July 19, 2021 School Board Meeting - Brandywine School District

001good evening welcome to the brain wine school district board of education regular meeting on monday july 19 2021. tonight we are located live in the mount pleasant elementary multipurpose room as well as via zoom miss harris we have a roll call please mr skrobot here ms gordon miss gordon michael green mr ackerman here reverend perry here mr heller here missed up here all present thank you ms harris this time i would like to welcome our newest board member ms kimberly stock who was sworn in last week at our board retreat stock if you'd be so kind as to lead us in the pledge of allegiance this evening of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you before we make

002a motion to prove the agenda i just want to make one correction looks like item 12c was a board meeting for june 21st i'm going to strike that from the agenda and replace it with a meeting date of october 18th so with that said i will entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended second have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries tonight's special recognitions and presentations will begin with part four in a series of four regarding the district's learning leap plan for the 2021-22 school year and this will be presented by several members of our administrative team test test test and if each speaker could just introduce themselves as they do their part that'd be great good evening president scrobot vice president pidgeon board

003members mr holler it's our pleasure tonight to give to you our fourth installment overview of our summer programs update for our overarching learning leap program so as a reminder you are going to see some slides that you did see previously but i know it's been a few months so we just wanted to bring you up to speed and remind you of some other background information so as an overview brandywine school district provide a comprehensive learning lead programming to support unfinished learning and accelerate students for success our goals is were to mitigate unfinished learning by doing that we were accelerating learning which meaning meaning we were not remediating we were providing on grade level instruction and also being mindful of social emotional development uh scl lessons and such yes that's fine thank you you can go

004next slide uh we did have specific criteria for students to participate and that was true for our spring programming and our current summer program and it will also be true for our fall programming this included attendance looking at specific courses at the secondary level looking at student participation at the elementary level whether or not there were extenuating circumstances and such also looking at test scores such as map students grades at the elementary level looking at specific competencies and where students fell and then also providing social emotional learning lessons through pods suite for the elementary level suite 360 for the secondary level and also monitoring those uh if there were any red flags any signs of mental health or mental uh well any mental health need that we needed to address so again just as a

005reminder if you see in the upper right hand corner the spring learning uh you know it's cut off there a little bit i don't know who's oh cor if you can move the the view sorry not the slide the uh participants view to the upper portion of the screen that would be helpful thanks so much that's that's great thank you oh fantastic thank you almost one more there we go um so tonight we'll be discussing summer programming as you see there in the lower right hand corner summer academy supports for esl student or extended school year and entitlement credit recovery recovery services we'll also go into uh some previews of what's coming for the 21 22 school year we're prioritizing standards and accelerating learning and then also additional supports through school programming so good evening

006i just want to share a little bit about summer programs and give an update we've had students for almost a month now and so on the next slide you will see a recap of our programs that we have going on this summer and what we've included there are the number of students who are attending each of those programs some of the programs in fact most of the programming is face-to-face although we do have some remote opportunities that students continue to participate in and so you'll see all the way from preschool through our elementary middle high school and post high school students and the opportunities that they're having we do have less than our intended number but do have over 1 100 students participating in the summer programming to do the things that dr kutch just

007mentioned continue to accelerate learning but also address any specific needs that may have come about due to the past year and then also providing some opportunities for students to participate in some additional activities which we'll see on the next slide we've had the pleasure to be able to work with some community partners in order to give students enrichment opportunities so there are some listed there specifically at the middle school uh high school level uh there have been rotations of some extracurricular or enrichment activities through right noodle there's also rim which stands for revitalizing inner city males to men and it is a basketball opportunity that also addresses social emotional learning with students at the middle school level and there have been some opportunities prior to the start of each day for high school students to

008participate in that as well additional opportunities through christina cultural arts center delaware institute for arts and education as well as university of delaware stem so our students have been learning a lot this so far this summer and we are very happy to see their smiling faces and give them the opportunity to continue their learning but have fun at the same time so we just also wanted to highlight some fun activities the students were participating in if you remember we discussed last time that we wanted this not to have a feeling of the traditional summer school right we wanted this to have more of a camp feel but also a good deal of learning going on but just to highlight here some of the stem enrichment that was happening at the elementary level which you can

009see in the slides here teachers i have to tell you teachers were really appreciative those that were working during the summer programming uh they were saying that they were having a better it was great because they were getting a better idea of where the kids kind of fell so you know even though obviously they're teaching during the school year they can see now the what happened next and so they have a much better idea of going into the fall what to expect and they really were enjoying the students enthusiasm for coming to school the kids were really excited to come in person which was really nice to see you know and when we first presented this to you we were talking about incentives i don't know if you remember that um you know pbs types

010incentives and rewards and such and we bought them a box of fun toy types of things but i have to credit our coordinators that they really picked it up and ran with it you can see here some pictures from harlan not only did they do that but they kind of made their own spirit weeks so each week to encourage the kids to come back to school have something to look forward to they had a themed week the pictures you see there are rainbow day and so everybody in their finest some other things that they would do uh playing kahoot games uh during the school day reinforcing concepts giving them brain breaks promoting positive behavior playing i spy having work virtual field trips movement breaks they were even getting out the school mascots pause from lombardi

011came out and was uh giving a lot of encouragement to the students who are in person so looking to next year with prioritization and acceleration providing on grade level content is our academic priority uh to do that our cni department is busy busy busy at work identifying prerequisite skills critical standards i'll be taught next year there uh updating pacing guides they're specifically calling out these skills and standards in our scope and sequences uh for example even in cern cern provided kickstart lessons which embed foundational concepts providing prerequisite knowledge students will need to learn uh while um being presented with on-grade level content in bookworms students are reading on-grade level books while receiving prerequisite knowledge supports during differentiated instruction blocks we'll be using map data and other local assessments to determine where the gaps are to

012better uh understand what interventions and what will be the best structure for delivery we also know that using high quality instructional material is critical not only accelerating students but also in regular instruction so to that end we'll be making sure our students have access uh to this curriculum which may require the adoption of new material so uh just so you know on the horizon for this year there are several new curricula that we'll be implementing for middle school ela it's into literature for science at the elementary level for grades three and four amplify science at the middle school level open syed high school social studies it's been some time since we've um looked at social studies at the secondary level uh civics and ap government is on the horizon there and then just previewing for

013you future adoption areas with regards to high school math high school ela and looking at pre-ap for teacher professional development it is pretty robust as you can imagine just with what you saw on the previous slides of what we're preparing behind the scenes but we know how important it is when teachers and students are coming back to school in august that we're going to spend a good deal of time around relationship building what does it mean uh to form a strong relationship what does it mean to be in school and maybe you haven't been in school for quite some time and be able to foster those connections uh teach will be provided uh curriculum updates and also as you saw in the previous slide for those areas that are implementing new curriculum that there will

014be professional development around that also uh supporting unique learners for special ed and our ell students professional development provider for teachers there and then also setting our technology expectations so as you know in these last year and a half we've been doing some online learning hybrid learning concurrent learning with regards to technology but that's really not what we mean by blended learning and so setting some technology expectations and setting the stage of what good instructional practices look like when embedded in instructional technology on wednesdays we will designated some wednesdays as being district plc days again you know our august days are not just one-stop shop kind of one-and-done professional development this is throughout the entire year so looking at again the curriculum resources doing data analysis this will be extremely it's important every year but

015really important this year to keep an eye on the prize with that and then resulting interventions based on that data in our plc's at the building level also providing supports around blended learning and then again like we said before with the curriculum adoptions and looking at high quality instructional material making sure good instructional planning is going on it's not just teachers with regards to professional development but also administrators as well last week we just completed our administrative retreat from monday through friday the theme of the administrative retreat was acceleration via equity and innovation the message from our superintendent was strive for excellence in all and all strive for excellence no exceptions no excuses and we spent the entire week dwelling delving into many of the topics that you see there some highlights the importance of

016solid tier one instruction with the intentional use of technology d-pass two evaluation systems as a means for continuous improvement specific look fors for teachers of students with disabilities the importance of building relationships as a foundation for addressing trauma and repairing harm all have experienced the collective trauma caused by the pandemic and to recognize this taking time at the beginning of the school year to reset and recalibrate address the social emotional needs of staff and students collaborative discussion around equity and education the areas of race religion lgbtq plus access ability mental health and socioeconomic status uh this will also continue these topics and others uh within the monthly meetings for administrators during the 21 22 school year this would also include monitoring the fidelity of implementation of the curriculum especially the new curriculum we just previously

017discussed being able to provide critical feedback intervention and support as leaders in our building for the fall and the learning support for our students just to preview that for you we will continue to offer academic tutoring after school support and remote credit recovery we've identified uh and are in the process of identifying more rti supports in math and reading uh also to ex to support acceleration teachers will identify critical skills by grade or subject with the help of the cni department we want to ensure that those prerequisite skills are taught immediately prior to learning this new on-grade level material boost 22 is a partnership between newcastle county school districts the goal is to have 100 of the class of 2022 students to graduate this will include having cis that's community in schools graduation coaches that

018would be three shared among the districts and in addition continue to access credit recovery through community partnerships so we have a huge task ahead of us we are up for that challenge we've we've addressed many challenges these last year and a half we're up for this next challenge we remain focused on continuous improvement and achieving positive outcomes for all of our students are there any questions yeah i have a question um on the very first slide one of the columns was number of students but i don't think for the high school it captured actual numbers of students it said course offerings correct so what are the total number of students that are participating as a percentage of our total enrollment that's participating in this summer learning leap and i don't need to you know be

019exact i'm just kind of a ballpark well i can tell you the 412 i think it was is is representative of our high school students that are enrolled in our apex credit recovery courses and we have uh some students are taking one some students are taking two so um rather than double counting students twice thought it would be more accurate to report it as courses taken okay so it looked and i was just kind of just sort of adding the numbers up my head looks like about maybe that ten percent yeah i think of our student body is involved with this do you think that's capturing every student who had learning loss because of all this covered interruption for our high school students for just across the district yeah probably so between five percent 10

020percent okay and you know part of that is to the willingness to come in um and such i do i have to say i have to commend our transportation department who did a fantastic job rooting the students who were willing to come in um that are that we did provide that as an as a feature as well mr hackerman if it helps um in a conversation with dr koch just the other day i i asked about how many students traditionally take advantage of the apex credit recovery courses at high school and it was about 200 so we're about double in terms of the number of students taking advantage of that opportunity and i also do want to point out sorry i do want to point out too for that high school model normally it's just

021students working independently on their own with no additional supports just that that's the expectation but this year we have case managers in which are uh meeting with the students twice a week in person also uh after hours uh twice a week in the afternoons and also calling them weekly just to say hey noticed you know you haven't made much progress this week want to really encourage you to finish strong etc which has been really helpful as well first of all um first of all i just wanted to say thank you so much for this presentation and for all the efforts because i know that that represents a massive amount of time and resources and uh and teachers and staff and so i i'm very appreciative of that uh my question is is has there been

022any or will there be any um type of evaluation for the program to know kind of um how it helps students and to be measure that inc data yeah sure absolutely so um at the elementary level there's been uh at the elementary and middle school level there have been progress reports that have been shared with families that we've been keeping track of and in addition to that we've been very keeping very careful attendance uh so then come the fall we will be using the map scores our map data to then correlate it back to the attendance rate of the students who were participating on a regular basis and seeing what kind of impact it did make in fact any additional comments from the board questions okay thank you dr klitsch thank you very much and

023thank you nicole next up we have our 2021 dream box challenge winners presented by miss glenn miss hawley and dr coach um so um my name is becky glenn i'm the elementary math coordinator in the curriculum department um every year we ran an annual competition called the dreambox challenge we encourage students to work through the mathematics program called dreambox let me read you a little something about it dreambox is an online math program for students in grades k-8 dreambox is a math program designed for students that teaches and reinforces conceptual understanding on a personalized student learning pathway this year from may 1st to may 31st students in the nine elementary schools and three middle schools competed to win prizes based on how many lessons they completed in dreambox during that time period students were recognized

024in the following ways the top performer in each grade level across the district is receiving these recognitions tonight which is a true fiance certificate and then in each school the next three highest performers at every grade level were recognized with a certificate and a medal so they were sent home at the end of the year so we have some outstanding hard-working students with us tonight that we wanted to recognize i thought we would start with i don't know if i saw natalie but i want to start with grade 8 so i'll have the older kids go over in front of the bsd thing we'll take their picture and if families want to meet them over there you guys can get a picture too does that sound good so for grade 8 from talley middle school

025we had natalie lee i don't think i saw her tonight um also from tally we had adam knee for seventh grade congratulations [Applause] um sixth grade also from talley fnu soraya [Applause] head over there take your picture [Music] from fifth grade lombardi we have idahon uh our fourth grade uh participant did make me aware that he wasn't gonna be able to be here he has a baseball game um miss scott do you have um there we are there's bryce [Applause] his mom said they'd be tuning in um for third grade from lancashire we have mike mcgothie devondrian [Applause] congratulations um second grade also from lancashire yalani santillo super mania [Applause] and this is a family tradition her sister won last year for one of the great books um we have first grade from lombardi ahana

026shashank [Applause] i'll go ahead over and then for kindergarten we have from lancashire behavior mala [Applause] all right so um thank you for everyone um we have wonderful students in the brainerd school district and it's always nice to celebrate their achievements so thank you for your time [Applause] i just want to say to the students what a great accomplishment for all your hard work and also a thank you to the parents for the you know supports you're providing at home and the love of learning that you're instilling at such a young age so thank you all right next up we have some special recognition for the bernie white school district technology department ms scott are you presenting on that i am thank you good evening members of the board and community i am fortunate to

