buildings at all. Some will feel strongly that their kids should be in the buildings five days a week. And some will feel strongly that they only want their kids in the buildings with really strong public health protections. We know our teachers want kids in the buildings, but they also want to make sure they and their families are protected. Everyone in the district wants to do our best at providing a high quality education during these uncertain and unprecedented times. The job of the district and our board is to find the best solution possible that considers all of these views, considers the best public health evidence, and makes use of the expertise of our district teachers and educational leaders. And that is the path toward a good decision

005and the path we're following. As we've gone through this process to try to find the best solution, one thing is quite clear. There are no perfect solutions. So often in life, we're making decisions to try to find new and better ways of doing things. The decisions we're having to make this summer and the decisions we will have to make throughout the school year are in response to a worldwide crisis that none of us asked for. And the pandemic has challenged every aspect of our lives and school is certainly no exception. So rather than looking for a perfect solution that frankly does not exist, we need to come to the point where we can make the most of it. And that is to work together as a district and a community to find solutions that balance

006the needs and concerns of different members of our community, protect public health, and maximize the educational opportunity for all of our students. I know many of you listening saw the note from Dr. Palmer yesterday that went out indicating plans to pursue what I would call a split AB cohorted model. The idea is that half of our students would be in the building while half are home. When kids are at home, they will be getting instruction and we'll hear more about this later. We'll also hear about plans to offer a full online WSSD Academy to those families that prefer an entirely remote option. The administration and teachers have been working exhaustive hours for the last few months to develop these models. They've explored possibilities to have all kids in the building five days a week, hybrid

007options, fully remote options. And having all kids in the building five days a week is just not possible. At this stage, we cannot institute all the important public health measures required in Pennsylvania and recommended by most public health guidelines with all students attending face to face every day. There was an enormous amount of work that went into trying to make that work. But as of right now, the cohorted AB model is what is safest and allows for meaningful face to face education. It blends education at home with education in our buildings so that kids are learning, whether they're at home or in school. And it strikes the right balance right now. It allows us to quickly pivot if needed to fully online and allows us to shift a full face to face if that becomes

008possible. What I think we have to remember is the goal as we start the school year shouldn't just be to start the school year face to face, but continue school for as long as possible face to face, hopefully the entire year. And that goal requires us to be humble about what we know and don't know about COVID. It means we can't rush to put all students back in school. It means we can't rush to put all students back in school. We can't compromise on following the best evidence and public health guidance that is available today. The quickest path to complete closure of our buildings would be a widespread outbreak in our schools and we have to take these actions to avoid that scenario. And beyond that, we're also now facing requirements from the state to

009enact six feet of social distancing in our classrooms, and that is just not possible with all kids in the buildings. I know that having kids learning at home creates a profound hardship for many families. families but we're facing aspects of this pandemic that we can't control and that I do wish were different. Finally I want to say there may be a sense that what we discussed tonight is the final word on what the entire next academic year will look like and the one thing we know about COVID-19 is conditions will change. We will learn more about the most effective actions to prevent spread particularly in schools. We may learn that we can relax certain measures. We may learn that we can relax certain measures for just our elementary students for example and the district has

010worked tirelessly to be in a good position to pivot in the future based on conditions in our community and the best scientific evidence. I really do hope that we have a successful vaccine on the horizon that really transforms this entire conversation and we can begin getting back to school the way we all remember and it is something that I truly hope for that we can again begin to have a different conversation a few months from now. So with that again I just wanted to make those comments to start. We'll be talking a lot more about specific plans as we get further into the meeting and let me just quickly transition to board announcements. I do want to mention that the board met prior to this meeting an executive session to discuss negotiations and then with

011that I want to move to the superintendent's report and hand it to Dr. Palmer. Thank you Dr. Grandy. I'd like to point out a couple of items on our agenda this evening. Under the personnel section you will notice the appointment of Nora Wheeler as the Director of Instructional Technology. This appointment completes our reorganization of the Curriculum and Education Department and the Technology Department. So to recap in our Curriculum and Education Office we have Dr. Cittarelli-Jones Director of Education. We have Dr. Ashwina Moszkowski Assistant Director of Education. Caitlin Locke as the Instructional Technology Specialist and Andy Benzing as the Math, Science and STEM Coordinator. In our Technology Department we have AJ Sertroni as Director of Information Technology and Dr. Nora Wheeler as Director of Instructional Technology. I'm very appreciative that the school board has supported this

012restructuring by approving the appointments. We believe the restructuring will better support our students and our staff and will make a great institution. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope we can make the rest of this restructuring program even better. Also included on our agenda is a resolution supporting the development of an anti-racist school climate. The WSSD School Board Diversity Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee joins me in recommending the adoption of the resolution, which reads, whereas we are deeply saddened and outraged by the recent killing of George Floyd and violence against Black men and women, the subsequent protests have shined a spotlight on the harmful effects of racism and inequality that have affected our school system. This is a Furthermore, the public response has highlighted the racial trauma that our Black students, families, staff,

013and communities have not only endured for centuries but continue to face today. Whereas we must recognize that racism and hate have no place in our schools and society, however, we must understand that racism is systemic and it is unconsciously and consciously rooted in our institutions, policies, and practices. Consequently, we acknowledge that we must look at our own school policies and practices through an anti-racist and equity lens to address traces of racism and inequity that still exist within our own school community. Whereas we must center the voices of staff, students, families, and communities who have historically endured discrimination and marginalization. Their lived experiences and stories require attention. Require respect. Require empathy. And most importantly, require action. Therefore, it is essential that we establish an expectation that a diversity of students, families, and community members, specifically those

014who have been ignored, discriminated against, and marginalized are heard and included on substantive school and district issues. Whereas we must better educate ourselves and seek to educate the community on the historical and cultural and current impact of racism and discrimination on our students, families, and communities, as well as understand our role in perpetuating such inequity. Through continuous professional development and opportunities for honest dialogue and listening sessions, we hope to build partnerships in the community focused on overcoming racism and other barriers. By doing so, we can create opportunities to ensure that each child has the tools and supports needed to thrive. Whereas, we must add to the work of our students and families, and ensure that they have the resources and resources they need to support their children's development. Whereas, we must add to the work

015of our students and families, and ensure that they have the resources and needs to support their children's development. And as we continue to work with our students, we must advocate to advance civil rights and cultivate an anti-racist school climate necessary to meet the needs of all students in our care. Our students, no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, disability, and other identities, deserve to feel safe, to feel seen, and to feel affirmed. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District School Board unequivocally stand firm in our collective responsibility to foster an equitable and inclusive environment for every student, staff member, parent, guardian, and community member. We commit to use our role as school board directors to recognize, respond, and speak out against injustice and racial inequity in our

016school community. And Dr. Grandy, that concludes my report tonight. Thank you, Dr. Palmer, and thank you for reading that resolution into the record. We will be voting on that. Resolution later in the agenda. It's the beginning, I think, of some very important work that our district needs to undertake. And we have a very active group on the board working on shepherding that process forward, and the community can expect to be hearing more about that soon. So that takes us to our focus topics this evening. Again, our primary focus in all of our presenters this evening. Dr. Thank you, Dr. Palmer. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Littman. Littman is on the reopening of school. We are going to begin with Dr. Dave Rubin and Dr. Meredith Matone. Probably many of you will recall

017they participated in a past board meeting to discuss recommendations on school reopening. They have graciously agreed to return to provide us an update on the situation locally and regionally, and how we might think about what that means for schools both in terms of kind of where things stand today as where things may be heading in the future. Littman, I'm going to turn it over to you. Littman, I'm sure many of you remember them because it wasn't long ago that they were with us. But as you recall, Dr. Rubin is a professor of pediatrics at CHOP and leads policy lab at CHOP. And Dr. Matone is the scientific director of policy lab. And together, they really have been national leaders during this COVID pandemic advising on school reopening plans. Dr. Rubin has also been deeply involved

018in disease modeling around the pandemic around the country and has worked with Governor Wolf and other states around the nation. He's been a key figure in the national pandemic response. So let me invite our guest to join us now. And let me turn things over to Dr. Rubin. Well, thanks for having us back, everyone. I will point everyone to a new op-ed that just went up in the Notebook in Philadelphia. For some of you who may be familiar with the Notebook, Dr. Matone and our team prepared a nice review of where I think we are right now with regards to school reopening. And contextualize some of the comments we're about to make. You know, early on, we have been among a number of folks who have been steadfast around a six foot recommendation for spacing

019of students. And that's based on our knowledge of respiratory transmission and also the secondary attack rates that we've actually seen with this virus, which suggest a principle spread by what we call respiratory droplet, similar to some other respiratory viruses. And so that six foot distancing, between children was sort of based on pretty sound evidence, even though there has been some discussion about the risk for airborne transmission. The truth is the attack rates have not been at a level like chickenpox or measles that we would expect higher attack rates within the home. There's been additional data since we last spoke, the South Korea study that some of you may be aware of just came out. You know, in this type of conversation, I can tell you that, you know, it was, it wasn't a great study,

020but I still think it was informative. I mean, first, the major conclusion is that symptomatic children, and particularly adolescents seem to spread this infection just as much as adults do. We shouldn't be surprised by that, you know, and a symptomatic adolescent shouldn't be any different than a symptomatic adult. I think that's all the study really shows us. I still believe there'll be fewer symptomatic children than adults. But if they become symptomatic, then the risk for spread to their families or through schools, becomes much more significant. And so to me, all roads lead back to the amount of disease transmission in your community. The more they're circulating virus at the time you open schools, the more likely you're gonna have symptomatic children, the more likely you're gonna have spreader events, whether it's from children within the

021school or from teachers to children. The second thing I'll say is this is largely, as we are now potentially looking at a resurgence in the Northeast, and I should warn people that while we're looking at the South, we're now seeing evidence that it is again, moving into our region. But there's only so long the mid Atlantic and the Northeast could hold out with significant epidemics playing out in the South and the Southwest of this country. And now the spread is pretty widespread and moving up through the DC and Baltimore region. I think one of the things you're gonna have to do is really watch that closely. I applaud Governor Wolf's additional mitigation efforts. I think that type of decisive action should be taken by all governors. And I know the White House Coronavirus Task Force

022has been working behind the scenes to try to get some standardization amongst the governors around their response. But I do applaud Governor Wolf. I applaud other governors in the region that have worked really hard to maintain some level of what has been painful, but important mitigation. We have messaged masks extremely well, and I think we are changing public opinion, but that has come to some degree to the detriment of not messaging distancing, but to the detriment of not making it public enough. In a paper that's coming out this week from our team in the GEM Open Network, it is very clear that the most significant intervention to prevent transmission is distancing. Masking is important, but it dwarfs the impact of distancing itself in terms of mitigating transmission. And that's why these six feet recommendations and

023your movement to an AB model is so important. And I'll just close by saying my final thoughts are that this is largely now an issue of public confidence. Doesn't matter what elected officials do or what plans you come up with. If parents don't feel safe returning their children to school, if teachers don't feel safe entering the building, you will not have a constructive school year. And if there is any perception within the community that we are cutting corners by having too much occupancy within a classroom or going to three foot recommendations or crowding certain areas, people are not gonna feel safe and that's not gonna instill public confidence. Same too about reducing case rates in the community. I think we're gonna have to following the testing positivity rates extremely closely in the next few weeks

024and assure that they're at sufficiently low levels that you feel safe to go through with your AB reopening. But I think your AB strategy and depopulating the schools to a point where people can feel confident about your mitigation measures is a strong start to assuring that you, that you're safe. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. I think that's a key point. And that kids can learn. And if you do it

025well, I really do believe that we can assure that we minimize the likelihood of spreader events and assure some safety in the school year. So Meredith, do you have anything to add? I guess the two small points that I would add would be, you know, in addition to masking and distancing, rising to the top in terms of interventions to prioritize that we don't want to forget about hygiene and disinfection as critically important in schools. schools and making sure that those protocols, particularly around bathrooms and shared surfaces, are in place. And the other thing that I would say, which is something we talked about a lot last time, would be that that symptom and exposure screening for both teachers and students is also an incredibly important public health tool to understand who should not be in

026the building. And we know that sick policies and making very clear sick policies for quarantining both teachers and students who either have exposures in the household or who have symptoms are an incredibly effective tool. And there's tons of evidence from influenza and other respiratory illnesses about the strength of, even though it's simple, the strength of that as a tool. So. Those are the only sort of two points that I would add, and then we're happy for questions. Yeah, and then one other, to Dr. Mattone's points about your symptom surveillance and keeping sick kids out of the school. Very important. And we have algorithms we've developed in our guidances that Dr. Mattone has developed with our team. But I will say one area that we have to monitor closely, which is different, which is that the

027surging epidemics in the South have created a very difficult situation with regards to turnaround times on tests, which can change the algorithms as you think about them for the fall. LabCorp and Quest can be operating five to 10 days behind in terms of test results. That is a disaster in many ways for your algorithms. You know, a child has respiratory symptoms, needs to get tested. The test is not going to help guide decision making if it's coming back in 10 days. The degree to which you think about testing capacity, you advocate for it, what you really would like is to take advantage of whether it's drive-through testing or rapid turnaround testing so you can actually have some value from the test, particularly not just the COVID test, but potentially other respiratory panels. But I'm increasingly

028starting to message that the reliance on the test is something we have to prepare to not have. And in which case you're going to be looking at a child who's got a respiratory infection, and you're going to have to make decisions about having them see their physician if appropriate, but holding them out of school until they're at least their fever has been resolved for a few days and they're without respiratory symptoms for a few days. The asymptomatic child or adolescent who doesn't, you know, is looking at a 14-day quarantine. And I think that we're going to be really strict around these sick policies, making sure that that kids can flex to online learning easily. But I'm increasingly preparing for a school year without the value of additional testing to help guide these decisions. I think

029that's right. And just to clarify, I mean the, in an ideal environment, you're going to have to have a lot of testing to help guide these decisions. I think that's right. And just to clarify, I mean the, in an ideal environment, you're going to have to have a lot of testing to help guide these decisions. I think that's right. And just to clarify, I mean the, in an ideal world, if we had a rapid sort of turnaround testing experience, then a symptomatic child could get tested for COVID and have that ruled out and returned to school within three days. If we can't get that test result turned around, then that's going to be a 10-day quarantine. So just to clarify, you know, how we're thinking about these algorithms, that in the absence of testing, you're

030talking about a conservative approach to out-of-school time. Yeah, I qualify that, but she says three days. You mean three days after resolution of school? Correct. Correct. I'm thinking like a simple fever or something like that, that we know is not COVID. Great. Thank you. And I'll just invite board members to raise their hands if you have questions. I do want to kick it off with one question. I think there's been a lot of conversations about what has happened internationally. You know, I've tried to spend a good deal of time reading about the individual experiences of some of the other countries that have reopened their schools. And I think that's a good way to start to think about what's going on in the schools. I guess my own impressions from that reading is that many of

031those countries have done that using a lot of these strict measures that we're talking about in terms of social distancing, in some cases masking. But they've also done it in the context of lower community rates as well, or relatively low transmission rates in their communities. What is your read on kind of like a lot of people point to Denmark, Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany, some of these other countries about what can we learn from them at this point? What did they do? Get your transmission rates down to imperceptible levels and you're going to have a good school year. You're going to be able to contact trace. It's going to be safer the likelihood of a pre-symptomatic child getting in and leading to infection or a pre-symptomatic adult or an early symptomatic adult getting in

