001Louis I think we're ready to go ahead and and get started when you are okay before we do that Eston have you posted and note so that if anyone joins the old meeting that they'll know to come here let me double check with Courtney of us will be getting the word out for folks going in the the old place okay I think that is a great question Lewis thanks for thinking of it we'll call this meeting to order it's a regular board meeting for July 14th we're beginning at 7 o'clock and I think the first question is we have any revisions to the agenda and I think we do yeah so I would like to recommend that we actually move let me look for the wording on it here I apologize I would recommend we
002do the 2021 are welcome back to school plan right away because I think that's what people are most interested in and that way also that if folks want to provide any comment once they hear what that plan is the public comment will follow it and they'll be able to actually comment on what we are planning and it will hopefully be a more useful way of input so that would be my recommendation of the board supports that I would move us to the to going through our Lincoln and km [Music] so and there will be as we go through the plan at the end of it depending on your feedback I may be requesting some actions from you but I need to get your feedback first to see if there will be any actions required so
003if we can hold that thought and then we can potentially do action after we may have to have an item depending on the board's thoughts on what we present okay so we anticipate this presentation it's a long slide presentation just to give folks an idea how long do we anticipate in presentation itself I would anticipate the whole presentation hopefully we can get through it in under an hour we'll do our best to move through it there's a lot there we wanted to make sure to inform our community of what we've been working on all summer and what our plans are moving forward both immediately and into the future beyond that so it's it's pretty comprehensive and there's a lot of information there but we will keep it as fast as we can while still informing
004people about where we are with things do we want to take board if we have 600 people and signed up for board for a comment and I don't know we have like we have like 10 or 12 who have signed up for kind of something like that the other question though is whether we want to have the board's interaction in the questions about the plan prior to public comment or after the public comment yeah we can certainly have more discussion after the public comment so you can react to ideas you hear and whatnot that would be that would be fine we could kind of split the item into okay great the agenda in that way and then the next question is we need to approve the notes that were presented from the last meeting which
005I don't the thing well let's go ahead I mean if we're revising the agenda to start right away with the presentation we can go ahead and do that and then we can jump into all that other business right after if that's okay with you all right okay so Maggie we're going to go ahead and jump right into the presentation are you gonna kick us off with that all right take it away okay Esther you can present the screen who do you want me to throw it up on my screen if you'll go ahead and do that and just FYI Adina's having trouble getting in so you money for her she just I can't share my screen Eston I just make you a co-host maybe that'll let you do it everyone on the panel here might
006see my screen yep that's great all right well welcome thank you welcome everyone glad you are here I'm so excited to have such a large large crowd with us today as dr. Judy mentioned I am gonna share our roadmap for safely welcoming staff and students to the 2020 2021 school year my name is Maggie Furman I'm the assistant superintendent and again I'm thank you for being here I'm gonna share first our agenda for this presentation and dr. Judy mentioned it is rather long but we've got a lot of information and have received a lot of feedback that we want to honor and make sure we have covered as much as we can from that feedback as well as go into details as much as possible and that is pertinent at this time I do also
007want to give a quick disclaimer that the information we're presenting is accurate as of today but I think we've all seen that with the current situation things can change very rapidly and we may have to update or modify things as we go through the next few weeks and get ready to welcome our staff and team prac so I'm going to go through our goals and just so everybody knows I am apologize Maggie I just want everyone online to know i have vast board members if possible to hold questions till the end so that we can be as efficient as possible so I mean you need to jump in if it's really crucial please feel free but if you can hold your questions I think that would be great and like Lewis said we can do
008the presentation get the public comments and then do board discussion after that I think that's a great plan so just wanted to make sure that we get that out there for everybody and we're gonna go through our goals discuss consider patience and guidance that we used as well as their ears and from government mandates discuss our guiding principles define a couple times then we're gonna dig into our quadrants which you'll see more about later and then what those instructional plans look like based on the quadrant we're in we're going to talk about survey results and then we're gonna go through very specific Department action steps and guidance from each of our departments in the system then we're gonna give our recommendation to the board for how we feel that we should start the 2020 2021
009school year and then give some key dates and activities that we recommend take place and then you've got a list of FAQ s that I pulled from not just the survey but also I have received lots and lots of emails through the opening 20/20 email group and I wanted to make sure that we've addressed as many of those questions and lingering questions that were out there so the FAQ s hopefully address those things from the emails that we received so our goal is we embarked on this plan for how we're gonna welcome our students back was creating a top priority that would create a plan that minimizes the health and safety risks while at the same time trying to balance how we can provide as many students as possible an in-person equitable engaging and meaningful
010learning experience and that just really ties into our whole mission and vision as a school district but our other goal is to make sure that we're able to provide clear health and safety requirements for in-person learning that are grounded in scientific literature and discussion literature and discussions with expert in medical and public health advisors and we had a really good team of community advisors that our parents in our community that worked for public health organizations and hospitals and universities and their information was just really really valuable and helped us with this land greatly considerations and guidance we had these three key tenants as we worked on our plan first is that we understand that virtual instruction while it has improved we definitely consider that it is no substitute for in-person instruct particularly when it comes
011to quality for our students we also wanted to make sure that we kept in mind the in-person instruction it's not just about the academics and person instruction helps support our students social-emotional needs including their mental and physical health as well as mitigating impact of trauma that we have seen with our students and staff we also know that continuing with virtual instruction can be disrupted for some families especially those families that have limited resources um we did consult many different stakeholder groups and experts first and foremost we definitely relied on the Georgia Department k12 recovery plan guidance from the CDC the Georgia Department of Public Health as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance and many other resources what other school districts are doing around the metro area the nation and international we definitely were
012trying to gather as much information as possible as I mentioned earlier we did consult with a panel of parents and community members who work in various public health fields we did consult with our teacher Advisory Council I met with them virtually back in June went over our original plan discuss their concerns on that and then also all the stakeholder feedback through the surveys as well as any of the emails that came through with suggestions and feedback as well we know we don't operate in a vacuum we have certain limitations and things that control what we do as a district and we definitely need it to consider what those barriers and limitations included one of them is state funding cuts to education also knowing that we have limited space in our buildings and limited staff we
013don't have as many staff as we might need for certain proposals of limiting our student to staff ratios also we have mandated services for students with special needs and that was a large consideration as we worked through our plan and how we can serve those students that need a different type of education than the general ed student may need also any guidance or mandates from public health agencies especially regarding any current spread or mitigation efforts and then also as we talk about operations and supply chain just recently we found that a lot of the hand sanitizer we ordered has been recalled we've been having trouble as we place orders for different different supplies that they're not coming in as we order them they're delayed and then any feasibility also regarding transportation for how we can
014socially distance students on a bus we also wanted to make sure that we focused on what our key priorities are in city schools of Decatur and so we did want to assure that no matter what we did we are ensuring the physical intellectual and emotional health and safety for our students aren't our families and that's a top priority for us wanting to monitor and minimize the spread of Kogan 19 in our school environment definitely wanting to ensure that any students that follow in special populations such as students with disabilities are provided for and that they are given the due services that they need to access education in an equitable way and then we really didn't want to continue to focus on our equity work making sure that we are using culturally responsive teaching practices and
015allocating our resources in an equitable way and then also always continuing to use as we have for the past several years is use our equity lens to provide high quality culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate learning for our students academically as well as social and emotional learning I want to define a couple terms that we're going to dig into a little bit as we get to the next part of this presentation and one and dr. Howells things that have followed me after this section and she's going to talk a little bit more about the first two terms but just so that you know community spread is one of the times we're going to use and this is an analogy I gave earlier is you come home you now have let's say a flu or the pole
016you have no idea where you got it that's community spread if your mom had the cold and then you had the cold you know where you got the cold you can trace that pretty quickly but community spread is you don't know that you encountered anyone with an and now you are sick with this illness a mitigation is how do you slow the spread of this illness and then the other one we want to define is virtual learning there were a lot of different times and it's initially digital learning and all kinds of ways to describe how we were engaging with our students in learning while they were at home so we are going to define when we engage our students in learning at the home environment that that is going to be virtual learning and
017defining that it could be self-paced it could be asynchronous meaning the students are given an assignment they do it on their own they turn it in or synchronous which is this teacher and the student engaging in a live interaction much like we are right now it could be whole group small group or even individual instruction could happen online it could happen via the phone there's lots of different avenues we have for engaging our students in virtual learning and then the other one is hybrid learning and in the survey I think we caught it a modified schedule but we definitely wanted to bring everyone together and as we talked about if we are looking at an option where some students are in our schools while others are at home we're gonna define that as hybrid learning
018and that means basically there's a combination between students coming into our classrooms for the traditional educational experience while some students are engaging and learning at home via virtual learning and that does mean some kids are on campus some kids are remote we makes these staggering schedules and doing a variety of things to help mitigate spread of the virus while we have those students in our building so now I am going to pass the presentation on to dr. Huddleston thank you dr. Furman I'm good evening dr. duty and school board members our school health team under the guidance of district lead nourish and amour developed an assessment tool to help us determine the way to reopen school in light of current conditions with Kovach next slide this assessment tool is based on evaluating where we are
019with respect to community spread and mitigation the first step is to determine the level of mitigation strategies ranging from effective to ineffective then we examine where we are on the continuum from low spread to high spread okay and next so this slide highlights the current number of kovat 19 cases hospitalizations and deaths as of July 13th we have over 8,000 cases in DeKalb County over 1,000 cab residents have been hospitalized and we've lost a hundred and eighty people due to complications associated with kovat 19 next this graphic illustrates the number of confirmed cases in DeKalb County and the seven day moving average and as you can see our local numbers have been trending up since February note where we were in March when we moved to virtual learning initially and where we are now as
020we approach the opening of the 2021 school year the Georgia Tech biometrics Department developed a kovat night team event risk assessment planning tool that has data that's very much similar to this and it suggests that as of today in DeKalb County there's a 65% risk that in a group of 25 one person would have Co vat19 next slide so next I will share some of the areas of consideration when considering the current mitigation level there are areas of mitigation that an individual can undertake and there are aspects of mitigation that are under the auspices of school and the greater community on the individual level we're looking at things like frequent hand-washing maintaining social distance and compliance level with wearing mask or face coverings community strategies include access to broad scale testing for example a festive
021mitigation wouldn't food testing that Dredd alia vailable with timely results another mitigation strategy is contact tracing this refers to the ability of Public Health officials and other agencies to alert individuals of a potential exposure to Kovac 19 note that effective mitigation requires comprehensive and coordinated efforts across state and local agencies to ensure consistency and to improve the efficacy of strategies implemented the CDC outlined three areas of considerations for schools with respect to determining readiness and planning for the opening of schools they include policies and procedures facilities and supplies and professional learning their recommendation is that schools assess that agree to which policies and procedures for opening school outlines steps to mitigate the spread of kovat 19 it's important to assess the capacity and and access to facilities and supplies that promote safety and to assess
022the degree to which professional learning is adequate as it relates to health education and safety such as educating staff members and families about when to stay home and providing staff with information regarding the availability of a lability of flexible work and lead options next slide it's important to note that mitigation and spread are connected and some selection and implementation of mitigation action should be guided by the extent of disease transmission in this graphic you see mitigation and spread divided into four quadrants that allow us to examine which opening school option would be most appropriate based on current levels based on this tool effective mitigation and low spread would suggest a full return to in-person learning is appropriate high spread with effective mitigation or ineffective with low spread might suggest that some type of hybrid learning
023option is appropriate and high spread combined with ineffective mitigation strategies is indicative of a need for virtual learning for virtual learning next for return to school would include normal return to school with additional health and safety precaution so not business as usual but same schedule and everybody comes back with the addition of those safety protocol hybrids option a would include approximately 50% of students in person at a time with all others participating in virtual learning and virtual learning is 100 percent of teachers and staff members participating in digital learning however it's important to note that there might be a need for administrators and operation personnel to be on site and in that case they would be expected to follow all safety protocols outlines for in-person learning hybrid option B would include less than 50% of
024students in person at a time and all others participating in virtual learning so next we are going to move into a part of this conversation where estin is going to lead us in an analysis Lake holder input Thank You dr. Furman Maggie would you move to the next slide please hopefully is everyone in this meeting those late in June we submitted we sent a survey out to a couple of groups of constituents first was to the parents and guardians of our students and another very similar survey went out to our staff on the survey ran for a couple of week he's from 23rd of June to just by a week ago we had a very high initial response rate most people saw that survey and clicked through immediately and that tended to taper off over
025time with a slight nudge when we sense a reminder in July and that's worth just keeping in mind because so much of this health situation has changed even just the last week or so so we'll look at the sort of overall aggregate responses but I'm also going to show you some information about trends over time and folks sentiment most recently two figures it didn't really quite fit on a standalone graph that we've given you Bulow's you 15% of our parents whose children were regular bus riders this year more uncomfortable sending their kid on a bus if we couldn't maintain social distancing and almost a quarter of our parents reported that even if our school buildings were open for face-to-face learning they would still prefer a digital alternative mag in the next slide please these are
