001good evening we're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order dr foley roll call president reese members of the board please write the record show that at this moment there are four members present our understanding is this mrs kaler will be joining us shortly she'll be just running a little late this evening thank you we will be having a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance all right i move that we approve the agenda as it's presented second any questions or comments regarding the agenda all those in favor aye aye that motion carries 4-0 dr foley our information item regarding our mitigation strategies thank you president reese members of the board i will allow curtis to pull up the presentation thank you next slide as you know we have been talking
002an awful lot about mitigation plans we've been talking an awful lot about mitigation strategies we discussed this at our meeting last week and we will be discussing this even more detail at our meeting next week when we talk about progressive mitigation strategies there was a lot of confusion and questions we received from our community after our last meeting which in the questions came well what does dr foley have responsibility for and what does the governing board do what did you give authority to her to do and to not to do and so i wanted to provide a clarifying um piece up here for us tonight so we understand why we're here tonight what are we talking about um the distinction between a strategy and and board policy as you know our mitigation plan has strategies
003in them and sometimes we've had policies that are part of those mitigation plans mitigation strategies are simple things that are not permanent they are not they are not intended for a policy that governs how to do this they're meant to be temporary fixes for situations we have them for like heat index for example rainy day when when there are situations for temporary recently we added the the component of suspending of visitors why we had some of our rising cases included individuals coming on campus that was one of the ways we could mitigate numbers on campus so these again are simple things that are day-to-day they are not permanent on the contrast when we have policy policy is is one of the main responsibilities of the governing board you you you approve and adopt policy when
004you approve and adopt a policy it is up to your administrative team to execute it it is enforceable it is kind of the laws that govern our work that are enforceable they are adopted they chart the course sometimes state and federal laws dictate to us what we must put in policy and consequently we cannot have a policy that would violate a law correct so that's kind of a little distinction on those pieces along that line when we look at our district we were required last year we were required by executive order 2020-51 to have a face covering policy so on august 12th um in compliance with this order we adopted our face covering policy that we enforced um again on april 19th governor ducey uh canceled the mandate in his executive order 2110 that said
005we no longer need it or were required to have one um hinckley had a meeting on september or sorry april april 26th in which we made a decision at that time the governing board rescinded the face covering policy at this time higley does not have a face covering policy then this summer we received additional guidance next slide this summer june 30th the state legislature passes house bill that essentially states basically two points school district governing boards cannot have anything that required the use of face covering policies for students or staff during the school day and that obviously students or teachers we could not require anyone to receive the vaccination for in-person attendance in any time [Music] one of the things that's important to know is that our our our administrative team works all the time
006every day we get paulette we have policy advisors and legislative updates through those who represent us informing us this is what this means this is what you can do this is what you can't do we can ask questions we we literally work with these individuals all the time in july our legal counsel said listen it's important for you all for for all educators this was to all of our colleagues this was shared that that um this bill doesn't take effect um and while this bill did not take effect until september 29th there was components of this that's a retroactive so you you don't consider having this um it was also interesting because this summer some other interesting things happened currently we don't enforce there is a federal law this summer and that law actually had
007been in place since january but this summer the cdc restructured that law to say that in any kind of bus or transportation was required conveyance was required to have mass mandate in working with our legal counsel we determined that while they may have restructured that law we are not enforcing that law on our on our on our our buses because obviously it could be connected to that retroactive clause and it would not we're looking at our school buses not as convenient systems but an extension of the school day in alignment with that so hence we did not make any conversation about requiring any masks even on the buses as per federal guidance to do so dr foley we also get that through our asba as well so we all get the emails from arizona's school
008board association to tell us what we can and cannot do and that was also part of that as well we were told then that was what was happening just to clarify for the community so one of the things that we have learned an awful lot this last in navigating the whole pandemic one of the things that we have learned is that things change on a dime and information that was true one day is not true the next and then we we respond accordingly um one of the things that happened this week was that there had been obviously every there had been in the news an awful lot about the phoenix union requiring mass there was a lawsuit in which a teacher sued the district because of its unlawfulness and there was case law that was
009decided upon on monday in which the case law basically indicated the judge clarified that the provisions of a statewide ban don't go in effect until september 29th at that point i reached out to president reece and said okay we have additional information um this is she she's also receiving the information at the very same time going what do we need to do or the uh the discussion was we need to put a meeting on our calendar to schedule it for the governing board to be able to discuss because you cannot discuss these things without a meaning so at the time we scheduled a meeting for tonight for you to discuss the the compounding factors so here we are that was monday and tuesday things continue to evolve next slide so tuesday additional information comes out
010now we were aware of this information because this was part of the passing of the bill however additional information came out yesterday that clarifies how this additional money will be allocated and there are rules for this um i will ask i'm going to ask our cfo to just kind of clarify a few little pieces that he's learned because he's been working with our policy advisors our legislators to understand and interpret this as emails came in all day and we've been in consultation with that since tuesday good evening president reese and members of the board as dr foley mentioned this news came out after we elected to have this meeting today so in um collaboration with our district policy advisors and legal counsel we have reviewed the governor's recent announcement regarding the education plus up grant
011program the education plus up grant offers non-competitive grants to school districts and charters who receive less than eighteen hundred per pupil funding under the federal covered grant uh ester one sr2 and esther iii higley is eligible for this grant in an estimated amount of 8.4 million dollars and the application requires a district to provide the following one current mitigation plan in there it says having a mask policy can put us at risk for being eligible for this funding number two agreement that it will follow all state and federal laws specifically including eo2110 which was the law removing face macro face mass requirements last spring and hp 2898 which is the education budget bill containing prohibitions requiring mass mandate and vaccine as a condition of in-person instruction and number three agreement that it will remain open
012for in-person learning as of august 27th and through the entire 21-22 school year in addition any district eligible for this grant and not compliant with aforementioned application requirements puts himself at risk for not receiving these funds i also want to clarify the ruling by the superior court judge and the matter involving phoenix union high school district the mandate of the trial court in the phoenix union decision applies only to the matter of phoenix union but it's unlikely that another judicial body will decide differently for any other matter presented now that the the decision has been issued finally also news today the president's office responded to this grant program and other similar ones across the country by directing the us department of justice civil rights division to investigate and determine whether these grants result in discrimination
013so as you can tell this this is an ongoing process in terms of determining the eligibility and the requirements of this grant but as of today that is the information that we have regarding this program so and then as you can tell we have we scheduled obviously we're here tonight to have some conversation one of the things that we felt was very important was the minute we decided that we were going to have a meeting to bring this conversation we communicated with the community so that they knew that this meeting was scheduled for this purpose one of the things that's important is that we have been hearing from community members all year long as you know part of our our part of our mitigation is when there's positive cases on campus notifications go out um
014when we look at today today and we are now completing almost our fourth week tomorrow will be our fourth week in school um that currently right now in our current cases that we have between the resolved and current cases we are about 258 cases that have happened in the last four weeks of school those are a lot of letters that have gone out to family members and every time they receive those letters obviously there's great concern and question what are we doing how are we doing this what are the mitigation just for comparison when we looked at the entirety of all last year the cases that we had on our dashboard from october to may was 567. so within the first month of school we have already experienced about half the number that we had
015the entire year so hence there are a lot of people in a concentrated part of time who have heard from received notices as our protocol in our mitigation plan outlines i want i want us to share we have heard adamant and we have heard passionate voices on all sides we've heard from stories we are hearing people would they have shared their thoughts with us part of it having time to announce that we were having this meeting is it's part of also hearing from our community and we've heard from them so with the reason we are here tonight is obviously for the governing board to have the opportunity to discuss all of these pieces obviously we have current factors we have developing information and we we are turning to you as the um elected policy makers
016of this district to help us determine what do you want us to do at this point so thank you thank you dr foley like you said that just looking at the number of our cases um so far four weeks into school we needed to at least have the conversation and that's what we're doing tonight i also wanted to point out mr moore mentioned that part of this grant requirements is that we stay in person for the school year that's not always our choice we quarantine and if if need be close a school based on the direction of maricopa county public health they are the ones we have to follow what they tell us when we've had to quarantine freshman jv and varsity football teams from higley high school so far this year all three levels
017have had to quarantine so our cases don't even represent the number of kids quarantined it's just positive cases that is at the direction of maricopa county public health that we don't have that option if our cases continue to rise and the maricopa county public health determines that we have to close a school to move back to a remote environment that is not our option um unlikely that we would have to do that district-wide unless we see something different but that too could at that point make us ineligible for that grant with out of our control because we do have to follow what maricopa county public health tells us at this time yeah or legal counsel is saying it's going to put us at risk um like i said this this grant just came out two
018days ago um and so litigation or anything has not taken place regarding this requirement so um at this point yeah anything not meeting those requirements would just put our district at risk thank you anyone have questions regarding the information presented dr foley i know we sent you questions but i want you to be able to answer some of them that we've already sent we will be having another meeting next week will you be going over the mitigation strategies that we currently already do and what we're looking to do besides mass um as we've been talking about we have a mitigation plan up there but we've been working on progressive mitigation plans what are the types of strategies temporary things that the district could do for in the event of rising numbers as we shared with
019our community there were some minimal ones that we started doing being that our numbers as yours as you've heard are arising and again some campuses not as much as others some of these were proactive measures put in place because administrations were saying we've seen we don't we've seen there's issues that have happened at other sites let's not have those come here we're wanting to keep the numbers low uh uh honestly the one of the most important mitigation strategies we have found is to please not come to school sick we've had multiple times where students are called out of the room in their teacher's classroom when they've been at school and they're not well and they've tested positive which causes additional frustration and concerns so we're going to talk through potential additional mitigation strategies yes and
