Oxford School Board 10-12-21

001[Applause] one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice welcome everyone and hello board members welcome to our october board meeting if there is anyone in the audience that's wanting to speak during unscheduled audience participation uh next student in both of those corners on the island or bar there um there is an agenda and there's also a card and that card has instructions on the back of what's expected during that um participation kind of like the rules of how that works and then um on the other side you're giving us some detail into who you are and what it is you may want to say and so when you get those filled out if there's anybody that wants to do that working down the annular so that we can manage ourselves through that process um

002yeah i think that's it for preliminary analysis here all right all our present thank you very much um mr throne any changes to the board agenda uh number workshop three we did with mr mark's uh closed meeting minutes for september 21st and those payable september 2021 uh and new hires um that we have uh listed would someone please put that opposed motion carriers we move on to pre-arranged requests to address the board and from tv uh communications commission i'm currently as board chair and i'm here today to first of all apologize on behalf of my board and the tv station octv which we oversee uh regarding the incident it occurred on september 24th i believe friday right before the football game uh unfortunately an individual from our staff made some comments that were unquestionable they

003weren't comments that were not depression for him to provide him on air his comments were beyond the scope of what most of us whatever dream this individual would say on there he didn't realize he was on air he doesn't excuse the fact that the comments that he were quite incorporated we have separated ourselves from this individual and we are as a tv station we are trying to put or we are putting in provisions to prevent future situations from this like this happening again unfortunately we can't guarantee this but we certainly hope we can do our best to control it and we don't foresee this happening again we have a great group of individuals this individual who made these comments uh we're completely off based on what we know of this individual so it was very

004embarrassing to our board who are remaining staff and we're here i'm here to apologize for this award for the community and the school district and we are trying to uh put forth a good effort to put a provision in place like i said again and maintain the critical relationship the value we put on the school district and how important school district is to us to exist as an entity because as i was telling uh mr weaver earlier wasn't working but without a school situations like that uh thank you for the corrective action steps that you are putting into place to prevent the future which are vital yeah our word was pretty much separated at the time this incident occurred as well as quickly as possible to address the situation thank you thank you thank you

005sir thank you very much mr bigelow clearly how are you sure good evening it's uh super nice to see you all um three pictures that you see up on the screen here so i've been fortunate to serve in this district for the past 20 years i was a teacher at d.a served three years at the middle school as an ap and believe it or not the last 10 years i've been at clear lake during those 20 years there's been a lot of proud moments a lot of highlights a lot of things that really stand out i've had this conversation with staff a lot it seems like over the course of the past 20 months but i've never been more prouder of what we've been able to accomplish over the past 20 months and we've done

006that because we've been together we've persevered through challenges we've stuck together we've stuck to our mission and vision and what we believe in and so i i say all that to bring us back to this screen and these three pictures these are pictures from last year and so although it was modified a little bit different we were still able to provide some great opportunities for our kids so whether it be halloween there on the far left our annual clear lake fun run in the middle and then we were also able to provide a fifth grade camp experience for our students last spring and that's really what it's all about so even though a little bit later on i'm going to share some other points of pride i thought it was important to share that with

007you all so looking at our building survey data first from our parents a high percentage of our parents would recommend clear lake elementary to a family member seeking a school they rated the overall quality of clear lake elementary is excellent for good a high percentage of parents indicated the school's learning standards and expectations are clearly communicated to students and they also indicated that teachers provide helpful feedback about student work when looking at an actual item and unfortunately this was also an actual item that i shared with you two years ago in the fall but that would be increasing the participation in our survey data we had about 360 families who would be eligible to take the survey this last spring and we had 52 responses so that's something that we really want to pay close

008attention to looking at our staff responses a high profit percentage of staff would recommend clear lake to both a friend seeking employment and to a family member seeking a school for their child i did want to just make a brief comment about this point i think this speaks directly to culture the culture that we're trying to build within the building you want to enjoy coming to work every single day we got great families we have great students and our teachers love coming to work each day so that was definitely something that we wanted to share a high percentage of staff indicated students are engaged in learning um and to me that comes back to relationships taking the time to develop relationships with our kids knowing who they are as individuals and then really being able

009to plan instruction that's going to allow them to connect to the content that's being taught and then a high percentage of staff believe that helpful feedback about student work is communicated looking at our actual items survey participation again about roughly half of our staff took the survey this past spring and the second point there continued professional learning focused on student behavior social and emotional health shifting gears and looking at our school improvement plan three of our main focus areas this this year the first i believe mr mcvivitt in his presentation last month spoke about when time and when time stands for what i need so it's a school-wide system of support intervention block it's a focus on both academics and behavior and so at clear lake it's a 30 minute block built into the master

010schedule every single day that's that's focused on academics and behavior for students we pull students four to five times per week it is an all hands on deck approach so basically during that 30 minute block some students may stay in the classroom while others might be pulled for math support reading support some students might be pulled to meet with a resource room teacher they also might be pulled to work with our family school liaison or our social worker so again it's all hands on deck concentrating on that one specific grade level we are in our third week of implementation um as you know we're in our seventh week of school it's really important the first month or so we took time to develop relationships with our kids first and foremost and then also collect baseline

011data so we can determine what their strengths were and where some areas that they need to grow the second point uh career readiness and stem will be a huge focus for us this year lisa butts has been a tremendous help to us in that department we've really been focusing on making authentic connections to our curriculum and then also to our program of inquiry so we've been working with our teachers on that this year we're going to be hosting our first annual clear lake career exploration and mentor day that's coming up at the end of may and then last year we were supposed to put in a stem room a stem learning room but that got put on hold with everything else going on so we're going to be moving forward with that um as we

012progress throughout the fall and into the winter and then the last bullet point there continued implementation improvement of our pbs system of support at clear lake points of pride i have alluded to this at the beginning of my presentation a huge point of pride would be the clear lake school community such a high level of support across the board with our procedures and our safety protocols you know when we started last year we didn't know how long we would last but the buy-in from the get-go was extremely high and we were just so grateful for the opportunity to have kids back in that seated environment we had minimal disruptions to see the instruction and learning throughout the year and overall last june just a huge sense of accomplishment for what we were able to do

013we capitalized on face-to-face learning we were able to provide both individual and small group instruction we were able to provide academic social and emotional supports students participated in ib exhibition we held fifth grade exhibition out of the football field which was a great experience for our fifth graders we had camp we were able to do halloween festivities we had our virtual giving tree we had grade level music concerts although we were videoing them but we were still able to put together a product and send that out to our families we had marches reading month and we were also able to conduct our annual clear lake fun run and the last slide here is just a couple of pictures we have some teachers collaborating on the left and then on the right um is a picture

014from our fifth grade celebration last june so again i just really appreciate the opportunity if anybody has any questions i'd be more than willing to answer thank you school board members um in almost all of these is the participation in the review process at the end right the um getting the responses that the percentage of responses either whether it's staff or from parents you fill one out or effectively and then secondly have you thought about from the student perspective i don't know you guys are great things like class competing against each other competing against each other turn that thing into something crazy fun where you know the kid is begging their parents to fill it out so they can have a party yeah absolutely but because because we work really hard i think thank you

015so much for coming and sharing out these stories i just love hearing about all the great things that we're doing and how we're collaborating and you know what i mean teachers administrators staff everybody's just getting it done for the kids and that is just fantastic um looking forward to march's reading month i'm hoping i can get back into this year hopefully things are improving um thank you so much thank you appreciate it thank thank you anyone we're going to see our 2020 2021 final audit presentation welcome back thank you very much it's great to be here uh give me one second to cue this up you can see those on the stage you also have a packet in front of you with these slides so sometimes they get a little small and i know my

016eyes aren't as good as they used to be either so i'll put lisa out so i'm right with you my name is jacob sokcinsky i'm the principal in charge of ensuring that the district's audit is completed we go back in time a little bit to last june so we're presenting on june numbers in this report when we start the audit and it's a financial statement audit we begin at the beginning which is understanding the internal controls the internal workings processes procedures that the district employs to account and maintain and and to ensure that the reporting financially is correct we do tests we look at journal entries we look at receipts we look at disbursements how you're spending the money we review a ton of state compliances issues to make sure that you're in compliance with

017what the state says you need to be in from a financial standpoint we look at pupil membership because remember we're going to talk about proposal a we always do pupil membership times the foundation allowance is how you get a bulk of your funding so we pay real close attention to that people membership accounts the student counts we look at budgeting and payroll bid process make sure you're spending money appropriately and we look at some of the governance things too policies and procedures that the board explores or the board says management needs to to use in their financial accounting we also look at federal programs um special education we've done in the past the esser dollar crf dollars we paid close attention to those federal dollars that were used for covet and covet issues we also

018look at capital projects funds uh ensuring that those bond proceeds that we get when we sell a bond that those are being spent in compliance we looked at 2019's bond spending as well as 2020 this year and of course the sinking fund the special millage for the sinking fund dollars very special rules on how those dollars can be spent we pay very close attention to that testing as well it's a lot of stuff right i mean that's a lot of stuff we're doing and that doesn't account for half of it um connie and sam and the rest of the finance team can probably attest to all the questions we ask and the items we ask at the end of all that work we really come down to this one paragraph in the audit report this

