001and welcome to this special board meeting of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board today is Tuesday August 18th uh prior to convening the regularly or the special board meeting which will follow immediately we have a need for an executive session that is item one on your agenda item 1.01 a call for executive session uant to AR ARS 38 43103 a and 8 for discussion or consideration of matters relating to school safety operations or school safety plans or programs board members is there a motion thank you Mrs Humphries been moved is there a second call second I'll second Dr go ahead thank you Mr Carr thank you Mr ug jetti it's been moved and seconded any discussion prior to a vote if not then we will vote on the motion to move to Executive session which
002will occur in the first floor conference room all those in favor of moving to Executive session please signify by saying I I I all those opposed same motion carries we will convene executive session test test one two test test one two e yep e for good evening and welcome to tonight's special board meeting it is Tuesday August the 18th and we will call this meeting to order we'll move to item two which is the special board meeting the calling to order of 2.01 2.02 is a moment of silence and 2 03 will be the Pledge of Allegiance led by Miss wood if you'll please join me in a moment of silence please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic
003for which it stands one nation under God IND indivisible with liberty and jce for all thank you Miss Wood I note that we have have not listed a roll call so item 2.04 will be the road call Miss Wilson Dr Santa Cruz here miss lry wood here Mr Reed Carr here miss Jill humph here Miss Sheila you jti Miss ug jetti are you there miss ug jetti hold on I think she has to call in all indicators were that Miss ug jetti would be with us telephonically she was with us at the executive session and we expect that she will be here shortly yeah Miss U jetti I'm here thank you Miss jetti Mr President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you Mrs Wilson we'll move to item three which is
004request to speak to the governing board and we'll ask our technician to please play the recorded message the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on an issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open
005call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or any any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy ke KB and K are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you we will begin our open call to the public there are oh approximately 30 requests and what we will do is and I apologize in advance I hope that I can not Massacre people's names if I do please correct me as you come to the microphone we will call the first two and the third speaker and we will continue stacking them up about three at a time so that please be ready when
006you are up for speaking our first Speaker this evening will be Jason Ellis our next speaker after Mr Ellis will be Matthew ocis and third will be Britany Smith Mr Ellis Dr Santa Cruz may I ask is it the typical three minute time period as well typical three minutes and that will be on the it'll be on the okay screen thank you please adhere to the three minutes thank you um I first of all would like to thank all of you for your time I understand this is a tough time for everybody involved but I do have some opinions and concerns I'd like to express first of all what is happening right now is almost sickening I feel like we're leaving our children behind they're not being able to be provided with not only sufficient
007education not even reasonable voices but an opportunity to learn they're being left behind because the tools that are being provided to them are barely working I could stand up here and tell you as somebody with a learning disability that this would be impossible for me to operate in if I had to I could talk about how it's a violation of my civil rights by not providing adequate services to help my children learn but I'm not I'm going to actually tug at your heartstrings and ask if you folks want to be responsible for looking at these children and saying they don't matter their education doesn't matter you guys don't care and I don't think you guys don't care but we're allowing the empty rhetoric that's on the news now that is not substantiated by evidence that
008they're going to get sick that they're going to die that any of this is actually going to happen that evidence isn't there these kids need to be in school they need to be able to get the education that they deserve and I find it almost sickening in my personal opinion that we're allowing this to happen we owe it to these children to get an education I'm a stepdad and I'm new to this so I find it almost appalling that my tax dollars over all these years that I didn't have kids has gone to this the systems don't work I try to log on to buzz and my 5-year-olds doesn't work my 10-year-olds doesn't work and then I'm being pulled in multiple directions I have a job to do too and being being a parent is
009my primary focus but I need help educating my kids and that's why we send them to schools and unless you guys want to be responsible for creating a class of children that are undereducated undereducated subsequently making a subservient class of people that is going to fall on you guys that is going to fall on You by not having the tools and giving them the opportunity to succeed I'm begging you I am begging you please let our kids go back to school please and on that I'll rest thank you Mr osis it's osis yes and I'd like and and I thought that was a great segue for me um my name is Matthew Oscar I have a son here in school but I also have other children in other schools and I'm here to tell you
010that yes your children will get sick yes some of them will die how can I say that because one of my children got sick cuz he went back to school too soon how do I know that because no one else in the family had been tested positive continue doesn't to test everyone in the household tests negative everyone continues to test negative and he tested positive and unfortunately he's a severely autistic child who got sick and I have the unfortunate circumstance of having to explain or try to attempt to explain to my severly ostic child that he can't go to school because he's sick but he got sick because he went to school so all this rhetoric about how children aren't in danger they're not going to get sick they're not going to have any harm
011come to them is fullart party at best my other concern is is I'd like to emphasize to the district because of that to emphasiz Extreme Caution before opening the schools back up and I would also ask the board to take into consideration that you were CH elected as leaders and leaders make the hard choices and make the hard decisions and this is at that time where that decisions need to be made uh I'm concerned about that that a decision needs to be made on what criteria we're going to use to open the school and we stick with that criteria um my concern is I've also heard inferences well we're we only going to concern ourselves with the Gilbert area in terms of schools in terms of infection rates and everything else and I believe you
012can't do that because the majority of the people who live in Gilbert which happens to be a bedroom community come from outside of Gilbert majority of your teachers that go to these schools live outside of Gilbert the school my son attends 40% of the students come outside of Gilbert so if we're really going to look at when are we going to open the school and what statistics we're going to utilize we need to utilize unless you're going to go through and ask all the teachers and all the parents and all the students where they live and bring that information into the equation I think we need to stick with Maricopa County as being the data set that we need to go by and terms opening the schools but again I emphasize we need to exercise
013caution children will get sick um there was a study by the National Institute of Health with Arizona specifically in 2010 that said there was a significant decrease 42% increase in kids getting influenza over the 2-year break of Christmas so just by closing those schools it has a significant impact thank you thank you sir Brittney Smith and then we'll have kayn helr and then the other person is just simply noted as Ellison good evening my name is Britney Smith and I have three children attending Gilbert Public Schools I am eagerly anticipating and advocating for in-person schools for my children please consider the following Health measures for in-person students if taking temperature checks please consider pointing the infrared Ray on the thermometer at the child's crease in their arm instead of at their forehead where it comes
014in direct contact with the pineal gland the pineal gland helps children with sexual development it creates the strongest antioxidant melatonin and can distrupt sleep wake Cycles when taking a temperature you will see that the crease of the arm and the forehead will produce oh excuse me will produce the mo the same temperature this will also minimize the effects of pointing a gun-shaped object at our children's heads every day number two please consider using hand sanitizers that do not have me methanol in them there have been about 115 hand sanitizers that the FDA has pulled off the shelf since covid-19 began the following is from the FDA website methanol is not an acceptable ingredient in hand sanitizer and must not be used due to its toxic effects the fda's investigation of methanol in certain hand sanitizers
015is ongoing end quote please check ingredients number three please consider consider using safe cleaning products in our schools that are not filled with chemicals force of nature is an EPA registered disinfectant with no toxic chemicals it uses electricity tap water plus a capsule of salt water and vinegar to create an EPA registered disinfectant that kills 99.9% of virus viruses and bacteria including SARS cov2 the cause of covid-19 it has been EPA registered for use in daycare schools universities hospitals icus Etc it is also cheaper than nysol and Clorox disinfecting wipes and sprays unfortunately in my opinion Mass are bacteria filled Petri dishes I imagine during mass breaks children throwing them on their desks Mass falling on the ground getting stepped on shoved in backpacks Pockets Maybe falling on the bathroom floor and then being being
016required to put them back on their faces this may not be the safest or healthiest protocol a suggestion to parents might be to tie a piece of yarn from one Loop of the Mask to the other so during MK breaks the mask can just hang in front of them on their chest this will allow less bacteria and viruses to be transferred directly into our children's mouth and nose where they are susceptible to becoming sick let's strengthen our kids and teachers immune systems instead of weakening them further let's have the healthiest classrooms in the state we're ready let's go back in person just give us the choice thank you thank you hello my name is Kayla hamler and I attend Desert Ridge Junior High School some of the challenges with online schooling for me have been
017increased stress anxiety and first FR ation when I do work sometimes I don't understand things and I need help with teachers but since we have to do independent work by ourselves on online it's harder to ask the teacher for help sometimes teachers have a hard time using buzz and WebEx because they haven't learned the system right and they needed more time my grades have been lowered because I have a hard time staying focused while learning online in seventh grade I had Straight A's I was able to focus in the classroom and really enjoyed learning but in eighth grade this has all changed please bring back iners schooling is essential for a lot of kids and students out there thank you you thank you K my name is oan I am in second grade I came
018to tell you online school is super hard I didn't know H how to use a computer sometimes I get so sad because I can't hear my teacher here or see my teacher I hate when I miss story time and when it glitches online school makes me sad because I can't be with my friends or teacher I know online school makes some people happy that's great they are speci special and should do what makes them happy going to school is what makes me happy my brothers and Friends also want to go to school we are special too can we please go back to school thank you next up will be no Noah Madison Nevin colie and Chad Kirby hello oh hello my name is Noah Madison I'm the freshman class president at Gilbert High School I
019would like to start by saying thank you to all the teachers and staff that I've put all in the work to make online happen I also wanted to say however that it is not working every day I wake up dreading the fact that I have to log in there are connection problems communication problems and I am just not learning the way I used to usually I'm very excited now going about school but online is making me feel the exact opposite school is way is school as a way for me to socialize say hi make new friends and connections I miss my friends and I miss school I'm a 14-year-old boy saying I miss school that's saying something I was very excited for this year I was going to meet new people and teachers I was
020going to be in high school the place I've been waiting for I was excited for high school sports I was excited for my high school classes and I was excited for all the new people I would meet but all of that was put on hold and we're not even being told when we're going back we are not asking for everyone to be forced back into school we're asking for a choice a choice to go back I know there are a lot of people still afraid and I respect that but those people can stay home and do online if it works for them great but it is definitely not working for me we have had extensive conversations at home as a family about the risk of going back we've decided that we cannot be so afraid
021of getting it that we stop living Our Lives most my friends and the people I've talked to want to go back the CDC says school plays a critical role in promoting the health and safety of young people and helping them establish lifelong healthy behaviors I don't understand why we can't go back but also I wanted wanted to say as much as I hate online school I have a loving family to help me through it but think about those people with neglectful families there's no way they're learning and they are stuck at home without help I've had several kids and I know several kids um that have been depressed because they have been stuck at home and haven't had a chance to be with their friends at school and they are not getting the attention they
022need for a little bit I was debating on going to a school that opened the 17th because I was that Des desperate but I didn't want to leave the school I love kids need school so right now I'm hoping you guys make the right decision and make us go back as soon as possible my parents filled out the survey that was sent out that gave the choice of in-person learning I'm trusting as a school board you honored that choice thank you thank you board and uh super intendant mord for the chance to speak uh we are in a pandemic and I recognize that our state is finally making progress on many things that help like masks social distancing but there are still conversations happening around schools reopen that are alarming I see the situation like
023this I am a theater teacher I teach stagecraft with junior high students every year when we begin our building unit and get to the tools like saws drivers drills the students eyes light up they immediately want to handle the tools they love the loud noise and The Ripping wood and they want to pick up the tools and build now and they get loud about it as we learn the rules and the ways to handle the tools to students feel that they are ready to work with them no matter what my answer is always the same they will get to use the tools when they can show that they understand the level of skill and caution they need to use these tools even though they would probably be okay it is my responsibility to make sure
024that they are safe this responsibility has been entrusted to me by the student and their parents to make sure I give them a solid education keep them safe while doing that but I know that my responsibility goes beyond that as well if I am lack my standards and allow students to move forward too early the possibility of injury increases an injury would directly affect the student in their family but it would have an even wider effect than that I know that an injury would affect the future of the drama program to have junior high students work with the tools I know that my actions would affect the school and parents trust in our staff and our programs I know that if an injury occurred that this would also affect the district and policies regarding our
025programs I know if I am not responsible that it could also affect the finances of the district if there were if there were a lawsuit when the students are in my care and their safety is my responsibility I know I need to provide a cautious approach because the consequences of moving forward too soon can have a wide ranging effects personally locally and in our overall Community our state and more specifically our district is in this spot we're heading in the right direction but even if we meet the bare minimum benchmarks that we we are still at moderate risk and are recommended for hybrid schooling for the Arizona Department of Health our families students teachers staff and our district need you our board to take a cautious approach to reopening so that we can continue to
026have our community to be safe it just takes a little more patience and looking at not the lowest numbers to get back quickly but the numbers in our surrounding areas so we know how they can affect us it takes resisting what we want right now and knowing we can do better if we have patience and take a cautious approach the riskier approach may not cause anything but would you want me putting a power tool in a child's hands before they're ready I have one final request of the board there's been talk of positive covid infections with teachers in the district already to avoid confusion and rumor I request that during your discussion tonight please confirm if there are positive cases within GPS and how they have been addressed thank you thank you Chad Kirby after
027Chad Max Kirby and after Max TR Trina Jonas the the challenge of focusing on the power tool forgets the bigger picture where so many are being damaged by the nails surrounded all around them yes indeed yes indeed Co is real there is no question but to put our lives on hold and the collateral damage that will Cur because of it is something I don't think any of us want to think about you see there are people that are sick and it is devastating but remember you represent us and there's an accountability to us and the people yes the people that don't want to live in fear but seek fre freom want our schools opened and we want our children to return you see childhood is a very short glimpse a short period of time in
028their life and when you rob that from them there will be collateral damage and right now we are seeing that I have nine children three of which have already graduated from Gilbert High or excuse me four some a group of them have and there's and there's five left to go and I can tell you I'm grateful that they have each other but on Saturday they had a friend come over and his mother picked him up and this 9-year-old boy got in the car and start crying to his mother and said I'm so grateful to be around children again you see when we rob these children of their childhood when we rob these teenagers of the experiences that will impact them to be contributing adults in our society we are robbing our society yes Co is
029real yes fear is real but may Gilbert Public Schools Embrace freedom and optimism even admidst adversity yes adversity comes it face we face it every single day but just like the person who chooses to ride their bike in the bike lane which I think is ridiculous but you can see I'm not a big fan of exercise to begin with but the person who rides that bike in the bicycle lane they take a risk and if you have children that are in a highrisk category online school will be beneficial for them because they will not have the mass students on it if you are a teacher that is in high risk please take the precautions and stay home but don't take parents' freedoms away Liberty unlike the mayor of Los Angeles said is not to be
030earned it's part of living in the United States of America and I encourage all of you on the Gilbert Public School Board to consider the minds and hearts of the people in Gilbert who plead for you to not Rob our children of their childhood I have a teenage son who dropped two AP classes this week because it is not working have the courage to stand up and do what is right and let our children return to school thank you Max [Applause] Kirby [Music] um hi my name is Maxwell Alan Kirby III um I go to Greenfield Junior High and I'm just saying it is so hard I can't even log onto my computer without going to my mom I don't care if saying this crying saying it's not working it's not working in every single
031class my highest grade is a d plus and it is so annoying I try my hardest I try my hardest it's not working it's not working I'm just I'm with my teacher today he's saying if anyone needs help talk to me but I try getting help but I can't get to him I don't know why but this isn't working my computer just shuts down I can't log back on to buzz and everything everything's glitching it's lagging I'm just thinking can I quit school like as my dad said you're taking the childhood away from us I was hoping to go here because first of all they said they had amazing food at Greenfield and I just want to like I love school mostly because I get to interact with my friends that I can't see at
032my home I love hanging out with my friends I haven't seen some of my friends for like 7 months because of this stupid Corona virus all I'm asking is can we please go back to school all my friends say this is so easy but I know cuz I've asked their parents this is difficult for everyone everyone's trying to make it through but no one no one is having this be easy for them all I'm asking is please send us back to school thank you thank you Trina Jonas yes okay my name is Trina Jonas and I am happy with all the different perspectives you're going to hear tonight I could say a lot about technology and lots of various things but I'm going to talk about a different angle that I you probably haven't heard
033and that I can uniquely talk about I have been on boards I've been the ptso president at elementary school for several years I'm the current president of the junior high ptso I am the vice president president of your v-net training team helping train all of the parents in the district um and also vice president of a Boosters and that's all just this year there is's no one that loves Gilbert Public Schools more than myself and I I'm trying really hard to not be emotional I moved here six years ago I love public school I supported red for Ed I have personally donated thousands of dollars beyond my tax dollars thousands of hours I have recruited tons of people to our school out of charter schools I am not a charter school fan I have even
034been the parent representative at your recruitment events I have helped set up PR for Gilbert Public Schools I love Public Schools so to watch what is happening to our district and the long-term effect of what staying closed why all the charter schools around us are opening is devastating my phone has been ringing off the hook since school started with amazing parents leaving amazing like the people leaving are your doers those are your parents who who are doing all the things like at our at one of our schools you can't even go to all your kids field trips because there's so many parents that want to be there going on all the field trips that is unique the parents in Gilbert are amazing we have the best parents who are actively involved that's why they're here
035because they care the parents who don't care great those are not the ones you're losing those are the ones that are just going to sit there and ride ride the wave the parents who are amazing that make this so amazing are leaving and I don't know that we can get them back it is never occurred to me in my wildest dreams that I would pull my kids out of school but the online education the rece receiving is so subpar that I cannot like I feel like I'm failing them by letting them stay in it every day so to get up every day and feel like you're failing your child when you have dedicated your life to making their public education experience better is has been an emotional and difficult experience and then to watch your
036friends leave to watch Amazing families leave our district um is heartbreaking to be honest I have been heartbroken I beg you to open our schools I know this is a different a little different angle but I know that I represent a lot of parents I have had unbelievable amount of calls and right now parents are feeling that we're being put down because we want our kids back in school my kids are are depressed they're not doing well they and they're bright students they're in all the gifted programs like this is not going well so I really we need to open as soon as possible and give Parents Choice this is about Choice the online people the people who are at high risk they can stay home we are not asking for you to change anything
037for them we're asking for the 89% who chose to choose their children's school to let us take that risk the risk is on us it's a risk reward and let us decide that thank you so much thank you Jason Jonas Andrea nesvold and Cammy Stevens good evening um uh for those who know me um just me showing up here tonight is is saying something um normally I let my wife who just spoke before me do most of the talking and you can probably understand why um I'm usually working long hours or running the kids around to their activities or school events and such so um so why am I here is I I decided I need to come because I think I have a unique perspective that I can offer that might be a little
038different you see I uh am the son of a mother who was a teacher for 20 some odd years who then went on to become an administrator in a school and finished her career as a principal so I A lot of times I'm sure you're hearing a bunch of emotional replies and it's from one side or the other um I seem to have a lot of connections to every side um my brother is an emergency room physician here in Arizona who has been on the front lines of covid since day one my sister is a pediatric nurse practitioner in Southern California who's been on the front lines of Co day one uh I myself uh I went into the business world and I spend most of my time helping organizations deal with complexity um and