026the response rates in aggregate not controlling for time or changes in sentiments you can see here a couple of things one is even the most popular options have not been tremendously popular there's a reason that scale goes up to 100% we're kind of capping out at tapping out at the halfway mark and you can even see some some discrepancies or some differences between parents and Guardian comfort levels and what are I wonder staff are recording in terms of their comfort levels and that's understandable a parent's perspective about health and wellness for their child and what a parent needs in order to also be employed sometimes look a little bit different than a staff member thinking about their health and wellness in the workplace so it's understandable that there's a gap here but I think it's
027also interesting to look at change over time so yeah go ahead to the next one Thank You Maggie so this is a this is a sentiment over time parents and staff indicating their comfort or their extreme comforts within personal learning and you can see that for both our parents and guardians and for our staff members that that comfort level has declined as we have been paying attention to the news and become all too keenly aware of the health condition in our community and in our state and and more broadly and they are converging slightly but they're both downward the next one please Maggie this is the same graph comfort level and extreme comfort for online learning and there has been a pretty consistent gap between staff and parents sentiment however as with the in-person option
028we are definitely seeing an upward trend in comfort level and an upward trend and the previous time we're trying to only go until the 6th of July we did not run a systemic analysis on the follow-up emails that we have received but I would tell you just gauging my own sentiment and I think those of us who have been receiving email sent to the opening 20/20 email list would agree we have seen both from staff and from parents writing in indicating that their comfort level with in-person has diminished their interest in in online has has increased as things have progressed or regressed when it comes to the community health crisis the next one please Maggie this is germane for the most germane for the three scenarios the three quadrant that's where we have some component
029of students recording physically to school the mitigation strategies these are weighted colored gradients anything that got 75% this has a highlight there and I think it's no particular surprise that both our parents and our teachers are really putting a heavy emphasis on I think the things that we all know to be in our and our community's best interests of mitigating this face coverings implementing social distancing and being mindful about about hand-washing it's not to diminish the importance of any of these others but those have repeatedly risen to the top of best practices since this whole scenario began and I think with that dr. Fuhrman's back to you so what we wanted to do based on the survey results and just good practice for what we know is important is regardless of which quadrant we're in
030we definitely wanted to set the precedents for these eight mitigation responses and number one is face masks requiring face master coverings for all students and staff to be worn while they are in the building we would be as much as possible creating physical distancing to the greatest extent possible in all settings building student groups or cohorts to minimize the number of staff or students who could potentially be exposed if there is an incident of someone being testing positive for covin doing some kind of screening before people enter into the school buildings and that is a detail we still are flushing out all the in the intricacies on but we have several options we're looking at definitely improving hand hygiene procedures with an increased frequency of hand-washing as well as hand sanitizing supplies being available throughout
031our buildings providing an isolation space someone it's at school does become ill we need to make sure we've got a place for them to be isolated as well as a response plan if a staff or student becomes ill at school very specific steps for everyone to understand what happens and then also restriction on visitors to our schools we definitely know that we need to limit that to the very essentials and important to note here is that these mitigation strategies are intended to be used in combination to establish a culture of health and safety at our schools with all of these strategies are used in combination we believe that we can substantially reduce the risk of transmission in our schools so it's not one or the other is more or less important it's all of these
032things are equally important to create a safe environment in our schools so the next part of the presentation is each department has gone through the different quadrants and created action steps and guidance for how we will respond in the different quadrants and we're gonna start off with dr. Huddleston again to talk through the equity and student supports okay so I'll talk a little bit about racial equity first and it is clear that we want to continue the momentum we have started with our equity work and our anti-racist education so I've outlined three areas that we are able to continue this work in quadrants one through four so first to talk a little bit about professional learning we are able to provide courageous conversation about race training for staff members either virtually or in person if
033indicated we are looking at ways to move forward with culturally responsive teaching some of that training has been rescheduled for November so we'll be watching to see whether or not travel is possible but if not we have options for virtual access to that as well restorative practices will continue the next phase in restorative practices training we've already had administrators go through training and instructional coaches the next step is to pull in more of our teaching staff so that is available from the International Institute of restorative practices and online format we're also geared up to continue both school and district level equity teams and that can be done virtually or in person so next I'll talk about some of the interventions and supports that we have started or will be initiating this school year many of
034you are familiar with students organized for anti racism and we will be able to continue that virtually or in person this year's budget included funds for a mentorship group for students from the African Diaspora and it is our goal to continue that in connection with some of our community partners and I've been working with dr. banks to look at ways we can do that both virtually and in person the same is true of our staff racial healing and racial affinity group and the student sessions that I talked about during our last board meeting that we're planning for grades 6 through 12 on race racism and culture dr. banks and I have been meeting with dr. Watson to develop those and so we are making good progress on getting our our and ideas together with regard
035to what each of those sessions will look like and once we have our final decision will be able to to finalize the direction of that work we're also going to be able to continue partnering with curriculum and instruction to look at our curriculum through an equity lens k12 and so dr. banks has been involved in some of the work providing some training for the CNI team working very hard on looking at what our options will look like for opening school with regard to curriculum next I just wanted to mention that we are very much involved in policy and procedures and continuing to do that online or in person and so most recently we are giving input on the code Conduct and restorative practices looking at certain elements of that through a racial equity lens we
036have an a unique opportunity given that teks and leakes evaluations will be paused for this year to be able to reimagine what that will look like and really be able to tie in evaluation to our our three pillars of our district improvement plan and to be able to highlight our work around equity and be able to have that well integrated into evaluation we are also partnering with staff support to look at employee training and support that new staff members will have in terms of joining our district next one thank you so now I'll talk a little bit about things that are being put in place for school health services so these are things that we would be looking at four quadrants one through four because regardless of which which quadrant we land on at the
037end of this conversation there will be some individuals who will be on site as I mentioned before we would be looking at some administrators and we will be looking at other operations personnel that would be on site so it is important to know that nurse Moore and her team will be monitoring the data related to the current of mitigation and community spread so that we have accurate information for decision-making purposes our nurses and school health team will distribute and oversee screening procedures they'll be the main people involved in making sure that our pl is comprehensive and covers all of the things that staff members need to know about PPE youth and social distancing screening and etc and those things can be done virtually this will be the team that's distributing our district-wide procedures regarding the
038guidelines and these are going to be very clear so that people understand for example if you have a fever of 100 point zero and that's the cutoff then then you would not be allowed to proceed in the building so we want to make sure that those are outlined and given to parents well before the first day of entering any of the school sites the school health team will collaborate with school-based administration around notification they will be engaged in contract contact tracing in collaboration with the health authorities local health authorities and they will play an integral role in helping us to solidify our isolation and quarantine procedures and providing input on closures related to COBIT 19 and they will also be continuing the work that they're doing with the school health clinics and offices utilizing standards
039and transmission based precautions next slide please so here is a slide that links us to information about screening for responding to kovat 19 in k-12 schools this is a decision-making tree and this and other tools will be helpful in really making final decisions with regard to closed closure in the event of exposure to code at 19 so this is just one tool that we wanted to share with you so now we'll talk a little bit about social emotional learning and mental health you notice that when dr. Furman talked a little bit about our goals and some of the key actions that we wanted to make sure we're incorporated regardless of the way we open school at the forefront we have social-emotional learning we have mental health and we have worked with members of equity and
040student support to look at ways we can highlight SEL and highlight mental health and well-being in our approach to opening schools so the first one is we're looking at being able to offer check-in for students and these may be individual or group check-ins from equity and student support staff members focused on engagement making sure that however we re-enter that we are making sure that students are engaged if there's a virtual component making sure that students are logging in that they are are getting what they need and also having those check-ins as an opportunity to take a look at mental health and well-being as well as student safety we know that our mental health providers and school in general are typically involved with reporting things regarding safety for our students and so we want to be
041able to have that touch point in that connection to to see how our students are doing and provide them with support the next bullet outlines a little bit of information about our behavioral engagement strategies so as you know we have a new staff member in equity in student support and that's dr. Rhonda Poe and she is our behavior interventionist and she will be working on making sure teachers are aware of strategies that we can use to enhance the engagement whether we are virtual or in person as well as in the instance of students being back in the classroom for those who have had some behavior challenges we want to make sure that we are preventing and de-escalating in ways that are conducive and aligned to our health protocol so she'll be heading that work I
042talked a little bit at our last meeting about the sea learning curriculum and that is a social emotional and ethical curriculum k12 that has been developed at every University we are moving forward with that we've had one training session for the mental health professionals who will be pushing this out to our schools we'll have another one this week and one more to make sure that at opening school we're ready to go with that and we're able to start off with our focus on social-emotional help one of the things that we have proposed is to have a wellness Wednesday so regardless of whether we are doing it virtually or we're doing this in person we want to be able to have a focused time that all students are receiving either the social-emotional curriculum or some sort
043of mental health and well-being check in so the Decatur Student Center which you know is a k-12 initiative even though it's located there at the high school and will be having a site at Renfro starting to build that we will be able to offer counseling groups through that Center virtually or in person and we also have several community partners who have already been up and running with telemental health and they would be able to provide services for students and to continue that work that mental health and well-being work so moving on to section 504 in school psychology here we've outlined some things that would be in place for quadrants 1 2 or 4 so full in person or either of the virtual options so they're in terms of our students who are currently eligible 504
044plans will be implemented as the students are participating in on-site education and 504 plans would be reviewed as needed I want to highlight that if there are things in the plan that are not consistent with our safety protocols use of proximity you know and things about the arrangement of the classroom it would be important for us then to have alternative accommodations and to be able to identify those and propose them to the 504 team psychological evaluation would be conducted in person using enhanced safety protocols so that would be offered and psychologists would also be able to provide academic and behavioral consultation social emotional support and to participate in the same range of multidisciplinary teams in which they have been traditionally involved so for Quadrant three if we are looking at full virtual five or five
045all four teams have already reviewed plans that reviewed plan when we move to virtual in March and so we already have a baseline of what students might need in the virtual setting of course as needed we would be able to review those if there are some other concerns or issues our referral concerns that come up and 504 evaluations would be conducted with enhanced safety protocols the same is true for psychological evaluations we would be able to keep those moving forward however it's important to note that we would be able to use some online assessment tools and there are a range of tools that are available and we would select the ones that are appropriate for the student and for the situation in order to minimize physical interactions note that under certain circumstances since this is
046a one-to-one testing situation a select components of the evaluations may be conducted in person I'm using PPE and all of our safety protocols unless it's contraindicated by the medical needs of the student and we will also be able to continue those virtual services so participation in meetings academic and behavioral consultation and social emotional support and now we will turn it over to actually do tea has something you wanted to share oh hey everybody yeah thank you so much I appreciate you letting me interrupt just real quickly here I'm having a little trouble focusing and I think other people might be as well but based on what happened right at the start of our when we tried starting this meeting and so I just want to address it real quick so we can process that a
047little bit and and maybe focus a little bit easier just fair when we stopped the other meeting I shared that there had been a vulgar message posted and I hadn't actually seen what the message was I have just heard that it was a vulgar message and that's when we jumped in and changed it I have since been told what it said and it is not just vulgar it's vile and racist and hurtful and it's just really disgusting that anybody would ever think that it's okay to say such a thing so I apologized that we had they knew that allowed that to happen and I'm just really disgusted by it and I just wanted to give an opportunity if any of our board members not to destroy any thoughts on that I just it was difficult
048for me to keep paying attention once I learned what that message actually said and I thought it might be helpful to to get just give an opportunity to share quickly before we move on with the rest of the presentation I I couldn't focus dr. banks you worked so hard and everything that you do so good it was a good time to interrupt whether you're actually working and I hope everyone paid attention to many of the things that the board is doing and estin if we can screenshot the name of the individual I so you know that did it know the sort of stuff thank you for addressing it dr. duty and the rest members the board I think you know there are 500 people here for a reason to hear what we have to say
049and we can get that but good lord yeah I echo your sentiments doctor duty thank you for addressing it and I'm yeah it equally disgusted and just disappointed that it comes up you know I've heard of this happening on zoom' so we don't know anything about the person who did it whether they're from our community or not but just the fact that it happened is so disappointing so thank you for acknowledging it and and yes allowing us to also voice our disgust well this is about as a community collectively this is like the fourth time we've experienced the N word collectively and between races videos to this comment in our chat I don't we don't know if this was someone from our community or not but just last week somebody removes black from the black