020you've seen drafts of those documents that we're working on with our and general administrator team and our teachers union group i think it's important to say here even if your child's tested negative keep them home if they're sick it's a really good practice any other questions regarding the information item um can you help me to understand or better clarify what is the criteria that the county is using to make terminations about okay president reece board member anderson there are several components to this obviously every single positive case we have jillian and kelly are working hand in hand with the maricopa county department of health there's a lot of factors involved in that from the date that it tested positive to symptoms to last time on campus to when the case is identified to when other
021cases are identified so there isn't a rule of thumb that always says well when there are two or when there's three then that then triggers it depends on how the cases happen and we work with them on that now you'll notice remember that the term for an outbreak we had several schools have an outbreak now in some cases they had more than two you know they technically say two cases and then there's a an outbreak we might have had more cases on that campus but they're they're looking for the epidemiologically linked and so every scenario is unique um every situation depending upon the date of when the student was sick when when the they were tested when the results came back the number of cases how did they come are there ways that they would
022have been in similar classes on the same team not and then they work with us to help determine when and where that is the challenge is is that they are cracking down on quarantining i have been in conversation with multiple are multiple superintendents and they are receiving calls from dr sun and jine herself when there is issues and concerns when when school districts do not respond or follow through on the quarantining expectations of this and and they're quoting there's four laws that are connected with quarantining in one administrative code so in other words we do not quarantine until we're given the directive to do so but we work with them on a case-by-case basis so there's not a rule of thumb it's a it's not one one case fits all scenario obviously the goal would
023be to minimize the potential for having to quarantine the hope would be if it could be minimally if there has to be a class rather than or a whole grade level before there'd be a whole school so the goal would be to try and keep keep the the numbers down if they're going to have to quarantine a substantial number of students based upon a certain scenario or case then sometimes it's led to entire schools and and again watching the news you you see over the last year there have been several who've had that ex experience and obviously we're following and working closely with them on each scenario that happens and following the guidance we are we are doing it when we have a directive in order to do so and if i remember correctly i
024believe it was scottsdale unified that ended up having to quarantine over 600 students last week i believe is when it was if i remember correctly at the direction of maricopa county public health any other questions how does this affect sports if we put a mass mandate if we don't do a mass mandate probably more if we put a mass mandate in tonight how does this affect our sports teams especially probably the big one is football but we have some others out there as well um how does this affect them what does that look like what does it look like for spectators who are maybe going to those games at our middle schools as well we have lots of stuff going on so how does this affect it if we do put a mass mandate in
025this evening so i'm going to ask uh mr ladson how's there to talk about that a little bit but remember this one this policy at this point has been ingested for just indoor only so outdoor event an outdoor event outdoor activities do not would not have the policy does not require a mask mr lutz president reece vice president wilson members of the board if you remember last year we followed a lot of aia direction that came out and talked specifically about spectators and about the number of attendees and different things that we had to do it evolved from the football season into the winter season in the spring this year the aia has come out and they've given us some guidelines to look at but nothing definitive like like they did last year now are
026we looking at doing possible reductions of the number of people's attending games to make sure that we have that yes and that's following along with conversations that we're having with the other districts however we have not made those decisions yet but from the aia's perspective and looking at the guidelines that they're putting out for us there is not the specific guidelines that we had last year whether it's people on the bench having to wear masks or at one point while even they competing now there are some districts already phoenix union particularly that's come out and said when you travel to phoenix union and you compete against us we're expecting everyone to wear masks indoors and outdoors and when you're on the bench except when you're competing athletically however they're the ones that have put that
027in specifically for them but in terms of the east valley and about where we're at we there none of those things have been decided yet i'm concerned about that a little bit because i know last year we had an issue at one of our campuses uh where school didn't want to pit um didn't want to follow our rules so i am a little concerned about making our admin have to make those tough calls just putting that out there i feel for our admin who have to make those very difficult decisions and have to ask for backup to make those decisions so thank you to all the admin who had to do that last year it was not fun we got emails about it i felt for them thank you and i believe aia also kind
028of jumped in a little bit there too so to try and help but we're especially when we're visiting a school it's their school their rules we're expected to follow them out of respect for for them any other questions sorry you know you're going to talk about mitigation more in depth at the next meeting just to clarify everything that you're doing right now whether we vote yes or no on it would still continue in place and you'd still continue to evolve those um just to clarify and you've always been doing these even when we voted uh to rescind the mask mandate last year yes yep these are those additional strategies that are temporary they are you know simple things that can happen additional lunch spaces or schedules um all of those things those are temporary things
029that happen that are not permanent nor nor a policy issue mask the face covering because you have you we were required to have a policy for enforcing we removed it this is a policy issue and currently you're making decisions on a school-by-school basis correct yes and currently there are some similarities because we're just starting with proactive trying to to stop the extreme number that we're having compared to relatively to what we had had historically all right hi mrs kaler we've just finished going over the information item i know you've had the information ahead and was able to review it there okay so you're up to speed all right mr president or just mrs caleb board member kayla have any questions sorry i slipped up with president perfect all right if we don't have any other
030questions for dr foley we'll go ahead and we will go on to our public comment portion of the meeting we value input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that fault statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-431.01h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date only those persons
031who have completed the request to speak form and given it to the board secretary prior to the start of this meeting will be allowed to speak please limit your remarks to three minutes if there is a large number of individuals requesting to speak a time a time allotment for public comments may be utilized abusive language or personal attacks on staff or board members will not be tolerated individuals displaying this behavior will be ruled as out of order and asked to relinquish the floor and may be removed from the meeting thank you for your participation and for helping us con to conduct an open and orderly meeting and before we get started i just want to remind the speakers that we um we're all here for one purpose we ask that everyone be respectful even with
032differing opinions we can not have the same opinion but we do need to be respectful everyone sitting in this room outside all of our staff members they all deserve that respect none of us want to be back in this position we were here in april but we're here and out of respect for our community we're allowing this time for a public comment there are districts that are not so we do ask that you please keep your comments professional and respectful we will try and get through as many requests to speak as possible we will be calling people in the order we received them and i when i call somebody up i will let then i will announce the next person to speak we do have people in the lobby who have requests to speak so
033that will also allow us the ability to allow them to come in as well so our first speaker is going to be barbara summers and our second speaker will be mindy brocker is barbara summers or mindy brocker in here she may be out in okay just want me to get started all right i know there's a lot of anxiety today about making the right decision here one thing we can all agree on is that no one really likes wearing masks another item we can all agree on is that in-person learning is beneficial for our learners and being in person is ultimately the best place for our children that is truly our overall goal it should be our priority unfortunately in our current climate the issue is how do we do this safely pediatric coveted cases
034and hospitalizations are on the rise everywhere including in arizona hospitals are reporting coveted missions among children at an all-time high locally the number of admissions for pediatrics at banner has doubled monthly since june in june the number was 35 in july it was 71 and in just the first two weeks of august they had admitted 70 children for covet while these numbers seem relatively low we are talking about hospitalizations and illnesses and in some cases even death that can be prevented when you look at the big picture the number of known pediatric coveted cases overall in maricopa county is rapidly outpacing adults by nearly double i know there is a lot of talk about how we still had cases last year while masked but as our district mentioned contact tracing with the county showed that
035the spread wasn't happening in our schools at that time this was because universal masking does work this is evident by the numbers on our dashboards overall last school year we had 574 known cases the entire year and this year we already have 252 known cases at our dashboard in less than a month and it is spreading at schools this time children under 12 aren't currently eligible for vaccination and with an over 200 percent increase in pediatric cases in the u.s since june we should be doing more to protect them where we can while numbers seem low coveted deaths among children this year have topped 350 in the united states with 35 of those deaths being reported in arizona i know it's not what we want but mass will help stop the spread in our schools
036mass will mean that there is room for treatment at local hospitals if one of our children is injured and needs care more importantly to everyone here according to the maricopa county health department if a student is in close contact with an infected student and both are wearing masks the student won't be considered a close contact and subject to quarantine ultimately this means less disruption to our students we can all present data from whatever sources we want to believe and we can all argue about how we personally feel about mass but in the end it comes down to taking care of others while the idea of the grant funding sounds exciting are we willing to sell our kids out for that we need to bring back the mass to keep our children in school and work
037together as a community because we are in this together thank you guys thank you so our next speaker is going to be okay can you try and take a look at that our next speaker is going to be mindy brocker followed by megan jones is megan jones in the room okay to be honest guys thank you for your time i'm so put around right out there this is like my worst nightmare i hate this so much but i need to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak with you i recognize that our state government has been actively working against all the district boards leaving you guys torn between science and politics my goal for my family is the same as yours to keep my three children in school we keep schools open by
038protecting the health of our children our state is trying to punish school boards for keeping local control in the community that they know best i vote i volunteer and i donate to support schools and their funding this is how we should improve our school budgets don't let doug ducey put a price on the heads of our children the feds states courts they'll be battling this out in the coming weeks let them fight while we focus on our students i'm not going to give you statistics about how maths work or best ways to quarantine because i'm not an expert and neither any of you i have to trust that you will rely on your medical and public health professionals unfortunately case count and husd is substantial with over 250 higley children now identified as coveted positives
039in less than four weeks of this year's start it's very clear changes need to be made we should also consider the current rise in rsv cases another respiratory illness causing many absences thank you so much for the common sense modifications you've already made i may not love every choice but i acknowledge and respect the impossible situation you find yourselves in right now today our community needs to stand up in unity i'm sorry that i even have to ask for a mass mandate a request to higly parents should be enough but as we all can see a request to our masks isn't effective when it's voluntary i admit mass aren't perfect a risk will always exist but we know it's an important tool to reduce our kova transmission at the source please institute a temporary mass
040mandate to be re-evaluated at fall break this would greatly reduce the need for quarantines and reduce all respiratory illnesses further keeping our kids in school please follow the maricopa county quarantine rules the best source control is keeping children who are actively sick and those at high risk to develop covid at home for short periods finally please increase transparency sharing on your dashboard more information like the count of children in quarantine on campus transmissions plus grade level case notices for each school people will tell me you are doing your best i want to remind you your best requires risk just like me standing here it's bad but your best is not to pray hope and wish we depend on you in this time and need to make hard choices and be proactive in helping our kids
