WSSD Board Meeting 09/21/20

001Good evening, everyone. I now call this September 21st special meeting of the Wallingford Swarthmore School Board to order. In pursuant to policy 006.1, we are holding this meeting remotely given the current public health crisis. In an opening, I will start with the 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? Here. Ms. Cimino? Here. Dr. Downey? Here. Dr. Huff? Here. Mr. Kudus? Here. Mrs. Lentz? Here. Mrs. Walkman? Here. Dr. Grandy? Here. Mr. Berman? Here. Superintendent Palmer? Here. Dr. Grandy, there are eight voting members present. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. So I'll start

002with board announcements. The board did meet prior to this meeting an executive session to discuss potential litigation. I also want to open with a few comments to kick off our discussion this evening. And as many of you know, last week, Dr. Palmer presented a plan for a phased reopening of our buildings for the hybrid education plan. And tonight, we're meeting to consider that plan as well as an athletics plan put forward by the Central League and its member schools, along with modifications to our own plan. I do want to start with a few important comments to preface this discussion this evening. First, we appreciate the engagement of our community as we make plans for the school year. Our job on this board is to make the best decisions on behalf of all students and families

003in our district. And that means we must weigh what is best for all students. And that means we must consider how our decisions impact health and education more broadly. When we voted to begin the year all virtual in August, we faced a substantial spike in COVID cases. This was late July and early August. And since that time, there are a number of things that have changed, mostly for the better. The incidence rate, which reflects the number of newly diagnosed cases, has dropped substantially, about half of what it was in late July, and that is good news. The positivity rate, which reflects two things, the current level of transmission and whether there's adequate testing in our community. Positivity rate can be high if there is not enough testing and positivity rate can also be high if

004transmission is becoming more widespread. In Delaware County, the positivity rate has dropped to just over 3%. It had been as high as around 6% back in late July and it has steadily improved and has remained at four or less for the past four weeks. The most recent weekly incidence rate for the county is 46 per 100,000 people per week. That is 46 cases of COVID per 100,000 people in the county when aggregated over a full week. And that rate has also been stable for the past four weeks. For our district, the rate is a little better. Over the past two weeks, it has been in the mid-30s. In the two weeks prior, it was in the mid 40s. Now we can't make too much of a one week number in our district because we're just

005not that big in terms of a population. And so just a swing of a couple cases can cause a significant change in that rate. But we have sustained stability in our own district. And the takeaway is this. We are in a far better place now than we were in late July and early August. Rates are better and rates are stable. But that does not mean we do not need to be careful. Social distancing, masking, and hygiene are what will prevent cases from rising. And I can't say that strongly enough. Our rates are not zero. CHOP Policy Lab, who's been advising school districts in the region over the last several months, has recently recommended that schools begin a phased reopening. And based on their guidelines and our protocols, we are in the range to follow this

006path. And a phased reopening has some key advantages. First, it prioritizes the students that are most in need of face-to-face education, our youngest learners in particular. And it gives us a little more time to see that rates do not rise before our secondary students reenter our buildings. Finally, I want to make an ask of all the families in our district. Our teachers and administrators have worked so hard to implement our virtual instruction and have done so fabulously. And now they're working extremely hard to plan for hybrid instruction. We are committed to adapting as we go. We will start with the model presented this evening, but we have to take one step at a time. And if something is not working, we can adapt as we have done already. I think some, many were skeptical that

007a virtual model would work, and we've heard from so many how impressed they've been with the quality and the work that our teachers have done. So my message and ask is to give things a chance to move forward, and then we can adapt as needed over time. The changes to the hybrid model you'll hear about this evening reflect adaptations from what we've already learned from our virtual model. I do believe it's time to take a step forward in bringing kids back to our school buildings. We have layers of protection. We have protocols in place to bring students back safely. And I hope we can move forward with welcoming students back in our buildings. And I look forward to discussing that this evening. So that takes us to our superintendent's report. Dr. Palmer. Thank you, Dr.

008Grandy. As Dr. Grandy said, this is one of those times where we are adapting as we go, and I'd like to look at it as an evolution. When we presented our reopening plan, we presented initially that we were going to come back in a hybrid fashion, and that was in July. And then by August, we came forward and said that we were going to go forward with a virtual program. For all of the figures and all of the considerations that Dr. Grandy said, we believe we are at a place now where we can come back in a virtual manner. And I have some dates that I'd like to share with you that are a little bit different than what I shared at the last board meeting. So we are making a recommendation this evening that

009all WSSD schools move forward with hybrid learning, with cohorts of students returning, not everyone at one time. in every building but with cohorts of students and I'm recommending that all students in grades K-2 come back on Thursday, October 1st. That's different than what I said before. This working out the program it made more sense to have us bring children back on October 1st. We are then looking to bring in students in grades 3-5 on Monday, October 5th. Students in grades 6 to 12 identified for the complex needs cohort. We'd also like to bring them in on Monday, October 5th. Students in grades 6 to 8, we'd like to start on October 12th, along with our students in grades 9 to 12 on October 12th as well. You have heard us talk about how we were

010evolving in the spring and we were doing the best we could. Then you heard Dr. Cittarelli-Jones come forward saying that we'd like to be the best that we can be. And you've seen us lead with our best foot forward as we opened the school year. Now we're continuing to refine and we are getting ready to move from virtual to hybrid. And you have my assurance. And I'm going to speak for the entire administrative team, the assurance of the entire administrative team that we will continue to look at how we are all learning individually and collectively as we move into hybrid learning and think of further ways that we can evolve in small or large ways. But we're bringing our initial plan forward this evening. So my colleagues will be joining me this evening, and we

011are going to talk about a number of items. And our agenda may seem small, but it's really substantive. We're going to talk about the changes in our education plan that move us from virtual to hybrid. Then our athletic director, Pat Clancy, is going to join us and talk about athletics in a very comprehensive way. For all of the parents who have written to us, and many, many parents have written to us, and many, many student athletes have written to us as well. We have read everything that you have sent us. We have tried to respond to everyone individually. And I know we have not gotten everyone, so I apologize for that, but we have absolutely read everything that has come our way. Some has come individually to me, Dr. Hilden, Mr. Clancy, and or the

012school board, but we have looked at absolutely everything. And it really is very complex to look at what we're going to be able to do for sports, and it's still very much a work in progress. So Mr. Clancy will be presenting, what does the Central Athletic League return to competition? plan look like, as well as our own safety plan. So as we move through the night, you will hear an awful lot of information and you may be taking notes feverishly. But please know that we do have items that are posted on board docs right now on our website. And I will be sending out a frequently asked question document tomorrow. The admin team has been working on that. And I'll also be sending you links to the individual documents that we're talking about. So don't

013be afraid that you're going to miss something. We will definitely. recap for you tomorrow. And I'm just looking to see if I missed anything. Dr. Grandy, I think that's it. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Palmer. And I think that means it's time to jump right into our focus topics this evening. I believe we're starting with our modifications to our return to school plan, education plan. So I'll let Dr. Palmer introduce our speakers. So this evening, many, many of my colleagues are on the Zoom with me tonight. And I know Dr. Sidorelli-Jones is going to start our presentation and she has our principals with her as well. Also included with me are my colleagues, Martha Q, Ferg Abbott, Gina Ross. We have spoken about the safety plan. in a variety of ways in the past. And while

014we may not be presenting directly for all of the pieces of the presentation tonight, we're all on standby to answer questions as well. So Denise, I'll let you queue it up however you would like to. Okay, thank you, Dr. Palmer. I am going to start sharing screens, so just bear with me one moment. Okay. So we wanted to speak with everyone tonight to talk a little bit about the revisions that are being made to our cohort model. And I'm just going to take you on a bit of a tour through where we have been going and to arrive at this point in time. So in July, as Dr. Palmer indicated, the education plan was passed by a school board vote. And in that education plan, we were looking to begin in a cohort model. So

015as we started working toward a cohort model, we were determining lots of things in the education plan about that cohort model. What would learning look like? When would students meet? When students would come in? What does an A and a B cohort look like? When would they meet? What would the technology be? And on and on. So we continued to work through that until we reached the point where the decision was made. to go virtual for the school start. And so we immediately started switching gears, looking at reallocating staff, looking at the online academy, having those things ironed out, and then getting ready for that August 31st opening of school and virtual for all of our students. Once that started, immediately on September 1st, our teachers began to evaluate the classroom. They started evaluating the

016technology, their comfort level with that technology. They started evaluating their classroom management and the entire learning environment. And in that evaluation, some new ideas bubbled to the surface at the teacher level that they were very excited about. And so they asked administration if we could sit down and we could talk about some of their ideas, and we were happy to do that. So on September 11th, we had our first revision meeting is what I will call it. And that's where the teachers and the administration sat down to talk about the hybrid model, what our original plan was back in July, and that we now have new things that we know, new data that we understand, new abilities that teachers have, new awareness of student learning that we had not had previously. And so this new

017thinking emerged. So from there, we put together a plan, which will be what we will be proposing tonight. And on September 14th, teacher surveys were sent out so that we could get that feedback. The teacher group designed the survey, sent it out to their colleagues, received the data, analyzed the data, and came back with the understanding that many, many, many teachers, up in the 90%, approved of the plan and liked the changes we were proposing for the hybrid model. So what we are doing now is we continue to discuss, we're continuing to define what we mean with the hybrid model, where everything is going to take place. So schedules are even up to the moment being revised and optimized, I guess is the best word for it. so that we really have a great plan

018moving forward. So some of those details will be coming out tomorrow. And again, we will continue to refine that work as we move forward. But we are excited about these changes. And in one part, we know that this is going to make it possible for us to get the more curriculum actually out to our students than in the original plan. with two days in and three days asynchronous. What we'd be looking for, especially at the elementary level, is an increase in synchronous time. And we're also looking for the ability to get our curriculum moving forward. There is concern. from us about the gap that happened in the spring. And as much as our teachers did their best to ameliorate that gap, at the end of the day, it's not brick and mortar learning and we

019understand that. So it's important to us that we get our students back and that we start to make things feel familiar to them, comfortable to them. And we do that with full days of school. So one of the things I wanted to talk about before I hand it over to the principals to go through an overview of what hybrid will look like at each level is to talk about an adaptive decision-making model. This is a model that really has a lot of what's called feedback loops, and it's an opportunity for us to identify a problem, identify potential solutions to that problem, to then think through all of the ways of looking at that problem and the solutions that we are generating. And then from there, once decisions are made and then implemented, it is very

020important. It reminds me a lot of the way we do vertical teams. It is very important that we have that analysis of all of the decisions that we've made. We have to continually evaluate that through data, through observation, even anecdotal, so that we can gather evidence about whether or not we need to continue to tweak or maybe even revise completely. And if we have that adaptive decision-making model in mind as we make decisions, that will help fuel us moving forward, rather than being reactionary, rather than compulsively comparing ourselves to all districts around us, many of whom are sort of looking at what their context says they should be doing, and everybody's educational context is different. So we instead want to really study our own context, what's working for our families, our students. and our teachers.

021So you'll hear me say that quite a bit as we continue through this year, that this adaptive decision making gives us an opportunity to revise. So nothing is set in stone and nothing should be set in stone during this untested waters of pandemic learning. And so I just want to sort of give an overview of what I'm talking about with that idea, because I think it will help people understand that sometimes decisions will be overturned, will be changed, will be tweaked, but it's important to continue to adapt, especially as new information becomes available. So what you're seeing on the screen now is some information about the hybrid model and sort of an overarching theme behind it. Our new hybrid model, again, that both administration and teachers worked on together, really builds on the notion that

022students should have routines and learning environments that are both familiar to students, which is a full-day model. and ensure lesson pacing that does not rush the learning process. What we know about student learning is that students need room and sort of space, time even, to breathe into a subject. It gives them an opportunity to really get that learning curve working, to hear other people asking questions, to sit in their own awareness of knowledge, to blend that knowledge and assimilate it into what they already know. Short classes don't always do the same thing that longer classes do. It's one of the reasons why we are trying to extend our school day. And you'll see that theme throughout each one of the levels. And then the last thing I want to say about the hybrid model before

023I turn it over is that, again, because we're doing adaptive decision making, that implementation will really be followed closely by that monitoring, by the feedback loops, that input, and by reassessing our decisions against established criteria. the principals and I will be meeting to talk about what that established criteria is going to be moving forward. We have criteria from the past, we have criteria from the summer, but as the pandemic learning plan evolves, we're going to have new criteria that comes to the forefront. And so we want to make sure to continuously be evaluating the criteria so that we can continuously reassess our decisions against emerging criteria. So you're going to see that a little bit as you move forward in the evening here with each one of these levels. And then at the end for

024the school board members, there's time for questions and comments. So what I'd like to do is turn it over to Mr. Al Heinle, who is another Providence Elementary Schools principal, and he's going to be walking us through the elementary cohort schedule. Thank you, Dr. Starelli-Jones. I just wanted to start very similar to how I said it last week. We're very excited to see our youngest learners coming back to school. Certainly, we'll be bringing a sense of normalcy back for all of us. Despite the challenges that we continue to face, we are absolutely excited to have K-2 potentially return on October 1st. Once again, we're excited for the opportunity to see our students face to face once again. I'm just going to give a very, very brief overview of the schedule that's been presented a couple

025of times, and then I'll go right to the key component of the proposed change for the elementary level. As you know, as previously mentioned, each class, all of our students will be broken into two groups. The first group, cohort A, will receive in-person instruction on both Monday and Tuesday. Conversely, students in cohort B will receive in-person instruction on Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will be an asynchronous day for both cohorts in terms of academic work, apart from the opportunity to interact with their peers and their classroom teacher via the morning meeting. The morning meeting will continue to be a daily opportunity for all students and their teachers to come together. So there's no change to the scheduled morning meeting, which will occur daily Monday through Friday. The most significant update to the elementary cohort model is

026the increased engagement with their classroom teacher when not receiving in-person instruction. Students who are at home will now have the ability to synchronously Zoom with their peers for direct instruction of a mini lesson or taught concept in the core areas of ELA and mathematics. The previous plan was for completely asynchronous instruction on the days when students were not in person. So after learning some of the lessons from the beginning of the online environment and also working with our teachers, we are looking at providing that opportunity to increase engagement and also for continuity of instruction. So while independent work and asynchronous activities may still be assigned, the inclusion of the synchronous Zoom opportunities will provide, again, additional interaction and, again, provide continuity of instruction. Social studies, science, and special areas will receive their core instruction when

027students are in person at school, as outlined in the original plan. So overall, basically the plan stays the same. Our students will be separated into two cohorts with the big change being the synchronous opportunity on the days when students are at home in the core subjects of ELA and math. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Heinle. And it's also worth noting that the specific times of when ELA and math will meet for those synchronous Zoom attendance is going to be published and will be put out because we want to make sure that our families know what those times are. We understand that there will be child care that needs and parents who are working from home and all of that needs to be worked out. So we will be getting those times out to you. I've

028seen the latest. version of that schedule just recently from Mr. Gabe Savage and we have several people putting an eye to it now and as soon as it's available and we imagine that'll be sooner rather than later we will get that out to families. All right I'm going to turn it over to Mr. George King to talk about the middle school changes. Thank you, Dr. Jones, and good evening, everyone. Before I discuss the proposed changes to the hybrid model at the middle school, I would first like to thank all of our teachers for their support, as these changes would not have come to fruition without their willingness to go above and beyond our expectations. I would also like to thank our middle school parents for the countless emails supporting the efforts of my staff and

