BCESD Special Board Meeting 6-29-2020

001just needing to order roll call corey burgess here here jamie borland here citizens president if you please sign in the back uh you would join me for the pledge of allegiance call to the public this is the time that the public may speak to the governing board regarding issues within the jurisdiction of caring board and subject to reasonable time space and matter restrictions as the government board may establish comments will be limited to three minutes per individual unless specif specifically laid by the governing board at the conclusion of the call of the public the individual members of governing board may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board and he asked the staff to review a matter or may ask the matter be placed on a future agenda however the governing board

002cannot take action on matters that have not been noticed in advance on the agenda we have several calls in the public so let's start with our present ones first please ava smith good evening walter city elementary school board members and superintendent stewart my name is ava smith and i am a first grade teacher at desert valley elementary i want to start by saying that i'm here tonight only to ensure that you receive my voice and fears in such a way that you can hear see and feel the conviction in what i have to say my being here in person in no way shape or form indicates that i feel safe in this setting i stand here tonight to tell you that i do not feel safe teaching students in person nor do i feel that

003you should make the decision to reopen our brick and mortar buildings for in-person learning at this time i am here tonight to influence your discussions and possibility of making a decision to reopen our schools for in-person learning that will affect the staff that works in this district their families the students who attend our schools and their immediate and extended families my hope is that you will be considered and compassionate when carefully looking at the data metrics and statements as well as the original reopening phase plans dedicated administration leads and various committees worked for months to create a reopening plan that would ensure that we would reopen for learning in approved phases when and only when it was safe i would also recommend looking at situations regarding covid19 across our nation state and county and base

004your decisions on those merits including a new report from the american academy of pediatrics of a study done showing that just over 97 000 children tested positive for copic in the last two weeks of july last week a survey was sent to the parents of our district community without context to the reality of what in-person learning will look like there were inherent details missing from the two-choice question whenever bullhead city elementary schools begin in-person classes what are your current plans if parents knew the reality of what in-person learning is going to entail were informed of the details of the school day with protocols in place and if the students knew perhaps their choices would have been different it seemed to me from a parent's perspective misleading an additional mare i am for you to consider

005is that of your teachers their students and their families and how they truly feel when it comes to the possibility of teaching in person in the near future this is not a one-sided stakeholder situation i was very disheartened to not receive a staff survey from you our board members asking us the district teachers and staff how we feel about the idea of returning to in-person teaching whether or not we feel safe with those intentions at this time and are willing to teach in person or if we do not feel safe with teaching in person and are not willing to take that risk because we fear what that may bring upon us our students and our families could you imagine hearing one of your teachers contracting probit 19 and died or a mother who is terminally

006ill who is being cared for by her son who is a teacher contracting it from him and dying due to complications or a fifth grader who is suffering through the virus right now as we speak done these are the lies in your hands tonight as you move into discussing plans about reopening for in-person learning continuing the virtual platform for learning is not going to cause someone to get sick and possibly die but reopening our school buildings just might we should not take that chance and you should not want to take that risk your decision tonight your discussions tonight should not be about setting and as soon as possible for reopening and that is that it should be to make the sound and safe decision to keep our elementary school district virtual through at least the

007first quarter and then reassess the situation at that time i stand here tonight for colleagues who are friends of mine who are family to me for my daughter who is seven and my son who is three for my husband at home my students my first grade babies as i call them and their families who entrust me with their children's learning every single day for colleagues who had to make the decision to stay home tonight to be safe but knew that i was speaking on their behalf i am here standing with the hope with all of their hopes that you our board will protect us keep us safe and please make the right decision i ask you our board members who are meant to abide by the science and data when it comes to standardized testing

008and upholding educational laws and making decisions based off of those merits will you please employ those same practices with regard to the data and science that says we are not ready for in-person learning at this time will you please keep all of us safe by doing the right thing thank you for your time thank you voice features president burgess and members of the board although everyone at our school wants to be working with our students in person a number a number of our staff have shared concerns with me about student staff and community safety if we do not allow the data to drive decisions on our return to in-person learning i would like to read one of the letters written to me from our english language arts league teacher conway wood as august 17th quickly

009approaches i feel i need to bring my concerns and intentions to your attention a few months ago i thought it would not be possible that adults were elected to do what is best for our community's children would ever put them in harm's way if the board member if the board members of the bullhead city elementary school district vote to open our school buildings on august 17th it makes them responsible for putting our communities children teachers administration staff and all of our families at risk if i am there to greet the children i am complicit in their wrongdoing i won't cite any of the growing body of evidence that shows children can contract and transmit the virus evidence does not seem to be a concern for those who make the decisions i will state however the

010undeniable fact that hundreds of members of our community have the virus and that social distancing is not within a child's nature i can't see how any reasonable person would not see this as a dangerous situation i heard the mantra we could never have safety touted in board meetings in an effort to reopen the school buildings of course that is true but wouldn't it be irresponsible at the least for adults to not take steps to create the safest learning environment they can there is a solution in place the district has invested much time and money to get technology into the hands of those students who need it teachers have found creative solutions to adapting the approved curriculum into an electronic format learning is happening thanks to tremendous collaborative efforts within our district this is what happens

011when a community works together at best opening too soon will lead to a disputed education disrupted education for our students it is short-sighted to think otherwise we can predict that students cohorts or even an entire school may be quarantined at any given time i don't want to think about what the at worst scenario would look like if we delay in person education that the teachers have time to refine and perfect distance learning when it is safe to open and the students do come back we will have an effective educational tool at the ready for any student who has prolonged absence from our school normalcy is not an option at the start of this school year but education can happen in a safe and effective manner with patients and technology i would hate to lead the

012community of educators from whom i have learned so much and have grown to admire after just a few short years i would hate to leave the students and families i have just met if 500 students come through our doors on august 17th i don't think i will be there to greet them respectfully thank you we have a number of other calls to the public that we've been reading were sent to us by email i kind of invited him up amongst our board members to kind of help me get through this a little easier so i'll just go and remind them we'll move on down sound good jennifer vance wrote to us hello the concerns i have regarding the online schools are as follows the amount of assignments given is extremely excessive in many classes some

013teachers are assigning homework and then also about work or class work but in rel in reality it is all homework without the material being taught the 30 minute zoom session is long enough to explain instruction for assignments but not not long enough to discuss the material my kids are shutting down from being overwhelmed one assignment daily from each class can result in eight assignments a day with little to no learning the material in advance number two some teachers are using outside platforms that require registration and passwords outside of google classroom this becomes very confusing aside from that some of these outside platforms or more technical than some students are used to my family is very technically savvy and it is taking longer to figure out some of the assignments than it is to actually complete

014the task once figured out that is a problem not every parent can be with their children all day to help them or try to help figure it out number three the platforms used are not parent friendly parent view does not coincide with what is in google classroom my children are very independent and i have never had to hound them about schoolwork and grades they know my expectations and they do their best to uphold them however it's my responsibility to check them through parent view and it is their responsibility to come to me with questions and concerns parent view has not allowed me to be as informed as i would as i should be as far as grades and assignments missing and completed my children shut down and before we knew it they were behind and

015over it as parents we have to scour our emails check our kids emails check parent view check the little classroom and search for information from the district to try to keep up all the while trying to make sense of the spider web of assignments in various formats our students are shutting down sorry number four our students are shutting down they were already confused stressed and depressed and lacking true interaction from online true interaction before online school began now these emotions are even worse as they struggle to figure out their schoolwork bound to the screens of computers this is going to take a toll on their mental state their mental states and it is imperative we open our schools for those who need to be there thank you jennifer vance tanya floyd wrote to us i'd

016like to see someone addressing this address getting the special needs and iep children first priority to return to campus the district receives substantial funding yet this need is most difficult in this open video medium speech classes and face-to-face challenge in itself and the opportunity for misdiagnose and probably due to a distorted enunciations thank you for your time sierra de mari hello my name is sierra de mari and i'm currently in 8th grade at fox creek junior high when my school extended our spring break for a week i thought nothing of it it is now august and we're still not back in school many students myself included do much better when learning in person i understand the concerns first concerns other students parents and staff may have about purse in person school while i've always been