027have the opportunity to present to you this evening in recognition of our brandywine technology department our superintendent shared a message with our administrators earlier this year regarding the importance of servant leadership being a servant leader requires that you put the needs of others first you support the development of others but you're willing to collaborate and learn together being a servant leader means that you will ensure that others feel respected and valued and you strive to remove barriers that can get in the way this is how our technology department operates they have made it possible for our teachers to continue teaching and for our students to continue learning so i'm just so thankful to be able to be here to say uh thank you to them and i want to walk you through a few specific

028uh pieces about our technology department and all the things they've done over the past year as you know we were thrust into a global pandemic where all things related to teaching and learning were turned upside down the weight of making things possible shifted and there was an increased need for technology and digital resources and so our technology team has stepped up to that challenge and they've really made things happen hold on sorry it's not advancing one second there we go okay so we had to deploy over ten thousand and four hundred student chromebooks um and with that our technology department had to configure those chromebooks to make sure they were able to access internet and other learning resources with that they had to create an asset management system to keep track of the devices and

029to make sure that we had accountability for where the devices were and so um they stepped up and they got that done our tech team also um had a little bit of foresight to move forward in providing laptops to our teachers we had a cycle of refreshing desktops and getting more laptops out to our teachers and so they very quickly jumped in and got a few schools done ahead of time in time so that they could be prepared for remote and hybrid learning we also as you know we're using it tonight we had to use zoom and so with that came a lot of pieces um behind the scenes um making sure that uh educators were rostered and that they were able to access zoom so that learning could continue additionally just as we're using

030it now for this meeting we use zoom for professional development and even connecting with our families so they've got it done our students again they're accessing zoom so that they can participate in hybrid and remote learning and so keeping up with those pieces and making sure that the technology was working for them was handled by our tech team schoology so everybody knows schoology and before covet happened primarily the use of schoology was happening in our secondary schools and so we quick had to make a shift and technology had to make sure that all students could access schoology with that came training and information needed for kids and families and all the pieces to make sure that they could access their learning tools and in order to make that process easier our technology team implemented what

031we call single sign-on so to make it easier for kids to access all of the learning tools as well as adults we have one single sign-on through class link that we can go to and access our all of our materials and resources and so they quickly put that in place so that again accessing things would be easier for learning we also so there's just a small picture of classlink and all the applications that they had to roster um we had to um add on additional tools like nearpod and suite 360 and different things in order to make sure that kids had access to digital materials and again our technology team they're the group that made that happen for us some of our teachers needed additional monitors and speakers in order to again teach in hybrid

032or remote environments and so we deployed over 350 monitors and speakers out to our classrooms to support the learning needs in the midst of all that many of our administrators needed additional upgraded devices and so over 50 surface pros were again configured and deployed out to our administrators and so just a little snippet um servicenow is our um tech ticket if you will when there's a technology issue or need or even just a question for help um people put in a tech ticket and so over a three month span our tech team resolved over 3600 tech tickets so again just trying to highlight all that they have done in this period of time to kind of make things happen for us and in the midst of all that um because we wanted to stay connected

033to our families and allow our um families to see our athletic games um they were able to institute the mobile broadcasting system that was in place so families could see things online and so what i shared with you is not at all a comprehensive list of all that they have accomplished over the past year i didn't even mention all the support phone calls that they took from staff and students and families um that number we looked at that that was in the thousands um i didn't even mention the home visits that they completed for staff and students in need of support of getting devices and hardware connected they are we also had thousands of internet hot spots that needed to be configured and deployed so that students could access remote learning so our technology team

034has gone above and beyond and we just want to say thank you to them we couldn't have done it without you and so as a small token of our appreciation lisa is going to help with presenting um the team members that were able to come this evening with an award from us um just as a small way of saying thank you for all that you've done to make learning possible for our kids [Applause] core am i calling the names just checking yes ma'am okay um is colette david with us this evening no i'm not really sure how many of them are here i'm looking um okay how about we start with patty staker who is our supervisor of technology okay david ellison [Applause] and paul nordasek [Applause] and we'll make sure that the rest of

035the technology team get their awards but we'll just read their names to everyone steve funk mari moore curtis wise terry parker ken wells janice scott andrew scherr matt garrigan and ray ciliano [Applause] certainly a well-deserved recognition to our technology department we wouldn't have gotten through you know the last 12 to 18 months without them and miss scott and all your accolades you forgot to mention all the work they put into getting our board meetings up and running with uh all the different locations we put them in thank you to everyone um and real quick i should have mentioned this uh earlier after the dreambox challenge uh to our young award winners and their families you're welcome to stay but we know you have young children if you would like to exit now would be a

036good time to do so but you're certainly welcome to stay and with that he may be last on the agenda but he's first in our hearts mr john reed will you please share our facilities summer plans that's if the microphones keep working uh corey do you have the presentation i do i'm pulling it right up i just want to quickly run through summer projects like when del dot does a project you see orange cones and you see orange cones all over the state of delaware right now but with our schools we pretty much don't put out the orange cones a lot of it happens and most people don't even know it so i'm going to run through these slides quickly the summer projects for 2021 now i also put falls in parentheses because we are

037finding a lot of materials are coming late there's flooring we ordered in october we still haven't seen it we just found out that there's a shortage of commercial coatings and paints so some of the projects we know are going to drift into the fall a little bit but we're going to do it in a way to not impact education next slide overview um instead of trying to do a little bit at all the schools we focus on a few schools per summer and put them on a cycle to make a major impact the funds we're pulling from is we're still finishing up work from a referendum from a few years ago we're using minor cap money which comes from the state facilities budgets and we've been very successful this year and getting grants i'll go

038through those what we focus on is preventative maintenance we want to fix things before they're supposed to break if a roof is supposed to last 20 years you don't want to wait till you're 25 ada requirements people may not be aware this but we are being required to make numerous upgrades to our high schools which are which are older which were not built to ada standards years ago so over half our maintenance dollars for the past 13 years have gone into ada projects and also we're doing projects to improve the quality of life kids are in school for a long period of time you know our cafeterias should be better they shouldn't just be grey rooms they should be better and while you're fixing them it doesn't cost any extra to make them special places

039uh bsd employees are involved in this and just an overview we're maintaining 490 acres of property maintaining two and a half million square foot of building area 790 classrooms uh 20 our 47 000 pieces of furniture are moved and cleaned and we're cleaning 27 acres of flooring if you look at the brandywine school district we are the size of a small university uh to put in perspective of all our buildings next slide uh brandywine high school the cafeteria the equipment in there was old uh had to come out of course all the utilities are on the floor this isn't like hdtv where you come in and have shiplap and paint it white and everything's wonderful the floor's got to come out um we had numerous ada upgrades and the cafeteria really has not been touched

040in some of the areas since the late 50s so the cafeteria is being gutted there's new flooring going in uh the floor had to come out to get the utilities to fix the serving line but also with the new serving line school nutrition will be able to add a better variety of meal choices next slide these are just some artist renditions by the architect we're also opening up the wall between the cafeteria and the lobby there'll be a glass operable wall so when the school holds big events they'll have a nice big area with that beautiful auditorium and shows that are coming they'll have a great big area for parents to um to come in uh the front of the school is very tight so this will be great for big events at brandywine high

041school next slide please concord high school um we're really actually designing a lot of projects for next summer the roof at concord high school is going to be very difficult to do some replacements we have to do there but we are doing some interior painting the school's getting an entire new fire alarm system which has well over a thousand devices that need to be replaced and the hvac controls we're going to start that work in the fall next slide mount pleasant high school the front bathrooms are not ada compliant the bid to replace the front bathrooms was 485 uh which would have been almost half our maintenance budget uh thankfully we were able to receive a grant for five hundred eight thousand dollars to pay for this project uh this also we had to take

042down a load-bearing wall to enlarge the bathrooms uh which allows us to improve the student center which is where what everybody sees when they come in the gym in the cafeteria area and there's just some architects renditions of that so there'll be also some single user toilets in there and bathrooms in there so it's a real upgrade to mount pleasant high um much of the fixtures and much of the plumbing there was original from 1958 so they were almost at four gallon flush toilets we're going in with all water efficient so major upgrade there at mount pleasant high next slide please mount pleasant high is one of the best-built schools in the district but the 1971 edition on the back not so much the top eight feet of the building had to come down we're

043having to rebuild the top eight feet of the brick in the back it's in the back of the building so you do not see it from the road um but while we're taking the walls down we also have to replace the roof we have to insulate the roof and we're taking this opportunity to upgrade some of the hvac systems in the back uh with coved we learned how important humidity control is uh you want to dry out those water vapors as quickly as possible the lower level the building did not have the best uh humidity control in the world we're putting um new units in that'll do just that we'll keep the humidity down the building we'll keep it down in the summer you've got quite a bit of the building that's underground in the

044back so we're putting in dehumidification to take care of that um and we're also doing quite a bit of work on the hvac controls in-house with reprogramming next slide please mount pleasant high school uh we're doing some also some major hvac repairs a lot of that works being done in-house when you walk to the airport or any other place now in the world everything's communicated through video panels and monitors throughout buildings we're seeing a lot of this in school districts as opposed to people putting posters up on the wall saying you know lacrosse games saturday night or football game they take it to the main office it gets put in a powerpoint presentation they'll be monitored throughout the school there will also be a video wall in the cafeteria because these coaches wanted to show

045the student athletes films of what they went through in their sporting events and um we're just trying to bring our schools up to what you're seeing in universities and other places so a video system is going into school this summer we're also doing concrete repair sidewalk repair sports team locker rooms we're outdated and we're also doing some long-term building plans we want to keep on going with the good work we've been doing here at brandywine school district but we also to do things in the future we need to start planning now so we're working on other things that can be done at mount pleasant high to make things a lot better on the next slide please uh ps dupont um where we tiled the um the pool building uh because the pool was closed due

046to covet that gave us an opportunity to get in there fix the floor restriping the parking lot you're gonna see carpenters up working on the cupola on hot days just pray for them because it is hot up there you're seven stories up um we're installing 21 smart boards as soon as school summer school's over and refinishing the gym floor now i have pictures of auditorium chairs there um we'll talk about it more in the future but i got a call from a contractor who was doing a renovation to a theater in delaware and i'll go through all the news in the in the future but they were removing 1200 beautiful auditorium seats and they thought what a shame to see these seats go to trash and they said well we know somebody who's cheap so

047he called me uh ps2 pot seats 1100 and those seats are going to be 90 years old in two years and you can't buy parts for them these seats are beautiful so this gift that we've received is worth several hundred thousand dollars i just need to work on the details of how i'm going to get them installed there are people specialized in this work but they're busy right now but we're hopefully going to be putting these seats in and this is a major gift for the brandywine school district next slide please springer middle school our custodians there are unbelievable with the work that they're doing in-house don't need to bring in painters don't need to bring anybody else in you walk through that school it looks brand new so a lot of it's being done

048in-house we're also refinishing and repairing the gym floor which is from 1958 next slide please um tally middle school back in the day when graffiti was heavy in the 70s it has not been of late knock on wood but they used to sandblast it off so when it rains and on certain days you can still read the colorful metaphors on the side of the brick also the back of the building that faces north as the brick in the stucco gets older it's absorbing water in a way that um it's not a hazard inside but we have mildew on the outside of the building we did a rubberized coating on claymont which wound up being very popular people love the new paint on claymont so the back 40 of tally's going to be painted this summer

049to cover the colorful metaphors and to take care of some of the other issues there the buildings are getting older and they're starting to look long in the tooth and we really need to have a pop from the outside so we're going to be cleaning up tally middle school the school also wants to do some upgrades to the library libraries are used differently this project's going to take several summers for us to pull it off but we're going to start some of the work this summer in-house next slide please carcroft elementary it's being used for summer school just went through a major cap renovation so we're doing some curb repairs some hallway cove base and there are two classrooms left in the school that still have carpeting we're going to take care of them this

050summer so the entire school will have new flooring next slide please um claymouth elementary we're finishing up the major cap work we had a long lead material some of them were delayed so we're bringing purple back as you drive by claymont um claymouth's very proud of its colors so they will be um that's a screenwall to cover hvac equipment we had to do it anyways and the pool pack was replaced last week uh pool packs last 15 years we got 18 out of it just in time we're also going to be refinishing the gym floor we have new gym equipment coming most people don't know that's about claymont but the gym is actually 14 years older than the building the gym is from the 50s not from the 60s the backboard's in there and the

051gear that pulls the backboards up are original from 1958 so they're going to get swapped out and replaced um but claymont and also we're using a summer school which is great because we get to use the equipment great for our warranty period we see what works what doesn't work next slide forward elementary we're working on some 88 upgrades for the playground big issue there is there's a long lead time of playground equipment um it's impossible to get anything right now so um but we're going to have that coming there's some brick repairs out back some um sidewalk repairs and we're doing some tiling in the cafeteria to make the walls easier to clean next slide please uh hamby bush is used for summer schools we're doing a lot of reprogramming of the hvac systems in-house

052we have a new controls person in our department who has worked wonders with our buildings we're glad to have him on board but he's going through and do a lot of reprogramming we've had some hvac repairs and we're also planning and i wanted to put fireworks in there i didn't know how to do that but just imagine fireworks going off we're planning for the new bush school as it was funded in the new um bond bell so fireworks go off and okay next slide please i'm going to work on that harlan elementary we cleaned up the boiler room uh no people don't see that but it looks like the kitchen down there everything's been painted cleaned up uh you have to go down there and make everything perfect every now and then new hvac controls