019is the whole the whole audits in one paragraph and it says we believe as independent auditors that the financial statements are presented without material statement and that's a good thing that's a that's a that's a win that's a pass that audit report that big thick uh folder or pad of paper you have with you that's all good information and it's a good clean audit report so congratulations part of that internal control process we look for we don't look specifically for areas of weakness but when we come across when we bring those to your attention last year we had a couple of findings this year those were corrected so again thank you very much to the finance department for taking action on those items and correcting them this year we had no material weaknesses no deficiencies

020no question costs and no management comments that's a double win no material weaknesses no deficiencies no question cost and no management comments don't don't lose sight don't lose sight of the goal uh let's maintain that um we get into the fun stuff the numbers they're real small for you but generally we we look at the balance sheet this is again a snapshot in time this is as of june that general fund really accounts for a lot of our general obligations that's our state aid money that's our federal dollars a bulk of our federal dollars and how we spend that and where our balance sheet looks like what what do we what are we worth for dollars and cents um cash is always going to be a big one at the top um because we got

021to get through the july and august and september state aid issues september we don't get state aid in october so we've got a little crunch in in cash in state aid so we gotta have some some cash on reserve due from other governments 15 million dollars that's really the july and august state aid receivable as well as some federal grant requests that we're waiting for all that money a lot of that money is already spoken for due to other governments payroll payroll obligations payroll liabilities speaks for a lot of that money that we're going to receive we have to turn back out and pay for july and august contracts for our educators as well at the end of the day our total fund balance in the general fund accounted for 11.4 million dollars we measure

022fund balance and this is just one measurement as a percentage of unrestricted revenues and expenditures um two different calculations give you about the same calculation hovers about 15 16 this year the general fund we talked about um of 11.4 some of that spoken for some of its uh non-spendable dollars those are prepaid dollars that we've already paid for we just need to incur the expenditures as well as assignment by administration and the board for various obligations specifically for education purposes for education solutions athletics future health care costs and for general long-term obligations as well we talk about revenue and expenditures and we've got a couple of chart charts next that'll show this a little bit better but total revenues for the general fund accounted for about 80 million and we spent about 80 million dollars

023it's a wash this year net change in fund balance was 206 000 going from 11.2 to 11.4 million dollars in that first count that all other funds that those numbers account for food service fund some debt service funds capital projects funds and a lot of other ancillary things that we need to do to support the general fund but not general fund operations directly uh typically uh just as caveat typically those funds also um are self-fulfilling right so a food service fund earns its money spends its money debt service funds takes in tax revenue spends that tax revenue to make debt payments capital project fund takes all that bond money in one year and spends it over the the life of the bond the bond project so you'll see that's a big negative number this year

0247.2 million that's because we're spending bond dollars in those funds we look at the general fund budget as part of our procedures we look for is are we budgeting correctly and accurately and generally we are to final budget when once we know where the numbers will lie we do a final budget that was about 81 million 80 almost 82 million in revenue and 82 million in expenses that middle column expenditures those actuals and revenue were pretty close to that the difference in some of those numbers relates to how we budget for uh federal dollars we have to budget a full grant even though we don't anticipate spending that whole grant thing here so we call that a pretty good budget this year when we look at general fund revenue remember remember proposal a students times

025uh our foundation allowance gives us revenue that accounts for the local and the state that's uh 86 of our revenue comes from proposal a from comes from funding that's a prescribed formula um federal dollars make up about six percent and we've got some other financing sources and money from the isd or local interdistrict as well how we spend those dollars bulk of that 60 percent of the dollars about 47.7 million go toward instructional costs that's direct instructional classrooms the other supporting services uh 35 the other large part of that pie that goes back to instruction assistance in in instruction as well as pupil as well as administration costs so pretty common percentages we see from other districts of your size when we look at a trend of revenue and expenses over the last five years

0262021 we see a nice little jump in that number some of that has to do with additional funding from covid the kova dollar crf and esser and gears and all the other funding sources we got this year increase in revenue increase in expense one of the things we look at again is that enrollment trend we want to make sure that our enrollment is is maintaining uh this year leveled off from a nice little rise over the last couple of years so maintaining is a good thing in the state of michigan we like to see that the other side of that formula is the foundation allowance this year kind of leveled off we should see a bump neck in 2022 which was a nice surprise for i think all of our finance departments in the state

027to get a little bump in state aid so the formula looks good for 2021-22 school year one of the big costs we have is retirement we've talked about this before that mipser's state rate is being subsidized through 147 our out-of-pocket costs are 28 but the total cost of retirement is a 42.72 so every dollar payroll is uh about 42 cents of of retirement benefits we don't see that in the paycheck all the time we don't see that in our budget because that's passed through from the state of michigan on on some state a dollars but a huge huge impact on school finance for the state as a whole just wrapping up looking at the future that state state economic political political conditions always looking making sure we're advocating for them the highest possible foundation allowance

028so that our schools are well funded we talked about the rising benefit costs and retirement rates looking forward to what that allowance will be in the future as uh state revenue sources continue to decrease or change over time we've talked about enrollment trends and then our pension obligation our retirement obligation that we have to pay that's an unfunded obligation uh we'll be funding that over the next 30 years that's prescribed formula by the state you and every other district is paying a little extra on that 42 percent to go toward your unfunded obligation we've got some new accounting pronouncements coming up we've uh talked with the accounting department the finance department about those and then just just to keep in mind the effects of the covet night of coba 19 the impact on students we've

029got the additional funding making sure we're using those federal dollars appropriately so we'll be looking at those in future audits to make sure that we're spending in accordance with those grants but this year was a great year and you all should be very proud of the finance department and the the district as a whole so thank you very much um it's based off of a title one allocation so the way same way you're being allocated title one uh you're also receiving the dollars you were also under the cap so that you were made whole by um you were brought up to the minimum amount because your title one allocation is smaller um so you were brought up to a cap so there's a cap of uh county correctness like round four five or forty was

030the minimum 450. there's there's different buckets of money and so you'd have to analyze which bucket is which but for the sr1 was 450 minimum per student correct yep on based on how you're spending those dollars damn anything else it's too easy tom they did a great job they did i'm going to give them another round of applause i can't stress enough how how much fun it is to work with connie and uh sam and the rest of the finance team so i really do thank them for all their hard work and putting up with us for a week in their office and nosing around in their business so thank you guys very much thank you thank you guys have a good night all right um let's talk about a choir field trip it's good

031to see a field trip in a presentation it definitely is mr donnelly thank you so much for having me members of the board mr throne uh yes i'm here to propose a field trip a big field trip uh sorry wrong one so uh this is for us to go to new york city uh we have not traveled uh since covet has hit us and we believe that we are now in a position where we are going to have the opportunity to do it safely um so when looking at this trip i kind of thought about what does an oxford graduate look like at the end of the day we need to ask ourselves what do we want our students to have experience while they're here at oxford uh what is it that we want them

032to feel and gain from being a student here when they leave oxford they will not only represent the district but the entire community of oxford and i want to give them the most well-rounded education that i can being their choir teacher our students the oxford students represent the best of who we are as a community when they move into the world we want them to be as prepared as possible traveling can broaden their horizons by giving them experiences that they cannot have at home one of the educational experiences that i personally like doing which is slightly different than some of the previous choir directors is that instead of a performance i like doing a workshop um the reason being is that when you go to a destination like new york i want the students to

033gain something instead of give something and when you're doing a performance they're thinking about what they have to do and they're thinking about walking across the stage and they're they're not their mind is right there and it's not like what am i learning right now is what am i doing uh the workshop they get to meet an actual broadway star and they get to spend two hours in a room with them learning music with them and then they get to spend time asking questions about what is life like performing in the professional world and to me that's an experience that you can't erase and it's to me more educationally sound for them to be able to ask questions to be able to see is this something that i would like to go into later in

034life we will be seeing a show on broadway we generally try to see the show that the actor is in that we do the workshop with so it's really cool to see them on stage in front of thousands of people performing what we had just performed in the workshop um loss of instruction time i know that this is a very big thing um i always try and minimize loss of instruction time so i've chosen memorial day weekend to minimize that we'll be wrapping up a lot of our things during school i know that it is after the good seniors graduate that being since i'm going to said i will make sure that they sign a contract i know all of these kids that are going and i know their character and i know what they

035bring with them and if there were any question marks that would be something that i would say no to but we have amazing kids in oxford and i don't see that as being a problem if there is a something that happens during the trip they will be sent home um i'm not worried about it they're amazing kids safety students will be in quad rooms they will have two beds so they'll be sharing a bed with another student there'll be chaperones we'll be in double rooms and we have security guards that will be monitoring the hallways at night every evening uh the students must be with a chaperone at all times this is a city it's not disney world we need to make sure that their safety is our number one priority and we want to

036bring home everyone that we take so the elephant in the room kovid as of right now the city of new york has a vaccine mandate we know this going into it i've spoke at length with mr wolfe about it and we're going to be transparent with the parents about this it expires october 31st we don't know whether or not they're going to extend it that being said memorial day is almost a year from now we don't know what the world's going to look like a year from now and it could be different travelers insurance is something that i believe should be built into the price i do have travelers insurance from two of the three bids i did not get it from one of them um it does raise the rate but if for some