029for sharing their thoughts regarding the possibility of increasing synchronous student-teacher interaction. This proposed schedule is based on our current understanding of virtual learning, and it reflects our best thinking at this time. In the new hybrid schedule, we propose to increase synchronous student learning interaction to four full days per week. So it breaks down this way, two full days of in-person attendance and two full days of virtual attendance via Zoom. This will increase the much coveted face-to-face student-teacher interaction by 140 minutes a week. Over the four full days, this proposal will also significantly increase the total amount of synchronous student teaching learning interaction by 581 minutes. Remember, many of those minutes previously were asynchronous, so now they will be synchronous. In addition to the seven 44-minute class periods, which mirror a typical middle school schedule, students

030will also have a 35-minute lunch period as well. And as you can see by the middle school graphic, the schedule remains cohort specific and provides the same amount of instructional minutes for our online academy students. If approved, we will send out the new schedule with specific times for direct instruction of core courses this week. Teachers will be available on Wednesdays for office hours and student support. Clubs will also meet and asynchronous work will be assigned. After reviewing the new schedule this week, parents will be afforded the opportunity to switch from the model in which they originally selected. An example of this would be if you originally selected the online academy, but would now like to select the cohort model, or if you were cohort and would like to switch to online, you will be able

031to do so. We'll send out further information this week, so look for a blast probably by Wednesday or Thursday with the details about that. I know that once this agenda went out today, I already had four requests for online to cohort. So this is going to be a real situation. We're also aware that the issue of Zoom fatigue needs to be considered. I've heard from the parents about that. So although there's not an easy fix to this, particularly in an online educational environment. There are a few ideas that we are going to highlight with our staff in the days to come. Just some things that will help immediately is that we're going to have two days of face-to-face learning that will enable us to control screen time at school. We can also assign more paper

032and pencil tasks both at home and in school. Examples would be journal writing and reflections, enrichment and skill reinforcement activities, things that the kids can turn the screen away for both in and out of school. Allowing screen breaks once students have completed independent work at home. I'm sure there are many ideas that will help alleviate this issue. So we will discuss this topic and elicit feedback from our faculty at our next staff meeting. So with that, if there are any questions or we're going to wait for the high school, I believe that really encapsulates the major changes to the middle school. But as you can see, it has really increased the synchronous learning minutes almost twofold. With that, I would turn it back to Dr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate the overview of

033that. And I think it can't be understated the value of lunch for students. If you've ever been in a building where you see the lunchroom and students engaging in lunch, we're able to provide a safe place for students to be able to eat lunch and to see their friends. That interaction alone will be very important to their social development, very important to... going at the distance to feeling like they are back in school. And I think in terms of their mental and social wellbeing, that's a really important thing. And we're excited to be able to provide that for our students. All right, I am gonna be turning this now over to the high school so that we can take a look at the high school cohort schedule with Dr. Hilden. You might be muted. Let's

034just check. Dr. Hilden are muted, I think. Or audio not working. Yeah. Yeah, he's might be audio not working because I see the mute is off. Should we take questions on elementary and middle? Hold on. Feel free to just jump in if you think you've got it figured out. Yeah, that's fine. So if board members have questions, you can put your Zoom hand up and I'll call on you. Marilyn. I have questions. I think it's the same question actually at the elementary level and the middle school level. With it looks like on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, the students will be Zooming. Some students will be Zooming in from home and watching a live instruction in the school. Is that true for both? For ELA and math at the elementary level and for all classes

035at the middle school, is that accurate? Yes, Carolyn, that's accurate. Okay. And I'm concerned about, it's quite difficult to teach both a lot to a group of live students and a group of remote students. And I'm concerned about that. Being as effective as the online virtual education we have going on right now is actually really working well for a lot of students. Not everybody, but for a lot of students it is. And I'm concerned that we might be losing something with that transition. I certainly understand that concern and where I can't give empirical data that says that's absolutely not true because this is some untested theory that's going into this decision. I will say that right now, if we are bringing students back into the building, we are not all virtual. And so when students

036come back into the building, there's a vibrancy that comes along with teaching with students in front of you. That sort of changes the dynamic. And in the model prior to this, the teachers would be teaching, let's say, lessons on Monday and Tuesday and then repeating those lessons on Thursday and Friday, which means we were still going to get through curriculum, but that students would be doing a lot of asynchronous learning through videos and on their own in order to make progress. Whereas when students can zoom into the classroom, that. is the perfect way for them to hear the questions other students are asking, for them to feel a part of the classroom environment, because the teacher will be able to monitor that Zoom. There's been some discussion about having some Zoom monitors to help with

037that. We've been floating out different ideas for it. Teachers have been talking about their confidence level with being able to do that. The classroom setups are such that the Zoom is, or the computer rather, is right up front. and the students are sort of around it in a bit of a semi-circle so that the teacher can interact with those students and still see the hands being raised in Zoom. And we think it's far better. than students learning on their own in an asynchronous way. So as I mentioned before in adaptive decision making, we will certainly be revisiting this and broadening our tech options, broadening our classroom management, maybe even adding additional staff where we need to, but we do feel of the model of students learning three days on their own, this is far superior.

038So you mentioned that the students that are from home will be able to hear the questions of the students that are in the classroom. Yes, that's right. So there will be speakers. How will they be able to do that? There are speakers that are in the class. And, you know, AJ is here. You certainly could answer some of the technology questions. But there are speakers that are in each classroom and they've been tested. We've been working on that through the summer, actually. And there will be microphones so that all of that can be picked up. What the students will not be able to do is see the other students, but they will be able to hear that. And, you know, classroom management is something that our teachers, you know, are going to work through. There'll

039be a little bit of growing pain with that. But if you recall, we're going to have half of the students in the classroom that are normally in the classroom. So if you're looking at 12 students in a classroom as opposed to 24, we feel confident that that's not the same kind of classroom management. drag that it can be during normal times. So these are the things that we have to test and we have to work out and we have to evaluate as we move forward. Okay. I know Jen has her hand up, but I want to see if Dr. Hilden's audio is working out. Dr. Hilden? Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. All right. I apologize. Is it okay if we hold your question, Jen? We'll let Dr. Hilden go and then we'll come

040back to questions. Okay, great. Go ahead, Dr. Hilden. So I apologize for the delay. I just wanted to start by reiterating my appreciation as well, similar to the other administrators. The feedback loop from our stakeholders, especially our parents and teachers, really provided us with an opportunity to provide a more efficacious instructional model. We will also continue to use that model to evaluate potential changes and adaptations as we move forward. I would like to note that in the chart and the document that is on the agenda on page 11, there is a typo in the published document. It should reflect what is in the actual discursive language on page 3 and read, if the online academy remains above 300, students may be in person for the full day. We at this time are not recommending a

041hybrid model with a lunch at the high school. Just as the middle school mentioned, we also have had a few requests today after viewing the hybrid to switch to either from the online academy to the cohort and vice versa. So we also will be resurveying, as Dr. Palmer mentioned last week, our community members to see if anybody would like to switch. With that being said, I'm actually going to turn it over to Dr. Chris Metz-Stanka to share the updates to our cohort model. Thank you, Dr. Hilden. Again, I just want to echo the other statements from Mr. King and Mr. Heinle. It's really exciting to be having these conversations tonight and thinking about our kids and our staff back in our building safely. So really excited to be here tonight. I'm going to talk briefly

042about the newly proposed hybrid plan for the high school. This plan will continue to use two cohorts. Cohort A will attend in-person schooling for two 80-minute periods in the a.m. on Monday and two 80-minute periods in the p.m. on Tuesday. During these times, Cohort B and the online academy students will attend class using Zoom. Teachers will live stream their lessons during each block. Both in the afternoon on Monday and in the morning on Tuesday, all students will attend virtually. Cohort B will attend in person on Thursday morning and Friday afternoon. During these times, cohort A and online academy students will attend class using Zoom. Both in the afternoon on Thursday and in the morning on Friday, all students will attend virtually. Wednesdays will continue to be synchronous with opportunities for clubs and additional support, and

043lunch will take place at home. There are several reasons for the change to this model. In the board-approved hybrid model, students will receive 180 minutes per cohort of direct instruction per day. In the newly proposed hybrid model, students will receive 280 minutes of direct instruction per cohort per day. We've eliminated the asynchronous work on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Version 2 will also allow for students to attend class at the same time. albeit some students will be in person while others will be attend virtually using Zoom. Cohort A, Cohort B, and Online Academy will learn the same content at the same time. In the board approved version, the cohorts will be separated all the time. And in the new version, students will have the opportunity to attend fifth block once a week in person to

044get additional support from teachers. In the approved version, fifth block is completely virtual. One of the questions that we commonly get, parents and students will ask us, why not rotate periods around at the high school? And I think it's important to note that we have several students attending the technical school for various programs. Because technical school serves all of Delaware County. they cannot adapt to every single schedule. So we have to adapt to them. And that's why we continue to run schedules blocks one through four. That just seems in that order. It just seems like that's a common question that we've been getting. But it's very important to us to make sure our tech students also have the right schedule. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Natsenka. At this time, we're going to move into questions

045or comments from the board. All right. Thank you for that. I see Michelle has her hand up. Go ahead, Michelle. Were we going to address Jen first? Or I'm fine with going if that's okay with Jen. I didn't see Jen's hand back up yet. So I was waiting to see if it went back up again. But why don't we start with you? And then I think Jen probably will put her hand up. Probably. I was wondering if you could address how, if or how the changes in the high school schedule, if there's any consideration for some of the feedback that was given at the last meeting about students feeling pretty overloaded, feeling like there was a lot of homework and a lot of expectations in the workload. And I guess I'm curious about... what the

046thoughts are about that. Thank you, Dr. Downey. I think that the elimination of the asynchronous work on the non-Wednesday, so Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, is a direct result of that feedback. I think... Having class live with everyone in class, whether it be in person or via Zoom, allows everyone to stay on the same page and prevents that need to provide additional work outside the traditional quote-unquote homework that you would have. So I see this schedule as a large reduction in that asynchronous work, which is difficult to know how to pace with such a variety of learners in the classroom. Jen? Michelle, did you have a follow-up? Are you? No? Okay. Go ahead, Jen. Thanks, Dave. My first question is about the elementary school level for the cohort model. When it comes to the synchronous days

047for the off cohort or the at-home cohort, is there going to be recorded lessons available as well? I know there has been thus far for some of the core lessons, just in case they were to miss those live in-classroom lessons in ELA and math. I can take that one. We are not going to continue with the recording of the lessons. Instead, what we're going to do, because we are finding that many, many students are attending, and we also feel that some of the reasons why students were not, if they were not able to attend, which was conjecture on our part, would have been because of things like Zoom fatigue. But with two days in and two days out. we are we're feeling that that zoom fatigue will be mitigated quite a bit. So it's our

048intention to use the normal strategies that we do for when students are unable to attend. class, and that is for the teacher to reach out to the parent, to discuss ways in which students can get caught up on the work. It's also time for the teacher to be able, on the asynchronous Wednesday, to meet with students for helping to make up that work, to talk to them about some of the learning things. There could be instructional videos that go along with that, and many of our teachers are comfortable in generating videos regularly, but that's not something that we're mandating that teachers do once we move into this hybrid schedule. Okay. And for a child that may be sick or quarantined, even if they're not symptomatic, are they able then, and I guess this would be

049for all of the models, all of the cohort models at all schools, but I had the elementary school in mind, are they able to zoom in rather than go into their two days if health reasons called for that? Yeah, that's actually a really great question. So I'm going to write that down and get working on that tomorrow. Okay. And I'm looking also at the elementary school online academy, as well as the fully online learning model for students. And I noticed the second grade and the fourth grade don't have their full lunch period synced with the other classes. with the other grades. I do see that there are other things that are prohibiting that on this schedule, but I would say that unless that can't be moved due to some sort of logistics, I know the

050way that that has played out in my neighborhood and some other neighborhoods is that it leaves some kids without buddies to play with outside. during their lunch or break times. So that may be something to consider where it can be moved to sync the elementary school lunches. I think it makes for a more lively break for those families that are feeling comfortable doing that. That's a great suggestion. Those are all my questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And can I actually, I actually missed your last point. So what was it about the lunches again that you were saying? So it came, it was, it. It came to everyone's understanding after a week or so of school had started that not all the grades along the elementary schools had the same synchronized lunch periods. And I

051think for some caregivers and parents, that was helpful because it allowed them to pay attention to other kids in school while some other kids didn't have to be in school. But for other caregivers and for some kids, that became problematic because when some kids had to go back for class, others were left with no one to sort of blow off that steam with during the breaks. Conversely, when some kids were still in class, they're getting knocks on the door and hearing kids start to play. So I know that every neighborhood doesn't operate. that way. But I know that mine does. And I know of at least four others that I've heard similar complaints from. So I just thought I would raise it. If those can be synced, that might make more sense. If they can't,

052they can't. Yeah, I actually, I had a question about lunch and maybe I'll just jump in because I wanted to ask actually how, so at the high school, we don't need to handle lunch. I know the middle school and the elementary schools, we do need to handle lunch. And lunch is a high risk part of the day when kids are face to face because masks need to obviously come off to eat. So. Maybe my question will go in the opposite direction to argue for how we segment lunch. But I guess it's a question for elementary and middle school, how we're maintaining social distancing during lunch. Because again, it's probably among the more higher risk parts of the day when masks need to come off. I can take that one. Currently for elementary school, we have

053several eight foot tables that have been purchased for each of the buildings. So that means that there will be two students per table. Then the tables are spaced six feet apart, both front and to the side. This allows for students not only to only be two to a table, but all to be facing the same direction. So when their masks are off, they're all facing in the same direction. And we're hoping that helps to mitigate the issues. We're also putting stickers on the floor so that as students even go through the line, they are spaced six feet apart. in order to do that. We also are looking at staggering our start times for when students go to lunch and then when they exit so we don't have full classes moving at the same time and

054also back to class as well. Now we do know and we do understand that when you do that, it's going to take away from instructional minutes that students would typically be in time because those things are simply just, they're just going to take time and that's the reality of what we're going to deal with. but because of the safety risk, we feel like it's something we have to do. Can I jump in on that also? In terms of masking, we will be enforcing and supporting students that when they're at lunch, their masks are on except if they're in the process of eating. So if we're in line, if we're sitting, if we get done early, things like that, our masks do go on. So we'll be reinforcing that also. And how about the middle school?