032is going to go down. So it's the probability of infection. It all starts there. I think we've seen outbreaks in Israel where they opened up for general instruction too quickly. Just saw a report today that Meredith shared with us from Australia where they in Melbourne, they're identifying spread among the youth because their disease burden is higher. And so you have to have a good mitigation strategy like the plan you've developed, but you need to have case counts down to acceptable levels. I think Governor Cuomo talks about five percent I think in his plan. I think a lot of other places have talked about two to three percent testing positivity. That two to three percent maybe is achievable in only a couple states in the country right now. That's how bad a position we're in right

033now in terms of some of our school reopenings. I think that's right. I think the other thing is that we know that Denmark and some of the other countries that have reopened have had significant financial investment in hygiene and sanitation. So if you read some of the teacher reports of what that experience is like and what they're doing, it's a lot of standardization in their sort of traditional infection control metrics as well. But I would completely agree with Dr. Rubin that there's absolutely it's apples to oranges in terms of the levels of disease transmission within communities in sort of international context versus what we're dealing with right now. I see Damon has a question. Hi Dr. Rubin, Dr. Mattan. Thank you for for coming here. I have a question about a lot of people asked

034about the effectiveness of face shields versus face masks or a combination of both and how that would relate to a six foot distance and how like a combination of any of those would have the effectiveness of them. There's no trade-off for the six foot distancing. You won't see us go there right. But with the six foot distance having the facial six foot distancing masking is the most important. The face shield confers probably some additional benefit in terms of blocking the teacher, you know, probably coughing more than than protection for the teacher herself or himself. But the face mask and some, you know, goggles are sufficient. I'm not, you know, the face shield can add a little bit but I think the face mask is still the most important aspect here. One of the things that

035we have talked about as a not ideal caveat is how to make the best of a situation in terms of maybe a special education setting in which we aren't able to acquire the sort of masks that have the clear panel in the context of students that that need to see visual cues from the teacher. And there's been a lot of discussion about a desire in those settings for the use of face masks. And so I think in that situation, if you aren't able to procure masks with the teacher, it's going to be a lot of work. clear panel and you have students with learning differences in which they need to rely on visual cues, if using a face shield, maximize the amount of distance of that teacher from students. Yeah, I agree. Thank you very

036much. Jen? Thank you. Dr. Rubin and Dr. Matone, either person can answer this. There will be some parents that hear this information and they feel terror. There are other parents that hear this information and have read numbers and headlines and will say kids don't get sick. And this is especially an important consideration when you go down the line to the younger kids because it is the sense of parents that they don't do as well with the online model. So could you... Could you speak a little bit about the virus when it comes to the younger kids? I guess I would say younger than middle school because I think that you mentioned middle school when you talked about the adolescents you referred to them. Well, there's far fewer symptomatic kids who are younger. It would seem,

037even in the South Korean study, I think they trace maybe 25 younger children between zero and 10 who were symptomatic and about 125 10 to 19 year olds. And that was with low community levels. So I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. So I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. And those are just some of the chances that we see the transmission. So that's led to some people to believe that the likelihood of spread among the younger kids is lower. And I think it is. But I also think it's also predicated on these low transmission rates. So the first thing, it all starts with getting those transmission rates down. I think at the same time, I think we have to recognize that children don't live

038in a vacuum. And in terms of safety, whether you Whether you decide to take masks off the younger children is one thing, but in terms of physical distancing and depopulating your classrooms and giving people the confidence, particularly the teachers and the parents, the confidence that the teacher is not going to infect the overcrowded classrooms. I think that still remains important. You know, the children themselves, I'm not worried about them in the context of a strong remediation plan or whether you decided to go full time, but I do think the distancing recommendations are still important for younger children. That has led some school districts to prioritize, you know, getting the younger kids into school full time and keeping the older kids more remote. So some people have made that trade off and we totally understand that.

039There's also issues of workforce participation that you have to think. About as well, which can be harder with younger children as opposed to older children in terms of supervision throughout the day. But, you know, it all comes back to getting those case counts down to me. And the last thing I would say in terms of public confidence and terror. I talked about that, you know, in March when when I went returned to my office at CHOP, we were terrified. Absolutely terrified. We see sick kids every day. We see, you know, I was just talking to my wife. They've had, I think, at least 10 positive cases. And kids this past week in her office. She's in one of the care network practices. We were terrified. Our staff was terrified. Nurses, nursing staff, front office staff.

040But we created our own distancing protocols. We put masks on everyone. We had we educated ourselves. We have not had a single case of transmission to a staff member at CHOP that I know about that. And we had a couple of high risk events. But because people were wearing their masks and do what they were supposed to do are fine. I can tell you when I go to work now, I feel confident that I'm safer there than when I'm on the streets. And that's what we have to do for our parents, for our teachers. And I think that comes down to your plan and the confidence that people are adequately spread out. And we do it. And then the decisions within that around the younger kids, I think, can be made. You know, weighing those

041different factors on how you weigh getting the particularly the other kids back. I think there are other groups as well, too. You know, we've talked about maximizing full time in school education. We've talked about special needs for special education students. Electing for some essential health care workers who may need that in school instruction in order to participate in the workforce. Giving them the option of whether they need that if you're looking at some sort of hybrid model where some children will be actually allowed to have full in school instruction. So those are my only comments with regards to what you've discussed. Dr. Matone, anything to add? I would say I agree with everything that you shared. I think one of the things that we have seen because child care has been open in advance of

042school has been open. And in many states, child care did not close through this whole period. So if we look to sort of what has happened over the course of child care openings and think about younger children, I think there's all the more evidence to suggest that community transmission is really what's happening in the community. is really what's happening in the community. So the fact that the child care is open is going to be reflected in what's happening in the school, even for young children. As we've watched case counts in communities grow, we've seen massive outbreaks in child care centers. In almost every state that has a surge in community transmission, there's a corresponding surge in cases within child care facilities. And we have seen in those instances that while the contact tracing isn't perfect,

043there's enough spread to suggest that it's happening within the community. that it's happening between parents, students, and teachers. And so for parents who are considering younger children, as Dave mentioned, children don't live in a bubble. They can bring that home to the house or they can bring that to the teacher. And we really wanna make sure that we're sort of protecting the health of the whole school ecosystem and not just thinking about that child, whether or not they're symptomatic. So that would be my only addition there is to really make that point. And use the analogy of childcare as likely reflective of what we're seeing. The challenge for the younger children also though, is that as we think about distancing, we know there's gonna be less compliance just from a child developmental perspective. So it's

044really thinking about how do we set up those classrooms to make sure that even if children sort of slip up in their distancing, we're still protecting the teacher. And we still have enough room in that classroom so that the teacher can maintain adequate distancing from students and where you might want to make sure that you have sort of not just distancing, for example, as your primary strategy, but distancing and making sure that there's selective use of masks, for example, so that we're layering interventions for populations where we know compliance is going to be a challenge. Thank you. Any other questions from other board members? I guess I'll just kick one other to the two of you. I think you've emphasized rightfully so, doing everything we can to get community rates as low as possible and

045how important that is to getting kids back in school. Based on what you're seeing with the age distribution of cases, shifts in that, even in our region, is there anything that you have to say about that? Any messages to our teenage kids out there that you want to leave behind? It's interesting, I've been in so many of these conversations. And I thought there was a really nice, I don't know if you're all familiar with the Purdue Pledge, if some of you come. the honor code but the one but uh one of my colleagues another pediatrician who works more more with private schools she mentioned that on some of the pledges that she's seen there's an extra line added in there like i do this for who sometimes it's for the teacher who has multiple sclerosis

046who is a you know is a role model for you sometimes it's for your grandmother right and to add that to your honor pledge can actually i think reinforce some level of social consciousness for kids for kids who are going to be risk-taking we know they're going to make decisions but i thought that was very powerful as part of your first day plans in terms of trying to get buy-in from from the kids in the school to protect each other and to provide that civics opportunity in terms of why we do this we've also talked about schools as a place where we can sort of model and teach best practice there's so much information to digest and how we can do that at the household level from a behavioral perspective that as we think about

047sort of the opportunities that we have in a school environment to sort of be direct in our messaging and teach best practice that that also is an opportunity for students to then bring that back home to the household great thank you and can i hit you up with just one more question which is i'm sure people read a lot of news about you know there's multiple vaccine candidates that are beginning phase three and phase four and phase four and phase five and phase six and phase seven six and phase eight the much. You know, small trials of 40 participants where, you know, are promising, but they're 40 participants in terms of really understanding the range of safety effects and then efficacy. At the earliest, we're not going to have an approval on a vaccine. And

048I am somewhat optimistic based on my conversations with him and others, that there are going to be a couple of vaccine candidates that are going to be through phase three, you know, the order of like, you know, 25, 50,000 patients, not the millions of patients who are going to receive. So it's not perfect. But even if they approve at the end of October, I don't think we're deploying vaccine until the end of the year. And so I would assume your fall semester is pretty baked at this point in terms of without a vaccine. The degree to which the vaccine is available in the early winter of 2021 would affect the ability to deliver to your teachers probably more than the children. Because the children are at lower risk of severity of disease, I don't think

049they're going to be candidates for the vaccine this year. But so there'll probably be some some working through what does that mean in terms of parents of kids who are in school and whether they'll have access. But I do think that that the districts need to be prioritizing their staff and their teachers to be first in line with our healthcare professionals and our mass transit workers and our grocery store workers, those people who have high exposure should be first in line for the vaccine and probably earliest is probably around January. Great. Well, again, I want to I know we've asked you back twice. I really appreciate the two of you making the time to share your expertise with all the families in our district. And I know everyone really appreciates having the opportunity to hear

050from you. So thanks again. Good luck. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So as I mentioned, again, we have we have three focus topics. And so that was the first of three. And I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Palmer to introduce our second topic. So thank you, Dr. Grande. My colleagues and I are here this evening to present the school reopening health and safety plan, which we'd like to call a plan for a safe and successful school year. So in yesterday's e-blast, I mentioned that each school district is required to submit a health and safety plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Education prior to reopening any in-person instruction. In addition, each school is required to appoint a pandemic coordinator or a pandemic team. So the first and last temos has to

051be theっhe task force, which is what we're recommending the responsibility is way too big for one person. So the first and last temos is the task force, which is what we're recommending the responsibility is way too big for one person. Our team consists of Gina Ross, director of student services. Ferg Abbott, director of Human Resources and Operations. Mary Figuera, assistant to the superintendent and in charge of our safety program and myself as superintendent. Gina, Ferg, and Mary will be joining me in tonight's presentation. Gina, Ferg, and Mary will be joining me in tonight's presentation. was developed with the support and input from various district committees and we are so very appreciative of everyone's time as it was no small commitment to get to this plan of development of our program. In addition to the support

052and input from the various committees, please know that we're following the guidelines established by the Chester County Department of Health, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the CDC, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Governor's Office. And Ms. Figueroa, could you advance the slide please? Sorry, I apologize. So the plan document itself calls for schools to indicate what type of reopening they are going to have and as I shared with everyone this weekend, we will have a blended reopening that balances in-person, in-person, and in-person learning. So we're going to have a learning for all students with alternating days. So the document itself is a fluid document based on local, state, and federal guidelines and it's going to continue to develop over time and we'll update the document as needed. We'll continue to monitor and evaluate the conditions

053in our own community and within our schools to determine if we must change our plans to be more restrictive, meaning if it gets worse in our community, we may have to be more restrictive, or if things get better in our community, we may be able to be less restrictive. We seem to be having difficulty with the PowerPoint. I am sorry, yes. Mary, is it advancing? It is not, so just give me a second. I apologize. So let me describe for you where we are right now and I say where we are today and I'm going to stress today since our guidance does change by the day. We are planning to expand all schools with extensive mitigation measures that include six-foot distancing. Under the model, we plan to bring approximately 50% of our students back to

054school on Mondays and Tuesdays as a cohort. Have remote learning take place, some synchronous and asynchronous learning take place on Wednesday, and then the other 50% of our students coming back to school on Monday. That's not a problem. Okay. back on Thursday and Friday. We also will provide a fully remote option for our students, for parents who would like their child to attend that way. This presentation itself on the health and safety plan doesn't talk about the educational program. That's going to be in the next presentation. So right now, our colleagues will cover the five areas that are contained under the health and safety plan. And as Mary's trying to bring that up, Mary, I'm wondering if you go out of it and try and bring it back up again. All right, Dr. Palmer, I'm

055going to try something different. What I'm doing is not working. Let's say we would give it just a little bit of time, see if it comes back up. And if not, we will be very descriptive as we're talking through the plan if it does not come back up. Give me one second. Mary, that has potential. I'm getting there. I'm sorry. Let's see if this will work. Two more and you'll be ready for Ferg Abbott to pick up. One more. So Ferg, we are ready for you. We have reached that point. That's wonderful. Sorry, Ferg. Sorry, everybody. In the presentation of the health and safety plan, we want to take a look at five areas. The first is cleaning, sanitizing, disinfecting, and ventilation of our buildings and areas. Social distancing protocols, health and safety considerations, our

056athletics, particularly our summer athletics, and then the health and safety communication plan. First, for our cleaning, sanitizing, disinfecting, and ventilation, all of these areas are particularly key in reducing the spread of the virus. As indicated by our previous speakers. For this function, we will be, two organizations will be working together in tandem to make this happen at a level that has not happened in the past. And that is our contracted cleaning company, which is Mets Environmental Services in coordination with district staff in the operations department. For our student and staff areas, we will be working together with the district staff in the operations department. For our student and staff areas, we will be working together with the 15th sacar areas. We will make sanitizer available in all locations and a lot of it. It's important

057that we clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces. So throughout the day, this will be done as well as during the time. Now, I would like you to understand that if we were to make- Привет. . equipment to come in but the district has spent considerable effort in bringing in equipment that will make this possible. Equipment that will allow us to go in and disinfect the room with an approved EPA disinfectant and get it done quickly and effectively. It's also going to be important since we will have our children outside playing on the on our equipment that that gets cleaned routinely as well. In particular those high touch areas where the kids are constantly in contact with. Because our drink drinking fountains or all drinking fountains are a source of the virus they will be closed.