037reason we have to pull out at the end like if there is a surge in covet cases or if they don't withdraw the vaccine restriction and a parent wants to pull their student out they would be able to get 75 to 80 of their money back pricing i understand that bryce park is the lowest price i've personally traveled with them and i have not had a very good experience with them we when we went to disney world with them they didn't tell us where to be when to be there the tour guide seemed lost um and there's always in their itinerary that you have all received there are some to be determined they haven't been transparent about how much they're allotting for the musical ticket where bob rogers and student adventures have both been transparent

038about how much they will be allotting for it soon adventures was recommended to me by jim gibbons he's friends with the agent that i was working with who has worked very hard i personally have traveled with bob rogers for over five years our sixth year was cut short due to covid and they worked very hard to get us back as much money as they possibly could during that week i think we got about 82 percent of our money back um i will say that i feel incredibly comfortable with bob rogers we would be traveling during the day instead of at night so we would have four nights in a hotel instead of three nights so the chaperones will be arrested the students will be well-rested it will actually provide a better trip for the students

039if we go with student adventures we'll be traveling overnight and then we will be getting off the bus and going through an entire day of activities because of that i personally recommend bob rogers but i'm also open to your suggestions or thoughts i'm definitely not married to them because you know jim has traveled a long time and he's well versed with student adventures so i definitely take his recommendation highly fundraising how do students pay for this uh we're going to be doing a lot of different fundraising um the first one we're going to be doing is i have a company century resources that we sell cookie dough through i know that discount cards have been something that the choirs have done in the past last year we we put a hold on it because we

040knew that our community really didn't want like couldn't afford to be giving discounts at restaurants and stuff like that so we're gonna be looking into getting back into selling discount cards doing bottle drives uh the browns and the gets they run our student activities here are fantastic with student fundraising and they're going to be giving us more opportunities and and helping us get through that [Music] each student is going to be added to a spreadsheet and we're going to monitor their specific money raised melissa williams is going to help me out with that so that they can use that specific money to pay for this trip and if they choose not to go on the trip this year that money will be saved in their account that they'll be able to use in the future

041they can use it for things like spirit wear they can use it to pay for their dresser tax rental fee it's money for them that has to be used through the school so i think this is an incredible opportunity yes it's a little bit intimidating with what's going on in the outside world but at the same time i think that it's worth taking the risk because our students deserve that when i came here last year i promised all of them that my number one goal was to give them as much normalcy as possible through these difficult times and i really have focused and worked very hard to do that thank you very much i personally loved the workshop thank you it's really a great idea and also always you were describing why you want to

042do it that way and why you want to do this with our kids and make you think right now we have the trip based on a 72 passenger that would include a minimum of eight chaperones uh two staff members and then the rest would be students so it where we don't know that we'll get that amount of students we basically we booked two buses and we made sure that they would have extra room on the buses for themselves if we end up being under the number of 56 we'll go down to one bus and it won't it shouldn't affect their price at all thank you you have to go with whom you can trust i mean these are our kids you know so we have to be confident with that and just our uh are

043they finding ways to work it out and but which feedback they're getting to be honest with you i really haven't presented prices to the parents yet because i didn't want to do that without approval first that being said i have spoken to parents of students that are faculty and the the company being comfortable with the company is incredibly important they want to know that their kids are going to have a great time they want to know that they're going to be safe and they also want to be well rested if they're chaperones so the extra night in a hotel is is kind of a big deal to them so um again i i while i'm very comfortable with break or with bob rogers i'm also open to jim's student travelers recommendation because uh brian who

044i've been working with has done a fantastic job and worked very hard the pro the the one specific issue that i have is that bob rogers has given me a guarantee secure of our buses for the weekend and it's memorial week and it's really hard to get buses that weekend and they've already booked our hotel so those are two big guarantees that they're willing to give us that i haven't gotten from anyone else yet well i would say i went on a trip with my daughter to new york city and he had we just had to give him a time it was a great experience for her and it was i can't imagine [Applause] [Music] yeah i've done it twice it's it's uh it's pretty brutal oh my pleasure yeah and i spoke at length

045with mr wolfe i actually spoke to him before uh walking in so that we're all on the same page about how we feel about it i appreciate that thank you yes i've traveled to new york city with bob rogers twice i usually do a three-year rotation new york would be one year chicago would be another year and then disney would be another year so that the kids are getting different experiences i worked in a three-year high school before coming to oxford so being in a four-year high school i might look at a a fourth city like nashville for a different experience for the students i've been with them twice they've been fantastic i have the absolute best tour guides when i'm with them that are very knowledgeable about the city they know where we should

046go how to do it how to get there um and like the quickest route because if any of you have ever been to new york city trying to get a charter bus through those streets is not very fun and i was very specific about the hotel that i requested it's two blocks from times square it's about six blocks from rockefeller center so to me it's a lot of walking so we don't have to deal with buses yes very much um thank you so very much for your time i appreciate it thank you please be ready to address those so when someone put um the oxford high school auto class tools purchase approval on the yes [Music] they looked at different uh organizations mrs butts went and got a couple of business these are trying to

047get tools for an automotive program is it's not like going to the local auto shops and getting uh those type of tools and that although it sounds like they're the same but getting them in this quantity and getting them all together so we had some some difficulties getting bits but we did get second bids to for the tools so that we can compare against this one we like this one because quite honestly they had everything we needed and it was reasonably priced according to the other day well one of the things is we do have a native review this year as well as and i the the other accreditation is up for review as well too so we are updating and we have a new auto teacher as well too and he is extremely thorough

048mr owl is on top of things i mean he was extremely impressive we hadn't come in to help us out at the end of last year uh and his um assessment of where the program was at and everything was just unbelievable um so we were excited to have him but when going through the shop there are some areas that we're having to address safety wise uh improving some of those areas with his in his knowledge and his interpretation of the native specifications and also all the other specifications and this school room is is he wants to bring that back out to the floor so he's building a tool career again as well um and the tools need to be updated and kept with maintenance order and upkeep and it's time to replace those so and

049this is coming from cte funds as well too yes any other questions seeing none all those in favor of the eye hi i um 198. seeing none all of the favorite ci i opposed motion carriers thank you thank you sir just in case we have some questions um would someone please department uh chad [Music] sure so the the van is actually for our own employee we have three actual maintenance and operation employees in the district and one of those employees is currently using um a truck to haul tools and it's just not very efficient nor is it uh keeping the tools all the tools that's necessary uh out of the you know out of weather and so this purchasing this truck would allow us this van if you will covered van um to have this

050third individual that you know we are we employ in operations to basically be on par with the other individuals in the in the department and being able to go from building to building with their tool sets so it really is as simplistic as just keeping things safe and secure and out of the weather and just having the convenience and the dependability of a of a newer vehicle to go from building to building on a daily basis yes that's correct it is that's correct yeah so you know obviously with you know the inclement weather on its way you know we'd like to try to keep those miles down you know we did the board did allow us to last several years to update our fleet and we do have some really nice trucks plow trucks but

051they're not suitable for the type of work for hvac electrical the things that we do around the district those three techs that we have running around it's just from a work perspective it's just it's not convenient if you will so not efficient absolutely well the ones that we replaced several years ago i've been with the district for a little over six years now when i first came on board we had a truck that dated back to i want to say it was 2005. so in my estimation you know our employees they take care of the cars they really do and the maintenance is done regularly i would estimate conservatively that these would last at least 10 years absolutely it is it's my deal yeah so it's a consortium bid that's right correct that is correct

052yep absolutely we get the my deal price and it doesn't have to be a public school district it could be a municipality for instance uh that would be able to get the same price great question kind of to add to that um you know it is a 30 week lead time so even with the approval this evening we're going to be waiting quite a long time for this vehicle potentially well we will still be in this i mean if they are indeed tracking to you know that type of time frame we would still put it with the 2020 you know 22 budget so we are good yeah absolutely that is correct that's correct it's going to have low miles but it's going to have a lot more than 10 miles in my opinion weekly faces

053no it's okay just uh yeah they are our texts there's like i said there's only three and they are active uh obviously so yes thank you sir of choice um for the 2021-2022 school year second semester trump's last trimester kindergarten's ninth grade on the limited district-wide and 10th and 11th oxford virtual academy unlimited full-time students [Music] yes schools of choice enrollment will open january 7 2022 and close january 21 2022 for seated secondary students schools of choice enrollment will be open january 3 2022 and close january 17 2022 all grade levels at oxford virtual again schools of choice enrollment will open november 9 2021 and close november 23 for seated elementary grade levels thank you for this motion chad support discussion in the report that it's a little bit confusing the way that's worded but

054kindergarten through 9th grade for the entire district is unlimited including ova 10th and 11th is going to be full-time over students only so we're not going to accept part-time 10th and 11th grade students at ova okay and so is the motion still okay because it says all right regarding the closing date i just want to make sure that procedurally it's correct so at the bottom that you read on the bottom who says unlimited full-time [Music] i think it means all grade levels that we're accepting but i i understand i understand i understand if you guys wanted to be more distinct than that make sure completely up to the board um my suggestion is maybe you uh approve it tonight jill you can go back and verify it's open next week we still have a little

055bit of time what is our average i anticipated that question so are coming in you mean i don't know the average i know that we have different we're based on grade levels like our kindergarten classrooms at clear lake are hovering right around 19 or 20. our fifth grade is more at around 25 to 26 so i mean we have those we have those norms that we set before we accepted students first semester um but for school of choice we're only expecting we went back we didn't want to look at last year because it was such a strange year so we went back to 1920 we got six i think total elementary students throughout the entire district what we really see is a large number of over students during this time which is why we were