055Yes, Dr. Grandy, the middle school, I think with all the provisions that Gabe just mentioned, we also have in place. And also you'll have to consider that our cafeteria typically holds approximately 310 to 320 students on any given day. There will only be about 90 students at each lunch after you take out half the cohort and then the online academy students. So we also have the students distance at 60 facing the same way. And we're also planning on as soon as a student is done with their lunch, when the weather permits, they will immediately be able to go outside or we will have staff outside to keep the kids six feet apart. Obviously, they can walk the track and get a little fresh air. And then we'll have our entrances and exits labeled so kids

056don't cross paths coming in and out of the building. And the lunch line is also going to be a grab and go. Okay. All right, thank you. I see a hand up from Marilyn. Yeah, so... Let me think about the elementary level. I have been quite impressed by the number of parents who have actually commented on how good the virtual education has been going so far, which I really did not expect that many elementary aged families to be having a good experience. So congratulations, you guys did a great job. My question is, with these changes, for the students that are in the online academy at the elementary level, will they still be getting the same quality of an education that they are getting now or are they losing out with these changes? I don't see

057any reason why the quality of education would change for the online academy students at this time. As of right now, they have the consistent schedule, consistent teachers, consistent processes of everything that is going on. That's not really changing. I would say the thing that we are continuing looking at is the specials piece to try to improve that with the amount of classes that are the specials at a time. Other than that, everything is the same. And I think that consistency actually plays into the favor of those in the online academy. That's great. And so now, since we're also in a place where we should be keeping the number of students that are in the building low, can students opt to switch from hybrid to the online academy at the elementary level? I would say that

058would be very difficult. One, we can't control. One of the reasons why we asked people to commit to a half year or four years for staffing. The fluctuation of staffing was pretty tremendous to try to get the online academy set up. If we were to open it up on the elementary level at this point, it is very likely we would not have the teachers available to actually support the students who would be interested in doing so. Just thinking through a little bit of the process to set up the online academy, in my building alone, there were about seven teachers who went from the building to the online academy. That means that those grade levels and classes were shifted. so that we could support the amount of students who were there. Going through a process like

059that at this point in time would have a significant impact, not just on the online academy, but also on the kids in the cohort. So everyone would be going through pretty significant changes, including the teachers who would have to prepare, maybe even be shifted to try to teach something totally, teach in a totally different way, in a totally different place with maybe even a very, a brand new class. So that was one of the reasons why on the elementary level, we really made it clear that we needed to establish some consistency, which is why I don't think that would be the best process at this time. Right. At the same time, I would feel folks made their choice between the online and academy and the hybrid model without test driving the car. So it's in

060a kind of a difficult position. So then my other question is, we're moving away from elementary school now. So the timing of the rollout, which I agree with starting with the kids that are not. doing well with the online option first. And that does tend to be the younger students, but then also students with complex needs as well. I'm worried that we are actually rolling it out so quickly that is there time actually in that rollout actually to see if there are problems? I think that's a good question, Dr. Palmer. I'm wondering if you can take that one. No, Dr. Huff, one of the things that I thought about was how quickly could we bring everybody back? And I know many of our parents would like their children to all be brought back right now.

061And when talking with my colleagues in our weekly meetings, and in some cases, we are talking twice a week. We're also talking with medical professionals. And everyone has talked about bringing children back in this phased-in approach. I would love the luxury of more time to bring kids back, spread it out. But I also know for students' well-being, I want to get them back into school as well in person quickly, but not so quickly that we are not taking all of our safety measures. This appeared to be the best way to bring children back, work through the protocols that we know are in place. and also continue to refine. I'm confident with the numbers that we have here. I even toyed with, might we consider looking at K235 longer? And I don't want to do it.

062I want to bring the kids back as quickly as we can. And I do believe it's safe for us to do that. I know there are parents that will say, I wish you took longer. But when we initially made this decision, this is the timeline when we said we would like to bring children back. I do believe with all of the provisions that we have in place and we worked on them all summer, I believe we can do it. So that there is some value in that. In that our numbers in the county are quite low right now, and we don't know how long that will last, which brings to my follow up question. At what point, if cases start to rise, do we pull the plug. I'm actually going to take that one as

063well. I think about that part constantly. Because what I don't want to do is have us go back and then blink and we're back out again, even though we know we can do virtual instruction. I think as we are talking with the Chester County Department of Health, and again, when I'm on those calls, whether it's my Monday call or my Tuesday call, we're talking very regularly. It is not the hope that if we have an incident in our building that we will close. We're really going to look to that contact tracing and hope that the incidents do not require us to change. Or maybe we would have a subset of our building that would be out. But I know the Chester County Department of Health wants to get on the contact tracing as quickly as

064possible to try to avoid shutting down a school. So we would look first at that relationship and might it be a building. Might it be, I'm sorry, might it be a classroom? Might it be a group of people before we have to look at shut down a building? And I know they would not want to look at shutting down a district. So I know the hope is to try to keep people in school as much as possible with great reliance on the contact tracing. I also will reiterate, it is so unbelievably important. that we do what Dr. Grandy said before, that we outside of the classroom will directly impact what goes on in the classroom. Just today when I was on our call, we are hearing that the contact tracing that is taking place is

065taking place with events that are happening in the community. Children may be in school or children may be in a daycare, but they're coming into that school or into that daycare with COVID. They're not spreading it in the school. So depending on how vigilant we are as a community will directly impact our ability to keep parts of our school open or our whole school open. And I really would love to believe that our community will partner with us and we will do everything we can to keep our kids in school. So are you saying that a decision about closing a class or school or a building? or the district would come from the Chester County Health Department? It will come in consultation. It won't necessarily be that they will come out and say that we

066will close, but it will be in consultation. We have the protocols in place that we are, you know, we report when we have certain incidents, but I know they will get quickly on the contact tracing. They may, based on what they find, say this is one of those instances where you close or the relationship between the individuals who may be. impacted, it may be one that we don't close, but it will be in close consultation. I also will point out one item now. We have our training scheduled for tomorrow, specifically with the Chester County Department of Health. So we have our team being trained so that we understand exactly what that partnership is. exactly how do we look at a variety of scenarios where individuals may have a primary exposure or a secondary or even

067a tertiary exposure. We've been training all along casually and in a group. Tomorrow we are having our intense training where we are working through our situation so that we know exactly how to respond so that we can try to keep schools open and not have to close. Dr. Palmer, is that a simulation exercise? Yes, a tabletop exercise going through all of the scenarios we can think of. Okay. And I would just jump in here as well to say that, you know, I think a key factor, and again, all of this will be consultation with the Chester County Health Department, but a key factor in a decision about a building closure is whether or not there's evidence of transmission within the school. So if a case comes into the school and you have very effective social

068distancing and masking in place, and those are meant to be complimentary to one another, then you have a pretty good strategy in place, along with hand hygiene, to prevent that from leading to transmission within the building. If you, of course, start to have rates going up in the community and more students entering the building with COVID that they're acquiring from outside of school, then those mitigation measures start to get stressed. And I think if we got to a point where, and I think the health department would agree with this, if we start to see evidence of transmission within school, that changes the conversation about the sustainability of keeping kids in the building. But again, I think all of this is certainly meant to be in consultation with the health department and certainly having them on

069speed dial for just about every situation that comes up. And, you know, I think we have pretty good evidence that they will be on speed dial for us as well. Kelly, I see your hand is up. I had a couple of questions actually related to what we were just talking about. So the first, if I may, is about assigned seating. And I wanted to confirm that all students will have assigned seats, not just in the classroom, but in the cafeteria and on the bus so that we can contain, if necessary, any type of transmission. Are we confirming that that is in fact how we're doing the seating? That is correct. Okay. Thank you. The next one I wanted to ask about was masking. And in our last conversation, there was some discussion about acceptable types

070of masks based on what has been proven to be safe and effective. And I wondered if the administration had gone back to think about that a little bit further. I can pick up this question. Yes, we did have further discussions and we reviewed some updated research, including the updates from the policy lab. There will be in the FAQ coming out to parents a clarification of what masks need to include. So we will be saying that they need to be either behind the ear or tied behind your head. They need to cover from your nose down under your chin. They need to be at least or more than. one layer. They cannot have a valve or I've even heard of some masks with a slit in it. I'm not quite sure how that functions. And then

071we will not be allowing neck gaiters or bandanas. If students were to come in with a form of mask that wasn't appropriate, we have masks that we would be able to supply them. Great, thank you. One final question then on this same sort of vein. The six foot distancing, can we can can you hear a little bit about how we're going about maintaining that in the middle in the middle school in the high school where we're changing classes and how you've thought about how to do that safely? I can jump in on that and then Dr. Heldin and Mr. King can also jump in. So we have measured everything out in the classroom. So that is the easier place. As students are being dismissed from classes, we'll be monitoring and doing staggered dismissals. So students

072will be expected to move in an expedited manner to their next class. but if need be we'll be monitoring and adjusting to ensure. We already have the decals and the arrows in the hallways so that the pathway is set, but then we'll just be monitoring the number of students in a given hallway. And we will also employ that the teachers set their classrooms up in cohort models as well. So if you take a typical cohort, it would be approximately 10 to 14 kids in each classroom. So we will stagger our times. And so if they break the cohorts into groups of, let's say, four, then you would have three groups and you could dismiss the students approximately a minute or 30 seconds apart. And that's going to play out as we get into school and

073we determine how much time we need. So teachers know to be very flexible with their start and end times when we're in school to their lessons because kids will have that staggered dismissal. I would just add the high school will be slightly different because we have so many mixed classes at the high school where we don't typically have one group traveling together throughout the day. We will not have a staggered dismissal because we don't want students to accrue or accumulate outside of a particular classroom while waiting for that class to dismiss. But all of our teachers, and they already do this, will be in the hallway. So you'll have actually extra adult presence in the hallways as far as student-teacher ratio with the cohort model. Anything else, Kelly? Yes, one final maybe that we've talked

074at Ferb's on, right? You can't see them on my screen at the moment. We've talked about ventilation some in the past. And I know that we've gone through this in some meetings in a little more detail than others, but I'm sure that we have probably a record crowd watching us on YouTube tonight. Would you mind sharing a little bit again, Ferg, about what steps have been taken on ventilation? Sure. So the district will be implementing a variety of strategies to improve the air circulation. The first strategy will be to increase the amount of fresh air by opening windows and by adjusting the fresh air intake of our ventilation systems from 10 to at least 25%. Next, the ventilation systems that we have not been using to our fullest ability in the district, they'll be turned

075on. These are the ventilation systems that control large areas and haven't been needed in the past because buildings are, so to speak, over-engineered when they're first built or they're built for more than the capacity. So these ventilation systems are being turned on and they, like all the individual ventilation systems, are going to be run throughout the day and will be started before they normally are and will be turned off later than they usually are. For our central ventilation systems, we are changing the type of air filters. If you like to read up on stuff like this, there's a term called MERV. And the suggestion is to go from MERV whatever up to MERV 13. And basically a MERV 13 is utilizing N95 type material. So it's going to catch. extremely small particles. And so we

076are changing the filters in our central ventilation systems over to that. Additionally, we've gone through each building and identified those areas where we feel as if the circulation or the filtration may not be as good as it should be. And what we are doing is we're putting in individual HEPA filters in those rooms. Thank you. All right. I see there's one more hand up from Jerry. Before I call on you, Jerry, just before I forget, I did have one question I wanted to ask. Dr. Jones, this might be for you or it might be for our elementary team, but I know some have asked about this sort of half-day model where kids come in for a half-day, five days a week versus the approach we're taking. And I'm wondering if you could comment on the

077pathway that we're choosing and why over that one. Yeah, sure. I'm happy to do that. You know, I alluded to this in the beginning that I think for our students, you know, the conversation that we've been having at the administrative and even at the teacher level together has been that we want to replicate school the way students are familiar with. And half days are not what students are familiar with. Now, of course, they're not familiar with asynchronous either, right? They're starting to learn that. And the two days in and two days out, that's not familiar. But once they climb on a bus. Once they show up to the school and they come in, we don't really want to pull the rug out from under them with sort of a quick turnaround and then they're leaving

078again just as soon as they got there and got settled and got to see their friends. And that's really that first part, that social emotional part that we think is really important to stabilizing what it means to be a student in school. And that piece of student learning cannot be dismissed easily. The other reason why half day is just not ideal in our minds is because the half day doesn't provide the same freedom and pacing for students to learn within the parameters of, let's say, a bell to bell. So when you short that, we're used to early dismissals. They happen from time to time. But from a teacher perspective, having been in the classroom for 15 years myself, I can tell you that that feels like you are rushing through a lesson. It makes it

079much more difficult for students to be able to ask questions, to think about things, to process their learning. Instead, it's sort of a rushing from topic to topic. And to do that day after day after day doesn't seem to sustain the type of pacing that we think is important for student learning. And so that half-day model That might work in some school districts. For us, we have different priorities. And our priorities are that we want to simulate a full day that students are familiar with. And we want to make sure that that learning has room to grow and breathe and evolve over a full school day of learning. Great. Thank you. Jerry? And one question on contact tracing. If the student gets COVID. What determines the degree of contact tracing that is done within the

080school of other students? I can take that. If we believe that there has been a positive case, then we would be working with the Chester County Health Department. Chester County Health Department is handling all of the contact tracing. They would ask us most likely for our seating charts. and we would assess which students had the 15 minutes, six feet of criteria. We would give those names and then the Chester County Health Department would be assessing it and reaching out to those individuals directly. Additionally, as a district, if we felt that there was a high risk exposure or contact, we would be sending out a letter to those students indicating that there may have been a high risk exposure. If there was, the Chester County Health Department would be reaching out to you directly. So we

081provide the information of the potential students or teachers that may have been in proximity for a duration. And they decide whether it should be followed up. Yes. And the experiences that we've had already, where we're talking with the health department, we're having conversations about how much time was spent. They're speaking with the individual who is the positive or presumptive positive and identifying which one meets the criteria. Okay. Thank you. And Gina, if I could just pick up on that. When would parents expect to, like, are we going to share what our expected communications will look like before kids come back to the buildings? In other words, like, can we show families, like, if there's a classroom case? Here's what you'll be notified with. Those kinds of things. Yes, Chester County Health Department has already provided

082us with a sample letter. That is the letter that we would be modifying to identify a grade level or a cohort, things like that. So we can certainly share that. Okay, thank you. Michelle? Thanks, Gina. I'm also kind of building upon that. Can you walk through a little bit, so once a potential exposure is identified, you know, and say this is a Monday and it's a, you know, the cohort that would be in on Monday and Tuesday, like what happens between Monday and Tuesday? What happens on Tuesday? Like does the entire class stay home until things are more clearly determined? I guess I'm just trying to understand what happens in that real time. That's really dependent upon the situation. We've had situations where we've canceled a practice or a gathering, and then we've had times

083where the Chester County Health Department has said, you can move forward. We believe we have enough information. What I can tell you is that we have had a lot of good experiences with the Chester County Health Department. Our direct contact has been very responsive to us. The individuals who have reached out to him have heard back within an hour. It is almost immediate. Now, I recognize that our metrics are lower right now, and that may change as if cases were to increase. But right now, as a district, we are very pleased, as are the surrounding districts, with the responsiveness from Chester County Health Department. Whether or not we would cancel for the next day would be very specific to that case. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. I don't see any other questions. Dr. Palmer,

084do we want to transition to our next focus topic? We do. But before I transition, I thank Gina for sending me a text. I misspoke when I said our training was tomorrow. Our teaching tolerance training is tomorrow for administrators. And Wednesday, our training is with the Chester County Health Department. I got confused what night we're on. And one last word about our ed plan. Our ed plan has truly been an evolution with a lot of growth and refinement over a really short period of time. Thank you to our parents and our students for the feedback. It has been invaluable. And thank you to our teachers for sharing their individual and collective experiences. That firsthand experience has been instrumental in moving us forward in providing our students with the best possible experience. And thank you to

085everyone. Our students, parents, teachers, instructional support, administrators, transportation, food service, support staff, and our school board for remaining flexible as we pivot yet again. Our students are seeing all of us model our flexibility and our resiliency as we navigate a difficult and often uncertain time. Our year is off to a great start. And if we continue to evolve and work together, I know it will be an absolutely great year for our students. So now, another piece that we'd like to move forward in and evolve and move from where we've been this summer to now so that our students can also have a great experience is how we want to look at sports. So I will also say a large thank you to Pat Clancy and all of the athletic directors in the Central League. The