041so thank you thank you our next speaker is megan jones followed by eric real if that's the correct pronunciation okay thank you hi my name is megan jones i'm a mom and stepmom to five kids all either currently or previously enrolled in husd i know you you've heard so much from both sides i'm sure you've been inundated with laws science data and opinions i appreciate you listening to them all i almost did not attend this meeting tonight because my youngest son a student in the district tested positive for covet a few weeks back after being back in in person school for just a week and a half don't worry i've already tested and i've done my quarantine and he's allowed to be back in school he's not been able to attend for 11 days now
042likely won't be back for the foreseeable future he still can hardly speak without coughing i'm sure if you ask him he would say he'd rather wear a mask forever than to ever feel like this again i mentioned this to bring me to my first point when i called to notify the school of his positive test results i was told that his siblings who he is with 24 7 shares a bedroom and bathroom with are not considered close contacts and need not quarantine or test unless showing symptoms yes i'm here to ask you to reinstate masks at least until kids under 12 can be vaccinated but i'm also here to ask you to please do more the recently released released mitigation strategies are a step in the right direction but not enough why are we no
043longer following exclusion guidelines i've received nine coveted notifications already for saseman how has none of these been a close contact when according to my children there's almost no one masking in their classes if we can bring our positive case levels down wouldn't that be the best for all involved so that we can keep these kids in school safely and have less disruptions for teachers than them i guarantee my son will be behind for months as a few assignments posted on canvas are just that assignments he won't be learning anything he's missed that brings me to masks i don't want to ask forever no one really likes wearing them i understand that eventually we need to get back to normal i know that one day hopefully soon this will have to be treated like the flu
044strep or common cold governor ducey states that public health officials in arizona and across the country have made it clear that the best protection against covet 19 is the vaccine however that's not yet available for our under 12 kiddos in the meantime the cdc aap and ih and many others recommend masks as the next best protection i get the argument about making decisions for our own children but really do we actually get to do that anyway we can't drive them with drive with them in a car without a seat belt for a proper restraining device if needed based on age and weight they can't ride the school bus unless they and their parents agree to the best safety rules dress codes regulate what they can and cannot wear and even stick with us into our
045jobs in adulthood they can't play sports without a physical and proper equipment people can't smoke on campuses heck dcs has a ton of things you can and cannot do with your kids there are many things in place already for both public health and safety that regulate our choices why is this any different we trust you to keep our kids safe every day they walk through the doors in any of our husd schools i'm asking you to please take those necessary steps in order to do so thank you all right eric real and then our next speaker will be kelly stromello and kelly did i she may kelly may be in the lobby not inside okay thank you thank you good evening and um thank you for calling this meeting and allowing me the opportunity to
046address the board directly a mass mandate is an important topic i'm glad we again have the opportunity to share collective views about it don't want to be here but thank you for having us i despise masks my young kids do as well it breaks my heart every day to kiss them goodbye through their masks and send them off to their classrooms wearing them but we do it because it helps keep them safe it helps keep their classmates safe there's no arguing that it's the best defense that my five and eight-year-old and their classmates have against covet right now it's their only defense it's why you should vote this evening to reinstate a face covering policy in husd until there are other two other tools available for us to keep our kids safe from this some
047are saying this is a medical matter which only parents should decide believe me the last thing i want is the government meddling in my kids health care this is not a medical matter it's a public health and safety matter it will be a medical decision once a vaccine for young kids is approved and parents can decide for themselves whether or not their kid should be vaccinated but until that time this is not a personal medical decision it's about the safety of our kids in the school community there's a lot of numbers being thrown around that about this but there's only one that matters to me in less than four full weeks of school four confirmed covet cases at my daughter's school in her grade level that's not acceptable we need to slow that down and
048your best option for doing so is to reinstate masks these are your choices tonight reinstate a face covering policy to help keep our kids safe or risk a hospital bed or worse for my kids for all our kids it's pretty simple choice please make the right decision tonight for our kids thank you all right we have kelly stromilo sorry and our next speaker julia ridden okay i apologize for anyone i butcher their names i'm trying my best okay well good evening to all my name is kelly stromiello so you're close i'm a mother of two students in the higley district and it's clear to me that everyone is very passionate about the topic of their children's safety and health no matter where you stand i have tried to be a good advocate for my children's
049health and the health of our entire family i've tried to read up on as many studies regarding the efficacy of masks and other mitigation tools at our disposal i seek out neutral and well-informed evidence-based sources science supports the use of masking as just one of many layers of protection the research that i was able to find from studies around the globe show it the research points to the data that it cuts down on both the chances of transmitting and catching the coronavirus they are effective in both in protecting against coughs sneezes and talking that spray aerosols that carry the virus that's it they are there are no credible studies that suggest that a simple clean cloth mask lowers your oxygen level increases carbon dioxide in lungs or weakens the immune system they are no more
050danger to school-aged children than a kid who sleeps with a sheet or a blanket these studies are found to be credible by many recognized and respectable organizations around the world such as the cdc the nih the american academy of pediatrics the america the pediatric infectious disease society the american lung association and the list goes on but the evidence i find most compelling comes from our very own district last year i was impressed with the mitigation protocols we had and as a result of those efforts we ended the year with 574 cases for the entirety of the year as of today we have hit almost half that number in week four with little to no mitigation our total numbers of resolved and active cases are at 252. that evidence speaks volumes there are many other mitigations
051we could and should take to protect our students and the fact is we can't predict how it will affect each individual we need to work together using all the tools that we can to stem this tide coming coming up in front of us are the winter months when rsv and influenza will join covid to make our local hospitals and ers a nightmare and if we really want to protect our children and keep the stability of in-person learning they will encourage their students to follow those mitigation efforts and make the make the schools and the communities a safer a safer place clearly we we all care about kids but we must take steps to protect all kids while we can thank you very much for your consideration thank you all right julia's next and then we
052have daniel riddan okay hello my name is julia reardon and i am the mother of two higley students today we vote on whether to force or not force an untested for safety medical intervention on our children as a person of science i am greatly alarmed over mandatory masking policies to my knowledge not a single safety study has ever examined the safety either long-term or short-term safety of mask use in children not a single study was able to show that masking children for eight hours every day is safe the only studies that looked at safety practices that came with masking show alarming results they showed that co2 levels were exceeding those determined saved by osha within minutes so why is it concerning to me i can at least list two physiological mechanisms through which this could
053be greatly harmful to our kids concern number one multiple studies that i personally read show that various cancers including breast cancer thrive in low oxygen environment and grow much more aggressively in tissues where oxygen perfusion is suboptimal where is the evidence that prolonged use of masks in children does not increase the risk of pediatric cancers such evidence does not exist concern number two when co2 sensors in our brain detect increased co2 levels in the blood they deploy compensatory mechanisms one such compensatory mechanism is by making our heart beat harder and faster from what we know by studying these compensatory mechanisms in adults with heart failure is that our heart when our heart is forced to be stronger and faster over time the walls of the heart muscle become abnormally thick allowing less blood volume in
054each chamber of the heart the scientific term for this is compensated heart compensated heart is a stage that we observe before the heart gets too tired to compensate that way the heart gets too tired to beat harder and faster over a long period of time and then it goes into a failed decompensated mode which is weak and flubby hard that can no longer perform optimally so where is the evidence that prolongs masking children does not increase their risk of compensated heart such evidence does not exist if i had more than three minutes i could bring many more concerns that signed support there is no science however to say that musk protects from covet or flu our children chance of dying from covet is 0.00 statistically across all states bottom line this medical intervention has not
055been proven safe children my children are not your guinea pigs and we will not comply with mass mandates please vote no let parent decide thank you thank you [Applause] daniel [Applause] daniel radin and then travis st dennis is is he in he may be i have two kids in the higley high school there is nothing you or any policy maker can do to stop the spread of the delta variant matches the flu covet is here to stay for the rest of our lives and that's the bottom line forcing children to mask up holds as much common sense as banning the driving of kids around due to the chance of dying from a car crash actually it makes even less sense is the chance of dying from covet for kids lore yet and wearing those masks
056does nothing at all there's not a single data or study to show that those masks do anything beneficial the whole stormy the former head of city scene effect confirmed that fact while there is nothing beneficial or effective in forcing children to mascarp there is a lot to suggest that this is a nasty way to go through one's childhood those parents who wish to force their children with this draconian measure are already doing so as for the rest of us the vast majority of us ask you let us be thank you thank you [Applause] so we have travis st dennis and then we have hannah burgess hannah gorges all right so i got three minutes i'm going to fumble through this as fast as possible because i don't think i can get through all of this
057so to start parents of higley district i'm not here to address the border district i'm not concerned with their opinion or agenda i'm here to call to action the willing parents to stand for our children and to resist the tyrannical powers of these schools they think they have all executive orders giving emergency authorization to the counties towns and districts have been rescinded they no longer have the authority to even talk about this topic the enforcement of masks is a violation of current laws on the books such as parental bill of rights ars 1602 which reads all parent all parental rights are reserved to a parent of the minor child without obstruction or interference from the state or any political subdivision of the state any other governmental entity or any other institution including the right to
058make health care decisions for that minor child unless otherwise prohibited by law there are no more laws to it or executive orders suspend suspending state law or giving them the authority they had in 2020 there are no laws prohibiting our rights anymore the arrogance of the district to think they can dictate our lives the majority of our teachers in the two schools my children attend do not wear masks they obviously don't want to i'm talking about the super majority of teachers are not wearing masks they just want to teach and genuinely engage with our children further the overwhelming majority of parents are not sending their kids to school with masks trust me when i say us parents and teachers are fully aware of the current covet situation and we've made our voices loud and clear
059that is leave us alone we will not wear your mask your absolute power and reign is over and it's obvious the districts are drunk with power flexing a power play and resistance to the state of arizona the overwhelming majority and that overwhelming majority who chose not to participate in the coveted propaganda i'm calling on all parents to resist do not comply the criminal actions of this district cannot be tolerated ars 36114 titled limitation upon authority to impose treatment reads nothing in this title shall authorize the department or any of its officers or representatives to impose on any person against his will any mode of treatment provided that sanitary preventive measures and quarantine laws are complied with governor ducey just reiterated this in his executive order yesterday and reiterated that that is a class three uh
060misdemeanor do not allow these tyrants to criminally violate our rights and our children do not comply teachers we got red for ed we believe you're here with good intentions educate we'd like we would like to not and you would like not to be pawns in this propaganda we're asking that you get just as passionate for our children do not comply do not let them violate your rights resist do not show up monday with the mask unless you truly want to wear one that is your decision and it is respected we will resist your criminal action and take whatever steps necessary to defend our children i spent the majority of my adult life fighting overseas as a recon marine and marine raider which is the special forces units of the marine corps i've done unforgiving things