056pretty explicit about which grade levels and how we wanted to handle that and why ovus dates are a little bit different to give them more time to give them an extra few days to get those records requests and for those students transferring because they're really the ones receiving the largest number historically of any kind of second semester school choice all right all those in favor say opposed i do not have anything prepared tonight i'm happy to answer any questions but i do not have anything okay we're going to understand an audience participation we're going to take a five-minute for about five thank you um that would like to see during uncertain body participation it appears that most are on the same subject um just some things that i want to share with you um the

057last time we met i just want to thank you for doing such a great job communicating what it is you wanted to communicate know that you're communicating with me as the board president uh you're not communicating with anybody else's board you're not communicating with anybody else out in the audience what you're wanting to do is you're wanting the district are your representatives here at the school board to hear you we had about a six and a half hour meeting um last time and the one thing that i want you to try to control is as you're listening to people's feeding if someone has already addressed your points then be here to support them but let's not elongate the meeting and just have the same point i mean what we're wanting to do is get to

058the specifics of what it is you may want to say to us and so if you can understand where i'm coming from to have 13 people come up and say the exact same thing i knew it the first time right so so help us uh i'm not trying to rush you through this meeting i just want you to know that after last meeting i checked some parliamentary rules as to how i can manage a meeting better and one of the things that it said was that um once you've appointed the name uh a point of order can be called because the same point and we just that the next person another point of up order i'm not trying to be rude i'm not trying to silence your voice i want to hear what everybody has

059to say but please for yourself if you've got seven bullet items and four of them have already been touched then hit your tree that one touch that's what i'm saying i'm not trying to sign a machine i'm just wanting to get all the information once uh if that's possible i think that's enough of an introduction um we have that light there by the microphone um well something different we're going to do this time is that at 4 minutes and 30 seconds that light's in the flashlights that means you've got 30 seconds to wrap up and then you're gonna flash again and that's going to tell you that the five minutes are up um again that's something we've added so that you're not caught by surprise the five minutes is up so fast and that first

060light is not telling you you have to be done the first flight is telling you that you need to wrap up all right so thank you very much for being here uh let's have this conversation be as positive and as simple as the conversation that we had last month so first to come up it looks like two individuals bobby lou and chris i will all bobby yeah bobby rube uh mr donnelly mr throne school board we appreciate you guys and all that you're doing um i just want to kind of pick up where i left off the last time and i was speaking on unity and as you guys probably know we represent this kind of large group of people we're up over 900 now and unity is super important to us and the way

061that we conduct ourselves and and our mission and our goals um we want to remain uh respectful and civil and as far as we can guide other people to do that that's what we're trying to do and i hope that you guys know that i do want to go on record and say that we are not terrorists we are not a mob we love people we love you guys we love our children and that's why we're doing what we're doing to that point i'm sure you guys are aware that we had sent a letter today or we had hired an attorney who sent you guys a letter today and i do want to just reiterate a point that was made there [Music] one of the paragraphs reads this despite any opinion by governor whitmer or

062ms stafford to the contrary this board must recognize that health officers no longer have the authority to mandate masking and educational institutions for individuals 18 or younger any recommendation made by a health officer is not legally binding in the state of michigan therefore the oxford community schools must follow the mandatory prohibitions of act number 87 and dissolve the mask mandate and to that point i mean that's what we're asking you to do and i'm going to hand it over to kristin and let her make a point on that kristen carr thanks for listening to us first of all earlier today i sent you all a spreadsheet with 80 plus students on it that had negative health outcomes or adverse events to prolong mask wearing this is only 80 students it's a small number of kids

063that their parents reached out to us we asked them to do this um but they reached out to us and the emails that we got when we're reading them and it's just devastating listening to these parents explaining how these masks are just destroying their kids um you know i i know that my son has had issues with it as well but it was like the same thing over and over and over again it didn't matter how old these kids were kindergarten up to 12th grade and i just want to i don't know if you even read my email i hope you did but this spreadsheet most of the effects were chronic headaches basically every single kid that we got notice of had headaches trouble focusing anxiety depression suicidal thoughts most of them had difficulty breathing

064the biggest thing was anxiety these kids are just emotionally just damaged now to this with these masks um difficulty breathing loss of energy acne on their face rashes behind their ears on their face kids with asthma are having worsened asthma symptoms from wearing these masks nose bleeds dizziness i just want to know at what point do we say enough is enough and we're going to stand against this um when are we going to say that our children's well-being is more important than a virus with a 99.98 survival rate um i also sent today uh some documents that we foyed from the oakland county uh health department this is data that they're using to call this mass mandate we have i think i set you a couple days prior to the masked mandate a couple days

065after the mask mandate there were two kids in three counties hospitalized with covet and this does not mean that they were hospitalized because of covet it was they tested positive while in the hospital so it doesn't mean that they were they were hospitalized because they had covet they just tested positive two kids out of three counties that's not an emergency to me we have all of these adults everywhere no mass you can go out to dinner you can go to a bar you can do all of these things as adults which this is you know the adults and the elderly is that's who the virus is supposed to be killing and meanwhile our kids our five-year-olds and our teenagers are forced to wear a mask i mean the damage that we're seeing done to these

066kids is just unbelievable and this is like i said just 80 kids out of our our district that this is affecting and that's only you know a small percentage so just wanted to reiterate that i know bobby has something else to say yeah i just want to make the point too that the mitigation is is becoming and it has been far worse than the disease itself so i just want to close with this final statement that was in the letter that you guys received today um it says this from our attorney says i i therefore request that you repair re repeal the continued implementation of the mask mandate in oxford through executive action of the superintendent or a vote of the board of education during an open meeting this action is recall is required by

067michigan law as the emergency order mandating mass wearing in educational institutions at least as of september 29 2021 is unlawful and unenforceable in the absence of undertaking this obligation i will advise my clients of their legal rights to pursue their legal other legal remedies and i want you guys to know this isn't again a personal thing it's just we've done we've exhausted our efforts over the last several weeks and this is the next step that we have to take it to appreciate you guys appreciate your time thank you for a potential future future lawsuit coming our way and yes we did get the information spreadsheets and those kinds of things um in general gladly terrorists by the way um in general from your perspective and from your attorney's perspective what you're saying is is that

068because of the law that was signed at the end of september women who first is that the oval county health department no longer has the authority i've heard that two or three times that it's unenforceable because you're saying that the law that was put into effect on october 1st is that a proper word for that yes okay secondly um and we certainly heard that last meeting um some of the effects that we seem to be getting from our families and some of our kids chronic headaches anxiety for younger kids um and i guess one of the things i guess that you make statements bobby with that the mandate is what you're trying to assume and that you would like to see this board vote in an open meeting um i think that's what it's come

069to okay all right anything else thank you everyone um i appreciate you let me talk here um i'll make it real quick and real brief because i know like you said we've we've heard it all and whatnot i just want um i'm here as a parent i'm here as a parent of four kids um and i'm here on behalf of my husband and on behalf on other parents who are not able to be here um or who may or may not feel comfortable speaking i'm not sure i do at this point but um one thing about oxford that has always stuck out with me and i've been with oxford for 11 years i have four children i've been through the preschool programs i've been at da i've been at oes i've been at the middle

070school uh high school um clear lake and ova and within ova it branches out into lots of different choices and there's one there's two things that that come out one the students always come first and the other is there's no box there's no box with oxford because there's no kid the same i have four children and they're all very very different and i'm coming to you as a parent advocate saying that this mask mandate is not a one size fits all it cannot work for every child i've heard what was stated on the 80 i'm not one of the 80. i can tell you there's other kids that are having problems too because it's my own i'm thankful that two do not have to wear a mask to do and there is a difference so

071i'm here on behalf of saying let's keep doing what we do we put the kids first and we do not put kids in boxes the mask does not work for every kid and i'm asking for parent choice the parents can choose to have their kids be masked or not and i know that there's a lot more to this than just you guys making a decision i am not unaware of that but i want you to know that you've got this parent you've got her husband and you've got many more standing behind you if you're choosing for parent choice thank you kelly thank you uh four kids and we treat them um individuals they're not in a box and you feel the max mass mandate affects both of those things that we do well um it

072feels it's not going to get first and we definitely thank you mr blakely hi uh ray blake um bobby kind of stole some of my thunder there at the beginning so i'll try to keep it real short first of all mr donnelly i'd like to say to you that i really appreciate the way that you summarize everything at the end it tells us that you're listening and that is appreciated okay the other big thing i want to say is now that this new law has come down and these masks mandates are illegal i call upon this board to vote to drop the mask requirements in oxford i'm asking you to do the right thing for the students and that's all i have to say thank you thank you sir um like what bobby had said

073uh the feeling on your part and some of your partners is that the law that came out on october 1st makes the mandate illegal that that's that's the connection that you're bridging um that if there's a prohibition to mass kids and enforcement kids and i do want you to know that in my closing comments i'm going to address some of this um if you're willing to say to listen to that but did i catch you correctly that because of that because of believing that the the law that went into effect nullifies the mandate you're looking for us to vote to acknowledge that thank you hearing well first of all please i'm going to reiterate a little bit what they've said i've taken it from a different angle i appreciate you hearing me out during the