086amount of time everyone has put in to trying to move forward. Sports forward safely and timely has been unbelievable. I know the kids have been frustrated. I know the kids' parents have been frustrated too, thinking, couldn't we move a little faster? But we know the Chester County Health Department just changed their guidelines for us. So we couldn't move until we could move in conjunction with the health department. So thank you to everyone who got us to the stage where we can have a very meaningful conversation tonight. And I ask you, as you look at the information that Pat will be presenting, to keep in mind that we are not 100% certain at this moment what PIAA is going to do. When Leanne Wentzel was with us, and to refresh your memory, she is the board

087member from PIAA and also a colleague at Ridley, she pointed out that they had a work session last Wednesday and they are going to have their PIAA board meeting this week. So we're not 100% sure what they're going to vote on, but Pat's going to be presenting the best information that we have at this point and how we'd like to move forward. So Pat, you can start sharing the screen whenever you're ready. Thank you, Dr. Palmer. Forgive me having a slight challenge with this. Okay. Can everyone see this okay? Okay. So again, thank you to all the board members for allowing me to come and speak this evening. Three weeks ago, I had to share the news of the community that we canceled our fall season. It's about as dark a day as any athletic

088director can have, and the weather cooperated with such a message. It was almost monsoon conditions as I was leaving that Friday evening, and it was really disappointing. But by the same time, we really had no choice because of the recommendations from the Chester County Health Department. Last week, as we gathered getting ready for our school board meeting, At 645 on Monday, right before seven o'clock school board meeting, we were informed the Chester County Health Department changed their guidance and they were no longer suggesting that we postpone until January 1. So as soon as we got that information, there was a flurry of conversations within our district and with our colleagues throughout the Central League. While we still had the opportunity to continue fall sports in March as we planned, we quickly realized that that was

089not the best option. So I want to walk through the decisions over the past week and also give a little context to what we're looking at going forward. So one of the first things we need to realize is this has been a great opportunity to kind of reflect on why do we play sports? What is the purpose in a high school setting? It's not about championship banners. It's not about scholarships, things like that. It's about the person to person interactions between kids and opportunities to work with our coaches and, you know, showcase their talents throughout the community. The lessons learned on athletic fields mirror those in classrooms, art studios, choral rooms, and all of the other things that we do in this district. It's an opportunity for students to learn responsibility, leadership, accountability, and trust.

090So to kind of review, last week we talked about the structure of the three different entities that make up our athletic framework. So at the broad level, the PIAA serves as the statewide agency that manages all of the high school and interscholastic athletic rules. They manage start dates, academic standards, transfer rules, and they also are responsible for sponsoring the state tournaments. The PIAA is broken into 12 regional groups. We are in District 1. That district serves Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties. So most of my contact is with District 1 because they're kind of the regional liaison to the state office. Every once in a while, I call out to Harrisburg, but for the most part, Sean Kelly from District 1 has been very cooperative and helpful, you know, as we try to sort through

091all of this. Within District 1, there are several leagues. The leagues are the primary source of scheduling for each team. So schools come together and, you know, form leagues that, you know, have a common interest in providing opportunities for their student athletes. We are members of the Central Athletic League and have been since 1983. There are 12 schools in our league. And, you know, for most of our teams, about 60% of their competitions come from league play. Some sports a little more, some a little less. But our league is primarily a scheduling mechanism, but also allows for some standardized procedures and guidelines throughout our 12 schools to make sure that we're offering a similar experience for all of our athletes. The Central League offers individual qualifiers for postseason opportunities. So particularly for the fall season,

092golf and tennis and cross country have essentially tournaments that help for seating purposes in the District 1 play. The District 1 tournament allows for local students to qualify for the state tournament or local teams to qualify for the state tournament. And the state tournament functions as a mechanism to crown a state champion in each enrollment classification. I just want to take a brief moment to kind of review the timeline of the last couple of months and how it affected our athletic program, because most of the decisions related to athletics are closely tied to the academic decisions. So on April 9th, we all learned that schools were closed for the school year. Not only were classes canceled, but all athletic programs were shut down and all voluntary workouts for the following school year were also canceled.

093And our understanding was that wouldn't be the case until June 30th. As we got over the initial surge, conditions got better. And in early June, Governor Wolf opened up the opportunity for voluntary athletic workouts. However, there was still a lot of questions as to how that would work. And particularly, a lot of districts like ours were concerned about developing a plan for athletic workouts that would be consistent with the academic environment when the school session returned in September. So we were the last in the Central League to embrace these voluntary workouts, but we did so as soon as we had a plan for hybrid instruction on July 20th. After that, It was a little bit of a roller coaster. You know, shortly afterwards, the PIAAA voted that they intended to start fall sports on time

094and gave specific guidance for different sports. The following day, the athletic directors in the Central League had to determine where we were as a league. At that point, the Chester County Health Department had already started to reach out to different school districts and start planting the seeds that maybe a hybrid plan isn't going to work out for the start of the school year. Again, rates were surging in late July and early August. So that's when the conversation was starting to change. And, you know, when the PIAA voted to move forward, Conestoga, one of our league members, had already moved to a virtual model. Garnet Valley was heading down that track and several other Central League schools were leaning towards a virtual model. And a lot of schools were concerned about how can you field an

095athletic program when students are not showing up for class. So the athletic directors were split, okay, on that day about how to move forward. About half of us felt like, you know, even with virtual instruction, our best weather, our best opportunities were before flu season hit and things like that. Others felt like we needed to slow down. We agreed that we were going to take a slight delay. And by the time that I informed our parents that we were postponing until the 24th of August and moving to just Central League play, the following day, Governor Wolf shared his recommendation at a press conference that we should delay all competition until January 1. About five minutes later, the Central League principals were getting together to meet, and they felt that at least delaying to October 1st,

096when most of us were you know, going to be coming, hopefully coming back from hybrid instruction or coming back into hybrid instruction, excuse me, you know, would be a more appropriate answer. And that afternoon, the PA Department of Health and PA Department of Education followed up with the governor's recommendation. So there was a little bit of a tug of war between the state and the PIAA at that point. And the PIAA, the state agency for high school athletics, voted to delay a little bit. And then they decided to move forward and start one week after their original start date on August 24th. In the meantime, our district chose to start virtually. And, you know, many of the other schools in our league had made the same decision. August 25th, the day after the first official

097practice date for many teams around the state, the Chester County Health Department met with all the superintendents in Delaware County and made a pretty firm recommendation that we move all athletic competition until after January 1st. The PIAA had made arrangements to monitor participation and allow for alternate plans if teams were unable to play this fall. So we accepted that recommendation as a league. We want to make our decisions as a league, as a whole, because it's in the best interest of all of us to work together for scheduling purposes. When some schools go on their own in different directions, it makes it difficult for everybody else because people will lose games. And by the same time, when schools decide to move forward, when everyone else takes a step back, that can be a challenge too.

098Some of the private schools in the area, particularly those in the Catholic League, decide to press on when their league. decide not to, and they've been having a very tough time finding games. So as I said, last week, the Chester County Health Department revised their recommendation and said, basically, if schools feel that they can move forward with competition, they should have an action plan that's board approved. So at that point, discussions began in the Central League. On Thursday, we had an intensive meeting with the athletic directors to try to develop a plan that we could all work together in order to get the fall season moving forward. To do so, the first step was finding a common start date. There's 12 schools. All of us had different board meetings throughout the week. So we felt

099like giving a week for everyone to kind of get the plan approved would be appropriate. Next Monday is Yom Kippur. So the following day, Tuesday the 29th, was the agreed upon start date for our practices. That first practice date is important because that helps set the calendar for all of our sports going forward. We've been receiving recommendations from medical experts to have a phased reentry so that our lower contact, lower risk sports would return and begin competition sooner than our moderate risk sports and high risk sports. In order to facilitate that, we did add one week of practice before competition for football. That first week will resemble what football players would normally know as a heat acclimatization week. Traditionally, football comes in a week before everybody else and, you know, does less contact and less

100padding to get used to the heat in August. While we don't need to follow that, we are adding that in. partly to follow that phase re-entry, but it's also an opportunity to kind of get players back reacclimated to football. While we've had voluntary workouts, the COVID restrictions have been a challenge in a sense that some of the drills we would normally do over the summer, we're a little behind on. So that extra week of practice should be helpful. The other thing that that week will do is it will allow for a second scrimmage. So while we may not get as many games as we would like, those two scrimmages will be filmed and those films will be available for college recruiters and things like that. So, you know, while football will be a little bit

101behind, there's still going to be plenty of opportunities for them and their season will extend a week later too. At this time. This is not going to be popular for some of our viewers, and I apologize, but the league decided that the state and the district tournaments were not feasible at the moment. There were two driving purposes for that. The first is that several of our neighboring districts are concerned that participating in district and state play would expand the risk of exposure. The reason we went to an all-league scheduling model was to keep all of our contests contained to schools that We're regular trade partners. We play regularly and we're close enough, friendly enough that we know that we all are following the same rules and guidelines and what has the protocols in place to

102keep all of our athletes safe. By entering into district play, you're going to be traveling around a little more and there's more variation opportunities for exposure in areas that may not be within our normal commuting patterns. The second is a more practical thing is, you know, unfortunately, the delays in the season because of the health guidelines from the county have left us in a point where our starting dates don't leave much time before the district deadline. In a moment, I'm going to walk through each sport and kind of show you how that plays out. But it really would be difficult to evaluate our teams in the Central League compared to teams that have been playing for two or three weeks more, because we would only have three or four games in most sports before the

103playoff deadline. And again, we're emphasizing a phased reentry so that the lower risk sports begin competition sooner and we ramp up as we go through. This is not a perfect plan. And I will be very upfront with that. I think everyone has things that they wish were slightly different with this plan. But this is, you know, a nature of making compromise to get consensus. This is a plan that was written by 12 athletic directors to get approved by 12 principals who work for 11 superintendents who need five out of nine school board members in each of their 11 school districts to sign off on it. Each of our schools, each of our districts has local needs and unique circumstances that we had to address. And while there's things that may not be, you know, something

104that Strathaven loves, it's really important to some of the other schools in the league that some of these safeguards are in place. We also really want to emphasize consistency and make sure that we had a standard that everyone could reach through the league. Part of the reason for giving time for everyone's school boards to approve was to make sure we had a common start date and no one was getting a jump start or an unfair advantage. So as we move forward, there are some things we're looking at in order to facilitate games a little easier. Some of that is changing some of the scheduling. So particularly field hockey games have always, in our Central League, have been Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they are the same days that we have always done soccer games. Our goal

105by moving field hockey possibly to Monday, Wednesday, Fridays is to spread out our turf usage throughout the week. And we would also try to move our JV and ninth grade football games to Saturday. That would allow for fewer games per day and allow for a little more flexibility for weather concerns and things of that nature. We're also monitoring the state guidelines for outdoor gatherings and indoor gatherings. You know, we are aware that Governor Wolf plans to veto the House bill that would allow schools to decide how many spectators may participate in games. You know, it may be in our stadiums and our gymnasiums. Currently, those limitations will be a little difficult to field some of our competitions, particularly for volleyball, with the limitation of 25 people for indoor events. Many of our substitutes may have

106to stand out in another room or behind a curtain if we are following that to the letter of the law. For football, that 250 might be a challenge, but we should be able to make it work for many of our other sports. A lot of the specifics for this particular line item, we still plan to work out together as we meet on Wednesday as a group as athletic directors. We're also still trying to find common ground on where we stand for masks during competition. There's mixed guidance. The state of Pennsylvania says basically should have masks on at all times. Whereas some other health agencies say when you are in vigorous activity, vigorous exercise, you should not have the mask because of respiratory issues. So we're trying to find some common ground as to what the

107best way to manage the risks of that are, both the risk of respiratory issues and the risk of spreading COVID potentially. We may be asking for volleyball players because they're playing in an indoor environment to wear a mask during a contest. And we're also looking at what modifications can we make for football, whether they wear a mask on the field or there are splash guards that have been attached to face masks that many schools have ordered. We're looking to see how effective the splash guards are, as well as the implications of wearing a gait or other type of mask during competition. As Dr. Palmer mentioned, I know a lot of emails and a lot of voicemails and messages have come in from parents who really want our student-athletes to have a chance to participate in

108the postseason. I would love to have our athletes in the postseason in the PIAA District 1 and state tournaments. That was not something that there was a very heavy appetite in our league for last week. I still hope that we can find a way to make that work. But by the same time, we still have a lot of questions as to what the postseason looks like, both at the district and the state level. Because so many schools have opted out, it's skewed the numbers from district to district. So the state tournament is traditionally allocated the number of spots in the tournament to each district based on the proportion of teams from that district in that enrollment classification. So if you don't understand what I mean by enrollment classification for football, there are technically six state

109champions in football. The, they take the total number of teams divided by six and the largest enrollment schools all compete for one championship. Those in the more moderate ranges compete for the 5A, 4A and 3A championships. And then the small schools compete at the single A division. And they do this in most sports. So. Our school being close to about 1,200 students, we're in that middle tier for many of our sports. Our boys sports have moved up for many of them, particularly boys soccer, lacrosse, and basketball. They have now moved into that upper tier. So they're going to face some tougher competition in the postseason. But when the Philadelphia Public League and Philadelphia Catholic League stepped out, That changed the numbers because District 12 is a large number of high schools in the PIAA. So

110with them not participating in the postseason, they need to reallocate. It's almost like redistricting in a congressional cycle. So, that's one of the things we're waiting on to hear on Wednesday when the PAA meets as a state board, how are they going to structure their state tournaments? Are they going to keep the same number of qualifiers in total? For example, in boys soccer, 16 teams qualified last year. If there are fewer teams participating, they may decide not to have as many teams because there are some logistical hurdles that they need to find as well, particularly in the state playoffs. They usually use neutral site hosts. Not many schools are looking to host neutral site games right now because of COVID. In fact, that was one of the driving reasons why the basketball tournament shut down

111in March because some Montgomery County schools were basically being. told they can't come into some schools gyms because of the outbreak in that time. So there's a lot of things that could change both dates and number of qualifiers at the state level. And if the state tournament isn't set, the district tournament needs to adapt to what the state tournament does. So they need to know how that's working. One of our coaches is a member of the planning committee for tennis. Coach Perella is our central league representative for tennis. You know, there's a lot of speculation as to how they're going to make that work. And there may be some, you know, significant changes. Traditionally, multiple kids from District 1 qualified for postseason in individual sports. There's a possibility that they only take the District 1

112champion. We don't know exactly how that's going to play out. So giving a little bit of time for both ourselves and our colleagues throughout the Central League to kind of look at what the next steps are probably is for the best. As we met as a league, everyone felt it was important that we each have our own health and safety plan, but trying to get all 12 athletic directors to find a plan that would match for everyone exactly to a tee would be challenging. Frankly, it's challenging to get the 12 of us to agree on what should be in the press statement. So, you know, we're trying to find ways to streamline activities where we can. And most of us have a similar expectation for our health and safety plans. So we're asking the board

113to also adopt our local iteration of that. Most of the elements of the plan are similar to what our voluntary workouts were. So for example, if the forecast calls for thunder and lightning, we're canceling. We don't have access to a gym for indoor practices. You know, we're just going to hope for good weather as we move forward here. And particularly as we moved out of the heat, there's a little less of the thunder and lightning. Rain, we can play in the mud. In terms of, you know, check-ins for spectators, coaches, and officials, there will be symptom screenings for all competitions. And we expect coaches and officials to be masked for the duration of practices and games. For our athletes, we will not have access to locker rooms. Basically, we're trying to find ways to make