061for the ungrateful and is this what i came home to a population that can't stand up will not risk being uncomfortable and own what they believe are we that complacent and scared that even when there's no risk to life or body injury that we cannot stand up to and defend the future for our children we will not be we will be the death of freedom us our generation we will be responsible for the decay of american values because we're scared is that it and i don't believe so we will resist we will not comply stand up and save tomorrow for our children [Applause] again thank you i'd like to i'd also like to to clarify i know the majority of the board likely is is not for this so please don't take that personally uh
062this is more for the rest of the state and the parents that uh need to stand up for for what they believe and i also have i also have a because i know everybody likes to talk about science uh some cdc's thanks sir thank you if anybody else wants to read it uh okay i'll leave it up here thank you we would like to give as many people a chance to speak would you guys thank you either facts not opinions would you like to read them all right hannah and then our next speaker is adelia cinta [Music] good afternoon and thank you to members of the board and staff for listening to what i have to say my name is hannah borges and i am a registered nurse for 13 years with experience in the
063hospital i am here today because i do my best to live by quote which is actually an arabic proverb that says the greatest crime you can commit in a desert is to find water and remain silent about it i have found water and it's not being spouted from the dry sources like the news sometimes with water it's not at the surface and you just have to tap into it at the beginning of this pandemic that's just what i did i read countless articles research and studies to uncover the risks of covid many were afraid and i wanted to find out as much as i could as facts were not being disseminated quickly enough i found that hand washing and promotion of personal care and health was the best way to prevent the spread of covet
064in the community and even taught hand washing to my son's class two days before spring break of 2020 now fast forward a year and a half and the science behind hand washing continues to be effective and is the best way to spread to prevent the spread of infection as does staying at home when you are sick or you have a fever this is because when you are sick and ace and symptomatic viral loads are high this is the time when you are most able to spread an infection conversely asymptomatic people are not caused for the spread of covid those who are healthy should be free to go to school without a mask it should be a choice that each individual and their families make not the school district let's talk about the efficacy of surgical
065mass first you have to understand the size of the virus the virus responsible for covet is .12 microns in size the influenza virus similarly and also incredibly small is .08 to 0.12 microns in size to put that in perspective the width of a hair shaft is 150 microns in size now you can see comparatively how very small these actual viral particles are a surgical mask is not designed to block out very small particles in fact studies show it rarely blocks out any particle smaller than 100 microns or two-thirds the size of a hair shaft in other words the covet or stars cove two virus people seek to block out with the mask is nearly one thousand times smaller than the many holes invisible to the naked eye that exist in a surgical mask this truly
066is the equivalent of putting up a chicken wire fence to keep mosquitoes out it's not going to work even if we are all confined behind our own chicken wire fencing now cloth masks have no quality controls and vary accordingly to the materials with which they are comprised but not shockingly they fall into a category even less sufficacious and block out between 10 to 30 percent of only the large particles here are the particles that make it into your mask get tangled up into your spit for you to breathe in and out during the day and thus become a breeding ground for bacteria a lay person can see that this is not healthy and does not model the standard for healthy behaviors now that i have the science out of the way i want to talk
067about freedom just the other day the world witness beat people from afghanistan gripping onto any part of a moving c-17 airplane as it took off from a kabul airport we as a country witnessed the links that people would go grasping on to a freedom that they felt was still within their reach only to tragically find out that it was actually too late will this soon be a metaphor for us what are we going to do are we going to recognize this before we get to that point please not free fall to our demise because somehow we think it's easier to conform than uh to the constant moving of the goal posts thank you thank you all right adella and then the next one i have is ashley shaw is ashley's in here okay first may
068i address a question to you is it about a mandate till september 29th or for the whole school year she's asking because from september 29th the law says that you cannot mandate the mass what is being considered is september 29th what is being considered would in september 29th when the law becomes effective okay thank you mask mandates teach students that their environment is toxic they have toxic teachers they have toxic colleagues they breathe toxic air there are many peer-reviewed studies that show that wearing masks is harmful and none that shows they are beneficial but ncbi part of nih study from november 2020 children wearing masks made software of the following hypoxemia hypercapnia shortness of breath increased lactate concentration decline in ph levels acidosis toxicity inflammation self-contamination increasing stress hormones level adrenaline noradrenaline and cortisol increased
069muscle tension immunosuppression activation of fight or flight stress response chronic stress condition fear mood disturbances insomnia fatigue compromised cognitive performance legally you have no standing to mandate mask wearing because if you do so you will be in violation of federal law as face masks are under fda emergency use authorization title 21 united states code 360 bbb 3c 3e the federal food drug and cosmetic act states individuals to whom the product is administered are informed that number three of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product so on emergency youth authorization products are by definition experimental masks and thus require the right to refuse under the nuremberg code the foundation of ethical medicine no one may be coerced to participate in a medical experiment consent of the individual is absolutely essential in a letter
070dated april 24 2020 the food and drug administration stated that authorized face masks must be labeled accurately and may not state or imply that the product is intended for antimicrobial or antiviral protection or related uses or is for use such as infection prevention or reduction any emergency use authorization mandate requiring individuals to wear face masks conflict with section 360 bbb3 which provides that the person might be informed of the option to refuse to wear the device our students should be taught they have individual freedoms and not collective mandates thank you thank you all right we have ashley shaw and then drew young is drew young in the room okay thank you go ahead hello my name is ashley i have two elementary school kids at coronado elementary we transferred in from chandler to do the
071dual immersion program last year and a half has been hard for my family especially my small children um as it is for a lot of families as we try to navigate this they my children have no control over the situation and have to constantly change and adapt and our expectations of them are really high as a society we're saying hey here's this thing you have to meet in order to get this and it changes day to day hour by hour um and the kids are doing it the best they can my nine-year-old and seven-year-old asked me to come today they um i asked them if they wanted to come and they were embarrassed but they said they do not want to be forced to wear a mask again my son's words were please don't put
072me in a mask it's really hard for me so i'll quickly read some of their reasons my both my kids said it's hard for me to understand what my teacher's saying in class i get embarrassed having to ask her to repeat herself over and over they also are taking mandarin sometimes they don't know how to say the new mandarin words because they can't see their teacher speaking and so they have to ask privately to the side during recess to have the teacher move their mouth with the word um my seven-year-old daughter told me that it's hard for her in class because she's soft-spoken and the teacher can't hear her and she often feels invisible in class my son says he gasps for breath when he's trying to read aloud in class for the class to
073hear and the hardest was when we moved into the district last year they didn't know what their friends faces looked like really quick about my kids they both received speech services and there was zero improvement and actually regression this last year for them um once the mass came off in the year they jumped right back in and had huge improvement again um when their front when the mask mandate came off they were both overwhelmed with emotion to finally see their friends faces again and to see them cry about being able to see their friends faces was tough as a parent i have deep empathy for everyone including those who have been directly affected by copid i respect their individual choice everyone's individual choice whether or not they wear a mask or whatever they choose to
074do to keep themselves and their family healthy and i hope that i would have the same respect to choose how to protect my family we have come to an informed decision that the benefits of not wearing a mask for us far outweigh the benefits we would get from wearing a mask i just want to thank you for letting me speak thank you thank you all right we have drew young and then i have carrie ware is carrie okay perfect thank you i have uh three kids that attend the higley school district as well as i'm a spouse of a of an employee i found it interesting that the president brought up possible discrimination and reference to the grant when a medical mandate regardless of what the mandate is is in fact discrimination this should not
075be a political issue but i can't help but feel like this vote is taking place in order to be a cya for this board and district against those that would choose to blame them for any future positive covet diagnosis if you truly have the kids best interests at heart that sounds like the perfect time to have your legal team bow their neck in essence that's a legal issue not the opportunity to sacrifice our kids in the name of not fighting for our right to choose those in favor of a mandate seem to forget that it's not just a small sacrifice we have all had our first day of kindergarten our first crush went to prom and went to graduation the mental damage that these mandates have done and what continue to do cannot be undone
076it's not a small sacrifice these experiences cannot be given back to these kids it's easy to cancel and restrict when you have already enjoyed the very things that you're taking away kovit cannot be eradicated it's not going anywhere judging whether to disrupt lives and make medical decisions for people should not depend on your positive cases so how often is there going to be a vote on whether to disrupt lives and make medical decisions on the behalf of your parents this should not be an argument of whether you're pro-masking or against it this is whether you're going to infringe on people's right to choose kids and employees right now and far before covid have the ability and right to choose whether to wear a mask you're voting on whether you're going to remove the right to
077choose there's nothing preventing those from that feel they should wear a mask from continuing to do so if i was for wearing a mask i would be saying the exact same thing i have no right to tell anyone in this room or district how to raise their children or what is best for them medically or mentally and neither do you or the state for that matter it is in this board's best interest to put the political football back where they found it and continue to let people choose what's best for them thank you thank you i have harry ware and then deneen schmidt okay hi good evening i'm carrie ware i'm the one that says at husd all the time on facebook facebooking you guys i'm a little irritated sitting here listening to everybody thank
078you so much for letting me speak we have to work as a community to get this taken care of i have never in the 16 and a half years that i've been a mother solicited advice from any of you people or anybody for that matter and i do not plan to start today i cannot control what's going on in the white house but i can control what's going on in my community and i love the people in this community and i love the kids in this community but there's one thing that everybody in this room is forgetting you guys are up here acting like you're doing us a favor giving me the option of a or b that is not freedom that is coercion that is you telling me i have two options and that's
079not the case freedom means i bring to the table what i want to do and what hypocrites all of you are to stand here and pledge to the flag which represents freedom and then tell me i have two choices nonsense i'm over it my family is done doing what you tell me to do this is america this is gilbert the people are proud that people are here to tell you we're not gonna do it anymore there's half of the population for the schools aren't even here tonight where's the survey did you guys get a survey anybody get a survey did the teachers get a survey did the parents get a survey so don't act like you care what we think because you don't you guys are going to decide at the end of the day
080no matter what i say or any of them say if you really cared you would have asked and let me tell you something i have a kid at higley a kid at sofman and a kid at centennial elementary i got three different drop-off times and three different pick-up times and every day the teachers don't wear a mask the kids don't wear a mask nobody's wearing a mask but we're going to have an emergency meeting five days from now to implement a mass policy a few days from them what an emergency if you guys can't figure out by now the science is ridiculous then you're probably driving around in your car with a mask on by yourself and i can't help you at this point nor do i want to it's not my job i appreciate