017a good student i still find it challenging to do my work entirely online for many students the school's closure has affected them both mentally and physically for instance some students went to school to avoid their home life or a bad situation with their parents students not being able to socialize with their friends has caused depression and anxiety to rape rates to raise drastically students who took the bus to school might not be able to get free meals provided by the school some students might not be able to drive to the school making it difficult to complete their assignments on an empty stomach many students including myself don't have very good internet which makes it difficult to complete the assignments in classes thank you very much for your time and please also remember that just because

018you're we're young our feelings are still valid and important all right our next letter thank you in advance for considering my comments below my name is dr alan barton i'm a board certified pediatrician i opened my practice in 2001 and raised five children in this community my youngest graduated from fox creek in may and is now in mojave this is a terrible time filled with terrible choices in my 19 years in practice i've never seen so much fear so much anxiety so much depression so many sleep problems that i've seen in the last month since schools were shut down as an essential worker i understand the fear our teachers have when returning to classroom however we cannot be guided by fear alone teachers who have who have significant risk factors should be allowed to teach

019from home with the lessons broadcast to students who are safely socially distanced in the classroom all of the teachers should take classes with the students just as nurses doctors dentists first responders and others have had to be with their patients we must put in put the needs of our children for of our students first the health crisis caused by coven is minimal compared to the health crisis that are arising due to isolation extensive time on electronics as well as parental stress and destruction of work routines to be homeless students additionally for a majority of the students the rate of serious physical health complications is lower with coping than it is with other winter viruses that we see such as influenza rsv and human pneumonia virus those children who do not test positive for coping tend

020to have those children who do test positive recovery tend to have mild symptoms and rapid recoveries naturally we must be smart about returning to school and there may come a time when our covered numbers increase dramatically forcing us to temporarily close school again but for now our students must be our students for our students we must open our schools coven is not going away anytime soon nor will there be a vaccine in the near future waiting until october 1st or any other arbitrary date will not make a difference our local numbers are low now and we can keep them well if we are smart we must follow guidelines for social distancing and using masks we must increase our cleaning and educating students about washing hands cove is certainly a health crisis but our children staying

021home being educated online is causing other health health crisis crisis that will have long lasting consequences students who have known fact risk factors or who live with family members with risk factors and even those who feel most comfortable with distance learning should be given the option of continuing 100 distance learning but the rest of our students need to be in school thank you alan j barton our next one sabrina rail good evening dr stewart i'm a parent of kindergarten kindergartner with tonight's vote coming i wanted to show my support for online learning program it's not only the children but the teachers for whom i'm for whom i'm concerned for i think our children are wonderful i think sorry i think our teachers are wonderful and doing great considering the situation the days have been long

022and teachers can see that the kids can see when kids need a brain break if our teachers get sick and we don't have enough of them online i don't know what we will do as parents thank you for your support in keeping kids online i know you're on our side to keep the kids and teachers all safe many parents i've spoken to agree and we shouldn't return until after winter recess keep fighting for us thank you hello honorable members and our wonderful superintendent my name is adam schulteis and i am the orchestra teacher at bullhead middle school and fox creek junior high school i have been a teacher for the past 35 years 30 years in las vegas retired and the past five years here in bullhead i am passionate about giving our students the

023best education we have to offer and therefore i believe that we should have our students here inside the school building for full-time in-person instruction not virtual instruction my rationale for this is as follows the american academy of pediatrics stated this is about wanting our students to get back to campuses this fall for full-time in-class instruction schools are fundamental to child adolescent development and well-being and provide our children and adolescents with academic instructions social and emotional skills safety reliable nutrition physical speech and mental health therapy and opportunities for physical activity among other benefits schools also play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequality furthermore suicide rates especially among teenagers have skyrocketed because of coe19 in conclusion many of my students have told me that they want to come back to school to have that

024direct contact with their teachers and interactions with their peers we need to do what's right for our students direct in-person instruction is the way to go thank you for your dedication to our youth and childhood city orchestra dear supervisors below is a comment i'd like to have entered into the public record as part of the call to the public and today's meeting an article in today's the mohawk valley daily news says that some of you want to ignore the arizona state benchmarks for reopening schools because bullhead city doesn't have enough testing capacity in a word that is nuts the lack of tests in bullhead city is a public health issue that transcends school issues and the solution isn't to find excuses to open schools without any protesting the solution is to ensure that adequate testing

025which results in 24 hours and immediate contact tracing is available to protect the health of all bowhead citizens including our children our teachers and other school employees let's not pretend that schools are some isil some isolated segment of our community and that the health and safety of our schools can be separated from the health of the safety of the rest of go ahead city respectively paul lacazia this is from daniel mullen i'm writing to implore you to require the use of masks for staff students and the public alike for the 2020 through 2021 school year your staff will film neither safe nor heard if you decide to make this decision with only a fraction of the parties involved in mind this isn't a decision that should be determined simply by the laws voiced voice it

026should be made with the safety of all in mind no employee or student should be asked to risk their own health for the convenience of others it seems highly illogical to me that you would ask one group to wear a mask while the other isn't any protection would be measured completely void as the mask wearing involved as the mask wearing individuals are still at increased risk i would also put forward that while some of the community might be anti-mask that certainly doesn't constitute the entire community not only will your staff feel unsafe but so will many parents and students causing them to avoid attendance altogether offering online school for those worried is a good idea but i fear it will encourage only the anti-math students to show up in person furthering the risk of spread

027for teachers staff and other students i've lived in this community my entire life and my family works in education and needles over the city of portland i value the community of the tri-state above all else it is what makes the area special to all of us please show our community that you value their health and well-being above all else daniel mullen former factory fox creek la teacher staff husband community member this is from bernadette thank you for allowing me to voice my concern regarding the reopening of mohamed elementary school district schools i'm a teacher at fox creek junior high and i moved to arizona to give assistance to my mother and her husband both have underlying health issues that are severe enough that they have chosen to stay at home leaving only for essential trips

028since march since i spent a great deal of time with them i too have limited my activity to essential trips i wear masculine social distancing is not possible i wash my hands frequently and use hand sanitizer i feel as though i'm abundantly careful to not bring the copic 19 virus to my family my ability to maintain this level of caution will be extremely diminished if the board of education requires in-person learning before it is safe to have students on campus many have stated there is not enough data to determine how this virus is transmitted when children are involved those case studies that indicate a decreased transmission rate among children were speaking specifically to children under the age of 10. it was announced this morning that the number of open 19 cases related to children has

029increased 90 in two weeks i cannot imagine the amount of guilt i would feel if i was responsible for infecting my mother or her husband i cannot fathom how the boe can expect me to put myself in that position i need to know what my options are for when the board insists we return to in-person learning before it is safe and what liability they are willing to accept if the virus is transmitted to me by a student or staff member in turn killing my mother or her husband sincerely for my debt bullying this is from arlene hill the present elementary school-aged children at home classroom schedule is just too harsh this has to change it's very stressful for my son at age six and for me it's too confining with too many breaks we've had

030no freedom for movement for four days monday through thursday 8 30 a.m to 3 50 p.m is not going to work for us very longer and for sure not until october giving the parent only one business a day giving the parent only one business day a week friday to do personal business again too harsh of a schedule you've turned my home into a full-time classroom and this is horrible class work during a day homework during the evening i'm considering homeschooling if kids do not open on a partial basis a six-year-old needs in-class schooling please put safety measures in place and get kids back into school four days of confinement is like punishment keeping us inside our home with your virtual online hello i forgot to add in my previous email that my six-year-old first grader

031is not progressing with virtual online schooling stated his virtual online schooling is better than no schooling he is not progressing with his education with virtual online schooling he's becoming stressed and crazy with a harsh schedule before not healthy for him and his mental health during the work packets at home he progressed greatly due to the one-on-one hands-on learning i gave him we had our own scheduled routine and education was an activity and quality time share together he can't get this online our lean health all right that brings it into our call to the publix we just did just for the other board members information we just got a message to online streaming our hard time hearing so we can try to speak into my phone a little bit louder moving on to item 1.6 adoption