053went in so we're doing a lot of retuning of the building to improve building comfort refinishing some classroom floors down to the bare wood as once again that building's 90 years old some anterior paint and a new fire alarm system next slide please lancashire elementary lancashire was built originally with built-in computer tables the day the great big computer in the back of the room is kind of gone and with social distancing we need more room in the classroom so those computer tables will come out and also we're working on a project with the pha the permit's going to take longer than the structure but we're going to put some sort of canopy structure out by the playground to serve as an outdoor classroom next slide please lombardi um putting these buildings on a cycle forward

054got a big push last year this summer it's lombardi doing a lot of interior painting um we're retiling the public bathrooms before they were painted cinder block when we renovated the building we couldn't afford the tile we're going to tile it now wash the exterior the building and the a lot of hvac controls we've been able to fix a lot of the humidity built issues in the building just by reprogramming next slide please maple lane elementary maple lane elementary has custom-made water source heat pump in every room that ventilated the classrooms if they ever go bad they take minimum six weeks to buy the parts that means you can't use the classroom for six weeks those heat pumps have a 20-year life we've been doing four to five rooms per summer in the hopes that

055one day we'll wake up and it'll be done but we're going to wake up next summer and it's going to be done but when we go and replace the units that means we have to pull the hvac unit we have to order the new one in october to get them in time we have to redo the flooring because it sits in there differently there's some abatement we have to redo the casework and we have to paint the room so just upgrade the hvac you're basically rebuilding the room we're also doing controls in there to better control the building next slide please now plus elementary here we are this building is going to be 90 years old next year uh our electricians did led lights in the gym uh when the wizard of oz turns to

056color that's how dramatic that the change is in the gym the gym was kind of a dreary place you didn't want to go it is unbelievable now and our guys pulled that off we're renovating the loft space into some office space 22 smart boards were installed which means we have to totally rewire the room as well we're installing 120 lockers for first grade through covid we learned in social distancing if the cubbies are in the classrooms and some of the smaller rooms there isn't enough room to spread the kids out so by moving the um cubbies and and the kids jackets and book bags and other things to the hallway that's going to free up room in the classrooms unfortunately those lockers get here september 5th so there's a couple days off in september we'll

057get them in hopefully kids won't be wearing winter coats on september 5th but they will go in we're doing wood floors in a couple classrooms we have casework coming in october the lobby when you walk into this building is older than p.s dupont and when you walk in it's kind of a little bit of a letdown i've got a slide that's coming up but we're going to update the lobby a little bit a new display case by the gym light tuning in five classrooms we did some experimenting at claymont that um our b-set program and our teachers that work with children with autism if you can change the color of the light you can change the moods during the day if you need to calm things down wake things up just with the little dial

058so teachers are covering their lights with other things that they're buying online now you can just go to a dial and tune in the color of the lights so we have to upgrade the lights anyways doesn't add any additional cost we're also doing some long-term planning for this building because it needs it next slide please that's the beautiful hand-carved plaster that's above the ceiling when they renovate this building in the 70s i think they just ran the wires right through it ran the sprinkler pipes through it and all that history was gone i have a pencil sketch there um also when you walk into the school we want to give the principal a way to display video to the parents coming in of announcements but the way the tv would be mounted in the hallway

059that would be an ada violation because somebody who's visually impaired could walk into it so we're going to build a historic looking case around it it's not historic it's just oak plywood but we have carpenters who are going to build all that next slide please those are the floors underneath the tile um as i said this building's 90 years old it was built with wood floors they were covered with tile but the tile was um starting to get old we've been working our way through the school so the old floor came out that one picture was done on a friday the next picture was done this afternoon so new white oak floors are going in we got a great price and believe it or not that's the cheapest way to fix the school we looked

060at all our options the school was built to have wood floors because the concrete is two inches lower than the hallway so we're going back in with wood floors uh next slide please uh this is last one other district things we replace the parking lot at the brand wine operations center we're going to evaluate the electrical systems over there in the fall because a lot of equipment has changed and i think we have way too much in the way of panels there we can simplify things new fire alarm panel at darley road replacement of sprinkler heads at darley road and the spring uh the facilities building has been dated a little delayed a little bit we're in regulatory um nightmare right now but we hope to get that cleared up and get started on that

061right away um hopefully that wasn't too long but just uh that's just a bit of what's going on this summer in our schools that's it and a partridge in a pear tree i was going to fish up with that but john thank you for that report i'm glad uh members of the community here live and on the zoom get to see that you have a vision you plan ahead you you know stretch our tax dollars wisely and you make it beautiful at the same time while you do that and in my third four in my many years in this district this our facilities have never looked better so thank you [Applause] all right before we move on to the superintendent's report i just want to ask everyone to listen closely to the report i've noticed

062in my time on the board over the last year a lot of comments and questions are made that are directly answered in the superintendent's report we do have a lot of speakers signed up tonight and in the interest of time i'd like to ask all of us to be mindful of that so mr holler take it away good evening board audience staff and community members listening at home as well as here in the newly updated multi-purpose room at mount pleasant elementary this room has been the traditional home site for our board of education meetings until social distancing requirements required us to relocate at brandywine high school in their auditorium the excitement of returning to mpe has nothing to do with the aesthetics of the facility and everything to do with taking even the smallest step

063back to life as we knew it pre-covered it's also a great time to see students students back in our classrooms as bsd summer learning leap programs are in full session as you heard already this evening we have approximately eleven hundred students on site with an additional 400 summer school classes being taken by our high school seniors juniors freshmen and sophomores before i go any further i need to commend those staff members that answered the call to begin reducing the learning gap as soon as possible the 2021 school year was incredibly challenging for students parents and staff members alike the last day of school for teachers the school year was on wednesday june 16th and the staff teaching summer school were required to report the very next day to set up their classrooms one day before

064the first day for students in typical bsd fashion they answered this call met the challenge and were ready to make a difference for the children they serve i would also like to commend the staff and members of our curriculum and instruction department for removing the stigma that often is associated with attending summer school and making it enjoyable and engaging for students bsd also teamed up this summer with cindy clay from the delaware department of education and their delaware literacy program the state worked with our supervisor of school nutrition colleen carter to coordinate the distribution of literacy book bags with bsd's summer meals program the book bags were pre-packaged by grade levels and offered to students in english spanish and haitian creole they were distributed to families as they visited our brandy dine school food bus

065like our summer academy students building and district administrators spent last monday through friday engaged in summer learning during their annual bsd administrative retreat the theme for this year's retreat as ms scott already reported was acceleration via equity and innovation emphasizing the need to consistently ensure that we're meeting the needs of all students that walk through our doors on any given day covet 19 has broadened the expansive needs of our children more than ever before and it becomes our collective challenge to meet children where they are to support them and to grow them academically socially and emotionally over the course of the week administrators grew in their understanding and application of blended learning accelerated learning social emotional learning educator continuous improvement and the use of data data for and data of learning in the following work

066sessions work sessions were cornell note-taking strategies accelerated learning for equity of access by dr david stenner of johns hopkins university shifting to restorative practices equitable inclusive blended learning breaking barriers and building relationships leverage leveraging access and instruction for unique learners supporting a diverse workforce and consistency of process and protocols by employees educator continuous improvement political power hour legal issues facing public education today delivered by mike stafford of young conaway and excellence through equity all of that accomplished while at the same time completing a few state requirements first training in workplace sexual harassment and then thanks to the efforts of board member jason heller we are proud to boast that all of our building and building administrators our aps our principals our deans are all certified in cpr now for a few follow-up items from last

067month's board meeting high school and middle school school times are reverting back to the traditional start and end times that we were using pre-covet the elementary school day will start and this is new john there's your fireworks oh i almost got it the day will start at 8 55 and end at 3 40. that is 5 minutes later than it was pre-covered we need that time because of the number of buses that are serving our elementary schools and to ensure that there's adequate time in between the high school run the middle school run and then our third tier which is the elementary bus run at the end of the day so we will publish that new starting time and principals will be sending out communications to their families to make sure everybody's aware of the

068new start time this year also just a quick reminder that we adjusted the school calendar at the last board meeting there are five days that will be what we call at the secondary level asynchronous days which means this the students will stay home they have their devices they will learn remotely for that day while the students are at home the teachers will be engaged in full-day professional development training as you saw in dr kutch's presentation we are embarking on three years of very very heavy curriculum and instruction work in any given year if you take on one curricular area one aspect it's a lot of work and we are tackling multiple areas over the course of the next three years at the elementary level we know that it's an inconvenience for parents to find daycare

069although some elementary students do have daycare available to them because of a stay-at-home parent or a family relative or older brothers and sisters that are there to to support them and supervise them but that's not the case in every family so we will have half day for elementary on those days the students that do have supervision at home are free to go home we'll run our buses we'll dismiss as normal and then we will try to provide structured supervision and activities for those students who have to wait until the traditional end of the school day again an opportunity for our elementary teachers to engage in professional development around the curriculum and instruction work that our district is undertaking and our students at the secondary site program that's our 18 to 21 year old program they

070will not be affected they will have their traditional day on those five days that's hard to read it is a list of all the esser categories that the district submitted to the department of education that initial plan was approved and i rank ordered them from the most uh significant in terms of allocation of dollars down to the least and you can see that our continuity of services line item followed by learning loss instructional technology air quality and federal program related were our top five expenditure categories we call them focus areas at the bottom of the list the bottom three were preparedness coordinated response and staff training in disinfecting as per the requirements of sr2 and estro3 we needed to seek input of the community of staff of parents we posted that plan on the website

071and included a survey and we had a number of individuals respond to that survey it included community members parents teachers staff that were non-teachers and administrators while the response wasn't overwhelming we encouraged and are thankful for those individuals that did respond and just want to share with you the question asked them to prioritize what they thought the top five spending categories should be you can see from those that responded learning loss being the highest mental health the second instructional technology the fourth unique learning needs and fifth school-based funding the bottom of the list preparedness coordinated response staff training and disinfecting so you can see that we were pretty close and i just want to make a few comments on a couple of these items we mentioned in the last presentation that we knew we did

072not put enough funding in the mental health category we acknowledged that because there was pending legislation at the state level house bill 100 that would be most likely providing some of that assistance that would be needed and rather than duplicate efforts we wanted to see what was going to happen so we purposely put in 800 000 into that category and we're still kind of on hold with that hb 100 has had a lot of support at the state level they have not fully approved it it is still pending so until we know all the bits and pieces we can always come back again as esser requires us every six months we're going to come back and revise review our sr plan so that we are making the wisest of choices in terms of spending these

073these dollars contingency yeah we don't know what the future holds this coveted money is good for anywhere from two years if it's s or two to three years if it's s or three should there be a need for us to go back and be fully remote at any given time meaning total lockdown we wanna make sure that we have some funds reserved for our employees who may be impacted the most that would be our bus drivers and our school nutrition workers last year the state did a great job of helping support that payroll during those tough times but i also believe that the state may turn around and say well that's why you got your esser funds right part of that was supposed to be contingency funds to ensure that you could continue to make

074payroll if such an event happened so we want to make sure we keep that in there again being good stewards as we progress in the next two to three years we need to monitor what's happening if those funds aren't going to be used we've got to have backup plans ready to go so that that faithful stewardship that you just saw evidence of in john reed's powerpoint presentation we can continue to deliver that kind of stewardship to our community that that's uh priority high priority it's goal five and our strategic plan and uh we're delivering on that's stewardship the other piece i i just wanted to point out that uh there were several comments made in the survey around let's reduce class sizes let's add a special ed teacher to every single elementary room let's add

075a paraprofessional to every uh room one extremely costly but two i just want to bring to your attention if you remember pre-covet we were facing a teacher shortage in delaware there were holes and openings of just about in every district across the state that was pre-coveted it's only gotten worse since so it comes down to that basic supply and demand problem there is a huge demand now for teachers for educators for people to change careers and and answer the call to be an educator because every district has received some form some level of these esser funds and the goal of these esser funds is to mitigate help mitigate the learning loss that's occurred so people are looking to bring in extra counselors psychologists teachers academic tutors supply and demand there wasn't enough pre-covered there's even

076less now and it is going to be a challenge and at the end of the day there's going to be districts unfortunately to pull up short so to that end we need our community support and please if you know anyone who is interested who could serve as a substitute as a paraprofessional has a teaching degree and wants to exercise that teaching degree bus drivers bus aides custodians we are looking for individuals to support our students when they return to us five days a week full time starting beginning of the 20 21 22 school year just custodians alone in terms of disinfecting our buildings and the requirements that we we find ourselves facing we need extra support so please help us spread the word word of mouth is always the best if anyone is interested job

077fair in this very room on friday february 30th starts at 10 runs to 2. they can always check the district website if they can't make it that day have them call and let us know that they're interested in position and we're happy to take their name number and follow back up with them and then finally i know many questions still abound and exist about next year so uh just about two weeks ago the cdc released some additional information offering guidance to schools k to 12 for the opening of the school year the department of education and the delaware division of public health also released a couple of guiding documents we are still in the throes of reviewing them as a matter of fact i have a meeting with several superintendents tomorrow afternoon to discuss uh

078exactly where they are what they're thinking and we will be making a decision definitively probably at our next board meeting mr president uh there'll be a recommendation because again things are constantly changing um just monitoring what's happening in the last two weeks things are certainly different today than they were two weeks ago and i'm sure they'll be slightly different two weeks from now so we continued to monitor we received some preliminary vaccination rates from some of our schools the state is tracking that and i would say roughly anywhere between 12 and 20 percent of our secondary students the 12 year olds and older have been vaccinated and even looking at some of that data will will come into play in our decision making for what the fall looks like we are pleased that there is