058We are currently looking at adding bottle filling stations throughout the district so that so that students can come in and disinfect the room. We will be able to have that ability to have water. It's also as Dr. Matone mentioned earlier it's also important that shared devices and materials be cleaned and disinfected in between uses. Now really what's key here since if you think of the classroom and the amount of shared devices and materials in the past is that we reduce that as much as possible and then identify what we actually do have. So we have to disinfect and clean. To assist us in this area every classroom will be supplied with disinfectant and wipes. Next slide Mary. Continuing on and as I mentioned earlier we will use EPA approved disinfectants. The disinfectant that we will

059be using to to on a routine basis when we go in and disinfect and clean. We will be using the disinfectant that we will be using to on a routine basis when we go in and disinfect and clean. Next slide Mary. Next slide Mary. Next slide Mary. Next slide Mary. Next slide Mary. Next slide Mary. Next slide next slide. The perfect tried for this entire room is a disinfectant that is been deemed safe for food usage. Meaning that it can be sprayed onto a tabletop. And then once dried can be you could eat your lunch off of it. The building climate conditions will be critical throughout all of this and the last two bullets really go hand-in-hand. The district does utilize 안 sto знаю The district does utilize a automation system where we can determine

060what the climate conditions are in just about all their spaces, and they will be monitored daily. We will increase the HVAC system capabilities as well. It's going to be extremely important to bring in more fresh air is going to be extremely important to increase the filtration of air units. We are going to turn our systems on earlier. We are going to open our windows. And we are going to identify those areas throughout the district and we've already begun this process. Where there may not be. The ventilation that we would want. And those areas, we will then address with additional ventilation units. So really taking a look at this both at a macro level where we're controlling entire system building systems at once. And then at the individual room level where we do have control over

061the amount of fresh air they can come in. When we turn a system on when we turn off the system. And then at the individual room level where we turn a system off. As well as the amount of filtering of the air that that comes in from the outside, as well as the air that gets recycled within the room. And that is a breakdown of the cleaning sanitizing disinfecting and ventilation practices that we will employ. Please know that this is just touching upon the full data. The full detail that is listed in the health and safety plan. All right. I'm going to pick up the social distancing guidelines. And protocols that we're going to be doing. So for classrooms, just like we heard from Dr. Rubin and document tone. The big takeaway regarding our classrooms

062and our hallways and our buildings is going to be social distancing. So, we are. We are. What we're looking for is definitely the optimal six foot distance be maintained to reduce potential person to person transmission. If social distancing can't be maintained. Other equipment should be utilized and layering and interventions. Students desk be facing the same direction and students will be assigned to a specific seat in the classroom. And we will be able to organize remote social distancing to the maximum extent possible. Classroom space is going to be reorganized. Individual student desk will be spaced accordingly with social distancing of six feet. And unnecessary furnishings from classrooms will be removed provide space for social distancing. So with meals, students and staff are going to be seated in a way to maintain six foot distancing. Students can

063be provided in any available space, including the cafeteria in classrooms to achieve six foot distancing. We are not going to do buffet style meals for students, it's going to be plated meals or grab and go bags that are going to be provided to limit contact there'll be no sharing of food and utensils. And we're going to have students they're going to be encouraged to wash hands and use sanitizer before and after lunch. And we're going to have students they're going to be encouraged to wash hands and use sanitizer before and after lunch. So even at lunch we're doing our six-foot distancing and our current guidelines allow masks to be removed for eating if six-foot social distancing can be maintained. Lunch locations are going to vary from building to building but can include classrooms with forward-facing

064desks. We could use the auditoriums, we could use the gym and outdoor spaces. Along with recess, we will be having recess because students are going to participate in activities with a cohort. And what we're looking at is the cohorts will be so that same groups can be together. Playground equipment will be separated by the cohorts and all playground equipment and materials will be clean and disinfected daily by the custodial staff or the contracted cleaning staff. We're also going to be having a meeting with the cleaning company with disinfectant supplies that meet the EPA's criteria for use against COVID-19. We're going to do also washing of hands, the use of sanitizer before and after recess, and disinfecting the play materials again daily. With transportation, we're looking at maximum of two students per seat. Students will be

065required to wear a face mask or a shield. Hand sanitizer is going to be available. The bus windows will be open. And the buses will be disinfected after each run. The social distancing again is going to be practiced on the buses. What we have looked at is student transportation options. We've been exploring them and currently we're looking at this again, the two students per seat in accordance with Chester County guidelines. And we're looking also at siblings to be required to share seats. In order to keep our numbers as low as possible, we're also looking for parents to drive children to school. We're looking at drop off and pick up procedures. And also encouraging students to walk or ride bikes if possible. As far as transportation goes, the drivers and students riding the buses will wear

066face masks and shields. The students will be expected to wear their face coverings prior to boarding the bus. Again, using the hand sanitizers. And our bus windows will be open. We're going to do that to allow for the circulation of air in the buses. And then finally, frequently touched surface on the buses will be disinfected between bus runs. And buses will be cleaned and disinfected daily. For nonessential visitors and volunteers, we're going to have visitors be limited. Visitors will need to have an appointment and be pre-screened upon arrival. On-site screening will be required for nonessential visitors. And visitors will need to complete the symptom monitoring checklist. And that symptom monitoring checklist follows the Department of Health guidelines. Also, contractors and vendors will need to have health and safety plans submitted and approved by the district

067prior to arrival. If they do not have one, they're expected to be using ours. Gina is going to talk about a little bit about the health and safety considerations. And then we're going to talk about the safety considerations. And Gina, I have the wrong slide for the next one. So I apologize. I can talk. So good evening. I'm here to talk further about the health and safety precautions that we're putting in place. As Dr. Palmer indicated, we have been working diligently over the past couple of months with committees of teams from the community, staff members, administrators across the board working together to build the safety and safety guidelines. So we are currently dealing with some of those. We are also working closely with federal agencies and education agencies across the board working together to build

068the safest plan for students to return to school. As we heard earlier, the key to this success is that if there is a sick student or a sick staff member, that they stay home. And that we follow the guidelines set forth by the Department of Health in terms of those quarantining or those guidelines checking in with their doctor. that may or may not include temperature checks, we're working exactly how that will be. Will that be a school messenger that is static or is it something that's active, such as an app that you'll be able to utilize? But we will be asking parents to monitor their students, looking at the Department of Health checklist, looking at has there been contact with someone who is positive? Have you visited one of the areas that's identified? And then

069the symptom checking itself. We will be asking parents to self-report and share that information with us. As Ferg indicated earlier, we are currently in the process of acquiring a large number of PPE at varying levels, face shields, masks, plexiglass dividers. We will be making that equipment available for staff and for students. In terms of the nurses, there will be an isolation room as suggested and really as will be needed for students who may be sick. Our nurses, who are in the offices, will be divided into students who are presenting with COVID symptoms and those who are not, and we'll be able to keep everyone safe during those moments. Mary, can you? Before we jump onto this one, I'm going to talk about the masks because that came up from Dr. Rubin and Dr. Mattone. And

070at this point, we will be following Governor Wolf's and Dr. Levine's mandate that masks be utilized. We'll be looking at masks. We'll be looking at masks and shields for students and for adults. In terms of when they need to wear them, students and staff will need to wear them to lunch, but of course, while they're eating, they will come off. We will be ensuring the distance of six foot for safety. Additionally, individuals such as our bus drivers will be wearing masks unless it is unsafe for them to operate that equipment with the mask on. As you know, we are the host for the DCIU Deaf and Hard of Hearing program, and we are very proud of that. Along with that, we have students who have social, emotional, or different difficulties with pragmatic language. And for

071those, we want to ensure that they can access, which is one of the reasons why we're looking at the shields. If they can't, we will be working with families to identify alternative approaches for how we can keep all students safe, utilizing some of those alternative pieces of masks. We have also been working with the PPS that were previously discussed. We included any individual under the age of two. If you are bringing a sibling with you to pick up someone, they would not need to be masked. Mary, can you go back? Thank you. In terms of large common areas, we are looking at every area across every building to ensure that our students are social distance. So areas that we may have referred to as common areas previously will be assigned to the PPS if they're

072needed. Additionally, we're indicating that there's no sharing of personal items. So when school supply lists come out, or we're looking as a district, we may be looking at more individual items than those shared items that have been utilized previously. As Ferg said, any items or materials that are shared, we would be disinfecting in between use. No unnecessary physical contact. So that would include the recess yard and the PE, and the PPS. So we're looking at all of those areas and we're looking at the number of students that are in the hallways and the classrooms. We're working very hard to ensure that as students are dismissed from classes, we are moving in hallways and limiting the number of students so that we don't have students close together in the hallways. Hallways may not be one way,

073but they will be divided so that there is enough social distancing space between the classes and between the students. We're going to continue to encourage students to wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. And then as we move forward, we're going to continue to encourage students to wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. And then additionally, throughout our schools, staff, community members, family members, will see the CDC resources posted, and we will be communicating them regularly. We've all heard Dr. Levine say about washing our hands to happy birthday two rounds. Mary, was that all of my slides? Yes. So much like keeping students home who are sick is a key, we are also asking parents to be careful about their health and safety. And so we're going to continue to encourage students to

074wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. And then as we move forward, we're going to continue to encourage students to wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. So much like keeping students home who are sick is a key, we are also asking parents to be careful about their health and safety. And so we're going to continue to encourage students to wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. And so we're going to continue to encourage students to wash and sanitize hands as frequently as possible. And so it's important that we consider Additionally, classrooms that have high-risk staff or students will have an additional layer of the nurse staff monitoring them and monitoring their symptoms. The specific protocols related to that are not yet developed. That will be in our next stage, in our

075next phase of protocol development. Additionally, we're asking for individuals to refrain from large group activities. Site supervisors, as you see in our health and safety plan, will be listed. For the vast majority of the locations, they are our building principals and our nursing department, looking to ensure that all students are safe and that the health and safety plan is consistently being implemented. The last two points are key in all of this, in addition to all of our parents and our community working together, is that we will have a close relationship, as we already do, with the child care system. We will be working closely with the Chester County Department of Health, working closely with them on the steps and the protocols and procedures for contact tracing. When we look at students and potential positive cases,

076we will need to be able to identify any student who is at a risk of contact for that. We will then be sharing that out with Chester County, and they will help us with the guidance of the procedures and the notifications that need to go out. We're also very fortunate in that we have a number of communities. We have a number of community members who have already volunteered their time, and I'm so grateful for that. We'll continue to consult with medical teams, not just our district doctor, but with other physicians and medical practitioners in the district to help us make the best choices related to best practices and the research. With all of that, and all that Ferg indicated and all that Mary indicated, and everything else that we did not mention that is in

077the health and safety plan, we believe that we can do this. We believe that we have the best plan in place to support our students and reopen schools. Ferg, you're up on athletics. With the development of the health and safety plan, we can now proceed with athletic workouts during the summer for our student athletes. This is not a part of the health and safety plan, I should note. It is a separate plan strictly for Voluntary summer athletic workouts. That is also on the agenda for approval tonight. Steve Grafton, National Council for Representative. The general stipulation of the voluntary workouts is first off, they will only be held outside. And then before participation all coaches, athletes, and parents will confirm understanding of the safety protocols involved. And that while working out they will maintain at least

078a six-foot separation. And that during the exercise, period, they don't have to be wearing a mask or a shield as long as they maintain that six foot separation. When not participating in a workout, face shields or masks should be worn and that's within the three to six foot separation. And then finally, that the equipment will be disinfected after each use. This is a very brief overview of what's in the plan. Most notable is once again, that when they're working out, that they will remain separated by six feet. So what this means is that there's no contact. These are conditioning exercises, drills, what have you, is they would likely be using equipment, whether it be a soccer ball or a field hockey stick, ball, and that those items would be disinfected after each use. In terms

079of the health and safety communication plan, there are a number of steps that you'll be taking. Our goal is to share with you all of the updates in terms of the start. As indicated, this is our plan at this moment. There may be changes leading up to the start of school, and if they are, they will be communicated directly with parents. Those communications will come through school notifications, such as school messenger, social media, and our district website. Throughout the year, staff and families and the public will also be notified of any changes in our safety protocols through the same methods. We planned after this, and as we move forward and develop all of those individual protocols, that they will be posted on our website to be shared for all families, to get an even deeper

080understanding of the safety protocols. So we've got a lot of things that we've been doing to get the kids to get the safety protocols. We've got a lot of things that we've been doing to get the kids to get the safety precautions that we're putting in place. Finally, information in terms of how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be posted as noted in all buildings on our social media and the district website. Through those methods, we'll be conveying all of the changes and all of the current status of the district related to COVID-19. All right. Well, thank you to the entire team for presenting what is an extremely comprehensive approach, I think, to thinking about creating a safe educational environment for our students and our staff. Let's see. I think there's some board members

081who have questions. Let me call on some folks. I believe the first hand is Chapin. Hi, thanks. I just wanted to clarify all the parts where you were saying masks or face shields, the face shields, the face shields, the face shields, the face shields, the face shields, face shields are not the primary measure, right? Those are not equivalents. It's only if masking can't be worn for some of the reasons that we were talking about before. So the guidance that we've received actually would say that it is acceptable for staff and students to be shielded. I know that Dr. Rubin mentioned the idea of maintaining the six foot no matter what. Other guidance that we've received has identified the shields. I thought he also said masks are way better than shields. I thought that's what I

082heard. So I know he mentioned something to the idea of leaning towards masks. I don't know if that was in lieu of shields completely. That is something that we'll be taking back to our consult team to ask that question directly. In previous conversations, it was indicated that they were similar and had the equal amount of protection. Okay, and who's your consult team? I mean, and it was indicated that by whom? So on our health and safety plan, there are three community members who are listed on there as being offering to volunteer and consult with us. Okay, great. And they're physicians, right? Two of them are physicians and one is a nurse practitioner. Okay, all right, great, thanks. Ms. Cimino, I also want to add that the Chester County Health Department is a nurse practitioner. So

083I'm not a nurse practitioner. I'm a nurse practitioner. And the Chester County Department of Health is also included in that team as well. Yeah, it's probably worth just reminding everyone in our community why we keep referring to the Chester County Department of Health given that we're in Delaware County. So as many may know, but perhaps not all, Delaware County does not have a Department of Health. And at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the county made an agreement with Chester County so that the Chester County Health Department could stand in and provide those services. And that's been incredibly important for Delaware County through this whole process. And it sounds like our team has had a strong working relationship with them through that. I see a hand up from Jen. Thanks, Dr. Grandy. I have a

084couple of short questions. I think the first two would be best asked of Mr. Abbott. Mr. Abbott, I'm curious, why are we cleaning the building, the whole building, every other, day instead of every day? What's the rationale behind that? We are cleaning the building every day. We will continue with that process. But we are committing to the full disinfection of the building every other day. Now, this will be detailed more based upon the education plan we have because we also have the cohort in, on Monday and Tuesday, the cohort in Thursday and Friday, with the fuller cleaning and disinfection occurring from Tuesday night into Thursday morning. But please know that that is a disinfection every other, a full disinfection every other day, as opposed to the cleaning which will occur every day. Okay. And for

085those who attend in-person school, and I guess, for those who attend in-person school, and I guess, for those who attend in-person school, and I guess, for those who attend online, will the absence policy, and I suppose that probably comes down from the state, will that be relaxed a bit so that we can encourage parents who suspect their children might not be feeling well to keep them home? I'm actually gonna jump in and take that one, Mrs. Lentz. One of the items that we have to do is look at what requirements we will have for students. Like for instance, I know when a student is ill or they have a trip, we're actually thinking that we may have to do something, we're actually thinking that we may have to do something, we'll look at the and

086how we can urge parents that by keeping your child home, your child will not fall behind. We'll be able to accommodate that education and we'll keep your child safely at home. But I think we have to work within the structure of what PDE is requiring and how to adapt it for us so that we can support our parents by keeping their children home. Okay. And I think this would be best asked of Ms. Vergara. You spoke about transportation and you spoke about the buses having the windows open. Can you talk about what may happen on a rainy day or an extreme cold if we're fortunate enough to be busing kids in that part of the year? One of the things that came from some recommendations throughout the guidance that we received was to keep the

087bus windows open. So I think even just keeping them open a crack is probably going to be helpful. And it might not have to be all of them either, depending upon how we have the social distancing on the bus. But the recommendation was to have the windows open. Okay. Parents should know that that will be a difference on the buses this year versus other years. Am I hearing you correctly? Correct. Okay. And for Gina Ross, I wanted to ask, would the kids be required to wear face masks during outdoor recess? So because you, under the governor's and Dr. Levine's mandate, technically you're supposed to wear masks outside. We understand the caveat to that is when you are in an active participation in something physical, that is a time when you don't necessarily need to. So