032of agenda lead in motion i will accept the agenda or about the agenda with the exception of number two for discussion you want to remove number two or discussion okay so you want that to be a discussion item yes okay mr president there are all discussion items there are no there's no consent agenda all right so two is set for a discussion item currently are we okay with that so we're discussing all of the items yes here i'll do business okay but leading to a discussion item discussion of possible action on two yes okay so we will have number two be a discussion and so your motion is to approve the agenda because two is listed as an action and discussion yes okay i'll second that i all right moving on to uh item two

033two point one covered 19 resolution dr stewart mr president board members we've received lots of advice from the trumps as you know the trust is a co-op we're members of it they represent us and they try to keep our best interests of all the school districts who are members of the trust in mind so this resolution was one that was recommended by the trust to make sure that we've got covered all of the things that should be covered um particularly our board action relative to paying all of our employees throughout any time that we have closure as i indicated in some other information to you my primary concern relation to that is our bus starters we have all of our teachers and all of our paraprofessionals and our office staff working for the past nine

034days and for tomorrow our bus drivers are doing training that they don't ordinarily have time during the year to do and we do have impact plans for them regardless of what decision is made tonight so if we continue with virtual school there will be some work for them to do but it does not mean that they will all be working every day and the directions from executive order 2020-51 whether we figure out ways or that they recommend the governor recommends that boards figure out ways to help us maintain our employees you all know how difficult it is to get bus drivers and we can't afford to lose any of them to other jobs if we can't figure out a way to keep them deployed there are other issues in this i think that's probably the

035critical one but i would recommend that you pass the resolution and this is the uh this is the uh nine step uh resolution here yes it says resolution regarding code of 19 and it has nine uh supplements yeah yeah um on that one i thought we as a board for number seven um i thought we'd want to have an emergency meeting for the board members to close the school plan to close the school was that discussed previously where this said the superintendent will do it the by law only the governing board can closed schools or the governor excuse me and in certain circumstances the health department can close schools the idea of this particular item is um that if we have other policies that kind of violate the protocols that we've put in place in

036the plan that you all approved in june and any variations that you approve in the future um that if in any case those protocols might not be covered in current policy but they're for the benefit of the staff and students and visitors that that i could employ those protocols it doesn't i didn't read it as giving me permission to close the schools just to suspend some of the practices in light of okay thank safer i did read number seven the same way brandi did then i need to read it i think for the confusion i think by the confusion because i was wondering reading this long as you're going where it says the board authorized the superintendent to temporarily suspend compliance with or implementation of the same as needed to comply with applicable laws and

037regulations orders and guidelines and or promote health safety and welfare school community and to effectively and effectively operate district programs and serve security dakota 19 pandemic that's kind of broad so it could definitely be interpreted to be closing the school [Music] then i will move then we approve for resolution of 12 at 19. can we have a second a second all in favor aye corey burgess randy i some notes item 2.2 regulation gbg car personal security and safety dr stewart thank you mr president and board members these three regulations uh came also from the not from the trust but from asda and we're advised that we make these changes um this is a change for this policy for the next two is their new policies to correspond with executive order 2020-51 so that the changes

038that we're making is the addition of the clock based coverage exactly and under the executive order schools are required to have face coverage yes and for public just for your information children under the age of two uh those should not be worn by children under the age of two and you want to just have a chartered breathing or anyone who's unconscious and incapacitated or otherwise without assistance so if you're over the age or two it does say that but it also in the other description says that there are some other exceptions and we have made accommodation for those in our district when we have employees who have health conditions existing health conditions that make wearing a mask not safe or inappropriate we are making accommodation with shields for them and so every case then is

039considered by human resources department and the reason we do that is because we are truly trying to respect people's privacy and um particularly for any medical conditions but we are making those accommodations and those are on our case-by-case he said case-by-case situations any questions yes is there a time limit as to how long that this will be in effect there doesn't seem to be and as i was reviewing those this morning again because i've read them several times but the same thing thought i heard the same thought friendly about a timeline on these um and i don't these are regulations so you all can make some changes to these as we go if you want um it struck me that it might be appropriate to have a statement saying that this section would be in

040effect only as long as is required by health and safety conditions otherwise it would be a permanent thing and i'm not sure that that's advisable right in our original plan that you all approved in june at the time just for employees but now it would affect others as well but we had that wearing a mask would extend for four weeks following the first day that we opened in person school that was not particularly arbitrary the leadership team spent some time talking about that and talking about the 14-day lag time from the time might be exposed to the time that you know that there would be symptoms so at whatever point and of course in june we had no idea about other benchmarks than the ones we were working with from the cbc but we had

041also said in there unless there were other circumstances that would change it but i think you would be safe if you wanted to add a clause or add a sentence to this that said um and i think it would be appropriate to add a sentence that says this section would only be in effect until health and safety conditions allowed it to change and that that doesn't set a date it doesn't have a deadline but you can you know you could put some uh you could use a benchmark as a point where you would make that no longer or it could be possible we could set it for this calendar year um and if we see a time before that we can this is all front of mind awareness we can add it to an agenda

042later to have it removed exactly i think that'd be easiest just make it and that's my recommendation just make it for the calendar year the school year my county here sorry the school year uh 2020 2021 school year um and we can remove it anytime this is our policy and it's a regulation so it only takes one reading it's not like you have to read it at two different wardens so if circumstances change you know when you have a board meeting fairly quickly or fairly soon after that or you have a special meeting you can then change it thoughts ideas i i would like to see the sentence added in there just so they know this isn't permanent you guys okay with the school year 2020 2021 and then of course if we see in

043a month two months three months whatever that may be we can always revisit that and remove it or do you want it health and guidelines i'm just trying to make it as simple as possible because it's ultimately our decisions you could make it for the semester too and that would be the calendar year and you know i think we all would be hopeful that we would have some other things to consider by december 31st i would be happy with calendar year while following with the cdc guidelines in there okay yeah so is that calendar year semester all right so we need a motion i will move that we approve regulation gbgr personal security and safety with the addition of the calendar year comment added for the space mask following cdc guidelines ten seconds all in

044favor aye corey burgess brandywine [Music] all right item 2.3 regulation j i c r d student dress clock face coverage dr stewart uh mr president this reads virtually the same as the other it's just that it's a new regulation and you could add the same sentence to the end of that if you want i'm fine with the audition on that yes dave and i will move to the approved regulation jica rb student dress code cloth page please covering with the addition of a similar edition as we had in the gbgbr regulation you have a second second all in favor aye corey burgess brandon i jamie borland i item 2.4 regulation k-i-r-d visitors to school clock takes parents and once again i think we're in the same position adding the same so i would like to

045uh make a motion that we approve regulation kirby visitor to school with the similar edition as the previous regulations the mou boys and girls club dr short mr president and board members uh one of the stipulations in i'm sorry right now i don't remember exactly which one these are 44 or 51 of the executive orders indicated that schools should provide a free safe space for students if we're in virtual school for students whose parents are working or who otherwise have an unsafe situation prior to that executive order we were also already aware that we have employees who have children in our schools and we knew that it would be a good idea for us to find a safe space for those kids before we made that term a safe space for those students to attend

046school so their parents could continue to teach and do what we needed done so i've already started a conversation with boys and girls club with autumn uh well uh richardson and um yeah and um so we had started talking about that for employees and then the executive order came out the good news about this situation is that we can recoup the funding for paying for the free for kids service through either the stabilization enrollment stabilization act and there is now another grant that is intended specifically for this and arizona boys and girls club is one of the recognized organizations for which that applies to make it formal we set up this memorandum of understanding of what each side was going to do and how we were going to operate to their credit boys and girls