039helping them improve and use data to make good decisions to either turnaround struggling operations or to grow and get even better um when I talk to all of them and make myc I should also not to um don't need to but I'm a registered independent um I can't stand when people don't bring uh thoughts to the table for any issue so I don't come here with any preconceived notion and I'm also willing to admit that I uh I am one who has had covid um not to any fault of my own um I'm also the officer of my organization that works in it operates in 20 two different cities across the country 15 different states and I'm the officer in charge of the covid response and I've seen what it does I've seen how you
040have to respond I've seen the complexities the contact tracing all those things dealing with legal dealing with HR all those many things so after incorporating all the different facts and perspectives I basically have one question that I want to ask and I'll give a couple notes before that um with my leaning the question is net or gross and I'll come back to to that but n grows when I when I lean to my my mother hey how's this is going to go right away this is going to be a disaster um why is it going to be a disaster because we're not ready for it we're not trained for it when I asked my siblings how's it going to go what would you do well what's the first rule of medicine first Do no harm
041do we have any idea how much harm that we're doing our kids and our families right but last n grow when I go into these organizations and we look at data right one of the key Concepts that a lot organizations these little successful ones do is they look at the wrong data or they look at it the wrong way and often times they're not realizing am I looking at a gross number or a net number I have no doubt that you on the board uh particularly those who are voting to keep schools closed have great intentions but are you looking at net or gross if you save one life right it may be worth it right but are you considering the net effects that some of the previous speakers have gone abuse neglect drugs alcohol
042families crumbling right what is that worth to one case of covid or one life so I ask you when you consider this I have no doubt that you have great intentions of wanting to save lives but let's look at the net number let's not look at gross covid let's incorporate the whole picture because I'm very confident after talking to so many people that have so many different interests that are tied to one another that if we look at the net number of who's benefit or who's harmed that we will come to the right decision thank you thank you Andrea nesf Cammy Stevens and Ryan Johnson hi um I've never done this before um but I here to speak to you as a parent as well as a former educator so many of the people that
043have come up here already have spoken to you as parents and as children in the district and they're forgetting about what it's like to be the teacher um in the last meeting I heard many parents mention that if a teacher doesn't want to teach in person they can quit and that that's an option and sure it is many have in districts that have opened and schools that have opened but they don't realize that teachers have a contract that they'll be penalized if they choose to quit that they are B paid based on the number of years that they are ated district and if they choose to quit and go to a new District they will start over at the bottom base pay and that they have relationships with their students and their teach and their
044parents and they don't want to leave they literally don't want to leave my mother is a 66-year-old speech pathologist that worked at a charter school in Tucson Arizona they went back to school on Monday she didn't want to quit she was going to go um she had a lot of Health complic complications in April my sister and I cried to her begged her not to go and convinced her to call her principal and say I can't but I want to continue to teach my students this is what I want to do and she was lucky that she had a principal that was willing to work with her but in all situations that's not possible all of these teachers have someone who loves them and doesn't want to see them get Co and possibly die or
045end up in a hospital where they can't have their loved ones sit next to them like my mother was so please keep that into consideration as well as these students now as a parent I want my students my children to go back to school but I want to wait until it is safe I work yes right now I'm lucky enough to be able to do so from home but I'm working I'm holding meetings I have deadlines to meet so no it's not easy for me to manage three young children learning online from home yes they're frustrated yes I'm frustrated um I'm pretty sure one of my students class one of my kids classes heard me curse on the first day of school because I threw my hands up in the air and didn't know what
046to do anymore but we're figuring it out and every day it gets better every day it gets easier and we're figuring it out together as a family I've heard many parents say that their children want to go back that they're begging to go back I heard kids standing here saying that they want want to go back but they want to go back to school that they knew they want to go back to school where they can have fun with their friends they can go to the playground and run around that's what my kids want but that's not reality if we go back to school today our kids can't sit next to each other in the lunchroom they can't play on the playground with each other they have to sit 6 feet apart they have to
047wear masks it's not the school that they knew and it's not the school that they want next I hear parents saying that I can choose to keep my kids on at home but I have children with special needs and if I take them out and I keep them online then they have to do the asynchronous option and they don't get the teachers my sixth grader doesn't get the special ed teacher he's been working with for the last three years he doesn't get the ELA teacher who sat in his IEP meeting last year just to make sure that he was ready for this year he gets an asynchronous teacher and that's not fair to him yes I have the choice but please wait follow science follow the metrics and let's open when it's safe for everyone
048thank you thank you Cammy Stevens Ryan Johnson and Jennifer Yung good evening um thank you for hearing a speak to you today my name is Cammy Stevens I moved to this District four years ago from out of state I have a son that just graduated high school this last year I have a daughter that's a sophomore and a boy that's in sixth grade the concerns I have today I'd like to share just a little bit different angle with you I've heard those that are concerned their kids going back to school they not going back to school and everybody has a different opinion I'd like to share my opinion and my thoughts are a little bit different when we moved here four years ago my son started High School 3 days after moving here that was
049a very big change for him considering he was going from Junior High School to high school and then moving and not having a single familiar face to recognize he went from being a high honor Ro student his whole entire life to barely thriving he went through a very deep depression and I worried about him and I worried about his life the thing that pulled him through was school miraculously he made the basketball team his freshman year it truly saved his life the camaraderie the children the kids kept him going every day I'm sorry to the gentleman that lost a boy going to school I'm sorry to those children that to those parents who feel they we shouldn't go back to school they have that choice and I feel you've Liv listened to the minority but
050I feel you've neglected the majority here realize how many kids are saved by going to school you don't hear that number you don't get that number but I am here to tell you I am one of those so sad that that one gentleman lost his son and and I feel for him but please know there are many many many children that are saved by going to school please look at every please listen to us please listen to the majority I agree there needs to be precautions and you can take those precautions the children can wear masks you can take their temperatures you can do all of those safety precautions I'm not saying throw those out the window please listen if you are afraid and you are letting this fear control your decisions nobody should have
051gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle today to come here tonight nobody should have done those things look at every every aspect and angle and know there are many more children saved by going than staying home thank you thank you hello my name is Ryan Johnson and I'm a parent of three students in the Gilbert School District and I'm very concerned about their current learning environment um I can relate to and and agree with a lot of the things that have been said tonight but right now I'd like to talk a little bit about data I know super boring but uh it seems relevant right now um I've spent nearly 20 years in the healthcare industry um where I've been involved with financial and actual projections um within the uh public healthare within public Healthcare
052programs my my work requires extensive data analysis the Arizona Department of Health Services adhs has been tracking The covid-19 Benchmark statistics using an epidemiological curve approach of uh reporting weekly Statistics over time with this approach we have the ability to observe time Trends to understand ongoing and future disease patterns I want to spend a couple minutes talking about the time Trends we can observe from the most recent data and I think we're going to be talking about data later so maybe this will be be relevant um the data sources I'll be referencing are from the adhs school school dashboard and maricopa.gov the data reported lags about 14 to 21 days but we can learn a lot about where the numbers are going by looking at the past Trends it's important to note that the current
053epic curve that we are experiencing is symmetrical in nature meaning the numbers of of decreasing the numbers are decreasing at roughly the same rate that they were increasing this means we can draw conclusions from the time Trends we are seeing from the most recent weeks and how they apply to the current Benchmark recommendations for school openings I don't think I don't think it's important to discuss the two two of the three Benchmark metrics uh because those have both been met by data reported through July 26th however it is noteworthy that the cases the cases and cases per thousand have been dropping at an average rate of 28% since the peak of the curve near the end of June and the hospitalizations for cidlik illness have have been steadily on decline for three at 3% a
054week since the peak because we'd expect these time Trends to continue even at slower rates we would expect that the the to but that by today all the minimum all the minimum best best case metrics may already be met for the two these two benchmarks for the third Benchmark two consecutive weeks with percent positivity below 7% this is the only metrics that has not been met as of the current reporting through July 26 as we can see in the data within Arizona and other parts of the country the percent posit positivity rate tracks very closely to the trends with the other two Benchmark metrics cases and hospitalizations from maricopa.gov the percent positivity for Gilbert School District was at 7.8% for the week ending August August 2nd that's over two weeks ago since the PE since
055the peak week at the end of June time Trends have shown an average weekly decrease of 3% meaning the percent positivity rate has dropped an average of 3% a week again looking at these time Trends it's highly likely that as of to today we have exceeded the 7% Benchmark and may even be at the minimal or best case scenario standard at less than 5% there's wisdom in creating the benchmarks and holding these standards developed by our health department professionals and we appreciate that I'm here today to highly encourage the district to be prepared to quickly move to inperson classes since the data is showing that we are most likely already achieving Andor exceeding the recommended benchmarks waiting for the data reporting lag ignoring the time Trends and symmetrical pattern of the Curve will put us
056further behind in providing our children with the best learning experience possible I appreciate the board superintendent and all those that they are doing their best for our teachers and our children thank you thank you after Jennifer we have Angie Ward and Nikki MCU good evening my name is Jennifer young and I have two kids that um that are in second and third grade at mosquito Elementary uh they're third generation Gilbert Public Schools attendees my dad graduated Gilbert High School I graduated Gilbert High School in ' 04 with Dr Santa Cruz how you doing sir all right and U my kids are now at mosquite um I came kind of with uh some thoughts but I'll keep it short and sweet to the gentleman that um spoke second um I'm sorry sorry that your child got
057sick I can empathize with your with you and your child I'm an ER nurse I've been on the front lines since March I understand the risks the difference between you and I is you had a choice and I don't I need my kids back in school second thing I want to say sorry second thing I want to say is we know the risks and we're willing to take it we need a choice to get our kids back in school the third thing I want to say and what actually got me down here tonight is on the in the last 24 hours I have heard on three separate occasions from three different parents that people have been hacking into our Buzz websites which you guys tell me is supposed to be good for our children they've
058hacked into the websites and they have been doing what I can only describe as highly inappropriate and illegal things on our web xes what are you doing to protect our children from sex Predators what are you doing and I guess I'll leave with this is that we just want a choice I I understand that people want to stay home they they should stay home I I would recommend that they stay home but all we're all we want is a choice so thank you thank you Dr San Cruz may I may we ask do Dr McCord and his staff to follow up with this uh with this woman if there are cases if we can get the particulars of those so we can immediately investigate them yes sir I'm sure that'll be in the cycle Miss
059Ward hi my name is Angie Ward and I have five children that have made their way through uh the Gilbert public school system uh currently I have three of them in the public school in Gilbert public schools and as parents of Gilbert Public Schools uh students the vast majority majority of us are willing to take on the risks because we believe in the rewards of in school learning you don't need to take on those risks for my children when I send my son out on the football field I know that there's no guarantee that he won't get hurt he wears a helmet he does what he's been taught to do to stay safe and we accept what comes because of we because we know of the many benefits my high school students that have never
060had anything below A's are currently sitting with B's in every class they're struggling with online learning uh one of my daughters who again has never had anything below an a is even getting a b in dance she's struggling they're they're all struggling be uh despite the fact that they are well educated they have well educated parents and as parents my husband and I are very interested in supporting them and helping them but even with all that they are struggling on the second day of school a Spanish teacher sent an email to the parents saying that she wouldn't be logging in that day due to a family issue I'm very afraid that if online schooling is the only option for all of these kids that those types of things will continue to happen and our children
061will continue to suffer if we rely on that online schooling for all of our kids it's just not the same amount of accountability so as it's been said earlier 11% have uh the choice to stay home but right now the 89% are not being given the choice and as a school board we know that you have very difficult decisions to make but I believe that you're elected to do the most amount of good for the most amount of people please let us as parents have that choice and realize that the rewards of in school learning outweigh the risks by opening our schools immediately thank you thank you I believe that um in-person education is a big part of Gilbert um because my I've had five kids go to school through Gilbert three have graduated already
062I have two currently in um one is in sixth grade and then the other one is a junior but the reason that I know Dr McCord and his family is because in junior high we have two sons and they happen to be the same age so in junior high and high school they went to school together and because of that and we spent times at time together at Banquets and on the sidelines and his wife and I in the con concession stands this is what made Gilbert Gilbert is we meet each other our kids because I have five kids my circle of help my kids happiness just expanded huge because then they have that many more people that they can go to that many more friends that they can be in contact with I know
063readed car because guess what I walked into an elementary cafeteria and he was my son's basketball coach and we played Wham and he coached my oldest son oh no my second son that's right because he has a son that's Casey's age my son's age and that's what in-person school does that's what the education that we provide in person it doesn't just give an education it gives this a huge plethora of people that are awesome that's why Gilbert's great right I don't know Lor W guess what I've cheered for her sons while they played football and my daughter's ran track with her son I've had her son in my home to have spaghetti dinner before the state track meet guess what it's 100% because we had inperson education now you take all those things away and
064we only have school online then it's about the education and the education online is not good like we know it's not as good as it could be right in person I love the teachers unfortunate for them they're being evaluated every single day by me and by every parent and I see them and it's painful to watch them struggle to get the kids oh now click on this tab and then go go to buzz and click on this tab and it's hard for me I've heard these teachers are amazing before I even came you know as my daughter was going into sixth grade and Cali in as a junior and it's sad because I think even the teachers can't reach their potential they they didn't choose you know this and I realize in the circumstances if
065they are in a in a in a risk to maybe possibly get sick that we do have that for them but don't take away what I think is a big part of what made Gilbert so awesome is it kind of like a small town I went to Gilbert High School and my kids will all graduate from Gilbert and this year for the for the first time I'm like you know what is this the right school for my kids I'm waiting I'm hoping that tonight I have like the biggest celebration at my house and we're like Yay everybody's going back to school and we can again be like happy Gilbert families again that help each other and know each other so please let our kids go back to school thank you next up is Jimmy lindblum
066then Jeffrey Hendrickson and Megan winter Jimmy lindblum Jeffrey henriksson and Megan winter I apologize it's a rowdy crowd in that other room I couldn't hear my name my name is Jimmy limam thank you for hearing me today I'm a product of Gilbert Public Schools you were my principal many years ago and uh I currently have four uh five children one of which is in the district at Highland High right now now I'm an advocate of a robust strong education system I have been for my whole life I currently serve as a board member for the Arizona business and education Coalition on the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and with the East Valley partnership I'm also on the board with the Phoenix Metro Boys and Girls Club a club which has stayed open through the entire pandemic
067and served our community with much needed uh support for children who needed a place to be why parents worked as a as a board we dealt with covid issues early in March it's not March anymore it's August I think it's been a long summer but we were able to to address the issues as they came up and we were able to stay in in uh in business and support the community something of which I'm very disappointed that this school board has not been able to figure out how to open up the district yet in my efforts to support this District I encouraged and supported others to in the last bond election and in the pamphlet I wrote that goes out to all of the the elector the people that vote I said the schools are
068a pillar of our culture and a foundation for our Town's future our foundation is crumbling and that is why I'm here tonight for some reason we forgotten the value of our education and the benefits that come from strong schools they attract business businesses and investment people want to live in an area where we have strong schools they make strong neighborhoods and increase property values but the most important reason is our children and our families who are suffering right now I can't tell you how hard it is to work when your wife is texting you who is trying her hardest to provide an education for her children and you're trying to make a living in pay the bills through a pandemic Noah hasn't forgotten the value of Education Noah you Noah right Kirby hasn't and Trina
069hasn't Trina said we have amazing parents that are leaving and I don't know that we can get them back I pulled children from this District when they announced they were not going to open because I have a child that needs to be in the classroom and I found school that could do that Trina also said there's a long-term effect is devastating to the impacts of our community and the relationships that we have with the families and the people that are leaving are doers and I agree with all of those comments on a positive note it wasn't very long ago that Gilbert Public School celebrated an addition of great leadership it was out in this parking lot that we welcomed our superintendent Shane McCord we very happy for that addition and we've had a great school
070board that has been here and we've been happy and benefited from each of your service and we're thankful for it there's no doubt in my mind after watching that celebration in that parking lot that our parents and children and teachers understand the benefit of schools and last week I had the honor to be in Queen Creek Public Schools when they voted to open 100% and they worked their butts off to get open on time and they did and that Community celebrated you would have thought it was a state championship that they won in that parking lot and that's where we live we live in the east valley where we value education and I just want to encourage each of you to work very hard to get our schools open as quickly as possible and I
071thank you for your time appreciate thank you thank you board members and Dr mccort for allowing me to speak my name is Jeffrey Hendrickson I'm the father of three Gilbert public school students a first grader and twins in Kinder prep first want to stress how happy I am that the Kinder Prep students are allowed to attend in person as they're at the critical Age We being in person is the only way they can learn I could not imagine doing Kinder prep on a computer so thank you I also want to sit there and say that that same thing should apply for our elementary school students they are not given a choice right now our first grader is an above average student intelligent and she loves school she doesn't like online school but she does her
072best because she loves school we give her all the support that we can to succeed in this online learning environment and luckily she continues to do well however we have seen the complete oposite for many of our friends uh her friends and others in classes and other schools in the District over the last 2 weeks we have heard and seen kids having meltdowns day after day after a long self-taught learning uh session we have seen our neighbors firsthand have to experience and go out and get three different Chromebooks in order to get their kindergar online in person or o over the Internet with a camera so they can actually see and talk to their teacher that shouldn't happen to a kindergarten that's a horrible start to a school year we have heard the horror stories
073of children being exposed to pornographic material adult situations and language granted those have happened in other states in or other states and in our state not necessarily in our district even though people have brought it up tonight um continued disruptions from children that can't mute themselves and teachers who are having technical issues and are not able to mute the children we have seen teachers not able to see students not able to mute students students that can't see the teachers can't mute themselves or unmute themselves audio issues all on top of a weekly schedule that has not been consistent this week alone we went from having 5 days of in-class learning to now 3 days a week where were more hardcore learning but then the other two days Tuesdays and Thursdays so today being the first
074day the kids had to teach themselves my first grader had to sit there and do three assignments on her own luckily I'm able to take some time away from work my wife's able to sit there and help her and she got her assignments done during the day we've also seen examples where the specials are supposed to last 35 minutes and they've been cut down to 15 minutes or less due to teachers having technical difficulties uh uh or lack of the teaching digital AIDS and so they can't you know do a full art class online the FL the Florida virtual curriculum on a miniature screen such as the Chromebook is a joke and an insult to our students and teachers expecting a first grader to click through 15-page assignment where you can only see a few
075lines at a time is not a reality and is confusing for the students and parents Al like additionally the monotone voice when trying to allow them to click through and not have to get the parent is very annoying home back next it reads the same things a thousand times my teacher's child or my my child's teacher is doing an amazing job of communicating with us as parents and students but that is not the case in all schools in elementary school the evening should be a time for families to bond and interact not having to help their kids with homework uh on self selftaught Tuesdays and Thursdays so finally as noted in today's assignment I sat there and I watch watch this I could not believe my eyes they talked about the rights and responsibilities quoting