079wiggle room in terms of the three feet of social distancing in our reports previously i've mentioned that some of our schools like carcroft have huge rooms 1000 square feet easily can accommodate the 23 24 25 students they might need to house but here in this large x high school now in elementary school there are several classrooms that are only 672 square feet and it is a pinch to get 21 22 23 students in there at three feet of social distancing but i am pleased to report that that guidance does give us the wiggle room to go closer than the three feet maximize when we can and go at or beyond three feet if possible so some good news and then some news well hold on we have to wait and see we know the mass

080guidance said on buses absolutely required there's no debate about it that's a state requirement and then there's recommendations and suggestions about wearing a mask in the buildings at different grade levels and again more to come on that as we continue to do our research have discussions and make our decision to move forward next year and with that mr president that is my report for tonight and as always proud to be bsd thank you very much superintendent holler any questions or comments from the board on the superintendent report i have a question about something that you didn't address in the superintendent report um assuming that we're back in school full time next year um is there a plan to have hybrid or kids still be able to be um remote or will there not be available

081at this time our mission is to have all students return for face-to-face instruction we we know that's the best the most effective most efficient means of offering education we've seen that consistently from all grade levels and that's why having those safety protocols in place is going to be so important for us moving forward thank you else all right um public comment session pretty much school district policy 2.3 section b number seven states public participation periods of 30 minutes typically will be permitted and the board reserves the right and conducting such we have a lot of speakers signed up tonight a lot and we may not get to all of you if we do not keep to our three minutes or less in time so this is my friendly reminder to everyone three minutes or less

082please over the past year i feel that we have been very lenient in time given a little extra if it seemed like speakers were wrapping up or appeared you were wrapping up given the number of speakers we have tonight i don't think we have that luxury so the time will be on the screen as soon as you start talking the moderator will start the clock and the microphone will cut at the three-minute mark so i hope you all can appreciate that and as always we want this to be a fair and consistent with all of our speakers and if you are speaking via zoom your zoom id must match your comment submission and with that we will start here in the room with christina dietrich uh please come to the uh either one this one's

083closer hi good evening it's nice to see everybody here in person and see your faces um my name is christina i'm a mother of four i have two 14 year olds a nine year old and a three year old so i've got the whole spectrum of them here and i'm i'm here tonight to talk a little bit about the mass policy um i'm aware of the cc recommendations but i'm also aware that the top line recommendations are not the entirety of the recommendations the there is discretion allowed for the school boards to uh lower the non-pharmaceutical interventions that we use like masks and distancing depending on community vaccination rates and community transmission rates which for us in delaware we're very fortunate that we have a high rate of community vaccination i think over 70 percent

084of adults and a very low rate presently of community transmission so i'm pleased to hear that and i hope we can take that into consideration i'm aware that there has been some politicization of the notion that non-pharmaceutical interventions should or should not be used and there's an impression that everyone who's against them is by default right wing or conservative but i guess i'd just like to very briefly give my liberal bona fides that um i don't know i was arrested in 2011 for bradley manning being stuck in quantico with daniel ellsberg there and everything i lived at occupy dc for several months i campaigned for bernie sanders so i think that i share a lot of your broad values regarding equity and inclusion and giving children all the things that they need i guess just

085briefly i want to call your attention to some data here i'll show the audience and i'll rip flip it around um this is the annual deaths among children in the united states and as we can see for ages 5 to 14 years old covid represents only 0.2 percent or 0.2 out of 100 000 deaths for children we can see that um homicides are three and a half times higher for children suicides are seven and a half times higher for children and vehicle accidents and cancer are 10 times higher of a cause of death for children also if we want to put it in perspective with other respiratory illnesses we can see the estimated infection fatality rate for kovid for children is point zero zero one percent as opposed to influenza where it's point zero zero

086six percent which is a six-fold increase and never have we required masks for children for influenza nor have we required vaccines for influenza for schools despite the fact that influenza vaccines are less effective on an individual level than the coveted vaccines and as we can see with your report that only 12 to 20 percent of children over 12 in delaware schools or in your brandywine schools seem to have been vaccinated parents do have some hesitancy and have had to make choices regarding whether they want their children to get to to get the vaccine or risk the possibility of the disease and it seems like about 80 of parents are okay with the possibility of their children maybe getting covered we can also bear in mind that n95 masks are highly effective on an individual level

087i hope you bear these things in consideration when you do your considering and thank you thank you mr [Applause] next up uh alan benton if i could ask mr benton q to use the microphone over here just so the full group can see this one please good evening i feel compelled to speak tonight not only an issue i feel should be of importance to the board one that i feel i need to respond to as a matter of free speech and democracy that others have chosen to address in this forum critical race theory is not being taught in brandywine school districts it is not being widely taught in this country house bill 198 does not contain elements of critical race theory the idea some are ascribing critical race theory are not critical race theories and

088likewise these things are not being taught in brandywine school district yet many have stood before this board and displayed their ignorance insisting on wasting everyone's time on matters that they don't understand in the last meeting it was mentioned that the brandywine school district website links to a book called how to be an anti-racist by ibramex kendy this is supposedly as a smoking gun that proves that critical race theory is being taught in the district this accusation is based on an announcement on the springer middle school website of new arrivals to the school library one of which was kendy's book not an announcement of inclusion of the book and curriculum not an admission that the book is being assigned as a required reading simply an announcement of the arrival of the book and availability in the

089library well if you were scared by the mere presence of a book in a library that has ideas that differ from your own my question to you is what comes next when is the book burning going to be and are you prepared to deal with the consequences of limiting the free exchange of ideas or censoring speech that doesn't conform to your pre-existing worldview i have three girls who attend concord high school let me be clear i want them discussing issues of race i want them to learn accurate history and how things that happened in the past making may have contributed to systemic issues of inequality today i want them examining primary sources eyewitness accounts for those from those who live through things we could not possibly understand i want them to discuss the history and

090present threat of white supremacy like why when a statue of a treasonous general was taken down white supremacists showed up chanting blood and soil and jews will not replace us i want them to examine what led to white supremacists attacking our nation's capital in an attempt to subvert the democratic process i want them to study the words of dr martin luther king jr in context not just the cherry pick quotes that serve an agenda i want them to examine what life must be like for their african african-american friends why they have grown up fearing things that we as white people could not begin to understand in doing so they will not learn to hate the color of their skin they will learn how to work toward a better future for all of us the modern

091day mccarthyism must stop stop the lies stop the projection stop the hate thank you for your time thank you mr benjamin [Applause] take your time take a minute let's have respect for all of our speakers we're not going to have billing from the audience if you've signed up you'll have your chance to speak as long as we can keep time all right thank you with that we will go to catherine dunworth yes please i like to offer an alternative to critical race theory it's a program called bh365 black history 365 is out of arlington texas this is a textbook that has u.s history with an e-book application documenting the unique sources of black persons groups and cultures in north america beginning in ancient africa continuing to modern events and movements this interactive history social science

092technical textbook can be used independently or as a sub supplemental text and includes interactive instructor resources that will engage all learners the gateway to connecting history to the early life this transcendent approach to american history allows students of all ethnicities to engage in meaningful conversations with teachers peers and their families through the lens of black history full of really rarely told history lessons the bh 365 curriculum has exclusive access to more than 3 000 original artifacts that take students and educators on a colorful journey to embracing an inclusive account of american history this textbook also comes with an album of bh365 album and i'm not familiar with this hip hop artist by ko khao it's available on all music platforms and it tells a 40-chapter story on black history the real black history and reactions

093to this music have been unbelievable there's also an e-book you can get a lifetime subscription of the bh365 ebook app which houses multimedia and easy to use content it features captivating stories from black history it has qr codes embedded in the hard copy book that are replaced with digital interactive buttons in the desktop and mobile app this textbook offers sidebar materials student engagement and chapter check-ins the curriculum starts in ancient africa and ends in canada it offers professional development with the embedded qr codes and interactive music it has it also has an extraordinary advisory board and on august 15th they are offering more information you can register online at bh365 365 for 365 years some supporters of this textbook are andrew young a civil rights activist who encourages every school district throughout the u.s to

094strongly consider adopting the comprehensive black history 365 curriculum as their choice for african american studies thank you also i'm sorry we're at time okay thank you thank you next up we have joan prorock and just so we can prepare i'll try to read some names for on deck for after the next person next up we'll have uh jay hitler this is a list of names uh cons there were the names that were put on a letter did you want to read the letter first the time is let me go ahead and yours the letter you have three minutes okay this is the list of 147 brandywine school district residents who have signed the letter that hopefully that you'll hear that was sent to the bsd school board regarding the diversity and equity resources tonya hetler

095phd jay hetler colleen davis tom thomas richard anderson sandra anderson rachel thorpe tom sorp bruce willmoth brian wilmeth donna wilmeth robert bates james and gracia michaela hetler sandy bernard shannon brainard valerie schulte donna straub carol bergey brent bergie joan prorock jim prorock janice anderson nancy frick msw mps terence w rave phd and rave a b sandy kayton edd joseph chi graco anna m greco catherine dunsworth sandy brainerd carol bohannock alex graham vicki gawiak pat ivey judy travis arthur w travis d.c john jay strecker jr eric bronstein paul j k paulkowski patricia shannon karen boyd barbara a lee msct donna j lee thomas and gracia maria and gracia carla briley john aegis john evans victor tannen tim gainer len gainer gretchen elixin ellen b quick lisa fusco patricia grimm michael abasta ann abasta tom loring cindy

096loring christine corley connie zadowski john dougherty renee white at presidents ed prize and dance nba mary aegis michael aegis cynthia frederick megan mcnulty carol leamy roseanne freeland dorothy fisher john alberta cynthia lewis patricia myers heidi presidents rnbsn constant smith m-e-d kathy moon debra m taylor donna strabarin stephanie buffoon sue dotson and marty cool vsva there is another list of also this long which i hope will be able to be read and also the letter which i hope you'll be able to hear also thank you mr brock next up jay hitler followed by abby cyprus on zoom good evening i just wanted to bring up a uh an update on a freedom of information act we requested in may of 2021 i sent a freedom of information act request through the delaware state online forum the

097request asked for one copies of any contract agreement or memorandum for materials or services including training professional development and our consulting services relating in any way to diversity equity and inclusion culturally responsible learning equity-based learning critical race theory critical theory critical pedagogy critical race pedagogy social justice critical social justice anti-racism systemic racism white supremacy white privilege white fragility and similar concepts number two copies of any formal or informal request or solicitation for proposals for materials or services including training professional development under consulting services relating in any way to these concepts number three copies of any training professional development and our pedagogic materials that have been approved or provided to any bsd teacher between january 1st 2019 and the date of this foia request relating in any way to these concepts i then began an email

098correspondence with tia harris the executive assistant to the superintendent and board of education regarding a request on monday june 7th i received an email indicating bsd had received a request on june 23rd i received an email indicating that the district had reviewed a request and the cost for gathering viewing and preparing the information would be approximately 103 dollars on june 29th i emailed tia that i wanted to go ahead with the fourier request and asked how i could pay the fee for the administrative cost the email was somehow not recognized by the district during this time i assumed the materials would be gathered on july 6 the district again contacted me asking if i can if i wanted to proceed with my request and again i reiterated that i did on july 12th i followed

099up my july 60 email to confirm that my request was received and being worked on i did receive an email back this time stating the request was now being worked on and the following email will be sent to me regarding the payment for and receiving of the data so due to the length of time it's taking to gather the requested materials we decided tonight that we would focus instead on the items in the district website a website that addresses diversity inequity and critical race theory until we receive requested information thus we will read you a letter regarding these resources tonight but based on the 103 dollars that we are being charged and the fact the charge is 10 cents per page i calculate there will be at least 1 000 pages of information regarding critical

100race theory and similar comments and how it is being used in our district thank you [Applause] thank you mr hetland next up we have abby cypress on zoom can you hear me you cannot hear hello can you hear me now we can hear you okay thank you um good evening my name is abby cypress i'm a 5th grade teacher at carcroft elementary and i have a few points that i want to touch on tonight first i want to thank the board and mr holler for acting in the best interest of students during the 2020-21 school year the decisions that you had to make regarding remote or in-person teaching were difficult to say the least earlier today the academy of american academy of pediatrics released guidelines recommending universal masking in school with the rise in the

101delta variant in delaware i must agree at a minimum in schools where students are not old enough to have been vaccinated yet wearing masks at school can seem inconvenient and for some uncomfortable but not horrible and if you follow science uh sorry i just lost my place um if you follow science it is certainly not dangerous as a teacher and a parent i found that students grew used to it and as an added bonus we did not have the high ranks of cold and flu going around as we normally would i'm hoping that once delaware announces its guidelines for school if it comes down to the district making decisions again that our district will side with science and require masks for unvaccinated people while indoors on another note i know that there are some people

102who are upset about hb 198 being signed into law in june as we've heard from previous comments this bill requires that schools teach the full story and use primary sources to teach black history including teaching about the significance of enslavement in the economic development of our country and focusing on the contributions of the black people in all aspects of american life i would like to first thank all brandywine school district for including links to anti-racism sources for both students and families on the bsd website this is a great start i would also like to remind those who are struggling with this that teaching the full truth about black history does not include teaching that all white people are bad racist or white supremacists these are fear-mongering ideas that simply are not true this is not