047club got right on it i've been over to watch what's going on they've done a nice job with social distancing students training their people where people are not supposed to be teaching they're just making sure their kids are doing what they're supposed to be doing we have the meals and we do all of those things so this is just the formal document of agreement between baltimore city elementary school district and boys and girls club of the colorado river to continue to provide a safe space for our students questions well i don't disagree with the agreement for the boys and girls club but what happens when you have more than 100 students that need this we have um i'm kim was reaching out to the local daycares when we were back at that point where we

048were just trying to find safe spaces for our employees to learn and scooters has a similar program that um that we can that we use and we have some students there um it's set up a little differently so we haven't established an mmu with them but we have the same kind of agreement in terms of paying for the students to be there to be safe if it becomes more than 100 students at the meeting center or the 20 at the teen center then obviously we would be looking for some other arrangement we can do this with outside agencies during the closure up through tomorrow um because they don't have the same restrictions although we imposed our restrictions on them for social distancing and masking and those things that schools do but starting on monday if

049we need additional safe space then we might then we would provide it at our sites and you know there have there have to be it can't just be the things that came uh you know the governor does his executive orders and he works with the ide and then they lay out all the okay here's how you do this he says you're going to do it and he says this is how you do it and so there's some some restrictions on that and whatever but we're also starting on monday if we do not if we continue virtual schools starting on monday we will have also services targeted services for special ed students el students and we also need to make sure that we are addressing the needs of our homeless kids so we've addressed all of

050those concerns and those issues that are required and those will those students will be coming to our campuses in very small groups for very limited time if we need the safe space we will find a space we will make sure we have social distancing and we will take care of that once again it would not be direct instruction it would be folks supervising the kids being doing what they're supposed to do with those is the funds from those grants able to pay salaries for those individuals what we're doing is emailing our site we're not paying your salary directly we're bringing the kids here oh if we have to play well because the people that we would have supervising that would be some of our current employees so for instance that might be something that some

051bus drivers are doing to help supervise since they're not instructing they all have to pass fingerprints they all have to have the same kind of clearance as our aides do a classroom age and we could be in that kind of a situation is it ideal no but at least it provides safe spaces for our kids we use them to be with them too so that they know what to do yeah i mean this kind of random bottom of the first page it says the boys could be responsible for chromebooks checkout are we providing those chromebooks are they theirs no we have um our students who are there many of them most of them already have the chromebooks and actually we have provided a few extras for if students happen to forget theirs or their other

052issues so we have some extras over there that boys and girls club use to check out where and it's not in you this recall if it's in the agreement or not but i will tell you that one of the things we are doing we did assign them initially three of our hot spots when they finally arrived and uh that and they're having really spotty issues with their internet service which should probably not be a surprise to you if you're using internet at home so we they now have six however we are awarded the equipment to set up a direct link to our website to our network and that's supposed to be installed if the equipment comes tomorrow that will be installed on friday and that way the student our students and in fact any students

053who are at the boys and girls club as well as the employees of boys and girls club will have the same kind of access to our network as our teachers and students do safely our restrictions are safeguards and our filters but it should give them excellent service and then we would have those six hot spots to deploy to other families this is very minimal cost and a very big benefit in fact james and i were talking about it today we were both going window and we think of this before because this is the only room for our students even if we return to school this is a win-win for our kids when they go there after school or anytime for that matter so you know kind of falls into one of those community service things

054or a partnership that benefits everybody if you have any other questions all right i'd like to allude that we approve item 2.5 the mou with the boys and girls club all in favor aye corey burgess item 2.6 pull it to the covered endorsement this one this is going to take a little uh explaining partly for the audience but also perhaps to help you all understand as i mentioned earlier the trust the arizona school risk retention trust is the co-op to which we belong that essentially makes sure that we are covered for liability property insurance and the alliance which is their other way for in the spring um so it is our co-op and so for them to cover us with insurance they have to work with reinsurance reinsurers in the spring they were notified that

055the reinsurers were not going to cover any uh any incidents related to code 19. so of course that meant the trust had to drop that from our coverage that was not a happy situation the leadership of the trust went to their board of directors a week ago with a plan to use their own the trust's own little pool of money that they have um i can't think right now it's called but it's the pool of money that they have to back up all of the lawsuits and liability and to come up with a plan to help school districts head off any issues that might be caused by lawsuits relative to covered banking that's it kind of in a nutshell so this is the document that if we wanted to add this to our contract with

056the trust i think of it as a writer you know when we talk about our vehicle insurance and whatever we talk about a writer this is kind of a writer so it has pretty significant coverage for a district hour size would cost us twenty thousand dollars for the year and there would be deductibles and so if you're looking at 0.2.2 in the document the deductibles are based on whether or not our families would sign waivers or acknowledgements of claims so if our parents if we choose to add this writer to our policy we would ask our families to review the document for either a waiver or an acknowledgement the difference being that with a waiver parents are essentially saying we are assuming the risk for our children to come back to school and essentially saying

057we would not sue the district if our child has coped 19 we all know that parents cannot entirely sign away the rights of their children so just because folks signed waivers does not mean that they might not sue us but it's a little better protection on the other hand they might sign an acknowledgement that says i recognize that sending my child to school has increased risks at this time so the deductibles are based on whether or not families sign an acknowledgement or sign a waiver or don't sign any of them so you can see with the deductibles if a family does not sign either of those documents that there would then be a deductible that the district would have to pay for each claim if they've signed the one of those thought if they've signed

058the waiver there is no deductible so someone could choose to sue if the trust takes it over handles the whole situation if someone is signed acknowledgement and chooses to sue then we have a 20 000 deductible per incident if they've signed the waiver as i said there's no deductible at all so this is the document that once you discuss whether you want to be part of or want to have this rider on our contract that you would sign indicating that we would become part of that program part of the reason the trust developed this is that there was concern in many districts that districts you know could in fact be sued it is possible that either the federal or the or the state governments will pass bills that make schools not liable if that happens

059then whatever we might have paid in the 20 000 we would probably get back because we're part of the trust and they're not trying to make money on this they're trying to help us by doing something that the reinsurers will not do and i'll try to answer any questions you might have the 100 insurance person but they provided us with a question and answer also on that and on the we're returning our funds they didn't say that it would be the enemy's portion right so if it passes immediately we get it all back it's pre-rated if we don't or when it comes through so it wouldn't be a full refund it would be adjusted um the question and answer had a lot of yes information in there on different things um and i also sat

060in uh on a webinar with them where lots of other folks asked questions and you know answered and got this answered as well but i thought that question and answer document did a pretty good job of explaining all of this um and and um i will tell you that i was a little concerned at first about what our contribution might be toward this rider given the size of our district 20 000 is really not a very big amount of money um you know for 2 students or so and especially when we could have to work out twenty thousand dollars for the first incident you know or if we didn't have this we have we have the entire cost legal costs i i personally am in favor of taking the insurance policy and i would like

061us to do the uh waiver and assumption of risk form um you know they did address situations like those that refuse to sign as long as it's in general practice we're not going to not enroll a student because they didn't find the form but i think we need to to do the waiver and assumption risk form along with this policy any other questions before we make a motion then i would like to move that we approve item 2.6 forward city covered endorsement uh with the 2.21 uh being the claims and assumption risk forms that we use i [Music] item 2.7 return to school dr stewart um i included in the packet a mmo with a number of reasons that um i really was making and making the recommendation that we continued virtual school through october

0621st through the end of first quarter at this point really all i'd like to do is show some information from that document primarily for the folks in the audience but also for you the first one being the county metrics these are being updated every thursday late every thursday so these are the metrics from last thursday however they are also the metrics from two weeks prior so we finally got kind of an understanding of what 14-day change is with a day lag the seven day difference is because it takes some time to get all of the information in from the various reporting agencies so this is these are the data for mohammed county number one and number two are strictly from mohave county number three metrics are for mojave la palmas and yuma counties because of