076the Florida virtual curriculum the Constitution protects your rights and freedoms in the United States kids have a right to go to school if that's not ironic I don't know what it is I ask rather demand that our voices be heard the majority in this District that wants our kids to go back to school allow us to have that constitutional right to do so you as a board member have the legal ability to hold to stop holding our children children's education hostage the numbers are showing that in Arizona we're doing our part to stop the spread our community which I've uh heard from the board isn't just Gilbert we have to look at Mesa we have to look at the people that aren't in our area that come to our schools we're trending downward multiple weeks
077in a row and to the gentleman's Point earlier yeah we're multiple weeks out on how accurate that data is but it's been trending downward that means we are well below our you know requirements to go back to school so I ask that you uh I ask that you free our children and us from the Captivity of online learning and allow them to return to school effective Monday August 24th thank you thank you we have Megan winter Dylan Wells and Cassie Watson hi my name is Megan winter and I speak today as a mother of five Gilbert public school graduates an active community Community member and a gilbertt public school teacher I would like to thank the board for their patience and follow through with the approved a proposal to follow the metrics from the August
07828th board meeting employees and families deserve to know the metrics and the detailed protocols for the call to Safe opening I appreciate all the work that is going on behind the scenes by the district and the board a quick opening would cause many to react quickly and possibly react not well thought out we can learn from the surrounding districts that did not offer confidence to their employees and families and see what has happened in those communities your patience dig vigilance and sharing of the plans gives the employees and families peace of mind to concentrate on student learning we all want the schools to open it's the matter of when should the school opens there's going to be people who say tomorrow tomorrow is too early 3 weeks from now is too late but what we
079can do is set the parameters look at the metrics say this is what we're going to do and these are going to be the protocols when we do open the schools that way parents have a good picture when I hear people saying 89% of the parents want their kids in school I believe it's 100% of the parents want their kids in school I don't believe the question was asked do you want your kids in school no matter what I believe the parents most the parents would have thought that there was some protocols and measures that were going to be followed so maybe that would need to be asked again if that would help um the plan to use the metrics and transparent protocols to open is the best approach that we can have it might
080not be perfect timing but at least a a plan I would like to also add a message of Hope to the employees and families it has been a hard start to the school year there have been many tears including my own and frustrations however I know we can do this I have the confidence that my peers and the families can adapt and we can get in sync and we'll work through this I have often said to my students that the best learning takes place during the struggle how we act in that struggle and what we do in that struggle is what makes us who we are when that struggle is too big we just need to slow down a little find our safe person vent cry then turn to each other and start to problem
081solve break it down into chunks and attack it accordingly we will get there my eldest daughter Maria was an accomplished violinist when learning a new piece of music and she struggled I would say to her Maria remember when you were three it took you 6 months to just learn to stand correctly hold your violin hold your bow learn The rhythms and the fingerings and to learn to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a stage and take a bow how did you do this Maria we broke it down so when the music gets tough pull it apart Twinkle Twinkle Little Star it that became a mantra when times were tough for music and all of life struggles perseverance is the key lesson and what we do when we persevere we just need to Twinkle Twinkle Little
082Star it so now we need to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star it break it down make the plan how we can get back to school and accomplish the necessary steps for that safe return prepare and outline the protocols share them what will it be like when we get to return to our stage our classrooms thank you thank you Dylan Wells Cassie Watson my name is Dylan Wells I'm currently a junior at Gilbert High School thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight in the mo in the most recent two weeks of online education I have not learned a single thing that is including including doing all the modules studying daily paying attention in every WebEx meeting and doing at least two hours of homework every day I have personally talked to at least 100 students about
083the online learning lessons my cousin who attends Red Mountain High School was the only one of 100 that said that they like it and that they prefer to prefer online over regular school why aren't we learning the teachers admittedly don't know what they're doing the students have no idea what they're doing either it would be nice if the teachers and the students have an had an opportunity to perfect using Buzz before requiring graded assignments the amount of work I have been assigned is ridiculous teachers don't understand that every single class is giving multiple hours of homework and lessons which I have to teach myself the current structure is go to class learn nothing and do infinite amounts of homework I've had two weeks to figure this out and it still does not make any sense
084to me why are we still using buzz when all the teachers have us use different websites anyways I have I need to have 20 different tabs open in order to do one assignment when a teacher asked me to open a tab on WebEx my crashes and I lose 10 minutes of the lecture trying to get back in how am I supposed to learn that way there's no comprehensive learning online online school has been so frustrating and tiring I feel like the only thing to do left to do is to drop out and start working at McDonald's if I'm not getting an education I'm only I'm going to actually do something productive and start to make money why should I stay in school why should I stay in school if I'm not learning anything one of
085my good friends whom I have known my whole life is so fed up and desperate he withdrew from Gilbert High School filled out all the paperwork and enrolled in ALA is that what I have to do to go to school we have we had the option a month ago to choose to do online or in person that choice has been taken away there is no choice I feel that nobody cares about me as a person or my education the statistics of from the Arizona Department of Health as of today 818 2020 are telling in the state of Arizona the odds of not getting Corona at all are 97.32% the odds of not being hospitalized are 99.71% and the odds of not dying are 99.94% that math speaks for itself instead of asking students what is
086the best safest learning option Dr mcord and the school board keeps asking people who have been out of high school for decades what they want to do adults are making decisions for me but they haven't considered asking me what I want or need in the last two school school board meetings there were no statistics presented on what the students want I'm here tonight to be that voice I want to go to school in person I want to be taught the quality education I have been promised I want to connect with my teachers and other students I want to be prepared to go to college and pass the honor the honors courses classes I'm taking to affect my college DPA and the rest of my life this education paves the way for my career and it's
087being thrown in the dirt like it's nothing I'm six I'm a 16-year-old honor student who probably chews gum in class and takes too long in the bathroom and I am begging you please send me to school in person now I need to go home and do the 12 hours homework that I just got assigned today Cassie Watson Jennifer Mathers and Stella is all the note says hi I'm Cassie Watson I chose in school learning for my three boys and yet they're still sitting at home staring at computer for 5 to 7 hours when we were given choices I expected them to be met all the parents that chose iners are being forced to do online homeschooling this is not what we chose all the parents agreeing with your distance learning have every right to keep
088their kids home but to force the parents who want inch school learning and who are well aware of the so-called risk s well we made our choices our children have been home for 6 months without peer connections inperson instruct teacher instruction and immune boosting surroundings when they finally get back they will be weak and socially inept depression is skyrocketing and we as parents fear that more than a virus with less harming statistical numbers than the flu our children have been imprisoned for 6 months and you want to keep them locked up from any more there's no reason teachers can't go back to school to do their job if they're immune compromised or over the age of 60 let them be the online teachers for the kids whose parents chose that but to say I don't
089want to work because I might get sick is a weak excuse and not acceptable my husband isn't allowed to call out for fear of covid he's a police officer he has to go to work and what is going to happen when the flu comes back around we'll be closing down for that as well this is ridiculous my eighth and sixth grader are on IEPs and require resource Support over the phone or FaceTiming just doesn't cut it both of them have had have Fs in at least half their classes because they can't grasp what they are being taught through a computer screen my eighth grader was specifically put in co-taught classes for all four of his core classes because he needs the extra help my sixth gr my sixth grader cried and asked if he could
090skip school he does he hates it he doesn't like doing this and the lame idea of dropping them off to sit somewhere else to be watched by Lord knows who to maybe possibly receive some sort of help or accommodations isn't going to cut it my third grader fell asleep at the table the other day his inability to focus on a computer screen is ruining his education and I'm not H harping on my kids teachers they have fantastic teachers who want to go above and beyond they know the importance of of the in school learning and that this is not a good situation for our kids they Rock it's the ones who don't or won't fight for our kids who don't rock what makes this online learning even worse is Cox deciding they were going to
091turn off the internet when our kids should be learning which is in the grand scheme of things doesn't rate that much since the rapid program has trouble loading on a daily basis half the time the screen freezes on WebEx and my kids have no clue what's going on my kids have been back in school for 10 days and three of them Cox was down this is not what my children or I signed up for so I suggest that maybe we draw up a waiver give it to all the parents who want on Campus Learning and get our kids back inside a classroom ASAP we are tired of the political push and pull my kids shouldn't have to suffer for the political agenda of others we need to get it together and get them back in
092the classroom now thank you very much thank you hi um my name is Jennifer Mathers and I do recognize that this is a difficult decision it's a different topic um but fortunately the department uh Arizona Department of Health has provided benchmarks to help make this decision easier for boards like this I do want the schools to open I have two kids but uh I think that we need to wait until it's safe and just like one of the other mothers had said um it's not a a question of whether or not the entire population here wants the schools to be open it's about when they are opened and I would like the board to adhere to the the standards the benchmarks thanks thank you Stella I don't have a last name then Steve lavel or
093lelli and then Brandon I didn't exactly know what I was going to say but I'm going to make it short I think that putting students on computers is just causing another problem aside from Corona virus it's damaging their eyes and after school I'm constantly having headaches and needing ipren to get rid of it it's already stressful enough having to deal with wearing masks everywhere you go and online school is just making that worse we want to go back to school so we can interact with other kids and have the opportunity to make friends and have contact and learn something new I am normally learning something new every day and that's a goal that I intend to keep and now I'm concerned about getting into college for lack of education education I have a 5-year-old sister
094stie and she just got into kindergarten and she is constantly needing help because her computer's shutting down and I just don't think that that is being fair to the kids who need education at Greenfield Elementary which is where I went last year I felt like I was always welcomed and that there's always someone who could help me whenever I needed it and now I feel like I'm being blocked out and ignored and I feel like that's just not fair I feel like that education is something that we all need and that we need that to have a good future and that's why I think that we should go back to school thank you thank you good evening uh my name is Steve lval I have a son that goes to uh gilber High I also
095uh coach football over there at Gilbert High um I just want to hit on a couple things real quick that some people brought up the flu right well the Spanish of 1918 we had a death rate anywhere between 3.5 to 5.26% depending on the numbers you can find on the internet about that um in 2018 we had a really bad seasonal flu case worldwide numbers were 650,000 dead about a 9% death rate worldwide currently with covid our death rate worldwide is just a tad bit higher than that at 0.1% worldwide okay now that doesn't really correlate here to Gilbert but I think it shows maybe some of the questions on why we're reacting the way we are as a as a country and a school board with regards to closing everything down um I'm sorry
096I was just taking down some notes I wasn't really ready to speak today so uh I wanted to talk to you real quick I have a comment here it's from uh it's from an article from Pediatrics dated August 2020 in there it says quote children are not drivers of the covid-19 virus and that transmission from children to children or adults is very infrequent uh that's from the Pediatric article in August um Dylan made some comments I don't know he's in here here no I don't know if you heard that young man speak uh his words were pretty pretty good but I think his nonverbal communication was even more important uh he's crying out to you to let him go back to school he's a teenager he's 16 and he's asking you to please please let
097him go back to school I work locally here in gilber for the fire department uh I've been on the front lines of covid myself I've also had it um we don't get metrics nurses and doctors don't get metrics fries and bashes didn't get metrics to go back to work so I don't I don't necessarily think we need metrics to go back to work okay um I'm I'm a little concerned why we don't already have Pro calls because we've been out of school since March um I think those should have been should have been addressed before now again that that comes at the state level too and I'm almost running out of time um I want to leave you with this in coaching I have kids that struggle so they need tutoring so I'm trying to
098work with them right now and trying to get them online tutoring um but the aspect of them showing up and working out with us right now as we've come back to the field and done some stuff has been phenomenal for for these young men they get the the social interaction that they're not getting on a daily basis and again we don't have metrics to decide what and how that affects their brains but I can see it firsthand uh the positive impact it has for them to have some social interaction with other youths and I think we need to get back to that thank you thank you good evening my name is Brendan Waller I am a uh CEO of a local um security contract company uh I'm the uh we have about 324 employees uh
099and the whole company um but one of my main uh things that I came up here for is I'm here for my kids um I had two of them that went through Highland High School and I've got one left that's in uh Pioneer uh the one that's in the uh that just graduated uh from Highland is a class of 2020 he's in the Army right now and uh he he just got Co himself um he was in a group of other guys there was about 200 of them and he said Dad well I don't know what this is all about I'm not sick I don't feel like anything so even at a young age these guys even when they get it are not uh they're not having the health issues that other people I've talked
100to teachers and they want to go back and I say this to the teachers that don't want to go back I go to work and a lot of their people go to work and if you're afraid just find a new industry it's not that big of a deal um if you're afraid as a student it's it's not that big of a deal stay home don't take away the freedoms of other uh students including my child or me as a taxpayer 43 students in the entire us have died in 2020 from covid-19 145 people in died last year altogether and uh there's 70 million kids in the whole us uh so the question is how some can we reopen if it's going to be more than a week and it's going to take time we need
101to start looking at a referendum maybe for November for repaying taxpayers for each week that the district is going to be closed the district is St is saving tens of thousands of dollars in support staff costs other other than teacher costs electricity Supply costs every day that it's closed I'm a CEO and know that there's line items for everything no matter what your opinion if school should be open or closed you will owe that money back to the taxpayers if you refuse to open back in back up within the next 2 to 3 weeks maximum it's been about 6 to 7 months since this pandemic has been with us people are not dying all around us and especially not kids move the decimal from 70 million kids in all of the United States over to
1021 millionth of 1% and that's that's how many people how how many kids have already died odds of being struck by lightning are one in 3,000 which means that as a child you are many more times likely to die from lightning than covid-19 with that slim odds of kids dying that's not worth closing in so let's wake up we calculated the risk every day of waking up and driving the car 36,000 people were injured in cars in Arizona alone in 2018 15,000 died do we stop driving the answer is no life has risks covid-19 is not a death sentence for 95% of those adults that get it so let's please open back up thank you thank you we have Kathy Stager I believe it's Liam for foresight and Robbie foresight there sorry hello thank you
103for allowing me to speak tonight my name is Kathy Stager and I'm a teacher in Gilbert um and a resident of Gilbert and I addressed the board a few weeks ago um about using the guidelines to help us reopen safely and I want to thank you for for um following those I I do appreciate apprciate it um I believe that children learn best in school and I am looking forward to seeing them um but I'd like to address the board tonight about a plan for when the numbers that we're using right now revert back to not meeting the guidelines due to community spread parents and teachers understand how fast viruses spread think about how cold and flu and strep throat appear two to three weeks after we're back in school after summer break fall break
104winter break this is a virus and it's going to spread the schools that are opening now are not following the guidelines similar to when the state didn't follow the CDC guidelines Governor Ducey needed to close the state down again and our numbers dropped the same thing is going to happen to the schools that have opened already um I'd like to urge you um to prepare a presentation about GPS's plans for when the numbers do revert to not meeting the guidelines as they will um it's a virus it's definitely looking for ways to spread and we need to have a plan for that as well um it's an incredibly difficult time and you have difficult decisions to make um thank you for letting me speak tonight and thank you for your service and your dedication to
105our district thank you um I'm Liam and my family recently moved here two months ago and we were excited about making new friends in a new neighborhood but now that all the schools are shut down it's kind of hard to uh make new friends and I just hope that we go back to school hi I'm Robbie foresight I'm Liam zad I just want to bring a perspective of a brand new resident of uh Gilbert we moved here two months ago we left behind uh family and friends and a whole network of people that we had in Los Angeles California and I don't tell many people that I moved from Los Angeles to Gilbert cuz it's unpopular but uh we did it not only because we really love the town but also because um of our
106solid belief that uh the choices that we would be able to make for our family and the freedoms that we'd be able to exercise here were something that was rapidly evaporating in where we came from and uh just the belief that we could have a better life for our family and I can tell you that um when we first heard that the first two weeks would be online only I was a bit disappointed but that was definitely something that I could live with and it seemed uh like a well-reasoned plan I appreciated the choice that we were able to make and we did choose that we would go back uh 100% in person when I read the revised decision that we would go with these new standards just that sinking feeling of exactly what we
107are experiencing in Los Angeles which is a message that translates to who knows um and it it lacks courage it lacks decisiveness and and it um it rounds off to not wanting to step first in a lot of ways and I can tell you that that has a crushing effect on the community and especially I was especially disappointed with the inclusion of Point number three which is covid like illnesses we all know that the flu season is coming and I just can't for the life of me maybe I I need to have it explain exp better to me but I can't figure out why that would when we have a seasonal flu why that would necessitate the continued shut down with no distinct end in sight I think being a parent and being a part
108of a community um inherently is about weighing risks and making calculated decisions for your family uh and that's especially true now Liam and I could get in the car right now and drive to Main Event we could throw down $10 we could play 400 video games moving from machine to machine and there would be no problem that's a freedom that we have and that's a good thing it's our decision as a family do we want to do that we could walk through Target and touch every toy in the toy aisle and put them in our mouth if we wanted to but we're not going to do that but the one thing that we don't have the freedom to do under this decision is the most important thing which is decide to uh take advantage of
109the best education for Liam and his sister AA uh that that we can get and make that calculated risk as a family so I appreciate your time thank you next up we have someone who's identified as just Brian then Michelle Dre and lastly Renee Cruz o Brian Michelle Dre Renee Cruz good evening Dr McCord governing board staff and Families my name is Renee Cruz and I'm here tonight as a teacher and as a mom I have been a teacher here in Gilbert for over 20 years and my 12-year-old daughter has attended Gilbert public school since she was three I know I am not alone when I say I would like to express my profound gratitude to each member of our board our superintendency Administration and our entire District as a whole these have been uncharted
110waters and we have experienced times and situations no one could have ever predicted or imagined you have shown Grace Under Fire resiliency and Innovation and I want to express my appreciation for the thoughtful consideration you have given to every decision you have made as you have tried to prepare and pl plan for our children to return to school please know we remember those of you on this board devote endless days and nights to our district and recognize your position as is a volunteer one we are extremely grateful for the various perspectives points of view and opinions that each of you bring to this board in representing the various stakeholders of our district each of you is valued and should be respected as just one of the many stakeholders of this community please remember the loudest
111and most critical voices do not always represent the majority of the greatest attribut of our district it is that our board and administration View and recognize each of us as humans not just merely as a number in a data set or as a student or an employee ID number as I stand before you tonight I recognize that I am not a representative of all the voices and of all the opinions in our district however what I do represent is on behalf of a portion of teachers who have not always been heard let me be very clear this is not because you have ignored us this is because we have chosen to not speak up we have remained quiet because we do not to want to widen the gap of divisiveness that seems to have a
112stronghold on the decision-making process when to reopen schools as teachers we are a collective group and we are united in one thing the education safety and well-being of all of our students the decision to reopen schools is not an US versus them we are one United Team we are here to help lift each other up and to fill in when others can't or un unable to do because of the situation the pandemic has put us in many students and staff are unable to return to the classroom right now in the traditional sense but as I said we are one team with one goal to ensure the Education Health and well-being of all students when one of us is unable or cannot do what we want to do and the others are here to ensure that