081what you want to do for you and your family i would appreciate it if you respected what i did for me and my family because that's where we live the united states of america god bless america the end thank you [Applause] [Music] and our next speaker will be colleen is colleen inside she might be in the lobby thank you good afternoon i am here to oppose the mask mandate being considered by the higley board at this time but i have one question that i'd like to ask everyone here that is making this decision i'd like to know how many of you would have the audacity to ask someone who is in favor of wearing masks to not wear it to demand that they take it off or that they will be sent home to take
082it off or they can't go into a building to take it off or else i'm guessing that you all would say that science wouldn't support the forced unmasking of students and teachers well you know what science also doesn't support the force masking of students and teachers dr fauci himself said they don't work and that they provide a false sense of security he's changed his mind since then about everything from here to there and was caught lying about this subject but that's besides the point or is it what are we to believe well what i believe is what i've seen i've seen my daughter get coveted last december and was over it in two days she felt worse when she had the flu than when she had coveted i've also seen that while my daughter had
083coveted none of our family was infected nor were any of her friends that she spends more hours with in a day than she does us what i've also seen is a co-worker who locked down for nine months didn't go out at all and when she finally did she messed up like her life depended on it she ended up with covet pneumonia and meningitis to self-quarantining locking down and wearing masks prevent her from getting sick no it didn't in fact i would argue that doing so weakened her immunity system and made her more susceptible to it while i feel that no child should ever be forced to unmask because i'm not fearful of this virus i do not feel that others should force my child to mask because they are keep masks optional getting sick is
084a part of life being exposed to various germs and viruses is what strengthens our immune systems the common cold the flu and this virus are not something that can be blocked by masking that has been proven people were getting sick even when masks were mandated end this already please keep masks optional we've had enough thank you thank you colleen hernandez we didn't have one out there okay oh is that you oh sorry no go ahead come on up no that's okay the next one is sean chaban okay perfect go ahead okay the higley school district has continued to tell parents since the pandemic began that they would follow the guidance and recommendations from the arizona department of education as of today the arizona department of education is recommending universal and correct use of mass as
085the top mitigation strategy for safe in-person learning as recommended by the cdc the department of education strongly encourages all individuals in public schools to wear masks on campus and during school associated activities as parents we are not asking the board to mandate mass for the remainder of the year or to make it some part of school uniform this is a mitigation strategy because we are asking that while the numbers are high while there is an outbreak at higley high school which isn't those aren't my words that's the principal's words and while there is a pandemic that you consider the facts of the numbers and our children's safety when masks are worn the numbers are lower i'd rather have my kids in school with their friends than at home online thank you all right sean and
086then we have kari pendleton pendleton okay go ahead hi i'm shawn shahan uh i come from a teaching family my dad was a coach my uh brother is and i i taught uh high school as well i'm gonna go right into it stanford study data suggests that both medical and non-medical face masks are ineffective to block human to human transmission of viral infectious disease such as sarzikovic 19 supporting against the usage of face masks german neurologist margarita breeze brisbane who has done extensive studies on this says children have a very active immune system as well as developing brains which search for oxygen for proper development to restrict oxygen to a child is not only dangerous to them but is criminal the damage to the brain and the damage because of it cannot be reversed journal
087of american medical association recent out of 45 school children 6 to 17 years of age 100 percent reached at least four times the osha permissible limit of co2 exposure in nine minutes the irish health authority after looking at the mental health and the physical ailments of their children ruled basking children in classroom is not a legitimate medical option it's child abuse exasperates anxiety breathing prohibits proper development language and social skills co2 levels were felt found well above dangerous breeding ground for bacteria sickness using scientific research there's numerous scientific evidence supporting not using masks there is not one supporting the use of masks they're suggestions maybe we ought to do that as one of the people that came up here fauci on may 28 2020 said the masks are not effective the virus can enter there
088and actually it's prohibitive to the help of it he then changed his mind and said use 3 15 12 or whatever this is not science i can go to a restaurant take off my mask and sit down my kid can't sit in a chair for eight hours without having his on how's that science well it won't get you outside but it'll get you inside my child played basketball in middle school these kids were gasping for air gasping and refs were stopping the game and tell them to put it over their nose what are we doing follow the science they said i am what a change of pace we have study after study after study after study saying the mental the physical the emotional and the development is killing our kids there's a report that the
089little ones after a year of this their iq on average went from 100 to 78. suicides are up 500 percent anxiety depression up 242 have you ever tried getting a therapist in this valley for your child they're booked out for a year i need you to stand up i need you to protect their kids if you want to wear your mask you want to get vaccinated i support you as a parent to do that for your child no one's preventing you from not wearing a mask if they work wear one but don't make my child go through emotional i had to pick my kid up twice for having panic attacks pull her mask down because she can breathe [Music] protect my kid do what's right stand up thank you i have hari and then i
090have danielle hello my name is carrie pendleton i'm a parent of two high school boys at williamsfield high school our family is new to the district we transferred here from gilbert school district this year because they were still enforcing mask at the end of last year even after governor ducey lifted the mass mandates we toured many schools in various districts and we settled on williamsville because they are in the higley district who voted to do the right thing and make mass optional i am here to tell you my boys will not be wearing masks at this district either i do not authorize you to make medical decisions for my kids my older son has given up half a season of football he has to sit out as a requirement by aia for transferring he loves
091football he's lost some friends because they're calling him a traitor for switching teams but he feels that passionately about not having his freedoms taken away it's bigger than a sport right now you can go ahead and insert any activity important to your child an example as an example instead of football it's a really big deal to miss half a season as a junior on varsity in high school my younger son a freshman said at this point he'd rather just drop out than put up with this again everyone in this room that stood for and spoke the pledge of allegiance i'd like to remind you that it ends with liberty and justice for all liberty which is defined as personal freedom personal freedom that if you have access to the news or any media sources you
092have seen images of people falling off the plane trying to get to their freedom i don't understand why any of you would vote to have our freedoms taken away i don't understand because unlike some people in this room and in this district my life has not been taken over by fear fear is the only thing that could drive someone to give up personal freedoms to this extent to wear a mask because you believe it makes you safe from a virus that can't be blocked from a mask is irrational thinking created by fear it is a security blanket nothing more you might as well just put up a chain link fence like my friend back here said to block out the mosquitoes or flies in your yard but that is neither here nor there i will
093not tell you what you can have to do go ahead and exercise your right to mask up vaccinate up keep you and your family safe the way you see fit in that same light do not block mine in my children's rights because my thinking differs from yours if someone came up and berated you and forced you to unmask you'd understand where i'm coming from you'd be angry you would tell them that they have no right to do that be honest with yourself you say you don't want to discriminate kids that don't want to wear masks will be the only ones discriminated against as they won't have an option do the right thing better yet do the american thing thank you thank you after danielle will be kristin apodaca my husband and i have a freshman
094at williams field one of the biggest reasons we chose this district is because we felt a sense of patriotism freedom freedom of all parents to be able to choose what's best for their own children own child this freedom is not taken away from those who are supporting the mass mandate the pro-mask individuals believe their ch if they believe that the mass work and they're protected by them no one is stopping them from wearing them freedom is taken away from those of us who do not want our children to wear a mask through my own countless hours of research i understand the negative effects masks have on our children's health this information is coming from doctors nurses pediatricians virologists other health care professionals who have nothing to gain everything to lose by speaking out against these
095mandates when our kids have a mask on their face throughout the day it's cutting oxygen to the brain it's really important to consider because the brain continues to develop until age 25 and the kids are in that stage right now that critical stage of brain development with a mask on the face and constantly breathing in their own carbon dioxide for countless hours throughout the day this can be dangerous for many reasons but especially the respiratory system there's much evidence and statements even on the cdc website as well as on the box of the mask themselves stating that the masks do not protect anyone from getting code it's a virus the particles in the virus are so minute it's nearly impossible for the virus to not pass through the much larger fibers making up the mass
096it would be like shooting a bb gun through a chain-link fence to date there is no proof that a child has infected a teacher or caused death in any school in the entire world the kids when they do get sick so they are typically the symptoms are fairly mild the death rate of covet amongst kids is .003 percent that's a ninety nine point nine nine percent survival rate and there has been no report of a healthy child that doesn't have underlying conditions that has died from it instead of instilling fear in our children and teaching division why don't we focus on teaching them to be proactive with their health by boosting their immune system let's educate them on eating healthy exercising drinking water getting enough sleep reducing stress it's it's as though we've lost all
097of our common sense there's nothing stronger than our god-given immune system when we take care of our host to me the saddest thing of all is what this is doing to our kids mental and emotional health we're already seeing the ramifications currently there are not enough therapists to support the growing need of mental health support in 2020 suicide rates increase five-fold anxiety and depression are at an all-time high amongst our kids our kids are meant to be social they're meant to see each other's emotions and facial expressions they're meant to be able to see sadness happiness anger they're meant as we all are to have human contact and interaction our kids are already losing social skills in large part due to social media but also because they're being suppressed so i'm asking you please let
098our kids be kids let them see and feel a sense of normalcy in a really abnormal world please do what's best for them in this district they need us all of us to advocate for them thank you thank you kristin apodaca and then we will have will fordenberry okay perfect thank you hi my name is kristin apodaca and i have four children who attend schools here in the district i stand before you today to ask you why why are we here doing this again the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result which is exactly what is happening we did masks last year it did not solve anything there were still kids who got coveted and still kids being quarantined with the mask mandate in effect
099what will mandating masks do for five weeks there is zero logic behind this it is another attempt at throwing something at the wall to see if it will stick i am asking for common sense and logic to have a place at the table tonight once again the goal posts are being moved every time we get close or achieve the last goal it's it swiftly gets moved further out it started out that we could drop these mandates and resume a normal sense of a school day once the teachers could be safe safe met when they had a vaccine available that could protect them that day came and became available for all those teachers and yet here we are again being told once it's safe the queen creek school district what has remained excuse me mask optional
100since last year as has most charter schools in our area did they collapse did they need to shut down why are we not using them as an example of how it can be done safely masks being optional has always been an option for those who felt feel it necessary for their family no one is taking their option to choose a way and in doing so those schools have maintained a safe environment for all this virus is not going anywhere as we have already seen and we have already tried by mandating masks before we have to learn to live with it in the best way possible the mitigation plans that have been put into place over the last week is another example of the lack of logic that creates these rules herding children in one direction