114sports safer from a COVID standpoint. Enclosed locker rooms are not as safe as an open field. Because we are in a hybrid setting, most of our practices and games will be taking place when students are coming from their virtual environment. So for most students, they can just come dressed and ready to play. For an afternoon soccer game, for example, our A cohort on a Tuesday afternoon, they're going to be wearing their uniform to class the afternoon and then hopping on the bus afterwards. So we will not have lock rooms. Those lock rooms are actually filled with extra desks and tables that have been removed to make space in our classrooms to meet the six feet modifications. All players must also bring their own water bottles, similar to what we did over the summer. But some

115players may want to bring a second one because you sweat a little more in competition. And during games and competitions, players will be asked to mask during on the sidelines. So whether that's just pulling the gator up or finding another mask that is suitable for athletic events, we are going to ask those that are not actively engaged to mask. A lot of the questions that I've been getting from coaches and parents has been about transportation. Again, Nine of the 10 fall sports are outdoors. So we can spread out in fields relatively well, but an enclosed bus poses a little more threat for spread of the COVID disease. This is one area where we've actually gotten a little bit more flexibility because of all of the changes. So the league-only schedule means it's going to be

116shorter bus rides. We don't need to go to Upper Dublin. We don't need to go to Downingtown or Haven Grove. It's going to be mostly shorter rides. And because at this time we do not have plans for middle school sports traveling, the high school hybrid schedule leaves, again, a lot more flexibility in the afternoons because the buses are available between after the middle school run when the buses will come back at 145 after a 115 dismissal. before the elementary runs at 3.30. So there's going to be a window of time there to shuttle players to our competitions. So we believe that we can actually double our bus load and it should not affect our busing budget that much because we're cutting all those non-league games out and the non-league games were further. So we believe

117that we can keep our buses to 21 athletes maximum and one coach per bus. So that would be one kid per bench. and one coach on a bench in the front, and it would leave the front row open for the bus driver. We also are trying to streamline the waiver process for parents who want to transport their own children. We understand that if transportation is a concern and if parents are looking to come to a game and we have a way to allow them in as spectators, you know, in the past, athletes needed to get a waiver for each individual turn. We may look at a seasonal waiver system to help expedite that process for parents who intend to bring their kids to multiple games or multiple competitions. However, we're still holding firm that we

118do not want athletes driving to competitions. While several of our local neighbors are in our league, some of our competitions are going to be a little further away. And we would rather not have 16-year-old drivers going up the Blue Route during rush hour or coming home during rush hour. So at this time, I want to briefly walk through. each of our teams and the specific mechanics of their schedule as planned by the Central League, and also touch on how the district playoffs normally work, how they may work this year, because I know we get a lot of questions about that. So we'll start with golf. Our golf team won the school's first Central League and District 1 championship last year. While we had three seniors in that photo graduate, Jackson DeBuscher and Grace Smith are

119there. They're back. Tyler DeBuscher is on the team as well. And we expect great things from our golf team. Golf has a shorter turnaround than most sports. Most of our teams need three weeks of practice before the first competition. In golf, they only need three days of practice before the first competition. So by using September 29th as that benchmark date throughout the Central League, the first competition date for golf would be October 2nd. So. That would be good. That gives the month of October for playing time. Unfortunately, the district cutoff is early as well. Particularly Monday, October 5th is the district one golf championship. So there would only be three days between the start of the season and the central and the district one golf championship. We don't know how the PIA tournament is going

120to function from there, if they're going to keep their regional setup, you know, for districts to qualify to regional states. But we're planning right now for a centrally going to schedule that would include 11 dual matches. Okay. So we'd face each team. If we have trouble with course availability, we could cut them down to include a couple of try matches. Because golf is not played on any of our campuses, we are at the mercy of the local golf clubs. Spring Haven has been very good with us and we've been in touch with them and they seem very cooperative to get us matches and home meets during the month of October. We have a financial arrangement with them. Most of the private clubs offer free tee times to our Central League colleagues. And those that were

121basically getting a free ride for a lot of years are finding that the clubs are not as welcoming in these times. So, you know, for example, Hereford normally would play at Marion Country Club or Marion Golf Club, excuse me. They're not as cooperative looking to bring non-members in at this point. So there may be a little bit of moving and shaking from there. So in terms of if we wanted to do postseason, which again, that's not part of the plan at the moment, but I am very cognizant that that's a priority to a lot of our families and our coaches. So just to walk through how that works. In a normal year, one Central League team would qualify for the team championship based on match play. if you look at that calendar, we will not

122be able to crown a team champion in three days. We will not get 11 dual matches in three days. So no one from the Central League will be entering as a team most likely. To get any individual qualifiers, the Central League would need to host a Central League qualifying tournament where basically we would have a one-day 18-hole event. we would need to get other schools to sign off on that because we can't just do that and call it the Strathaven invitation. It would need to be a league event. You know, so again, right now, that's not a priority for some of our neighbors. But personally, I hope that that changes as we get a little more comfortable with this plan and see some of the logistics. So at the moment, the plan is 11 dual

123matches for golf. We're still monitoring the situation, hoping that we can find a way to change things and give our golfers a chance to defend their district championship. Our girls tennis team is led by Lily Stenke. She was our number one singles player last year. Coach Perales says we got four girls who are competing for singles positions. Again, first date would be September 29th. And the first competition would be the following Tuesday. In order to... qualify as a team. It's similar to golf. It's based on match play. So we would need to get 11 matches. Probably not going to fit all of them in, in about two weeks or a week and a half before the district team deadline. And again, that's not part of the cards at the moment. For individual qualification, we are

124seeing changes specifically in tennis at the moment. In the past, singles players would be able to participate in the doubles tournament if they get knocked out. But all players are going to have to decide if they're going to play in the singles or doubles bracket. And it's going to be a condensed tournament on the weekend of October 21st. So again, tennis can start up a little quicker. It's lower risk, lower contact, and they've always had a shorter practice period because weather's a bigger issue for tennis. In our particular case, there are daylight limitations for us for tennis. We only have four tennis courts on our campus, and we only, I believe, have four for our JV team over at Wallingford Racquet Club. Our varsity matches usually have seven competitions. Usually it's going to be four

125singles and three doubles matches. There may be some challenges as we move later into the season, but we will be as flexible as possible to make sure our girls get the best opportunity. The current structure would be that they play on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and should be done sometime in late October, but the exact details are still being worked out. Cross country is one of our most popular fall sports. I think we have 11% of all letters issued on the girls side are girls cross country members and the same thing for the boys side. So we have 55 girls on the cross country team, 66 boys from last year's statistics. A lot of returning talent. Those of you who know Coach Corrin know that he is a little cautious in the early season, not

126as much this year. He has been tracking their times and he is very aware that our times are much better than they have been ever before. I'm in the middle of a school board meeting. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. I do not. I'll, I'll, I'll check in with you in a little bit. Thank you. Sorry about that. So in terms of the logistics for cross country, they need three weeks of practice, similar to many of our team sports, because it takes a little bit more conditioning to get to a 5K race. So their first possible competition date would be October 17th. We were looking to structure our centrally meets where they would have three league meets where six teams show up at Rose tree park on a Tuesdays. The other six teams show up on

127a Wednesday and rotate through over three weeks. So they'd see different teams week to week. And then at the end, we would have one championship competition. We're still trying to look at the logistics of this because, again, the number of athletes that have traditionally gone to cross-country meets is very large. It would break that 250 threshold. So we're looking at trying to monitor the number of participants. You need seven varsity runners for a varsity race. So it may be as few as seven going to these meets. We may be able to throw a couple of JV runners in and we may be able to have a separate JV meet. But we're still looking at. the logistics of how many teams will be participating and what arrangements can be made to make everyone feel comfortable. In

128terms of districts, again, our cross-country coaches have been very adamant they would like to be part of the postseason. And at the moment, that's not part of the plan. But there's a little bit more flexibility for the cross country team because all teams can qualify for the district one tournament tournament traditionally. Basically, every school would send their top seven runners. We're not sure where that competition will be normally it's at Lehigh, I believe they are going to be a little more restrictive this year so we'll see where that is. But again, a lot of the district details are fluid at the moment. And that's why essentially plan doesn't include that at this time. Our field hockey team, okay, is going to have a similar schedule to our soccer and volleyball teams, three weeks of practice,

129followed by 11 centrally games. And then, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we're trying to maximize the number of games on the turf and reduce the number of JV games on grass as we get into the later season and things of that nature. So we may be shifting their games from Tuesday, Thursday to Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I know Coach Reed's been working with our girls and we're looking forward to a great season from them as well. Strathaven's boys and girls soccer team have a long history of success. Again, a similar framework for the schedule where they would start on September 29th for practice. The first competition would be Saturday, October 17th. As you look there, one of the challenges of qualifying for the districts is that the seed meeting, the district meeting, is very short

130time period after the first possible competition. So it would be very difficult to get the minimum number of games to qualify. In a normal year, you would need to play half of the maximum games in order to qualify for the district tournament. So in a regular year, you could have a maximum of 18 soccer games. So you would need a minimum of nine in order to qualify. It sounds like they're looking to modify that so that you only need a third, but we're still talking about six games in less than a week, most likely, to make the district tournament as it's structured right now. Again, the structure of that tournament could change. So we don't know, but we're trying to structure a league schedule. that accounts for the needs of all of our teams. And

131we're going to try and promote the Central League Championship element of it. And the same for field hockey and volleyball. We intend to have a 12-team tournament the last week of the season so that all teams have a postseason opportunity to really play for a Central League Championship. In our basketball programs, that's been a very successful, you know, tournament. We've had a lot of, you know. Kids comment about that's one of the highlights of the year competing somewhere to a conference tournament in the ACC or something like that. We're hoping to recreate that environment for soccer and field hockey and volleyball. Again, we have been very successful in soccer before. So I understand why a lot of our parents are very. you know, supportive of the idea of a postseason, but we do need to

132have a regular season before a postseason. And we need to, you know, find a way to make those games come off. And in particular, we need all of our league partners to play in order to get the necessary regular season games as well. Again, volleyball is similar. We have a lot of returning senior players, Olivia Dumont, Ellie Fisher, Megan Predergast. A lot of the senior girls have really been working hard. And, you know, we're really excited about the opportunities for the season. And we think there's a very good chance that we could win a Central League championship here. Similar framework and structure to soccer and field hockey. Three weeks of practice, 11 Central League games. Again, volleyball has unique implications because it's indoors. So at the moment, the governor's restrictions still limit us to 25

133people in an enclosed room. So we may need to make some modifications for substitutes and things like that. Those are the type of things we're trying to flesh out Wednesday morning when we meet again as athletic directors. Football. As I mentioned before, our first football acclimation practice would be September 29th. And then the following week would be considered official practices where they could be in full pads and full contact. The first possible game would be October 23rd. But again, we expect to have two scrimmages for them. Some of them may resemble more of a game than before. Traditionally, a scrimmage is 10 plays and 10 plays. We may be able to have more of a game-like structure to it with the scoreboard and things like that during the scrimmages. Again, a little bit of a

134time crunch if we were looking to do districts, okay, because... Halloween is the last day to get a regular season game in. So we're looking at probably two games before the district deadline. So again, we would like to promote the Central League where we can. Our plan right now is to play five regular season football games within our division. So the Central League as 12 schools is split in half. There's six larger schools, six smaller schools. If we get all 12 teams to participate, we hope to be able to play the five teams in our division. And then rank those six schools one to six. The big schools will all play each other, rank one to six. The top big school will play the top small school for the Central League Championship. The number two

135will play in the number two. Number three will play number three and working down the line. We think we came up with this plan before Jim Harbaugh did with the Big Ten. But we do think that that will be a fun way to conclude the season the day after Thanksgiving. Finally. For cheerleading. Cheerleading is generally a winter sport for our competitive season, but the sideline cheer team is a vital part of our community. So they will continue practicing. And, you know, their official practice date will be September 29th. At this time, we're only practicing for sideline routines. And, you know, we're going to look at the competitive season as we look at how we're going to move forward with winter sports later in the year. So I apologize. I know that was a lot to

136handle and I am happy to answer any questions. All right. Thanks, Pat. Lots of detail about athletics. So we appreciate you filling us all in. Let me see if board members have questions. Kelly. There you go. Getting off mute. Mr. Clancy, thank you so much. That was incredibly helpful and informative. I guess. It's obviously incredibly complicated and I bet you never could have imagined being an athletic director being quite so controversial as it is right now. I don't envy your job. I guess what I'm trying to walk, one of the things I'm trying to walk away from is, is there any reason, I heard you talk about the phasing in of the different types of sports, which seems very similar to how we're phasing in the... the school back to school. But is there any

137reason why we couldn't say right now, go ahead, we could start actual practice for low-risk sports like golf, for example, what were the impediments that that creates or the challenges that creates if we were to say go tomorrow? Sure. That's a great question. And first, I want to comment on, you mentioned, sure, my job's a little unique right now, but I think all of our educators are going through a lot. And I appreciate all that our teachers are doing as well. Our coaches have been incredibly flexible as we move through this unique set of experiences. In terms of moving sports further and faster. The board could potentially vote to start practice tomorrow. That's not in the plan because we were trying to give all of our colleagues in the Central League a chance to have

138their boards weigh in. And I was hoping that we didn't do anything that would rock the boat too much. But the other thing I just want to point out is that the advantages of starting earlier. really don't work as well unless others start earlier too. We need to have other teams to play. So the purpose of starting earlier is to start the clock for the competition window. All right. So for example, in the case of golf, could we start practice tomorrow? Yes. Conceivably we might be able to make things like that work, but if other teams in the central league aren't ready to play in three days, that may not necessarily be worth it. The other element of this is giving the coaches a chance to prepare. Okay. So for example, if we just said

139tonight, Hey, we're going to start tomorrow. That would be a big ask for some of our coaches. Now, again, some coaches are eager and ready to go. Others need a little more time and preparation, but you know, imagine asking a math teacher to transition from, you know, a virtual to a hybrid on, you know, eight hours notice, there would be some complications to that as well. So again, I hope that answers as clearly as I can that, you know, there are ways to do it, but the benefits may not be as apparent if other Central League schools are not joining us that early. Thank you. Marilyn? There's a lot of detail. I'm remembering we had a document over the summer that differentiated the sports by the low risk, the moderate risk, and the high risk

140sports, and even gave us some guidelines for what the incidence rate should be. And I'm not seeing any of that in this documentation. Can you fill me in on that? So I'm not sure specifically what you're referring to there. I know the PIAA put out guidance for individual sports in terms of mechanics and how to, you know, operate games for each sport so that we can maximize social distance and things like that. I'm not aware of, you know, criteria for when it's safe to play one sport over another though. Pat, I'm going to jump in on this one. What Marilyn's referring to is the policy lab put out their return to sports guidelines. I know when we were meeting as a league, we were looking at some other documents that other leagues might have been

141considering where there were certain metrics that would be used for the low contact sports, the moderate contact, and then the high contact. I'm not sure any of the leagues. even the one we were looking at has opted to put those metrics into their return to play or the return to competition plan. Am I correct that that might've been removed from the other one we were glancing at? Yeah, we have. receive some of the early drafts of our colleagues at the Chessmont League. We have not seen a final version. I know several of their schools move forward today, but I've not seen the final version of theirs. So I'm not sure how exactly if they include those type of metrics. Well, just so that folks know what those metrics are, the higher contact sports aren't recommended