113our students are taken care of while some may not be able to teach or learn from the classroom some of us can do it from online how however let me be very clear this is a deadly virus it is not a hoax and is not something to be taken lightly it is something that needs to be taken seriously and I am proud that our district recognizes this as I have said you have put thoughtful consideration to each decision you have made and trust that you will not go into tonight's decision lightly I believe strongly in doing our part to spread to help mitigate the spread and transmission of this virus however I also believe there are many things that we can do to ensure the safety and well-being of all all of our students as
114a teacher we have all been trained and re to recognize that our job does not begin and end with classroom instruction we are the eyes and ears and we are the first line of defense for all of our students needs this includes their social emotional and me mental well-being we are the ones that the students caught on to detect and Report abuse and neglect we are the ones to gain intervention for our students who are presenting with signs of suicide and of mental distress if this pandemic has taught us nothing else it has taught us that people need people it has taught us that we need each other we need experiences and we need human act interactions we need peer interactions this is even more critical for our children we have all put our lives
115on pause to do what is best for the greater good of our communities however I believe that it is time to begin to look at the entire population of our students and address their needs as well I'm not asking that every student and every teacher return to the classroom that is not practical Fe feasable or safe there is a reason for healthy fear of this virus for those who question position my position and question my understanding of the severity and the emotional trauma of covid can bring please let me reassure you I know firsthand I don't say this out of fear and I don't say this to gain emotional support I say this because I do understand sadly exactly one month ago today my father lost his battle with covid so I do understand and
116I do know it all too well however with that being said I am comfortable returning to the classroom and I am comfortable with my daughter returning to hers however I am not comfortable with her remaining in isolation for weeks months or even worse a year to come because to me this is not living I appreciate that our district has planned and prepared for many different options to suit the needs of all of our families students and staff every parent and every staff member has options to do what they feel is best for their children for their families and for themselves with the relevant numbers and the metric showing we are moving in the right direction I am comfortable sending my daughter back to class and I am comfortable as a teacher ring to returning to
117the classroom however what I am not comfortable with is knowing that my daughter and so many other students like her will continue in isolation I am asking that the board consider returning those students and teachers who are able and healthy enough and comfortable enough to return back to their classrooms thank you there were 32 individuals who requested to speak two did not return to the podium I want to take license especially at this point to thank all of you for sharing your thoughts and opinions with the board I want to pay particular attention to those courageous students who step forward and let us know your concerns and your feelings we are proud of your efforts to address the board with that we will move forward with item four 4.01 a review of the most current
118health benchmarks from the Arizona Department of Health Services and Maricopa County Department of Public Health and these are two presentations that will follow one another led by Dr McCord Dr McCord I yield to you thank you Dr Santa Cruz governing board members I'd like to Echo your sentiment for our speakers tonight um we we definitely appreciate uh your thoughts moving forward um let me get this all situated a week ago seems so long ago we sat in this room and we talked about health benchmarks that just came out from the Arizona Department of Health Services and we had conversations about where those initial benchmarks uh were were um at at the moment in time and said we'd come back because we knew that m County would also come out with uh benchmarks that I believe
119they pull the data from the same spot but more specific to our boundaries and so um this is just all information that have has been pulled as of uh recently in just terms of their dashboard um I know others have dived much deeper in a lot of different ways this is what's uh facing the public at uh when you look at the dashboard so uh just want to go back to what the criteria uh there's three areas that uh are used for The Benchmark a two-e decline in number of cases uh as well as or two week of case rate less than 100 cases per 100,000 population percent positivity for initial opening two weeks of percent positivity less than 7% within the county and covid like um two weeks with hospital visits due to CLI
120below 10% also looking at the criteria and they broke it down into three different areas uh minimal moderate and substantial uh minimal areas evidence of isolated cases or limited Community transmission case investigations underway no evidence of exposure in large communal settings moderate Community spread means sustained transmission with high likelihood or confirmed exposure within communal settings and potenti potential for Rapid increase in cases and substantial Community spread is large scale uh controlled Community Transmissions including communal settings schools workplaces Etc and this is how they've defined those certain areas and how they've broken them down uh in terms of percentages and again the criteria based on this and based on schools is uh when you're in those certain areas this is what uh they recommend you should and should not do so of course in the substantial
121range uh it is to continue on the virtual path uh minimal to moderate range is the hybrid path and the traditional range is when there's no uh no to minimal uh spread of the virus and as you can see there there are categories of what you should be doing in those areas and you're looking at the Hybrid of course it checks all the boxes and traditional uh which is basically everybody back uh is very minimal in terms of what the requirements are based on uh the metrics currently looking at Maricopa County data this data is reported on August 13th for the week ending July 26th uh if you look off on your right here uh we are in the green zone with 117 out of a um 100,000 it's trending down and it has for
122the last couple weeks criteria 2 is percent positivity that continues to be in the red but is trending down it is currently at 10.9% and criteria three is hospital visits and that is trending down at 5.3% and it was in the green area as well um when it was last reported on July 19th for July 19th looking more closely at Mar Copa County if you go on their website and you navigate it you'll get to a spot to where you can plug in your school district it'll outline it as we have here this yellow area is not our school district but this is our area right here and you click on it and it'll give you some specifics related to your District as it relates to the benchmarks and this is what has happened and
123so a couple weeks ago we were at 7% 112 or 7% for Co light cases 11.22% uh positivity and cases per 100,000 was at 11073 uh moving into the most recent data uh cases per 100,000 7.7 puts us in the yellow percent positivity is 7.83% and covid likee illness is at 4% so again if you look from week to week we are trending in a very very good direction um and again that's just the areas that I just spoke about and again when they post this data they post it every Thursday at 400 p.m. and usually it is lagging by 12 days and so we need to keep that in mind as well as we move through this any questions related to that that's just the simple data told you I gu you guys have
124seen this uh we've had conversations individually about it is there anything anybody like to add or have any specific questions related to that Dr McCord as you look at the page that's headed adhs criteria which is that grid of colors that one there MH uh would it be appropriate for one to think CU we' heard commentary about protocol would it be appropriate for one to think that where those check marks or X's appear that those are generally an outline for the kinds of protocols we need to consider and that we have considered those and have those protocols in place that's that's correct thank you and I I would argue even uh as you move forward uh some of those Protocols are actually applicable to the green zone as well but for adhs criteria this is
125what they've laid out thank you Dr McCord also you know as as you reviewed the metrics uh obviously we're we're staying very true to the published dashboards uh we did have uh a couple of speakers talk about looking forward and anticipating where the metrics are um how are we watching those Trends because we know that some data even though it's not officially on the dashboard some data for future time periods is available how are we looking at that we look at it on a daily basis and when I say we I mean me uh this is something that I usually get a text from Miss Wood about you know attendance and then I get on my computer and give her that information and then I start checking out some of the data uh just because
126I know that everybody's looking at it and uh this is the most facing forward type information this is what um the county and the state have given to us but again it's it's 2 weeks old in the reporting and so uh there are ways that you can dig in and look deeper to find uh more specific data that's more recent so and I think it's important that the public know that we are going off of the metrics but we are anticipating where those metrics uh you and your staff are looking at so that we can make a a a decision uh and receive a recommendation and make a decision that's uh forward-looking uh and and so on so I appreciate that you met um Dr Sant Cruz I just had one question Dr mcord I
127just want to um emphasize that the reason that we're listed by the county as still being in red is that we have to have this kind of a um yellow or green for 2 weeks before they can um recommend that we move to a different um mode of learning besides online learning correct that is correct that's their recommendation okay thank you any other board members the other the other piece I think that's important is uh not only are we looking at the data on a day-to-day basis and again I yield to you Dr McCord but we're also very mindful of the fact that we're looking at the local data that that impacts our district in the areas that we serve as it relates to the entire County because we all mindful that we're a very
128uh mobile society and that people cross boundaries all the time and have an impact on that data whether we like it or not that is correct we have 10 primary you know zip codes that our attendance comes from but there's probably I have the number in the back of my head I think it's probably like 45 50 or maybe even more zip codes that are with in from students that are within our boundaries some of them are one some of them are 25 and so everywhere in between but there are a lot of smaller uh representations from others codes in our district Miss Wood just that I just brought up a question can you go to the the district guideline I guess the county and the district data so backwards or this one uh forward
129okay so here's the county data yes and it's as of July 26th yeah reported on the 13th okay and so far we've met two of the three benchmarks but we haven't even made it to the moderate on the third on that second benchmark that isct it's below 10% but it's trending down and we have seen the current data that leads us to believe that then can you go to the next one then on the district okay so districtwide it looks like we've met that percent positivity is below the 10% for our district so we're again we're trying to compare where we're at but that's just for one week what we did this end do you remember this was the this was last week this ended last week so August or was this July 26th again
130I think this was hold on July the the the County website is July 19th July 26th and was that the same for this that's what I wanted to make sure so this is also so this was July 19th and then July 26th as well okay it's the same data set they're just narrowing it down okay that's what I was just trying to remember so so for this District we have one week of moderate or minimal correct still looking for two weeks of that and then to compare it with um the greater area to just make sure that we're having those comparisons is that where we're going that's correct and and what I what I'd like to point out is what's encouraging is if you look at the uh the week before of where the numbers
131have gone in in a trended very well in a in a positive direction so that's encouraging M jetti I don't want to skip you I know you're online any questions not right now I'll have some later thank you okay Dr mcord I have nothing further I just wanted to share that with you we'll every time we get together as long as you want that information we'll bring this information forward and just for those in the audience and members who are watching on live stream the board has access to this information we reviewed it in executive session as well and we are at in some form or fashion constantly reviewing it so if you don't hear a lot of questions from the board it's because we have already asked those questions and have already reviewed the
132data as well so with that we Dr San Cruz can I add one more com I apologize it was alluded to you know and you articulated why we look at the countywide data knowing that people move around we we alluded to the fact that we have local zip codes but we didn't really talk about why the local information is pertinent because we do get some comments that you shouldn't look at the local um we we've articulated this before in in comment but we have to look local because we recognize that there are hot spots in the county and there are lower spots in the county but more importantly we have open enrollment um and so if we're not looking locally right now if we look at only the county metrics we have open enrollment from
133numerous people several hundred that live in for example Apache Junction which is local to us but is actually in panel County so if we're not looking at more localized data we're actually ignoring a sizable portion of our student body meanwhile to be extreme we're including students who are in Surprise Wickenberg Maricopa who really don't have the traffic patterns that cross us so understand we're looking at both sets uh not one at the expense of the other but we're trying to look at all of that so that we're considering those areas that truly affect our schools thank you Mr Carr we'll move to item 4.2 is a review and discussion of a phase in approach plan Dr McCord thank you Dr Santa Cruz governing board members uh at our last governing board meeting uh I was
134directed to bring to you a reopening phase in plan um in terms of what we can do to get school and and families back in into our schools as quickly as possible but yet while it's still safe and uh my team and I have come up with a plan and they will tag team on a lot of this presentation to come through um again something that um this is what we'll be recommending to you as this is what our phase in plan is of course you have final say on whatever we want to do but uh based on the information given and uh based on what we believe is important we put this together uh again talked about that uh the charge has been to merge academic needs of students health safety and all stakeholders
135find a balance to best serve our entire Community uh be we have and will continue to solicit feedback in various ways throughout this process again the benchmarks I don't think I need to review those with you again we just uh talked about that in those two specific areas and again this just breaks it down uh for those learning scenarios traditional hybrid and virtual SL onsite support for uh those areas and again it defines the minimal the moderate and the substantial Community spreads related to covid-19 uh ad delivery models we've also according to those we have three choices in person which is full-time on campus hybrid which is the phased approach we'll be talking about this evening It's a combination of inperson and online instruction and that is on the campus we'll be talking to you
136about this as a hybrid of students come in and then they might be gone for a few days and But continuing to learn online from um directed by their campus then there will also be the global uh GPS Global Academy which will remain intact uh for those that don't don't feel comfortable coming back to school in person at all at this time and again just the online which is the other third model uh the commitments that we've talked about we talked about these uh in June we'll continue to talk about them sure the health and safety of our student staff and our families provide a high quality education for all students uh ensure the social emotional well-being of our student staff and families offer choices based on what is best for our students academically and
137for their Health and Wellness which include both in-person and online learning options Provide support to students who experience A disruption in their learning due to sickness or future closures create a plan that is flexible that could be modified as circumstances change yes for Dr Santa Cruz may I go right ahead I think I think um if this has been our commitments I think there's been some disconnect in how it's felt across the district that we've been able to deliver on this do you have any thoughts that you would give on this you know I I I yeah I do and I appreciate you bringing that up you know when we started this well I guess we could have a start date of March of some sort we pivoted real quick and and went to online
138and um that was out of pure necessity um and then moving into to the summer uh we put together the task force we came up with three options for families uh and that was based on the assumption that August 5th those three options would be uh offered to everybody we went through a process uh we went through a process with our staff uh and those three options of course were online uh the flex model which I guess could be um seen as hybrid as well and the um in person uh portion of it and again what we've learned from this is that this is Moment In Time type of stuff um things changed and things have changed dramatically uh since June uh in June they were going everything was going great uh in terms of
139numbers were going down and all of a sudden they started going up again um and then a lot of things happened and so we were still moving forward uh with those thoughts and our I believe our families were on board with that they made their choice we've heard a lot of that coming through emails saying I've already made my choice what are you guys doing I can wholeheartedly appreciate that and I I I respect that uh and then executive orders came out with moving the date uh we had to make a decision on do we start school on the 5th and then see what happens because we were continually waiting for uh direction from the governor and he'd come out with that and then the last executive order um came up with benchmarks to be
140able to look at and so uh as we move through this um we're trying to keep everything in mind knowing that you know we've already told families this one piece but yet now that we move into school um we might have to adjust and and change our offerings a bit and that's not just to say that um we make a commitment and then want to go back on it um that's to say that in June that was the commitment but things have changed and so we have to uh give our families the very best options that we can and coming through this model it'll look like an online and an in-person approach uh to that at least for a little while uh a phased in approach and so um I I I think that it
141can be confusing to families at times or uh they can feel as if you know what you guys keep changing your your mind on things and that's not out of uh just because we want something different to do it's because you know there's some Necessities that come into play and again we were given Direction by the governing board to come in with a phased in approach and so uh that's what we'll talk about and uh hopefully be able to move forward with uh Dr San Cruz if I could just add a couple of thoughts um I've tonight we heard a lot of speakers talking about being afraid that their children would be behind I I would think that our um District Comm commitment and our teachers commitment is to meet kids where they are and
142help them to move forward in their learning in the best way that they can and I understand that online can be very challenging especially for those elementary kids but it's not it's not that we as a school board are trying to closed down schools it's that we have a pandemic and we're trying to deal with a situation that no one in this room has ever faced before and I think that um as we move forward we do want those kids to get the education that they deserve and that we're committed to helping them make up or get to where they need to be I don't want to say that we're behind because we're not behind I mean we're just the kids are where they are and I think that we will reach out and help
143them to the best of our abilities I am absolutely confident in our district team Dr McCord and our um cabinet that have worked so hard on every aspect that we're doing we're dealing with something that's really complex and changing it in a week or two weeks and that means that sometimes it's not as smooth because other we usually would have done that in in a year of planning and we just have one week to do it it doesn't always come out as well as we would like but I think to just understand that we do have students at the center we are concerned um if if people can reach out to their teachers or to their schools to get help I I know that everyone wants the best we can for these students and it's
144not that we want to be in the situation it's that there is a pandemic and we have to deal with that and some of us may think it's it's here and it's not that bad and some of us may feel that it's it's more severe and we have to find a way to come together and support our students as we go through this I think what um you know the vast majority of emails that we receive um talk about their their children's teachers in a very positive way and you heard it tonight from a lot of people it's not it's not that it's for lack of effort by any means um but it's different and and um we are as Educators creatures of habit I think we are as people creatures of habit and uh
145I think I said at the beginning of this I think I said it back in March online learning is not ideal it is not the answer to everything at all and it is difficult and we are running into some of those struggles related to that and I I do applaud our teachers for you know doing the very best that they can I have three of them living in my house right now and I know the time and effort that's put in on a daily basis um and I I know that's what goes on in a lot of households and the same can be said for students and for their families uh you heard one family night like what Dylan's going back to work on hours of homework um moms and dads are going back to
146help out with their families I mean that that's a real thing and I just want all of our families to know know that we we do recognize that and um we put together something that we want to be successful and but we know it's difficult and we know it's hard and we know that we've had technology struggles at the beginning of it uh and we think we've come through a lot of that but there are a lot of different things that come up at different households related to technology and that's difficult too um and I said this at the beginning there's nothing there's nothing better than imperson instruction for kids and um we proving that on a daily basis right now and so our hope is to get there um as soon and as safely
147as possible um who's up Barbara's up I'm the clicker so if I'm like a slide behind let me know hi good evening um as Dr McCord mentioned um as we were looking at a phase in approach to get our students um back to in person we are looking at two different options for our students one of those being that in-person hybrid where we have our students in a combination of the campus classroom and also online and then of course option b which is our full online instruction through GPS Global Academy um we wanted to we knew it was important for us to use the Arizona Department of education's definition for hybrid and that's why we are calling it hybrid um they do talk about that combination we are um looking at having our students return
148to their campus to days a week and then the combination with that of online learning for the other days um one of those being virtual with their teacher as well and of as we mentioned before we do know too that families will continue to want to do just full online learning and that will be their second another option for them so the one delivery option the online learning there's been a lot of discussion um all of our students are experiencing that now so really the majority of this presentation or the rest of this presentation is going to be about our hybrid option and the option that we want to um provide more information to you and to our community as well the option this hybrid option again is at on campus in person and also
149online combination we're looking at a phase in approach with the intention of being able to go back to school um full-time all 5 days as soon as um we are able to do so so the delivery model for the hybrid op optioned through this phase in time period would be that again our students are attending campus two days a week um we would do that in Alpha sort so we would for example have our classrooms split between um our a through L students with last names of a through a through L will attend two days and students with last names of M through Z will attend the other um there will be some exceptions of course with families with different last names we want to make sure that we're keeping our families together too with