088I think we would... I think we would be monitoring to see ensuring the social distancing of six feet. And if there was active game playing, a social distance game playing, then it may not be required. But under the Dr. Levine's order, it is required outside. Thank you, everyone. Kelly? I have a quick follow-up question, or maybe not so quick, around contact tracing. So Gina, you mentioned that we'd be working with the Chester County Department of Health. With respect to contact tracing, I was wondering if... Are you able to describe at all, for folks who are watching, how that works? Because I know that families are reasonably concerned if there was a positive case in the school. How does that work? Who is actually responsible for letting the district and families know that their student may

089have come in contact? So at this point, we don't have the full-on procedure and protocol. We're waiting for a lot. We're waiting for a lot of resources and guidance from the Chester County Department of Health. We do expect that to be coming soon. Our previous experiences with pertussis kind of guide us through what we might expect. And in that, so if there was a positive case, the Chester County Department of Health guidance indicates, at this point, the minimal guidance we have, indicates that we would be reaching out to them to provide them with the individual's name and all of the contact. At this point, they're indicating that they would then take that, those next steps to be contacting. If you recall, when we did have issues in cases of pertussis, we issued letters. Those letters

090were directly from the Department of Health. And so we expect that that guidance and those documents will be coming to us, hopefully, very soon. Okay. Thank you. I would just add that I think it's worth mentioning that, you know, one of the, you know, the most important things that we've done is we've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. We've done a lot of research. One of the things we're trying to do this evening is try to bring this kind of overarching plan to the community as quickly and early

091as possible so that people have an idea of what we hope that the beginning of the school year looks like. That is all in the face of things around us and recommendations and guidance from other parts of government and public health officials that are still evolving. And so, you know, I think what we're trying to walk through today, there's still elements of implementation, you know, that need to be worked on very intensively, you know, between now and August 31st. And so, you know, I would just say that, you know, the plan that I'm seeing here I think is quite comprehensive and I think represents. And so, you know, the plan that I'm seeing here I think represents. And so, you know, the plan that I'm seeing here I think represents the approach we need in

092terms of having an appropriate level of caution as we start the school year, while also getting our kids back in school. Are there other board members who have questions before we move on to the next speaker. All right. Well, thank you. Dr. Palmer, do you want to introduce our transition to the education plan? I do. And before we leave this, I'm going to say or echo what Dr. Grandy was saying that there are those first level plans that we are putting out to the community now, but know that we have so much more to do with our plan in terms of coming up with all of the protocols in place to underpin everything that we just presented to you. We will also make those schedules available to everyone. We're in the process of updating our

093website so that you'll have a one-stop shopping place to go to where you will see what the overarching plan is, what our cleaning plan will be, what are the notifications that we will give to the community, what will it be when we are not able to return a child to school or return a staff member. We'll have all of that information on our website, but know that we're trying to develop all of those secondary schedules, tertiary schedules as quickly as we possibly can. Now on to our next topic, another area that we are giving you a high-level overview today, trying to be as comprehensive as we can as we present this information, knowing that we see... We still have many details to work out here, but we thought it was more important to get the

094high-level overview out to the community now without refining every detail and holding it up. We thought it was more important to get it out there as almost fully baked, but not fully baked at this moment. I will also say thank you to the tremendous amount of people who have worked in trying to put our return to learning school plans together. It's been an extraordinary amount of effort. And I can't even describe the amount of individuals who have worked on this tirelessly to get it to this stage, and I know we'll continue to work on it as we get closer to the actual return to school. I will also say thank you to our community for having the patience to let us work on it to get to this stage, and the patience in understanding that

095we will answer as many of your questions as we possibly can, but still know that this is a work in progress. And I know that we're going to continue to work on this in the process. We're in the process also on our website of setting up a frequently asked question. So I know many of you wrote to us on the 2020 reopening comments, and I thank you for that. We will be getting specific responses out to individuals, but we'll also be setting up a frequently asked question. So know that there is much more to come. And what is coming right now is Dr. Cedric Rowley-Jones. I'm going to let you introduce the number of speakers that we will have. And I'm going to ask Dr. Cedric to introduce the number of speakers that we will

096have this evening and how you're going to lay out the presentation. Thank you, Dr. Palmer. And good evening to everybody. Those of you who are watching on YouTube and the school board. It is great to be able to be here and share some of the plans that we have so far. And I say so far because really we know there are many decisions still to be made, as Dr. Palmer indicated. But we also recognize that a delay in sharing those plans will hinder our parents' ability to make decisions based on what's best for their families. And so it was more important to us that we could share now and then continue to add to the body of decisions as time goes on. So as Dr. Palmer indicated, we're really looking at some macro level sharing,

097but we hope that it will give our families enough information to be able to start making some decisions and to understand what it is that we've been working on for so long. So the next slide is an explanation of what we're calling the COVID-19 pandemic. So the next slide is an explanation of what we're calling the COVID-19 pandemic. So the next slide is an explanation of what we're calling the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's look again at some of the work that was done … Let's look again at some of the work that was done … … while we're hearing an outline of what we're calling Phase 1 versus Phase 2 decisions. So in Phase 1 decisions, these are really the things that we know now. So in Phase 1 decisions, we're looking at schedules for the

098various models at the middle, elementary, and high school. And it's complex, creating schedules. Anybody who worked on the Sleep and School Start Times Committee task force things like instructional minutes and the busing constraints. In the case of these plans, we're looking at lunch versus no lunch. How does that play into our schedules? The amount of time we want to dedicate toward synchronous live instruction. Office hours and support time is critical. The interventions that are in place in brick and mortar need to be in place, whether we're talking virtually or in cohort. We need to balance screen time, and we also need to adhere to the social distancing decisions by the health and safety committees. So when we talk about making these schedules, it takes a lot of minds, a lot of creative, innovative thought, and

099time, quite frankly, in order to continue to hone in on what would be the best schedules for each one of these levels. And each one of the levels of education has nuances to it that make it special, that make it great. And so we want to make sure that those things are honored in each one of the schedules. And so just to... As soon as we think we have one, there would be another point brought up. And so we'd be looking again and saying, yes, that's right, we can't leave that part of it out. And so we continue to go back to the drawing board on some decisions. But right now, we are able to talk about these phase one decisions, such as how to run a virtual school at each level, to provide an

100option for families who choose not to return to any brick and mortar format, no matter which one it is. And so we want that option to be available. And then also what we can share is that we've been doing technology-based learning, which is a very important part of our school system. And so we've been doing technology test runs, because it's one thing to theorize that something could work. It's another to actually do it. So we have put together some mock classes so that we can see if it can be run so that we are sure that when we are putting it out, it is something that is possible. That's what we're looking for, what is possible. Now, phase two decisions are a little bit different. These are the things that we will not be able

101to share at this point. And I wanted to give you some understanding of what they are in a somewhat preemptive way in terms of questions. You're certainly welcome to ask the questions, but these are things that we will continue to think about. And we could have waited to share all of our plans until these were all determined, but we think that would disadvantage our families who need to make some very important decisions. So these are the things that are still to come. Things like sharing materials, books and lab equipment and math manipulatives. What is our work around for them? How will we have student manipulatives and materials put into baggies that are just for that student? Or things that could be sent home? That's work that's TBD. We also have to talk about assessment formats

102and the schedule for progress monitoring. The way that we do education in our country is to continually monitor progress of students. And so we want to make sure that kids in each grade are progressing the way they need to, along with our learning outcomes, along with our eligible content and our state standards. And so how we measure them in ways that are really faithful to the program. And so we want to make sure that we have a good understanding of what we're doing and what we're doing in our programs that we implement. That's very important work. We don't want to rush that. Also, we want to create exemplars for online and cohort learning best practices. There are lots of people who have experience in education, but education is a broadband. When we're looking at K

103all the way up through, I had a professor once who called it K to gray. Right. And so this idea of higher ed and beyond what can work in those institutions of learning don't necessarily work in our institutions of public education. So we want to be very careful to be thinking of what works K-12 and not just in any other organization. Ensuring gap recovery plans are implemented. In the June timeframe during in-service, our teachers worked for multiple days on gap recovery. Gap recovery refers to those standards that we sought to teach at the end of spring and knew that we still had some work to do. In education, there's the idea that we introduce concepts. We work with students. We work with students. We work with students. We work with students. We work with students.

104We work with students. We work with students. We work with students. We work with students. We work with students. We practice concepts and then we master concepts. And this is true of skills and of knowledge. So where did each one of our areas fall? Were we at the introduction stage where we normally would have gotten to the practice stage? Were we at the practice stage where we normally would have gotten to the monitor stage? And which things did we get all the way to monitoring and so we know we can move past them into the next year? That gap recovery work, that was intensive. We charted information. We passed it along to the next grade level. The next grade level took it, assumed it into what the work would need to be moving forward into

105September and started making plans on what that learning would look like. So we've been really on it since June in terms of the gap recovery, analyzing it, figuring out how we're going to do it. So implementing those plans with fidelity and marrying that up to the ongoing evaluation is the next phase of our thinking. We also have to develop online behavior expectations and interventions. We're brick and mortar trained people. And so what happens as a staff who is brick and mortar trained is that we've really honed and refined our skills for what to do with student behavior in the classroom, creating a class culture, how to do class management and behavior management. We are very, very good at doing that in brick and mortar. But there is also behavior considerations to be had and developed

106for online behavior, things that we don't yet know about. But they were getting a peek into. So as an administrative staff, we are going to be sitting down and determining not just what we expect online behavior to look like, but what are the interventions and outcomes of that behavior. So that is work that still needs to be done. And similarly, the same is true for attendance. So what are our procedures for taking attendance? How are we going to intervene when there are attendance issues? So those are things that we have to figure out. And we'll be doing that next week in our administrative council. Also, in terms of support. So we know that technology was new to many of us. And that will continue to be a learning curve as new systems get developed and

107also as we get to the 2.0 of several of our tech interfaces. So that plus supporting for online learning for academics is really essential to our planning. And so that is also a phase two decision. Our curriculum maps have been developed for years and they evolve over time as we learn more and more about teaching and learning. So those curricular maps. Are going to be very important so that we know what is essential for grade level success. Learning in the fall might not feel the same, but we will be looking at the exact same content, we will be achieving the exact same learning outcomes. We'll just be doing it in different ways. And we will be honing in on those essential learning outcomes. Rather than some of the things that we do as supplemental. We'll

108be ensuring that all of the things that must be done will be done. And then the last I'm going to call other. And I say this because what I've learned is that every answer we develop leads to new questions. It's almost like that Hydra, you know, you take off one head of the Hydra and three more spring up. So there are questions upon questions. And so every time we make a little bit of progress with answers. We feel good, but we know it leads to other questions. So I'm putting down other because we are determined to continue to stick Through all of these, all of these questions that come up. We have to provide answers, we will provide answers. So those are our phase two decisions. Things that where we don't have exact answers right

109now. It's on our radar and we will be working on it. So I want to introduce the team that's going to be speaking with you tonight. Ashwina Mosakowski is our Assistant Director of Education. So welcome aboard. She is brand new and she has been working with our leadership team. In fact, she is responsible for this PowerPoint. So thank you Ashwina. Dr. Greg Hilden is the principal, the new principal of Strathaven High School. And so this will be his first presentation opportunity to our community. So this gives you an opportunity to talk about some of the things that we're working on. And so this will be an opportunity to get to know Greg a little bit. Stephen Krall is an assistant principal of Strathaven Middle School. So Steve will be speaking with us about the middle

110school schedules. And Al Hindley is our principal over at Nether Providence Elementary School and he is going to be talking to us about the elementary schedules. All of these presenters were pivotal in creating the schedules specific to their level of education. In addition to the people who are going to be presenting, we have education committee teams. And there are several teams led by administration. So if you take a look at the first one, that's our technology team and AJ Citrone led that. He was our lead administrator for that. You can see there on the slide the things that they are talking about every week. Zoom exploration, taking a look at analyzing the feedback from parent surveys about those tech needs, looking at future technology apps, software devices, and creating a series of support videos for

111our end users who are our parents, our students, and our teachers. We have a great team, a very, very innovative team, people who are actually excited about doing this tech work. So this group seems nonstop. I'll get texts and emails and phone calls from this group all the time with what if, what if, and I love the thinking of this group. So that is excitement. Our assessment team, Ashwina and Gabe Savage are lead administrators there. So they're researching exemplary online assessment practices and they're also evaluating our current assessments. So they're also evaluating our current assessments. They're also evaluating our current assessments. So they're also evaluating our current assessments. So they're also evaluating our current assessments. assessments. Where do we give midterms and what do they look like? Same with finals. Our chapter tests, our program

112embedded progress tests. And we want to make sure that there is fidelity of implementation. And what I mean by that is that we are not just giving the assessment, but we are making sure that we're giving that assessment so that the results of that assessment can be confidence intervals so that we know for sure that's the progress that a student has made. So, and that's tricky. That's tricky through online. So there's some work to do there. We're going to look at scoring practices and we're going to look at placement as well for that group. The final two education committee teams are about lessons and content learning outcomes. So Jean Selecki in special education will be our lead administrator there. So for this, we're looking for what does an exemplary online lesson look like, an exemplary

113cohort lesson look like for K-12 public education. Again, looks different when you're looking K-12. It looks different at elementary and middle and high school. So we need to make sure we do our due diligence for all three levels. There are also going to be creating some templates for our teachers who will have to come in in August and begin to create these lessons in this new normal. And so what are the must haves and the should haves and the could haves at each level that would be the work of this team. And then lastly, the scheduling team. Now, this is a group who will continue to refine the schedules. Al Hinely led at the elementary. Joe Buechler led at the middle. And Greg Hildenberg led at the lowest. led at the high school. And so

114they'll be looking to continue to refine and crystallize our thinking, but their work is the first out of the gate for sharing with phase one. So what we've created are some goals that will really guide our education committee. We're calling them the return to school goals. And so I know that you can read and I'm going to read them out to you, but I just want them to be as impactful as we feel that they are. We think that we need to be providing rigorous quality learning for all students that closely resembles a traditional school experience and that ensures students make adequate yearly progress towards state and local standards of excellence. Adequate yearly progress, the AYP and those areas where we are measured by the state, they didn't go away because we became pandemic learning

115and institutions. They are still in place and we still need to make sure that we are able to do all of that. The local standards of excellence are the ones that we're trying to make sure that we're able to do all of that. So we're trying to make sure that we're able to do all of that. The local standards of excellence to some degree arguably mean even more because in Wallingford Swarthmore, we've established a high level of academic rigor and excellence. And so we do not want that to drop at any point in time. And those are our local standards of excellence. We'll strive for those even above and beyond the state standards. We also think it's important to provide flexible systems of learning and support for students at all levels of learning as state

116mandates, health recommendations and best practices indicate. So we're trying to make sure that we're able to do all of that. So we will keep the students safe as we still progressed toward achievement, but we have to keep that flexible because what safety looks like and what parent choices are, are going to be very individualized. The third goal is to combine with the health and safety plans. We want to ensure mental, physical, and academic wellbeing in all aspects of the education plan. We cannot leave one behind just because we're the education committee. We have to keep all of the health and safety components in mind as well. The fourth one is to maintain the WSSD teaching and learning quality by ensuring all students are taught by WSSD teachers who are specialists in education and exemplary in