050lives matter message on the run from our key and so you know black folks deal with these types of unfortunately these types of heartbreaking racist actions regularly and so for me I have to almost become a little numb to it or else it could become overwhelming but what I think is really important is if our neighbors our co-workers our friends and the community let folks know that this is not no longer gonna be tolerated here in the city of decay that this is a safe space for everyone that's it I think maybe the longer I live I will get to the point where I can become them to it I pray for that day because I haven't found that day yet and as much as I don't want to give energy to racists and ignorant
051comments I'm also a human being and and I am one of those human beings that that message was directed towards and so close to impossible not to take it personally and just brush it off so thank you dr. duty for interrupting the meeting as I too was finding it very hard to concentrate on this other pandemic the two pandemics that we're essentially talking about right now with the other pandemic of racism sneaking in to take over so I appreciate you stopping the meeting so we could just address it and to all of the other community members and families and staff who are on this meeting right now who were hurt or offended by what happened I feel your pain as well and I hope we all can just take a moment to acknowledge it and
052then just kind of breathe and try to get through to this other huge and pressing and important pandemic that we have to deal with as well that can't add much to that all I can say it's sickening to me I didn't see it and so it wasn't detected in the same way because I wasn't aware what was happening I'm so sorry that others did see it I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this kind of thing and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to experience that day in and day out so all I can say is that we are a place where we don't tolerate that we don't tolerate that we're not going to tolerate that and so we should appreciate David you're stopping meaning to
053address it and so hopefully we can now move on thanks everybody well said and and to your point Jana I truly feel there's an army of white allies being built in Decatur to tackle this because this is not a problem for one group of people to tackle it's a problem for all of us to tackle and so I appreciate you sharing all your thoughts and and allowing me to interrupt what we were doing a little bit I just felt it was really important so thank you so much and and we'll do our best to carry on like Tasha said with talking about another pandemic in the midst of experiencing the racist pandemic so I think we're gonna move on with curriculum and instruction so Christy I think you're jumping in and we'll we'll keep moving
054forward thanks everybody thank you yes I agree our I think our ultimate goal is to create a safe space for everyone so I hope that we can work together so that the students of color and the people of color in this community do have a safe space and don't have to experience such tilts like that every day I'm sorry where that happened I'm in a typical year you know the beginning of school requires an enormous amount of work and intentional planning this year with us missing some of the data that we usually have - from the end of the year to support our students and not coupling that with not knowing the impact of the building closures from the spring on the academic and emotional health of our students we know that this year regardless
055of how we come back we know that we must be more intentional and consistent than ever before so we are planning to focus on the most critical standards for our students we are identifying assessments that we can use regardless of the environment so that we can help mitigate any loss of instruction for our students and we want to in the forefront the focus is on the connectedness the safety the success and the comfort of our students we also know that our students background and home life is even more influential right now to the their success with the current experience so if we want that to be on the forefront as well we also can't ignore the experiences like we just had that our some of our students are experiencing and so we want that to
056be addressed as well so we want to be sure that our teachers have the training that they need to acknowledge explore and celebrate differences which it that will be important and important part of our planning Maggie could you the next slide please so we'll be identifying assessments that we need to you use to support our students will be supporting students with students that will be changing buildings we want to be sure that those students know what to expect even if they're not in the building that they know who they can depend on and rely on in their new setting we want to be sure that we are reviewing from spring whatever critical standards to be sure that the students mastered those we want to make sure that all of our students have the necessary technology
057and materials that they need to be successful and ensure that all schools as a district we're working on those collective priorities next time Maggie thank you so if we are specifically in the thinking about the virtual environment we know that we need to provide staff with training on the guiding principles resources and expectations for best practices in the virtual learning environment we know that we need to be sure that our staff are technically proficient and comfortable with instruction that is engaging student-centered and interactive in the virtual environment we need to be sure that we have fail-safes for students that are disengaged and we are supporting those students as needed if they are not engaging in the virtual environment we know that we need to provide families with structures and routines to support learning at home
058and we know that we have to keep that human connection on the forefront we have to provide students with a sense of belonging and help them feel seen in that environment we need to provide frequent checks and a space for students to talk about their emotional health so what we have been doing to prepare for that this summer is I have a team that we call the virtual Vanguard they are an amazing team of teachers who have done a massive amount of work and it they represent a cross-section of grade levels content areas they have deeply Anna's analyzed the content of the survey data from parents staff and students they have analyzed the resources around best practices we have read article after article after article and research the best practice and weeds that we've looked
059for what are the cross-sections but between what our our parents staff and students are saying and what research says so based on that we have created some must do some non negotiables that we need to see from all teachers all classrooms across the district we've also created specific expectations for the various grade bands and we have an umbrella of social-emotional learning guidelines that would probe would go across all settings where we are right now as the team is collecting feedback from principals instructional coaches and a select group of teachers on what getting some feedback on the guidelines so we can finalize those and then we will be looking at you know what specific resources we may need and what professional development for teachers and training now if we are in the virtual environment that there
060will be we have identified feedback is important obviously assessments are going to be important so we will be training teachers on using the reply components so that feedback is given in a timely manner is specific it's positive and it is based on improvement and personal to the student we also will have specific requirements next slide please Maggie on attendance grading we've started identifying what that would look like we know in the fall that based on state recommendations students were held harmless should we go to the virtual environment this year there will be accountability as far as attendance and grading students will be required to complete assessments and assignments and there will be grading standards very similar to their what there would be in any of the other either the hybrid or the face-to-face model so
061of course in any of the quadrants whether it be hybrid face-to-face or a virtual we will be supporting ours all of our students students in the MTS that's processing and receiving a IP or re P services or gifted services will be supported the students will be supported obviously face-to-face hybrid or virtual the intervention plans will be implemented one difference again from the screen would be that in the spring we had the plans been written for students and we implemented them as possible in the virtual environment in in this case if we are virtual the plans will be reviewed and implement interventions will be designed specifically for the students in that environment I think we heard of Frances thank you hello everyone so I will be presenting on state and federal programs which encompasses title 1
062ESOL and special education so for Quadrant 1 which is when school is in full traditional session then of course we'll start with title 1 teacher will be implementing their services as they would traditionally in a quadrant two types of situation the teachers would be implementing their services as they would in person and then if we had to do some kind of hybrid with virtual and they would work with their general education peers and colleagues to make sure that they are using the virtual environment that has been provided by the district 2 to provide services to the students many thank you in Quadrant 3 which is full virtual then we will as Christie said we will be providing services in a full virtual format this is very similar to what we did in the spring with
063title 1 and so our teachers would be doing that as well and then with the hybrid model they would be able to implement the pull out or push in services and the intervention plans again to the population of students that is able to come to the school or virtually ESOL will follow pretty much the same format as what I just described for title so we don't have to necessarily go into I know we're watching our time but for ESOL qualifications and screenings we will make sure that the home language survey which is required by by the state is being done during the registration process and so that we can make sure that we're in compliance with that but we're following up with families as we need to and making sure that we're screening them using
064the appropriate remote screeners which is the WI BA for title one student qualifications we will work are wonderful and amazing title in federal federal programs coordinator Willie Washington will be supporting our teachers as we are evaluating the data that we have to evaluate to make sure the students are qualified for the regulations special education so for quadrant one with the full return to school we would be implementing IEP s as they are written in a typical format that is our offer of faith to our students and we know that nothing replaces face-to-face instruction however we also know that no I DEA well only one idea requirement is waived at this time and that is for our very very young learners transitioning from babies can't wait over to school-age services so we will make sure that
065we are providing services to our students with IEP s we do understand though that the IEP S will not be able to be implemented in the very same fashion in a hybrid or virtual format in the spring what we did is we asked teachers to create service logs and provide as much services as they could this time around we will actually be going to more formal learning contingency plans or virtual plans in which certain pieces of the IEP will be moved over into those plans and course we will have these meetings with family so that they have input into what services can really be moved over into a virtual environment or a hybrid environment we want to make sure that the students are receiving accommodations that the families know which goals will be worked on
066what is appropriate for that environment there may be some goals and some accommodations that are not appropriate in the virtual setting and so we want to discuss those as well if I'm sorry go back one more time yes if we are able to and when we are able to bring any population of students back into the buildings for a face-to-face instruction whether it be the 50% of students or the less than 50% of students we will be prioritizing our students that are in our small group regional or program classes these are our students that are more in the cognitively impaired disability categories and we know that these students have the hardest time accessing virtual instruction and so we want to make sure that we prioritize these students as well as our three and four-year-olds that
067are served under IBA we want to make sure that our speech therapists and staff that are working with students perhaps doing evaluations i speech therapist can do they are also going to be provided with either face shields or masks with the clear mouth opening so that they can conduct those services and those evaluations when we get to this type of situation and then in a quadrant three situation which is the full virtual learning then we are again committed to looking at these IEP s and moving everything that that is relevant to be moved and can be moved into this learning contingency plan we will make sure that we are looking at everything from co-teaching to small group and individual services and consultation services to make sure that we are providing as much as we can
068to the students I want to make a quick note that we will follow the logical evaluations procedure that dr. Huddleston presented on earlier and we will we will be holding IEP meetings eligibility meetings all of those types of meetings virtually and then the last thing I wanted to say is that we will also be following the guidance from curriculum and instruction student supports and any health and safety protocols that are set by the various departments and their everyone this is Eston I'll talk a little bit about what information Services has queued up members of the board will know that I think every every monthly meeting I've sung the praises of my amazing staff they did tremendous work in March and April to get equipment out the kids we had about 1,500 Chromebooks that went out
069to students of all grade levels we had a few dozen families and students serviced with with hot spots and so the question kind of lingering over the summer was when if ever will we ask for this we put them back and we've been sitting on our hands not asking for it back and anticipation of maybe not coming back to school but also recognizing that even if we were there is a need in the community to provide access for our families and as dr. duty has said several times we don't want to pass up taking advantage of a crisis and so let's talk about I'll talk a bit about hot spots and I'll talk a bit about about devices the hot spots that are in circulation now we're not asking back and we're gonna work to
070remove any uncertainty that our families have about that and proactively notify families that have a hot spot they're welcome to hold on to them if family is in a position to subscribe to at home home broadband then we would certainly welcome the equipment back but our priority is making sure that we're offering a helping hand and not applying any pressure for folks to give up a resource that we've seen be helpful to to our families we've also received I just put in our office at the Wilson Center earlier today another shipment of hot spots a minutes dissipation of any future demands back in back in March the supply chain for hot spots was type but we've seen I don't say glut but we've seen that marketplace fill that up um there's a there's a lot
071to think the Georgia Department of Education IT on to apply some pressure to local telecoms to work around data plans and remove data caps and put additional hotspots in a good pricing place so that school districts around the state can afford them and subscribe to those service services on behalf of our of our students in terms of Chromebooks like I said we have 1500 out in circulation depending on the quadrant that we land in for opening school our desire is very much to keep those devices in our family's hands unless they have purchased their own equipment and there's no longer a need we did have families who came up to us when they were picking up blocker materials and returning uniforms and whatnot asked to return Chromebooks and as much as possible our staff encouraged
072them to hold onto them over the summer the marketplace for Chromebooks has constricted quite a bit we are working with one of our main vendors to bring a shipment and probably later next month but in in the here and now we have a pretty healthy supplier that is still within within our walls if we open in some kind of hybrid model we will maybe need to tighten our belts but our priority is to make sure that our families have the devices and the connectivity they need at home to engage safely with their learning one of the things that we in hindsight I think could have done better on in March was reaching out directly to our partners Cory Bivens who I think is I saw his name in the room we've been emailing a bit
073during this meeting alerted me a while ago that the the community center at the DHA property next to Wilson Center has undergone renovation and that has been a nexus for some of our families to get online and so I'm gonna continue to work with with Cory to remove whatever barriers we can to ensuring that equipment and either a device or a hot spot gets into our family members our family hands Maggi so if we have a thinking only specifically about any quadrant that has us doing partially or totally online we will turn back on a couple of channels for families to solicit a device we would couple that with for example a need to be distribution of other school supplies if we are looking at any kind of virtual learning will be crafting a springboard
074site so to speak for families that has not only pedagogy information for for students and parents but also the technology support needs such as how to put in an initial request any scenario to that requires our workforce to work remotely we're going to re-emphasize the importance of exercising good stewardship over our kids privacy and information and also information security we have unfortunately but not surprisingly seen during this health crisis a pretty significant uptick in malicious actors trying to steal information it's and it's not just a Decatur thing or a Georgia thing it is all over the place but we have an obligation to to our kids and our families and our staff to make sure that we're doing everything absolutely possible to maintain security of our data systems and protecting our kids privacy and so