101down a hallway or a set of stairs for middle schoolers all at one time does nothing for their safety cramming kids all together to move to their classrooms taking their ability to walk across the hallway away has no merit for safety if anything it's creating other safety hazards taking morning recess away from our elementary children no longer allowing them time to be outside getting fresh air sun on their skin getting their wiggles out once again has no merit in safety it takes a lot of courage to stand up here before you to speak and to take a stand for our children but as a parent that is what i am here to do i am here to stand up for my children i am asking you the members of the board to do the same
102members of the board if you took on this job for the children then please be courageous set an example for our district and our children our children are not for sale and they are not a bargaining tool in this political game that continues to be played in our public school system deep down i know you all know what is happening is wrong the only way to stop it is by stopping it please keep mass optional thank you thank you we have and then our next speaker is larry shrimp okay thank you go ahead hello all right so i'm a father of two higley students and a higley taxpayer i want to thank you board for listening and for your service on the board overall i know it's a tough job i also want to thank
103you for your example tonight in making a personal decision as to whether to put a mask over your face or not tonight and potentially risk harming us all by not covering your face um covid stats everybody's talked about a ton of stats looked at cdc today as of yesterday since this thing started 430 deaths under the age of 18 the large majority with terminal illnesses the previous year flu stats flu is was non-existent somehow last year but the previous year there were over 600 likely flu deaths according to the cdc so the flu is literally more deadly than covid is yet we've never messed up none of us growing up we never did any of this stuff right we never had dashboards any of that however the psychological impacts are real people have talked about
104those as well ssa.gov did a study they said that over 50 percent of children have suffered severe impact on mental health due to covid and the coveted response i might add my son william fifth grader at bridges elementary he's in h pal 97th percentile on the testing last year he's such a loving kid bright and outgoing he's become angry depressed he lashes out far more often now and just this past week through tears he shared with my wife in his words he just can't take this stuff anymore so the impact to our kids is huge and as it's been said i think it's permanent so if masks if this thing isn't harmful to our children why do we wear masks is it to protect adults every adult has had the opportunity to get vaccinated already
105and even if it is even if they haven't it's not a child's responsibility to protect adults it's adults responsibility to protect children so with that in mind it's not in my child's best interest to wear masks and as loving parents we will not comply with any mask mandate the government of these united states is by the people for the people we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness the people do not want to mask their children our country was built on liberty and we demand the right to choose whether to mask our children or not ars 1-602 number 5 has already been stated but it's it's against arizona law to make health decisions for our children so if a mandate is brought forth
106my children will be forced to unenroll and take our tax dollars elsewhere as taxpayers and citizens we will vote with our feet in regard to how our children are educated uh it's been mentioned the the fiscal impacts as well you'll lose you know eight point something million dollars uh in terms of of the doug ducey funds there so in summary a vote for mask mandate will restrict freedoms negatively impact children's mental health and take money away from our district all without providing any real health benefit please make the right choice as you did in april thank you [Music] we have larry and our next speaker is kim collins okay she's it thank you hi thank you for the opportunity to speak um tonight um i realize this is a highly charged topic and everybody's got
107an opinion you're getting criticized either way you come down on it but uh anyway i just want to commend you for giving us a voice the people here in the public um really i just want to talk about two studies that have recently come out the first one it was talked about an article last month in the wall street journal it's called in children the risk of covid19 death or serious illness remains extremely low new study finds and i'll just read a bit from it it says that children are extremely slim risk of dying from covid19 according to some of the most comprehensive studies to date which indicate the threat might be even lower than previously thought some 99.995 percent of the 470 000 children in england who were infected during the year survived one
108study found in fact there were fewer deaths among children due to the virus than initially than initially suspected in fact only 25 of those 470 000 infected students died due to the illness itself and my understanding is there's limited studies on the delta variant but based on the limited studies it does not appear that that's any more dangerous to children than the original strand the second study is from the cdc's own website it's called the physiological burden of prolonged ppe slash mask use on healthcare workers during long shifts basically it says that the n95 mask is always going to n95 mask users are always always going to experience some level of difficulty breathing or breathing resistance even though these devices are designed to minimize breathing resistance as much as possible enough breathing resistance can result
109in the reduction in the frequency and depth of breathing known as hypoventilation which is basically a co2 overload some of the side effects that they found from not from co2 overload is headache increased pressure inside the skull nervous system changes increased pain threshold reduction in cognition altered judgment decreased situational awareness difficulty coordinating sensory or cognitive abilities monitoring activity decreased visual acuity widespread activation sympathetic nervous system those are all the direct effects as well as increased worker breathing cardiovascular effects all the things that everyone else has already mentioned tonight one other thing of interest in that wall street journal article is they they mentioned that it went on to say that a child has a greater risk of dying from the flu or drowning than kovid we don't send our kids to school and life jackets
110to keep them safe from drowning i don't think we should send them to school in mass to keep statesman covered thank you president president ruiz yes i wasn't here i know at the beginning but can we have some of the people that are waiting in the lobby to come sit down since there's empty seats or was that not allowed earlier we just hadn't done that so it's not disruptive okay it's good all right so we have kim and then following kim is jana mclean okay good evening as a parent of two students here at higley unified school district in my opinion masks make sense as an educator at a higley elementary school my opinion is masks make sense this variant covid is different it's different because it's affecting elementary age students it has the ability
111to affect elementary age students these same students are unable to be vaccinated in my opinion masks make sense to reduce the communication of covid at our schools my ask today is that we protect hiddley's students by making our campuses requiring masks as a mandate that's it short and sweet thank you and then after the speaker we're going to take a short recess so if at that point additional people want to come in all right okay i am not a doctor a nurse or a scientist but i am a dental hygienist and have a bachelor's in science and my career is literally based in preventing disease i wasn't originally going to attend tonight because 40 days of masking isn't going to do any appreciable good in stopping the spread of covid just like that initial shutdown
112that was only going to be two weeks long obviously that didn't work but i realized something i was planning on wearing a bikini top tonight and daisy dukes but i lost my courage why am i saying this we have a dress code in place most places including in schools the dress codes are to facilitate learning in a safe environment not wearing a mask during a pandemic does not facilitate a safe learning environment if we can make a dress code for the length of shorts and skirts words that are on a person's clothing and hairstyles surely we can make a dress code for masking when there is a highly communicable disease my son is six he wears a mask when he is with me but he is refusing when he is at school i was told
113i would have a choice if my kid wore a mask or not i don't so to say that um he's not doing it because he's saying no one else is doing it so it's actually more of a peer pressure thing kind of like if everyone else is jumping off a 10 foot bridge are you gonna do it too i guess he would for those people who are saying that their child would be outcasted if they did not wear a mask that's already occurring the kids who are wearing a mask are feeling outcasted and feel like they're embarrassed to wear a mask kids tend to be like their parents so if the parent is verbal and anti-mask it's highly likely their children especially younger children will be exactly the same i'm not big on punishment but
114i do believe in consequences there is no logical consequence for my son not wearing a mask that is related to him not wearing one when he's at school not going to school really isn't a good consequence and the only other consequence would be natural and that natural consequence would be him acquiring kobit i had to test my son on thursday night of last week thankfully he was negative he was really congested i think it was just allergies that's what most of us are saying right it's just allergies but i got a letter on tuesday that a coveted positive person was on his same bus he sits in the bus for 20 minutes waiting to leave the school he likes riding the bus and the bus is a main factor in why we kept him in
115his district school today we got two letters another from transportation another kid is sick and that a first grader is sick the grade that my kid is in this did not happen last year we received zero letters he went from january until may if you look at the dashboard it is evident that the cases are up let me go over some common arguments against mass dirty mask wash it you can easily hand wash and dry a mask overnight buy multiple masks if you need to and rotate them but i also find this argument contradictory because people say well they're not getting into contact with germs because they're wearing a mask well if your mask is dirty then you're getting into contact with germs breathing in the mask fibers you breathe in dirty air all the
116time we have multiple red flag days all this to say i am asking actually the district put in a temporary dress code while there is a pandemic going on asking for a mask thank you thank you what all right we are going to take a brief recess probably about two minutes okay thank you we're going to go ahead and resume our meeting um we will we will have 10 more speakers and then we will close public comment so i have logan geronimo and then mark eltowell okay thank you three elementary age children and i was not at any board meetings last year because i withdrew from higley upon the mask mandate i chose to homeschool them to avoid the risk that they'd be in masks 33 hours a week if you do a web search
117for a times magazine article titled hospitals overwhelmed by flu patients are treating them in tents from january 2018 that's january 2018 you will find a quite similar hysteria to today the article includes inundated hospitals across the country including new jersey alabama california pennsylvania illinois and missouri seeking quote extraordinary measures such as asking staff to work overtime pulling nurses from all floors setting up triage tents restricting friend and family visits the use of ventilation due to respiratory failure and canceling elective surgeries just to name a few end quote alabama also declared a state of emergency i have copies here of that article if any of you would like to see it in that 2017-18 season the cdc estimated that 600 children died from influenza and during the 1920 season they estimated 434 juvenile deaths in the
118past 18 months the cdc estimates a total of 332 children i heard somebody else say updated to 350 have died from cove in 19 so those previous flu seasons had more deaths despite a widely administered vaccine and lower case rates so what's the difference between the response in 2018 and that of now it's been over a year since the medical community has navigated and learned about this virus and provided vaccines to everyone who feels they are at risk an analysis published by the financial times in an article titled why are fully vaccinated people testing positive for kovid found children at a point zero zero zero two percent less risk from covet 19 than vaccinated adults in fact a new york times article titled kids covid and delta found that children are about 10 times more
119likely to die in a car accident than from kovid so who are the masks meant to protect what is the difference from 2018 why wasn't there a demand to mask up then is it because there is suddenly a new revelation that masks can protect others against asymptomatic viral loads not quite leading up to 2020 several randomized controlled studies had found that masks can hardly be deemed effective at preventing the spread of disease the cdc pointed to one randomized controlled trial which concluded quote this study is the first randomized controlled study of cloth masks and the results caution against the use of cloth masks this is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety moisture retention reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased infection again that's increased infection to date there
120is yet to be another randomized control trial completed to show that masks are any more effective or even safe to wear so again who are these masks meant to protect thank you after this our next um following mark will be michelle judd okay perfect thank you hi uh thank you for having us here today and give us the opportunity to speak on this issue and i do not envy the difficult position you all are in um my name is mark eltawell and i'm here tonight as the grandfather of two two children in bridges elementary um i just wanted to throw out some facts i'm sure everybody's reading and and uh and keeping track of what's going on but i haven't heard a whole lot of facts tonight i've heard a lot of passion over the