063the way that is reported to the federal federal health agencies we have i'm sorry this is the all county one um maybe can we could look at the one that's attached along them i forgot to click on the county when i did that this afternoon thank you i'm sorry okay so in this one and i'm sorry it's not very big for y'all it's on the right you can see that for metric number one the number of cases in the county have dropped for two consecutive weeks which meets the first metric for metric number two we were talking about the percent of positive results from tests the metric is that for schools to open that needs to be below seven percent for two weeks you can see that as of last thursday or mohave county it

064was at 14.7 so it had begun to drop but it's not close to the seven percent and for the third metric which is um coded like illnesses in hospitals we passed the mohawk county along with laplace and yuma met that metric of two weeks of decline if you would go to the um this one from the document that we got from arizona department of health services these are the metrics this is the continuum and so you can see that on the left side it says scenario three virtual with online supports if one or more of the benchmarks is in the red and that's where we are right now a hybrid schooling situation could happen if you have two uh if all three are in yellow and green and if all are in green the recommendation

065is that's when you put kids back in school um people just scroll up just a little bit okay so the benchmarks are in this table that you can see right here with number of cases percent positivity encoded like illnesses and then the other uh view that i have here is was this the last page from the the powerpoint that explained all of this talks about um thanks for watching it presents the same thing the cases the percent positivity and the copied like illnesses one of the things that you'll notice for percent positivity uh is that moderate says five to ten 10 the recommendation from the health department state health department and the county is that if when we go back to in person school then we would only need to move back to a different

066step if we were somewhere in the 5 to 10 range but for initial opening the recommendation is to be below 7 for 2 weeks so the little graphic at the bottom kind of becomes the decision tree so are new cases in minimal or moderate transmission category for two weeks is there a two-week decline in the number of new cases in mohawk county that's a yes is the percent of positive coded 19 cases less than seven percent for two weeks that's a no and so the recommendation is maintain virtual virtual learning and then the other set of data that i would like to show you are data that are directly related to bull head city not the entire county i have been keeping track of the number of cases involved since june 1st and in the

067same manner that the state was doing weekly averages for benchmark one i've been doing them for i did this for on the data for just for golden city for that same uh those same data the blue line represents the actual averages for those weeks up through last friday excel takes those data and will do some projections you can see the projections are kind of wild on this one so the orange line in the middle is the projection based on um the mathematical handling of the data up through august 8. the lower line is a lower confidence so mathematically it says that's where the line could be that's where it could go and the upper line is the other end but it could also go that high this is a fairly common way of dealing with

068these kinds of data but i wanted you to at least know what it looked like for baltic city so we did have two weeks three weeks actually of declining cases average cases for those weeks so when do you have much more specific data than just as indicated on page one of my memo i wanted you to know what we are doing right now we do have synchronous online construction from certified teachers available to all students in our district on calendared school days we are providing breakfasts and lunches but the distribution method right now is not a good one because it's the only one allowed right now by the usda 1300 school districts have signed a letter to the usda requesting that they move back to some flexible kinds of meal distribution as we were doing

069in closure in the spring and over the summer that would allow us to take meals out to outdoor neighborhoods as opposed to having parents come and pick them up so that's not a good situation it's in the middle of the day there are all kinds of things about it that are not good that's all we can do right now is all we're allowed to do and i'm not willing to risk our program by breaking your rules but i also wanted you to know that we do the safe space we'll talk to you about that a little bit we do breakfast and lunches we do provide transportation for students to save spaces if they want it we are following our own mitigation plans from our oldest city return to school plan and i also mentioned to

070you earlier that we are starting on monday the targeted students receiving strategic on-site support services in addition to online so it instruction interesting to me and one of the letters in call to the public was asking for this and in fact it would start on monday and then uh in accordance with uh executive order 2020 we will have targeted preschool students also receiving in-person instruction at coyote canyon in small groups so those are the plans that we have in place if we continue virtual school if we were to do hybrid or near normal school then these things would be taken care of anyway much other data much of which you've heard in the letters in the public public and a lot of discussions unanimous recommendation from our leadership team that we pay attention to the

071health benchmarks and that we continue virtual school so that we don't have to do in and out in and out that the data indicates might happen following labor day resulted in my recommendation that we continue virtual through first quarter did anyone want to make any comments um i have a question about the targeted students how will you identify such students and or who would recommend them things like that um targeted targeted students based on the directions and the information that we got from the ade are primarily our students who are supposed to have extra support in learning so most of those students are special ed students who are supposed to have extra support el learners and english learners and and our homeless students our mckinney-vento students are supposed to be able to attend a safe

072space all day so those students uh we are helping uh and certainly giving them the opportunity to be a voice in which or if we needed to extend or have an additional safe space we would do that but it's primarily our special needs students who need to have additional time with with some in-person support in some cases it wouldn't be the teacher teaching literally but it would be the support services for those kids we have those plans in place they're ready to go we just have not contacted parents about it yet because we knew that all of that could change tonight but it's all ready to go the teachers are ready to do it the sites are ready to do it we have all the things in place did that answer your question randy or

073did i answer it no word free reduced also part of that happiness children they are um good question gordon but because all of our students qualify for free and reduced um uh in that sense yes however the directions are very very clear and that it's targeted students who receive strategic support so and very clearly says not everybody should qualify um that it's not a backdoor they don't say it this way but i know what you get that do we have any more comments i'm kind of looking at the fact that if we're willing to put 100 kids into the boys and girls club smaller groups in the classroom seem safer to me at 20 to 25 students than in one place or respond okay so they're not really a hundred in one space they are

074in separate spaces at boys and girls club and socially distance in those places yes it's 100 students in that one site but they're separated bringing our students back to campuses means that we're bringing 300 400 500 students back to our sites with 50 60 70 adults and at least the students who are at boys and girls club or little scooters um in the case of the few students we have there they are in the same cohort all day every day if we bring 400 students back to a site even with the cohorting that we would do either one classroom or four classrooms at the junior high we cannot keep those cohorts separate they're going to need to move around campus they're going to need to come to campus and leave campus so we're we are

075extending the exposure of those kids and i'll use an equivalent number um the junior high is planning on four teacher four classroom cohorts so that's roughly 100 students but they would end up with a number of cohorts so it's fine as long as you can keep those hundred kids just around each other but you can't when you have 400 500 600 on campus they are obviously going to interact even just in moving you know just in moving even with all the scheduling of who goes where it went there still will be contact and then you add to that transportation kids on buses and now you've extended that cohort i guess another concern too is when you have you know out of look at our enrollment you know you can make arrangements for say less than

076a third of that what happens when all these other parents are upset that their child isn't eligible to come in and get the extra help or be in a small group or go to the boys and girls club because there's no seats available i tend to agree we're willing to place 100 students at boys and girls club how do we determine who those 100 students are who determines what that need is we did the stipulation that the parents needed to be working and have no other alternative for their children or they were our bikini mental students or because we have started that arrangement with our employees in mind who had no place else for their children to go while they were teaching those were the conditions at that point so the parents had to give

077us some evidence that they were working and had no place else for their children to go there probably are more and if there are then we would figure out how to deal with that i quite a bit that i want to share um so that's why i wanted to give everybody else an opportunity so don't feel like i'm dominating the conversation um i want to first start off with an understanding that what we got from the from the governor is a recommendation it is not a requirement um a lot of the emails that we received uh they started reading down late afternoon trying to get through them all a lot of the emails that we received stated all over the place we saw a lot of different things but many of them referred to following

078the requirements um it is not a requirement some of them do make sense um you know we want to definitely keep an eye on where that infection rate is but we live in a community where you only get tested if you're sick that rate is going to be high i had an opportunity to speak with the health department and she also told me understand this is a recommendation this is not a requirement but she said that the idea of when we're only testing those are sick that we're going to be months before work before that's even possible before we'll see those numbers months to have coveted like symptoms if you look at the list of cdc covid like symptoms it's basically everything so i'm actually surprised to see that number that we were under that