075refresh is on that and reminders on that in training on that will certainly be a part of even the opening model Thank You Austin good evening board members dr. duty for our operations department we will have the following considerations for our facility buildings in a quadrant 1 to M for established wear face coverings are all times unless he or she is alone in personal of his space students face covering will be required at all times we will be limiting between mixing between groups and holes by staggering to let classes schedules we decrease the number of the students in hallways at one time no large galleries will be permitted we will continue monitoring the reduction in confirmed cases of Kali 19 as part of the estate of mitigation in observance of community Aspray sosial distance six
076feeding classroom to the greatest degree best table distance at six feet between students classroom will have adequate cleaning this infection in frequently touched surfaces which is part of the frequently cleaning the HVAC unit will be half will have a CO plasma purification system installed and we will make adjustment to to make more fresh air intake inside our buildings and sanitizers and personal protection equipment will be available we are working in a physical barriers such as his knees guards shields the oldest thing will be installed the school signage will be placed through our HS school students will be clustered to minimize minimize potential spread next for the quadrant one two and four we will have additional requirements for training of custodians and staff we will monitor the resolution requirements of treatment and that's infection of classrooms
077and schools we will monitor the recent concerns of the students teachers wearing face coverings doing the whole school day directions always in space marketplace of floors cleaning of any communal equipment between a student such as a gym classes nutrition for the quadrants want to import the nutritionist establish wearing face coverings and will follow federal and state state guidelines boxes and grab-and-go meal will be provided the cafeteria will set up grab enjoy stations students will eat meals in classrooms touch free payments options would be available to avoid touching the keypad for payments and acquiring tree and for nutrition the permian meals will be served from one or more CSD locations thanks for transportation department aquinas want to import face covering will be required to ride the bus and sanitizer will be buses will be disinfected between
078routes so see how these things were riding the bus is challenging and is not feasible buses will be open windows in an effort to increase air flow outdoor spaces in the quadrant one two and four for the outdoor activities directive you will be permitted teachers and the student will remain together all the day and 14 no cheering of class equipment objects and toys the playground you know outside activity to be able to evade in education Thanks Thank You Sergio this walker is gonna share some more particulars but it did want to take a moment before we dig into more staff support to address teachers and make sure that our teachers know that we are very much lifting up them as a high priority we recognize that teachers are the cornerstone of preparing how this school
079year is gonna go and we really depend on them for making this successful also we know that our staff has significant concerns with the challenges provided by remote learning it takes a toll on teachers and their family they've got a balance providing instruction for their students with caring for their own children as well as help manage their own children access accessing their virtual learning if they're at home we also know that providing in-person instruction is extremely concerning for many of our staff they're worried about their personal health and the health of their family and we do want to note also that planning the 2021 school year it hasn't been easy it has been very difficult but we have to acknowledge that the planning is not nearly as difficult or important as an effective implementation of
080this plan by our staff know that our teachers are going to need flexibility and social-emotional supports as well as our students we also want our teachers to know that you know we probably will have either staff or students that test positive that have been in our buildings when we come welcome our students or staff back into the buildings but we do have very their protocols to follow from the local and public health department so we did want to just take a minute and recognize our teachers and other instructional staff as well as our school-based leaders for all the work that they're going to do once we pass the baton from the planning phase to the implementation thing Thank You Maggie and we definitely wanted to emphasize that our staff and our teachers are definitely at
081the forefront of every decision so right now we will look at a little bit of what the staff support will continue to and how we will continue to suppress that and any quadrant that we do land right here just like dr. Furman said that we do know that they will have Cova 19 cases within our district so we have a what to do if an information page it outlines exposure protocols return to work requirements requesting leave and action plans we also have our employee rights poster that is a clearly outlines the different leave under the emergency leave act that we do have and it clearly defines your rights as an employee and this has been distributed to all of our employees usually it would be posted in all of our buildings but since we are
082not physically in the buildings that's how we are in compliance since making sure all of our employees have that via email we will continue to manage all of our Lea requests that comes to our department right now we have a few employees that have returned to work and of course we have had to manage some lead cases currently but right now whenever whatever question that we in that we are in we will make sure that we will manage those accordingly and and the accommodation that is requested we will continue to train the staff and substitutes according to the virtual and hybrid instructions needs that is outlined in each department that is given to us and also we will connect you you are virtual hiring processes that were put in place during the spring closures and
083this is including conducting virtual interviews for all positions as possible we will have gearing up for our new year we will have our virtual new hire orientations for both certified and classified staff and we also encourage all of our staff or any staff meetings or any meetings that we will have as far as within the buildings that you limit that to virtual to a virtual format the rest of the bullet points is we will operate under each quadrant we will continue to support our new hires within electronic contracts and new hire paperwork with which we implement it on the beginning of this hiring season via our frontline central system we will sustain communication between our new hires principals and hiring managers throughout this whole hiring process and season we will collaborate with our principals and
084department leaders to support employees employees preparedness and returning to work and transition whichever quadrant we duel and we will also source additional substitutes to ensure classroom coverage whether we are in a virtual setting or in person we will also work with our Georgia PSC concerning certification flexibilities due to Coba 19 and we also encourage the use of our Employee Assistance Program for mental health and emotional support for all of our staff Thank You Adena good evening everyone a professional learning plan this year is to prioritize specific needs of the district for starting a successful year with high quality instruction through supportive structures and for sharing with a common vision messaging guidelines and expectation using all available data and resources effectively results from the district surveys the curriculum and instruction taskforce community panels teacher Advisory Council
085as well as guidance documents from health agencies federal and state resources and so on will be used to help create the plans that we put in place we are in the process of preparing preparing virtual formats for pre planning events and routine trainings for instructional and operational staff to start the year this will include pandemic specific training designing virtual instructions Department updates and our normal compliance and mandatory professional development we want to be mindful to honor the expect ease expertise of our teacher leaders our administrators will be working together to create and provide student-centered professional learning in a wide range of formats our three core pillars of instruction and district priorities including continuing our work with equity social emotion learning cultural responsive teaching practices as well as restorative practices we also want to make sure
086that we including the principals from our instructional frameworks EA L and IB and a professional development will be personalized and differentiated to address the needs of our new hires or returning staff and a model of innovative cross-training for support staff including paraprofessionals substitute teachers and pre-service educators and this is basically what we're talking about developing cohorts or cohorting and that we just are being able to support smaller group us smaller groups of students whenever possible professional learning will emphasize the modeling of lesson design components that we want to see in instruction for students we also want to monitor the impact of professional learning and to support successful implementation for instructional practices throughout the school year with coaching job embedded learning structures such as PLC's and study groups with collaborative planning staff crew meetings and possibly
087CSD University we also plan to launch the new frontline professional learning platform and that would also help us to document and to monitor the success of our professional learning activities for this year thank you good evening I'm Heidi Wiley the director of research hidden analytics for if we open just business as usual we don't need to make any adjustments we already had a assessment plan but for quadrants two through four with the hybrid and the virtual learning we will need to train staff to Proctor online map which is measures about academic progress that company has created a way to reliably get student data remotely which is we're very happy about that to work with curriculum and instruction to identify assessment tools to use for progress monitoring that are now available online many of the companies
088that we contract with to use products are now creating ways to make them remote so we need to spend some time vetting them and seeing what's reliable and what might work for our students in those settings and every day we're getting new emails of things that are becoming available so that's it's not like they have been there working with student support to define attendance requirements for virtual learning DOA is going to come out this week with some guidance so figuring out how to see that adjusting our assessment calendar to respond to the federal waiver for testing it's not yet approved but if it does get approved and then looking at the online tools what can what can be administered online adjusting those testing windows to give us enough time to assess students updating our research
089request process so that folks wanting to do research with us for those quadrants 2 through 4 obviously we will not be able to do any in-person work and most importantly right now working to use our fall data to compare it and analyze learning loss for our students as they return to school and that one would be for all the quadrants we need to figure out where our students are at thank you okay so this brings us we are just about to wrap up our presentation and based on all this information that we've shared and we have to decide where do we land and what quadrant resources are we going to put into action and just as we look at the data and get the input from where we are with current medication and the spread
090of the virus we are definitely seeing high spread of the virus and we are seeing that we are in the ineffective range which places CSD and quadrant number three which would tell us that we should be looking at how to operate as a school system in this quadrant three which leads us to recommend a full virtual learning return to the school year so the recommendation to the board is that we start our 2020 2020 school year twenty once we're in the full virtual setting with an enhanced virtual learning program we would provide a rich rigorous learning experience that requires our teachers to be innovative as well as significant parent support engaging our students through online lessons supported by live instruction tutoring and mentorships also lifting social-emotional learning and a human connection to provide this foundation
091and giving teachers suggested routines and structures as well as lessons and how they should provide feedback we also recommending that we would push the start date back for our students to August 17th teachers don't come off contract until July 28th and - in order to make sure that we can start this whole virtual learning in an effective way we need to provide our teachers with some planning time get them ready to launch this and then what we will do as we move forward is then at fall break we would change that to be a full instructional week during the 21st through the 25th and then reevaluate ongoing where we are on these quadrants so that we can give parents hopefully a week but notice also being ready to say if overnight there is a call
092from governing bodies that we have to go to a more restrictive we have to be ready to change that but hoping to give people as much notice as possible so some key dates for consideration and as we look forward at cleaning would be extending our pre-planning from July 28th through July August 7 interaction here would be mostly virtual some activities may be limited gatherings and small groups key activities during this time would be starting our connections with families building teens teacher planning providing significant staff development as well as health and safety training for our staff the next days would be building community with our families this also would be mostly virtual but some in-person opportunities with small groups and limited contact particularly with picking up supplies and materials focusing during this would be on wellness
093and preparation I'm having an opportunity to do some assessments with our students engaging in social-emotional learning support health and well-being checks just distributing student supplies and making sure we have checked information correct and that would lead us to a start of school on August 17th which would be a virtual learning for all students we want to set an end date for that just tentatively as apt ember 25th which gets us through the end of break I'm continuing to monitor where we are with mitigation and spread of the virus and hopefully by no later than just September 18 be able to make a decision on which quadrant we're ready to move into at that time and then we starting this virtual learning for the first six weeks we will definitely be establishing clear learning expectations building
094continuing to build that community with our staff and students and definitely giving assessment and feedback on learning to our students that is the recommendation from the cabinet and the superintendent for our board to consider and then there are some fa Q's here as I went through all the emails and contact and survey feedback these covers some of the things that weren't necessarily included in our plan but the face coverings was a huge question and we would want to say yes if we have people in our buildings we would require them to wear face masks I had several questions about athletics and extracurricular activities and we're gonna continue to follow the guidance from the Georgia high school sports association with how we manage that we are in conversations with lots of the neighboring districts on how
095they're managing those also there were lots of questions what happens if someone tests positive what do we do what if there's a presumptive positive case and we are now have much more clearer guidelines for how to respond for that and we will be offering virtual meet-and-greet and if there's more information needed we've got the opening 20 20 page and we are gonna be scheduling some virtual town hall meetings to share additional information that particularly as we decide which quadrant we move into next what are those next steps look like how are we preparing we've also had several questions about our early learning centers at college Heights and Frazier we are going to continue keeping those open for zero to three tuition services those two programs have much different guide then arcade pre-k actually 12 requirement
096so we are gonna continue keeping those facilities open pre-k in particular does follow some of the cake will follow the k-12 plan on first day of school for students will be August 17th as well if this plan is approved um lots of questions about the hybrid schedule what would that look like parents need lots of great suggestions we initially throughout the Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday but we've got lots of feedback and I think we're gonna continue to refine what that process would look like to ensure that it is the most beneficial for the most people lots of questions about bathrooms once we bring kids back into the building how do we keep those clean and ensure physical distancing we are going to make sure that there's a strict cleaning rotation for those and that
097educating our students on how to make sure they social distance in a restroom questions about lockers came up a lot we at this point if we are in a hybrid model we would not use lockers still to be determined for quadrant one it's the full learning returns also we are continuing to offer a full virtual option if we are in quadrants 1 2 or 4 for parents obviously we don't need a full virtual option if the whole district is in virtual but parents were asking about students being able to continue to engage in after-school activities and extracurricular events and we are still open to discussion on this but our initial response would be if it's a club that can meet virtually such as let's say you're in photography club and that club sponsor can still
098do those meetings virtually and you're doing a virtual part of our virtual learning then yes you would but that we would say if it's an in-person meeting that we would say no but like I said earlier we still are ironing out those that specific question and then another question that's come up is I have to go to work I cannot stay home and manage my child's daily education we are collaborating with community partners to figure out what we can to do what we can to support parents that are in that situation so board that's doctor duty that concludes our presentation and recommendation for the board to consider this is the point where everyone should take a deep breath that was a lot to go through as you can see there were many dozens of people