150that there will be safety precautions in place and we we are going to talk we've talked about those before we're going to talk more about those as well and that delivery model will be for both General and special education students now we do have an exception to that two-day attendance we do have students um special with special needs that do require them to be in a special needs classroom for more than 60% of the day and we realize with that exception that it would be important for us to bring them to school four days a week they would attend Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday um and th that is when they would also be receiving their specialized um designed instruction and services for special education right now they're receiving that by appointment and we thought
151that it was extremely important that um as we go through a phase in approach this would be um something that we would do for our students in those particular populations there are other populations of students um are elll our um students that um participate in title programs we do have some hybrid um online virtual opportunities for them that we have also successfully done during summer school so that would continue they would attend two days a week as well so again all students two days a week and then the others online or independent and the special ed would be the four days Dr Newman Dr McCord just for clarity the alpha sort cohort it is possible that that we would be lopsided in terms of total numbers one way or the other either a through l
152or M through Z in those cases we would do the manual manipulation to try to get as close to equal proportions as we otherwise would is that a good cor we we would do that um if need be we we took a look at the alpha splits at all schools and they are not exactly even by any means and no I don't think anybody expect that to be that way but they're fairly close and so uh we'll take a closer look and if there's a certain area or certain school that we need to focus a little bit differently on we will I knew that would be the case I just needed for it to be said Dr Santa Cruz yes I I don't know if this is the appropriate time to ask but um as
153far as the curriculum that would be being that would be taught thought would we still be using the Florida virtual or would teachers be able to use more of their in-person teaching I know I've had a lot of questions about that that um there's concern that even as we go back either hybrid or in person that that we've completely changed the curriculum going forward we know that it's important that we keep within the same scope in sequence so that if students do have disruption or if students um happen to go between models they would be able to continue with that so we don't want to disrupt that that being said um our teachers as long as they're following that scope and sequence and that's how it is right now too um they can replace some
154Florida virtual curriculum with other curriculum or other act learning activities um and and that's what our teachers have been doing right now as well the curriculum team has um looked through every single one of the courses and they've identified what that scope and sequence would be and then our teachers are following that piece so I'm going to explain um the hybrid school campus General you've heard and you've seen these mitigation strategies before um we just thought it was important for us to um articulate them again so that people know what this might look like when they come back in person um again as we mentioned the on-site learning support will remain available for our students um who during their days when they are um working at home if they do not have internet access we
155would continue to provide that for them 50 about approximately Dr Santa Cruz 50% of our students will be on campus every day um and we that would help us and that would allow for that social distancing in the chart that Dr McCord shared before those were if we're in a hybrid situation those are the mitigation strategies we need to do so this would be a way for us to allow for that social distancing we'd be able to continue to provide accommodations and support in person um our special areas and elective classes would be part of our day it would be a full day that our students would be attending in most cases desk tables would be facing One Direction in rows whenever possible the classroom visitors we want to make sure that those are scheduled
156so that we are aware and we don't have too many visitors at any one time and and and we prepare for those there will be handwashing and sanitizing multiple times each day you will hear much more specifics from others um as we go through the presentation students will report to the classroom upon arrival to the campus um there will be some controlled student movement throughout the campus as well there will be support during those disruption periods that's why it is important for us to remain within that at least that scope and sequence of Florida virtual but making sure then that we um provide some opportunities for students to um interact and engage with other curriculum as well and then individual student supplies whenever possible um we would make sure that that they have those available
157if not there will be sanitation um procedures in place so that the materials that students are sharing those will be cleaned regularly as I mentioned there will be a lot more details related to health um specifics for elementary and secondary um as well as some of the safety precautions and the rest of our team will be explaining those do you have any questions for me just about anything General before I step away I I just Dr nman I do have a question go ahead go ahead who me yes Miss you jetty I'm sorry yeah Dr D could you just address what the workload for the teachers will be with this is it going to be okay or are they going to have to do way more so our teachers will be um since the students
158will be doing a combination of online and in person so our teachers will be generally teaching the same lessons twice in person and then the other lessons the students would be working independently um when Wednesday would be a day that our teachers would be able to do some planning um pull students for small group and do some one-on-one um and also do perhaps some virtual like whole group lessons um whatever is more most appropriate for them and they would be able to determine that based on what they know about their students and about their content area would there be a schedule so they'll have flexibility yes that is our intent would be for them to have that flexibility would there be a schedule then for some of those activities especially at an elementary level for
159different grades so that um parents who have more than one child you know different grade levels in their home can coordinate those activities yes we would be sure that we are um communicating that I think the campuses have tried really hard to make sure that they are um that will be continuing yes okay all right thank you I did have a comment though before um I just wanted one of the things I feel um is a benefit of this schedule is that we get the kids back and they can social distance because if we have all the kids in our schools at once we really can't properly follow those CDC guidelines as well because we just do have a lot of kids we love them we want them but um to in order to be
160cautious and careful I think going back in a way that we have some time to have them be a little further apart to make sure that we are not creating a spread of the virus um I think that this is an important component for this um hybrid option thank you board members okay director of Health Services Jennifer Frost now miss Frost thank you it was already on um I'm here to talk to you tonight about the things that we have going on in the health services department and how we're working together with Administration to U mitigate the spread of the virus um starting we're having we have a parent attestation form parents will screen their students um daily before school starts and we have that on our website and we will also reiterate that as
161um School beacons in person with support with um reminders and different ideas as far as what the signs and symptoms they need to look for with their students um we also have District protocols in place for staff screenings which we're already doing currently we've had staff um on campuses now since the summer and so they are also doing that as well um student Management in the health office we have um a protocol and a flow sheet that we've developed so that the nurses and the health assistants and the health offices know exactly what to look for they then can track and decide whether or not the student is exhibiting symptoms that require them to go home this is a very low threshold uh they need to exhibit One symptom um in in that um flow
162sheet necessarily and they could go home for that and we are also asking parents that they pick up within 30 minutes of the phone call so that we can get those kids out of the classrooms out of the health office and home where they need to recover um the health office is going to track students that are ill and reassess before they turn return to campus in addition to that we have uh changed our attendance line and so there is an additional option for parents to use on the attendance line if they believe that their child is exhibiting co-like symptoms or has had contact or a positive test and then that way the nurse or the health assistant can get in contact with the family offer resources and then talk about the length of stay
163that the child needs to be at home they'll be an agreed upon return date um the parents will be able to contact the health office again if they have questions concerns um anything regarding the child's care while they are um at home the teaching staff has been educated on signs and symptoms um we've also developed signage um there's videos about what constitutes um close contact good hand hygiene um we've talked a lot with the students um about signage for you know high fives we don't do those anymore how we can still still offer positive feedback without touching those kinds of things that we've talked about with um staff as well uh notification of staff and parents of positive contacts we have letters developed for um staff and parents regarding any kind of positive um covid
164testing so if we do have a student that's positive or a staff that's positive on campus we will notify everybody uh appropriately and then let them know what the step next steps are um we are requiring face coverings um per the Maricopa Department of Health guidelines um for all staff and students and then PPE for staff that are working in classrooms um we have um provided a 95 masks or face Shields and I want to say that the um n95 masks for our staff members is something that I'm hearing across the state is not um being offered in a lot of different districts and so our teachers have the added benefit of if they have a higher risk uh for whatever reason whether it be age or comorbidities that they are allowed to request that
165a 95 mask in our district has provided that and how would they um sterilize those you know I mean they're usually meant for when use but how would they sterilize CDC has actually developed guidelines for reuse of those n95 masks and those are distributed those guidelines were distributed with the n95 mask as they received it okay thank you it's a lot Dr Santa Cruz I I have couple questions um I I I would like to know about the um plexiglass because I've seen some pictures of DVC pipe with Saran wrap around them so how are you going to deal with that um I'm not sure what Mrs ug jetti is referring to I know in the health offices we do have a frame that we've used with um plastic sheeting in order to provide a
166more comprehensive isolation area as you can understand um school health offices were not made to be icus so we have done everything that we can to protect the students and the staff in those rooms um with the materials that we have I understand that but what how are we going to make it better I'm Sor we're going to make it better repeat the question I I just asked how we are we going to make get better with the plexiglass she wants to know how we're going to make it better within the health office um to be honest I believe that our protocols that are in place right now are are very effective it's all about the management of the student and their symptoms and how quickly they go home um I don't know that we
167can provide a true isolation room in the kinds of buildings that we have and with our scope of practice and I don't honestly believe that that's necessary and and Dr McCord we do have some of the car's money for that correct we do we have used car's money for a lot of the PPE that we have okay and then my second question is to you Dr McCord how are we going to um make sure that everybody understands the MTH policy what we'll do is there's been a lot of questions about the mass policies and in our policy we have we've outlined the procedures in which uh people can ask for exemptions I know that there is the question of well I just don't want to wear a mask so I'm going to get an exemption
168no that's not the case you will have to go through a process in terms of uh ensuring it's for Behavioral or medical issues and that'll have to be signed off um because I I know that's a fear not just by other families but also by staff and so um we will be sticking to that as we move forward thank you thank you Mr jetty board members Dr Santa Cruz if I me yes uh I would like to ask let's see oh on the notification of staff and parents of positive contacts the student staff letter a couple things um is it have we had that in place already and has that been going on MH and then if you could also address does that mean if you think you've been exposed to somebody or is it
169just people who actually have been um tested positive with you know some kind of um the medical test that actually will then be um sent out in a student or staff letter kind I just want to know what are the guidelines on so it has to be a positive test we would not want to send out a letter to somebody or to anybody saying that there's been exposure if we do not have that definitively so once the person has tested positive and we have that report then we um work on who the contacts would have been and we report out to those contacts okay same as the public health department does okay and and we're going to be as broad as we can in those contacts as far as anybody who who needs you know
170who's part of that school we're going to be very transparent yes okay and then have we already been notifying staff if they're on campus right now if if another staff member has been positive AB we have other things that we're going to do to make sure that that's happening or that's that's already we already have this in place M okay thank you so much Dr Santa Cruz Mr car um couple of questions uh do we have any protocols in place for new students I mean if one once we start school uh we have somebody come in role in the school we don't necessarily know where they've come from is there any requirement of how how we accept them or look at look at their history to make sure that uh they're symptom free before they
171enroll um are you talking about whether they come from another area of the United States oh are you talking about if they come from another area where there's more covid well I think there's two I think there's two scenarios one if they're coming from elsewhere but even let's say you know we'll say School District x uh or or Charter School z uh has an outbreak shuts down students decide they want to back in person are we identifying where they're coming from making sure you know obviously we want to welcome students back but we want to do that safely uh are we do we require any kind of tests showing that they're negative or any kind of protocol there uh currently no and that's a really good point if there was a shutdown of a school
172do an outbreak I think that would be something that would be important to look at for students coming in as far as um from other states or cities the spread of Co is pretty um moderate everywhere so I don't know that we would look at whether or not they moved from an area that had a higher concentration but I do think that your idea about coming from a school district that may be shut down due to those things would be something that we should look at and obviously as we uh you know as we move forward there's lots of new stuff here and you guys have done a you know the entire staff's done a tremendous job here but there's a lot of new material as a resource uh to employees to even parents do
173we have all of this written down in a manual or someplace where people can see it and understand what we're doing so they can use it as a reference yes our marketing department has been phenomenal so we have a parent web page uh that they can go to for resources we have an employee web page that they can go to for resources as well as our District web page also has Health Services um information that is uh specific to co and then about our other you know Health Services options too so there's a plethora of information out there from our websites and Miss Frost you and I spoke on the phone earlier today and maybe this was premature but I know you're continually looking to refine plans and offer additional resources to ensure the safety
174uh you mentioned one and I don't want to mention as a promise to the community because it's still in the works but can you talk a little bit about the the the testing Blitz that you're trying to develop There's an opportunity for us to offer our schools as host sites for testing blitzes with um several different um testing companies at no cost and we just offer the hosting site and you know open up and provide free air conditioning and so we're talking about that right now they have an opportunity to do 24-hour testing um or just you know a 9 to-5 type of um opportunity and they said that once we've delineated what um schools and what areas we want to use said they could be ready in 3 to 4 days and again we
175we recognize that's developing but we we want our entire Community parents students teacher staff to know that we are continually trying to work on ways that reassure their safety and identify issues before they exist so thank you for that and Miss Frost to Mr car's uh previous question relative to assessing students who are moving to us once we have our plan in place and once we are open students moving to us from other districts or other states uh is part of our protocol to assess them anyway as to uh their level of covid related issues or not currently we do not have anything in place uh we would require the parents to assess their daily health and well wellbe as we do our our students currently um something that I know people have done in
176the past is that our entities have done is they've required students to be tested I know some of our colleges are doing that however that requires the student to uh agree to be quarantined after the testing is completed and that's something that I don't feel is feasible in our location or with our students um we certainly could look at the school option if a school district were to close because of an outbreak I think that would be a very good opportunity to look into some issue or some ideas about how we could protect our population um but we don't have anything currently with that okay you feel that's safe enough yes okay Mr Frost can you please explain this little chart that I have up there real quick you don't have to go through each
177box but just let everybody know what that is uh this is a flow sheet that we have and it helps delineate whether somebody um who is currently experiencing symptoms and what the The Next Step would be uh some people that are asymptomatic and also um but also tested positive and what kind of quarantine or isolation that they would need this is a tool to help um our administrative staff with employees as well as our nursing staff with students and it gives them um how long they need to be on isolation and then um what symptoms they could be exhibiting if they needed to go home excellent thank you for that anything else thank you Miss pross thank you well thank you for all your hard work and just appreciation for all the nurses what they
178will be doing this year they're going to have a huge responsibility on their shoulders so they are amazing nurses and health aids and I am glad to say that we have them in every school not every District can say that so thank you next we'll bring up uh Mr Jason Marton executive director of elementary schools talk about what hybrid looks like at the elementary level good evening it's great to see all of you so this slide here for many of you is um very similar to the mitigation strategies that we came up with as the task force in June I think the main thing that you have to remember like we talked about with our hybrid approach here is that of course we're looking through the lens that this is approximately 50 50% of the
179students are on campus each day during this hybrid phase so when we're looking at Transportation being provided each day that would be provided for the stud students the two days they are coming to campus which will reduce the number of students on the bus because it'll be by the alphabet A through l or M through Z so those buses will be running their routes Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday but there will only be about half of those students on each bus due to only half of the students being at the school site same thing too with the cafeteria reduced capacity there the elementary principles had already done a great job of extending lunchtimes when we were preparing in June of course we felt we thought at that time 100% of the students were coming back so
180we had already reduced capacity in terms of the number of students in the cafeteria at one time um and so with 50% of the students we already have those plans in place and will'll just further reduce and allow for more social distancing to occur in the cafeteria during this hybrid phase and then the same thing too is we already had looked at our playgrounds um for recess we know that that's an important part of the day for the elementary student and so we had already worked on separating grade levels when we thought we were coming back at 100% so we already have that and now that uh playground will be reduced by 50% because of the capacity of those types of things um students attend specials two days a week in person unless of course
181it's art week as many of you know in Gilbert Arts only every other week when we're back full-time in person so when you look at a twoe rotation here with students would be in the hybrid model on campus 4 days a week it would be three or 4 days of those four days that they would have their normal um Elementary specials we've already started working too to make it work so that one week for example they might have PE in library and then the following week they would have General music and art and so that over the course of a two week period they would get to all of their specials Bandon string students too would still get to attend their specials as well and and sixth grade with the hybrid model of course a
182big thing and Dr Newman touched on this is the controlled movement of students throughout the campus um we will be making sure that there's kind of some of the campuses already have it in place others are waiting until we were coming back in person but putting tape and arrows and other directional signals in place for students so that they stay on one side of the hallway um when students do have to move classrooms we're having staff monitor those types of things like if they're going to A Gifted classroom or a special education classroom those things will be in place and then also when they're in line too that they're at least an arms length between students we know how especially our Primary students sometimes love to be one right after the another in line and
183so I think a big thing that the hybrid model allows for our elementary teachers and specifically our primary teachers but really all of them because first of all students haven't been on campus in five or six months so we always have to teach those routines and procedures but here we'll be teaching a lot of routines and procedures um that go with the enhanced cleaning and sanitization and and social distancing and so having half of those students on campus each day will allow those teachers to get those routines in place before we um come back with 100% of the student body vik would be provided Mr Martin can I ask a question to you going back bullet point to the specials uh particularly with music uh band Orchestra you know we've got a lot of air
184blowing aerosol issues what measures are we taking uh uh to distance or ensure that those right choir and and and music instruments are are safe so at the elementary level the main thing is General music so um and band of course strings you have that but there's not quite as many uh implications with that and so with that coming back um our band rooms are typically double the size at the elementary level in most of them of a typical classroom and so because of this you'll only be having approximately half of the band students and the band students will not be in a full band menu uh full band model on this so really when you're looking at the Hybrid model you're looking at about a quarter of the band and string students each day
185which at many of our elementary schools is going to be around 15 to maybe 20 students at most in the the way that they are um grouped on a Monday Thursday or a Tuesday Friday schedule same thing with General music students that singing type of thing there would only be 12 to 15 students when we come back in the hybrid we've also um Dr Coleman who is our coordinator of special areas has been working with for example the general music teachers too on they're looking at doing some alternative activities too where maybe they won't always be all singing there might be just a small group of them the others are watching so that you don't have for example eventually 25 students singing at one time but maybe small groups so that that social distancing can
186occur so General music teachers and band teachers have already gotten creative in some of those planning techniques that they're doing so thank you vik will still be provided at 27 locations and that structured the door side uh drop off pickup area for parents so that um they don't have to come all the way into the campus but it'll be near the vik door which most of our campuses is um off of the multipurpose room and then of course actually these Services started yesterday manair preschool building blocks and K prep um will also be provided with door-to-door service and those um started yesterday on the 17th in our elementary schools as well questions on this slide before I go to what a schedule for an elementary student would look like okay please continue I think you'll