121according to reporting from the state and from the children's hospital association over 160 000 of our arizona children have gotten covet 19 and sadly 34 have died there are vaccination programs underway for those 12 and over but those 12 and under don't have the opportunity to get the vaccine yet and even for those over 12 at 44 vaccination rate we're lagging the national average and we're well behind our neighbors to the east and the west both of whom are well over 60 percent vaccinated so we need to continue to do more to help protect our children arizona has the sixth highest rate of childhood coveted infection of all the states in the u.s and that rate is nearly 50 percent or actually over 50 percent higher than the national average rate we're not doing enough
122to protect our children the rate of children being hospitalized is accelerating so contrary to what some people think that kids aren't really getting sick and going the hospital the rate of children going the hospital is accelerating it's now ten percent higher than it was just two months ago and uh 15 percent higher than it was just three months ago just this morning valley wise uh health system reported that their hospital is seeing an increased rate of pediatric admissions and is uh imploring asking us as leader as as parents as adults to do something more to protect our children i'll end where i started over 160 000 of our children have gotten covered 19 and 34 have died we're the adults we're the leaders we need to do everything we can to prevent these deaths from
123happening thank you so i have michelle judd and then kyle speck okay do masks reduce covet transmission in children it is nearly impossible to find any study answering this question and the results on this are inconclusive of the 42 billion the national institute of health spent on research last year less than 2 percent went to covid clinical research and not a single grant was dedicated to studying masks in children while there is an absence of data in the case of masking children there is a plethora of information on the case against it before schools decide to start forcing children to cover their faces regardless of the non-proven efficacy of such a decision let's consider the harm many children struggle wearing a mask children who wear glasses can struggle to see because the mask fogs their
124glasses masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems some students may experience anxiety or difficulty breathing while wearing a mask increased airway resistance during exhalation can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood this can lead to dizziness excess fatigue and headaches some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths it is well documented that chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development resulting in amount deformity and elongated face the psychological harm this may be doing to our children should be an even greater concern facial expression expressions are integral to human connection especially for young children who are still learning how to communicate covering a child's face mutes these non-verbal forms of communication and can result in emotionless interactions as well as anxiety and depression young children need to
125see people speak for their phonetic development especially children with speech impediments i have personal experience with this with my three-year-old son he needs to be able to see his teacher's mouth move he also needs to be understood without the impairment of a mask if safety measures are to be implemented we should be implementing safe safety measures we should not be choosing a safety measure that has more risk associated with it than reward children who wish to wear a mask are free to do so forcing children to wear a mask and make personal health and developmental sacrifices without any proven efficacy is not only abusive it's lunacy thank you so after kyle is karen stanley yep okay good evening governing board my name is kyle speck master sergeant united states air force retired the reason i
126bring up my service is because i gave an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states as well as the people of this country my question to you is what are we doing here i sat in this room about four months ago went over the same topic came to a conclusion voted four to one to get rid of masks as a mandate leave it optional right come on to my knowledge there's no city state county requirement that this meeting even takes place no other schools to my knowledge are even have in this meeting my guess is because of the cases that's what i've heard people talk about right so let's talk about the cases the pcr test exclusively used for covet 19. the cdc and the fda have said that that test
127cannot differentiate between the flu and covid 18 months of this 18 months 2019 to 2020 38 million cases of the flu 2020 to 2021 there was less than 3 thousand that makes you question something doesn't it let's talk about mass effectiveness right we've been told let's follow the science okay so let's follow the science there are zero peer-reviewed clinical trials showing mass effectiveness peer-reviewed clinical trials by the way are the highest level of scientific evidence there are at least three peer-reviewed clinical trials showing the ineffectiveness of masks not only not only they offer the findings not only they offer zero protection but they found that the uh that they cause harm to the wearer and the more the longer you wear it the more harm pneumonia heart heart disease gum disease and then psychological and
128mental and that's really important for kids right we're making them wear masks they don't get to see faces in closing i'd like to ask you one question what message are we trying to send to these kids right they so we started off don't she says don't wear a mask then he says wear a mask then he's then don't wear a mask back and forth and back and forth at the end of the day what we're going to do is we're going to vote here and if you vote to put them in a mask it's going to be for five weeks that doesn't that doesn't send that doesn't send a clear message of these kids in all my time in the military i did i spent a lot of time in leadership roles i can tell
129you that if you vote to put the mask as a mandate for five weeks it will not give any confidence to the students of your level of leadership so please do the right thing and give our kids a choice thank you karen stanley stately no okay joanne loki and that will be followed by charlene steyers hi my name is joanne and i have two children currently attending higley unified school district tonight's vote is a drastic step to address the concerns about the spread of covid anyone over the age of 12 may get a vaccine and everyone can wear a mask should they so choose the choice should be voluntary and in response to one's personal situation it should not be a mandate that has not been scientifically proven to actually work at slowing stopping the
130spread of covid the cdc cites a study that emphasizes that a particular type of mask needs to be worn in a very specific way so that it can quote possibly may help unquote slow the spread of covid why such squishy language if it works so well first the spirit of the house bill 2898 was to apply it to all school districts as students returned to campuses for their new school year the idea that higley unified school district governing board is taking advantage of maricopa county judge warner's judicial ruling on monday august 16th to discuss imposing a mass mandate is very disappointing the lawsuits will continue to be filed giving opportunity for this school's district and others to continue their mass mandates for as long as they want to tonight's vote if a mandate is put
131in order will not end on september 29th i'm not sure people understand that there are lawsuits saying that this bill isn't legal it will continue the mass mandate to go on and on second if a mass mandate is to be imposed on the children what is the metric that is being used to decide to require mask wearing the district's minimation mitigation plan does not seem to include any such a metric plan as such how many delta variant covert cases hospitalizations or deaths in a week have to be recorded to mandate mask wearing to lift the mandate what did the numbers have to do to go down would the metric be applied by higley unified school district or maricopa county again we heard from dr foley and she was giving various metrics that would be followed
132but they were all squishy no real numbers i want numbers third in march of 2019 the american public was told to quote shut down and shelter in place for two weeks to slow the spread of covet today august 19 2021 we are in our third third school year and are still having to respond to arbitrary mandates that may or may not have any real effect on the spread of covet what are we doing to our children to ourselves everyone is so concerned about getting sick by the way people seem to forget what having the flu actually means that they do not consider for a moment the negative impact of the emotional psychological and educational effects of these arbitrary mandates on adolescents and adults we are destroying ourselves in the so-called process to save ourselves and
133it needs to stop thank you shirlene steyers we will go on to angelina abram oh so i didn't prepare any remarks tonight because i wanted to come and speak to you from the heart and your name charlene okay i just want to make sure thank you so i am glad to get the chance to do that because i could stand up here for my three minutes and spout off facts a lot of people have and i appreciate that but the real fact is you're gonna find what you're looking for we're all divided here there are parents just as much on one side as another and i get that i get that because there's not a parent in this room and i think we can all agree on this or outside and by the way there's
134a lot of us outside that wouldn't lay down our lives for our children i think we can all agree on that so when we come here and we talk about facts and we talk about numbers and we talk about cases that's all fine and dandy but we're just going to go back and forth like a volleyball game the real fact is it's my child i see the whole picture i don't see numbers i don't see statistics i see my child and things you can't see was my three children that attend your school district last year and all the effects all the measures had on them and i'm not faulting anyone because i feel like everyone was trying to do the best they could in an unknown situation and it would be an impossible one but
135we're not there anymore we have a lot of information we've seen things that worked we've seen that things that didn't work and honestly there's no difference out there if you look at everything you're gonna find what you want to find i can spit off facts i don't have to i will tell you what happened to my kids though my fifth grader had the worst emotional year of her life not just from masking although that was huge but from social distancing from zones from zones that kept her from talking to her friends at any point in the school day i send my kids to get an education and i send them for socialization all of that was removed last year out of fear and again that was last year you were doing the best you could
136this is now we do not need surveys although we all appreciate when you send them out but trust me we feel like you're not listening when this numbers come in really high one way and you make a decision the other way you're not listening use your eyes go to the drop-offs go to the schools now we are not saying you can't wear a mask i guarantee you anyone that wants to put their kid in a mask can do that now we're not stopping you do it please i've taught my children to be respectful of others and their opinions so do it and we'll try to be kind one to another know that we're on different sides of this know that everyone is struggling with this no matter what side you're on and be respectful of
137that all we're asking is that you don't take our choice away from us the same as it's been mentioned you would not be okay if i stood out front and took the masks off your children's faces if you feel that's protecting them you would not be okay with that so please do not force my children to put one on my child is in the dual language program and there's a lot of things besides masks there's the zonings there's the one-way hallways it all has an effect on them the no recess the no lunches it all has an effect it all needs to be considered but the end of the day it's a parent's choice this is easy just leave it up to the parents that's all we're asking thank you [Applause] angelina abraham abram amy
138faust and then julie hancock is julie hancock in here okay hi my name is amy faust and i'm a parent of a first grader in husd school district contrary to the second speaker there's a lot of experts here i've heard a lot of them speaking we're all parents we're all experts on our own children but i've heard a few other experts speak there's a few people of science they've spoken to the science there's a few military members they've spoken to freedom i'm a licensed professional counselor my field is psychology what they've been saying is true you can't find people like me to work with kids we're inundated i've been slammed since the pandemic started and i can't take on any more kids i can barely take on any adults and that stinks because our kids
139really need help this is hurting them i sent letters to all of you and thank you michelle because you're the only one that acknowledged receipt of my letter so i don't want to recite everything that was in that letter again i can talk about statistics like everybody has it doesn't matter like the last person it's like a volleyball match it just goes back and forth we all have our opinion but i'm here to speak to what's happening to our kids the rate of suicide is skyrocketing we're losing more children to suicide than we are to covet we need to pay attention to that the masked mandate harms our kids they can't see each other's faces they can't see our faces they can't see the faces of teachers that is so vitally important to their emotional
140and develop their emotional and social development kids up until the age of 14 haven't mastered social skills yet they're looking to us they're looking to their teachers they're looking to their peers to figure out how to communicate and never mind kids that have autism and asperger's they suffer their whole lives if we're masking we're making it even worse for them how are they supposed to learn we're telling them look right here look me in the eye look at my face am i smiling what does that mean in therapy we have face symbols and we ask children pick the symbol pick the face what emotion are you trying to express they're looking at their peers they're looking at the adults in their lives and they don't know when i'm at a grocery store and i'm not
141wearing a mask i smile at everybody i see because i want people to know that i'm friendly that i'm a person they can trust but when i have a mask on they don't see that i'm still smiling but they don't know that they're looking at my eyes it looks like i can't see because i'm squinting how are they supposed to be able to read that we need we need to keep masks off our children the data supports it but as far as i'm concerned that data doesn't matter what i'm getting in my office every day what's coming into my practice is what matters and that's what i wanted to talk about today please hear us we need people to keep masks off our children we are the experts the parents are the experts in our