117their field. We believe in our teachers wholeheartedly. And so these teachers are the ones we want teaching our students. It is important to us that everybody is taught by a WSSD teacher. And then lastly, we want to ensure that students have opportunities for consistent interaction with their classmates. And that will be possible in each one of the models that we're going to be sharing with you tonight. So as Dr. Palmer indicated, and as Gina Ross indicated, we are looking at cohort models. So based on survey responses from parents, 59% indicated that they either strongly favor or just favor the alternating days or the cohort model for the start of school. Additionally, 68% wanted to send students to school, providing them with the opportunity to be able to attend classes, and the other set of students

118said they would send them back to school if they had a chance. So we're going to look at those. And so the first one is to maintain the WSSD teaching and learning quality by ensuring all students are taught by a WSSD teacher who are specialists in education and exemplary in their field. The second one is to maintain the WSSD teaching and learning quality by ensuring that students have opportunities for consistent interaction with their classmates in school. And so we're going to look at those. And then lastly, even without a vaccine, 75% of our parents said they would send students back provided there were cautionary measures in place. And then lastly, even without a vaccine, 75% of our parents said they would send students back provided there were cautionary measures in place. Now, just like the

119CDC recommendations are changing every day, so are parent perceptions and parent decisions. And so we recognize that what this data represents is a moment in time and that parents will continue to need more information, which is why we're presenting tonight, so that they can make some decisions. What I want to present to you is the cohort model as it will look for the beginning of the school year. And I'm going to give you the background on that. First, the Wallingford Swarthmore will indeed open in a cohort model. And that reflects the need for social distancing as asked for by the parents. We will have two cohorts, cohort A and cohort B. Cohort A attends Monday and Tuesday. Cohort B attends Thursday and Friday. On Wednesdays, the school district will engage in essential cleaning and sanitizing

120so that the new cohort of students coming in on Thursday and our staff can reenter schools with confidence in the safety of the environment. Now, during this Wednesday time, our students will engage in a variety of activities, including synchronous learning, our clubs, that's going to be their social aspects. Office hour support will be in there as well. And teachers will be using this time to plan and grade and make essential videos for learning. They will be attending meetings. They will be collaborating with colleagues across grade bands. So that's really important, too, when we're looking at vertical and horizontal alignment of program. Also, they'll be learning new technology because as we learn more about technology, they are getting gaining more and more skills that they'll want to share and collaborate about. They'll be meeting with students

121in morning meetings and they'll be taking this time to communicate ongoing with families. Now at the elementary schools, specifically in our cohort model, the elementary students will attend in person for the full day, two times a week. We understand the importance of pacing for learning at the elementary level, and we believe that a full day of learning will feel familiar and will provide the learning, social, emotional and physical options that a shorter day would not satisfy with our youngest learners. On alternate days, students will have new learning concepts brought to life through the learning videos. They will be made by WSSD state certified teachers. They're going to have activities that will be created on Seesaw for K-2 and on Google Classroom for 3-5. And they will also be supported through Zoom help sessions provided by

122our WSSD teachers as needed. For the middle school, the in-person attendance will be three quarters of a day. And that will also happen two times a week. We believe that at this developmental age, our students will be able to do this in person. Our students are really able to learn with increasing independence for the most part, but they still need in-person social and teacher interaction. So we believe that three fourths of the day makes sense for them. On the days of in-person learning, our students will meet with their teachers for all seven class periods. Plus, they'll be having a connections period as well. Students will attend lunch with safe social distancing, and that will provide them the opportunities to see friends and teachers outside of class for that important social development for our middle schoolers.

123On the alternate days, our students will engage with their teachers via Zoom once a week for that continued learning and assessment and engagement. They will also learn asynchronously with videos and flipped classroom modalities. And they will be doing group work and independent practice. And that sort of rounds out their learning experience. Teachers will again, as I mentioned before, they'll be available on Wednesdays for office hours support and clubs will meet virtually once a week for our middle schoolers. In high school, the in-person attendance does not need the full day, does not need the three quarters day. At the high school level, they will take place for half a day, two times a week and via Zoom for synchronous learning for half a day on the alternate days, which means they will meet for all four

124blocks of learning on each of the four days. At this developmental age, students are most able to learn with independence. However, we feel strongly that our high school students receive teacher interaction four days a week for ongoing support, collaboration, and learning with peers, which is very important at the high school learning level and for accountability for higher level learning. We want to make sure that we are seeing them every single day with the exception of Wednesday. Each of the four days is also going to have synchronous asynchronous learning for all the students, and that complements the learning goals from the synchronous work. So that will be a little more along the lines of what the high school will be experiencing in the cohort model. I want to move on to something we are very excited

125and proud about, and that is the WSSD online academy. Now, for several years, we have been talking about virtual learning in WSSD, especially as personalizing education has become increasingly widespread in the public sector of education. So for some students, we recognize that online learning is a more satisfactory way of receiving instruction. For some students, that is not the most satisfactory way of receiving instruction. But in times of uncertainty, we feel that this can provide an option for our learners and for our families. So for families who would like a fully online WSSD education program, the school district is going to offer the WSSD online academy. Now, this will capitalize on the expertise of our WSSD teachers, and it will provide the same rich curriculum and instructional practices our district is known for, along with supporting

126all of our student needs. So I really want to speak from the heart here when I say that we believe our community is best when students can learn among their neighbors and friends. For this reason, our academy is designed for them to have interaction with peers and ongoing connection to WSSD teachers. And when this pandemic allows our students to return to the brick and mortar classroom experience full time, whenever that is, our WSSD online academy students will be able to seamlessly integrate into our education programs and be an ongoing member of the learning community. They will not miss a beat. And WSSD really has been developing and implementing top rated programs of study for decades. So the WSSD online academy students will experience the same curriculum, such as math and focus and reading workshop and

127writing workshop and discovery, education and next generation science, along with our world languages, along with our special areas of study, such as music and art and physical education, counseling, library sciences, family and consumer. Sciences, library sciences, tech sciences, our computer science. All of that will be included for our students. It's designed to continue the exact learning programs as before so that there is no interruption to the learning trajectory across the K-12 span of their education. Specific dates and the selection process opting into the WSSD online academy will be forthcoming. However, we encourage our families to carefully consider the options available and to ask questions as they occur. We are here to support your decisions, the ones that you're entitled to make in a time when it is important for families to make decisions about what's

128right for you and your specific family's needs. The last thing that I want to talk about is our red full online model. This is only in the event that Wallingford-Swarthmore must be moved to a red mode of learning. And that's where all students will attend school virtually. I would ask you to put out of your mind your spring experience. The spring experience is not a spring experience. It is nothing like this model. The spring experience was an opportunity for us to see what we did and what we did not know, and we have used our time well. This new full online model, if we have to move to it at any point in time, will be significantly different than what it was before. And we are excited to share those differences with you. All students

129will be attending virtually. And so that part we know there will be synchronous live and asynchronous learning activities, along with Zoom office hours, systems of support and services, club meetings. And the learning will take place in platforms that students and families are already familiar with. Seesaw K2, Google Classroom 3 to 5 and Zoom for the interaction. On Wednesdays, our students will engage in a variety of activities, including asynchronous learning, many with videos. There will be clubs, there will be office hours support. And teachers, again, will be planning and grading, making the videos, attending meetings, doing synchronous collaborative work with colleagues, learning new technology, innovating, innovating, innovating in terms of special education. I think it's important to note here that for all of our models within the various schedules of IEP 504 GI GIAP teams, they

130will be reviewing the needs of individual students and ensuring that the appropriate supports and services are in place. Now, this could include adjustments to the amount of synchronous and a person support and services. So I wanted that to be put out there for all people, all of our families who have students who are in special education, who have IEPs, 504s or GIAPs. So I want to turn the presentation over now to our new high school principal, Dr. Greg Hilden, who will take us through the schedules for the cohort model at the high school. He will also be sharing with you the WSSD online academy option schedule at the high school and then the red full online schedule. We're asking that we hold all questions until the end of the presentation. And if the question is

131building specific, the principal will gladly answer any phase one questions that they're able to answer. So, Greg, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you, Dr. Sir. I first want to take a moment to thank you and the staff at the high school and the community for welcoming me over the last couple of weeks. This is only week three, believe it or not. And here we are making a presentation about how to open school next year. But I've been overwhelmed with the amount of support and the rallying that people have done in this community already to make this a good opportunity for our students. So I'm going to start with if we can move to the next slide, please start with a little bit of information before we put the visual of the

132actual schedule up and as Dr. Grandy mentioned in the beginning, no schedule is perfect. I built master schedules for high schools over the last ten years. And really what it comes down to at the very beginning is establishing your non-negotiables. So for us, we had several non-negotiables. First and foremost, we wanted to know how we could accommodate instruction for students who weren't in the building. Either they're sick or they're immune compromised or they're choosing to be home for some reason or another. So we wanted to be able to accommodate students. And that may be a fluid process where you may be sick some days. You may not be sick other days. So how do you account for that movement in and out of school? We wanted to account for our VOTEC students, students who go

133to other places and still get part of their education somewhere else. We also want to account for the fluid nature of school closing and opening potentially at various times over the course of the year. So if we're closed and then we reopen and then we close, what will that do to the level of instruction and how students engage in instruction under those circumstances? Along with that, as Dr. Cidarelli-Jones mentioned, we wanted our students to be in contact with our teachers. So if you're a student who can't be here or you opt not to be here, we want to give you an option to be in contact and be educated by our teachers. So with all those in mind and quite frankly, a lot of thinking went into this even before I got here. Really, we're

134just putting Jimmy's on the cake, if you will, the last week or two. As you can see here, there's the cohort model will be two groups, an A group and a B group. Each group will receive 45 minute synchronous classes per week per course. So you would be in class for two days in person and the other cohort would be at home. In the morning, you would get direct instruction in the classroom. If you're in the first cohort, cohort A and cohort B, you would be home working asynchronously independently. And then you switch in the afternoon, cohort A would work asynchronously and cohort B will receive the same lesson synchronously with the teacher of record via Zoom. This allows the students to have the same teacher for the same course and keep the instruction in

135a way aligned so that if you were not in school for some period of time where you had to miss for other reasons, you would still be receiving the same instruction. On Wednesday, you would have four 45 minute asynchronous sessions per week. What this allows us to do is have time for our teachers on what for meetings for our parents and students for meetings to run clubs, activities and also to provide office hours where students can get extra support from the teachers. This also allows us to actually have the online school for our students. It provides us a way where students can stay at home and access their teachers asynchronously and synchronously throughout the week. So what that would look like, I'll get into in a minute, but you basically would stay with the virtual

136cohort and both the p.m. session in the morning. And I'm sorry, on Monday and Tuesday and then the p.m. session on Thursday and Friday. That would allow you to stay home all week, but still stay current and up to date with your peers and with your teachers in this model. We also see that the instructional minutes are 1029 hours. Why? That's important. That is because the state mandates a minimum of 990 instructional hours at the high school level. So you can see in this model, we actually exceed the number of hours that are expected us of us from PDE. In addition, you can have focused instruction this way. You now have only hopefully 15 students in front of you at one time in the classroom or synchronously when you're doing Zoom that allows you to

137give a different level of detail, a different level of attention to students, especially. Students who may struggle in larger class sizes. As I mentioned, Wednesdays provides us for for multiple activities. And then it also provides us for the online academy program. So if we go to the next slide, we can actually see a visual of the schedule, which I think will help a lot of people. So what you're looking at there is on Monday and Tuesday. If you're in the top left in that mustard color, if I'm in an A cohort, I'm in person, in school. For the morning, why would go through each one of my blocks, right? For 45 minutes, that I would get it grab and go lunch. I would go home. You can see there'll be a little break there. And

138then I would work asynchronously at home. The teacher would have their break for lunch and then they would actually pick up with the cohort B with synchronous learning in the afternoon, the same lesson that the cohort A experienced in the morning. This also allows for our traditional block to occur. That gives 35 minutes every day with the exception of Wednesday for band, orchestra, and chorus. On Wednesday you see the different listing there of the teacher prep, the IEP meetings, the asynchronous learning. But what you also see in the afternoon is that social emotional piece that we need. Students will be able to participate in clubs and activities. This is something that I think we were missing in the spring when all the extracurriculars almost came to a full stop. Thursday and Friday you actually see

139a flip. So those students who were in person on Monday and Tuesday now attend virtually. So the students that were not in the building are able to get in, interact with the teachers in person, and also social emotionally interact with their peers. So this this model gives a option lots of options for students. If you're sick for a week, you can go to the office and you can go to the library. If you're sick for a week, you can go to the library. If you're sick for a week, you can go to the library. If you're sick for a week, for example, and you miss the in-person instruction, you can attend virtually in the afternoon. The afternoon sessions will also be videoed, so you can access that later if you're not able to attend it

140in real time. If we go to the next slide, this is an example of what it would look like if you wanted to participate in the online academy. So as I mentioned before, you can just stay home and access it virtually in the afternoon. So the red highlighted red would be that model. So on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, you would work asynchronously at home. And on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday in the afternoon, you would interact synchronously via Zoom with the with your teacher. So you in essence would be flip-flopping between cohort A and cohort B. And then you have the same opportunity at the end of the day with fifth block and then office hours again. On Wednesday with club and activity participation. So if we can go to the next slide, we'll take a

141look at what it would look like if we go to the red model. Some points of consideration. Again, you would have four days of synchronous classes, but in this instance, all classes would meet at the same time for 60 minutes each. They would begin at the beginning of the day, and then you would have a time period at the end of the day for clubs meeting, asynchronous learning, additional asynchronous learning time for struggling students under the direction of a certified teacher. And then again, a period of time for band, chorus, and orchestra. Under that model, you only reach 948 hours of instructional time over the course of the year. You also still have flexible asynchronous instruction on Wednesdays. So you lose a little bit of time because on the cohort model, you're 45 minutes in

142the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon per class. It's 90 minutes. Here it's only 60 minutes, although you pick up additional time on Wednesday because the clubs and activity times looks a little bit different. So if we can go to the next slide, we'll look at a visual of that model. So on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, you'll see they look very similar. There's not a lot of differences there. It's everybody together. It's going to be a larger group of students. They're going to be in one room, all the students in the class at the same time. But you'll have direct contact, direct interaction with the teacher, and it'll be Molly Fitzwhitmore teachers. So what's good about this is that if we have to go from the cohort model to the red model, all of

143our students are interacting with the same teacher that they had in either model. You're not flip-flopping back between one teacher and another teacher. You where you are in the scope and sequence of our curriculum. They're able to adjust their pacing, they're able to adjust their assessment, and they're able to do things that may not have been possible if you were not working with the same teacher in both settings. If we go to the next slide, I think we are up to the middle school and Mr. Krall. Thanks, Greg. And good evening, everyone, and thanks for having all of us here to share our reopening plans as we sort of turn the corner here in the summer. And as we've heard many times throughout the evening, it seems that we're constantly getting new data, new information,

144new thoughts from our community members, and that we're very deliberate in taking all that into consideration as we're developing these plans and redeveloping them and refining them. And I'm excited to be here to share about what the middle school has come up with. So we're going to start with our AB cohort model. And it was a few weeks ago, actually, I want to say it was right when Dr. Hilden came on board, and we had some new ideas crystallized between some conversations with him and Dr. Siderelli-Jones and some of the administrative staff at the middle school. And we've had various versions of our cohort model in several phases of planning this year, and this was our latest and best attempt to really make this work and create some wonderful opportunities. And we're going to talk