079i didn't expect that at all i expected that to be much much higher so before we i don't want us to make our decision based on thinking that that is a requirement it is not that is a recommendation uh we do hear a lot of information about going by the guidelines of the information we're given um i was doing quite a bit of research on this and i found on the cdc's website cbc came out at the end of july with a statement of the importance of reopening schools and this is a fantastic article because it breaks everything down coveted 19 and the effect on children educational instruction social emotional skill development they talk about safety in the safety of the children nutrition in the schools physical activity and then sum it all up i

080just wanted to go over a few of these highlights so the rest of the board is aware [Music] they begin by stating the best let me go to the top so i don't misquote this for you i want to make sure i read it correctly the best available evidence indicates if children become infected they are far less likely to suffer severe symptoms we are talking about the well-being of our kids and then that is extremely important i don't ever want to minimize that fact it is extremely important um they also they go on to state that under the age of 18 we often hear this number of children 10 they say under the age of accounts for under 7 of those affected and less than 0.1 of the deaths in the country this year's death

081rate uh is equal to is less than i'm sorry less than the last five years of flu related deaths in our country so it's less than last five years uh the number these low numbers indicate that children are not primary primary let me find it i don't want to say this wrong okay i'm just going to read the paragraph it says scientific studies suggests that coping 19 transmission among children in schools may be low international studies have assessed how readily covenant 19 spreads in schools also reveal low rates of transmission when community transmission is low based on our current data the rate of infection among younger school children from students to teachers has been low especially if proper precautions are followed there have also been a few reports of children being the primary source of

082the transmission among families family members this is consistent with data from both virus and antibody testing suggesting the children are not the primary drivers of copen 19 spreads in our schools and our communities then they talk about education and instruction this is a big one for me uh in-person instruction is particularly important for students with behavioral needs no one can argue that an online education is as good as an in-person education it can't be argued you are you are providing a much better education being in the classroom with your students and you will ever be able to give them online uh the interaction with students how things work you you can definitely provide a better education being with your student that can't be argued the summer slide they talk about the summer slide third grade

083shows 20 percent loss in reading skills over a three month period 27 loss in math seventh grade 39 loss in reading and a 50 loss in math this is over a three month period we are now out what seven one on eight what is that number going to look like brown university and harvard did a study after covert broke out they report on 000 students online went to online learning after coding the progress from march to april of these students decreased nearly in half more pronouns in low income communities that's what we are looking at remote learning makes absorbing information more difficult for those that already start with learning situations social and emotional this is as we've heard from one of our calls of the public increased mental health issues cancer and substance abuse is

084on the rise ptsd among children is four times higher since being in quarantine 21 of kids 9 to 17 have mental health conditions only 16 of those receive any sort of treatment 70 to 80 percent receive that treatment at a school setting safety this one is alarming 62 decrease in child abuse calls why is that because the schools are not reporting the abusers aren't going to call them themselves nutrition what are our numbers currently for our free and reduced how many meals did we serve since school is open i'm sorry i don't have those numbers not anywhere near what we were serving when we were sending the buses around but as i said we're not allowed to do that right now we have appealed that but but even when sending the buses around our numbers

085were extremely low they weren't extremely low they were um in comparison to students in school in comparison they're a big drop off because they're not here um i can remember when we first started the three reduced program um and then got it adopted because our concern was we had so many kids that weren't getting fed and we had a petition to get the free breakfast and free lunch they estimate that 11 million children uh have unsecured access to food the only good meals are getting here at school but they're not here and our numbers if we have them are scary if you remember from our summer meetings we're getting what around 200 participants 300 participants we have 2500 kids so that's a huge difference and those numbers are much lower now that they have to

086come pick it up physical activity over 75 percent of children do not meet the 60 minutes per day of activity uh increased in sedentary activity this is really affects us increase the sedentary activity of only two hours increases of obesity by an estimated 2.4 percent by december of this year if schools stay closed our kids are spending seven hours in front of computers so this is only two they go on to conclude that in the array of problems we're going to face by having these kids stay home majorly outweighs the risk of bringing kids back to school we cannot prevent the spread of this disease we can only try to mitigate it i've done a lot of looking at what's going on uh maybe we need to to go to a hybrid model split this

087put the split school day of what's going on when they're taught uh we need to come up with a plan but whatever plan we decide to come up with i i want to make clear i don't want this to happen in a week okay i'm not saying that we definitely need to plan for what we're doing but we need to get back in school another thing that i didn't have on here that is a big part of this the high school postponed their decision they're having a meeting on the 17th and it looks like they're probably going to be going back to school in the 24th um what is going to happen to our kids that are getting help from home from an older sibling if that sibling's in school and our kids are not

088um [Music] we definitely need to be on the same page i think the 24th could definitely be a target goal to put something in place but i want to get our kids back in school i understand the dangers that we face i totally get it i'm a teacher i'm in the i'm in those trenches as well i get it but the emotional well-being of our kids and everything else taking into consideration when truly our numbers in this community are low they are low it doesn't add up to me it doesn't make sense to keep the kids home they need to be in school we need to provide the very best education we can to our kids in the safest environment possible that's the key word that keeps getting forgotten possible we can make this possible

089is it going to be easy no but it is absolutely possible we need to get our kids back in back in school and overwhelmingly that the response from parents is they want their kids in school it is an enormous and enormous amount um i i've seen i know i know that mrs borland sent out a question here on that one it was it was pretty pretty significant parents want their kids back in school do they all no that's what's nice about a hybrid model is we can have those that don't they don't have to but the parents should have choice right now they don't other comments i have a question i know we have discussed it back at our last meeting is it and you know parents can have the choice to have their students

090come in person or remain virtual if we go back is that absolutely a valid option and teachers have the choice of if they would prefer the virtual method or would it be something that would have to be re-looked at it would take some time for us to set up we set up for a virtual opening just like if we were opening normal school assigning students to classrooms to teachers just like we would normally do we did send out a question a surveyed appearance last week and as ava pointed out perhaps to share some of the other information that we could have or should have although i made an assumption that folks were actually looking at the plan that we you know have online to kind of understand what that would look like but we've gotten

091only about a fourth response from parents and the first question was at this time or whenever we reopen what would your plans be for your children returning to honors on-site school so keeping in mind that the response is only from about one-fourth of our parents uh roughly one-third of them would want to continue virtual school for the time being you could reject that over the whole group i don't know how valid that is but you could do that we've not had the benefit of seeing the results of or the information from genie's survey that you're talking about so we have no idea i didn't make a survey it was just a question i asked okay it wasn't a survey it was just i just wanted opinions what would you prefer it wasn't a survey it

092wasn't sent out to anyone officially it was just me as a parent wanted to see how other parents felt and me being in the education field wanted to see how where teachers were feeling and me as working in healthcare you know i can see the realities of it but i mean i i can see every side our kids our kids do need to be back in school our teachers do need to feel safe and we're never all going to be on the same page no matter what we can do so if we have the option to if you feel more comfortable going virtual have that option for something if you want your child back in school and teachers want their kids back in their classrooms have that option for someone you know and that would

093be an option even even if we were to open and open them i just kind of thought from what corey said when he says overwhelmingly parents once there were over 90 responses of that yeah good well over 90 responses mentioned people messaging me i was just going to challenge corey's source of data saying that overwhelming repairs want them back in school so and maybe you have that i don't know i would say to you that i would add to the to this that an article recently um from um william hasseltine who is a scientist and uh head of one of uh one of the uh he's a professor or he was a professor he's retired now but harvard medical school and he's been keeping on top of some of the studies you cited some from

094europe and we've all seen those um cdc was even sharing some of those i have some trouble with accepting data from outside the country and his study or not his study but his report and it came at the journal of america the journal of american medical association their journal a study that was done in the chicago area and they're finding uh that the concentration of sars code v2 in the nasopharynx or upper region of the throat that connects the nasal passages of children and adults was that study according to the results children ages 5 and younger who develop mild to moderate program 19 symptoms have 10 to 100 times as much sars co-b2 virus in their nasal parents as older children and adults he calls them the um that he says that they spread children