142kids our kids need to be able to see their faces and ours thank you [Applause] and this will be our last speaker good evening dr foley board members thank you so much for once again taking the time to read our emails and to listen to the community tonight april 27 2021 will be etched in my memory as one of the best days in my teaching career even though we were nearing the end of the year of a very long and stressful year and i'm usually burnt out a little bit and very tired of working i could not wait to get to school i could not wait to see my students this was the day thanks to you that we were able to take our mass off you see i teach some of the youngest learners
143in the district i teach students in preschool 3 four and five years old with developmental delays and speech delays i wish you could have been there to hear the noise and the language that was coming out of these kids there was an energy in the room that you could feel and in the halls parents were happy dropping the kids off the kids were happy the teachers were happy and that again comes thanks thanks to you so again i thank you for letting us end last year on a high note my students made so much progress in just that last month and now i have some of those same students in my classroom again and we are continuing that progress if we return to masking my students will be going backwards and that is not an
144acceptable direction here we are again voting to either continue using mass or not i'm here to again to ask you to please consider the physical social emotional and the educational needs of our special needs students who cannot speak for themselves they need to be able to see our faces to learn and to learn the language they need to be able to not be hindered by two or three layers of fabric that from what i have seen is not clean and is so filthy you wonder how can this even be healthy finally i'm here to ask you to please allow families to continue to choose if they want their child in a mask because if we don't i fear that many families will continue to use their choice and choose to leave higley thank you so
145much thank you [Applause] i want to thank all of our speakers for coming forward and sharing their thoughts and information with us it's not easy to get up there and speak and we really we appreciate it i believe at last count we had over 200 emails that we've received even though they may not have been answered i can tell you every single board member read every single one of them i was still reading emails 10 minutes before our board meeting so we have received them we have read them we know what our our community is thinking we also know that this very topic is very divided with different viewpoints so again i appreciate everyone coming to speak president reece mrs wilson i too want to echo that i have read over 200 emails i did
146not respond as i mentioned in the last board meeting i would not be responding i'm going to reiterate that i did not respond to any of them there was actually one that did get a response she didn't tell me which side of the fence she was on but she did get a response that was the only one i will say our community does not have a lack of passion for something that has truly divided our community i have a speech that i read in fall 2020 when we were coming back to school i read it again in spring 2021 and i'm going to read it again so mr tom for the paper here it goes again you'll probably quote me we've divided our community i've said it before and i'll say it again whatever decision
147is right for you and your family make it it's the right decision please don't judge others for their decision you don't know what they are dealing with save me safe means something different to each family and each person some feel safe others do not that's okay please continue to be kind and show your kids kindness matters i'm going to say that one one more time show your kids that kindness matters something to remember tonight we will lose families probably with our vote we understand that but kindness goes a long way and maybe we should tell our kids tonight whatever way we vote that kindness is important let's be kind to the friend who decides to wear a mask or the one who can't wear a mask whatever it takes so that's all i have to
148share thank you mrs wilson presides can i ask a couple questions based on absolutely um first uh dr foley one of the speakers mentioned that their siblings were not quarantined when we had someone with covid is that what's the can you explain that a little bit if you'll recall this summer we talked about the progressive or we talked about the mitigation plans we talked about the exclusion guidelines and that our guidelines match the health departments and at the time they had you know loosened up those guidelines and where our guidelines now are currently the appropriate guidelines again those might those might continue to be changed and obviously we they we are in those meetings every week and jillian updates as needed when we bring you know again the updated mitigation plan they'll reflect the most
149at the time but currently ours are updated thank you i just wanted clarification for the community on when she mentioned that and then uh one uh i have two things actually um if masks were implemented uh would they're not having would there wouldn't be quarantine as far as what we're having to do now correct as far as the football teams and i'm just wanna like a good question well last year when we had math there were times that even quarantines were required because there were times when depending upon the circumstances if um quarantine quarantining happened obviously when we were directed to do so we did one of the things that had happened was the there was the primary and secondary exposure and that's one of the things that in the guidelines that was sent today
150from dr sun and shine is the proper fitting mass when there were students around them if there was a person who was positive and they identified that they potentially needed to quarantine if they had been wearing a mask they then didn't need to quarantine but in some cases even if there was they were they were and so again it depended upon the scenario and i appreciate the context people saying it feels smooshy it is it's depending upon every situation um the contact the exposure the date of it is it is hard to to be cons it is hard for it to be identical yeah thank you thank you i just wanted to clarify it for everyone in the room and the question or what's being stated and the direction doesn't come from us it comes
151from county health and mr schultz um and correct me if i'm wrong dr fully those when we were wearing masks the ones that were quarantined um were groups through contact tracing had contact outside of school that that's why while they were wearing masks in school groups may have been quarantined through their contract tracing that there may have been a group event that they were together at that masks weren't worn is or a sporting a sports activity or group in which there was prolonged exposure in which there was the potential for most many in most cases there's uh multiple cases of positive within a short amount of time that shows that there was exposure at that point so thank you it's squishy as a question squishy is a good word for sure all right i'm going
152to go ahead and make the motion that the policy ebcf be reinstated until september 29th of 2021 when house bill 2898 goes into effect is there a second okay there is no second therefore that policy will not be going into effect president [Applause] mrs taylor can i make a comment please absolutely um i i too mrs wilson read every email and um i appreciate the passion of this community very much i uh i want to share an email i got tonight today because i too i just i couldn't respond to every mem mrs anderson if you do that hats off to you okay but um so i'm going to read this email i asked the writer for her permission to share it tonight she did not write me back so i will not use her
153name but i think she kind of summed up what a lot of us are feeling and i just wanted to share it she writes i know tonight is probably going to be rough i do have an opinion one way or the other but i just wanted to thank you for the job you do i'm sure you get praises when the vote goes the way the people want you to vote and i know you get mean awful emails when you vote the opposite way it's a no-win job most of the time but i'm grateful you spend the time away from your own families to try to be best at your job even if you vote differently than i want i don't want that to change we are all humans just trying our best i listen to
154both sides and i sympathize sympathize with both i hope you can separate this part of the job and ignore the negativity have a blessed day and that's what i want to end with tonight board member taylor that is the one email i responded to i didn't get to see that email but i just want to say one thing am i the most important to me is to keep our schools open and so if that means not sending your kids to school when they have a sniffle please don't send your kids to school because as we've talked about all night it is not at our direction that we have to shut down schools i want my daughter to go to science camp i want the kids to play football i want them to go to prom
155so and and i respect everyone that's wearing a mask but i want to be able to keep the schools open and that is the most important thing to me that we get able to keep this normal for the kids and i used my eyes and i saw what the community wanted and that's the way i voted tonight on on what i thought that the constituents and the people that voted me into office wanted me to do well and mrs schultz let me let me also remind our community that the motion is a formality it is on our agenda so there is a formality of motion um i too hear you i've hurt our community and i just want to i i don't want this to fall on deaf ears and i know that's what a
156lot of people feel we continue to receive emails from teachers who have children in their classrooms in the morning that they get in a notification from their parent that they had to come pick them up because while they were at school they got the results of their covid test and it is positive and that they had sat in that classroom and in high schools gone to i don't know how many classes in the morning around so many students without a mask and i get it's optional but they sat in class while they were waiting for the results of their test that is irresponsible and everyone you write you have a choice to wear a mask please be responsible considerate of others do what we can to try and slow the spread down masks don't stop
157it we understand that it could help slow it we need to do our individual parts everyone has that right but we need to be responsible and considerate of others please if you are waiting for a coveted test for your child do not send them to school again we get these emails consistently from teachers and it's not that it's putting our teachers at risk it is but they're putting many many students at risk and while those statistics may be fairly low right now it doesn't mean they'll stay low and so we need to do our parts so i don't want this to fall on deaf ears we have hurt our community we do want it to be optional but we have to be responsible so i i appreciate everyone speaking tonight we have heard from our
158our community and i can tell you in my mind not at one time did the governor's grant come into a factor of my decision it is not about money it is about our kids so i just as our district moves forward and we still navigate this and we have cases go up and we have cases come down we're going to see ebbs and flows of this absolutely everyone who said this is not going away it is not going away hopefully sooner than later it will be more like the flu that we're not having these large outbreaks within our schools in our communities that are impacting our kids covet in itself has had a huge psychological impact on our kids and our community even as adults you know we've looking around the room i don't think
159anyone here has been through anything like this and it has been trying and challenging for all so i just asked again what mrs wilson said please let's model kindness for our children and respect the choices of everybody parents send your kids in mask if you want to do so and we will continue to move forward we will continue to operate within our confines of what the maricopa county public health department allows us to do and our goal is to stay in person we know that remote learning that was the hardest social emotional psychologically challenging for our kids and for our parents they were ready for our kids to be in school and they need to be in school so just everyone please be courteous and responsible and we will move forward i do want to
160note quickly representative mr jake hoffman was here when we were doing public comment i saw him leave but i do want to recognize he was here we were doing our public comments so he didn't have an opportunity to speak but i just want to make that noted so with that anyone have anything else mrs anderson i'll make it quick we've been here a long time we've heard a lot of people speak so thank you um i didn't read all your emails i couldn't sit with that being said and i'm sorry but i want to and i will it just will be delayed going off of what miss president reece said yes be diligent but i also want to thank those parents that have kept their children home i know it's a tough decision to make
161because there's a lot of school that is missed but i appreciate you doing it the numbers reported by students i'm sorry teachers and myself we've had a lot of students out so i appreciate you doing that um i'm just gonna with the one thing that stuck out i don't know who said this in their email to me but the one thing that stuck out stuck out was the comment of keeping masks off because of the children's attitude towards school right there i was moved and that's that was the moment where i realized that's what really matters is we get these kids in school and they're happy to be there they are safe when they when they are there and we are glad that they are in school thank you all for showing up tonight and
162speaking it takes a lot of courage and i'm so glad all of you spoke to help help us to fully understand what you're all experiencing i'm going to stop there thank you and to those who didn't get to speak we apologize we still had more requests to speak than we had even gotten through so we appreciate everyone requesting we appreciate um those who spoke and i'm i'm sorry if you had requested to speak and did not get to with that i move we adjourn second all those in favor aye aye have a good night you