074september 14 school board meeting i am grateful you provided me five minutes to voice my opinion about oakland county's child mass mandate my comments noted mass today injections and further restrictions of our personal liberties tomorrow it's not a democrat republican or independent ideology it's marxism do i do as i say or else approach and they're just getting started in the past 30 days since our last meeting i'd say the or else has clearly been initiated lives have forever been changed as a result of mass mandates and ultimatums associated with the world's greatest human experiment which is these injections non-fda approved injections not vaccines nearly two weeks after the michigan governor signed into law senate bill zero zero eight two our oakland our oxford children remain in mass if local politicians and elected officials are not

075bold and stand up to these tyrants masked followed by child injections experimental vaccine racist critical race theory and other unacceptable curriculum changes to negatively indoctrinate our children will become reality and forever change not only our education system but our oxford way of life i'm i'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes since september 14 but the facts remain our children are still in mass big pharma is not only promoting experimental injections for children as young as five but have submitted documentations through the fda approval process and the biden administration is now targeting parents who are voicing their concerns at school board meetings frontline workers are being targeted as well think of that front line workers are being targeted as well frontline workers to include every man and woman in the army navy air

076force marines and coast guard doctors nurses policemen firemen teachers and now airline pilots and staffs these front line workers have been told do as i say or else do as i say or lose your career licenses lose your jobs lose your pensions in essence lose everything it doesn't matter how many combat tours they fought in how many buddies they watch get blown up beside them in defense of our country how many lives they saved in raging seas how many babies delivered and successful surgeries conducted how many burning buildings they have run into or how many passengers they have safely transported this isn't a conspiracy this is fact these are our friends and these are our neighbors i'm next i can tell you my job it's just a matter of time they are dem these are

077not they're democrats they're republicans they're independents and they are choosing freedom of choice they those folks those front line workers are choosing freedom of choice not just for themselves but they are once again sacrificing for all of us i plead with you to vote and defy the oakland county mass mandate and support freedom of choice at what point are the risks to the board personally and professionally simply too high at what point will the consequences of inaction be too high thanks again my sincere thanks darren thank you um before you walk away i um i do agree that you seem to take this to a different same distinct argument from a different perspective and i want to make sure that i understand it a um perspective you're asking you're actually saying it's less above my

078ass less about vaccines than it is a geopolitical move that we are experiencing in our country that is taking away our freedoms giving government the power to say do what we say or else and that what you're saying is i heard you say that a year two three five years ago someone would have called this conspiracy but today it's being lived out and what we're seeing happening the front line um people who are in military police pilots hospitals we're seeing them being told or else yes sir and i don't know about you political or i'm not trying to go democrat republican or no it's not at all i'm just i'm just i'm just asking the board to just just look what's happened and this is our neighbors i mean you know looks what's happened in

079simply the last year you know and um it is what it is but uh it's that's what i'm asking to hit home that this isn't only mass it's mass today thanks again marcy good evening my name is marcie andrikis and you and i spoke on the phone yesterday i appreciate the time that you took with me and at that time you let me know you were going to push to get a resolution from the oakland county health department with a deadline by the end of the week i'm hoping that's part of what your notes at the end of the meeting are going to tell me about i know you've also reached out several times via several modes of communication with no response from them or responsive we'll get back to you but they never do

080i can safely assume that you'll get the same response this time so what are you going to do different will your request come in the form of a subpoena will come in the form of a legal request that tells them legally they have to respond to you in a certain time frame to the list of 20 or so questions that you told me you had for them or are you just going to send them a strongly worded request that will fall on deaf ears as i mentioned when we spoke commissioner woodward has said publicly that he will never put the mass mandate on the agenda to be voted for and he has publicly said that he is on the board until 2024 and there's nothing anybody can do about this he's turned the mass agenda

081over to their health health and safety committee that never meets so again nothing's ever going to be done about this through the oakland county health department as it stands so we you can't justify taking the same approach every time it's just not going to work if you come to one of those board meetings you'll see exactly what happens people get five minutes as soon as it's done they say mr smith you're next jane doe you're next and that's it they don't take the time to ask clarifying questions or make sure they understand they don't care they just move on some of the commissioners don't even stay for the whole meeting they don't give the public the respect to hear them out because they know it's never going to make the agenda to be voted on

082they don't care you can find all of these things when you list if you were to listen to the recording telling you that he won't let this come to a vote um if you did go there too you'd also see many experts testifying with facts and data showing that the mass don't work and that all the damage that's done to our children i share with mr donnelly some of the concerns and some of the things that happen with my child we've heard from several others i wasn't one of the 80 that the other people had talked about either so we can just continue to add to that list apologize i've lost my train of thought parents can sue and they are but it takes time to school oakland to sue the oakland county health department

083would it make more sense for the school board to take an action on their own would that be more of an impression would a legal filing for you or from you to get data that would be useful for what they're saying their reasoning behind this mass mandate you could send your data as we talked about yesterday romeo schools nomas they have the same order i think maybe you'd hire coveted cases than we have here i don't remember exactly our conversation on that point but i do know they have no mass and we're right around the same as they are with mass it's not making a difference and then once you get their data you can go back with the data that you've been given showing that these are not working you also discuss concerns of

084losing immunity paying fines or other staff issues and other things if you were to just flat out to buy the mandate you're here for the kids and this is destroying them it's your duty to find a way to make it right for the kids if it's not outright to find them find another way i was not able to find a suit of a board suing the health department like we had discussed in michigan but i did find plenty of suits of parents suing the school boards i do not want to battle with you and based on our conversation i believe you are on our side i believe all of you are you just voted to send 65 plus kids to new york i don't think you you want i i know you want them to

085have normalcy otherwise you wouldn't have voted to send them there so i do believe you're on our side as another woman had mentioned if you guys take that next step you'll have not only myself but so many other parents that would be willing to share resources whether it be attorneys that we know are on your side it could help you fight this battle legwork for digging up data so many people have brought lots of data to you in the past we would back you 100 it would mean more coming from you than from us parents because we haven't gotten this far and we're just getting pushed down the road and i'll leave you with this if this was your child and they were suffering from this mandate and you saw how it was harming them

086and were going on two years what would you do i'm pretty sure i know the answer because we had a great conversation yesterday mr donnelly so now i'm asking you please act like this is your child that's suffering right now and take that next step thank you thank you um i'm gonna work backwards every single day i believe that too um what you are asking is with all the things that we are concerned about when it comes to mandate i will for sure i'm sorry that going to meetings there um that there's board members to leave and non-participate or um i don't understand it so i'm sorry because you've experienced what you have by you who are serving our state um and i'll probably talk a little bit about that immunity issue um when i

087get a chance to talk um but i think what you're saying is if we were to finally make a decision and find a way to to speak on behalf of the kids um you thank you peyton are you wishing to come and talk with us yes okay so i came here last time to talk about the issue uh and um i was really excited that because i felt like you guys really heard me last time because you took the uh because you took the time to come back and like tell what you heard and how you think you heard it and all that and you even i even got quoted in the newspaper so i thought you really heard me uh so i was like super excited and i was like telling my friends oh

088i think they're they're really they're really great people i think they're really going to do something about it and my friends are like oh are you going the next one i'm like yeah so and they're like okay well tell us how it goes and like what are they going to do next because nothing has happened yet so i was hoping to come back and try and hope that something happens this time because my friends were really excited to not have to wear masks anymore and also i i'm sorry um not tree or gosh i'm so sorry uh mass breaks like we're asking for math breaks and the teachers every time we ask for math breaks which is almost every day the teachers are like oh um sorry uh we don't have time today oh we

089don't have time today maybe tomorrow oh we don't have time today maybe tomorrow and then we're at the end of the week so if we don't get math breaks um and my friends have gotten so like used to the masks that when we go outside like for gym or whatever they don't want to take theirs off because they're they've become ashamed of their face like they've become very not they're not proud of their face and what they look like when you can only see their eyes and all the makeup they have above that and then they take their mask off and they're like oh i don't look that good without a mask on so they're scared to take their mask off while they're running around in gym breathing heavily not being able to breathe because

090they're scared of what they look like and people don't even recognize people anymore like i've heard a few of my friends took their friends to the event like to some school events and stuff which i'm happy that school events are going on but they could not find their friend anywhere because they didn't recognize their face without a mask on and so they had to text and then call and meet up and be like oh hey now i recognize you because they they've only recognized people with their masks on um and like one of some someone's like what someone else said it's causing a lot of acne and stuff like i have been like i have horrible acne right now it was a lot better before like coping and stuff and i've been i used to

091be very scared to treat it because i was scared that the chemicals that i put on my face to make my acne go away would get on my mask and i'd be breathing in chemicals and stuff like that from the stuff that goes on my face um and people like i've they're like two kids in my history class that have been quarantined and sent home uh because of because they have symptoms of coven when they will go to the doctors and get kova tested and they are perfectly healthy and they'll come back to school and they'll start acting like it again like where they can't breathe and stuff because of the masks like they'll cough because they can't breathe because of the math like that's just and they're saying oh those are coveted symptoms so