099who have contributed to this work both staff and volunteers from the community and hundreds and hundreds of hours have gone into this so if we are going to stick with our original plan I'm going to share my comments that I have about us a couple things and maybe we shared board comments and jump into the public comments that was our plan earlier that still sound like a good plan to jump to a public comment at this point I think so I think so yes okay so for a public comment we have it looks like about 12 people signed up so if it's okay with me you and Luis will do it like we have on the other meetings where I'll read off the names and estin will put the timer up there and we'll just
100kind of jump in does that work for you that sounds good we should we should repeat what we usually try to say before public comment which is that this is a time for folks in the community to address us about issues of general concern to the board it's not a time to discuss issues to relate to individual people whether students or staff those types of issues should be addressed through other channels but not for public comment also what's frustrating to many but is our practice is that generally of a comment there's an opportunity for the public to speak to the board but we generally do not speak back there's a lot of reasons for that please don't be frustrated if you don't get response we listen carefully and we always take the comments to heart
101we just are not prepared to respond publicly without having a discussion dawn first I think those are the general rules so it's three minutes per speaker and David you would let us know who's up oh also if you'd please begin your comments by letting us know not only who you are your name but your connection to the district so that we can we can place you Thanks so our first speaker is Marni garage and so each of you as I call you I'll click a little button that allows you to unmute your mic so Marni I've done that for you once you're ready go ahead and unmute or maybe I yeah there we go go ahead my name is Marni Crutzen I come to you as a parent of a DHS graduate and a rising
102ninth grader I am also a business owner in the area and the youth development coordinator for Decatur prevention initiative so thinking of kids from all aspects I bring this to you this is just coming food for thought I don't necessarily anticipate a response back via email or whatever it is y'all have plenty on your plate and I know your job is not easy and I appreciate the time and efforts going into this still trying to wrap my mind around everything that was shared some of what I will say will probably be repetitive but I guess it just kind of backs up what those of you at CSD have been putting together and I appreciate that so first thing I wanted to address whatever format is chosen for school I'm concerned about teachers and admins health
103all aspects of health but more so mental like the consideration I had some thoughts of staff circles so staff could give each other support access to online programs here to supporting teachers health and I'd like to see a place where community members can share bright spots regarding staff admin schools and school board a lot of information goes around you know in social media that is not supportive and at this point we need to be supportive and show grace for each other next I'm not sure with its decisions it's regarding school resource officers for CST but as we have heard in media there's talk about reform and police departments and some talk about getting rid of those so what I would like to say I'm talking very fast in regards to our school resource officers I
104hope that they stay I'm not sure who makes the decision officer D'Amico at Renfro is well-connected to kids he's non-judgmental he has previous experience with mental health prior to coming as a professional prior to coming to schools he is a grounding force he has been for me at Renfro as well as other teachers and then when we look at officer Robinson at the high school he has experience working with youth in the past as a youth minister while working at DHS I have witnessed many opportunities where he has created rapport with students of all backgrounds and last year he was was his first year at the school you never would have known it and lastly for the sake of time I would just I'm curious if there are discussions as to how CSD can reform
105the American history curriculum that was somewhat addressed tonight if so who would do the work and my hope is that youth would be included in this process I thank you for this opportunity I know we are all looking for the best for our kids and community our next speaker is carminic harris carminic i clicked to allow you to talk so you should be able to unmute yourself now hi thank you for this time I originally wanted to talk about something else but now that we realized what the meeting was about I just wanted to just continue to stress safety and health one of the questions I spoke with dr. Huddleston about today was just making sure that we on the ethic hues where you discussed if a child could participate if their own virtually only
106I was concerned about that I myself and my mother are cancer survivors and if my son is forced to make a choice between going to school and staying you know and having a social you know emotional life outside of this house or choosing to make sure I'm safe and that my life is preserved it's a very difficult choice for fifteen and a thirteen-year-old to make and they want to go to school if everyone else is at school but if everyone's home then they understand they need to be home so we're trying to work that out but I want you to take into consideration saying that they cannot participate in any activities is a hardship and it will impact them and have a lasting effect on them emotionally if they cannot participate with their their peers
107because I'm sick and because their grandmother is currently you know finishing up chemo so I just want you all to take that into consideration when you make that decision it seems punitive and it's very harsh and I think the family's on a case-by-case basis should be allowed to make that decision based on what works for their family because my sons in band and if they're practicing outside and they're practicing safety I'm fine with him being there but if you take that away from him because I'm ill it's it's not there so that's it thank you appreciate it our next speaker is Drew Newman drew I am allowing you to talk you could go ahead and unmute good evening everyone thank you for all your hard work on this I think it's gonna be largely a
108thankless task you're not going to be able to please everybody but my gosh what a balancing act I am deeply concerned that the August 17th opening is not enough time for staff and faculty to really get the kind of online experience put together I texted a friend of mine who's on faculty I said can you get it together in two he said sure and I can put together 777 47 in midair obviously you know you all understand all the concerns that are you know what behind that decision I see that it's following the cab but I'm very very concerned that you're rushing this through getting effective online results and quality is exceptionally difficult and I just don't think you're given the faculty enough time my second concern is that I think the board and CSD
109leadership needs to be very transparent about how decisions are being made in terms of evaluating which quadrant we are in especially given that the landscape of reporting is changing rapidly today it was announced that the CDC is being removed from data collection on kovat 19 reporting for the country and we also know that the Georgia Department of Public Health has fiddled with their metrics they went to backdating the reporting of their cases so that the case so the curve is continually looking like it's going down so whatever that environment is we don't have any control over it but I would encourage you very strongly to be as transparent about that as possible because that truly affects everything so I know lots of other people would like to speak so thank you for giving me the
110time to contribute and thank you again to all of you for your exceptional efforts thank you thank you our next speaker is Darcy boo Darcy I am giving you the ability to unmute and you can start when you're ready so much for everything you all do we have a senior at Decatur High who's had an amazing 12 years and our younger son who has an IEP and he'll be going to Renfro in sixth grade I have a question you probably can't answer on here but I want to know who is gonna be the voice for the most vulnerable and it sends chills up my spine when I look at the elite very wealthy with the million dollar homes here in Decatur driving their Tesla or BMW applauding the virtual learning yet you have I'm kind
111of emotional yet you have kids that earn homes where they're either beaten molested abused go to bed hungry and what do we plan on doing with those kids I'm a stay-at-home mom there's no skin off my teeth I can stay home and do virtual learning but my issue is the many kids that can't and my younger son is on the Decatur football team and I know firsthand some of those kids and I worry every night what's gonna happen to them it'll be great for the elite and those are the million-dollar homes but not everybody or the working parents who are gonna have to quit their job so they can be home and I'm really sad and you know we've lived here for 22 years and it's really disheartening to see how it appears is that
112politics has really been a motivator in some people's decisions and their thoughts about this and it'd be nice if we could take politics out of it and really just think about the kids because that's what's most important and I'm worried about their physical mental and emotional health that's a real concern and then that's something that would be nice to put it off put politics aside and put the kids first I'm a teacher myself I teach pre-k and I will be going back in three weeks is it my dream no but that's what I'm gonna do I'm a part-time I do it not because we need the money but because it's something I enjoy doing and my last thing we mentioned equity and I just wanted to get some more information on exactly what we're gonna
113be doing because I got a thing from principal wisemen about some books and whatnot and I'm just curious you know what the plan is for all that but anyway that's all I have to say I really appreciate you all and I would hate to be in your shoes right now because I cannot imagine the decisions you our having to make but thank you very much for letting me speak all right thank you speaker is kun lai I am clicking the allow to talk button for you right now kun lai you should be able to unmute and again when you're ready hey thank you very much thank you very much to the board really thank you very much to everyone and all the contributions you've made in this clan I am really very excited thank you
114especially to Aston and the IT department for the focus on the digital divide and ensuring that everyone gets access please please please let us continue to place strong emphasis on that I really like the fact that we are going to be tracking the Internet's usage or the usage of the online resources that needs to even beyond kovat when we do return to schools that is an early warning indicator or us to identify children who are falling behind we must not wait till the end of the semester within two weeks we can tell how many people have not gone how many hours if consumed and we must we must as a school district immediately dump and if we see you have below 50% of expected you said within your first two weeks we need to dust
115you know whatever the threshold is and also excited but want some tangible this is to dr. Julian and the board we want to address finally address the issue of discipline disparity I am requesting that we meet with the we we constitute a committee at the high school level teachers parents administration to really tackle give ourselves two months to figure out why do we have these disparities what are the reasons and issue some recommendations and be done with it we should give ourselves this target by the end of the school year they'll be no more disparity in discipline based on race I forgot to introduce myself kunio-kun area I have a rising ninth grader arising sixth grader and a three year old daughter who will be getting into the system at some point I'm also the
116co-chair of the educational of the educational committee of the Beacon Hill black plans for human rights but most importantly we must end the disparity in discipline let's give ourselves this year no more we'll never see it again in the history of it after the end of this year thank you appreciate your comments our next person on the list is Gail Rothman Gail I'm searching you up just a second okay yeah there you should be able to talk now deal great I can hear me yep great hi everyone I am a parent of a rising tenth grader also married to a teacher as many of you know but today I am publicly commenting on behalf of Decatur Education Foundation and our strong partnership with city schools of Decatur first I just want to express appreciation for
117all of the work that has gone into trying to figure out one of the most difficult situations imaginable how to educate our kids during a pandemic this is a problem for which unfortunately there are no easy answers and in fact no truly good solutions and I think I can speak for many in our community when I say that no one is envious of your jobs at this point in time whether your board members or the administrators who all presented so much detailed information tonight unlike many in the community I monitor the lists and the Facebook pages across Decatur and I can really feel that stress and the angst that our families are feeling right now as they worry about their kids and also have to make really hard choices and some of the public commenters
118have already talked about that I also as someone who's married to a teacher I know the teachers in Decatur and also across our country are stressed and worried about their own health and the health of their children but tonight I just want to remind everyone that de F along with organizational partners local businesses and a lot of individuals are ready to tackle the challenges that we will face both in the immediate future when well now that you are gonna vote on the all virtual plan but also in the foreseeable future once we do return to school at some point and ensure that all of our families have the resources they need I just want to remind people that we are a community rich in resources not just financial but in creativity problem-solving and collaboration GEF
119is an expert in all the things that you all are but we are experts in bringing people together to solve problems and we at de F are ready to work across the community to make sure that families have the support and resources and that we can get to the other side of this we will be bringing together businesses and organizations who work with children as summer or after care providers to see what can be offered to families who might have urgent childcare needs we're working with the Decatur Housing Authority to connect families with volunteer tutors and working with a coalition of agencies to meet food insecurity needs when we see take when we say together we make a difference it's not just a tagline it's the way this community has been operating for years and
120while we may not have ever faced a challenge this daunting I have no doubt that when we we have what we need to successfully navigate the crisis we don't know what the weeks and months to come will bring but I know that gef will work hard with everyone who wants to help and will solve the problems that we face together I just want to express again our appreciation to the school board to dr. duty and to the staff for all of the work and I hope that we can soon be on the other side of this thank you thank you next speaker is Micah Lubin I'm clicking the allow the talk you should be able to unmute now Micah hi there can you hear me yeah hi everyone I wanted to also thank the opening
1212020 committee for their obvious amounts of hard work and efforts at this it was an impressive presentation and very thoughtful and it was clear that you had the health of the students and community and teachers and staff in mind so I am the father of three kids in the district arising pre care of rising first grader in a rising fourth grader and I initially signed up to comment to ask about the pre-k situation but that was answered nicely and is different from the information we got in July I'm glad that pre-k will be following the district's quadrant strategy rather than a state mandate to be in person which seemed reckless at the time I wanted to just reiterate while I have the time that I'm very concerned about the safety of teachers and staff at
122the school and I really hope that public health information like georgia tech's quantitative bioscience risk assessment tool that was mentioned during the presentation is used to assess the the risk the teachers are put in in various groups even right now with just 10 people in a classroom the risk of having somebody in the classroom with kovat is 34 percent in DeKalb County so keeping that in mind when we shift quadrants I think is key I wanted to reiterate some of the great points that other speakers made one is that I think that it would be better to have more training up front and open a little later what's the rush to open let's let our teachers get as much training as they need to make this virtual option work I also wanted to reiterate that
123from a diversity standpoint letting students who opt in for a hybrid or during a hybrid period who opt in for virtual learning letting them socialize with people in the classroom may be virtually is very important for achieving a diverse social education for our kids not letting them become segregated de-facto by the method of teaching they're receiving I think that's important to stress I also wanted to stress it a month to make a decision on what's quadrant we move into you might not be among enough I wanted you to consider perhaps extending the length of time that those decisions are made more than a month to let teachers get going and blossom in them in the mode that they're using to deliver content thank you thank you I'm sorry I was muted so thank you Mike