145about some of the things that we've done in the last couple of weeks to really make this work and create some great opportunities for our middle school students for the upcoming school year. I would like to note that the benefits of our AB cohort model, modeled similarly after the high school, one of the big benefits is that we do have a lot of interactions between students and teachers throughout the course of the week, up to four interactions, whether it be live instruction while students are in school or through Zoom. And again, similarly, to the AB cohort model, we have a lot of interactions between students and teachers throughout the course of the week. And again, similarly to the high school plan, our AB cohort model cycles through two consecutive days of live in-school instruction, then

146followed by three days of online learning. One of those three days, the Wednesday, as you saw in Dr. Hilton's presentation, is an asynchronous day for all students and teachers, with the exception of that 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock time for the middle school, which can be used for student support, as Dr. Siderelli-Jones noted earlier. This is much like our normal after school time, which often happens in the middle school, but it's something that our middle school students are accustomed to, and it's something that we also put into practice this past spring as we were experimenting and really learning the kinks of going to an online instructional model very abruptly and very quickly. The other two online days allow for afternoon live Zoom sessions, totaling eight live Zoom sessions between the two days, with four on

147each day, either on a Monday and a Tuesday or a Thursday and a Friday, depending on your cohort. This plan really maximizes the available time of our teachers and students together, both in school and while the students are at home. Ashwina, could you just go to the next slide? So let's take a look at what a Monday and Tuesday would look like for our middle school students. Cohort A students would be in attendance to school, traveling through periods one through eight, and we didn't list all eight periods as Greg did with the block schedule at the high school, because we felt like that was repetitive information. But in the morning, they would attend class periods one through eight, and they would be dismissed at 1.15 in the afternoon. In the afternoon, the cohort A students

148would then be working asynchronously at home as they are connecting content and work connected from their class experiences earlier in the day, and related to those experiences they would be having either the following day or later in the week. On a Monday and a Tuesday, a cohort B student would be working asynchronously at home. So we would have a Monday and a Tuesday in the morning hours of a Monday and a Tuesday, as you can see there again. And we'll be zooming live with his or her teachers on those afternoons. Monday would be periods one through four, and Tuesday would be periods five through eight. And again, we use the model similar to the high school. However, one of the factors and variables that complicates this for the middle school is that we have eight

149periods of the day and not just four. So that was definitely a balance that we had to kind of work out and figure out what was the best plan forward. Then Thursday and Friday, the experiences for those cohort students would switch. Cohort B would be in attendance at school, and cohort A would be at home. In addition to the one to three o'clock support time, the Wednesday is also being used for, as you can see, team meetings, departmental collaboration for teachers, planning and grading, IEP, GIEP 504 meetings, as well as additional time for related services. A student will be assigned a cohort B student, assigned a cohort grouping in A or B, and will continue with that group indefinitely or for as long as the hybrid model is being utilized. Ashwina, could we go to

150the next slide on the online academy? Understanding that the choice to return to school comes with mixed feelings and emotions, we don't anticipate that all families will return in the same fashion, which brings us to our WSSD and SHMS online academy schedule. We understand that this choice is not one for all, but it is a choice that we have to make. And we recognize that the choice is not one for all, but recognizes the importance of being as flexible and as prepared as possible for all of our students, regardless of their physical, mental, emotional and necessary learning needs. SHMS online student will follow the same curriculum and programming as they normally would as part of an AB cohort group, but will have access to their classes through virtual Zoom meetings. Teachers will have live Zoom

151links open for online students and families that choose to keep their children at home, will continue to follow their cohort assignment, with the exception being that their attendance to class is now virtual. The curriculum, workload, assignments and assessment techniques will mirror that of the in-person program, and will provide the additional need for some of being engaged while at home. Our teachers' increased use and familiarity of platforms like Google Classroom, the collaboration of our teachers and administrators, the administrative team on the Education Committee, and newly tested Zoom technology have confirmed for us that WSSD teachers can continue to be consistently utilized for all of our students as the district's greatest educational resource. And Ashwina will go to the last slide on our red model. In the event that the school district closes our brick and mortar

152schools, the middle school team is ready to go all virtual with our red plan for all students and staff. Our day closely resembles a normally scheduled school day, running from 7.50 to 2.30, which includes a lunch break and scheduled break times from the computer screen between classes. The 2.30 to 3 o'clock time is still utilized for clubs and teacher support, now four days a week instead of three. And the Wednesday asynchronous day also provides that two hour block of time in the afternoon for students to reach out to their teachers for necessary support, extra help and questions. And we'll just show them the schedule on the next slide. The Wednesday asynchronous day will also be utilized again for team meetings, departmental collaboration, the planning and grading, and all those important IEP, GIP and parent meetings,

153and that additional time for related services. We have a team that has been working hard and collaborating on what effective lessons and instruction will look like with a fully synchronous online day. And I would like to reiterate our philosophy that we do not think it is palatable or healthy to be on the computer in front of a screen for an entire school day. We are looking for ways to balance and enhance new material and content presentation, followed by guided individual student work connected to the curriculum. Strathaven Middle School is making the commitment of getting the best of both worlds and providing the best possible educational program for the remainder of and until the end of the pandemic. And I think that is where I'm going to hand it off to Mr. Heinle. Thank you, Mr.

154Krall. First, I just want to say it's a pleasure to be here tonight to share the work of all the staff, including administrators and staff members, teachers. A lot of work has gone into this, and I've been very lucky to see the type of problem solving, creative thinking that we have with our staff here in WSSD and doing our best in a difficult situation to keep our kids, especially our youngest learners, at the forefront. So this is certainly not an easy task, as the schedules will show you, but we are very happy to present these to you tonight. And I'd also like to thank Dr. Tuck and Mr. Savage, who we have a wonderful elementary team who work really well and are excellent problem solvers. So I just want to say thank you to them

155as well. So jumping right into the program, and I'm sorry to say that I mentioned it earlier, but we are in the middle of a pandemic. So we're a little bitiped into it. As previously stated, all of our students will in grades K through 5 be sectioned into two separate cohorts. That includes kindergarten. In kindergarten, we have a half-day program, so both am and pm sections would need to be split in half to meet the social distancing guidelines. focusing on the following points of consideration which I'll go through now. Daily synchronous social interaction. Students will have the opportunity to interact with their classmates and teachers all five days via a Zoom morning meeting. The importance of the social emotional component, the building of community in our youngest learners is at our forefront. So we understand

156the value in having a morning meeting and trying to bring our two cohorts together on a daily basis all five days. Similar to secondary, we have two days in-person instruction. Cohorts A and B would receive instruction in person two days a week following the normal building schedule. What that means is students who are here in person will follow what we would call a normal schedule which is a regular schedule. So we have a normal schedule for students who are here in person. We have a normal schedule for students who are here in person. We have a typical schedule for those who are eigenenly enrolled, and that will allow students to move into school and transfer to worker mode if they were here. So so, that does mean that some of these will be new, but

157first of all, some of the policies, some of our, which will be a little bit of a work in progress because as the Health and Safety Committee and all of our committees do their work we have to maintain the ability to change potentially a schedule to ensure that our hallways are up to the distancing guidelines in all parts of our school to keep our kids safe. Three days online for students with synchronous interaction. All five days as I stated earlier. The other 대통령 will have to remain at larger scale. So three days in-person will include self Praxios where the district will nominate establish a public dorm, board visiting, constant distancing system will settings around safety. It's使en their will as well as any other days would be comprised of asynchronous activities, individual student work completion, resources,

158and many lessons videos prepared by our WSSD teachers to help support students. Understanding the importance of synchronous offerings to students while our classroom teachers may be working with their students for those five days here in our buildings, we are building in synchronous supports at each of the three elementaries, which I'll highlight on the graphic in just a minute, but we're looking at two sessions where our school personnel will be available to help students who may have a question or may need some help with some of the activities. So we're looking at 2 a.m. sessions and 2 p.m. sessions as a support for our learners at home. And finally, an asynchronous day for our WSSD teachers, which allows them time for their planning, grading, collaboration, and also fulfilling the other responsibilities such as IEP, GIP, and

159504 meetings. So with that, we're going to take a look at what it looks like. So Ashwina. So as I stated, if you look at this graphic, you see the morning meeting spanning all five days. If you're a student in cohort A, you'll start with the morning meeting. If you're in cohort B, you will also start with the morning meeting synchronously with the students and the instructor in the classroom. If we look specifically at cohort A, you'll see that they receive instruction in person on Monday and Tuesday. Students will be socially distanced throughout the day in the classroom, at lunch, recess, et cetera, and following a normal building schedule from 8.45 to 3.30 p.m. And that includes lunch, specials, and the intervention blocks. Meanwhile, the cohort, cohort B, on Monday and Tuesday would be completing

160their asynchronous work, which, as I stated earlier, includes instructional learning modules, videos, resources prepared by our staff. Looking at Wednesday, you can see that the schedule reflects that daily morning meeting, which I've referenced, for all students, combining both cohorts in a synchronous fashion. WSSD staff will be participating, as I said, department meetings, lesson collaboration, and creation of asynchronous learning opportunities for our students. On Thursday and Friday, our cohorts would flip. A cohort would move into their asynchronous learning, while the B cohort receives in-person instruction. And if you note the graphic at the bottom, we are looking at four separate synchronous support blocks for the virtual groups, for students that are at home. We're looking at using school personnel at each of the three elementary buildings, related services, perhaps IST reading specialists to help us look

161at those offerings and make them effective for our students. So that concludes the overview of the elementary cohort model. Next, we'll take a look at the online academy model. So this is where an elementary school, if you've ever been to a school, you'll know that there's a lot of different types of school. And we're looking at the online academy model. This is where an elementary school, if you've ever worked or seen an elementary school schedule, it is very complex. So the easiest way for me to kind of walk everyone through this is if we take a grade level, such as grade one. And again, these are for students who may enroll in the online academy option. So if we look at grade one, going across, we would start with our morning meeting. Once again, from

162a social emotional perspective, we want to recreate and create a little bit of a process for our students. So if we look at the online academy model, we want to create a little bit of a process for our students. So if we look at a classroom community as much as possible, a daily morning meeting is provided in the online academy schedule to do just that. And also to relay expectations for the day. In this particular schedule, looking at grade one, they would transition into the first of two intervention blocks. An intervention block, these separate intervention blocks are provided for students who may receive related services or other supports. In addition, if they're not able to receive related services or other supports, they may be able to receive a separate intervention block. In addition, if they're

163not able to receive a separate intervention block, they may be able to receive a separate intervention block. For other students, it may be an opportunity to complete independent assignments. So after the intervention block, looking at grade one, you'll see two English language arts blocks. They are there separate, but they are one block of instructional time. In grade one, this teacher would be providing synchronous engagement in ELA. Later in the day, there'll be an opportunity for math. But in this particular block, they're going to be providing synchronous engagement in ELA. But in this particular block, they're going to be providing synchronous engagement in ELA. Later in the day, there'll be an opportunity for math. But in this particular block, they're going to be providing synchronous engagement in ELA. Later in the day, there'll be an opportunity

164for math. The teacher would be providing up to 60 minutes of synchronous engagement. That could look like a 10 or 15 minute mini-lesson and content, while also potentially working with smaller groups after the main lesson has been provided. So there's some flexibility built into that direct instruction synchronous learning opportunity. Grade one would then move into their second intervention block. We have two intervention blocks per grade level. Definitely a lot of classes having different courses based on their own lecture. They're two intervention blocks per grade level. They're two intervention blocks per grade level. So they would have up to 10 or 15 minutes Colorado Eleration School Services cinco minutes of synchronous learning opportunity. provide optimal resource for students that may have various supports throughout the school day. Again, students who, other students may just be completing

165independent work and especially first grade there probably should be an hour and a half for lunch so if you've ever taught first grade but those students will be completing their independent work. They may go into an hour lunch period which is denoted on this schedule and then after lunch we would pick up their synchronous math instruction and the math synchronous block would look very similar to the language arts block. A mini lesson, reteaching, potentially working with small groups, individuals within that window of synchronous instruction. Also reflected on this schedule is time for specials and I'd like to thank the special area teachers for their time. Those who have put time in with the education and the planning committee, their input has been instrumental in putting these schedules together. We value the special area content, the

166arts, we have a strong program so we want to do everything we can to provide elementary students a well-rounded education even in this difficult time. So looking at this model we're looking at asynchronous learning with potential for synchronous learning on a rotating basis. For example, a student may have asynchronous learning one week but followed up by a synchronous opportunity the following week and we have that on a rotating basis. Social studies and science content which I believe is at the end here for grade one would be delivered asynchronously for assignments however synchronous sessions would be provided on a rotating basis once every three days, perhaps once a week. So looking at should we need to go to a fully online elementary program, the schedule that I just shared for the online academy would actually be

167the template. We would be putting that together for our students should we have to move or pivot to online instruction. So I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go through some of the basic components of what this is about. The first one is synchronous interaction, synchronous instruction. So right here you see just a list of kind of the foundation components of the schedule. One, daily synchronous social interaction. Two, asynchronous instruction but also in time for individual work completion. Support synchronous support offered daily through scheduled intervention blocks per class. mathematics and language arts. So again, should we have to move all WSSD students to the red phase, if you will, full online, we would implement the schedule that we have placed together, put pieced together for the online academy. So that's that is an

168overview of the foundation. As I stated, a lot of work has gone into this and we still have a lot of work to do, but we're ready to move forward and start to problem solve collaboratively and creatively. So thank you. I want to thank all the speakers for helping with this presentation. It's been a labor of love. We really do care about the WSSD families. We care about our students. We want to make sure that they are academically progressing and that they are feeling cared for and that they understand that we are here. We want to make sure that they are safe and that they are engaged learners. And we are here to help. When we say safe schools, engaged learners as our motto, that really is where we live and breathe right now with

169this pandemic. And we're here to unite with our families and make sure that we're providing all of the necessary components of a great educational program. So we can open up to questions at this time. I want to thank all of you for, for your work to try to design these solutions. And again, I really appreciate all the work that you've put into this. I'm waiting to see some hands go up from board members. I think I see one up, but I do want to just jump in with one very quick question just to clarify, to make sure it's clear. So this, and this would be a question for Dr. Jones, this whole AB splitting system, just to clarify for parents, family, the children in a family, would be assigned to the same cohort, correct? So

170they wouldn't end up with one kid in A and one kid in B. That's right, Dr. Gurney. Yes. We want to make sure that families have the opportunity to work their own work schedules out. And so it is extremely important that we have families be able to attend on the same day so that their wraparound care can be determined based, based on that, based on that availability. Great. I just wanted to clarify that real quick. I just wanted to say, Kelly has a question. Dave, I have more than one, but I wondered if we wanted to limit how many I asked so everybody gets a chance. Cause I'm sure a lot of us have some more questions. Do you want me to limit to one, two? Why don't you go with two and then we'll

171loop back. Okay. Okay. So, so first I also want to echo thank you immensely. I can't begin to imagine how much work this has been. And I know it's not going to be over. So and I want to thank you in particularly for a couple of things that I picked up in terms of responsiveness to parent feedback that we heard. I, I heard all subjects in elementary school. We had heard feedback about elementary school in science and social studies previously. So I'm really excited to see that. I'm excited to see clubs and offering of the clubs, the increase in the synchronous learning. And I love the AM morning meeting for elementary school. I think that's going to go over really, really well with our, certainly with me and with our families. I'm I'll start with