092they're getting quarantined um and i think my the last thing i wanted to say was this is uh from what i've been taught for all the years growing up before covet happened was this is america and we should be able to say what we want and do what we want when like because and like have freedom of speech but ever since cove has started it seems like this is not america anymore we're like we'll we'll speak out but like we're not always sure if people are willing to listen anymore because of what they think should happen um so kind of like a lot of what a lot of people were saying i guess but my my child my choice and stuff like that um and we're we like again we have kids are counting on

093you because not a lot of people listen to us because we're not as smart and intelligent we don't know a lot of stuff as other people do so we're really counting on you guys to make a choice and as my mom said uh if you take this or whatever a lot of people are going to be with you to support you and and the health then that sorry and the health department can't do this because it's not illegal since whitmire said that we are not requiring master anymore and if a whitmeier doesn't really think this is an emergency is it really that big of a deal okay thank you oxford middle school peyton uh thank you and uh you felt like maybe you were hurt last time but now you're wondering why um oxford middle

094school you talked about image issues recognition issues um junior high high school kids acne yep and maybe that's being taken away yep thank you [Applause] ginny hello okay so i was reading this book from a personal hero of mine who is a pastor his name is francis chan and it really struck me so i thought i would share it with you guys says consider this testimony from a christian man who lived in germany during the holocaust he says we heard stories of what was happening to jews but we were trying to distance ourselves from it because what could we do to stop it a railroad track ran behind our small church and each sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and the wheels coming over the tracks we became disturbed when we

095heard cries coming from the train as it passed we realized it was carrying jews like cattle in the cars week after week the whistle would blow we dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the jews enroute to a death camp their screams tormented us we knew that the time the train came and when we heard the whistle blow we began to sing hymns by the time the train passed our church we were singing at the top of our voices if we heard the screams we were singing more loudly and soon we could hear them no more although years past have passed i still hear the train whistle in my sleep god forgive me forgive all of us who call themselves christians and yet did

096nothing to intervene it's easy to be judgmental when you hear that story it's sickening that christians could hear their cries and drown them out by singing hymns but what would you have done look at the pattern of your life would you really have gone against the norm and done something if everyone else was singing wouldn't you have just sung along based on the patterns of my life i can't say for sure what i would have done but i know the kind of man i want to be don't we all want to be the kind of people who are willing to stand up and say i can't live like this anymore i can't follow the trend and pretend that nothing is happening it's easy to look at other moments in history and criticize the church for

097their poor response the difficult part is looking at the world right now and assessing your response and then i had some thoughts here's the thing about your line in the sand if you won't or can't stand up for the smaller things then you aren't going to be able to stand up for worse things down the road the people who hid anne frank and her family were breaking the law but those who turned in their neighbors and killed jews were following it the people who hid slaves in the underground railroad were breaking the law the owners of them were following it rosa parks was breaking the law when she said no she wouldn't move to the back of the bus the law is not a moral compass and what you are saying is a law isn't

098even a law time to stand for what's right be a voice for our kids worse things are coming and we're watching it unfold in california are you guys going to ban on vaccinated kids from schools next do you want to look back on the decisions you made in these moments with regret that we emotionally damaged a generation of kids these kids that were entrusted to us by god jesus said let the children come to him these kids matter to us and to god what is happening to them is wrong last time i was here i talked about the suicide side rates i've had to pull my kids from school and move them to different schooling options twice because i will never mask my kids since i was here last speaking last month my five-year-old broke

099her arm in three places falling off the monkey bars we spent three nights at royal beaumont and guess what she didn't have to wear a mask the entire time she was at the hospital including in the emergency room but if i were to send her to oxford school she would have to we want the choice for our children we want our children to stop having to be forced to live in mass and fear to be taught that they're dirty and it's wrong to breathe fresh air legally it's my choice for my child not yours and this basis to unmask our kids has been established just because the governor isn't following it or enforcing what she signed into law because it doesn't align with her political ideology doesn't make it less long to break but less

100wrong to break it you can stand like you did last year when you opened schools when no one else did the time to stand is now that's all i have to say thank you for the practice he's my favorite people have to break your um sometimes you mentioned rosa parks and backwards you mentioned uh americans hiding slaves you you mentioned uh something wrong with high reviews it's about finding someone stand up thank you patrick i don't know your last name is there it is thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak and share my truth i've been studying natural medicine for the past 10 years getting my doctorate in natural medicine i've been studying specifically ayurveda we look at everything all ailments start from a disconnect from spirit just disconnect from source energy and

101um you know seeing this as you know my i have a daughter at lakeville elementary i have a son in romeo elementary my son doesn't have to wear a mask i was homeschooling both of my children until you know i was really looking forward to sending my daughter here and seeing that now we can have medical exceptions but not religious exceptions and so uh you know i guess my question is why are we taking something that has been given to us from the start of this insemination of our country and now we have california religious exceptions being taken away i've written many of them i'm a tribal elder or tribal council for a thousand sons in the tribal network and you know my partner worked at mclaren health center she's working on covid patients and

102non-cova patients and isn't being quarantined isn't bringing covet home you know statistically speaking children aren't susceptible to it nor are they in any risk of dying from it yet we've heard many people i can give tons of content about how masks are unhealthy for children yeah my stance is that this is infringing on my religious right to choose to dress a certain way in alignment with my religious beliefs i'm been practicing the code of medicine been practicing thai ayurveda and you know this is oppression if we look at the how or why our country started was for freedom and i came into this meeting listening to people talk about are listening to i'll talk about money and if we follow the money talking to different people throughout the week about why you guys can't allow

103our children to not wear masks because we're worried about and so we're collecting money from this space is now dictating how we move and how we act and it takes our freedom away and we're scared of being fined and i would like to make a point the difference between a law and a mandate none of this has been a law and so all of the businesses that have been shut down or forced to shut down or been fined none of those have held up in court so yes they can scare you into paying a fine yet none of those have been held up in court because these are mandates and these are infringing on our civil rights title seven title four discriminating against religious belief in how i dress or how my daughter dresses and

104um none of these things have been none of these uh mandates are strong enough to stand over our civil rights and none of these uh let's see none of the pandemic pandemic whatever you want to call it is [Music] reason enough to take away our religious right and i'm just wondering why are we now at a space where i've been writing religious exceptions for vaccines for years for people that are in our tribe that work at hospitals that work at schools and now we're at a place where the health department told that you guys can't take religious exceptions now and there's and now we're scared of losing funding um which hasn't held up all of the businesses that have been shut down have been able to reopen the ones that didn't shut down that got

105fined none of those fines held up and so why are we worried about losing this money and why are we allowing ourselves to be having our power given away something i've learned is that power isn't taken power is given away and we have these experiences where we feel scared we need police to tell us how to drive down the road uh we need you know 911 happens now we need body scanning we need all these things and we're a place where um we're now being forced to take our power back and i'm grateful for this opportunity in the collective experience of life to for us to be able to stand up and and speak our truth yet there is a power and there is a voice that is has an agenda has a desired outcome

106and it's causing us to band together and stand up and i feel um grateful for the opportunity but also a little upset that we have to to take our power back something that was given to us from birth something that uh you know living in this country we have these freedoms and now we have to exercise our right to even have these freedoms and so i guess where i'm at is you know i have the medical background yet also my religious background stands up stronger and so why am i unable to send my daughter without a mask with a religious exception patrick thank you um maybe i'll just work backwards on some of that i think your answer is correct um well let me see you what you're trying to remind yourself is that our

107personal freedom that this nation has kind of governed this declaration independence constitution civil rights freedoms to make choices um one of the main first tournament which allows pre-completed and one of the things that you're saying is why is all that getting squeezed out all those precious things that we hold sacred when children are at least acceptable you wanted to make sure that we knew that if it was money that we're worried about the findings that we're worried about that in the cases that you studied that and so hence um the religious exception uh being a pastor i've asked the same question it was specifically mentioned in the mandate that that's not acceptable so yes they chose to add them as a restrictive ability so we'll talk maybe a little bit about that a little later

108but um so yes the the we can accept the medical exemption because that's what the country's department says they can accept when asked if we could use religious now i guess i'm just questioning why we're following a mandate that isn't a law that is now taking our civil rights away which is actually law so now we have a mandate that doesn't hold weight it's just a personal opinion that is passed on not based on science not based in our civil liberties which is now uh taking away our civil rights but i do understand more and i appreciate you coming to share with us and talking with us as a concern thank you thank you i love the name cherish so hello i just aside from what people have already spoke about the 80 kids on

109that list my children three out of four of them are having to wear a mask right now one's too young to wear a mask i have four kids in four different schools so two out of the three are showing significant health one is self-harming herself from depression the other one is five years old has never in his life shown any signs of hyperactivity never gotten in trouble he's been in daycare since he was six months old never once hit a child never once has shown any signs of anger or aggression towards anybody first week of school came home showing aggression towards kids at school hyperactivity the whole time he's been at school so aside from that i have a couple of facts a lot of facts actually from a well-known scientist who has many many

110years of experience in forensic and engineering health and safety environmental engineering and energy experience he has done many complex projects in risk assessment industrial hygiene process safety management risk management and health and safety audits throughout different health companies he through his research research he's shown that the cdc recommends we wear a mask they don't recommend that we wash our masks daily or and even if they had their studies that show that if we're wearing a mask 10 times or what if after we wash a mask 10 times if it's a cloth mask it becomes 25 less less effective also he's done studies that have shown that optimal bacteria growth is in an environment which is 30 to 50 percent humidity 77 to 86 fahrenheit the that's where the most bacteria and fungi and mold grow