124us um our next speaker is Megan Ferguson I have clicked so you can unmute yourself and continue when you're ready thank you good evening my name is Megan Ferguson I'm a City vacatur resident a parent of two CSD students in a CSD faculty member I'm here to express my support for full virtual learning this fall firstly as a community member it's a parent per the recent data that confidence that infections are spiking with that our consideration should be focused on limiting group sizes and thus the likelihood of that into the infection rate it's unimaginable that we would consider this measure given the countless essential workers who have already lost their lives we cannot continue we cannot communicate through our actions that their sacrifice is for naught secondly as a parent while virtual learning is less
125an idea I considered the health and safety of the community and I managed while teaching my own students it was not easy it was not convenient I couldn't guarantee that a zoomcar would be uninterrupted my house was a mess and at times I was overwhelmed but I willingly accepted this continued inconvenience for the safety of all of my children and by extension their families I completely understand that everyone has the privilege to work from home and that is why I also urges to find ways to support those families so that we can all stay safe I know that a few months of miss learning will undoubtedly be impactful but I am unwilling to put their lives at risk for learning after all is safety not the well-established foundation of Maslow's hierarchy learning must come after
126safety upon which we return we cannot guarantee no matter how much lysa we manage to acquire as faculty members like many of my colleagues my co teacher and I were diligently from March 13th until the end of the school year to cultivate a learning environment that was as close as possible to our in-person instruction given the parameters laid out by CSD this meant that I sent numerous hours on emails chats and videos to do whatever was possible to help my students i hand-delivered math books to the homes of forty-five students once we learned we could not return I'm not alone in this beyond the call of duty service that many teachers did to continue to help our students that's what teachers do not only do we educate but we often extend ourselves our money our
127time and more and do so willingly but to ask a teacher who service was miraculously lauded at the height of the shutdown to risk their life for convenience or preferences inexcusable and highly offensive there is a sane I've heard often those who can't teach it is meant to diminish our crap which is just as much art as science but undoubtedly a profession composed of the selfless altruistic individuals who have not ever been nor will they likely be fully compensated for their efforts and we are teachers anyway so to ask me to put my life at risk in the life of my loved ones including my students on the line is the ultimate disrespect we are not disposable and if one teacher one student one person who didn't have to die dies and/or suffers irreparable damage
128because of our preferences that is a cost that will impact this community far more than some missed learning so people are right those who can't teach maybe now is the moment for the community to step up for those who can't and who shouldn't have to and to help us teach their children just for a little while until we all can be safe your comments okay our next speaker is David James hold on there several David let me find you here okay David you should be able to unmute in kindergarten excuse me and while we do value the efficacy of face-to-face instruction I thank the board for holding really our most precious and valuable resource that we have in this community this is the health of the people who live in the community because while we
129can talk about we can plan and optimize the number of students that we have to think groups the the students that get infected in those small groups don't just save within those small groups they come home to their families at home I have a wife who is an essential health care worker who's on the front line menses patients day in and day out who are already at the margins of society I'm also an educator that comes in contact with students some of which are working some of which are at the margins of society as well and being in an educator I myself voted at my own institution for us to continue on in a fall semester with online modes of teaching because if any of my students came down and got sick with the virus
130and I knew I had a hand in it I wouldn't be able to deal with it I've already had stood for fallen prey to this disease so I thank you very much for holding really what should be our first and only consideration with respect to our students and our community members following all with that what I would like some clarity around a set of data points that she'll be using in order to progress to modes that will include face-to-face instruction and are also a lot also asked you to consider as well as a part of your plan with respect to that on that we have this new data point that almost half of the transmission of Cova in 19 come from individuals who are asymptomatic so temperature checks temperature check can catch some individuals who
131are afflicted with colvett but there's still many fools still come into the school building and transmit the virus thank you for letting me submit all right appreciate it and our final speaker is Heather Malloy the other I'm searching for you right now David before we move to Heather I understand there might be some folks out there who would like to speak can you give them instructions for how to go get on the list before we're done so they can do that yeah yeah to speak and they haven't the the item for public comment that's on the agenda there's a link right there that they click on and they type in their information and then they appear on the spreadsheet so we know that they want to speak okay thank you yep okay so Heather Malloy
132you should be able to unmute yourself now are you there Heather yeah sorry about that I put myself on the list to speak I was very good no problem no problem thank you okay so who are on the the list to speak do you want to wait a little while Luis or should we move on Robinson would like to speak that I think probably hasn't figured out the agenda yet I wonder if you could just last name Nita Jana or Eliot Robinson nicely that way okay thank you Eliot run so just on I just made it so you can unmute yourself so you can speak [Music] I'm having trouble hearing the Federation I'm sorry miss Robinson I'm having trouble hearing you I think that your connection I'm sorry that the connection isn't working very well
133right now if you want to maybe write your comments you could send them to the board at CSD hater net okay they just fell off the list I'm sorry that didn't work on I hope she was able to hear that but she could email in to anyone else out there please feel free to email your thoughts to board SCS Decatur dotnet and that goes to the five board members and to me as well and that way we can see your feedback if you have additional thoughts to share that you you weren't able to so alright um were there any others that you got notice of Louis Vuitton and some things happen I lost the screen the presentation has stopped being presented so so I think now also do you what to keep going with this
134item or do you want to jump back to the agenda until we get to this item again oh I think it makes a lot of sense for us to continue to finish this one I do and maybe begin by letting remembers folks ask a question other ones too yeah if I consider a couple thoughts Jana had asked early on and about making this an action item and so now that you see with the recommend is any changes to this school calendar do require a board action so if we are going to change the start date to August 17th we would need to vote on that now we could do that tonight after we have our conversation we could take a have a motion and vote or we could call a special meeting we would don't
135have another regularly scheduled meeting before the start of school so that's the only thing that absolutely requires an action and if you notice in our comments that we threw out the possibility of basically canceling the September break and we're suggesting that for several reasons one the idea of people traveling and then coming back is not a good idea from the experts that we have talked to and that a break like that especially if that duration kind of encourages people to go elsewhere and come back and perhaps bring some virus into our community that wasn't there previously but also because if we're going to lose several days on the front end it's one way to start making up some of those days so that's something to consider we do not have to take action on that
136right now that's something we can think more about and we could discuss at the August board meeting but those are both calendar changes so those would require action if the board wants to vote on a plan and feels that that is something that is important for you you're of course welcome to do that but really only the calendar change is what needs to be voted on so David I understand that the superintendent has the authority to make decisions but you know day-to-day operations and instructions but I would suggest that in addition to voting on the calendar changes that we vote on the proposed school reopening plan just because I know that our community members are looking at the school board members as partners decision making process and as evidenced by the emails that we are
137copy and I just I support the the virtual plan I think it's our safest way to ensure you know the just decrease to increase mitigation in the in the district but I think that we should take a vote especially to set the precedence because at some point we're gonna have to rebid that at some point but right now we're saying on September 18th we're gonna revisit we're you know where we are and how things should go so that's my suggestion that you know because I think that there potentially are this fiscal and policy implications for this and so we know that a school board members those that are so that's my suggestion is all about the delegation of authority to the superintendent we set broad policies we set goals and objectives and we hire smart
138people to implement those and we're best when we let them do their job and so that's generally how we try to operate I think we you know we try to enforce a fair amount of discipline so that we stay out of David's hair the lit you know David and his people do what needs to be done this seems like I mean this is such a big issue of such great concern into so many people and it's really just kind of fundamental to everything that we're doing as a school district it just seems appropriate crossed away and if only David do it you know that you've got our support well I was going to say there's no one on the investigative team who will who will say we don't want you to weigh in and vote
139on it because the more people that have our back the better and the board feels strongly about wanting to do that for whatever reason it is not something we're opposed to in any way caution honest is a board that we can't let it be a precedent to start reaching down in operations but I do think that this is unusual one vote yeah I agree with with Jana and Louis on that and I think you know my standpoint was that it would be show solidarity to David and his team that we all agree and are supportive of all the work that you've done on this and that we agree and you know in solidarity with you so and I no I don't think we should set a precedent but this is definitely unprecedent at time so
140indeed indeed I agree and I feel we're all in this together so were there any questions or comments about the plan itself that you'd like to discuss I I have some things that I would like to say yes I think there's so much here that I don't want to maybe say it all at once and so as topics come up I might chime chime in on them but the first thing that I really want to emphasize is just so that our priority being on equity work has never been more important and dr. Huddleston and dr. banks have done a tremendous job of getting us to this point and we have to dig in now more than ever because I feel like this situation that we're in is going to create an even wider gap where
141there already were gaps and more disparity between students who have support at home and students who do not students who have learning disabilities and students who do not Valle neural populations who are vulnerable for many reasons vulnerable is not simply health its economic reasons access to technology access to meals students who don't have a stable home you know I'm talking to people in the community who are single parents who have lost their jobs who are struggling to find new work or work from home when they're supposed to be teaching their 10 year old and just seeing how much of a struggle this is which is why it makes this decision so difficult and we're considering the needs of students which I feel like at times are at odds with the needs of teachers which you
142know for many reasons I can think of no better place than kids to be back at school and while for a long time I was hoping we were going to be able to do a hybrid model I see why with the widespread you know pandemic that we have and where we where it's ended up why that's not a good idea right now but everything we're doing to support teachers health is so important and I I fully support requiring students to wear masks I know that's not happening in every single district but I think it's important because I feel like we have to do everything we can to protect our teachers and I know that's consistent also with the fact that the city just passed a city ordinance last Friday requiring masks and public places in
143the city while it didn't reach out and include the school system I feel like what we're doing is consistent with that and I fully support that as we talk about vulnerable populations and I looked through the presentation there was one sentence about identifying students who are not attending or who are disengaged and that they will receive support services and I want to emphasize that I think that's extremely important because I I know that there will be students who are not engaged and not an attending and that virtual learning is not for all of them so I would like for us to explore in detail what those support services are and to also explore is there any way we can flex these quadrants and have some in-person learning in small groups and say waise with some
144of those most vulnerable students especially those that have learning disabilities we have received well probably well over 100 emails I've lost count I've read every single one of them and I want to thank the community for your input it's been extremely helpful it's guided us in our thinking and our planning please keep communicating to us and don't think that because you don't receive a personal response from every single one of us that you're not being heard we are reading your emails and we want to hear from you but we've heard from some parents who have children with learning disabilities and this one breaks my heart because I have a niece with learning disabilities and I'm and I know my sister is struggling these kids need their physical therapy they need their occupational therapy they need
145their speech therapy and these parents are saying that their children are regressing and that's very heartbreaking and I just wonder if we in a safe way can figure out of course with the with the support of the the teachers who would be involved and the parents permission but find a way to make that safe we're talking about extracurricular activities which I also fully support for both those students who are in school if we have a hybrid and also for any student who's doing virtual learning I know that having nothing to do no structure for many kids is detrimental and to their to their mental well-being to their social development I think we should encourage actually extracurricular activities to this to the extent that they're safe and that we should follow guidance that will that is
146coming out we're expecting to hear from associations like the Georgia High School Association for sports which I think includes drama for music the Georgia music educate educators Association and similar organizations that will be issuing guidance you know I my kids are swimmers and the CDC and the National Swimming Association issued guidance for how to practice swimming safely and I know I was really terrified of that and the whole concept of going back to any sort of practice or sport but seeing how it was done and that it was done safely it showed me that there is a way to do things safely and it's been extremely important to have a few pillars of activity and I think it can be really helpful and beneficial to students who are who are suffering there they're suffering socially
147they're suffering emotionally and I think they need connection with their friends they're not not going to see their friends like some of you know especially when we're talking about high school students and middle school students they're going to get together so why don't we construct activities that are going to be beneficial for them and do them in a safe way so I'm supporting find a way to do it safely you know there's there are many many things to say all that other people have a chance but those are just some of the the maybe the highest bullet points I had and thank you for I know that was thank you for listening hi there and I did want to clarify that the the hybrid option that serves less than 50% of kids the exact purpose
148of that is to try to bring in groups of kids to serve them where we can and that I'm hopefully we can get to that level of engagement sooner rather than later we just didn't feel that we were there at this time David I had a couple questions I heard a parent asked this earlier and also got this question of one of the email I have a few questions my first question is what risk assessment tool was used did you all use the Georgia Tech tool to determine what quadrant we're in now that's one of the questions I didn't know how we determine what quadrant we're in it's a great question and I would love to be able to say oh we turn to this very reliable data source but everybody trusts and that's how
149we made the decision but unfortunately but there is no given single source of information and that's why yes we did use that tool is one of the pieces of information we're using whatever data we can get our hands on and then that's also where we rely on what we call team science which is the experts in our community who actually understand the virus they understand epidemiology and how things get transmitted they understand what's happening on the ground in our hospitals and things like that so there is the heart in terms of actual numbers that we get from sources like that one but then there's also the anecdotal data we get from the experts that we talk to who are dealing with this within our community it's unfortunate I did think it was kind of funny