103happening in the brandywine school district it is possible to acknowledge and educate about the systemic racist conditions under which our country was founded without making our white students feel guilty or bad i am proud to be part of the school district that understands that we must acknowledge and teach about the entire history of our country not just the parts that are nice finally i would like to welcome mrs stock to the school board i am glad to have such an esteemed educator on our school board and i look forward to working with you thank you so much for your time thank you miss cypress next up we have david vagnoni on zoom can you hear me yes all right i had to change this up do the mask off i just wanted to point out

104that earlier today the american academy of pediatrics came out with a statement saying all students vaccinated or not should be wearing masks in school this fall i'd also like to point out that death in children isn't the only bad outcome from covet an increasing amount of children are suffering from post covert syndrome aka long covid which can be caused by mild and even asymptomatic cases of covid i'd also like to point out that the newest dominant strain of coveted in america has an r naught of six which means it's at least twice as infectious as the original strain to put that into context flu has an average all not of about 1.4 and i'd like to point out that at least one state actually did make the flu vaccine mandatory this past year and the

105reason why it hasn't been mandated more yet is because it hasn't been highly as as highly effective as the covered vaccines are the fact that we haven't mandated that vaccine or haven't used masks to mitigate flu cases in the past isn't a good reason not to wear masks now instead it reflects poorly on our pre-covered societal norms and our acceptance of uh flu spread and death without a willingness to do easy things like masking to combat it now for uh crt i'm running out of time already um not everything that you think is crt critical race theory is actually clinical race theory things like implicit bias implicit racism structural racism that's not always critical race theory i think there's a lot of people out there who hear terms like racist or racism and automatically take

106that as a personal insult meant to individually insult them like you must personally hate people of color no that's not what the issue is when we're talking about things like implicit bias and structural racism everyone can have implicit bias and you don't need to personally hate people of color to have implicit bias but it can impact your behavior in subtle ways that have consequences on society at large for example look at that experiment that was done when um they put this same resume together sent out a bunch of resumes half of them had a quote white sounding name on it the other half had a quote black sounding name on it and the resumes with the white sounding name got more calls back why does that mean that everybody that got the resumes with the

107black sounding names were a racist no that's not what it means but do the people that saw those resumes maybe have some preconceived notions and subconscious biases that impacted their view of black americans perhaps even their view of them as employees or workers well there's a lot of studies that suggest that is the case there's mountains of evidence on it at this point it doesn't make it critical race theory okay i need to finish with mlk because i'm so sick of hearing people use the same two martin luther king quotes and we all know the two right the i the one from the i have a dream speech and the love and the hate and the darkness i'm begging all of you to read literally anything else from martin luther king start with letters from

108a birmingham jail or just the rest of the i have a dream speech please i'll leave you with an mlk quote uh this is mlk whites it must be frankly said or not putting in a similar mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance it is an aspect of a sense of superiority that the white people of america believe they have so little to learn thank you mr vagnoni next up we have mark weinberg on zoom thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is mark weinberg the proud father of three brandywine school district graduates i'm a member of an ad hoc groups cars citizens against rezoning but i'm speaking tonight for myself i want to ensure that the board recognizes that the community's issue with the proposed new bush school on

109the brandywine country club site is traffic no one is against the proposed school or the need for the school we are all stakeholders in the district and want to provide the students and the district the best means to succeed you are the educators not us our objection is simply to the traffic traffic has always been the issue it was even reported that way a year ago in the delaware business times shipley road is a two-lane local road that already includes springer middle school mr capano's original development plan would have led to overwhelming traffic on shipley road and as a result of years of negotiations with the community his plan has been drastically downsized now the district plans reverse these efforts and bring us back to the beginning with an overburdened road let me repeat traffic

110is the issue not the need for the school or its services now district staff and mr capanos traffic engineers just proposed to send the traffic uh a fraction of the school's traffic to route 202 we will carefully review this new plan however we are also concerned with further development of the property maybe not today but sometime in the future we want to ensure that a far larger facility that overshadows our homes is not built that the open space remains open and the traffic does not continue to grow in the language of the new castle county unified development code we simply want to maintain the character of our community we've offered the district a number of good faith options that we believe would allow our mutual objectives to be met we hope that these options will

111be seriously considered thank you again for the opportunity to comment thank you mr weinberg next up in the room we have eric braunstein board members the idea is presented on the districts the district's website diversity and equity resources lists are extremely destructive to society white children should not be taught that they are inherently racist and white supremacists black children should not be taught that they were will forever be victims do not have a strong work ethic or capability to delay gratification and need assistance to succeed and no american child should be taught that their country was founded on racism and is still still systemically intrinsically racist when this is simply not the truth certainly this country has its faults and black people were treated terribly in the past and are unfortunately there are still racists

112both in the united states and throughout the world but racism is not the defining characteristic of our society and anyone who says so is not being honest and has an agenda proponents of equity and any racism are actively and strongly rejecting everything that dr martin luther king jr stood for and intentionally are stirring up racial racial strife and division mlk junior stated i have a dream and my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character this is the antithesis one of the books on the website by ibrahim x uh kenny kennedy states that the only solution to pass racism towards blacks is present racism towards whites but two wrongs never make a right how

113will doing more evil today going going to somehow make amendments for evil that has been done in the past the last thing we need is more racism prejudice and hatred we already have plenty in each of these problems of each of these problems in the world today the brandywine school district and the state of delaware must return to the belief that we should not judge people based on their race but instead treat everyone equally and judge people based on their character we should not lump people into categories such as racist white supremacist oppressor or victim and oppressed based on the color of their skin to characterize people this way is the epitome of prejudice and stereotyping which have always been wrong we definitely should teach about slavery in our classrooms but we need to not

114just teach opinions of people who have never experienced slavery books like the narrative the narrative of the life of frederick douglass an american slave and other historical historically accurate literature should instead be taught in order for our children to understand to have the honest truth about the history of slavery in this country thank you for your time thank you mr bronstein next up we have bruce wilmot good evening i'm here in support of tonya hetler's letter that was written and also as a member of faith and freedom coalition and also as a member of this community i also attended harlan school and uh enjoyed it very much and i also attended ps dupont just a quick story about my ps dupont uh time historically uh ps dupont was one of the best schools in the

115state and uh a high school uh which uh gravitated towards there was a large jewish population in the city at that time and they were uh very very academically top of the top of the country uh also sports wise as well so it was really had a had a fine tradition beautiful school the prettiest school in state so when i arrived there in 69 uh it starts at seventh grade harlan took you up to sixth grade uh it had a transfer that uh was pretty dramatic uh harlan was pretty much white uh jewish and uh some gentiles like myself so uh there was also you know black asian and other other people there as well when we went to ps dupont it was uh 70 black and there was uh quite a bit of racism

116on the other side so i i just want to bring it to everybody's attention what they're trying to teach is that that's not possible because black people are oppressed irish were oppressed italians were repressed many people have been repressed throughout all history uh jewish people have been repressed so to make this all about the only repression oppression that is given is white people to black people is an affront to what i lived through i had to fight my way through school for the next two years for every cent that i had in my pocket and for the other kids they couldn't defend themselves so you know we had people shot in that school during that time period it was the time period just after the riots from martin luther king so there was a lot

117of a lot of bad things going on they had gangs there there was a lot of a lot of there's there had people in school that were 20 years old that beard you know they had no business being in high school as a as a seventh grader it was a real shock to somebody like myself i wasn't there for fighting i was there to get an education but that's what i had to do to get through it so if you're going to talk about you know the race theory that they can't be they can't be racially prejudiced because they're because they're they've been oppressed the whole time that's just not true and i think that's something you need to correct if you want to give i very much like kathy dunworth uh thank you we're

118our time thank you very much next we have heidi present dance if i said that right so i speak about crt on behalf of children i was a pediatric nurse for more than 40 years and i've acquired the unique perspective of looking at the world through a child's eyes children are and our students are impressionable trusting and they take things at face value the teacher says two plus two is four they believe it they tell them how to spell something they believe it and children are eager to learn they're told to believe something by a teacher or an authority figure they they do take this on on face value children not are not discerning if they get the message that they are a victim or if they are oppressor and if this is the message

119that we're going to be looking at through crt then i'm very devastated this message really impacts a child's identity how they think of themselves their self-talk and how they articulate with the world i don't want to add shame to anybody's mindset and any child anywhere regardless of their background this is not any way we want them to go through life we don't want them judging others and feeling judged um i basically want to encourage people to be very mindful of how children are developing how fragile they are and their self-talk when we are teaching them things in school regardless of what the curriculum is the messages that we're sending both from the community and from the teachers are so critical um they have come through a horrible year with a pandemic they're fragile and they're

120coming back to re-socialize and they all are going to be fragile so i think we need to be really mindful of that and be aware of things um i don't want to see them learning to judge others i don't want to see them learning to discriminate and and use terms like victim or oppressed or think that way that's limiting and that does not help them i want to see us continue to discuss ways positively to make our country stronger more unified and not divided we need to look forward as well as honoring our past i'd like to propose a new emphasis on teaching children respect for themselves their peers and the adults in their lives focus on the many similarities that we share and celebrate the unique talents that each child brings to the world

121students need to be allowed to enjoy and celebrate different cultures and and we need to also as adults and communities expose them to big amounts of kindness and helping them to learn to accept all people so that's my message thank you very much [Applause] all right we've reached our 30 minute mark and we still have a few speakers and i'm going to ask them to stick around to the second public comment session so we can mr president can we please just hear the speakers out we spent over an hour on special presentations i think we should at least [Applause] listen to the people who are in this room we don't have to follow that 30-minute rule we don't have to we can cancel the second comment just handle it all right now next up we

122have donna willmoth my name is donna wilmoth and i'm going to continue the list of the people that had signed the tanya's letter i'm going to cede my time to tanya so everybody can hear the letter there's no seating time everybody gets their three minutes please no one's denying your no one's denying your right to speak we just we can't have people succeeding time because then we could have 100 people sign up to speak succeed all their time to one person and speak for yeah why wouldn't it would you like to use your three minutes yes as long as tanya gets to read the lab she will get her three minutes as well all right yes yes she will restart okay this is a continuation of our list of signers robin wiest gina rockowski m.a

123mary beth boyd alex giatti kim metzen andrew charlton laurie hilferty kathleen van every brett dorsch marjorie firsch michael s cool mary bash tarz jane klinger mse rich whale and suzette schofield eileen brooks farm d amy monahan elizabeth doherty thomas first heidi kaye carrie ann noff jill shoot simon shoot karen milo richard milo margaret kane martha summers laura hammond lisa corrado dr donald g hattier edward taylor shawna dillon michael hazuka jezuda iii patrick burns richard d anderson bs elizabeth doherty sean quigley patrick burns joyce warwick eric j corrado associates degree christine knightley kathleen van every kim midson janice colmery christina dietrich jeremy mallon karen light jennifer buford daniel callahar mrs j mast kevin durbinshire kimberly derbyshire angie henderson kim mitzen rich burke sue rich birch sue birch ambika chaco and thomas choco with my remaining time

124i would just like to read off six reasons why we should oppose critical race theory you can call it whatever you want but it can work its way into class no matter what they call it reason one critical race theory makes use of the false marxist analysis of class struggle it divides society into two categories of oppressors and oppressed and pits them against each other in constant strife reason two contrary to what critical race theory affirms race is not the prism that must be used to see all things three culture does not determine the behavior of individuals endowed with free will four critical race theory proposes revolution not reform five critical race theory denies the progress of science logic and reasoned and six critical race theory excludes christian charity thank you mr wilmot next up

125we have miss tanya hitler so to clarify since we had specifically asked to have our us go in a particular order and we were told we were allowed to do that and then you switched that order all of those names are people who have signed this letter we've read the second half eric read it and now i'm going to read the first half so just to give the context we it was signed by 147 granny wine school district residents dear brandywine school board members we are writing to you to express our concerns about the manner in which racism is being addressed in our district the diversity and equity re resources list that is found on the district website contains many books and articles advocating racism against the white majority in this country if you haven't

126read ebermix kendi's book i highly recommend it i've read it it's very clear um was the board part of the decision as to put those resources on there because they're concerning many of the ideas such as anti-racism are actually endorsements of racism this time against whites to make up for past wrongs done to minorities no one can genuinely believe that slavery jim crow laws and other racist policies that have existed in the u.s were correct these are policies of which our country is and should be ashamed as should the majority of the other countries in the world where these racist ideas still exist however the united states is continually making efforts to rid our society of lingering racism and the us is the only country whose primarily white soldiers fought a civil war where they

127died and killed each other in order to abolish slavery another term included in the very name of the resource list diversity and equity resources for families which sounds good but in actual actuality is wrong is equity you guys have used it a ton tonight people think that it's simply another trendy word for equality but instead it actually means just the opposite equity is inequality in favor of minorities and against white people it involves holding back or asians it involves we had a bunch of asians here and there's actually um uh rules now saying we shouldn't have them go to harvard we have to limit their numbers so holding white people and asians back um it involves holding back and limiting the opportunities for certain people based on their skin color so that other people can

128have more opportunity is this not the definition of racism one of the resources okay i've read the ebermex kindy someone else read it the race is [Applause] next up we have rich anderson i hope you people have been listening to the speakers uh i'm a concerned grandparent and i'd like for you please to hear us out to mike i'm here to stop the toxic ideology called crt critical race theory or as it should be called crl communist racist lies along with blm and 1619 project and all marxist propaganda that has no business being taught in our schools to the audience we need to stand up for our children and all the children all the beautiful children that were not just uh white kids um to uh to the to the school board and kim stock