187have some questions on the schedule sure so this schedule right here of course if you look in the Monday column and I'm going to walk you through through but if you look in the Monday column it says last names a through L attend in person so I'm going to kind of walk you through what an A through L schedule would look like for the week knowing that basically the M through Z is doing the reverse or the opposite so for example here A through L students would attend in person on Monday and Thursday which are those tan or beige columns there and when you start to look down the column you'll see that it's the normal typical school day of 810 to 255 which is for elementary students and when you start to look at
188that schedule in person you'll see that that's pretty much done by our curriculum allotments that we um that we follow kindergarten through sixth grade when it's a normal 5-day in-person schedule so for two days a week when the students are in person they will be experiencing what they normally do um what they have in the past and what they will be in the future as we transition back to that so the a through L students would be there on Monday with their teacher in person and and then on Tuesday though those a through L students would not be there and they would log in the buzz platform for attendance and they would complete assignments and learning activities that the teacher has assigned and I think when I've talked to several Elementary principles as well as
189um elementary teachers they find with this approach on Monday when the students are in person they'll be able to go over some of those activities with the students and say okay tomorrow in the buzz platform you're going to be completing XY Y and Z and this will also allow our teachers and I think particularly our primary teachers to give assignments on paper and put them in the backpacks on Monday night and say tomorrow students you're going to be completing this work and it's going to tie into the lessons that they taught on Monday so it'll be um practice work and so the teaching will happen during that because then of course for the teacher is the teachers as we said earlier they're teaching the same thing on Monday and Tuesday because they're teaching it to
190half their students on Monday and then the other half of the students on Tuesday but I really think um when you talk to elementary teachers they can um they can kind of review those assignments with the students on Monday that they will practice and then also too of course they can email the parents that says okay thanks your students attended in person today tomorrow parents here's what we would like you and your child um to complete independently while the teacher is teaching the other half of the class um in person and like I said it'll allow for some of that paper assignments and other things to happen so it doesn't always have to happen on the computer so Monday and Tuesday or you see M or the a through L then on Tuesday um is
191is um remote and then on Wednesday of course it's remote for all students and so this is where doct Dr Newman alluded they can do a whole class WebEx lesson with all 25 or 30 of their students they can also then this is a great day to do that small group or one-on-one tutoring take place and so they can schedule those things with students and families ahead of time um for that and there will be probably some independent assignments that they'll complete on that day it'll also give our teachers because I know the um question was brought up the teachers time to also review some of their lessons and things because um it will be different they're going to have both a combination of in-person teaching and online teaching or the distance teaching in and
192so with that they want to make sure those lessons are cohesive and so Wednesday it'll give them a little bit of extra preparation time for that and then of course Wednesday afternoon is the typical PLC and PD time for our teachers and then really if you look then Monday Tuesday is or Thursday and Friday for the a through L students is a mere image of Monday and Tuesday so then the a through L students are back in person on Thursday going through their daily schedule and then on Friday they would be remote um distance learning why the M through Z students are there in person what questions can I answer for you Mr Martin just uh pardon my ignorance here but yeah uh one is there is there flexibility for those elementary schools because some
193of our teachers already have been relatively successful to some degree and doing what they're doing using the platform and whatever other ancillary auxiliary materials they may have created so the question becomes two one is is there flexibility for that school that grade level that principal and group of teachers to say take the schedule that you have or the team has created and designate Ela time in those time frames and plug in the kinds of ela experiences that they have already programmed for kids consistent with what we've asked them to follow is that available to teachers yes as Dr Newman said the main thing is we want to keep with the scope and sequence so whether the student is in person or online or transitioning from a hybrid model to a global model they can do
194that but this way in reality when the students are in person then the teacher has more flexibility for example if they want to pull in a ready gen lesson cuz we just started that last year in ela and they felt like that covers the concept better than what the Florida virtual concept or platform does they can utilize that material on that day the other question I had is what prevents student M through Z on Tuesday from contacting the teacher on Monday because they're stuck or confused and the teacher is teaching on that day yep good question well teachers have their specials times they have before and after school and they also have lunchtime where they could look at those quick emails hopefully help get a student back going and that's one reason why we also
195looked at Wednesday too as if they lost some of their specials or which is in the El Elementary level their prep time that then they would gain that time back on Wednesday if they were for example here on this schedule the specials is 1:30 to 210 so if they were working on Monday with some of those M through Z kids answering questions then they would gain that time back as well too so it would be important for the teacher or principal at that particular school to communicate that to its student group and to its parent group Absolut as to when they're available yep board members I have a couple questions Sant Cruz let Miss humph go and then we'll get to you Miss fug jetti so one of my questions is because students are meeting
196twice a week um what is our expectation about the amount of material they're going to cover um as in in um compared to what we would usually expect right and the second is um you know there's going to be gaps I don't I want to say deficits but there's going to be some gaps because of our spring being at home instead of being at school how are we going to help those students to get the things that they need and and be on track well fortunately I would say for helping students get on track one thing that all teachers do well and I will say from my experience at the elementary level they really do figure out real fast where their students are at and meet their needs when you look at a normal typical
197for example Le second grade classroom you have students that are reading at a pre-primer level and then you have students in that same class that are reading at a fifth grade level and so you're going to see that still here granted knowing that maybe some of those skills and Concepts that they missed over the last quarter since March won't be there but they spiral as well and then our curriculum department has worked too uh worked hard too to fill any gaps in for example foundations we're doing some because foundations is very sequential in the k through3 grade levels we have looked at that and added some of those things in so that they aren't lost that material terms of um how much material is covered I think it's a lot like what they're doing this
198year um sometimes you have to cut out all of the extra stuff so that you really hone in on the priority standards that our state looks at and you utilize those priority standards in your time wisely so that you um are hitting those standards knowing that also too it's going to change how the teachers probably teach a little they're going to almost frontload or pre-teach on the in-person days and then they're going to have the kids practice on that independent day and then when they come back a day or two later for in person then they will review that material and go over it okay thank you I appreciate that miss you jetti my questions have a lot to do with what M compr just asked um and you know how much Mr Martin that
199I believe in Social studies and Science and the extra extras that we give kids but one of the things that we're hearing from parents is that you know kids have missed a lot of instruction since March so not that I want to do away with science and social studies I don't mean that but we do have to make up for some deficits and you may have already answered this but you know maybe that's where we need to concentrate right now with are the deficits that we've lost with some of the kids the the the time that we haven't been on in person I would agree with you obviously math and Ela which are um areas that are tested by the state we will focus on you can see right here two science and social studies
200in this particular grade level is about 30 to 35 minutes a day but there will definitely be flexibility for the teachers and the administrators at each School site to to utilize that time as they see fit and has has the state come up with anything about testing for this year I know they did away with it last year but is there any kind of um push to let it go this year again the latest I have heard there has been no definitive answer either way so is that a I think that might be a legislative thing that they have to do so until the legislature meets I would imagine that we have to wait until the legislature meets and since they have haven't had a special session yet we might have to wait till January
201to get the answer and I will add on to that we are of course starting with our new Benchmark system and we are working on that um Brandy Harris is working with our um site teams to implement that too here over the next several weeks as well because that is a requirement in the executive order that we have a beginning of the year bench mark over the within the first six weeks of school m yes Dr Santa Cruz Mr Martin I think of all well we've heard from a lot of families but I would say the elementary have most desperately been in need of help and in person and I guess I just am interested and concerned about those families and how how do we help them until we get to this point how do
202we help them those students how are we we've got to reach out and help these students desperately absolutely and I know the teachers are feeling the same way I feel like I've heard from many teachers who are doing all that they can and feeling that same frustration and I don't want them to burn out either so I think this will help a lot by just getting the students back two days a week because that in-person time really helps a teacher figure out what is it that I'm doing with the students and also too we've heard from lots of parents and we know from teachers that online instruction especially for Primary students can be very cumbersome and so in a 45 minute lesson what you normally would get done in person in kindergarten or first grade
203is going to take you two hours to get done and they don't have that time and so that's probably why it's very painful right now over the first two weeks for our students at the elementary level because just getting the the procedural getting webs going all of those things and getting students that are five six and seven years old to be independent that's what we teach them in school normally and so when a teacher is trying to do it as I call it through the Brady Bunch screen that can be really hard for students to do that and so I think by having some structure and routine and having them there two days a week I actually think the two or three the three days a week that they are not at school they'll be
204more successful as well plus two I foresee that a lot of those assignments won't always necessarily be on the computer there will be some okay kids here's the math assignment that you're going to do on good oldfashioned paper paper pencil types of things um and then that they'll be bring back the next school day that they're in session to review so I think that'll really be helpful I've already seen at the elementary school levels as I've been out lots of teachers already leaving Drop baskets there in the front office or in front of the office for parents to come by and pick up certain materials that are easier and probably more child developmentally appropriate for students to complete on paper pencil versus online types of things okay Mr Carr and a tag on to you
205go ahead miss you jetti and a tag on to Mrs wood um I think after being an elementary principal for 21 years the elementary teacher at 17 I think a lot of things that we're going to deal with when we get back are going to be social emotional and just teaching kids to get together again absolutely and that's going to be the hardest part that goes back to those routines procedures the classroom culture and environment all of those um different aspects will be taken into consideration as well absolutely and I appreciate that just sorry to to add on just again too can if we just keep those students in the Forefront and their needs and their abilities and you know if that's what we're concerned most about I just I and I I know that's
206what our teachers do I just think we we're going to have a lot of challenges as we as we even get back right but we've got to take care of these students well and the social emotional as you well remember because of the bond and override passing last year we do have social workers now at all of our uh Elementary and junior high schools and then Mental Health Counselors at our high schools so and those will be full-time which at the elementary schools if you were a non-title they were uh halftime so they are already playing a great role when I've been out there helping teachers and students but I think getting back in person they'll really be able to help some of that as well and assist the teachers with certain lessons and activities
207and help students too in small groups that need some extra support um Beyond those whole group lessons that are done in the classroom is there anything specifically that teachers are doing to address social emotional needs now in the online they are well they have classroom Mee they've talk about too just some of the some of the concepts of being online and also being a classroom Community there um uh Susie cadina and the social workers have put together um their own Buzz tiles on the platform for teachers to utilize there's resources like sford Harmony um and some other um materials that teachers can use and some of those materials have quick 10 or 15 minute activities that they can embed into their day as well whether it's online or in person all right thank you I
208I just if I may I just comment first of allk thank you for putting together this plan um you know I think you've hit on the very issues that I just would highlight we're going to have to be patient with these students as they come back it's been you know six months that uh they've not only learned the habits or or unlearned the habits of learning um unlearned the habits of expect ations for Behavior Uh you know y you know they're not going to be behind their peers because everybody's in the same situation but right but we know that the learning has not been as effective as any of us have wanted both last fourth quarter and and not from lack of effort from teachers we appreciate all they're doing uh but even this year
209so it's going to be it's going to be it's going to be a learning experience for all of us especially at that Elementary level absolutely so I think one thing to think about is if you have 12 or 15 students twice a week though you really are going to get to know those students quite quickly on those two days in person because you will be able to really personalize things versus the 25 or 30 students so I think there's also going to be some advantages when I've talked to a few elementary teachers about having the small groups at first and like you said Mr Carr getting some of those routines and procedures back into place and then one thing I will remind everybody is we as adults worry a lot and having been an elementary
210teacher and Elementary principle it always um never ceased to amaze me how resilient though that students are when they get back and work with a teacher and get in the school environment they are in many ways more resilient than we are as adults and they they're like sponges as we all know and they pick up things very quickly the last thing I want to touch on tonight before I'll hand it off um to the next person is the on-site support learning which of course um per Governor ducey's executive order we had to start that yesterday um August 17th of course it is a K12 thing but it mainly hits elementary schools and so during this hybrid phased in approach we would still offer it to the students on their days that they are not there
211um during the school hours just as we are right now um we would probably limit it to 30 students per day which would be about two classrooms or two rooms or areas and we know at some of our larger campuses we'll have to be a little bit creative on finding that space I've already talked to a few of those principles as well um Junior High and high school won't be as much but it will be available for those Junior High and high school students on their off days if they need to be in the building for internet access only um of course it is there for internet access and it'll look very similar to like it is now where support staff are supervising the elementary students that do get that on-site support learning Services um
212and then no special ized in-person Services provided during off-campus days would also happen with that that means that the ones that go to school on Monday Thursday would not receive those inperson services on Tuesday and Friday correct okay thank you and that is all I have I will uh turn it over to Mrs Taylor and secondary schools good evening everyone uh we're going to focus a little bit on the differences between the elementary and the secondary on this slide uh the first one however Mr Martin already mentioned Transportation would still be provided to and from school but those uh bus capacities would be at 50% so that is definitely an advantage uh to this hybrid hbd hybrid model at the secondary level we have planned for staggered release times uh during the passing periods so
213when we get to the schedule the specific schedule on the next page uh we will take a look more closely at that but stagered release during those passing periods and then also the directed hallway flow patterns for instance uh we would need to designate the enter and exit of our secondary campus doors that's definitely a a point where a lot of times kids are just going face to face in and out of those doors so they've already started working on signage for those as well as directional arrows on the floor passing on the right side of the hallways with uh arrows pointing in the directions that the standard flow of traffic goes at some of our larger campuses is going to be important uh we will have a reduced usage of those larger common areas
214so when you take a look at the gym the auditorium the lecture hall the library unless it's intentional for specific social distancing of certain performing arts groups or club meetings those types of things they would be able to spread out more in some of those larger areas uh but as far as using the gym or the auditorium for full packed in uh assemblies we were going to plan during this hybrid uh time period to use Virtual assemblies still um and a lot of our schools have already done some of those things with their freshman orientation seventh grade orientation uh those types of events that they've had to modify this year because of the current situation uh reduced cafeteria seating same as what Mr Martin mentioned uh that we would reduce similar to what uh restaurants
215are doing right now where you have have limited uh table usage and reduced amount of chairs at each of the tables other locations we would open on our secondary campuses for lunch time so our libraries is a good example of some uh place where a lot of times are open for our students to use during the Lunch Period lecture Halls auditoriums Courtyards uh a lot of our secondary campuses kids already eat all over the place during the lunchtime they find their spot and kind of make it theirs uh which is which is kind of nice for them to have a break from being in the typical cafeteria a phased approach to Athletics we would continue that we started level three this week and that has been going extremely well uh throughout the process starting with
216level one and moving to level two we went into a modified level two and then this week started at level three for the first time we've also been using that same approach to our performing arts groups so a modified Performing Arts practices uh the marching bands have been utilizing that as well following a phased in approach similar to what we've used for athletics so that would continue uh field trips we have determined more on a month by- Monon basis they've all been cancelled up through this point through the end of August uh but as we move towards meeting some of those metrics and taking a look at a phased in approach we would revisit that on a month by month basis uh the partial Day Option at the secondary level will remain so a lot
217of our students uh have chosen and and do in a typical year as well to take a couple classes online through our GPS Global Academy that would continue that they could be on campus for a portion of their day and then continue to take those online courses either from home or through a center for Success period on the campus so it just depends on the student and whether they're able to provide their own transportation um obviously they can still ride the bus before school and after school uh but we typically prefer students to once they leave to not return so they're not coming and going just for safety purposes uh questions about any of those things there may be more questions when you look at the specific schedules on the next page there is a
218picture of the high School modified in person but there's a link uh to the junior high one as well on there as well as the high school one you don't necessarily need to open it uh they're very very similar in approach in that we would divide the alpha split cohort similar to what has already been explained so that really we're looking at families uh having more consistency within their uh family unit regardless of what level their children are at or what school they attend and this was probably the the best way to determine that so that it would simplify schedules for for families we know that there will be some exceptions to that Alpha split because there are households where students have different last names and so we'll work with families on a Case by
219casee basis with that there will also be a need probably for certain programs to uh group students together for instance our bands May determine that um they would like all of their brass maybe on the Monday Thursday and all of their Woodwinds together on the Tuesday Friday uh maybe a Advanced Sports training class that has the basketball team for instance would put their JV uh basketball on T Monday Thursday and their varsity players on the Tuesday Friday so there may be some reason why certain groups or certain families might have a need over the other and that will offset some of the imbalance that we know will naturally occur uh when we do the a through l m through Z not every single period that a student or that uh that a student attends or
220a teacher is teaching is going to be exactly 15 and 15 out of a class of 30 but it would significantly reduce the amount of kids in the classroom where we can allow those desks to be spread out and allow for that social distancing uh within within classrooms and allow for more safety and the reassurance of our of our teaching staff as well um this is a pretty similar schedule to what kids are experiencing right now we unfort Ely had to change the schedule schedules uh once already just to allow students to really some of the conflicts that were occurring we tried really hard to line up our Global Academy with our uh junior highs and high schools as well as the uh conflicts that were existing between evit so not only kids who were
221taking classes within our own District at Global and uh the inperson teachers that were assigned to them but our evit students at the high school level were having some conflict so we we have transition to a very similar schedule to this so that when students go back in person we're hoping that not as many changes have to be made uh to their schedules for those students who selected the in-person or the partial day options uh questions about the the schedule if you take a look a little bit closer at the left side you can see the staggered release time so they were planning on having 10 minutes in between passing periods rather than the typical four or five at our at our Junior highs and high schools to allow for a staggered release so there's
2225 minutes in between each of the release releases between each class period so I know that might sound confusing but really it would just be each class half of each class so if you had a class of uh on a teachers's roster of 30 students 15 approximately are there on Monday then half of those kids would be released so you'd have eight eight kids that would leave out of each classroom 7 n some some classes 10 uh 12 whatever that is uh would be released and then five go straight to their next class and then 5 minutes later another little bell that would allow the other half to pass so that our larger campuses where you have thousands of kids that are passing in between each period uh would be staggered as well to allow