150that somebody would say we can't politicize this issue because we're doing nothing nothing of the sort right if we were politicizing the issue we'd be going back to school because that's what the politics are pushing us to do and we most certainly are not paying attention to the politics behind it and we're paying attention to the science and the actual data that we can get from experts so I'd like to say there's one significant source but there isn't there's from sources that we're turning to and making the best judgment we can from those because in in the absence of that truly trusted experts that everybody can agree is the expert we check we're turning to our internal experts to help us decide or get all that and figure out what what exactly is happening within
151our community so that the team science has a big role in helping us figure out which one of those quadrants we're in and I'm still concerned about the full reopening of ECOC and the Fraser Center you know if the and I know that this is just one tool but if that Georgia Tech tool says that right now in a group of twenty five that likely there's one person that will have it I'm just concerned and I was wondering how how the decision was made to go to a full reopening with ECOC in the Fraser Center and were parents given the same survey where they surveyed about the reopening because my biggest concern is as a board member again because I know that folks are going to be holding us accountable and I I have not
152I've been having trouble just managing the stress of all this knowing that students could potentially get sick and we don't know how sick and the implications for their family members and their vulnerable family members and I just I don't want to be responsible for a tragedy like that and so I'm just wondering how did the eCos the uncrazy parents provide their feedback what are we opening so it's a little more complicated like like normal with ETL CE and Fraser Center because there's a whole different set of standards that apply to them they're part of different funding sources from the state and whatnot so the EC LC has been open all summer and one of the things to remember is their classes are naturally incredibly small right and so you may only have a teacher and
153five kids and so something to remember we're not talking about the pre-k we're talking about the births of three and those classes are very small classes we've also had quite a few people who have decided they're not going to send their kids and so the number of people that were serving is smaller than it was before it's also something that we're revisiting we've debated about it today we're going to continue debating about it and it's quite possible that we will change that decision depending on what's happening in the environment but at this point we felt it was going very well at EC LC they've got some really good controls in place and it is a very needed service especially for that aged kids to be able to have our doctors and our scientists and all
154those frontline workers have a way to be able to take their kids somewhere to get care and if they don't get it there they'll get it somewhere else because there are a lot of child care places that are open and so that is something we're very concerned about and we are monitoring closely but it is a little bit different just because of how will the funding work for it and how the services are provided and the size of the groups soon I think that's it for me thank you Thanks oh yeah I got them so add a couple of like teacher related questions David and you know I think that I had not clicked on that link when it went through the presentation about the opening and that sort of stuff and making sure that
155teachers have access to it but I do want to kind of go through that about the process of opening it back up and then what happens if a teacher gets sick not just from you know Kovac but just generally when they're teaching virtually and they're sick and it's communicated to them how do you call in a sub and that sort of stuff and I hope that we go through the process of communicating that I think that's really important and then I was just kind of looking at the calendar if we eliminate Fall Break but then the teachers start on the same time are they just working in extra week or how does that work is that then sort of discussed what we're asking the teachers to do well one of the reasons I know one
156of the reasons I thought we might want to put off the Fall Break discussion is because one way to solve that is to also cancel the winter break in February or to make some other kind of a change to the calendar if we don't do that we will have to figure out how to pay teachers for an extra five days so one way or the other we'll have to figure out how to cover it I'm not a fan of just shortening the school year as we've talked about before but there are some other opportunities for how to make up those days and still pay teachers for every day that they work we're not going to ask teachers to work and not get paid okay and then and then you know it doesn't necessarily fall on
157teachers but both Jana and Heather mentioned it I think having a plan in place and coonley was excited about it you know just reaching out when a kid does fall off from not not being involved in the online than the Xoom calls I think is fundamental to to the the enhance I loved seeing that and having that in place to me that's the defining characteristic of enhanced about it you know the kid doesn't show up for two days on virtual classrooms whose job isn't to make sure that they show up on day three whose job is it to check in on them and that sort of stuff I think that's I totally agree that's one of the things because we were talking about we have a lot of employees who can't provide their services virtually
158so for example bus drivers or parent educators or there's just various employees that it's difficult for them to provide their normal employment routine and so we talked about developing a training for those employees so that if they want to continue working which I would imagine most of them would they can take this training on how do you connect with kids how do you serve as a mentor and we can assign them several kids and that can be part of their work then is helping make sure that kid is engaged and checking in with them and helping troubleshoot right so if the family is having difficulty with a student getting stuff done they can be that liaison to help figure out hey is it a motivational difficulty is it a technology problem is it some resource
159you don't have is it just a misunderstanding do we need to get an interpreter like what is it that's causing the problem that so that we can attach it so or attack it so definitely if it's kind of a good problem to have to have these staff who might be available to do that work and so we're talking about the difference in how we're planning to do it for the fall is the training aspect we tried to implement that in the spring and it worked at varying levels of success not everybody who's in a job that doesn't work directly kids every day is ready to take on a role like that without training and so that's one of the things that we plan to do this time is provide some training to them of what
160exactly does it look like if you're going to be a mentor to five kids or something like that so totally dream and then I something that I have seen proposed by a lot of a lot of parents is sort of like small Quarantine educational groups I know for my neighbor we kind of did some education together and it became harder when we weren't on the same page but it does make parenting easier particularly with a with a third grader or a kindergarten if they're on the same curriculum has there been any discussion about maybe making it possible for that to be considered as we begin putting some of those virtual classes together I just wanted to throw that out it occurred to me and a couple of parents reached out to me that is our
161neighborhoods do that if that's something that the cabinet had consider or couldn't see if they would consider for that another that's it yeah I don't that's a good question actually I I'll need to talk to them more about the like neighborhood type approach I do know we've talked about and and Gail Rothman kind of alluded to it too trying to work with our partners that if at some point we feel like we can bring some small groups together especially kids who have greater needs or something kind of facilitating that but that's a great idea of maybe we could try to be more intentional on the front end so that proximity wise maybe group kids together a little differently I don't know if that's been discussed or not but if it hasn't we'll definitely discuss it
162I know we don't want to I personally witnessed the principle be overwhelmed with parents being like you know Johnny wants to be in the class with Susie and but this does seem like unprecedented time for making what Tasha talked what Jana talked about with with parents you know being able to take advantage of each other and then my other question was answered about like step by step for open and and Lewis had asked it earlier but just like what data points I think we're looking for as we move from quadrants I think the community will be looking for and that sort of stuff will be at the front of everyone's mind that's it that was all my list okay now I have a question about student class size with it being virtual or we still
163want to stay with what we've normally done with the student class size or is there going to be some type of adjustment there but we have to stay pretty close to our normal student class size because otherwise we have a higher a bunch more people class sizes probably the number one determinant of how many teachers we need and so what we're going to try to do is supplement those classes then with that extra support like potentially bus drivers para educators things like that that we can use in other ways that we traditionally wouldn't be able to use them otherwise so but in in general well that we have the number of teachers that determine the class size as it is so yeah so they'll stay about the same perfect and I know that you all
164have put a ton of work into this so you know as I said prior I do support this direction and I would also support if you feel like potentially another week could be or may be needed in order to get the teachers and everyone up to to where they feel comfortable with this new learning type of learning a virtual learning I would support maybe even additional week two to get everything up and running I don't know how locked in you are on the August 17th date but if that is something that you were all were tossing around you know needing a little more time I would be in support of that as well the seventeenth day I get to comment the person made about building their plane while we're flying it because we're all feeling
165that and and it's something that everybody and the entire education ecosystem is doing I I think it's it's plenty probably to get us started on a good on a good road we'll have to see if as we look at our plans and that maybe it wouldn't be sufficient but I really do think it will be sufficient I think anyone can always desire more right and can you get a little bit more with a little bit additional pl probably but at some point you get some diminishing returns and so I think it's also pointed important to get started on the school year and so we're trying to kind of balance that out between providing that BL but also getting kids back to school so it's a great coin and we'll talk it over and let you
166guys know if as we really dig into the tales of what every single day is going to look like I know the team has already developed a schedule of what the pl would look like and felt comfortable with it but it's good to know that there's some support potentially for changing as we need to but I'm comfortable right now we're saying we could stick with the August 17th date okay perfect thank you that's all I had I'll start by echoing everybody else's thanks and praise to you and your team for the hard work and putting this plan together it really does show that you're you know you're taking the right considerations and in mind and and working hard to produce a good plan it's insane and I don't think we think enough about just how
167crazy it is that not only are we having to figure out how to reinvent you know public education but we're basically having to do it our own I mean there's a lot of resources to draw from but this is a giant task to put on you and your staff and with basically no time and you know no room to fail I mean we just we have to do it and it's you know I'm feeling lots of stress I think the rest of the board members is feeling stressed we're not even doing the work so thank you to you and your your folks for a good and thoughtful plan I do think it's a plan and I support the suggestion some of the questions that I had and the first is more of a comment which
168is that I think that it would be good to address our compliance which is not the right word but it's what I'll use with the CDC recommendations or guidelines for K through 12 systems you know I took a look those are posted and contrary to what had been reported they were not changed after the president's comment so they're the same guidelines that CDC put out originally it looks to me like we are in compliance now they apply not to virtual education but if we we return to schools the guidelines say here's how you do it safely and no there's no good choices here the online education option I think right now is what we have to do but I also appreciate the comments and just believe that that is so far from ideal that we
169need to lean in to putting the schools together and doing what needs to be done with the facilities and to our programming to make sure that we can get into one of these hybrid models just as soon as we can and you know the CDC guidelines go to things like screening and testing procedures for when kids arrive at school so try to keep the virus out of the buildings and they go to things to make sure that if kids slip through with the virus before we have really good testing how we can make sure to limit the transmission through hygiene through screens and appropriate places good ventilation I appreciate it seeing that y'all addressed this in your HVAC the new filters to be put on the HVAC systems etc but really what I wanted to
170emphasize is in the kindness conversation is that you guys have looked at that and that we are working to make sure that we check those boxes so that we can return safely to school just as soon as we can um while we're in the online environment I want to repeat and you don't need to hear it because you've already heard it from the speakers and the other board members but it's so hard you know someone asks he's going to speak up for the for the for the Forgotten kids and it's so hard to look at this through the perspective of the kids that you know and the experiences that you've seen and to forget how many struggles so many of these kids are going to have and and some of them might surprise you but
171I just I just know for a fact that the online education just doesn't work for everybody and their kids who have problems not just with accessing technology but learning online and regulating themselves and getting out of bed and and keeping to a task and and getting the work done when they're not in the regular school environment you know waking up Monday through Friday and getting to school at 8 o'clock or whatever school starts and just keeping that regular schedule is an important part of keeping a lot of kids regular and if they don't have that and we're just asking them to complete their tasks when they complete them not everybody is going to do it and so the mechanisms that we put in place to make sure that kids are actually keeping on a schedule
172I think are extremely important I think synchronous learning instead of asynchronous learning so you're expected to show up and have some social interaction we just you know that's what we need to be questioning in my opinion to the maximum extent possible and then the safety net so that we're actively looking for the kids who are falling through the cracks and there gonna be a lot of them and we need to have mechanisms in place we don't have them yet I mean we did not have them yet to the degree that we need them last year so yeah and again I know you need this but I just want to emphasize how important I think it is regarding the metrics you know the quadrant is helpful I kind of think of it as just an escalating
173risk if it's in the least risk environment you're full open and the greatest risk environment your full online and in the middle there's varying degrees of hybrid models the metrics that we use to move from one to another I'm comfortable with your group science approach because I don't know what else we would do in the current environment I'm also sensitive to the comments that were made about the desire for transparency and decision making and I just put that to you to ask how we can address that and I think what it means is that when we make these decisions we tell people what the group scientist said and we just explain the basis of it it doesn't mean that it needs to be quantitative but we can say we made this decision and here's why
174and no it's not based on a number it's based on the sense of the scientists and that and the medical professionals that we talk to we just need to tell people why we're doing what we're doing it's tricky when the metrics are unclear but we should give that some thought I also was interested in the comment about the timing between decisions and you know number one should we take additional time in order to get the online program all that it needs to be before we start it I understand the impulse I think I agree with you that we just need to get started but we also need to recognize that as we get started it's not going to be all that it needs to be and it's it's going to be a work in progress
175so we're going to have a lot of work to do to get the online learning where it needs to be at the same time that we're going to need to have a team working hard to figure out hybrid models to make sure that we can move into a hybrid model and have in-person education just as soon as possible it's going to be real hard to do those things both well if we're flipping back and forth constantly and so I think that it really kind of argues for longer periods of time in each you know with each decision having a longer period that we'd be in whatever quadrant were in so that we're not so that we can try to perfect what we're doing rather than constantly shifting back and forth that's just a thought I