111which is the environment we're putting over our children's face every day that's that's what we're sending our kids to school and i can guarantee you i'm a germaphobe and my kids the masks don't get washed every day so we're sending our kids to school every single day breathing in mold and bacteria [Music] you know we always have mold and bacteria around us but we're literally putting an environment around our kid's face to breed that they're using the cdc studies that they're throwing out saying you know they're they're using words that don't even prove they're saying these things may help they may do this they may do that math a double layer mask may help prevent clovid well nobody's wearing double layer masks and they're not saying they do prevent kova they're saying they may they

112don't use um control groups in their studies they're they use they they're using multiple variants in their studies so like masks hand washing and disinfecting rather than just masks again they're using their studies are done using double cloth masks which nobody's nobody's using the cdc states that cloth masks can block large droplets greater than 5 to microns and can block the exhalation or breathing out of small droplets well 99.9 of covered particles and aerosols are aerosols and most of them are less i'm sorry and aerosol is less than 5 microns covid is .09.12 microns which means they come in in and out of our masks all day long another astonishing fact is that three percent a three percent gap in any mask literally makes our masks zero percent effective only a properly fitting half face

113respirator will protect against covalent not even an n95 mask which an n95 states on their package that they are not to be used against aerosol particles if the cdc and health department were really concerned like i guess we would all be walking around and half base respirators because that's the only thing that's going to protect our kids from covid our kids who are not even really susceptible to it that's all for you to say you're thinking mom three of your children are wearing masks and two out of the three are your significant reactions one of your children is self-harming and one of them um is showing aggression um home properly in school um and then you just you provided some statistics about the fact that you don't work wash your mask um the language the

1143m cdc talking about may health not nearby that is going to prevent in their studies they don't use control groups um talking about the fact that coveted is 99 aerosol 0.09 and that even a gap in the mass makes mass worthless and that's all been revealed in studies or even stated by the cdc and mastering faculty and even if there were no gaps there's still right there's no gap the fact is that you have the other issues that we talked about okay thank you very much if you would allow me can we um i'd like to take a just a two minute break two three minute break um and uh get myself refocused uh to hear the next four or five minutes let me talk all right so can we uh 8 45 uh and

115again if you have um your ability to come forward okay we've got uh kristen eldridge good evening my name is kristen eldridge i am a mother of three young children my oldest two are in kindergarten and second grade at d.a first i want to tell you about an incident that my second grader was involved in last friday my son loves school and rarely has anything negative to say about his time spent at da but on friday he came home in tears and told me that it had been the worst day ever he then proceeded to tell me that his class was forced to do run walk laps indoors and gym class now i was immediately concerned that students would be engaging in a high intensity activity while indoors wearing masks when there were so many

116other things they could have been doing when jim must be held inside my son went on to tell me that at one point he began to walk during one of the run intervals because he was quote getting so tired and was scolded he was also scolded for attempting to get a drink of water from his water bottle that he had brought with him to gym class and was reprimanded for trying to pull his mask down so he could get some air to this last point the teacher said that she was just trying to keep him safe okay what in the world first i'm just going to ignore the fact that the teacher was aggressively enforcing an illegal mass mandate on my child and i'm going to be honest i haven't spent any time scouring the

117internet for data regarding the safety of wearing masks while engaging in high-intensity athletic activities such as running and i'm not going to read to you headlines about youth and high school athletes who suffered some medical episode while exercising in a mask i don't feel i need to do any of this because i feel like it's common sense i'm an avid runner and i have been for about 25 years i would never ever consider wearing a mask while running i know if i did so it would make it too difficult for me to breathe properly as my heart rate increased which could lead to fainting or worse i do not have any medical condition that affects my breathing or blood pressure but i have been hustling around the grocery store in a mask and as soon

118as my heart rate started to go up i could immediately tell i was struggling to breathe properly and had to take a mask break and slow down that said even if i found some mask i could breathe okay in during intense activity i would still not wear one because it will get soaked with sweat which is also not safe nor is it sanitary especially when you are talking about a child that will need to continue to wear that mask after the activity is done obviously this running activity should have never even taken place but why were my son's needs ignored by his teacher now i want to tell you about my youngest son he's not in oxford schools yet he's two years old he has potentially life-threatening food allergies last spring i knew my son

119would be starting preschool in the fall so while we went over to my son's emergency action plan and updated his prescription for an epipen to keep at school i asked my son's allergist if she would write a mask exemption just in case another toddler mask mandate came up in the fall you see my two-year-old has no understanding of his food allergies and is in no way experienced enough in life to know when he is experiencing a medical emergency he relies exclusively on his caregivers to help keep him safe and recognize if he is having a reaction how could a person who is responsible for several toddlers know that my son's lips are swelling or hives are forming around his mouth if he has something covering his mouth and what if he starts vomiting while he's

120wearing his mask for these reasons it's unsafe for him to wear a mask in a child care setting and this is why i requested the mask mask exemption the allergist's response to my concerns and request was simply quote i'm fine with him wearing a mask that's right i could not get a mask exemption for my two-year-old with life-threatening food allergies because a woman who has spent probably less than an hour with my child collectively over a few appointments a woman who was not there when i held my son in my arms after he had a severe allergic reaction and thought i was going to lose him is fine with it my experience and concerns as his parent completely ignored covet is not of great concern for my son but yet it is more important for

121him to wear a mask than for his caregivers to be able to see if his his face in the event of an allergic reaction when did we as a society decide that our children's physical mental emotional and medical needs are no longer important why are my children being asked to make these sacrifices for a virus that is not dangerous to them as a parent we are all doing our best to keep our children safe and well cared for based on their individual needs and those of our family these are not the school's children they are our children that we entrusted to you to educate but we do expect you to keep them safe while you in your care we value and often rely on advice and opinions from doctors and educators but it's parents who

122know what is best for our own children i'm asking you to please stop enforcing the illegal oakland county health order give parents the ability to opt their children out or at a minimum please adopt a more relaxed and passive approach to the mask enforcement which would allow students to maybe take their masks take mass breaks at their leisure and remove masks while working independently or in other socially distant situations thank you thank you very much um your little one had the worst day ever this last friday there was a run walk activity which was um and then like others you have said we are now experiencing physical emotional psychological effects on children and when is that out of the way that means and surviving the illness right i think that's what you're saying um and

123you're asking us either to go against the order or to find a way to be less less strict with figures something we need to i think that it's pretty safe to say as a community we need to come to some other solution do something kevin all right well i definitely appreciate all of you uh your attentiveness and i'm very thankful it's not midnight uh i was here last time and that was when i got to speak so you know it's nice being able to speak at a regular time i'm not going to take a whole lot of your time i just wanted to go over the law that was put into effect october 1st in case nobody's aware of the actual wording of it it's uh sb 82 section 250 the director or local health

124officer shall not issue or enforce any orders or other directives that require an individual in this state who is under the age of 18 to wear a face mask or face covering so it seems pretty clear to me uh that the mandate should no longer be valid um that aside since we are in a public meeting i would also ask that the board vote to end the mandate tonight if that's a possibility other than that that's all i have thank you what you're clarifying is the language of the law and it clearly talks about you cannot issue or enforce yes absolutely just words that you're trying to make sure that they cannot issue or foreign um and because of that you're asking this board to vote on that issue and i think what you're saying

125is you vote to agree to the law and hence obey it rather than contemporary absolutely thank you see good evening so i recall you're saying uh that you were you felt sorry for one of the other folks who had gone before the board of county commissioners and i would recommend that tomorrow 6 pm i believe it's a 1200 telegraph road in pontiac that you attend the oakland board of county commissioners because you cannot simply be told the negligence and the disrespect you must experience it to really understand it so i'd highly recommend going there to experience it tomorrow correct tomorrow at 6pm and uh let's see uh regarding the law some people pointed various things out there is no law that is repugnant to the constitution i believe it's a fourth in the 14th amendment

126that states that no liberty will thou will be restricted without due process uh this was written by people who had just fled a uh oppressive global empire that operated on decrees and mandates so mandates was something they had in mind when they said that it has to be passed through legislation uh let's see and uh regarding a meeting outside of tomorrow if at all possible i do understand that this is not a public forum this is your regular business meeting that's coming here is probably a little bit different than what you've been used to for some time so if it were at all possible i think it would be nice for us as citizens of this community as neighbors to have some sort of meeting if we can a town hall where we can actually

127engage in a discourse in conversation there'll probably have to be some structure to it i imagine unless you had a bunch of angry parents yelling at you but i think that could be something that would be productive if we can find a way that we can work together as a community against these unlawful mandates tomorrow at 6pm going to the 14th amendment uh that no liberty can be affected without the process right because liberty is the number one value in the whole system and so you can't do anything to affect liberty without a due process um and you've mentioned the idea of outside of these board meetings would there be a way for us to have some common hall discussions and chris uh holds our last few years all right thank you so much for