172one question that is related specifically to our students with IEPs and 504 plans. And I heard us reference that there will be they're understanding that their needs are different that they may need more synchronous time. I'm wondering if you could describe that a little bit more. I know that that's a little bit different than what I was going to say. I think that's going to probably be student specific. But I just like to understand a little bit more about how we're serving our needs of our students with 504s and IEPs in this upcoming school year. Yes, I for specifics on special education along those lines, I am delighted that Gina Ross is here in order to answer some of those questions. So I'm going to ask that she step in and take that one. I

173was just going to pop in and say, would you like me to take that question? So I do indicate it. This special education needs not just IEP 504 GIP, all of those students who have been identified for additional supports and services. We need to take a look very closely at those individual and very specific strengths and needs, and then we'll be able to develop a plan for them. We are expecting that some students may have additional face to face time within the building or synchronous time online. We are expecting that some students may have additional face time online. We are expecting that some students may have additional face time online. We are expecting that some students may have additional adult supports helping them out, assisting them at home. We're looking at that globally. A lot

174of it will depend on where the governor is and what mandates and how we ebb and flow through the red, yellow and green phases. But we are looking very closely at those very specific means. We know that when we moved into emergency learning in the spring, we were not able to necessarily meet everyone's needs because we were on the filter in place. At this point, we are looking at a variety of ways, a variety of options to meet all those individual needs. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then my second question is probably aimed a little bit more at the students in the elementary school level. But I wondered if we would be able to do more in terms of providing the books for them to bring home and worksheets and handouts. Completing

175online even if it's still difficult for them. And printing is a hassle for any of us with a home printer. They never work the way they're supposed to. So just wondered if we could build more of that into our plan for elementary in particular. Yeah, it's really great. One of the things that we started talking about when we were running our tech test runs, several people who were in the room started brainstorming how we almost create packets for students. One of the blessings of starting in a cohort model, is it gives us an opportunity to get those materials into students' hands ahead of time. So that if we have to pivot from one date to the next for some reason and had to go to read full online, students would already have their reading workshop

176books, a week's worth, two weeks worth, already chosen and packaged up. Science materials, math manipulatives that could be their own. We have to do that in the classroom anyway so there aren't sharing of those materials. So they could be. They could be brought home if we sort of saw the writing on the wall, let's say, that we would be moving to read online. So that we make sure that there is time built in to be able to get those materials in the hands of the kids, really K-12, before we would have to go to a read online model. Great. Thank you. Sure. Jen? Thank you, Dr. Grandy. I'd echo that last sentiment that Kelly stated as well. So I wanted to start by saying that I'm a student who's been working in the classroom for

177a long time. I'm a parent. I'm a teacher. I'm a student of A&M. So I thought it was worth sharing all the things that we do here today. I wonder if we could talk about some of the things that you've learned in the classroom. I think I can start by saying how much I appreciate, Mr. Kroll, you making the point, and I know Dr. Cittarelli-Jones did make this point, when she was speaking, of being mindful of balancing all the screen time. Especially, especially for the younger kids, but really for all kids. Because I know that as a parent, and I will say it again, I think I have the youngest cohort of children on this Board. This shift in education has also shifted the culture within our home. Yes. And I know that doesn't make

178me unique. I know that's happened to a lot of people. So thank you for being mindful of that. And I hope the administration continues to be mindful of that as we enter the fall. In addition, having been a member of this community for 15 years and having birthed four children while living within it, I appreciate Dr. Cittarelli-Jones, you taking the time to say that you care about and that the administration cares about the kids and the families within it. I would be remiss to say that there isn't also that level of care from the parents back to the teachers and the administration, because as someone who has had several teachers in this district and interacted with many more and parents, I know that there is a great respect for the teachers who are in the

179trenches in this district. And I think that that's worth stating. It's the simplest concept of everything we've discussed, but it's a really powerful concept. So I wanted to just take a minute to say that. So I wanted to ask a couple of questions. I think Dr. Cittarelli-Jones, you're probably in the best posture to answer them, but if someone else wants to chime in, that's fine. If a parent chooses one method of return for their child or children back to school, how easy or not will it be for those children to shift once school starts, depending on whether the family circumstances have shifted? I think that's a really great question. It's one of the things that Dr. Palmer alluded to earlier on, that they are in the phase now of determining those pieces of it. And

180so along with those decisions will be things such as how many of our parents believe they might opt in and what that opt in or opt out, let's say of the cohort model would, what that deadline would be. There are several things that happen after that deadline, staffing, for example. So that will determine how many sections we're running of certain things and where our staffing capabilities are for shifting responsibilities around. So it's going to be important that we get that information soon. And then there's going to be some work that Dr. Palmer and her committee will be working on having to do with how long people would stay in the WSSD online academy. In some school districts, I've heard that it's a commitment of a semester. Others are doing a full year and others are

181doing it by marking period. We have to think carefully about natural breaks in the learning trajectory. And so coming in, let's say in the middle of a math and focus unit or something along those lines can be difficult. We do believe that our WSSD online academy will make it possible for kids to be able to seamlessly return, especially when pandemic learning is over, whenever that is. But we do want to be careful that we don't come in right in the middle, let's say of a marking period, when those assignments might be, you know, changing around. And so for each level, that looks different. I know it's a complicated answer. But those are the things under consideration. And they're really phase two questions. I don't know that Dr. Palmer is ready to jump in and discuss

182them, but I do think that it's a good idea to know that we are actively looking at it immediately following his presentation. So that's our very, very, very next step. Okay. And considering the flip side as well, I know that some parents in the community have talked to me about wanting very much to send their child back into brick and mortar school. But if they see the numbers rising, maybe those parents have situations at home that they may then pull that child out. And so when you're considering it, I would just ask that you just know that that sentiment is out there. Yeah, that's, that's a great reminder. Thank you. I also this may be more of a phase two, Dr. Cittarelli-Jones, but and from getting ahead of things, let me know. But for the

183people that elect to send their children, especially the younger children, again, back into brick and mortar school, how much of that experience is going to be a more tactile experience, if you know, and how much will it be a decent amount of using the devices? I ask because now that we're a district that's one to one, that's obviously the most important thing. And so I'm going to ask that you just give us a little bit of time to think about that. And then we'll get back to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sure. Sorry, I forgot to unmute myself. I have a question about the remote days and I think from my understanding, I think the answer will be consistent across the levels, but maybe you can clarify. The remote, like so

184the A-B model. When kids are remote on their remote days, you know, there's different models, depending on whether it's elementary, middle or high. It seemed pretty clear at the high school that there's definitely new material being taught on remote days. Is that also the case at the other levels as well? Yes, that's the case at the other levels as well. So the middle school, for example, when you have students who are in class, they will be in the middle. Right. Right. Right. So the middle school will be in the morning for 34 minutes. And then the students who are coming in virtually are cohort B. They will be for 25 minutes with those teachers. And so it will be interesting. It feels like a week should start on a Monday and go to a Friday.

185But technically for those cohort B students, they've done some of their new learning on Thursday and Friday so that what happens in their Zoom session, synchronous live Zoom session on Monday and Tuesday is the follow-up work. And so it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. And I think part of that is the follow-up work or the secondary content learning from that primary learning of Thursday and Friday. And so that will be a reinforcement of that content. That will be the introduction of new material and supporting material. It's a great time to do practice. It's a great time to do formative assessments. So they'll be used interchangeably in that time. But all of it is for moving forward. There's nothing where it's just going to be, just do a bunch of worksheets and

186bide your time. You know. know we're well past that kind of thing. This is really more about pushing our students forward and making sure that gap that exists here and in every district that we've recovered it immediately. Great thanks. I see Kelly has her hand back up. I knew she had more than two questions. And you'll have to stop me if somebody else wants to jump in here. I love you Kelly, just keep asking the question. Okay well what just first one is a quick follow-up on the AB cohort. I wanted to make sure that for the days when I had one at each level of our three buildings are we saying that if I had that again that the siblings would all go on this and the same cohort date across all levels? Yes

187that's exactly right. And we know there are families who have the need for the, let's say the high school or maybe the oldest child in the family, to be able to keep an eye on the younger students when they come back. And So that's another great reason why we have the full day elementary, three quarters day middle, and half day high school, because those high school students would then be available. Great. Okay. All right. Two questions that go to equity and actually food insecurity. So the first one was, and this is one I know the answer to, but I wanted us to repeat it. In terms of devices and the plan for making sure that all families and all students have a device, can you share that with everybody who's listening? Yes. So there is

188a plan that there will be one-to-one devices for our students that will, and I don't know that AJ is in the space now to talk about that. That's really on the tech team, but the students will be getting, we're looking to one-to-one advice devices, all through K-12. And they already have them at the... At the high school, right? But we will be having that be a part and parcel of everything that we do. And that is, that's going to be important, especially for the online and the Zoom component of it. And we want to make sure that, again, going back to Jen Lentz's question about the technology in the classroom, that it just doesn't become the sole mode of operation. We want to make sure that that really is for the home and less so

189maybe for the classroom. Okay. Thank you. Food. So I wasn't clear. Are we serving lunch in middle school for the students who are in it in the morning? Yes, we are. So they are dismissed at 1.15. We originally had it at 1 o'clock, but regardless, the buses need cleaning in between their run with kindergarten. And so we need to make sure that we've built in time for the cleaning of the buses. So that is why we've pushed it to 1.15. So that means when... Students meet all eight periods within the middle school, their fourth, fifth, and sixth, I believe, periods are the lunches. It's been a little while since I've done a middle school schedule from having worked there. But I believe it's fourth, fifth, and sixth grader when the lunches happen. And so they

190will still be in cycle the same way. Okay. Have we thought about for students who would be coming in only in the afternoon, who may have food? And security? How does the district already have a plan for how we might be supporting them? Kelly, do you mean particularly at the middle school level or... I'm actually thinking across the board that we will have students who normally would be in school receiving lunch through school, maybe a reduced or free lunch through school, who are now not going to have that because of the cohort model. Kelly, I'm going to jump in on that one. And Martha, you can... You can follow up on me as well. But Martha and I had talked very early on when we were looking at going to the cohort model because it's

191all well and good for the children who are in school, say, for instance, at the elementary level. But if you're in the remote cohort, what are you going to do? And there are a number of our families that this is really going to be an issue for them. So I don't know that all of the details are worked out, but it is a priority for us to work at with the nutrition group with how do we handle this with remote families? How do we handle it in a grab and go function, say, for at the high school? And how do we work on a very different model of deploying food throughout our building when kids are in there? Because nothing looks the same at all. And it's not without difficulty, but it is going to

192take a tremendous amount of creativity to figure out how to support all of those different groups. But we have to do it. Martha, do you have anything that you want to add on to that or any more current information? I spoke to the nutritionist. I spoke to the nutrition group today. And obviously, yes, we need to work out how all of the details of how this is done. Certainly in the case of it's Tuesday afternoon and the kids at the high school, for the sake of argument, are leaving. The plans are they would pick up Wednesday's lunch at the same time so that they wouldn't be missing that meal. So there's an awful lot of moving parts in this that all have to be worked out to handle all the various scenarios of what does

193this mean. It actually makes sense. It makes the summer food program look easy in comparison, I imagine. It does. It does. It really does. Well, thank you for being focused on this already. I didn't even really think about it until we were going through the presentation. And it kind of dawned on me we would have students who would not be there for their lunch. Are there any other hands up? I don't think so. Okay, I'm going to ask one more, I think. The online academy. So for the students that are participating in the online academy, are we? Are we zooming them in alongside the students who are present in the classroom in their brick and mortar? How are they participating in their own separate set of instruction? That wasn't there. Yeah. I'm sorry. Did you

194finish your question? I don't want to interrupt you. Yeah, I did. I was starting to trail off. So go ahead. Okay. So it looks different at each level. So at the elementary level, it is. So the middle school is a full online model for red. So students who are in the WSSD online academy will be, as Al indicated, they will be following that same, what looks like the full online model for red, is what they would be following with a dedicated teacher specifically for the WSSD online academy. At middle school, those students will be placed in a cohort, either A or B. And they will be zooming into that class. We did tests on this. We've talked extensively to the middle school teachers who are on our education committee. They felt strongly about that as

195a model so that the students in middle school, you know, I love middle school. So middle schoolers are very, very social creatures. Being a part of a cohort matters to them. It's the reason why middle schools have teams at the foundation of what they do, because it's that small learning community. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's going to be important. And our teachers feel confident that that zooming into that class makes them feel part of the cohort. And that in terms of the technology and the interplay with a small group of students in front of you and another group

196who is online is completely doable. At the high school, that's not necessary because our students on the online academy, they'll come to school in the afternoon. All of it will be in Zoom. And that's going to be a huge, huge, huge thing. Right. Right. Right. Right. They'll essentially be in a. B student. They'll be in the A cohort on Monday and Tuesday. They will join the B cohort on Thursday and Friday. And so it will be all new learning for them. Each one of those four days, they'll just always attend virtually in the afternoon. That was helpful. Okay. Thank you. I think I'm done. Okay. Jen, are you there, Jen? I just clicked the others off. One last, do you know yet, Dr. Cittarelli-Jones, if the curriculum will be coordinated across the elementary schools, say

197for all the first grades or all the second grades. And I'm asking this now, although it probably has some details to iron out, because I think when parents get off of this meeting, they're going to start planning for as much as they can, as much as any of us can for what fall could look like. And it's my understanding, that some little pods may be formed where, you know, to accommodate some schedules. So I think that some parents may be wondering how in line, if you know, and you may not yet, those curriculums may be across the board, namely for the elementary schools, not really the middle and high school, of course. Yeah. So it's a great question. And the answer to me is very clear. The online academy is at the elementary level, for

198example, a student. And so if parents elect to go to the WSSD online academy for elementary, we would need to make sure that they are in line with the district. And that online academy does not have a dedicated building. So students from WES or NPE or SRS could be all together in a second grade class online. So when a parent would elect to bring their student back to their home school, back to cohort model, let's say, because they are no longer using the WSC online academy, that curriculum has to be seamless. And so during this pandemic learning phase, we need to make sure that we are locked into step. Now, that's not to say that teachers don't put their own spin and flavor. That's why we love our teachers. They're innovative and creative, and they

199have lots of style, lots of style. But we do want to make sure that that content is the same so that there is fluidity of choice for our families. All right. I think that may be the last question. Kelly, I see your hand is still raised, but I think that was from before. Is that right? Yes, I'm done. Sorry. I really do want to close by just thanking everybody for their ideas. We've gotten a lot of ideas. There's been lots of social media that goes on, and we get to hear some of what's going on. And I've loved that the tide has shifted from sort of anxiety and anger, although that can be there. And I understand that it's sort of a... I've been floated that. But what I have heard a lot of is

200idea sharing. And a lot of people have been saying things to me along the lines of, you may have already been thinking about this, but I just wanted to put that idea. And that spirit of helpfulness is just terrific. It's the reason many of us want to come to work for WSSD is the spirit of helpfulness. And we want to be helpful in return, because as I mentioned before, we really do care about our kids. We miss them. We want to see them back. We want this to be over. And so I think that is our goal to bring everybody sort of back together. And so it matters to us. I'm encouraging any parent who has these questions or feels that they're not getting help to please reach out to one of us. Reach out

201to a principal. Reach out to an assistant principal. Reach out to central office. We are really here to try and help and do our best to make this as easy as possible for our families. Great. Well, thank you to the entire team for sharing that information and all the work that's gone into it. And I appreciate you hanging with us until almost 10 o'clock. So that was our last focus topic. That takes us to our point on the agenda for audience recognition for response to items for action on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to address the board have been and continue to be encouraged to call 610-892-3470, extension 1102 to leave their recorded comments to the board subject to a three minute time limit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

202you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's our three minutes time limit. Comments prior to 5 o'clock today have been transcribed and made available to the board. And I'm going to ask Kelly to read the comments that we received before 5 o'clock. Anything that comes in after 5 o'clock or prior to the end of the meeting will still be transcribed and distributed to the board. And made part of the record but will not be acknowledged during the meeting at this moment. So Kelly, I understand we have several comments. Yes. I'm going to just present these in the order that they actually came in. So the first is from Megan Lippincott of Harvey Road in Wallingford. And she commented as follows. I was calling regarding the special education plan being

203presented tomorrow night, tonight, during the meeting. During this entire time, we've not received communication from the board as they make the plans for reopening. What's that going to mean for our special education students who have IEPs that are not being properly supported properly through online learning and who are incapable of actually participating in online learning? And whether there will be special accommodations made in terms of on-site education if we are not in a red period in the fall and in the winter. I'm eagerly awaiting tomorrow's meeting, which is today's meeting. And I hope that we're able to discuss what the fall might bring for special education students. And I hope that we're able to discuss what the fall might bring for special education students who are really not doing well at this time. Thank you.