176also wanted to speak to the to the question about extracurricular participation and for the reasons that have been mentioned I strongly feel that we should let families do this risk analysis themselves but if they conclude that that their child functions well in an online environment but also would would would need the extracurricular involvement I think we should let them make that decision I think it makes perfect sense if the concern other reason to exclude those kids from the from the in-person extracurriculars had to do with the fear of you know mixing I would tend to think that the kids who've been online learning would be the least likely carriers of all and so to me it seems like in this placed fear and but if it but if that is a we should we should
177think about how to address it and just give it more thought that's all that I have on my list and those that's just sort of for your consideration as y'all continue to perfect these plans I have one other question but were there any budget increases related to mitigation do all of our efforts so far within our existing budgets by reallocating money or buying things the one challenge as you heard and the presentation is you used five thousand dollars thousands of dollars of hand sanitizer and then weeks later the FDA says that's toxic so now you can't use it so now you have to you know throw it out and find another source so we'll see if there if there are going to be any long-term budget implications but we do have other funding sources that
178have come online because of it we've got stuff like from the cares funds that you've heard about that we've been able to allocate so at this point there has not been budget implications but there very well could be depending on the how long this goes on a lot of the mitigation efforts are more about kind of rearranging what you're doing then doing something totally new so that hasn't been a too big of an issue for us at this point to a couple of Louis's point I won't remember them all but a couple the CDC guidance has been a very big part of how we've decided what needs to be done especially like you said once you return to any kind of in-person environment and so the teams have been working on that all summer and
179looking at that guidance and that's been a big part of what they looked at the the reason for the September 18th looking again for a potential change after subvert September 25th is because we work on six-week terms and so the six weeks after August 17th is September 25th and so that's the reasoning behind it I totally agree the one thing that we all agree on is that you don't necessarily want to move into something without being fairly certain of that change because if we did go do an in-person mode of operation and suddenly there were huge spikes and cases we could then have to very quickly jump out of that mode of operation back to virtual and so it is not something we will do lightly and we really have to have that confidence that
180their mitigation measures in place and the spread is is not significant before we can do something like that so just because we reevaluate after six weeks doesn't mean that we would anticipate making any kind of major change we just felt like we had to put some time it's kind of the there's the minimum that will at least look at it this frequently we can look at them more frequently if we need to and it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to make a change every time we look at it so that's our taking on those comment I appreciate that you haven't had budget impacts yet but speaking for myself if there's a time to spend money it's now and if we need to spend money in order to make the school safe and get back into
181school I hope that you will talk to us about that rather than ruling it out based on the fact that it it might cost money the biggest example I can think of is The Times reported just the other day that an instant check you know saliva test is likely to be prepared in short order I mean they were saying in a matter of weeks that you could with your saliva get a get a response in 15 minutes if we can have a test and it was supposed to cost a dollar per test and so it we managed so that kind of thing comes available we need to spring for it because you know once we could test the kids we can get them undeveloped buildings with a high degree of safety but just don't let
182the budget point and we talked today quite a bit in the administrative team about budget implications and that then if there are any budget issues that cannot be a reason to stop going down a path that it needs to be a further discussion and don't just assume that I'm you not having money in your budget right now as a specific administrator means that we can't do something that would benefit all the district or would benefit the where we go forward so they're very well aware of that and we will definitely bring to you if we get to a point that we have to look at the budget and consider dipping into our unspent balance to figure out how to do something like that for instance like what you despaired Lewis we most certainly will be
183coming to you to talk about that good I'd like to revisit the conversation about the fall break I know you said we could decide later but just from my past experience on the board the longer we take to decide something about a break the harder it is for the community people like to plan people like to know so if the other board members are willing I'd be willing and interested in having that discussion today I'm very comfortable with you all making a decision on that today I just wanted to throw it out there as just so you knew there is another meeting before them but I totally agree Heather the more notice people have the better off that it will be so I'm certainly open to that as well so I just need to clarify
184so lest they when central office staff and dr. duty re-evaluate whether we should continue in quadrant three and we vote now whether we're going to buy how old that I'm cut through the back here so here's how I would say it Jana is that to me there's there's two purposes for the canceling of the September break one is it allows us five days of time with the students that we would not have had otherwise so that we can continue since we're because we're moving to start bait it gives us five more days early on in the year not knowing what this year is going to look like right and so that's probably the biggest issue for me is knowing that we just have that consistency the other is just that considering about as soon as
185you have a break like that and people start leaving the community and coming back it may introduce virus into the system and may force our hand even if it's looking like we might be able to go to a hybrid just having that break would almost necessitate pausing and not making a decision right away because you'd have to wait and see what happens after people return from the break it makes total sense and I'm thinking that you know especially the elementary school level I remember the first week six weeks of school always such a big deal and you know trying to keep things consistent for especially our younger children and that after only having you know five weeks in school and having a week break when we're talking about consistency here and you know getting good
186at what we're doing it seems too soon to have a full week off to me and especially because we're losing calendar days already at the beginning of the year and like you said we don't yet even know what the rest of the year is gonna look like so while I know that my kids will probably be mad at me and I know that how much our community loves that fall break I feel like it's prudent in this case and and the right you know the right thing to do for our number one priority which is in the best entrance of our students in their education that we cancel fall break this year and that we have the consistency that we need thank sense to me and then what do we do about the workdays we'll
187just fix them later when I need something we'll want to tackle later at that point we can look at that I'm not too concerned five days it's not insignificant right of paying teachers for an additional five days if we don't end up being able to somehow make them up another way but it is something that I think I I would much rather just make our decision now because it is so helpful to have those five days in this first six weeks for all the reasons we've talked about and and figure that part out later if you're comfortable with that I'm certainly comfortable with that okay so we have a motion I think where there's two things that we've talked about yeah so I would want to amend a motion to the extent of a motion
188to start the 2021 academic year on August 17th with all instruction provided virtually and to cancel Fall Break or something to that extent I'm willing to start the 20 20 year 2021 academic year on August 17th with all instruction provided virtually and canceled Fabray any further discussion all in favor doesn't green animus almost everybody we appreciate it and again I just so appreciate the team that I work with I know that it sounded like a broken record now but man I will I will put these people up against anyone they are fantastic and and you can see it I think in the plan and I know that our teachers are going to be able to implement this and I can't think of any other place I'd want my kids than indicator schools so I know
189we're going to do well we're gonna power through it and we're gonna all come together and work it out so appreciate your support and I appreciate all the support of the community who's been helping out with this as well all right that takes care of oh yeah so I think we should go back and if we could approve the minutes I want to I want to just ask if anyone I mean we've been at this now for three hours do we want to take a five-minute break we do we just want to power through you know we haven't started the rest of the agenda that we don't have too many action items basically we you adopt the final millage rate that will be short and we've got the update on district operations which we've read
190which I was going to recommend you've got it there I don't think we need to go through that unless you really want us to you know I think that's a good idea I think we can ask questions if we have them I don't welcome that means power through so let's adopt the minutes I'm sorry but I don't have right and there was a warning the minutes for June night June 9 which I have rather just couldn't find them for June 19 20 2014 do we have any revisions to the Midlands there's one that's been mentioned in terms of change was made that was emailed that request I think it was made okay so the minutes will be entered as presented so that we want to jump to the millage rate item then and and do
191you want us to go through the presentation again origin since we just did it earlier is that sufficient I think yeah okay so for the the millage rate item we just need a motion to adopt the millage rate at twenty point two five which is the same millage rate that we had last year moved to approve the millage rate at 20.25 second I says the last item we've we've scratched unless you all have questions about the update in which case we should ask them now and then I've got one other item yeah well we have is the senior homestead exemption is on the agenda too so for an update no no I I'm not sure if we have an update or if it was just there as a placeholder well that's what I wanted to
192address that so so Siletz so first see if people have questions about the update seeing on let's move to the item James if you could give us an update on the committee work the committee met June 3rd paula collins the chair presented detailed graphs and maps on a homestead exemption focused on housing that attempted to model what a housing exemption would look like it met the existing s1 exemption so for people whose income is low led to a great conversation about sort of like how low would we have to go I'm sorry yeah how low would we have to go on income there were a set of questions that the committee had asked that I had emailed out to the group just to get answers to lead to another July group and we have a
193couple more meetings we're dealing with just sort of income and housing prices and the committee I mean it's once again just overwhelmed with how amazing Decatur is and the quality of people that show up when the call is put out asking data questions and all sorts of stuff like that just to clarify did you say the meeting look at June you said June 3rd but did you mean June 30th I did I did yeah 3 hours ago that would have been a more enunciated 30th but thank you James I have questions about that I wanted to to say a word about where we are on the annexation issue with the cab County as you all know we have you know I'll back up and provide a little context in just a second but we have
194requested that the Decatur City Commission Institute a one-year moratorium on annexations that item is going to be on the agenda for the city Commission's meeting I think it's on the 20th which i think is Monday next week and they've asked that we appear to explain and speak you know to the request which I will do and would appreciate any of you appearing to be there as well by way of explanation you know this is the continuation of the issue that we've had for the past two years where DeKalb County is concerned about the financial impact of annexations by the City of Decatur on the DeKalb County school budget the way that we finance education in the state of Georgia is that the you know schools are funded by property tax dollars and when an annexation
195occurs the property tax dollars shift and the existing law is that the property that the school boundaries grow when the city boundaries grow and we have coterminous boundaries that's just the way it is but what that means is that when the city annexes County property for reasons having nothing to do with schools it does have an impact on DeKalb County's schools budget that's an issue for the county it's not really an issue for us in the sense that we aren't advocating annexations aren't interested in annexations and don't really want to be part of this dispute never have what we have proposed to try to make a fair and equitable solution to the DeKalb County Schools problem is that we find a way well let me back up what we don't want is to separate the
196city boundaries from the school boundaries we want all of the kids in the City of Decatur to go to the city schools of Decatur and we want all of the residents and the City of Decatur to be represented on this school board and it be fully 100 percent a part of the city and a part of the schools it's important for a lot of reasons that have to do with the cohesion and community and and identity of this community and with our cooperative arrangements with the City Commission which again get mighty complicated if our boundaries are separated so that some residents are part of the city but don't participate and the benefits provided by the school system once we separate those boundaries things get complicated and we're going to lose a big part of the
197cooperation and collaboration that has really made Decatur a special place so what we're fighting to preserve is just that it's not about the money and so what we've proposed is an arrangement whereby in the event of an annexation the school boundaries would grow along with the cities but the taxes would be handled differently and we would find a way basically to live to give to DeKalb County school system to allocate to the DeKalb County school system all of the taxes from any annexed area except the amount needed to educate children in the annex territory so we would take only what we need in order to educate those children and the Kent County school system would get the rest that gives us what we need in terms of preserving the identity between the city and the
198school system and it gives the DeKalb County school system what they need by keeping them whole in terms of taxes in fact I think they might be uh well I think it's a win-win there's some legal complications of what we've asked is for the DeKalb County school board to work with us to work those complications pal and if there's a will there's a way I'm confident of that and you know we need a we need some cooperation from the DeKalb County folks in order to make it happen but what we're asking our city is to give us a one-year period so that we can work on the work on those arrangements to try to come up with something that would work for both of us so that's what this is all about I wanted to
199mention it here so that it's not a mystery when it's presented at the City Commission meeting next Monday and if as many of you who can come to attend that City Commission meeting would be great and we can talk about how to do the presentation if you have any questions you can ask now or you can ask later either way what that's all I have I think well we have future dates actually David yeah one future they've listed there I noticed but we do have our upcoming board meeting so we'll make sure those get published but I don't have that right off the top tonight - Lee if I can jump in with a senior the senior homestead committee meeting did talk about the intersection of our senior because the tax exemption in the annexation
200issue they felt I've gotten kind of tied up louis and so and so we did spend a big chunk of the meeting with them asking questions that are at the bottom of the notes just about the way the DeKalb delegation proposed a bill at the into the session that passed the house that deals with you know senior taxes that sort of stuff and they had asked that we reach out and just make sure that as we do that and as we talk with the city we asked the city to communicate on behalf of what we're doing our plans are a long term so if you could ask that add that to their agenda I think that would be important that was a very disappointing bill I just leave you signed on to it you know
201you know all we can do is try to continue working towards a fair and equitable solution and that's what we're going to continue to do absolutely I just thought it was a perfect ring that up there I appreciate it so I missed it on future dates did you have any that were listed I don't have them I'm not sure why they're not there but I don't have them listed but we'll make sure they're on our calendar and whatnot we would now be the time we lose with schedule especially said executive session I think we feel we need it just so folks know we did not have an exec session tonight and so we talked about possibly scheduling a special one but I think that's something we can do through a doodle poll or something like
202that to figure out the best day for that okay thank you all thanks to everybody who's stuck with this and good night indeed wampum sticks under to less than 200 but hey there's still almost 200 people there and how many would we have a normal board meeting so thank you all who who made it to the end they're dropping off quickly but thank you for making it I appreciate it it's really great that we had so many people who are interested and stuck in there to hear what work we're doing so and thank you to the five of you I appreciate it it's great to work with you and these are crazy times and so I feel like we've got the right people on the work so thank you all tonight guys good night all
203right tonight