142unless the incident rate is less than 10 per 100,000 people. And with moderate contact sports available as long as you're stable and have a testing rate less than 5%, which I think we're okay for the moderate and the low contact sports, but we're certainly not meeting the criteria for the high contact sports. I see a hand up from Larry. Hey, Pat, was there any discussion at the league level or even district level about a student athlete who does not cooperate with a contact tracer contract, you know, department of health contact tracer? I'm hearing some reports out of Central and Western Pennsylvania where you have some student athletes and their parents, guardians, refusing to cooperate with contact tracers. Has there been any discussion at all? That has not come up in our meetings. You know, I

143know several of our schools have had incidents pop up over the summer with athletes testing positive. when we've all gone through the contact tracing, usually it became clear that they were at a similar social gathering and things like that. And I know in our experience, the kids are a little more proactive in talking to coaches and we can get the story more straighter sometimes than the contact traces. But I have not heard of anything where athletes were intentionally trying to protect other athletes. Yeah, I haven't heard of anything like that. Okay. Thanks. Back to you, Kelly. I just, I had a follow up, I guess, to Marilyn's question or the comment. And I do know which, which guy, the guidance there that you were referring to Marilyn, but I might put you on the spot

144here a little bit, Dave. I thought that shop was policy lab was Rebecca Mushtare, Rethinking some of that, I guess, I would say, with respect to the higher contact sports, I might be wrong about that. And I missed today's webinar. I'm not sure if they covered it today. Do you know anything further about that day. David Ensign, I know their webinar did overlap with our meeting. So I didn't catch the whole thing. But I think, you know, one of the things that they would like to see, I think, is David Ensign, You know, for a higher contact sport. if possible, as some sort of surveillance testing program. Whether or not we could gain access to such a thing, I think, is a big question. Are you done, Kelly? Sorry. Yeah, for now. OK. Jen. Thanks,

145Dave. So I have a couple of points to make. Marilyn, is what you're reading from from the summer, are those the guidelines from the summer, if I may ask? July? It is. Does it have a date on it? I don't know if it had a date on it, but it's a document. It's from August 2020. Okay, because I did spend an hour watching Dr. Rubin online tonight. And I did as well. Not the webinar from tonight, but the YouTube link from Friday. And that was not, those guidelines were not mentioned in it. So that's number one. Number two. Mr. Clancy, thank you so much for that thorough presentation. I've learned more about sports in the past two weeks than I ever even knew was possible. And I've enjoyed every minute of it, to be honest

146with you. I'm a little bit unclear about the number of games that football can play because it was a little bit confusing for me whether those scrimmages are included in what you're calling the games. And then you talked about playing six other teams. I guess the reason that I'm asking is because I know no postseason is in the cards right now for any of the sports. But it would be silly to think it's not on our athletes' minds, right? I mean, I think you reiterated that in your very thorough talk to us. So I also know that I learned that there are waivers that can be submitted if postseason were to exist. And I'm wondering if you know if the Central League is discussing that at this point or PIAA. Sure. So. Again, traditionally, you

147would have to play half of the minimum number of games. So for football, the max, I'm sorry, half of the maximum number of games. So traditionally, you need to play at least five football games. We know that they're going to whittle that down to probably closer to a third. So you probably would need three games. Right now, we're looking at potentially getting two games in before that playoff deadline. When I was referring to five games and one bowl game at the end where you're playing someone from the other division. That did not include the scrimmages. So we're really looking at eight different competitions. And there will be two scrimmages, most likely against opponents in the other division. So we'll play two big schools in the scrimmages, five times against. division opponents. So our division would

148include Pencrest, Marple, Laura Marion, Harriton, and Radner. And then depending on our ranking, we would play another big school Thanksgiving weekend. So in terms of waivers for postseason, again, a lot of our colleagues in other schools are really focused on just getting a regular season. They just want to maximize the number of games for their athletes. When you enter the postseason, You don't know what's going to happen in terms of opportunities afterwards. And particularly the concern from a lot of schools is if we were to decide we're going to play a couple of games and then, you know what, we want to join the postseason. For many schools. To them, that means that we are going to have to basically step away from the rest of the Central League schedule. A lot of our colleagues

149do not want teams that basically leave the Central League group to come back. Several of them have used the word bubble. I personally don't like that word because we don't have control over what happens after school for many of our students. And, you know, our parents do not live in a bubble. OK, so, you know, but the idea of mitigating risk by keeping it to league play. A lot of our colleagues felt that if you left the league during the course of the season, they would not necessarily want you to come back. So if that happened and say we got six soccer games in and we left for the postseason. That would mean there's five games that teams would be left without opponents. And, you know. Maybe if another league team made the same decision,

150they could scramble and try to cross them and match up that way. But it would make for a lot of last minute scheduling changes that people were trying to avoid. Most of the superintendents, when we met with the ADs and the superintendents on Friday, were very adamant they wanted to maximize the number of regular season competitions. OK, so while it sounds like there's some things that are. We want to iron out as much as we can on the front end because this is time. Am I understanding that right, that message from you? Okay. And moving to the buses. I understand your rationale about... safety considerations with students driving themselves to different tournaments or games or scrimmages versus wanting them on the bus for their own safety. While they're on the buses, are they going to

151be required to wear masks? Yes. Okay. Thanks. All right. Thanks, Jen. Kelly, did you have your hand up for a question? I did. More of a comment so that I don't have to bring it up in the voting part of the meeting. The first thing I wanted to say is that I guess from my perspective, I would like to see the students be able to return into actual practice as soon as feasible because while it may not be something that can qualifies for more games or scrimmages or what have you. I think there's the social, emotional, and physical benefit to the students of being able to actually do a real practice as opposed to just the conditioning. And I also do think that our student athletes have tremendous respect for their coaches. And when we

152have coaches who help keep them focused on appropriate behavior and their practicing, I think it actually helps with our protocols, frankly, around masking, for example, and social distancing. The other, I guess, I just feel like I would like to offer to our students and to our parents. It's been very, again, Pat, really helpful to hear the details. I think many, many people are incredibly disappointed for obvious reasons that the plan is what the plan is at the moment. And I guess I would just like to offer, I'm myself incredibly disappointed in so many ways, but equally about how we've had to start off the school year. I would say, I want to thank you and others for all the time. I know just from talking to Dr. Palmer that you had put in an unbelievable

153amount of time in trying to work this through. And as you said, we're working with how many different districts. words and blah, blah, blah. And it's incredibly difficult to do what you've done. So I also want to offer my thanks for the hard work that you've put into this. Thank you. Dr. Palmer, did you want to? I do. It is really difficult for Pat and me to talk and we have talked so many times. I've even brought up comments when I was on the phone with the superintendents and the athletic directors. We have one of the first board meetings following the meeting of all of the athletic directors and the superintendents and it's also a board meeting that is going to take place before the PIAA board meeting. In a perfect world, we would know

154all of those nuances before we would bring something to you. I would love to see our kids be able to compete through the Central Athletic League and move all the way through districts and the states. That would be our preference. I have gone back to Pat numerous times, and Pat can't answer me either because we don't know what PIAA is going to do. We also know... And we value the commitment of the Central League with trying to make the season all that it can be for everyone and building up to the championship. But I'm really hard pressed to say if we have our teams, and I know we do. I know Pat and I have been in the stands at those final games last year, and some of them were absolutely heartbreaking. I know. They

155want to go on. And if there is a way to do it safely and within the season and within the parameters, I would love to do that. I really would. But I don't know. what the repercussions of considering that are. And there just wasn't enough time with everything unfolding in such a short time period with the change from the Chester County Department of Health, literally as we were having last Monday's meeting to our final meeting last Friday. There simply wasn't enough time to keep going through those conversations. And I know other boards are still trying to just have their board meetings. But I've asked Pat, could you continue to have the conversation with athletic directors? Are there any other options for us? And my comment to the other athletic directors and superintendents was we all

156do have our teams that are extraordinarily talented. This is not just a Wallingford Swarthmore item. We all have this issue. And are we really just going to stop with this? I don't know, but I wish we had that luxury of to have our board meeting after the PIAA meeting or to have had a little bit more time for that conversation. And Pat, I know you were reaching out to the ADs all over the weekend. We were going back and forth and I know you were reaching out today and I don't know if you were successful or you still need more time in conjunction with the PIAA board vote. Yeah, I mean. Believe me, I'm a very competitive person. I would love to have every postseason opportunity for our students, particularly this year. There's several of

157the teams that I presented there that I'm thinking in the back of my mind, there could be a real good postseason run if we have that opportunity. If we voted just on that issue as athletic directors, it felt like it was going to be a lopsided vote. So at the time on Friday, that just did not seem feasible. By the same time, I think as we get through the week, as we start to see more of the logistics, as we hear from District 1 in the state. I don't want anyone to walk away from this feeling that this is a closed shut element of it. I mean, we canceled a season three weeks ago and we're hoping to restart it. I certainly hope that there may be an opportunity to move forward with post-season as

158we move through the week. But again, because only three schools were voting tonight, Haverford, Lower Marion and us. The first step is to approve a regular season. We need to have our colleagues in the Central League join us for a regular season. And then, you know. We can look at postseason opportunities from there. Yes, there's time sensitive issues that, you know, I'm aware of for each sport. And certainly, you know, I will continue to work with our coaches and work with other athletic directors. I think some of my colleagues in other schools may hear from some of their parents over the course of this week about the importance of the postseason to them. It's just unfortunate that we got such a late start. And I know that is frustrating for some people, but we really

159were at the mercy of the health system's guidance. All right. I actually wanted to jump in, Pat, with a couple of questions. The first is a very minor one. I know you talked about these scrimmages during this period of practice before competition. Is there any reason why those, like, could you just scrimmage one school? twice? Does it have to be two schools? Like, I mean, just from a pure like contact with other schools. We could look at that. Again, the first step is we need to see who's in and then we can see the logistics of, you know, if we have all 12 schools, we have a model and then we can look at how we structure the scrimmages. But certainly if that limits the number of exposure, things like that, that's possible. I think

160usually we'd like to see multiple schools to get different looks for kids. But by the same time, if that's something that people feel is important, we may be able to look at that as, you know, play at one site the first week and at the other site the second week. Okay. Just something to consider. The second thing is questions about masking. I heard you talk about, you know, asking athletes to mask. Is it a requirement that they mask? Are we asking them to mask? I guess that's the question. I would say at this point, masking to me is something that we need to make a league decision because it's not effective for us to tell all of our kids to mask and the other school doesn't. You know, generally, I think we need to have

161a common threshold to protect each other if we're going that route. You know, I've been in contact with our trainer and Crozier. You know, we've been looking at guidance from, you know, several of the leading health agencies on this. I think we're just trying to figure out where the definition of a vigorous activity that. would mean take the mask off um you know how many of our sports will qualify for that so in terms of requirement versus request versus anything like that i think the first step is this is an item that i think as a league we would like to have some common ground on um and again you know we can revisit that over the course of the week okay yeah i think that um you know, particularly for a high contact sport

162like football, I think it's a relevant discussion in particular to really, I think there are a couple of states that actually are requiring masking during like full competition of football. I think I read Michigan and Delaware are both doing that. You know, I know it's hard to. you know, get lessons from other states. And I think they're not much further along in things than we are. So maybe there's not a lot of experience there yet. But, you know, I think the, you know, when you're starting to talk about high contact sport like football, I think we do need to talk with the other schools. I think it does make sense if you're masking your team that the other team needs to be masked. Like for it to work well, that would be. the goal. It

163shouldn't be one team being masked. So I would just, you know, again, it sounds like we don't have resolution on that with the league. But I think it's an issue we need to push in the league. One other question. I know we're talking a lot about high school sports. I'm wondering, have there been conversations about resuming middle school sports, even if that just means bringing kids together for practices? And I don't even know if it would be, you know, a competition schedule or not, but anything, any discussions at the middle school level about resuming athletics in some fashion? Sure. And I'll let Dr. King share his thoughts on this. We discussed this a little bit a couple weeks ago. And generally the consensus around the league and including our school is that we wanted to

164have students back in at least a hybrid environment. We need to have them on campus in order for middle school sports to be. a possibility. I know we're moving late into you know the fall here so I'm not sure where they are on that but I'll let Dr. King comment on that. Thanks, Pat. As you said, the ADs have not made any official decisions at the middle school level. However, as we're kind of a wait and see approach with the high school to see how that materialized and then speaking with my administrative team, what we would like to see at the middle school when the time is right is that we are hosting clinics. that are safe for kids at this particularly late in the fall and then into the winter. But hopefully, you know,

165who knows what the winter and spring will bring if we can get back to competition. But I know that we'll be meeting with Mr. Tagliatelle and he'll be meeting with the middle school athletic directors. But I feel at this point, they're taking their lead from high schools to see what happens first. But again, clinics at the middle school level would definitely most likely be our first step. Okay. Yeah, and I would just make a general comment that, you know, I think while we're spending a great deal of time discussing high school sports right now, I think, you know, Pat, in one of your first slides, you, you know, asked the question why they play. You know, and I think we have to have that same mindset toward a lot of the other types of social

166activities that happen in our school buildings. So beyond, you know, this isn't a message for you, Pat, but just more generally. I think as we have kids returning to the building, I think we'll need a lot of creativity to think about resuming. all the other types of activities, which ones can we, some of which may happen virtually, some of which may happen in other ways. But, you know, there are lots of other important activities that go on in school that I think really enrich the experience of students and trying to look at what we can do to resume some of those things I think is important as well. So I don't want to lose sight of that. Sure. I just want to agree, you know, and having worked with Nick Pignataro and John Shankweiler. I

167know our music program has done a great deal with their virtual activities. And, you know, we have assurances that if there's a way to have band members in the stands for football games, we will get as many as we can. Specifically, you know, Nick said that they would like to occupy the end zone and spread out in the end zone on the grass area by the pole vault area. So if we can get 76 trombones and 110 cornets, I'd love to, you know. make that a part of the game day environment too, but we got to see what the local and state guidance is. All right. Any other board member questions before we move on? All right. Well, thank you, Pat. And thank you everyone for these focus topic discussions. Incredibly helpful for the board

168and the community to hear all this information. So that takes us to the part of the agenda where we get to audience recognition for response to items for action on the agenda. And so members of the public wishing to address the board have been and continue to be encouraged to call 610-892-3470 extension 1102. Leave the recorded comments for the board subject to a three minute time limit. Any comments called in prior to five o'clock today have been transcribed and made available to the board. PB, Peter Vitale he & him & will acknowledge those comments right now anything left after five o'clock but prior to the end of the meeting will still be transcribed and distributed to the board and made a part of the record. PB, Peter Vitale he & him & But will not

169be acknowledged during the meeting this evening so Kelly, I believe we have several comments that were called in Friday. PB, Sarah Silver he & him & Yes, so. PB, Sarah Silver he & him & If Mary if you can just make sure i'm right here, I have to throw items on the agenda. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Three. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, You have three items on the agenda. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Okay, I'm gonna need help with the third one because I thought I had printed it and I didn't. So I have, I can share the one, the two I have. And then if I could have maybe the help of a board member who maybe has them electronically to help you with the third one. The first I have is Beth Ogden on Ash Road and Wallingford. I am actually...