204Second comment comes from Bill Foster of Strathaven Avenue in Swarthmore. My comment is on the health and safety plan for reopening schools. In the past months, science and experience have demonstrated some important features of the COVID-19 pandemic infection that relate to the role of testing and of responding to conditions in safely reopening schools. Children and adults can both have and transmit the virus with transmission. And secondary school-aged children comparable to transmission from adults. The amount of virus is highest early in infection, often absent symptoms. And the amount of virus people have in their throat or saliva can differ person to person by a million fold. The amount of infection in a community and the strain of the local health care system can change rapidly and dramatically as undetected infection spreads. The routine availability of testing,

205mask use, and quarantines of those ill can effectively significantly reduce infections and deaths. As in the White House, Secret Service, South Korea, New Zealand. Since the risk of infection spread or exposure to a survivable or non-survivable initial dose of virus depends on the amount of virus present, million fold differences in viral amounts are a matter of life or death. Testing detects both very dangerous viral levels that drive super spreading and mortality and much less dangerous levels as positives. Including testing as part of reopening is essential. Glue testing is a grave moral hazard to staff and the community, given that it's scientific and epidemiological. Epidemiological, no, the role is clear. The technology is established and testing has been readily available to personnel in the federal government, professional sports teams, and citizens of many other countries. Our

206communities, teachers, and staff and students are no less important. In addition to testing, safe reopening of schools should include providing influenza vaccines. At school for students and staff. This avoids a serious double infection risk, avoids long school exclusion times based on assumed COVID-19 infection for influenza, will increase vaccination rates, and will avoid the myriad interactions needed for individual appointments. Strong requirements on use of masks slash face shields based on NHTSA reporting. The community-wide mortality risk of COVID-19 is similar to that of everyone in the U.S. ceasing car seat belt usage. The capacity of the student faster thanwhen 갈 skamplan kutuk, of Covid-19 as an 我們錦血 Sorry. Hi, I actually have a question that I'm hoping will get answered during tonight's board meeting around the reopening plan specific to the online academy. And that question is

207for the online academy for similar age students. So students in third grade, for instance, who are across schools, elementary schools in the district. So West and P and SRS, will they have the same online curriculum? So for those of us who are thinking about potentially gathering with other families and doing pods on the online days, would it make sense for us to do that only within West and P or SRS or is the curriculum aligned and or similar enough that we can do it across schools as well? Thank you very much. Appreciate the response. Take care. And the final comment is from Megan and Nicholas Bowers and Engel drive Wallingford. We're calling about tonight's board meeting. It's July 20th. We had two questions. One was on being that kindergarten is already half day. What will

208the plan be for half day students? Will it just be two or three hours of in-person instruction two days a week? Or are they thinking about a different model since kindergarten is already half day? And then our second question is, when will the board and the school district reevaluate the current plan that's being released? We are interested in finding out a timeline for when that will be reevaluated as data is constantly changing. In regards to COVID-19 and the pandemic. Thank you very much. I look forward to joining this evening. That concludes the comments. Thank you, Kelly. So, you know, I know that the Dr. Palmer had mentioned plans are to begin a running list of FAQs on the website. And so I think as these questions roll in, we will hopefully in the next day

209or two get some initial FAQs up and then gradually keep adding to that. As we go to try to address as many of these issues as we can. So thank you to those who called in those comments. So that takes us to our first items for action, which is the minutes. And it's the approval of the June 22nd regular business meeting and the June 25th special meeting minutes. And I so move. Do we have a second? Second, Chapin Samino. Thank you, Chapin. Any discussion? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Yes. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Samino? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Kudus? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mr. Orsetti? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. It passes. The motion passes nine to zero. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. That

210takes us to personnel. We have 13 items for action and personnel this evening. Are there any items on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Okay. We have the approval of three retirements and two resignations as indicated in the agenda. We have the approval of six appointments with dates as described in the agenda. Megan, you may go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Dr. M ke. Thank you. And we have Morgan Ptheus. And combination three retirements support. Is wokr yaşa Iana low and R teacher and the high school. Alright. Brown. A Spanish teacher at the middle school. Kelly Schmuck a math teacher at the high school. Christine Fredrickson, an instructional support teacher and West. as Director of Information Technology. We

211have a change in salary status as described in item E. We have the approval of payment of 10 months staff for work on the planning committee during the 2019-2020 school year at the rate of $37 per hour as stipulated. We have the approval of the payment to additional staff for flex time earned during the 2019-2020 school year at the rate of $37 per hour as stipulated. We have the approval of the payment to staff for the Summer Education Committee for distance and hybrid learning development at the rate of $37 per hour, not to exceed 260 cumulative hours total during the 2020 summer as stipulated. We have the approval of the correction of the per diem rate of $300 for additional days during the 2019 summer school for school counselors to their actual per diem rate.

212We have the approval of the 2020-2021 fall athletics supplementals as stipulated. I should mention that approval of the contract is contingent on the district's ability to implement such a contract. The school has food security measures and will not be required to implement such programming in the fall of 2020 as the result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis. And at its sole discretion, the district reserves the right to rescind this contract due to the pandemic and or other reasons that make implementation of the contract impractical. Next we have the approval of the 2019-2020 academic supplemental post-season pay as described in the agenda. We have the approval of payment for unused sick days among district retirees, And we have the approval of the Strathaven High School Interim Principal Summer Work at the interim per diem rate not

213to exceed 10 days during the 2020 summer. All items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved. Was that Jerry? Yes. Okay. Do we have a second? Second, Marilyn. Thank you, Marilyn. Any discussion? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Yes, I will. Ms. D'Amino? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Cutis? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mr. Orsetti? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. The motion is passed 9-0. Dr. Grandy? Okay. Thank you. Next, we move to curriculum. We have seven items for action. Are there any items on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest? Okay. We have the approval of the 2020-2021 extended school year related service provider contracts as provided. We

214have the approval of the 2020-2021 extended school year tuition contracts as stipulated. We have the adoption of a textbook as described in item C, which is introduction to general organic and biochemistry 12th edition. We have the approval of the WSSD health and safety plan for reopening schools, which we discussed earlier. We have the approval of the WSSD health and safety plan for athletics, which Mr. Abbott also described earlier. We have the approval of the WSSD return to learning school plans, which was just discussed. And then we have the approval of Colleen Bermudez to conduct educational research in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District as per her proposal and the attachment. accordance with policy number 105.3 educational research in the schools. These items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda. Do I have a

215motion? So moved. Kelly Walkman. Thank you, Kelly. Do we have a second? Second, Michelle Downey. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? Dave, I have one. It's Kelly, and I'd like to, one point I'd like to make on the health and safety plan. I understand that the shields, that the plan as written would allow for masks or shields. I would like us to move towards masks to the greatest extent possible, and I'd just like to put that out there for further evaluation as we move through the details of the plan. I will agree with Kelly on this. Okay, and yeah, it sounds like, as was mentioned earlier, Gina plans to take that back to her committee to discuss further and, you know, potentially consider modifications in that regard. I will also say that I would expect some

216of these plans to be living documents in terms of evolving as we get closer to the start of the school year and as we get into the school year. So I would certainly anticipate, uh, making ongoing changes as we go, as we, as we, uh, gather more evidence. Um, any other discussion? Okay. Miss Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Yeah. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Qudas? Aye. Mrs. Wentz? Aye. Mr. Orsetti? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Domingo? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. The motion is passed 9-0. All right, thank you. That takes us to finance. We have 12 items for approval. Are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest? Okay. We have the approval of payment of invoices to vendors from June

21713, 2020 through July 14, 2020. As attached, we have the acknowledgement of receipt of the financial statements as stipulated. We have the approval of the treasurer's reports for May and June 2020. We have the approval of a Fox Rothschild property assessment agreement as described in the agenda. We have the approval of the PlanCon case submission for general obligation bonds series 2020 for a refunding of the general obligation notes series A of 2012. We have the approval of a contract with Ernell Company not to exceed $40,000 to be paid from the capital reserve fund to complete the SRS drainage mitigation project. We have the approval of Tanika Johnson as petty cash custodian for the office of the superintendent. We have the approval of the Blackboard order form for website templates and related training at a cost

218not to exceed $4,200. We have an approval of the Core Power Incorporated 12-month service agreements for the UPS systems at Nether Providence Elementary. We have an approval of the Core Power Incorporated 12-month service agreements for the UPS systems at Nether Providence Elementary. We have the approval of the Core Power Incorporated 12-month service agreements for the UPS systems at Nether Providence Elementary. We have the acceptance of a solar power panel acquisition and installation project from the panthers for panels group. The administration is recommending that we accept this donation consistent with designs conditions and procedures to be presented to and approved by the district and its insurance carrier prior to any work taking place. The foundation for Wallingford Swarthmore Schools and Open Sky Energy have agreed that this contract will be transferred to the Wallingford Swarthmore School

219District upon execution. of the contract and payment. The foundation for Wallingford Swarthmore Schools shall retain the obligation to pay Open Sky Energy. All warranties will be transferred to the Wallingford Swarthmore School District. The completed project will be considered a donation to the Wallingford Swarthmore School District. We have the approval of the IDEA Section 611 pass-through agreement for 2020-2021 with the DCIU. And finally, we have the approval of the IDEA Section 619 pass-through agreement for 2020-2021 with the DCIU. All of these items are as attached or described in the agenda. Do I have a motion? Marilyn Huff. Thank you, Marilyn. Do we have a second? Second, Larry Kudus. Thank you, Larry. Any discussion? I just wanna say hooray for Panthers for Solar Panels. Good work, all those dedicated people on this for so long. It's so

220nice to have something. Happy to do tonight. Absolutely. Any other discussion? Yeah, the Panthers for Panels project has been in the works for five years now. This is amazing that it's finally coming through. And it is very nice to talk about something else other than the pandemic. Any other discussion? Okay, thank you for that. Ms. Figueroa, can you take a roll call vote? Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Kudus? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mr. Orsetti? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Balas? Aye. Ms. Domingo? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. Dr. Grandy, the motion's passed nine to zero. Okay, thank you. Next up is the approval of a resolution. Okay, thank you. This is a motion supporting the development of an anti-racist school climate by the board of directors of the Wallingford-Swathmore School District. This is the

221resolution that Dr. Palmer read into the record during her superintendent's report earlier in the meeting. Do I have a motion? So moved. So moved. So moved. So moved. So moved. I thought I heard Kelly. Is that correct? No, that one goes to someone else first. Jerry? It was me, yes. Okay. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll gladly second. Was that Kelly? That was Kelly. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Mr. Kudas? Aye, aye, aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mr. Orsetti? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Balas? Aye. Ms. Meno? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. The motion passes nine to zero. Thank you, everyone. That takes us to the part of the agenda where we have audience recognition for response to topics not on

222the agenda. I do not believe we had any additional comments called in. Is that correct, Kelly? That's correct. Okay. So that takes us to... Okay. So that takes us to school board reports. It's a time for reports from any board members who are serving on a district subcommittee or not a district role. Are there any reports this evening? I have a report. Okay. Please. So I have a report on an update for the school board diversity, equity, and inclusion subcommittee. And this is an update since our June 22nd board meeting. The subcommittee has been pretty busy. First of all, we reviewed, edited, and reviewed the subcommittee's report. Okay. The subcommittee reviewed, edited, and recommended the adoption of the Pennsylvania School Board Association's anti-racism resolution, which the board just voted on and approved. The resolution represents

223the district's commitment to creating and maintaining an inclusive anti-racist climate. The subcommittee solicited and reviewed applications for participation in a community-wide DEI action committee. We received a tremendous response and selected a talented, committed group of parents and guardians. They were current and former students, community members, teachers, and administrators. Committee members were selected to represent the diversity of our community across race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and ability status, as well as our various schools and geographical communities. The committee is tasked with helping the district work to create a culture that truly recognizes and values difference, that actively ensures that each student receives what they individually need to reach their potential. and that all students genuinely feel seen and respected. Earlier this month, the subcommittee met with Dr. Heather Bennett, Director of Equity Services from PSBA. PSBA

224has consolidated best practices and developed toolkits, training, and other resources to support school districts that are seeking to ensure that equity is the foundational lens through which all district policies and decisions are viewed. The subcommittee will continue to collaborate with PSBA to inform the work of the board subcommittee and the community-wide DEI committee. In fact, we've invited Dr. Bennett to conduct training with the entire board and with the superintendent because the understanding of and commitment to equity and inclusion must begin at the top. We've begun discussions with the NAACP media chapter and the Anti-Defamation League to coordinate and facilitate a number of school and community-wide conversations. More to come on that as we clarify the structure and goals for these conversations. And finally, we've scheduled the initial meeting of the community-wide DEI action committee for

225this week. We're excited about getting to know everyone on the committee and about tackling the challenge of breaking down our ambitious goals into meaningful, achievable, and actionable objectives. Thank you. Thank you for that report, Michelle. And I just want to thank the four board members who have put in an enormous amount of work with really trying to kickstart these activities. And I want to thank the board for their commitment and their dedication to helping us to make these activities in our district quickly. And I know that there is certainly a lot going on as we talk through everything related to school reopening, but these issues need our attention now as well. And so I really appreciate all the work that you all have done to push it forward. Do we have any other reports from

226board members on any other district, out-of-district roles, or sub-committees? Any other business? Do we have any old business this evening? OK, hearing none. Do we have any new business? OK. Well, did somebody put their hand up? Damon, are you waving? I don't know if Michelle's hand is still up from before or if this is something else. I think it was still up. Michelle, do you have another item or your hand was up from earlier? It was from earlier. I didn't realize you had to put it down. OK. OK. Your arm's not tired. Thank you. Virtual hand. Anyway, I do want to, I know we had a lot of community members very interested in tuning in this evening. I want to thank everyone for sticking with us and listening to plans. Again, I want to encourage

227everyone to continue to, if you have questions, again, we'll try to get as many answers posted in the next day or two. But we will keep adding to that and just try to be a little bit patient. So please keep a little bit patient with us as we try to respond to as many as possible. So with that, thank you very much to all of our board members, all the district leadership and staff for participating this evening. And this meeting is adjourned.