128being here with us and for taking the time to listen to us again um i'm here representing the group unmask our kids oxford along with kristen and bobby i had a speech planned a really good one would have totally ripped at your heartstrings and convinced you that masks are lame but i heard you when you asked us not to repeat ourselves and waste your time so i will make this super short i'm here to ask one thing in this open meeting with a quorum present i am asking you to vote tonight nobody likes lawsuits lawyers give me the heebie-jeebies and they're expensive and dramatic unless any of you are lawyers and in that case you're awesome but i can confidently say for our entire group that we love oxford and we don't like the idea

129of a lawsuit so let's end this right now we are asking you to stand with us take a vote tonight and support our children that's it um yeah your one request is all right thank you all right thank you um first thank you for having us that there's things you may not see but they're happening um there's one person that doesn't care about you and the kids not one of us got out of this position to make all the money um seriously seriously we're doing this to get back to the community and so we understand the dilemma and we understand the conflict of the issues and we're hearing we we've heard you from the first day and i'm going to talk about maybe some of that in just a little bit um let's continue on

130our agenda we're finishing number 10 on schedule audience participation number 11 we have some activities that all of you can be looking at super kenneth drone uh any thing under clarification none final board comments thank god i could be really wrong um is at lost all the i think the population is the amount of time and energy that goes into what our staff is doing right now we have a tremendous opportunity in front of us and we have done a lot of great things in the district but nobody knows about it because this is the only thing we're talking about we've got great builders bonds just have our ability to be phenomenal our shadows our kids are doing great things i don't know for a fact i'm pretty sure we're probably the only history when

131all these other districts are getting all the activities of what they're doing so with that being said i want everybody to hear what you're saying our hands are high and i hate it i hate it because everybody can come in here and when trying to be the best we can and when you start talking about that when everybody starts talking about otherwise so we can vote we can do whatever we're going to do but remember we're losing good people because we're spending so much time so let me see some things um and i think one of the first things that i want to talk to you about it is the most discussed topic immunity governmental immunity it's not about being fined a thousand dollars it's not anything to do with that the interesting power that

132the overcoming health department has is to separate us from governmental immunity which would also then separate you from your own insurance policies and we have insurance policies that pay for attorneys to do jobs to protect us and all of a sudden what they have built into the mandate and what has been debated it would go either way the whole county health department mandates that we have to have our trailer mass in school if you do not yes there's penalty you pay their spines i want you to consider that in the volatility that we have in our society today we vote against the mass mandate next week a month from now johnny goes on the bus unmasked is covenant let's even play let's let's see you played all differently you isolate steve gets steve's grandma leaves

133the house she dies and now they work backwards now they were backwards if you obey them if we vote against the mandate the way that they have structured because we defied a mandate by a health department and because we did that because we have a responsibility not just every kid's health we have a responsibility to the economic side of this district we've worked hard to get ourselves on the positive side in one moment because they have that kind of power and because all you need is the perfect chemistry of attorneys and the judges [Music] it is probably the number one thing that makes everything choke up a bit but i just wanted to explain that because i think sometimes you think that we fear being flying a thousand dollars or something that's what we wrestle

134with so let me share some talking to you compliance has been our position and quoted massive in general and then i began to think about it a school district in general is a compliance entity we get told how we have to use our funds we get told on what testing we have to use we get told everything is regulated a school district is a compliant entity when code started we did everything that we could do to comply to all the rules whether we agree with them or not agree with them i'm just telling you this is not about pro-match or anti-mass it is about trying to follow the law or this mandate and last year we did it we complied and when i got switched around we danced and shuffled and we did everything we

135could to comply to the things because our number one objective was to make sure that the kids were in face-to-face education and you praised that from our perspective all the mandates were lifted at the end of 2012 school year and that's not our perspective they were all the mandates were lifted they were gone all summer we saw input from the old coming out murder all summer long the state board of education decided to leave the massive decision to each district so we planned all summer we planned all summer to prepare our faculty our staff our parents to know that they were going to have to make choices just like they made choices the year before you can make a choice we just absolutely schedule all of our stuff around the idea that that that's what

1362021 22 school year was going to look like as you know the day before school started the oakland county health department came out with the mass mandate and some of you have foia the oakland county health department you publicly put out different versions of that mandate but it came out we struggled we decided not to do anything until the next monday because we needed four or five days to move the machine i mean moving a whole school district is moving a mountain you've got personalities you've got belief systems you've got teachers faculty bus riders janitors and and so we didn't follow the mandate immediately because we needed time to move the mountain and get it shifted since that day we have asked as some of you have said for clarification from an oldham county health

137department jill has sent many emails i've sent some very pointed emails and you're right we're not getting a response that we would expect and so maybe your question is justified then what are you going to do differently we're very aware that senate bill 82 was passed at the end of september became effective on october 1st we do know that that bill went to the state legislature like a wall street we know that it was ultimately signed by our governor at the end of september and was including the law on october i want to thank you those of you who came to see me at the coffee shop and call me or email me you may begin to think about something i speak before you today uncertain as to whether i or my fellow board members

138can fulfill our oaths of offices we face a temporary mandate that says one thing and a signed law that says another thing if we find ourselves complying to the mandate then we're not following the law if we comply to the law we're not following the mandate but each and every one of us said that we would abide by the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of michigan and as a citizen and as a school board president i find myself in an ox anguishing over the fact as one of you told me in an email i don't know this is not a conflict we created this is not a conflict that we imposed upon ourselves i'm looking for a way for the creators of the conflict to find the resolution forcing

139them if necessary let the judicial branch decide the constitutionality between the two requirements i mean that is how the system works legislature makes a law executive branch proves the law and if somebody doesn't like it the legislative branch decides who's right since we meet again as a board next tuesday i'm proposing that we work this week to create a resolution demanding that the oakland county health department and the governor's office seek from our state judicial branch of constitutional resolution i think we all should resolve to ask our state that these are things that we can do we can choose in our next meeting next tuesday to declare to the legislative branch to the executive branch open county health department and the education branch that were in and i believe that if we contact our state

140representatives i have a feeling that in the way that the law is written asking the attorney general for an opinion i think i've explained why we hesitate to make a vote i'm asking you to give us a week to put these potential things into play i believe that we could even today resolve to ask our state representatives to obtain the attorney general i um believe that i'm fulfilling my loyal office to uphold the constitution and that's all i am anything else under um four times recording um i wrote a few um coming right from the cpc website in may of 2020 during the 2019 pandemic emergency visit for suspected suicide attempts to begin with adolescents 12 to 17 years old especially during 2020 february 21 march 2021 suspected suicide attempts were 50.6 higher i agree

141i i think we should spend this next week with his resolution together but i'm a firm believer that it is up to us as a board member to look out for every student um the constitution of the united states and the constitution of this state and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of the board members of the board of education with oxford community schools oakland and lumiere county michigan according to the best of my abilities quite unexpectedly we need to send that resolution to get an answer because we're not thank you corey anybody else have your last comments mary thank you president emily encore and it's not solely from wearing masks my daughter is vaccinating in the mask where masculine and she feels the same way a lot of people here

142do about wearing masks about people who know their masks because she's very friendly of getting sad a lot of people are hurting because of the situation masks are a contributory factor they're not the only factor everything in this world has changed i think what's important is that if you stick together and support each other keep an eye on our kids keep an eye on our kids check in and see how people are doing check in on your neighbors who are adults because we don't know what they're going through either a lot of people have a lot going on remember to be civilly tough to each other and care about each other because whatever side you're on there is somebody on the other side who is just as passionately about verizon and cares just as much

143for this community and their kids do you think it's important to keep that in mind on a positive note it is great to have people coming out and talking about their community and i think that teachers and administrators would love to have that time and energy put into their kids classrooms and please take up those volunteer opportunities with your kids and in their schools and in the district when they come up i'm sure that teachers and administrators could use your there's still other opportunities to volunteer in the district that may not be in the classroom so check it out there are lots of places that you can help out so just look for those opportunities because there are stay out there there are things that you can do if you look to help support this

144district um so we all ran into these positions as public volunteers and we asked you to trust us to sit up here and make the best decisions that we can to educate your kids that's really what summarizes everything and talk about you know what we can do to move forward we are we are trying to find the best avenues to support all the families both sides to make it a choice and we are trying to um do the best by the students that is really what our job is a lot of people opinions and passions are ran by fear on one side or so try and keep that in mind and i think show them kindness and i do appreciate everybody coming tonight and bringing all of their stories their words their facts very appreciated

145and we all take notes and we all are listening we aren't really listening so i hope you have felt heard thank you we're going to move under other and a couple things one of the things that you have a chance to think about is as i said in my discussion one of the things that this is not about from my perspective at this point this is not about pro-masculine that's this is about a clarification of the law because i can't see constitutionally how i can obey one another and so one of the things that we can do in my studies is to ask our state representatives to obtain things i think we've at least done something it's not what you want but it is something to push the ball for her um so just thinking

146about that as we go into other so obviously [Music] do you have anything yes thank you i don't know thinking back you know we've always have been given advice on how we can be better in our audit process and all that kind of stuff and i don't know maybe maybe the first time since i've been superintendent that uh we've had an audit with absolutely zero um you know recommendations or those types of things and so i'm just i'm really thrilled about that and along those lines i guess i want to formally inform the work tonight of my intent to retire uh i'll be putting out a statement and i don't know i'm just providing more insight we've been going here tonight so i don't really want to take up a bunch of time but i

147do want to let the board know of that intent and i've got great faith in this district and i'm sure that our best days thank you mr you