170Ms. Ogden actually used the names of her children in the message. And for privacy purposes, I'm not going to share the names. I hope that's okay, Ms. Ogden, but I want to just be careful about that. The message is, my two boys go to high school and middle school. I saw that you can leave a message about voting. or an opinion on sending the kids back to in-person learning, I'm all for it. So if you're tallying votes, I would love it if they open the school as soon as possible. Get everyone back in there safely. I'm going to trust that you all know about keeping everything safe and I have faith in you. I just wanted to call and let you know that. Please send them back. Thank you. The second one I pointed out

171to share is from Kim Debuscher on West Country Club Lane in Wellingford. I'm calling on behalf and specifically as a representative of the Strathhaven High School golf team. This message is for the WSSD board, including any and all persons who are part of the decision-making process and the voting of whether to reinstate a high school. A high school fall sports season. Unfortunately, many repeated emails by our family over the last few weeks have not been responded to, and therefore we're now left with no choice but to leave a message with our inquiry by phone. Only a few hours ago, prior to this special board meeting being held tonight, it was posted on PA Prep Live that the Central League will be conducting a regular season for all sports, but there will be no option to

172participate in postseason play. So my question is twofold. Number one, what makes postseason play different than regular season play in that it's not being allowed? And two, more specifically, as I'm calling as a golf parent representative and to the sport of golf, which is probably the most widely considered to be the most COVID safe sport out there, why is golf being included with team contact sports in the decision-making process? And why aren't sports being looked at on a case-by-case basis, especially golf? which was generally approved for play by our state health department many, many months ago. I feel like our kids deserve a logical explanation for the decision making here. And if I am mistaking what I'm hearing right now prior to the board meeting, my apologies. And just please disregard this message. Thank you.

173Jen, I saw your note. Would you be able to read the third comment for me that I didn't manage to pronounce? I can. Thanks, Kelly. This comment is from Bill Foster. It's regarding the safe reopening of school. Should I read the address? Not the number, but the address, Kelly? Yes, I just do the, we do the street and the- This is from Bill Foster on Strathaven Avenue in Swarthmore regarding the safe reopening of school. Reopening of schools during COVID isn't easy. A principal concern on reopening is the possibility of harm to bus drivers, teachers, administrators, older family, and community members. Children require care, and when caregivers are harmed, there's harm to children. We know COVID-19 spreads well beyond any specific boundaries. As a small recent example, The news has reported that as of today, a

174private wedding in Maine in early August has led to eight deaths with none of these eight who died attending the wedding, but catching an illness from those who did. The thing is, preventing infections is hard work. Wearing masks consistently, maintaining ventilation and distance and hygiene is difficult. Safety cultures are hard at work as anyone who's been employed, as anyone who's been employed. Excuse me. As anyone who's been employed knows, it's common, really common to get sloppy and give up or pretend to be safe unless there's constant reinforcement. So how do we know WSSD is going to have the focus and stamina and resourcing to keep safe? Safe in every room, bus, hallway, every hour, every day with masks and distancing and airflow. Will there be second sets of eyes available and unrushed and respected and

175authoritative? Does everyone really understand the stakes and believe in the mission? Is there any testing to know if it's working? Is there rapid aggregation of absence and sickness information among staff and students? I don't believe the safety resource expectations are clear enough yet. So please help make them clear. Thanks, Bill Foster. And that's the only other one I have, Kelly. Okay. Thank you, Kelly and Jen. So we appreciate those comments being called in. And I believe we have one other one for an item not on the agenda that we'll get to later on after voting. So it takes us to the single section we have on the agenda tonight, which is curriculum. And we do have four items for action in curriculum. And I thought I would break that into two groups. The first two

176items relate to the return of students to our buildings under the hybrid plan and the revised education plan. And the items C and D, the third and fourth item, relate to athletics and are the central league plan as well as the WSSD. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Plan said I thought I would take up items A and B together. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Unless anyone would like to separate those. Okay. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, So first we have the approval of the revisions to the previously board. Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver Can we just clarify. Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver The two pieces because I think I might want to separate them out. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, First, PB, Harmon Zuckerman, No. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Oh, so the The functionally speaking, the first part is about the

177timeline of switching from virtual to hybrid and when that will transpire. The second item is the revised education plan that was described during the focus topic. Thank you. I would like to separate them out, please. Okay. So we'll start with item A then, which is the approval of the revisions to the previously board approved WSST health and safety plan on July 20th, 2020 and the August 10th, 2020 meetings. Wallingford Swarthmore schools moved to hybrid learning with cohorts of students returning as per the following timeline. All students in grades K to two, Thursday, October 1st, all students. Grades 3 to 5, Monday, October 5th. Students in grades 6 to 12 identified for the complex needs cohort, also Monday, October 5th. Student in grades 6 to 8, Monday, October 12th. And students in grades 9 to 12,

178Monday, October 12th. Do I have a motion? Don't move. Thank you, Jerry. Do we have a second? Second. Jennifer Lentz. Oh, thanks, Jen. Any discussion? David, sorry. It's Kelly. If I would like to offer a motion to amend, do I do that now? You would do that now, and then that motion would need to be seconded. Okay. Then that motion, that amendment would be up for... PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Discussion and vote. I believe Kyle. Those are it could be discussed. That is correct. That's the way it works. She'll make the motion if she gets a second there'd be discussion on it. There then be a vote to see whether or not to amend the underlying motion. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And then we would return to the original motion. PB, David Ensign he, him, possibly a

179modified version. Yes. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Okay. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, So there you go. So I'll go ahead and offer a motion to I'd like to amend the language so that we can enable the administration and the superintendent in particular to make tweaks to this as we deem necessary so that that can then be approved by the board but not have to call a special board meeting every single time we identify. a tweak that we need to make in this. And so the motion I'd like to offer would state as follows. The board authorizes the superintendent to take any other actions the superintendent deems necessary and appropriate without further board approval to ensure the safety of students and staff to the extent authorized by law and without regard for any policies or plans to the contrary.

180Specifically, the board envisions the potential need for changes to include minor revisions to the above plan, the education plan for the 2020-2021 school year, the Central Athletic League return to competition health and safety plan, and the WSSD return to competition plan fall athletic season 2020. Each such change shall then be considered and ratified by the board at a subsequent regular meeting. Any language in the prior health and safety plan for reopening school that directly conflicts with this revision is void. The administration is directed to submit the revised plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and take all other non-voided actions as previously directed. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Jennifer Lenz. Thank you, Jen. Any discussion? So this is an amendment. I just want to make sure you understand correctly. So this is an

181amendment that really applies to all four of the documents that we're voting on tonight. Would that be correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. So, and that really is just giving all four of those documents a little bit of wiggle room because we're needing to vote on some of them. quite quickly? I think if I could jump in here, the specifics here have to do with adjustments that need to be made around the safety of students and staff. And so as we bring students back in the buildings, as we resume other activities, you know, if in the course of implementing protocols, it's determined that a modification needs to be made. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, To increase the safety of students and staff at the administration could implement that and then bring it back to the board afterwards, rather

182than having to wait to convene the board to to make that change. PB, Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver Vd. And that and that makes sense. And I think, I think the the guide should always have that that flexibility. I'm a little bit concerned specifically about the athletic plans in that the athletic plans are somewhat loose to begin with now. And we do have another meeting a week from tonight, which happens to be before the start date for any of these things. Well, I think that the scope of what Kelly has proposed is not to make any changes that they deem are desirable, but instead to make changes that are in service of health and safety. So it couldn't be that the administration could decide, we want to... I don't know, I can't think of an

183example, but something that has nothing to do with health and safety and has more to do with like, we're going to play all these other schools now in these sports because we think it's okay. Like that's not within scope here at all. It's more related to identifying a health issue and addressing it and then promptly bringing it back to the board. And while I agree we're meeting next Tuesday, I still think the administration needs a little bit of... latitude and flexibility to be able to be responsive to issues as they arise in our schools. Okay. Just to make a comment, I think it's a situation where there's things you don't know that you don't know. And when the students come in or when sports begin to play, There may be a situation that comes up

184that needs adjustment. And I think we're talking about allowing that adjustment to be made rather than to hold off for a week until the board needs to get authorization of that. So I think that's the kind of the spirit of the amendment is as we see things develop to be able to respond to a need. without having to wait for a board meeting to deal with it. Any other discussion? All right. So, Mr. Berman, at this point, we would ask Ms. Figueroa to take a roll call specifically on the amendment. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote on that amendment? Yes. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Samino? Aye. Dr. Downey. Aye. Dr. Huff. Aye. Mr. Cutis. Aye. Mrs. Lentz. Aye. Mrs. Walkman. Aye. Dr. Grandy. Aye.

185Dr. Grandy, the motion passes 8-0. All right. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. So that takes us back to discussion on a now amended item. Is there any Mark Warren, Discussion. Marilyn. Marilyn Miller, So I hope the administration will use their discretion and admit amending their plan in the event that case counts increase or we decided we need to slow down the process, which I guess the timeline is the only thing really part of part a Mark Warren, Shop. I agree with Marilyn. I am very excited about bringing our kids back to school safely and excited about the changes that have been introduced and the reasons for the changes. I'm very concerned about the quickness in between the different phases. The timeline, I'm very concerned about, and I feel very uncomfortable with. with this timeline. And I

186don't feel like it gives us enough time to really get a sense of what we're seeing in the schools as students are being reintroduced. So I'm just, I'm very concerned about that. Any other discussion? I'll just make the comment that, you know, I think that there are, you know, It's important to remember that when we were originally going to open schools on August 31st with our hybrid plan, we were bringing everyone back all at once. And I think there are huge advantages to phasing things in right now. And so, you know, I recognize some of the concerns about like what's the right speed at which to go through that process. But I am... you know, very encouraged by the idea that we're not bringing everybody all back in one fell swoop. And there's a lot

187of district-wide protocols that, while we won't have every building open on day one, that will provide an immense amount of quick lessons learned to kind of test out these protocols, modify them as needed, and make sure everything is running smoothly. And, you know, each step of the way, of course, will require, again, you know, some tweaks to, you know, address concerns as they arise. I do feel like we have a window of time right now and we have to remember that that fall window of time could close pretty quickly. And I think that's what made me feel. like just kind of balancing things that try to get our secondary students in on October 12th makes sense because if you really phase in slowly over time, you really do start to potentially lose a window of

188opportunity for face-to-face education if winter becomes a period of time where it's harder to keep kids in the building. So just my thoughts on that. Any other comments? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Ms. Minow? Aye. Dr. Downey? No. Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Cutis? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. Dr. Grandy, the motion passes 7-1. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. So that takes us to item B, which is the approval of the revised WSST education plan for 2020-21 school year as presented this evening and as attached. Do I have a motion? So moved. Kelly Walkman. Thank you, Kelly. Do I have a second? Second, Jennifer Lentz. Thank you, Jen. Any discussion? Michelle. That was from before. Oh, that was from before. Sorry, I just

189took a little hint. Marilyn, did you have a comment on this or that was from before as well? I have a comment on this one. I have reservations about the change in the plan. I think that all students at all levels should be given the opportunity to switch between the online academy or the hybrid approach now that they have more information. And I also have concerns about the simultaneous remote and live instruction being difficult to maintain. And I hope that the adaptive approach will allow for maybe changing if that does not pan out. Any other discussion? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? No. Mr. Cutis? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Meno? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. The motion passes 7-1.

190Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. Okay, I will move on to the next two together, unless someone would like them separated. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Dr grandi it's I would like to offer a motion also with respect to item D. Yes, specifically item D. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay, I think we can still consider them together. And if unless someone objects and then we will entertain a motion at that we can entertain a motion at that time for an amendment item D. Is that correct, Mr. Berman. Okay. Yeah. So first we have item C, the approval of the Central Athletic League return to competition health and safety plan as stipulated and as attached. And then item D, the approval of the WSSD return to competition health and safety plan fall athletic season 2020 as stipulated. Do I have a motion? We

191have discussion, Dave. The discussion comes after. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I'm trying to keep up too. So moved, Jennifer Lentz. Okay. Thanks, Jen. Do we have a second? Second, Larry Keyes. Thank you, Larry. Then that takes us to discussion. And I know it sounds like Kelly wants to offer a motion. Jen, is it okay if we entertain that motion? Okay. So Kelly, do you want to make your motion? Yeah, I would. I would like to amend the WSSD plan to require masking for high contact sports, for all sports for that matter. I'm sorry. Sorry, could you state the motion? Sorry, I misstated. I would like to offer the motion to require the masking for the high contact sports. understanding again that we may need to adjust as necessary, but I would like to

192see masking in the high contact sports. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second Chapin's. Thank you, Chapin. And then discussion on that item. Oh, no, sorry. Discussion specifically to that motion to amend. And this would be for our WSSD return to competition health and safety plan. I think I'll just jump in actually and say, I recognize from our earlier discussion that this is part of a broader conversation. It sounds like with the Central League and involves a lot of negotiation. And I think what this motion would do is essentially ask our athletic director to go to the Central League and say, this is an expectation placed on us by our board. and therefore lead to negotiating a resolution to that with the league and to how that requirement would be handled, which I would

193support. Any other discussion? Dave, if I have a second amendment, but separate from this one to offer, would I do that now? No, we have to vote on this amendment. This first, okay. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So hearing no other discussion on the amendment, Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote specifically on the amendment? On the amendment. Dr. Huff? Aye. Mr. Cutis? Aye. Mrs. Lentz? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Minow? Aye. Dr. Downey? I. Randy. I. The motion passes. Thank you, Ms. McGoran. Ms. Walkman. Yes. Yes. And Jen, I hope I'm not stepping on you with this one. I would like to offer a motion to permit WSSD to begin practice immediately upon the coaches being able to pull it together. Do we have a second? Second, Jennifer Lentz. Okay.

194Discussion on the amendment. Marilyn. Is that amendment applied to all sports indiscriminately? I am willing to offer that across all sports to begin practice. Okay. I guess the part that is confusing. maybe confusing to say the least, is what the implications of that are with the Central League. If I heard correctly earlier, starting practice I don't believe would have an implication for the Central League. It would be starting competition early, but maybe that's actually also not entirely clear because I think the expectation by the league was that everybody started at the same time. I don't know, Dr. Palmer, could we ask for a clarification as to whether or not, just so we're clear, like whether there's potential negative consequences with the league? if we were to authorize practices to resume sooner than September 29th. And

195Dr. Grandy, I know you're asking me that. Pat, are you still on the line or still on the call? I am, yeah. Again, I don't think there would be any kind of sanctions or anything like that for practicing earlier. Again, competitions would be... possibly a different story, but also the logistics of you need somebody to play earlier. Is there a chance that there would be sanctions? Like, is that something we'll know more when the league, when are you meeting again? Our athletic directors are meeting on Wednesday. We do not have a sanctioning mechanism in our bylaws to my knowledge, because we've had some issues in the past where. Teams went a different direction the rest of the league. So I do not expect there to be any challenge from my colleagues other than I might

196get an earful, but I'll take that. Well, I heard the amendment to say within the coach's ability to do it. So to the degree that some barrier comes up. I assume that leaves space for it, does it not? I believe that that would. Is there, and again, this gets into this overlap of league versus PIAA. Is there any parameters from PIAA that we need to be aware of about? the time, is there any limitation of how long you can practice before you would start competition? Like, is there any, I know there's a requirement of a minimum amount you must practice. I assume, like, are we, is there any risk with PIAA and... No, basically we're in the regular season for the fall season. So, you know, we can begin and practice as long as we

197needed to. As I mentioned, particularly St. Joe's prep football would be the case study here where they basically decide to move forward when the rest of the Catholic league did not. They've been practicing for several weeks now. And I think they still are two to three weeks away from actually playing a game. So we can extend practices with that implications. Okay. Any other discussion on the amendment? Yeah, one other. There are safety protocols that are to be put in place. Again, my assumption is that to the degree that that doesn't get done, you don't start practice until it's done, correct? And we're not going to. We're going to do it according to the safety protocols to the degree that it takes some time to do something about that. Then practice starts when it's ready. I

198can restate the amendment as necessary, but yes, everything would need to still be conducted in the context of the health and safety plan. So my intent here is to offer an amendment that would permit, authorize our district and our coaches to begin practice as soon as possible. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote on that amendment? Mr. Kudas? Aye. Ms. Lentz? Aye. Ms. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. Smino? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? No. Dr. Grandy? Aye. Dr. Grandy, the motion passes seven to one. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. That takes us back to discussion on the twice amended motion. Any discussion? Jen. So I want to start by saying that I'm going to vote in favor of the remaining items regarding sports.