095spread coping more efficiently than adults do and that's part of the concern we have here many times children don't exhibit symptoms of codeine 19 or they exhibit typical symptoms of sneezing coughing part of my language snotty noses and those kinds of things which mother might not be coping but those are the concerns that folks have my the other thing that i want to share with you is keeping in mind either in hybrid or returning to near normal school many of the things that you're talking about the concerns about activity physical activity and those things would not be normal for a while uh kids will not especially in hybrid situation would not be able to socialize in the way that they're used to doing they're not going to be able to go out and hug each

096other and high five and punch each other and do those kinds of things so can we do it of course we can do it do we want kids back in school there's not a single person i know who works in our district who does not want kids back in school as soon as it is safe as soon as it is safe the agreement to be just uh approved with the trust says very very clearly that um that we must follow guidelines so i like that you added decoded uh not quoted that the cdc guidelines on those policies but the idea is we must follow some kind of guidelines and we built those into our plan so i just wanted to add those little different information we want our kids back in school corey i'm very

097glad to hear you say that you would not expect it to happen between me on monday because i can tell you even with the hybrid plan or with either plan it would be very rocky because we're looking at changing classroom things we're looking at a number of things it can all be done but i think we'd all be working 24 hours a day to get it done between mom and monday so i'm appreciative of the idea that if you're looking at something other than continuing virtual that you would give us a window opportunity to make it make it run i have the utmost confidence in our district that when we do go back we will be as safe as possible i appreciate all the work and efforts um as a whole that have been done

098to make sure that that happens and i was wondering is there a plan in place for when we do go back how to designate which teachers will be online teachers and which teachers will be in person teachers first of all we would need to consider any existing health conditions from our teachers so if you notice if you had any chance at all to read the emails that are excuse me emails that i sent to you this afternoon and i know you didn't have much time to read them but in some of those you will see that we have some employees who have chronic or serious health conditions so those would be the first folks who would have opportunities to to do virtual instruction beyond that it's rearranging which kids are in which classes changing some

099of the dynamics that have already been established uh in some cases it would people it would need to be somebody volunteering if there's not a person on a particular site let's say we're at one side there aren't people with health conditions then we would ask people their preferences but it would require changing around the roofs we have and but they can't be done we can but then we also would need some very very definite information for parents we would need to know who chooses to keep their kids online in virtual school and who chooses to send their students back so that we can make those adjustments and make that work i personally am not in favor of phase two where you know a couple days and then it's just i don't see that working as

100well as your choice of online or in person and that's the way i'm feeling um so i always just if our numbers go down this way i'm feeling if our numbers hit the seven percent then that's the way i want to go and as soon as that is possible and i take the recommendation of october 1st and be ready to roll with going back if those three metrics are met that's what i'm dealing right now i don't see us ever meeting that seven percent in our area and i from experience i had a i mean you heard me on the meetings a cloth that did not go away for five weeks and my doctor would not test me i did not have enough symptoms they are doing the tests now on tuesdays and thursdays though

101and they're not just for people who are sick so i meant to say that earlier with what court said are they offering that a free test or do you know what that's costing so people that want to get tested i think it's free it's free yeah they're free on tuesdays and thursdays and the turnaround is pretty speedy because we've had a couple of employees in the past week who needed to be tested and didn't go to the tooth years thursday thing but you know got the test that they needed so some of those circumstances from a month ago that make this all really strange um have been rectified and we do know for a meeting with from the meeting last friday with the health department folks that that backlog of 65 thousand cases has all

102been caught up they have the equipment and so that's one of the reasons the turnaround has become much quicker it's because they have all the equipment that they need i've been following the governor when he's he's on and he's in favor of reopening he's in favor of we're moving in the right direction um there's a reason they didn't extend the mandate throughout the whole state i don't know i guess i would like to see us making a decision to start something tuesday after labor day would be my book and have plenty of time to get something in place the school's a bigger priority than movie theaters restaurants gyms bars beaches and i don't want to downplay by any amount any range that we want to put anyone in an unsafe situation but you know we

103have we have a disease a virus that is definitely a problem but with proper precautions with proper ppe uh we can we can get through what we're doing um as you know as cbc states you know you want to be your distance social distancing is important um and they also say you know 15 minutes in that group so you know passing somebody in walmart isn't the issue it's your 15 minutes in that in that in that range but the ppe we are addressing we're putting masks in place we did talk about you know getting plenty of sanitizer cleaner we actually hired more people to to keep our schools clean uh we definitely when we tried but that option is there it's not like we're trying to avoid doing something or put something in place that

104is going to put people in harm that's not what we're doing we have to to see where we're at and what's going on and what is best for our kids and what is best for our community and there's more to this than the fear of govind as i gave you the numbers and this everybody keeps saying go by cdc that that article is from cdc's website that i gave you that information they're even saying get kids back in school in my job every friday i take a call i do cover training with with physicians and they're doing the studies on it and it's showing that it is it is okay i mean we need to follow precautions and it it's called it 19 for a reason it's the 19th strain of programs it's not like

105it's something new we need to stay safe i have and as a parent i would not make a decision to harm my daughters they were born at 28 weeks i've been through rsv i've been through pneumonia i've been through keeping them out of public you know we keep them safe we build up their immunities we've washed their hands we choose not to do certain things during certain seasons i mean i have a child with asthma so i i wouldn't risk my own kids by making a decision it's not not that i'm not thinking about the broader picture but maybe in the healthcare field i definitely can see things a little bit differently and it'll never be 100 safe ever for anybody we have viruses so you like the idea of labor day i mean it

106gives us a couple weeks we can't i mean we can't expect any decisions to be made tonight and start tomorrow i agree with that yeah and we do have school i mean if we need to move some people around and get the online services if we save one-third of you know the 100 or however many you tested that could be you know a number of first-grade through sixth grade teachers that could be doing that at highly canada if need be because they're concerned about those health situations and they can be isolated from so we do have options um but i you know i definitely want to i agree with you and if that's the date the tuesday after labor day is what we're gonna aim for um that's i feel like if it's enough time

107or if we see something drastic happening in our community we can reconvene and make a fast decision not opposed to a labor day meeting i'm not going anywhere there is the um to think about about how every weekend holiday we have here this there is a spike so it might be better to wait at least two weeks after later because of all the visitors we have in community gets together and the fighter spreads more that way and that is exactly why i said the end of the quarter because the two weeks uh the 20th the 24th of september is two weeks after labor day and then we would just have four more days in the quarter so that was the basis that i did that was because i really was concerned about what might happen

108with liberty in this fight so just so you know that was that was the connection it was like so if we say two weeks after labor day we're not just before more days and finish the whole quarter but then october 1st is a thursday and you wouldn't want to go back on thursday no no no we wouldn't want to go back on that day but that's the end of the quarter so the fifth would actually be the first day back so it would be three weeks after the after elizabeth but i mean that was the basis on which i was thinking about watching you're looking at those other things doug what's your opinion on this i don't want to leave you out of the discussion [Music] well i i feel we need to wait a

109while folks to see what comes out of all this and when we're in better shape of being is proposed guidelines uh that's my feeling i i'm not a real fan of you know the type of education we're doing never have been but at the same time the lives and health of some of these students to me that's that's number one that's four or five and mr president you gave a lot of information and a lot of it's good a lot of it i've heard 15 times before uh they keep running it you know what do you what do you really believe but uh i i don't know but i told you where i'm coming from i think we have just back off for a couple more weeks see what happens all right i definitely don't

110want to put a plan in place that we can't carry out that's why i did preference that but we have a long time we definitely want to give time to put this in place and that's that's a lot of wheels to figure out and the higher grade levels it gets a little more complicated when you have kids moving around um you know i i i i'm not against the dates i just want to make sure that we are pushing to get and get a date then we'll get back we're getting there the sooner the better for me but i definitely don't want to say that's why i preference that i don't want to say monday we're going back to school because that's to me that's just not feasible is the 24th feasible to get this