223a reduction in numbers um on Wednesdays the only difference that we have um talked to principles about already and kind of we'll obviously be taking a little bit more feedback on this between now and the possible implementation of this is that on Wednesdays we would like each of our uh teachers at the secondary level to touch base each class period with with all of their students so that would be the one time that all 30 would be together um obviously it would still be online but at least that's another touch point for a teacher that's in um that is live and that they are able to give them further instructions for some of that time time that they are not in class in person um there's also opportunities for um as there is now the
224one-on-one small group uh sessions uh on Wednesdays as well as far as before and after school on the Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday um I think Mr Martin answered it well in that each te teacher still has a prep period so even those students who on their off days when they're at home uh doing their Independent Learning they can reach out to a teacher and teachers still have their lunch period their prep period their before and after school times to shoot a quick email or to respond to a student questions well I do have to say I think there's been a lot of thought put together really quick on this so um I want to thank everybody that works so hard on this plan cu I'm sure you put a lot of time and effort into
225thinking it out and coming up with some solutions and I appreciate that thank you other board members comments no I I I do have one more question just as I asked Mr Martin when we have kids who are um I I kind of think of it for these high school kids and maybe Junior High kids is it's more like like a college class you go and you have in-person instruction but then you've got assignments that you need to do when you're away from class in order to come back to class prepared is that I mean I I've heard some read some emails people are expressing concern about AP classes and honors classes and where the kid are the the students going to get enough um instruction to help them keep up and be prepared for
226those um AP tests and so forth absolutely it's a good question I think um and Mr Martin indicated this as well that those priority standards are going to be important as far as the uh AP courses same thing and the College Board has done a nice job of putting together even last spring that this was an issue and they've put together some learning modules and some different videos and things that can support teachers AP teachers in the classroom and also while their their kids are at home uh on their Independent Learning days a lot of our teachers are familiar with the flipped classroom model already and I think that that's going to be significant in this hybrid period that they're going to give them not only just you know worksheets and packets and things to
227do on those off days or papers to write that they're going to actually assist them in learning with some of those flipped models um where the teacher has already created the maybe the direct instruction for that day that they they're going to watch or observe at home and go through on their own and then have that support on those off days where they're back on campus um but yes I think there's opportunities within um the schedule for continued interventions um The Advisory period at the junior high right now on the schedule they have an hour um time period so that all of those class periods would line up but obviously we know our Junior highs don't have 30 or 60-minute lunches so they have an opportunity to place in an advisory period that kind of
228backs up to their lunch where they can provide some of those intervention opportunities um and we haven't really Revisited the The Pride after school pride program yet but a lot of our Junior highs have utilized that in a little bit different manner over the past few years to provide some interventions some tutoring and support and then utilize that Transportation that's been offered to our junior high students okay thank you you're welcome Miss Wood yep just going along with that again there really have been some huge struggles with the online learning it's been hard to access at times we aren't getting a lot of instruction as as much as our teachers are trying to do I'm just saying there's much shortened schedules and time so I just think it's again critical that we um realize that
229with our students and and get back to what we can do in person so that they can have that instruction and then also um my other question I was this is kind of silly but I was going to ask about the bus schedule if we're getting out at 225 I thought the best schedule was down to the tea at 220 that we had to be out by 220 oh and we may that may be we may need to adjust that back to yes to the 220 okay just because that going like I we've got to I know that we've I know that we've worked on that really hard last year to get the buses out of the high schools to get seventh hour should just have everybody dismissed at 220 so on the junior high
230schedule you can see that the there wasn't a staggered release at the end of the day great it was right at 3:30 okay thank you thank you thank you for that Miss Wood I completely missed it anything else board okay right thank you next up we have Mr Macintosh uh on the employees side of this good evening Dr Santa Cruz governing board members and Dr McCord it's my pleasure talk to you about the employees tonight um over the summer and before the start of the school year we were making all the changes with the online and the in-person switches and I'm proud to say that we have appropriately certified teachers in front of both of those types of learning environments um and so that was our goal there support staff per the last executive order
231support staff had to be committed and available to work um we have put the all of the PA professionals to work in supporting the teachers in the online support at the schools um so they they've been back since the 5th we are training them or they're all they were all trained on Co processes and what to look for as well um the next bullet point there is right now there are some positions which are being EV evaluated for Furlow as there is not an opportunity for them to to work either remotely or on site for example um nutrition services employees Food Services employees they don't have the opportunity to work um remotely and so those are also a self-funded department so we may end up having to furload those some of those employees for a
232couple weeks until we can come back in person um next slide Staffing assignments adjustments and costs we continue to adjust Staffing patterns based on the need of the school and the grade the grade level there um we're in constant contact with principles in their needs um we will continue to do that across the board across the district to determine the best needs of each um school and what they need for for their teachers and for their pair of professionals we report all of our identified covid cases to the appropriate um governmental agencies through the um benefits Department with Adrien dutchover and Jen Frost they make sure that all of our um necessary paperwork gets sent to the necessary governmental agencies there and then faculty and staff training prior to students arriving on campus we trained
233and identified all the signs and symptoms of covid um our mitigation um best practices which I'll go over on the next slide and our health and safety protocols and procedures for our faculty and staff were in place this is our return to work precautions and procedures for our employees I know that Jen talked uh about this as well but I will as well we will um these are our precautions for our employees they have access to um PPE including the distribution of the n95 face coverings and face shield as appr as appropriate and as requested Mr mosh I stop your Y and I think that's important we put out a call here's what we can give you what do you want in terms of here's our items whether it's face Shields or or n95 masks
234there are some staff that did not request that and that's okay but we wanted to make sure we had it available so I don't want anybody out there thinking that we gave out you know 40 you know 200 n95s or face Shields we we one we didn't want to waste anything because if people don't want it we don't want to give it to them but if they want it we will definitely have it available and we'll get it to them so just want to make sure you guys need that we will have hand sanitizer in every classroom we'll have Cleaning Solutions provided for daily spot cleaning of high traffic surfaces door handles light switches desks Etc classrooms will be sanitized each and every day and a deep cleaning will occur every third day at a
235minimum District Health protocols for reporting and returning to work as JY shared um so that every employee knows what will happen if there is um somebody on campus who is diagnosed with covid and then the notification of those positive contacts we have some return to work support for our teachers as we know that or our employees as we know that this is a very stressful time we continue with the employee assistance program for all of our staff members which is free um Regular communication and check-ins with vulnerable staff from their administrators Etc training for use of the online platform and supplemental resources through tech services and instructional Technology support dedicated to Virtual learning could you just talk a little bit about the employee assistance program and what that entails for staff members absolutely it's very
236important um we call it EAP the employee assist program it is counseling free counseling for our employees um they have the opportunity to go up to a up to a maximum of 10 sessions for free on any one sort of issue and then they can take another 10 sessions if it's on another issue so for example anxiety or depression and then it could be on financial stress they' get another 10 so it's um it's been in the works with Gilbert Public Schools since since I've been here probably 18 yeah 18 19 years yeah so it's a really good program I think that uh if employees take advantage of it it's helpful during this time okay thank you Mr Macintosh yes ma'am yes ma'am does that apply to board members to can we access EAP I'll
237have to look and see they may make an exception they may make an exception um any other questions regarding employees or Staffing I'm sure you've worked really hard in the last few weeks and month so thank you yes you're welcome Mr McIntosh or Dr s if I may yes ma yes so if employees have questions and concerns about the protocols being followed or if there's enough sanitizer in their classroom or different things how how do we go about that do they start by talking to their principal by by talking to maybe their um site custodial or how do we I want to empower that we have the best things in place and that our employees know that we're trying to do all that we can and need their help to make sure that all these
238right things are happening I think it comes down to communication first and foremost from the school principal or the department director or whoever to the employee making sure that they understand that here's what we have first and foremost here's how you can access it if you run out of it here's the procedures you need to you need to implement and if we don't have it there's something that you feel we need what is it and how can we get it to you and so I think it starts there if for some reason that doesn't that doesn't work out well uh and the processes in which to get that hey go see the building manager on your campus they'll take care of you they know that you may be coming what and whatnot but if that
239if that process breaks down they need to give they need to give a call to operations department or otm just so we make sure that everybody's taken care of and again 99% of the time that's communication error in that and so uh we need to make sure that that information is Flowing thank you Mr McIntosh thank you next up we have operations and Miss Bonnie Betts good evening Dr Santa Cruz governing board members Dr McCord so here to talk first about Transportation so first of all as you know we have spent a lot of time over the last year recreating and redoing all of the routes for all of our schools our goal has been to minimize the time on the buses to between 20 and 25 minutes maximum we haven't success successfully done that
240across the board 100% um but that has been the goal so with minimizing the time it also decreases the um potential potential uh transmission of the virus as well uh air circulation it has been set normally at this time of year we are on 100% recirculation due to the temperature however we've opened that up uh to make sure that we have 100% uh refresh air coming through on the buses as well as the roof uh the roof vent is being kept open as well there's a caveat to that that we do have some very uh heat sensitive students Etc so we are monitoring that uh dependent upon the staff that we are or the students that we are transporting um in any at any point in time uh buses uh will be sanitized twice a
241day so we will talk about the sanitization processes associated with this more when we talk about what we're doing in our facilities um so we have been required due to the inability to get equipment in to actually have spray bottles again deployed for every bus driver to um to have the sanitization spray available so they're actually coming back from their runs now because they are transporting all of our preschoolers uh special education preschoolers right now and they're also transporting our evit students as evit has started back on Monday and so after every run they are taking their spray bottles and spraying down all of the seats and surfaces within the bus it takes a little bit longer than the equipment that we have on order but at least it's a strategy by which we can
242do what we said we're going to do to make sure that we are minimizing the transmission of the virus as much as possible so it's just like a a I don't want to say Lysol but a disinfectant spray that they can just spray and leave is it something they also have to um it's actually a a a s sanitization spray it leaves a a very light film on everything and it has been tested and verified that with a three minute dwell time it kills the Corona virus okay so they just have to spray the SE they just have to spray it okay thank you that does not take the place though of the nightly cleaning so in addition to the sanitization that they do after every run they're still expected to do that same thing
243spray down the surfaces and then wipe them down at that point in time so it's comparable to the fact that we have hand sanitizer but that doesn't take the the place of making sure that we're having our students wash their hands on a regular basis so it's the same concept um face coverings are every single bus driver has a box of the Disposable uh face masks to hand to any student that gets on the bus that does not have a mask on uh and then they also have hand sanitizer available if a student requests it uh because of the fact that we're on a hybrid and transporting only half of the students there will be an opportunities for social distancing if possible we will encourage students to take a whole seat all to themselves uh
244in addition as part of our recommendations to parents just suggesting that they have their children sit together if they're on the bus at the same time those kinds of things so before I go any further are there any specific questions regarding Transportation okay terrific so before we get into some of the details I'd like to go ahead and share this um video that our communication director Don an antis Senus has put together this gives uh you a nice overview of all the campus mitigation strategies that will be deployed once we start um School there we go it wasn't me who it wasn't me who did that I don't get credit we are excited to begin the 2020 21 school year with all of our students and families we missed you all this summer and are
245ready to get back to learning and connecting as we all know GPS students will begin learning online August 5th returning to our campuses once school is underway in preparation for welcoming students back to our campuses we would like to share with you some of the enhancements and changes that we have put in place to promote health and well-being firstly we will have clear signage posted at entrances and throughout our campuses highlighting behavior that supports minimizing the spread of covid-19 as you enter our schools you will see a few other changes including floor signs indicating physical distancing in our lobby areas plexiglass in the welcome area and again clear signage indicating actions we can all take to keep ourselves and each other [Music] safe some other changes you will notice are General camp modifications to minimize
246large Gatherings of students these include staggered bail Tes organizing Furniture to maximize physical distancing opportunities and opening access to areas of the campus that will allow more space for students to spread out a good example of this is at our Junior High and high school campuses we will open up libraries auditoriums and outdoor spaces during lunchtime to give our students even more space for breakfast and lunch in general we will of course continue to promote access to healthy food for all of our students and will provide a supportive encouraging environment it will look a little different including clear marked table spacing no salad bar and other small modifications you will also notice throughout our campuses that there are hand sanitizing stations and access to handwashing areas these are all designed to be easily accessible to
247students and employees we will have signage with friendly reminders on how to hand wash effectively placed in the bathrooms and at our classroom Cent another one of our goals is to keep our schools as clean as possible during this time to achieve this we have greatly enhanced our cleaning protocols and procedures our highly trained custodian will be performing regular deep cleaning of all campuses as well as regular cleaning of high touch surfaces utilizing approved cleaning supplies and tools teachers will be provided with the supplies they need to support the ongoing cleaning off their classroom area and we will be well supported in this by their campus building manager custodians and the entire campus staff students are also welcome to bring in their own suppli of wipes to wipe down their desk and chair if needed
248at this time the wearing of face coverings will apply to all students while on campus first grade through 12th grade and this is per the Maricopa County guidelines and the executive order recently applied by Arizona governor's office we're also asking our parents to complete self- assessment Health screenings for their students prior to sending them to school each day and our staff will also be completing daily self assessment health screening checks all designed to keep our students and employees as safe as possible during this time for the most upto-date information on how we are preparing to welcome our students back to our campuses please visit www.gilbertschools.net slf families great awesome and I love that Scottish accent that's just so great so before I get into some of the details regarding the cleaning and sanitization I really
249had to have to acknowledge um Mr Albert dutchover who is here this evening I am just the mouthpiece of this uh cleaning and sanitization Portion it really has been so much of Albert's efforts since he has been the director of faciliity starting back in I believe uh July of 2017 so I just want to make sure that I'm acknowledging him one of the the the greatest things that has occurred over this past um couple of months is just the recognition that Gilbert Public Schools was already on its way to have standardization and cleaning and elevated expectations so back in February of 2018 Albert began the effort of standardizing all the chemicals throughout Gilbert public schools and making sure that all those materials were available in the warehouse since that time we've worked actively with training
250all of the um building managers and all the custodians to understand the various chemicals the dilution uh protocols for all the various chemicals and learning the best way to apply and clean them so that has been a great start uh since since uh May when we started developing our reopening plan it became extremely clear that cleaning and having uh sanitization materials in the classroom and in the in the in the schools was extremely important so at that point in time um Albert spent a great deal of effort in determining what the best types of equipment would be to make sure that we're meeting those needs so we talked about the Trident electrostatic sprayers that I talked about a little bit that we're we're going to use on our buses as well as for our weight
251rooms and I think to date we have a a sprayer in each of our weight rooms throughout the high schools and Junior highs and secondary so we do have them available and that they're being used regularly by our coaches um but we found out very quickly that the lead time on getting this equipment in was drastically um kept actually kept uh being delayed and delayed and delayed and so at that point in time we needed to find um a plan B and that was when we came up with the idea well maybe we can provide the material through spray bottles and those types of things we also had the idea that we should have hand sanitizing stations at least 14 of them at our elementary schools and probably double or triple that at our Junior
252highs and high schools well lo and behold we couldn't get the hand sanitizer dispensers in nor the product so that was when we went to plan B and thought okay let's go ahead and get a 32 oun hand sanitizer bottle for every single classroom so to give you an idea of that there's between 3, 3500 classrooms in Gilbert Public School however those 32 o bottles have been deployed into every single classroom districtwide and also a parent earlier commented about the methanol in some of the hand sanitizers we have verified over and over again that the product we are buying is with alcohol not with methanol making sure that our students and staff members are safe so that has happened in addition I know that our teachers have been used to having the Clorox wipes or
253Lysol wipes or the alcohol wipes available to them in their classroom well lo and behold we couldn't get those in either so I'm working with the warehouse on a regular basis when are they supposed to come in they keep delaying the delivery okay so then what do we do what's Plan B well again the spray bottles can we possibly do the spray bottles and put alcohol in the spray bottles or something of that nature and then Albert came forward and said well we're already using this rejuvenol which is our cleaning protocol across the school district all of our building managers are familiar with it so at that point in time we thought let's just go ahead and have the spray bottles filled with the rejuvenile we had a whole bunch of spray bottles in the
254W warehouse but lo and behold we didn't have any triggers none on the spray um materials were available so we've been searching and of course um Albert has been extremely helpful with this as well say he's gone to Lowe's and Aces and Home Depot and picked up every single last bottle to make make sure that at least as we're doing registration as we're having students come in with vik or our Sports Camps or whatever all those classrooms do have both the sanitizer as well as the cleaning materials in them and ready to go so today we have nearly all of our Elementary classrooms completed with both the hand sanitizer as well as the spray bottles with rejuvenile and we're prioritizing Junior highs and high schools next but we're doing everything we can to locate these
255and even Hillyard we had a meeting with Hillyard last week Albert and I did and said here's the deal we're just having a hard time getting this product well lo and behold the Hillyard representative walked into Albert's office today and handed him 60 spray bottles which so there at least the um information is out there of our desperate need so that's what it's been looking like over the last couple of months in addition I wanted to share some of the details about the plexiglass I'd like to answer um Miss uet's uh question regarding the plexiglass so early on WE determined that we needed to have at least two of the plexiglass Shields available in the front offices as schools are handling um enrollments Etc so we ordered those well again delays in um in getting
256the product in so at that point in time Albert came forward and said shoot I think I can have the guys build these and so he went ahead and built 30 of them so we deployed them to the highest needs again first we've received some product in now we know we need a special education plexiglass because our psychologists need to do testing with students and you can't do that with with your face masks on those kinds of things so the next step was well let's deploy the material to uh all of our uh special education departments and all of our schools so we started doing that lo and behold delays again um so Albert got his crew together and created another 30 of them so he's built 60 of these plexiglass Shields now um and
257and we've gotten some product in as well and then finally uh with Jen's urging uh Albert also created the the barriers between beds really in the nurse's office to make sure that if we do have a student that we can separate them along with the fact that um we have deployed about half of our nurses have plexiglass shields for their desks as well and they're the next priority when the next shipment comes in so we've been trying to come up with means in which we can meet all of the needs um and being as resourceful as possible uh to get all that work done so at this point in time we do expect to have all of the spray bottles to all of our schools before we would begin on this schedule um so that's
258where we are on some of those details um in addition we thought was important as we're sharing with the whole world our cleaning protocols so Albert came forward and said you know it'd be a good idea that maybe we meet with all of our building managers throughout the school district to let them know hey we're sharing that these are our protocols and the expectations for cleaning so but we can't meet with all 40 of them at once because of social distancing so we scheduled uh two meetings a day for um four days um to and so we had five five of the uh building managers in front of us for about an hour hour and a half to train them on everything that we're saying and some more details about the protocols more details about