199And first, I'm going to do so because that vote aligns with the current health and safety guidelines, coupled with where we are with health numbers in the district and the county, and according to Governor Wolf's guidelines. And it complies with the newly revised recommendations from the Chester County Health Department and the guidance that we have received from the Central Athletic League. The second reason I'm going to vote yes is that I view this as a step toward accomplishing our goal of returning to face-to-face education. For families that are not participating in sports, there could be a legitimate concern that we are prioritizing sports for a few over in-person education for everyone. My view is that I see the return to sports as part of the overall effort to get back to doing things in person

200as soon as we safely can. Or to put it another way, to do what we can when we can do it. The current county and district conditions support a situation where we can vote for a return to sports. Hopefully, we will get to a point soon when we can all agree that the conditions also support a safe return to more in-person education. At the same time, those families, excuse me, at the same time that those families who are not involved in sports may have a concern that our priorities are wrong, I know that some student athletes and their parents might feel that what has been presented tonight is too little too late. I think it's important. that we acknowledge that our athletes in every sport have lost something irreplaceable already. A pivotal moment in time

201in their youth that they cannot get back. The proposal tonight is not perfect and it's not going to replace what we've already lost, what they've already lost, but it is a plan that I hope our board and other boards that we need to cooperate with will support to get you back to some level of competition. A vote for sports tonight for me is progress. And I want to support progress now as opposed to searching for a perfect solution later. So I'm going to vote yes. Thank you. Thanks, Jen. Marilyn? No great surprise here, but I will be voting no on this. And we have heard a lot of anecdotes over the last several weeks about other entities that have been having competitive sports and in-person teaching without any problems. And there are also anecdotes about

202renewed community spread being initiated by reopening schools and or sports competitions, usually both at the same time. There are anecdotes about even the youngest children contracting the virus and being hospitalized. I want to remind the members of the board that there is a difference between being safe and being lucky. And we are a policy setting board. And crossing your fingers is not a policy. I didn't see anything in the Central Athletic League health and safety plan or the WSSD athletic health and safety plan that would address what would happen if a player or coach contracted COVID. Would they have to quarantine until they were tested before they could go back? It wasn't mentioned anywhere in the documents. I find that absence troubling. And if that were addressed in the document, I might be able to

203support it. But as it is, it's just a permission slip to play sports. It's not a health and safety plan. Thanks, Marilyn. I'm confused now, okay? Because we agreed that for the school, there is a health protocol that's in place. And that protocol, whether it's classroom or sports, is in place. I didn't have any issue with the fact that sports didn't have that overtly stated. Mainly because my understanding is if you're playing in school sports, you are following the protocols that are established. And the protocols that are established regarding safety and the COVID would require that somebody that has COVID gets isolated for whatever duration of time. It would require that anyone that was in close contact for a period of time, especially without masks, be isolated and possibly tested. And whether it's sports or

204classroom, there's no exceptions to that. They're in school. Therefore, you follow that protocol. Am I off base? I don't think you're off base, Jared. Dr. Palmer, can you confirm? I mean, our protocols that would apply to kids in school would also apply to athletics, correct? That is correct. And our partnership with the Chester County Department of Health would be exactly the same. We would contact them, partner with them. In fact, that is that partnership that Gina referenced. The issues that we had. This summer where we had occasion to reach out to them had to do with our sports program. So that's how we have the first hand information Any other discussion? Any other discussion? Yes just to add to dr. Palmer's comment the issue that we know happened for us one that impacted a member

205of the sports team But was not believed to have been spread through specifically through participation and sports from what I understand. I just want to, given that we're voting on returning to competition, from what I understand that that was not something that occurred by nature of participating in sports. Mrs. Walkman, that is our understanding. Again, I'm confused. It doesn't matter where it came from. If that person interacted with students in a duration and in a method that warrants isolation for other students, they get isolated. It doesn't matter where the COVID occurs. What matters is socially distance. wearing masks, the degree of interaction that occurs. I'm assuming that's applied regardless of where the COVID occurred. Is that true? Yes, that is my, yes, that is correct. Okay. Because I mean, I asked kind of that question

206earlier today when we were talking about kids in a class and I was told that, that If a COVID case occurs, we look at the interactions that occurred with other students. And if the interactions were such that it would warrant testing or isolation as part of the contact tracing, that's what we do. Or that's what the Chester County Health Department does. It would be the same for sports, I assume. Dr. Palmer, I see you nodding. That's correct. That is correct. Okay. Any other comments? I'll make one final comment. Okay. Football. They huddle when they're on offense. If somebody in that huddle gets COVID, okay, that suggests that You need to worry about isolating a bunch of people, depending on how many huddles occurred, the duration of those huddles, and that we might go back and

207look at the film and see whether it warrants isolation of other participants. That's what the protocol calls for. Am I correct? Especially if they're not wearing masks. Dr. Palmer, that's correct. That is correct. When we talk about close contacts, they ask us all of the close contacts, whether it's in the classroom, it's on the football field, it's in the bus. They want to know exactly what those close contacts are. But regarding the masking, if this motion does pass, our athletes will be masked. I think it's important that the students understand this, especially the students of sports, because I know we all want them to play sports. But their behavior and how they do it, both in the competition and out in their day-to-day life, is going to depend on how the rest of the team

208can continue to participate. Yeah, I think that's a great point, Jerry. I mean, I think our students who are competing in sports need to realize that. you know, the responsibility that needs to be exercised both inside of practices and competition as well as outside of that because it is just as we ask all of our families to and students to follow strict. procedures inside and outside of school related to classroom time. Certainly the same is true for sports as well. And I think your example about, you know, a huddle even, for example, for many of the students should be, hopefully offer a compelling reason to want to wear masks, because I think when certain situations are reviewed, and it's determined who's at high risk of you know, a transmission, if there's a case, I think,

209you know, the adherence to masking will come into play in determining what the recommendations are from the health department. I mean, there's a story that's been told quite a few times, but there's a great epidemiologic case study from a hair salon where I think it was one or two COVID positive hairstylists took care of like 134 clients. And in that salon, clients and the stylists were masked. And there was no cases of transmission in that salon, which is pretty remarkable when people have looked at that epidemiologic case study. So masks can be effective, you know, if they're strictly adhered to. and so could be important in making sure that athletics can continue. Social distancing, like in our classrooms, of course, is incredibly important as well. These things are complementary to one another. It's just that

210sports sometimes create instances where social distancing can't be followed and where masking becomes even more paramount in those instances. Jen? Thanks, Dave. I know about that study. I think it was in Missouri, if I recall correctly. And I don't know if you just said this in your recount, but those two stylists were actually also symptomatic. So it also proves the effectiveness, at least in that case, of masks. And they were styling hair, whatever they were doing indoors. So it does further substantiate the effectiveness of masks. when they are able to be used. I would also add that for the, if this were to pass and if our athletes were to be able to return to practice and competition, I would also like it if there was, how would I put it? a lower level of

211maybe judgment or assumption if an athlete does come down with COVID because, you know, as it stands right now, I think that there have been a lot of, I have personally heard and know about a lot of judgment that comes with an athlete. contracting COVID when we all know that these are very uncertain times and there have been assumptions made that certain contractions have happened within sports when I think moments ago Kelly clarified one particular incident. So the reason I would like that and this isn't really a vote for the board but as we're sitting here talking about how careful our athletes have to be and they should be, we all should be, I also want them to feel the comfort level. everyone to feel that comfort level of coming forward if someone isn't feeling

212well. And the more judgment that goes up about athletes in particular when it comes to COVID, someone may be reluctant. So if this passes and if this goes forward, if you are not feeling well, be forthright about that because it could affect a lot of people. So I wanted to add that in while we are discussing protocols and safety. and the potential going forward. Thanks. Other comments? Okay. Ms. Figueroa, can you please take a roll call vote? And again, this is for items C and D in their amended form. This is for C and D, correct. Ms. Lentz? Aye. Mrs. Walkman? Aye. Mr. Ballas? Aye. Ms. D'Amino? Aye. Dr. Downey? Aye. Dr. Huff? No. Mr. Cutis? Aye. Dr. Grandy? Aye. The motion passes. Dr. Grandy, 7-1. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. So that takes us to

213audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda. And as I stated earlier, 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 the recorded comments for the board subject to a three minute time limit. Anything left prior to five o'clock today has been transcribed and made available to the board. And those comments left after five o'clock, but prior to the end of the meeting will still be transcribed, distributed to the board and made a part of the record, but will not be acknowledged during the meeting. Kelly, I believe we have one. Yes. Okay. Yes. So this comes from Javier Gil on Cornell Avenue in Swarthmore. Dear Dr. Palmer, Dr. Cittarelli-Jones, Dr. Moszkowski, Dr. Hilden, Mr. King, Dr. Tuck, Mr. Savage,

214Mr. Heinle, and the Wallingford-Swathmore School District Board. We're writing as representatives of WSS Big Idea, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access. This group was formed last fall by a small group of teachers and parents, and in less than one year we have grown to over 150 members in the community. The goal of WSS Big Idea is to end racism, homophobia, discrimination, and hate speech in the WSSD community and promote a sense of belonging within the community. We write to you following yet another incident of racism, homophobia, and hate speech that occurred in classrooms at Strathaven High School on September 3rd. Three weeks have passed and the community has yet heard nothing about a direct response. We must start thinking proactively, systematically, and concretely about how to change the culture of our school and larger community from

215the one that minimizes these hateful attitudes and acts. to one that actively and persistently works to end racism, homophobia, discrimination, and hate speech in our community. Our children are watching our actions and inactions while deciding who they are, what they accept, and how they treat others. We urgently need to start addressing racism, homophobia, discrimination, and hate speech in the WSSD by educating students, implementing the lessons from the book, Being the Change, for all students in kindergarten through grade 12 in the WSSD district. Being the change is based on the idea that people can develop skills that happens to serve others through the comprehension of social issues. Being the change provides teachers with tools and activities to help students make sense of themselves in the world as they navigate relevant topics in today's society. Educating adults

216by requiring all the WSSD employees participate in Lion's Story, a professional development workshop. Lion's Story's mission is to prepare individuals and organizations to navigate and resolve racially charged situations, committing serious resources to developing an equity lens to every aspect of schooling and teaching in the WSSD community, including, for example, curriculum development, professional development, discipline, and hiring. Remaining open to future recommendations from this group and the district's diversity, equity, and inclusion committee and the suggestions of teachers, parents, and students regarding further proactive work to address these issues in the classroom, schools, and in the community. Taking these actions and putting resources towards being the change in Lyons' story demonstrate that much needed commitment on the part of the WSSD to address racism, homophobia, discrimination, and hate speech. In partnership, WSS Big Idea, led by Charmaine Seitz,

217Dena Stoneberg, Japir Gill, and Kim Schmucke. I was muted. Sorry about that. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for the comments, again, being called in. I believe our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee may be planning to provide an update tonight, which I think is obviously relevant to that comment called in. There's no old business or new business officially on the agenda, but I want to add that right now to say, do we have any old business? If the committee wants to give a report, I think that would be the appropriate time to do it. Yes, I would like to give a report. We did have our meeting last Wednesday of the committee. And we started by asking Dr. Hilton to come in and discuss the three incidents that occurred the first day of

218school and talked about what occurred. And then following that, we had a discussion. And there were kind of two themes in the discussion from the committee. One was that we really have, it's important that we not only talk about, but fundamentally demonstrate that the behavior of that type is simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the school system at all. And the second theme was that we have to work at building within the school community values on diversity and to make sure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. And as part of that discussion, being the change was discussed and we did agree that we would pursue that where it applied appropriately at various grade levels to help move this forward. Following that discussion, we heard and discussed reports from three subgroups that

219we had activated a month before to deal with a number of topics and come back with some recommendations. And each subgroup gave us some good reports. The first group was talking about advancing diversity and equity in our hiring practices. And although we already have hiring practices that include those type of thoughts. They did have some promising new ideas that they suggested, and we will likely pursue those and add them to our hiring practices. The second group talked about how to better incorporate diversity in the classroom. And again, had a good plan of how to apply some of the teaching tolerance concepts to make diversity kind of an ongoing discussion across the school system over time. So get more focus on it. The third group reported on how can we improve. communications around DEI to the

220school community and the community in general and help foster engagement. And they had a message for us. And the message was we need to get faster, broader, and more overt about our communications. That the community is not aware of much of the work that we're doing. And we need to do a better job in that. And I would agree with that. I espouse to the rule of five. There's many rules of fives. The one I'm talking about is the one that I learned many years ago. And that is that in order to demonstrate that you're committed to something, people have got to hear it at least five times. And we probably haven't talked about what we're doing at least five times. So we're asking this group to continue to work and develop a comprehensive communication

221plan for 2020, 2021 that would go after really getting broader, getting more open. and getting overt about what's going on around diversity, equity, and inclusion. And further, we said, well, we're not going to wait for the committee to come up with a plan. We're going to start doing it immediately. So, for example, we're going to post the minutes of each of our meetings on the website, on the DEI website. And we're finalizing the mission statement and we'll like to not only put it on the DEI website, we'd like to put it on the homepage of the WSSD website because it is a statement that talks about driving a culture change, which is what we're committed to doing. We want to publicize the names of the people in the committee. although we still have to get

222approval from each of them so people know who's working on the committee. And we want to both outline and post all the work that's been going on and is going on around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, the 6th of October, and we're having a training session with Dr. Heather Bennett, who is a PSBA equity officer. And the topic of the session is equity and inclusion. Last but not least, we have extended an invitation to meet with the Big A leadership group. to talk about the common goals that we have and what we can do to work together and be more supportive of one another in driving the ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. They're ideas that are important to both our action committee. and the Big Idea Group, and

223we ought to find ways to both contribute positively to that effort. That's my report. Any questions? Thank you, Jerry. Does anyone have any questions for Jerry or the committee? Just thank you for that update. I've been wondering about that myself. Thank you. And again, I want to thank our three board members who have been spearheading all this work, Kelly, Michelle, and Jerry. Incredibly important work for the district and appreciate you driving it forward alongside the administration, as well as our community members who are participating. So thank you to everyone. Any other old business? Okay. Any new business? Okay. Well, everyone get some sleep. This meeting is adjourned. Good night. Good night. Good night.