111together uh it could be done it would be difficult it would be definitely have some errors but it could be done would um jeannie set the tuesday after labor day it could be done um are we in agreement that we definitely need to get back on campus no there's no misunderstanding there i do see burundi's concern if people are gathering and then waiting waiting out the time span after labor day i definitely see that i know after fourth of july you know people gathered and i would hate to open just to close down two weeks yeah yeah all right um but we are on an agreement there we just need to figure out when um also what what are we going to do we want to put in a hybrid model do we want to

112put everybody back in the classroom do we want to split them what what are we gonna what are we gonna do what what's the i'm against the hybrid model personally i just think it's way too many moving pieces and who knows what day you'll go to school your kid's gonna miss the bus or head there on the wrong day or be in the wrong group or i don't know if we're back i don't i mean if we're back we're already exposing everybody just take the precautions and go back um i think we do need to have the option to go online and or remain online or go back in person i think that's everybody has that right to make that decision for themselves i don't think that's a decision we should be able to make

113for anybody whether it be a teacher or a student or a parent how do you guys feel about the idea of using kennedy canyon for online for those that are health compromised that could have a classroom that could it could always be an option um and if i could answer uh or not not answer necessarily that say to you um and to the public too um you know back in june when we when we worked so hard to set up the plan uh phase two seemed like a good idea at the time the one we started looking at more recently looking at the thousands of pieces that it takes to put that together the leadership team spent a lot of time talking about that and we decided that one of the reasons we wanted to

114make the recommendation for the end of first quarter is so that we don't do phase two then we go straight from virtual to everybody who wants to be back on campus and right now it seems reasonable that our numbers would be good enough by october 1st to do that um we all kind of looked at this like okay let's pick let's think about a date that's well beyond what might be a crazy time so that we've got that window or you know up and down kind of thing so that really because we we're not we're also at the point where we don't think phase two is a good case we don't think that's a good plan um we'd like to do when we bring kids back when we give them the opportunity to come back

115then it's all that everybody has the opportunity to come back and not just you know every other day okay but we will still have the issue of uh we'll still have parents that don't bring their kids and if we have a third we still have staff that our immune compromise might have health situations these are things that we do need to address absolutely and we would build that in but the other thing is we might have a lot more parents who are uncomfortable sending their kids back at the end of first quarter then they would be now or in two weeks or you know whatever and so i mean all of those factors are what played into that discussion about what is the best plan at this point and once again you know we thought

116we had a good plan with june whatever we planned tonight might not be a good plan in three weeks from now but we were trying to project out what what's our best chance of having as many kids back safely staff safe parents happy with that i am and that kind of thing so that those factors awfully what if we looked at september 14th i mean it's an extra three weeks of instruction from the october first date it's enough time after labor day that if anyone was showing symptoms they could remain home i don't know i think we need a full two weeks after the holiday for sure i would be good that's three weeks and then so you're saying bringing to start um to after the in-person starting on the 20th reception just unclear well

117if we have if it's labor day on the 7th and then it takes about two weeks for this fight to hit if we come back on the 14th that wouldn't be enough time and we could potentially have like sick kids coming into the classroom so i would recommend the 28th of camera [Music] the spike usually is half for two weeks so so that's what i'm asking so if you have that extra week because i really don't want to open just to close i'd rather if we're potentially going to have a spike like the last two holiday weekends then let's get that over with and then that made the class don't have any comments um we can't guarantee anything we can't guarantee anything wow so i mean like i've said the 28 i i would like

118to see sooner but the 20th is what we decide what it is i'd like to see sooner but i'd like to stay safe yes yeah so um i could agree on the 28th um um yeah so that that could definitely be a possibility but we do it there's a like i said there's a lot of stuff we got to figure out um so is that enough time to get that figure out um absolutely so absolutely enough time all right um so doug how do you feel about the 28th i feel good about it but i think we ought to say you know as long as everything's rolling along the way it should be and we're meeting the guidelines uh it's hard to just set a date and uh who knows what's gonna happen between now

119and then but with that in there i would be willing to say the 28th but if something comes up and some new guidelines come up to show that we're in trouble the board would have the power to change that so would you would you be okay because i know that genie had expressed this earlier also maybe meeting after the labor day weekend and seeing how we're doing on those numbers and see if we have to address that because we do see a high spike of course we we want to address oh yeah if things don't look the way they look right now i would not be in agreement with the 28th i think they need to be how they are now or better yeah yeah and if i could please because i'm liking their date

120of the 20 and i think that the leadership team would be okay with that as well i see his money the issue for us is as you know since march 16th the governor has kind of done these two-week hops and so we never could make good decisions because we were making a new hop and so uh what i wouldn't want and what the leadership team would not want is come back after labor day and you all go oh nope let's open sooner than the 28th oh no i don't think any of us are asking that okay good no we're just saying if we see it if we see a huge spike on labor day weekend and say whoa we need to read through everybody okay things are not exactly how they are now or better

121so we don't if we we see a increase of the numbers from where we're at now those percentages so is that are you making a motion somebody needs to make it there's a motion please i i can make it you can correct me if i'm wrong if you're okay so i would like to make a motion that we plan for opening date of september 28th uh contingent on our numbers maintaining or declining not increasing is that correct yes all right on board okay so all in favor cory merges i doug hi brandon judy borland thank you and on behalf of the leadership team and the task force because at this point the task force is 60 or 70 people thank you that gives us some very definite direction and it gives everybody some stability right

122now which is what we do and i do think we all want to see that that idea and plan in place for the parents that don't want to feel comfortable yes so absolutely make sure that we have that address any other direction on that we need to give or anything we may have missed good luck all right okay moving on item 3.1 future topics virtual school hours hearing lots of complaints so i think we might need to take a look at what the elementary kids are doing and their lunch time and attention spans and we have to we we will and we had held off a little bit on that you know waiting to see what happened this evening um uh we have to be very careful because of the i know the guidelines uh

123relative to ours and what we can count for present and absence and that kind of thing um you know you know my heart is always first with my kids in this position i also have to balance that a little bit with the checkbook and we want to make sure we don't lose any more of our budget than absolutely necessary so one of those guidelines has to do with the number of hours that students are in school and it's funded very differently than it is for high schools um so but we'll take a very good look at especially for our tenders we just didn't want to make any changes until whatever change we were going to make was going to be you know a permanent chain not permanent but a long-term change so we will definitely

124take a look at that along those lines um three hours is it the six or seven hours that were set that they have to be receiving instruction individually or as a group we have to make we have to make the school day look as close to our school day looked last year as possible the issue is we don't want kids in front of the screen for six hours but you know we don't we don't want any of them into the front of the screen the issue is building in those little brain breaks or those exercise breaks and we also want to let our parents know especially for tenders because we know they're five if they get tired i'm gonna take the map that's what we would do in the classroom do we advertise that do

125we go around telling everybody to do that no but if we have a child who's tired and goes to sleep on the midnight chair we don't go wake them up so you know we cannot now at least let parents know here's some flexibility that you have and we haven't been able to tell them that up to this point so we will build those kinds of things in but for the year the whole issue for elementary is that for each set of grades there are a number of hours per year that you must have given instruction and not knowing how long the virtual piece would go we wanted to make sure that we were structuring very closely to a regular school living so that when we come back in person we didn't either have to extend

126school days take away spring break do you know do any of those things to catch up those hours so we're trying to balance all of that any other questions all right so we are addressing the screen times i know that is a big concern um and i can give you a better report when we get our friends 3.2 upcoming board events nothing coming on that 3.3 date and time location for future meetings august 20th at 5 30 is slated how is that for schedule we don't have one it is next week that's your regular meetings yeah i thought i said that i'm sorry um [Music] you guys said that you didn't want one last week or less well last name you said you didn't want a workshop for that okay all right just want to

127make sure we're good so everybody's good for is 20th uh 5 30 so we'll keep that as our date uh now to our favorite part item of 4.1 a motion to adjourn mr president i'm sorry before you adjourn i would like to introduce to you sheila sorry [Music] uh yes our newest principal um kim godwin is in the process of moving tonight and tomorrow so uh she was here and she left i was going to introduce her i [Music] uh you