259the uh qt3 which is that Des sanitization uh film that doesn't require you to wipe it off as well as making sure that we have the bottles filled in every classroom making sure that our classroom teachers have the microfiber cloth available to them uh and also making sure that the hand sanitizer is always f um filled up so um so that's that's where we are um at this at this point in addition last spring cabinet did approve the addition of five roving custodians so that if we do have an outbreak or we have other issues associated with absenteeism or whatever we're able to deploy a custodian to help out of school at any point in time and then one last detail about the n95 masks and the face Shields so today we have sent out
260to to every single individual that requested it so it's been over 3,600 pieces of equipment that have been sent out to all employees districtwide only at their request again giving them training on how they're to be used and how they're to be taken care of um but definitely meeting the needs of our employees throughout the school district Miss BS just a inquiry have we created a schedule for the reordering and replenishing of supplies and product and uh will we be reporting to the board where there might still be deficits and what we might be on the lookout for um you bet I will continue to update you on the availability of product our most recent information indicates that the equipment we expected to get in on the 8th of September and that these are the
261the um spray sprayers the electrostatic sprayers in addition we're supposed to get all of the triggers back for all the spray spray bottles by the end of this month along with all of the additional pugy glass Shields but I will make make sure that we're keeping uh you updated on that in addition we have about 1,500 of the hand sanitizer bottles in stock to date so as teachers do run out all they need to do is just order them and we'll have them sent out from the warehouse and we are keeping uh stock uh so they have a Min MAAC system in the warehouse where when it when it be becomes depleted to a certain level then they automatically order more and I've been speaking with uh Jason Poston who is our warehouse buyer almost
262on a daily basis to make sure that those quantities are appropriate and that we have the right amount of product thank you and thank you Mr D over for your work in this area Dr Santa Cruz go ahead Miss ug jetti I just want to say thank you to Mrs Betts because I know that this is so difficult at so many levels and I think that that you know we're hearing this all over the country um that there's shortages of everything and I think the hardest part is trying to communicate that to all of our stakeholders that we're doing the best that we can and I think that's you know that's what that's the breakdown but I think that's the breakdown in our whole world right now and I think everybody's frustrated and so I
263want to say thank you for this presentation tonight because it means a lot to me that I know that you guys are doing the right thing which I always knew that anyway thank you m jetti board members other questions comments I just can say just ditto to what Mrs ug jetti said I mean you guys have worked really hard and that's a lot of things to worry about and to make sure that they're dispensed so thank you very much well you know the issue is poor Albert because every other day so Albert can you do this so Albert can you do poor guy I'm killing him but he's so resourceful it's been a gift to the school district that we have him that's good Mr car thank you Miss Betts again thank you to all
264of you and your staff for for all the preparations I guess the the bottom line question is you've hit all the plan A's B's and in some cases some C's and D's are we going to be ready with all the materials we need when students step back in the classroom if we are if we do not have the equipment that we're expecting to have we will figure out how we can make sure that we have a replacement for that yes sir we will be ready we're sure that our custodians are fully trained we have plenty of the chemical the cleaning chemical that has been well stocked in the warehouse so yes sir I really believe that we'll we'll be ready we might not have all the equip in but we will have a solution for
265deploying it if we don't have that equipment yes sir board members anything else Dr McCord thank you Miss Beth I think up next we have Mrs Anna stennis for communication good evening Dr Sant coming board members and Dr McCord yeah you need okay is that better you need to speak okay just speak so uh communication continues to be important um particularly when we're looking at this move to hybrid and having students back on campus we will of course continue to regularly update our parents families and employees via email and our district website and the employee Hub um there's definitely specific emphasis on communicating developments that might be happening at a local Authority level um changes to policies and procedures a good example of that would be ensuring we communicate effectively the face covering policy to
266all stakeholders so there is a clear and shared understanding um I guess something that's important to touch on is at this point we're communicating updates and we're also in the stage of educating all of our stakeholders on some of the mitigating strategies that we have in place on best practices that will support minimizing the spread and keeping our schools open some of uh some examples would be age appropriate signage so we spent some time working with um um each relevant Department to identify signage that we could deploy across all of our campuses some of this signage um was uh selected from CDC resources and others we created ourself adding in um Gilbert Public Schools branding and also School branding so for example in all of our bathrooms and by beside the classroom sinks in our
267schools we have clear handwashing Guidance with a five-step process and that has been branded for each school with their school colors and their um logos to make that information as accessible as possible to our students particularly our younger students uh we also have a clear signage around um Health assessment remainers so as well as deploying the uh student daily Health assessment and the employee daily Health assess M through um a number of channels it's still important for us to remind people as they arrive on campus you know friendly reminders have you completed your daily Health assessment so those signs have been deployed and all of our campuses have done a phenomenal job of ensuring that this signage is um is placed in the clear areas that we have indicated so there's a lot around as
268you saw in that video um there's a lot of signage as people enter the campuses and then also uh posted throughout the campus uh reminders about uh best practice physical distancing we've also created um understanding that people receive Communication in different ways we have tried to not only um provide that information on our website um in written form and also in uh high visibility signage we we've also created a video library which we continue to add to uh the example you saw earlier was our um return to campus video um and we also have videos directed at the younger elementary students about uh handwashing um creating physical distancing through Bubbles and the kind of language that they are familiar with uh and have probably already heard from their teachers and parents um so we have
269videos also about what students can do to help what families can do to help and videos that explain to our families what we are doing on our part with regard to the mitigation strategies on campus um we also just created a video that goes into detail about the various Health office protocols so um what H what might happen if your student is sent home if they are ill and what the various expectations are so we'll continue to add to that Library it's currently live on our website um and as we move closer to uh reopening uh our schools via this hybrid model uh we will start to disseminate that those videos and that information it's all ready to go um but it's important for us not to confuse our audience but as soon as we're
270talking about returning to campuses uh in this way then we'll start to disseminate those videos through a variety of channels to support our families to be as well prepared as possible um also the videos are being created for staff and employees to again help them understand and engage with information about a wide variety of protocols there's a lot of enhancements and and small changes to perhaps protocols that are already in existence or new ones and we want to make information on that as accessible as possible as clear as possible um so again it's that piece about communicating updates but also educating stakeholders um and this next slide really reinforces that um the role of uh my team currently is really to communicate and educate all of our stakeholders um specifically around M mitigation strategies and
271also expectations um so you'll see on this slide really a summary of some of the key information pieces that we're working on communicating Health protocols Communications what does that look like if there is positive case on a campus uh what kind of communication should you expect what might that look like um sanitization and cleaning procedures so rather than just making a general statement that those are in existence we would like our community to understand the depth of those procedures the um so they feel reassured and also well informed um information on handwashing sanitization stations face covering policy also the daily Health assessment for both staff and students um we have those posted already on our website in both English and Spanish and similarly for our employees that information will be hosted on our employee Hub
272um helping people to understand the various campus modifications again for all stakeholders to be as best prepared as possible for returning to campuses uh staff awareness training um I was mentioning briefly earlier um and again those awareness resources um so really continuing to keep people up to dat keep people informed and support people to be well prepared for returning in person um using a variety of channels direct email Communications newsletters website um and signage and video assets as well um some of the areas around here around parent expectations so it's important for us to communicate and educate our parents if we have specific expectations on them regarding um Health assessments for example it's really incumbent upon us to make the health assessment as accessible as possible as usable as possible and to remind people about
273that um so in general those are kind of the areas that we're focusing on with regard to communication and educating our stakeholders at this time any questions well that's that's a lot of work and thank you very much I mean that I think you've covered it I can't think of anything to ask but thank you Dr Santa Cruz I I have a question go ahead M so you mentioned that these things are found on the website and is it under the family yep what does it remind me what so it's gilbertschools.net families is acting as a hub at the moment so right there we have every communication that we sent out to parents is posted there prior to being sent out um um so it can be as accessible as possible we also have links
274from that page to covid-19 resources to um the uh daily Health assessment to uh various protocols um to the video library um as I mentioned we haven't really pushed a lot of the content around re you know reop and being on campus to not confuse um our community however we have very much have it ready to rule um and it is there for people who are looking for it uh but yeah/ families is the Hub and it's just if you just go to the website you could find a family tab that says family or something we've added families to the main menu thank you okay thank you Dr mcord thank you very much Don all right to wrap this up potential next steps and recom commendations um moving forward um and again this depends on
275on everything related to what uh you thought of this and where we want to go with this but staff assessment to determine on-site return status I think it's important for us to uh survey our staff to find out um how many folks will have returning we already know how many folks that will have that can't return based on medical issues but we want to get an accurate number to ensure we have the right amount of people in front of our students uh we'll also go back to the parent selection of first semester delivery model choice and again going back to this presentation having an in-person hybrid model and the GPS Global Academy also notice that there aren't three options at this point there's just two and again that's the in-person hybrid and the GPS Global
276Academy we would like to get feedback from our families related to that we know uh we learned when we uh surveyed our sta our our families back in June we also know that in July as things changed um when it came to covid-19 people wanted to make some changes we think it's important to get an accurate number so we know how many students are going to be showing up and how many staff we need to ensure that that we can uh make this hybrid model work then of course starting uh of school preparation student enrollment and scheduling and staff reassignments that takes a lot of time it takes a lot of uh reshuffling around and again that's something that's done by our otm department and they'll do a phenomenal job with it uh but in
277order to make it done right and that we don't have people in the wrong place uh teaching the wrong subjects we need that time to be able to make sure we do this the appropriate way therefore the first day of inpersonal hybrid classes looking at uh the 8th of September and looking at the benchmarks and where we're at and um knowing that we will probably be in the green heading into that time looking at full in-person implementation starting on the 21st of September and again as long as those benchmarks remain in the green and so um definitely open for discussion but wanted to let you know based on um everything that we're doing related to this hybrid model uh we wanted to make sure that you had all the information available to you to be
278able to make a decision question Dr Santa Cruz if I me would go ahead okay so so we know many parents want in person we've heard a lot about that so we're now asking for parents to come back again or are we going to have it where it's the default like it was last time if you it would be a default in my opinion if you're already in person um you've already designated that then you should be okay and we'll delineate that when we ask them to make a choice and but but all in person will start with this hybrid correct for potentially two weeks correct is what we're looking at so there will be a change so I I guess what I'm saying is I I don't know if there's there's going to be
279some change but a lot of this will be the people who already are in person right now who are have their schedules with their teachers online but it's with their correct School teachers they'll basically just stay the same correct although we'll come back and there also might be some that might want to change to Global too they they'll need to take that option and understand that that when we go back we'll do hybrid for a little bit and then we're going back full person that's the mode that they're in that's that's their decision that they need to make at this point that's correct okay and then you're going to offer to those who are doing Global right now if they would like to switch back to the inperson or otherwise they can just stay with
280the global what they've already been doing correct okay and um again I think with the staff as well many of them have indicated certain things we're allowing them if they have a concern that they need to maybe move to a global or a permanent online solution yeah I think we have a a decent indication of where they're at but we need to make sure because the last thing I want to do is um open up our schools and not have the appropriate amount of staff for our students and so uh if this hybrid model is premise on having half the students on a campus at a time and then having half of those students in a class at a time uh it it it won't work if we don't have the appropriate amount of staff
281on each campus and so we want to make sure that we have that staff and we're ready to go well and especially I mean we're looking at moving from there to the back in person so this is the preparation for getting back so that's this is what we need to do can you also speak to that it looks like this is a change we offered three types of learning or models um in June or July whenever parents had that selection and now it looks like there's just two correct in person fulltime basically or GPS Global Academy right so on the 8th it would be two choices of inbr not inbred in-person hybrid uh or GPS Global Academy um and then let's say things are going great and we get kids back into school full-time and
282then it would just be in person and Global and so they'd still have that online option if they're not comfortable coming back and so uh that would be the transition between the two does that does that make sense that I explain that so the elementary Flex is going to be phased out with this this phase in the elementary Flex would be phased out with this phase in correct and that's mostly due to Staffing or different challenges that we've had as we've tried to make that work it is correct and because we will have like we need to make sure that we have all those classrooms filled with uh the appropriate teacher and so um being able to do it uh appropriately we would have to eliminate a model even going into this um originally before
283we presented it to anybody or anything we only had two models and that was uh either in person or Global but we we know that there was a need because some people had requested a flex model or a hybrid model and um and we think it's still a great thing to do but being able to move forward and continue to move to make sure that we get kids into classes uh having an inperson end or a global model is is probably what's best sorry to keep going but one last thing so that's the elementary will no longer have that flex but the junior high and high school high school especially that have already have kind of a couple of hours concurrent enrollment where they're at the school for a couple hours and then have the
284global for a couple hours they will continue they have that op will continue that would be business because that's been business as usual even before all this so they can be so I just think we just need to make sure that that's really clear when they're selecting their options like do they want to just stay I don't know how you're going to do that but we we're we'll put it together hopefully the best way possible so uh families can understand what they're choosing and and what that means to them and if we could just try to minimize those families who have chosen I would prefer not to have a whole schedule change and have new teachers and I mean that was the point of what we've put in place already exactly and stay the same
285thing if we can minimize you know or keep that as steady and constant as possible I age the less disruption the better yeah Mr Carr comment Dr sh go ahead Miss ug jetti uh I just want to make make it clear that this is just a discussion tonight um we're not voting on anything um this is a direction that getting the board to look into based on metrics and a whole lot of other things correct do McCord that is correct that's what the the this is potential next steps and recommendations if that's the way we go so what will determine that then what what's the next I would believe that it would be an agenda item at our next governing board meeting which would be next Tuesday we would already start with with everything on
286there just to make sure that we're moving in in that direction but I think it would need to be an agenda item that would be correct and I think uh this has given us as a board a lot to consider and to ruminate over the next several days uh so that we can agendize the item for our next board meeting I I actually believe while I understand that uh we may want an action item but I believe under the previous vote where the superintendent has the ability to view the metrics and move forward with the opening of the schools we've already authorized that so in my mind any vote that we have Tuesday would be frankly to validate or override what the superintendent already has we've already given the superintendent authority to do but that's
287that's my perspective I I think I would agree with your assessment but I also think the Board needs that opportunity as well I my concern is that we now wait a whole another week to have any further definite you know Direction I I only would suggest Miss Wood that the superintendent and staff already has Direction they're already working in that regard the timeline and dates are pretty well prescribed on the last page of the presentation and uh what we would do on the 22nd would either validate the direction they've gone or negate that assuming we have something different or better to propose that sounds very unsettling that if I think I think we're moving in this direction um without any surprises I think this is the direction will go and and of course we know
288there's been lots of surprises in covid-19 so I think that we just move forward um and and allow people to have some certainty um with what they're doing and and of course we probably you know we probably do need a a vote but I I think that um you know we we've had some discussion and I think that there's been a lot of work put into this plan I think this is a plan where we can um open and then see how things go and hope that things go well so that we can all be back in person I I wanted to mention um especially when uh Miss Ana tennis was talking I think this is a this is really a situation where we have a community responsibility and we on the board are trying
289to take care of the community responsibility we the district trying to meet the needs of students um return to school in a a safe way and we also have an individual responsibility I think it's incumbent upon all of us to continue to do the things that are needed to bring those guidelines down so that we can have a safe return to school and that when we do bring kids back to school that we we do those health checks um assessments that we continue to you know um encourage maske wearing and handwashing and social distancing so that we can continue to have uh safe um instruction and that we don't have to close schools because all of a sudden there's a a Resurgence I I think that we want to keep people in school and it's
290in come upon it's an incumbent upon all of us to have that responsibility to to keep kids and schools going by being responsible about our own behavior and making sure that we do those health checks and you know if our kid is not feeling that great keep them home that's not what we've always said but keep them home if they have a sore throat keep them home maybe tomorrow it will be better and it's not Co but we just can't tell on some of these symptoms until they've had a day or two so board members other comments questions Mr thank you um f first I want to thank all of your staff for the work on this uh you know you you've done what we asked you to do a week ago we asked you
291to come back with with a plan um it's it's a great it's a great plan that responds to our inquiry I think that uh I think all of us approach this a little bit differently uh some of us would be uh we we I think we all recognized that there was a vote taken to which we now need to honor that vote the to meet the benchmarks uh from my perspective uh from my perspective we promised teachers staff and concerned members of our community that we would not start school until the state issued metrics for met on the other hand we also promised parents students te teachers and staff who desire in-person learning that we would return When the metrics are met and so my objective remains to get us back to school as soon
292as possible within within the parameters of that vote uh we we didn't all vote the same but but but we we will all stand behind that vote at this point um you know I feel strongly in looking at that that and looking at the data to I believe it was Mr Johnson who who referred to anticipating where the data is and we've talked about the benchmarks that data is going to be released this Friday that shows that within you know within our uh District we will have met the one Benchmark that hasn't been met I believe that the following Friday uh we will see that we've met at two weeks in a row um if we look at that timeline you've told us that you need one week to prepare once we've hit that metrics
293so anticipating that we are hitting that and that the trends continue where they are and giving you that one week that puts us back on um we we're doing that uh again recognizing that some of us would be more aggressive some of us less aggressive on this board that's we're we're we're fulfilling that promise that we would wait until the metrics are met and that we would start when metrics are met uh the two weeks hybrid is you know is a compromise that we're we're going to stand behind it's not going to make everybody happy uh at least I assume that we're going to stand behind we asked you to come back with a recommendation and we've given you that Authority to me the the only question that we would really revisit next week is
294if if we're going to disagree is or or take a different approach and and I'm not disagreeing that we should have a vote on that that's not my comment but uh I'm I'm ready to move forward uh and this moves us forward thank you Mr Carr and I appreciate your sentiment and agree with much of what you said I think uh our end goal as a board for everyone concerned is as soon as possible sooner than later at some point all of our kids back on campus with imperson instruction and all of us moving forward I think that's the end goal and I think we've made some strides and taken some steps to work towards that with that said is there any additional commentary from members of the board I would like to thank Dr
295core staff for your Indulgence over this 6-hour meeting would also like to thank those who stuck with us uh in the audience for your diligence in doing that and your tenacity and also would like to thank those of you who viewed this proceeding over live stream with that we move to item five five 5.01 and we are at the adjournment phase is there a motion so moved thank you Miss humpr is there a second I'll second that any discussion seeing or hearing none those in favor of adjournment please signify by saying I I hi those oppos the same motion carries 5 we are adjourned