129it is equality not equity freedom not socialism uh teach do not indoctrinate that's our job as parents let me be clear it's not your race your skin color sex or hairdo it's your allegiance to marxism that's uh and and right now even cuba is turning away from uh communism and venezuela is a mess uh to the board if if you don't understand that this is a marxist program that you're trying to infiltrate into our schools please resign please resign if you're going to back door into our schools our kids will come home and they will tell their parents and i'm going to tell you something i'm i'm retired i got plenty of time i got plenty of time so notify your teaching staff please um teach don't indoctrinate no crt in our schools and miss

130stock may i give you a copy of the constitution may i approach you again no not appropriate that's what i thought that's what i thought it says we the people don't say we the white people so it's so we got millions of people that want to come to this country because they are free i'm going to keep my kids free and i hope you hear us it's uh for my grandkids i am very concerned if you can't tell by my voice so thank you thank you mr anderson next we have paul volkowski uh thank you very much um to the school board you guys are doing an excellent job at keeping everything moderated and i appreciate the fact that i do make it up here and to that guy over there great presentation [Applause] uh

131i put on their 16 19 to 17 76 and i'll give you my resume when i leave i'm a math teacher and i can use a job so i'm not going to i'm not going to piss you off tonight um critical race theory it ends in the word theory and in mathematical terms that's nothing that's just a thought process but here's your math lesson the reason why it's 1619 is because that was when the first slave was sold in north carolina or north america at jamestown and i learned that way back in seventh grade in grade school at a catholic elementary school called saint hedwig's which is almost like being in germany so in 1619 oh and please remember this if if you leave with anything this is the number 157 got that one five

132seven 16 19 plus 157 adds up to 1776. who brought the slaves here and who was in charge we were a we were colonies we were under colonial powers great britain germany france and spain the kings gave large land tracks to their privileged people and they needed slaves to run the economy the slaves got here from these colonial powers we were not in charge so to debunk the idea of critical race theory from 1619 to 1776 please recognize this and in the mortal words of somebody that might sound like abraham lincoln when he said four score and seven years ago 245 years and two weeks ago happy birthday the united states of america 1776. we didn't cause racism we didn't do that and the final words in this whole thing says this during the declaration

133of independence and the opening words of the constitution contained these two phrases that you need to go home with all men are created equal that started it and that changed the entire world for the rest of the time so don't sit there and steal history and re-translate it into something else and the other word is in order to form a more perfect union and we've been doing that for 245 years and two weeks and a day thank you thank you [Applause] thank you mr polkowski uh james ingrossen ingerson generations of americans have fought against the horrors of communist and marxist ideas those americans many of whom themselves have fled never wanted future generations ever have to experience the tyranny and oppression of a socialist dictator majority of children in america have been fortunate enough to

134be shielded from living under socialist rule perhaps too much so that many are unaware the inhumanity of socialism they are unaware of the false promises made and the freedoms which must be given up to fulfill the utopian promises there was a time in history where teachers were held with the highest regards teachers were the pillars of the community and rightfully so teachers would teach academics never politically motivated indoctrination the great educator booker t washington once said character not circumstance makes the person from reading the sources linked on the branding wine school district's diversity and equity resources page it is clear that this district does not support those said values on those link pages it states there is no such thing as being not racist and promotes misleading children's books such as not my idea a

135book about whiteness which includes a whiteness contract with the devil across the country there are teachers telling students that no matter how hard you try you may never succeed because of what you may look like this is unequivocally false in today's america the newest bsd board member kim stock said and i quote just today in our student diversity committee meeting several students of color said black people are only mentioned in the classroom when it comes to slavery and they know that this learning is incomplete and they resent this well kim this is because that's the only thing that has talked about so let me help you booker t washington frederick douglass dodger benjamin carson harriet tubman dr martin luther king jr michael jackson michael jordan cassius clay jack johnson manning johnson george washington carver hiram

136r rebels who in 1870 became the first black man elected to congress sworn in just five years after the civil war 15 more black men would take their seat in the house and send it during the next 10 years they all face obstacles but did not impede their drive to be great america is the land of opportunity black white male female gay straight trans or even something they haven't heard of yet are all all represented by that flag right there the american flag and sometimes i felt like everything we've been doing may be too little too late as if many of the people so drastically affected by cover 19 with education laws businesses livelihoods shuttered well forget the overreach of their local government once a sense of normalcy is allowed it is not too little

137nor too late in fact it's quite the opposite america is the country that'll be known as the land where socialism will never prevail freedom is where true unity lies [Applause] thank you mr anderson james hamby good evening mr president members of the board socrates said the more i learn the more i learn how little i know i grew up in this district i was a student during dseg and as such i got to go into wilmington and attend harlan for the fourth fifth and sixth grades once a hulk always a hug nobody ever took time to tell us however just what was going on how much further long would we have been if we had been having discussions about true history and racism 40 years ago in class to help kids understand what was going

138on to understand that in spite of a horrendous civil war that freed the race and chains in spite of the 13th 14th and 15th amendments in spite of the passage of 100 years of time from the end of the civil war that we as americans had not lived up to the promises we wrote down and passed in the law in spite of brown versus board of education we talked about last month at clemont in 1954 we still haven't figured out how to educate our children with equity across the board that we were still living a lie and hiding the truth of our history history can be uncomfortable and that is okay that doesn't mean we shouldn't study it and how it made it what we were or what we are some of you know that

139between my junior and senior years i went to georgia i actually graduated from hampshire high school near augusta absolutely has a long history it had been founded in 1861 just as the civil war was getting underway after the war the students were known as habsburg rebels they honored the confederacy by putting the confederate battle flag on their uh school crest over which was installed in the graving of robert e lee that was still the case in 1989 when i was there my high school diploma has that crest my friend jerome davis was an african-american he was also president of student council and cadet commander of the jrtc unit their barracks behind the school was known as camp rebel and had a massive confederate flag painted on the top when jerome led the color guard out

140on the field for friday night football he had to do so with the confederate flag in the color guard not only that but in 1956 georgia had changed their state flag to include the confederate battle flag as part of their state flag today they've amended the crest to remove those elements and students today are known as rebels with a cause in a school that is now 80 20 black versus white but to this day there's never been a discussion of why those elements were there in the first place why a police officer saying to my friend jerome boy what are you doing in here meant an entirely different thing to him than it meant to me in the store in town even here in delaware we had deeds right here in brandy 100 that said

141only in fact one deed says aryans only aryans could buy the land right here in brainerd 100. last month president of this board asked the first speaker of the night to define crt so we could all know what we were talking about to date no one has been able to define it clearly as it was as respect mr hamby i'm afraid we're at time thank you [Applause] so that concludes our public comment session and typically this time is not a not a q a not a debate certainly board members may have opinions or comments they would like to share at this time i'd like to comment that's myself first regarding protocol um there's never been an established zoom goes first in the room goes first i think over the course of the last year since

142we started doing zoom meetings uh you can go back and find you know we have alternated the process throughout given uh you know in the past certain objections to the time that public comment has gone on i thought maybe we would be receptive to utilizing both sessions i'm open to changing that on the fly as well and maybe in the future we'll just eliminate that second session and go with one public comment session as long as it may take um we're hearing a lot of stuff tonight and we got people on zoom and with public comment we don't you know a lot of statistics are cited i don't know that we have all the sources for that so you know anyone that spoke tonight if you have prepared comments that you'd like to email to

143the board with your sources that would be greatly helpful i took a bunch of notes throughout the meeting so i'm kind of all over the place with this um you know i think this conversation has shifted certainly over the last two meetings you know june and this being the july meeting school's not in session uh it wasn't during the last meeting the school year had ended um you know i'd be happy to hear um you know send to the board you know anyone that has you know some direct evidence of bsd you know teaching in a manner that you suggest this evening making students feel bad making one race of student or group of students feel you know bad about themselves or their history if you have any evidence of teachers using curriculum that's not

144approved by the district i think the board would welcome that information uh if you have instances of that um you know i don't i'd have to look and see you know what what entails in that but it seems like the request was made um you know there may have been a couple emails missed but we'll look into it and you will certainly get your information um you know certainly if you have anyone has evidence of a teacher teaching or creating a classroom environment that's not inclusive to everyone i think the board would be receptive to hear that um but i grew up in this district i've lived in this district my kids uh are in high school now i'm not seeing the things that are being talked about here tonight you know we're trying to

145you know teach students to be good citizens to you know we're not trying to rewrite history no one no one's doing that so i would like to you know suggest i don't know when the last time anyone was in a classroom you know we're always looking for classroom volunteers come see what's going on in our schools our teachers are always you know looking for assistance and happy to share what's what's going on in their classroom but it's a lot of here please please okay we'll get that to you we're just kind of speaking you're you're out there there's no more times public comment session is done the time is now and also to your point earlier miss hitler um you know as chair of this meeting nothing was brought to my attention that you had

146a specified order of people who wanted to speak the cards come in as people sign in i organized my notes things that was not communicated to me um so does any board members have any comments or anything that they would like to add or make i'll add a few comments i'd as well uh i would ask that again we respect the rules and first party will get established for a conducive meeting right um i will answer the question about the foia request so um mr hetler there is code that that describes the timelines for returning for your requests part of that talks about the time that it would cost to pull all of the documentation so it's not necessarily a duplication fee or a xerox copy fee that protocol has been followed actually the time

147limit or the due expected due date is this friday and a simple phone call to the district office would have been able to answer that for you but the request spans multiple individuals right um we're in the throes of summer vacation ms harris has been contacting those individuals i know that there was a conversation with one of the individuals today so we are not delaying we have nothing to hide we are focused on equity and equity is so much broader than the way it is being defined when we think of equity we're talking about making sure ensuring that every student has access to everything that any other student would have it's not necessarily a focus on race although race is a piece of it equity includes our highest learners to our lowest learners to our

148students with special needs to those students who don't have special needs and we've got to see that we are not teaching anti-american views right somebody said is there evidence of teachers who have taken advantage of their position absolutely i've addressed them this year when we found out about them they are not to proselytize to indoctrinate they are to have discussions right that are in the context of what their teaching responsibility is at times that might go out of content based on what's happening in the community because all kids are affected right but no we won't subscribe to teachers who are pushing a political agenda on one side or the other that is not what they get paid to do right now i think i think everybody here would applaud that notion right and there are

149extremes uh i i do not believe the critical race theory is being espoused in this district right but i do believe that each of us need to look at ourselves independently and raise the question how do i see where others are in the world around me what is their perspective have i read the book white fragility i have why i needed to raise my level of understanding to find out where those varying viewpoints are we owe that to make sure that we are informed citizens so that we are guarding against a marxist government a communist push we're anti-that we are about children and the one lady i love the way you said hey we've got to understand where our kids are coming to us they're fragile they're impressionable right they're our pr our most precious

150asset fully agreed and if there's a teacher in this district that doesn't believe that they're in the wrong district we need to lead by example we need to expand our understandings of where our kids are so i'll be honest with you yeah at one point i got an email how dare somebody say black lives matter right and this was last i don't know february or something uh one of our teachers and i said how dare they not not in the fact of pushing an agenda or subscribing to a belief or promotion of an ideology or an organization but because that beautiful little soul who had darker skin than i did who walked through that door needs to understand that yes the adults in their lives love them and respect them we're talking about children and

151we can't we cannot put adult ideologies on their backs we are about kids we will meet them where they are and it is not our job to push an agenda we won't but will we have them understand and respect the perspective of others around them yes we will right because how i grew up is different from how mr skrobot grew up mr ackerman grow up grew up we need to understand perspective doesn't mean we always agree with things but it does mean that we respect and there is a thing called tolerance when you don't subscribe to the views of someone else but i want to sit here as superintendent today and assure you that we do not have an agenda to push a marxist or a communist agenda in this school district we have a

152curriculum that we will follow we've been guided by the state legislators to take a look at that curriculum and make sure that we're using authentive sources that we we're not here to rewrite history but we're here to broaden the pieces of history that left untaught at times that's our responsibility and i want to assure you sir and the gentleman who spoke about ps right yeah there are more than african-americans who were subject to slavery unfair conditions you're right and we've got to teach that it's not just african americans it was jewish people right it was irish it was german those are all those pieces that we need to teach and at the same time we need to teach that african-american students right were treated unequitably in our nation and i again i want to assure

153you that that is our mission right to help our children understand the differences the implicit and explicit biases that we all have somebody else spoke to that this evening right sometimes i don't even realize it as teachers sometimes we don't even realize it as moms and dads and yes as grandmas and grandpas we don't always realize it we need to model the learning that we expect of our kids if we're going to grow i mean that's what education is right expanding understanding knowledge base and perspective and at the end of the day home and what those children have been exposed to they get to make their choices and informed decisions and home is a critical piece of that training right we're not here to circumvent what's being excuse me excuse me no that's miss hatler

154it's unacceptable and in dr hedler i'm going to tell you that it's unacceptable and rude to call out in the middle of a meeting right until you've been formally recognized and that portion of the meeting is over and i'll respectfully ask you not to continue to do that and that that's my comment for this evening thank you superintendent holder i believe reverend perry has comments yes um i want to um i want to say that i appreciate increasing and engaged this is something i as board members we've we want some time um we can recall on board meetings where there were less than 20 people there um and so i don't i don't have an issue in fact i love the increasing and engagement however i do take issue with um misinformation um and outright

155life and so while we can have a difference of opinion that's one thing but i do take issue with and i think as a board we need to be um [Music] more aggressive or more assertive in ensuring that we're not cult or we're not perpetuating misinformation i also take issue with personal attacks on board members again leading to rooted in misburn um and i think that as a board we we certainly need to uh moving forward discuss that in more detail and seeing when when there is misinformation being perpetuated thank you reverend perry anyone else on the board yeah i just want to want to thank everyone and regardless of what you said i thank you for your passion and caring about the children of our district uh i i did actually look up bh365

156and i'm going to read their information i think that's a resource we should look at to see if it's as good as you know uh was uh purported to be and i think just in general you know thank you for your passion but be positive don't you know you don't you don't need to be negative we're here to help we're here to work with community and to make sure that you're heard by us i know you know uh you may not have all the answers and we don't have all the answers certainly but i know this district does the right thing we've we've done the right thing since this district was formed in 1981 every time we've been asked to do things we've done the right thing so i just ask you to keep your

157passion be patient take some time maybe go into the schools and and just watch a class i've taken people from my employer to to our schools to read some elementary children and what you see in the buildings is so different than what you hear about that is going on in schools it's it's i mean i went to harlem several times and it's so well organized and the kids are having a good time and they're learning and there's passion from the teachers and i don't i don't see political agendas coming out of the teachers that i've personally seen um and and i wouldn't like it either superintendent holder i would not like to have that happen either so i just ask people to you know be patient keep your passion um and and come with positive

158suggestions i i love the suggestion from the nurse uh i love the suggestion uh about you know potential uh curriculum material that may be good i don't know i'm gonna look at it later um but you know it's it's it i agree with reverend perry it's nice to see this many people concerned about education in our district i haven't seen this since the 90s and i've been on the board since 93 with a slight five-year hiatus from 2003 to 2008 but you know truly we've seen board meetings where they've been 10 people in the room and most of them were administrators so the fact that you're here and the fact that you care that means something to me as a board member and i'd like to suggest uh when every board member has made their

159comments that perhaps we take a five-minute break um i think we're gonna be a little while longer tonight so i'd like to use the restroom and not miss things thank you mr ackerman mr helen yeah i just uh had a note i wanted to echo what reverend perry and mr ackerman just said um for me just this is the largest number of people i've seen in a meeting since i've been on the board and i think that says a lot especially so many people speaking about the same topic so i just wanted to echo mr ackerman and reverend perry and thanking everyone for coming out to get involved it's not something we see very often and i think the only way we can ever move forward a society is with respectful and open dialogue like

160this so thank you to everybody for coming out and getting involved in the process i i appreciate that too thank you mr helen any other remaining comments ms doc um i just want to uh take a moment and uh just really thank the board members superintendent um all the district administrators and um the students the families and the teachers of the brandywine school district i am so appreciative of this community that my family we have chosen since 2003 because we just love this and we just believe in it um i i just want to assure people uh that maybe you think you know me maybe you think you've read an article or you've watched a video and you think that that helps you understand what i do as a human or what i do as

161a teacher or what teachers do but the reality is is that i would urge everybody in this room to continue to reach out to people who are different than you and to find out what has caused that difference it doesn't just have to be the way that you look it can be so many different things because i think i really truly believe that god willing that when you open up your heart to somebody different that you will learn something about them and about this world and about the way that the world is so i appreciate everybody taking the interest in our district and thank you for welcoming me so much thank you miss talk and i think those sentiments do a lot of what we talked about tonight i mean you know we're we're all

162adults i think all of our a couple students over here um but you know i look at my own kids and their group of friends and how they think about things and how they talk about things and i just feel like the conversation has gotten away from these broad national topics that our kids aren't looking at looking into worried about their you know they have a diverse group of friends for the most part um like this stock said they're learning about each other you know their friend groups i think across our district are way more diverse than my friend group would have been at their age um and i think this it's it's all learning it's you know i think differently now than i did when i was 16 when i was 25 when i

163was 35 i mean our life experiences change us and we have to have those conversations and do it in a way like mr holler said that is respectful that's inclusive that is honest that doesn't change history doesn't rewrite history but maybe opens up a door to a different part of that conversation that hasn't been had before and i think you know we'll continue to to grow as you know our students will continue to grow we'll grow as a board we'll grow as a community and be better for it in the end so anyone else with that i will take a motion to adjourn for five minutes motion in a second we will adjourn for five minutes thank you adjourn for recess so i will take a motion to reconvene our meeting do i have a

164second motion in a second we are back in the meeting miss gordon can we wrap up please thank you all right we are now moving on to board member liaison reports first up delaware school boards association executive board mr ackerman uh the delaware school board association executive board has not met since our last meeting the school boards association did do a new board member boot camp in early july i believe that was last weekend i believe miss stock was able to attend that i generally try to attend but it happened while i was on vacation this year but i know it's a very worthwhile opportunity for board members to get a good foundation for their work thank you mr eckerman delaware school board's legislative committee ms gordon mr president we can't hear miss gordon oh

165sorry it's screaming i'm sorry give it give a tap tap tap the mic see if it's on um miss gordon yes tap see if it's on oh no [Music] okay let's try oh that one there we go okay what i was saying was the dsba legislative committee did not meet since our last board meeting either but we will be meeting with the executive session board members at dr marinucci's house on august 14th but our very first a formal meeting is not scheduled until august 6th or excuse me october 6th august 14th is the annual meeting for gsba and it is a open to all board members thank you mr eckman district finance committee held its monthly meeting on wednesday july 14th we reviewed the monthly financial report and the preliminary fiscal year 2022 budget both

166of which will be presented shortly by dr hale our next meeting is scheduled for wednesday august 11th parent council for students with disabilities ms pidgeon the parent council for students with disabilities hasn't met since our last meeting okay parent and citizen advisory committee reverend perry uh mr president i have no new updates as the parent and citizens advisory council has not met since our last meeting thank you reverend perry uh health advisory committee is currently empty [Music] 917 wmth advisory committee held its quarterly meeting on monday july 12th district representatives are currently working on renewing working with delaware public media on a new contract we should have a draft this month with a committee recommendation for our next regular board meeting for review possible approval depending on when it comes in as long as every

167board member has time to review it um wmph has been broadcasting 24 7 as normal for the quarterly period and wmph radio camp was unfortunately cancelled this year due to govid's safety protocols however wmph in partnership with bernie weins school district site program has been hosting summer interns on tuesday and thursdays and we'll do so through august 6th our next meeting is to be determined mr president in regards to the mph do we have a backup plan if we're not satisfied with the delaware public media proposal uh not at this time that will be a recommendation from the committee um if not at the august meeting by the september meeting thank you and uh any additional board member reports i just would like to make a comment not a report that'd be okay yes thank

168you i just personally want to say to kim stock that i apologize for not standing up for you when you were under personal attack and i hope in the future that that will be the norm and not the exception so i needed to take a break to go and collect myself and i just want to say that i am sorry that that that you did not feel supported if you did not feel supported i'll second that too um i mean the meetings move fast and quick and there's a lot of moving pieces but uh we should not and cannot and will not allow future meetings to make direct personal attacks uh and finger wagging of constitutions in people's faces so my apologies to you ms stock we will do better going forward um and i

169know for the rest of the board um this time of year we typically redo committee assignments so look within the week for distribution of the list for your preferences of areas you may have an interest in and we will get the meeting dates and hopefully have that readjusted so everyone can attend and report accordingly on the next next board meeting [Music] that's all i believe for board business board member liaison reports uh with that i will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda go moved motion in a second all those in favor any opposed motion carries do i have um uh personnel matters do i have a motion to approve the monthly personnel report as discussed in executive session second i have a motion and a second all those in favor any opposed

170motion carries moving on to student matters do i have a motion to approve student matters as discussed in executive session so i moved motion in a second all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries old business revisiting old business superintendent holder will you share an update on the brandywine country club mr president i'll be quick we have a reason to celebrate this evening and that's because the sea of n their certificate of necessity for our early childhood center has been approved by the department of education because funding was procured and there's a long list of legislators community members who have lobbied long and hard to see this come to fruition none harder than representative deb heffernan who has championed the early childhood center since its inception several years ago relentless tireless effort on

171her behalf uh and i'd be remiss if if i i probably shouldn't try to recite a laundry list of other legislators but we'll be sure to recognize the contribution of all those individuals in the coming months because without their efforts and without the efforts of members of the board of education who have also lobbied very heavily to express the need the dire need that we have for an early childhood center as well as members of our executive team and administrators and teachers out in the community so thank you to all of those individuals the 48 million to 50 million dollars needed we received half of that funding already kind of unbelievable that the budget was passed on june 30th and by july 5th that money showed up in the brandywine school district account of course

172john reed has had a game plan devised ready to go since day one should that funding and approval be received and he actually start starts his first meeting with teachers on the 21st is that correct two days from now so we are underway and he'll be meeting with teachers and staff to get their input on design options and shortly thereafter we'll be moving forward in the selection of an architect and awarding that bid and look for additional presentations from mr reed regarding the path forward in the coming months but just great news to share that the long awaited four early childhood center is going to be a reality in the brandywine school district we are still working out details of the brand new wine country club acquisition again another very generous donation on uh behalf

173of luis gapano helping make that a reality so the sun moon and stars came together and uh we are thankful that they did great thank you mr holo moves us on to new business in the election of board officers every july we elect board officers to fulfill the role of president and vice president at this time i will open the floor for nominations should turn over the gavel so to speak to the superintendent and let him run the election is that how we've done in the past yes very well superintendent you have the floor i'll have to find a good one thank you every july we elect board officers to fill the role of president and vice president at this time we will open the floor for nominations are we nominating president or vice president

174right now we will open the floor for nomination of president i would like to nominate our current president john scrobot iii to another term second we have a motion a second any further discussion i would just say that i would humbly accept the nomination any additional nominations from the floor we will call it to a vote all in favor we know we will do it by roll call so miss harris we will turn it over to you could you please do a roll call for us mr skrobot yes miss gordon miss pigeon yes mr ackerman yes reverend perry yes mr heller yes miss doc yes all in favor congratulations returning president scrobot thank you [Applause] and since we have a president-elect in office we'll turn it over to him for the nomination of vice president

175uh with that i would like to nominate kristen pidgeon as continuing vice president second okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion i would accept that nomination miss harrison have a roll call please mr skrobot yes miss gordon miss pigeon yes mr ackerman yes rev perry yes mr heller yes miss stock yes all confirmed thank you ms harris uh on behalf of kristin and myself i'd just like to say to the board we appreciate your trust and um are grateful for your support that you give this board and your leadership in the community so thank you next up we have dr hale to present the fiscal year 2022 oprah preliminary operating budget as well as the monthly financial report for june uh and if it pleases the board i would just like

176to vote on items b and c together after his presentation excuse me good evening the information presented in your report tonight is the the preliminary budget for fiscal year 22. the information was presented at the meeting last month where we ran through um each of the items for revenue and expenditures um then we had like taken the last month to review that as well as the district finance committee met two weeks ago to go through this information in detail again to which th they are providing this um this revision as the um that's the final recommendation so i'd like to just take a few minutes and go through just some of the changes that we've seen now there are not many changes from the information that was presented last month the revenue generation that we've

177seen this this year through fiscal year 21 has really exceeded our expectations um so that was something through kobe we weren't sure exactly where we would land at the end of the year but when we get through the monthly report for june you'll see that that we wound up over 100 so our revenue generation continues to be good there are a few things that we're keeping a very close eye on one in particular being interest um the interest percentages at the state level have continued to decline over the last several months so that's something that we are going to continue to look at and then as we get farther along in the year once we go through the unit count we'll have a better understanding of where that is going to land at the end

178of the year under the state funds we have reviewed the the annual budget of the state and have gone through you see that there's a couple increases there one in particular being opportunity funds those are through the state those have increased this year and they will continue to increase over the next several years per the lawsuit there's also a few things that have been adjusted and revised one in particular the the student success block grant the reason that that has gone down is because k3 spec ed funding has been now included in the unit count so that those funds that have decreased will actually be incorporated within the unit count structure so really they're kind of they will be showing up in a different place that is something that the state continues to work through

179right now all of our other funds including tuition our debt service tax as well as our matching taxes for minor capital improvement and technology are all within line so the information here has not changed since last month's report you know we do anticipate receiving some additional indirect costs through the esser funds so that is something that um i wanted to note in the report and certainly the large adjustment this year is that you can see under the federal and other aids section that we recorded 36 million dollars in sr2 and sr-3 fund so we're recording it as revenue this year because those funds will be afforded to the state though they can be used over the next two for s or two and three years for sr3 we are recording them now um and then

180as we get into the expenditures we know that we're only going to be spending roughly a third over the course of the next several years this calculation goes through how our county assesses the tax we are in a uh tax pool um with the other newcastle districts with the exception of apaquenomic in newcastle county votech and you can see there how those funds are broken up you can also see that the total generation of tax for the brandywine school district there's roughly 88 million dollars on an annual basis and you can see here that as we've talked about there are no changes in the tax rate the tax warrant was approved at last month's board meeting which includes no change in any of our taxes for the fiscal year 22. the expenditure page there really

181are not any changes on this page from last month the key item to note on this page is we are anticipating on june 30th of fiscal year 22 to have a carry forward balance of roughly 10.8 million dollars that is the number that we use to judge and anticipate when we would potentially need to go to referendum and that number is sufficient so we will um continue as a finance group to have those conversations but in total with the roughly 73 million dollars in overall expenditures from the local funds we will anticipate being at the end of the year roughly 10.8 million dollars finally the last page is really just a summary of all of the revenues and expenditures in total again you can see that the 10.8 million roughly is is our carry forward

182balance as well as all the other funds like such as tuition and our debt service while we'll have slight carry forward balances moving forward which will not require to make any adjustments at least for another year there any questions again this is the preliminary budget we did go over this during the district finance committee and they're recommending to the board for approval any questions from the board no thank you dr hale for that report okay next is the june 30th 2021 monthly report so this is not only the june monthly report but also the annual report for fiscal year 21. so i'm happy to report that um on on a revenue basis we receive 97 of our anticipated budgeted revenues for the state and that falls right in line with where we should be and

183again we always talk about the salary and formula number from the state that they provide 100 for the salary and benefits of all the employees that we generate so the funding there is really um you know we aren't able to carry forward any funds from the state it's basically we use 100 of what we generate nothing more nothing less the key number that we want to note here is that we've received 100.7 of our current expense tax receipts um so we normally budget at 99.5 um so certainly we're about a percent over what our anticipated uh tax receipts were for this year and certainly that does have an impact on our june 30 balance um we did receive all of our funding from the from the consolidated grant we are in the process of actually

184has been submitted for fiscal year 22. expenditures everything wound up being very good on the expenditure side as we've talked the principles did a fantastic job through coven expending their budgets making sure that these were for necessary items but as you can see in all the areas everything came right on the button there was one that was slightly over and that is for our c-cert person and that's actually really a state-funded position so that overage is something that's picked up from the state had no impact on local funds we did end the year roughly three percent under our projected expenditures for local salary and benefits so certainly that is something that we are going to continue to take a look at as we move forward into the current fiscal year on a cash flow basis

185we move forward and look at the we had anticipated at the beginning of the year to be roughly about 10 and a half million dollars on june 30. i'm happy to report that based on some of the increases in revenue and some of the reductions and expenditures that we wound up on june 30 with a carry forward balance roughly 12 million dollars so that isn't a very good financial position for us to be in and something that will certainly extend out the conversation for the necessity of a of a referendum this was also reviewed during the finance committee meeting and would be happy to answer any questions i know superintendent holder mentioned the money that was received through the latest bond bill and that was in july so that'll be on next month's report but

186will that fall under major cap money is that a separate line item how does that how will that we'll be working with john reed we've been having some conversations exactly how we would report that through so the the entirety of the money um will come up as a fund 300 which is a capital fund so that will be major cap so that would be major cap but not something because how the debt service would normally work because it's 100 state funded it would normally be that 60 40 split where part would be state part would be local this is 100 state so we'll be reflected on the report and how does when does the normal yearly major cap money come in is this just still that 25 is part of the normal level it's interesting

187that the money came in but normally the minor cap funds do not come into us until we're able to provide our match so normally that doesn't happen until at least october because the we don't have enough revenue generated through those match taxes to be able to provide the match they have to see the match first before they will give us the state funding and once that happens they will forward the funds through to us so that's part of the you know with a lot of those minor major cap funds being multi-year appropriations so that there's still funding like remaining from last year that we're using moving forward so the moment that we get those match funds in um then we get that into the state they get us those funds so this happens really it

188was like the first day and i've never never seen that before so it was great to see you opening up that validity report and seeing that you know it's such a good project that's great any additional comments or questions from the board just a comment mr scrobot somewhat related to budget but it helps the budget process and i i just have to commend uh cora scott dr lawson nicole warner michelle koch the effort and the the amount of time it took to write the grants and i believe to be the first in line to get them submitted at the state level whether it was esser our opportunity grant or even our consolidated grant those are massive undertakings and um well spent many late nights and many weekends getting it done so that we didn't have

189a backlog and we were able to move forward with our plans as quickly as possible and just i can't say enough about the dedication of those individuals in in making that a priority and seeing it through it's the earliest i think we've ever had everything submitted so thank you motion in a second all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you dr hale thank you next up format of future board meetings uh recently passed senate bill 94 authorizes but does not require boards to continue meeting virtually after the covid declaration of emergency expires um general unless you had any comments we can open to discuss the bill and how our format what members thoughts are on how we want to continue our meetings going forward personally i'd like to see us move

190back to an in-person meeting without the zoom option i think it's important for board members to physically show up to a meeting um i mean it's it's too easy with zoom to just say well i've got something else going on i can't make it tonight i'll just i'll just remote in how do we know as a board that the board member who is remoting in especially during executive session is actually alone in that room versus somebody else being in that room and able to hear confidential material i think that we lose control when we do that i i would certainly favor us continuing to provide the public with a option to see and hear our meetings maybe through a youtube live type situation but i think if you want to participate you should come out

191i think if you want to be on the board you should be here at the table and i'm sorry reverend perry i know you're not here tonight i didn't need to call you out on that one but uh it's not a calling out tonight it's all right yeah that's just uh that's just you know i think if you if you gonna represent the community you should be here for a board meeting if i'm gonna ask teachers to come and go to school in person i should be able to take the time to come here and be here for aboard me if i'm on vacation or i'm in mexico at the beach i don't want i don't want a board members moving in from their vacation you're on a vacation go enjoy yourself i don't want

192to see the palm trees waving in the background no offense doctors eric wherever you are but you know that's that's just kind of how i feel about it and i think we should write a policy that that around the policies that the dspa is sending out but maybe tailor it in such a way that the only time we're going to do a remote option is if our schools go into lockdown and i actually um i agree with the revision that for i think that the remote option um allows families who are not physically able to make the board meetings um it gives them an opportunity to engage in that level when we talk about being a district of providing equity to our families to our students then i think that it would behoove us to

193keep the zoom option um available to us families especially but also to me as uh or not not just to me since you called me out um but to board members as well um i think that if we can do telemedicine um if we can uh zoom with our our mental health professionals then why can't we zoom with our at a school board meeting so i'm in favor of keeping um the um the zoom option but also creating boundaries like i do feel that it's unacceptable with board me a board member is opting to join via zoom um let's say half of the time i do feel that there are benefits for for attending in person but um for our families and for um extenuating circumstances i do think that we should continue with this

194zoom option okay thank you reverend perry thank you mr eckerman um no i agree i think if you know the pandemic has taught us anything zoom option for these meetings was good i know there were times we had attendance via zoom you know 400 plus attendees you know tonight i think we were up in the in the 130s i do think that school boards being one civic engagement on any level i think physically being present is important um but i also recognize that you know schedules and families that the zoom option does allow a method to participate for those that normally would otherwise have skipped the meeting um i think mr ackerman and reverend perry both make good comments um you know one being a zoom option with some boundaries you know i think if

195members are you know in the local vicinity you know they should be here in person but i also think if people are on vacation or out of state or traveling for work and they are so inclined to have that option to want to continue to participate in a meeting that they would have maybe otherwise missed i think that's important i am a little torn on you know kind of how how we want to handle public comment uh as far as you know holding that for speakers in the room or providing that zoom option um and we had a lot of speakers tonight we had a lot of speakers earlier in the pandemic uh and we managed it um meetings like tonight we tend to run a little bit long but i think if we're going

196to provide the zoom and we want people to be engaged and we want them to participate it's not just participation through viewing and listening but also having that option to you know engage and partake in the public comment as well so we have an opportunity to possibly review the model policy that dspa dr marinucci sent out i think earlier this week i think probably would have sent it to you yeah i'll double check i know he sent out a copy of senate bill 94 but i'll double check the guidance but yeah i mean if we're going to have a discussion we want to form a policy around it um then you know maybe we make a motion to that tonight to form a policy and continue the discussion i don't think we're in a place

197to have a formal vote on deciding that policy tonight i do think it you know has further discussion but now is the time for you know individual board members to share their thoughts on where they want future meetings to go um so i think personally i'm closer to where ralph is that um board members should attend in person especially executive sessions i agree with that concern it's supposed to be confidential for a reason how do we know who's listening in um but i'm concerned and maybe this will give us time to look this up in in the senate bill i think there's a bit of a contradiction if you look at the copy that we have uh page 2 section four b says that it's the discretion of the chair to allow the public to

198monitor or provide public comment um until it's fourth requirements but then on page three section six it says that if the meeting's held electronically the public's required to both a moderately meeting and b provide public comment so in two separate pages it's giving two different directions um i would be inclined to also agree with ralph that i think youtube live is the channel we should use and have the meeting streamed but as a view-only option unless the bill is saying that we can't do that i think that's available to us even without the bill we could we could stream it even without house bill 94 this is more to deal with you know having a virtual meeting where board members can participate virtually and and if board members participate virtually then the public needs to

199be given that option i i don't object to it you know when we're having when we're in lockdown situations where people can't get out but you know and and i guess there are times when um you know it would help families to to be able to provide comments but when i think back to the time where we had lots of comments around you know opening not opening uh many of them were repetitive so if we heard one we kind of heard six because we were hearing the same thing from multiple people i i think it goes in both directions i don't know i i'd like to see maybe a little more control over the zoom public comment aspect of it like you know i understand like red clay for instance you have to put your

200request in by a half an hour before the board meeting to get into a zoom public comment um i don't know i think those kind of guidelines or boundaries you know might might make it a little bit better i mean i don't necessarily object but you know even tonight you know you know people who've commented before on zoom were commenting tonight again which is fine i mean they have good interesting things to say um some people in the room had commented before as well so yep um i think that the zoom public comment thing for sure there were certain periods last year led to comments by people that aren't residents who are affiliated with the district on topics though that doesn't happen i mean i guess that's a chance it does but it doesn't happen

201as much with um in-person public comment but we know there were certainly periods last year where there were comments from folks who weren't affiliated or residents of the district at all that's fair point oh my mind um i'm i am inclined to agree that school board members should be in person um and i do agree that it does show our employees a good faith you know effort that we are willing to be in person my question is is that what if one of us is sick with covert or but um doesn't have severe symptoms um is that something that you still could not come or i think the bill is clear that if there's a disability or a comment you're allowed to participate remember you'll be allowed to zoom in um that's the one clear

202part of the bill i think yeah okay and then um my my other uh comment or maybe question is that in terms of i think that the public should be allowed to comment uh on zoom and the reason why is because i think that the more efforts that we can do to include more of our community and more of our families and more of our employees and teachers and students i think i think that is what we need to be doing the direction we need to be doing and in fact i would also argue that in person i don't know if we could do it through zoom world but in person that we be providing the same kinds of accommodations that might be provided for any other event for families for example if they if

203a family member needed some assistance with um asl or um if a family member needed some assistance with um you know with a translation or something like that that we could could we look into making some of those accommodations for family members or students or community members who would like to come in the spirit of of equity and of being a district that wants to hear from everybody great points great suggestions um this is this was kind of the idea of having the second public comment session that people would have the opportunity to make comment on items that are discussed in the new and old business um so we don't have any cards or signups at this point so you know going forward as we discussed earlier you know we'll have to evaluate how we

204want to use public comment um limiting time not limiting time uh continuing with the second session and superintendent holder i know we love to do surveys do we want to poll our communities and see how where their level of interest is in participation going forward absolutely i i have a comment yeah um so my thought is i think that we should have four members be in person that should it should be the exception for to not be in person and i think that we could make some type of you know phone system or something like that without having the zoom option for a board member that can't participate in person um if there's an illness or something like that but if there is an illness i mean i think we need to be allotted the

205ability to not be here and so that that part that's why i'm kind of on the fence about whether we you know have a zoom option or not i i just don't i i would be okay with not having any type of zoom option including i do like the idea of the youtube live or live streaming because we are i think fairly accessible and we get lots of emails from the community from the public and i think we all read our emails and so public comment can also be submitted to us via email and if someone can't attend in person so i like the idea i like that what the district has done technology wise to support us during the pandemic but i would like to see us go back to not having zoom at

206all so we're kind of all over the board here i think we have a lot of differences in perspectives so i guess the the consensus is that we would like to see a board policy around this to some degree i just want to be clear though i do want the public to be able to watch live right the board meeting so do we need to kind of draft a sub sub committee and then enlist you know two or three of us to present a draft or get a draft circulated of this policy you said there's a model policy already okay yes sorry can we all just get sent that all right so we might like it i'll distribute the model model policy um from dr marinucci and then from the comments taken tonight um we'll

207put this put this on next month's agenda to further the discussion and potentially have a policy for review that's unacceptable yeah and just one small addition if we're going the route of youtube live possibly we have a great um video in you know av education program at mount pleasant i think it would be great to have those students involved in that broadcast in some way and make it more interesting for the viewers and hopefully next year we can get the culinary students back and the high school board reports yep those are all things i know i'm looking forward to all right so do we need to make a motion to to vote on that to reconvene or to table until next month's meeting after review of dr marinucci's draft i don't think we need to

208make a motion i think we can you know because this is really i don't know but this is an action item or not it's just new business i don't have this just listed as new business not really listed as action yeah so i think you know just you know you're introducing the policy or potentially you know new policy that would be the action item yeah um all right so we'll look at um dr marnucci's form and then maybe consider you know small subcommittee to if we want to make tweak it to make it our own um i'll send that out with the list of committee assignments and if you have an interest send it back and we'll work on that between now and next meeting any further discussion on format for board meetings future board

209meetings no with that we have no additional public comment cards for second session and general information meeting dates uh as amended early on we have next meeting august 16th here in the multi-purpose room followed by meetings september 20th here in the multi-purpose room followed by a meeting on october 18th and as always i thank everyone for your participation and time this evening and i will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second motion on a second all those in favor aye aye that conclude all any opposed nope motion passes that concludes our july meeting thank you everyone