001pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all yes thank you not a whole lot of changes to the draft plan that we're asking you to ratify later this evening i just wanted to provide your attention to a few of the concepts and also a couple additions to the combat will need to be added um so when you ratify it later we'll we'll ratify it with the changes as presented they're really additions more than changes so just a few themes that i wanted to draw your attention to test this day depending on where which description of test to stay you read says it requires a screening program the isc seems to think that the
002screening of close contacts will be adequate to satisfy that requirement others say that the spirit of that statement is that you participate in a testing for all program like shield once a week or something like that so we're looking for a clarification on that and the discussion is whether or not we can continue with that program either way so i need a legal opinion on that but because it's it's unclear whether or not the health department has the authority to cease and desist our ability to use test to stay if we don't follow their interpretation of it they likely do but they likely won't particularly if our numbers are still good and and everything that we're doing with regard to mitigation strategies is based on whether or not it's working the sports talk several times
003about how if a large number of our close contacts are testing positive we'll have to re-evaluate if none of them are we get to peel back some layers and we're still doing a good number of things to promote the students that health so we're still learning more about test to stay the question that we've been exploring now is whether to use shield or use bird what's the other one called shield or um so i think i actually think it is by max or biomax yeah that one is a nasal swab that's self-administered and we get the results ourselves within 15 minutes and we can use them right away that is i believe eight dollars per test and you know each close contact requires four of them so we're guessing that will cost the district about
00440 000 if that program stays in effect for the entire school year the other test is the shield test which is the one that's available to schools all public schools in illinois for free the ups one of the upsides of that is that it is a saliva test so the students would just deposit saliva into a test tube the downside is that it's a 24-hour turnaround with results so that would add an additional day of potential exposure and potentially additional close contacts the upside of that is those tests would be free and they have recently said that those can be self-administered we were worried that perhaps the folks at shield at the time we believed it was a shield administered only option and that they had that they maybe wouldn't be willing to come in
005as needed because you know we need them right now when we've got a close contact and we don't need them at all when we don't the good news now is that shield can be self-administered and the tests and materials and the reading of the test are all free public schools so that would be an addict's savings we also like that it's saliva and not the swab we think that it'll be a bit more tolerable but we've got the stomach to do either and i'm just excited about what that does for keeping exposed but healthy kids in school so we still like it there just may be a question on this required screening program as a prerequisite to using tests to stay and if it is indeed you must have a screening testing program for all
006and we don't whether or not we could do it anyway is another question that we need to answer so we're still staying the course on that marion's working very hard getting us prepared to do that and uh there'll be more to come on that so our our plan says that that's our primary strategy for students who've been identified as close contact through our contact tracing program and then either parents who don't consent to the testing we adopted two of the different quarantine programs the first is for students who can get a cova test on day six of the quarantine they'll get the results on day seven they can return on day eight and just be observed for the remainder of the fourteen the other choice is if parents don't take their child to be tested
007on day six or later they will quarantine for ten days and then return to school and be observed through day 14. so that is still an option for us if we're ever lacking testing materials if we're ever lacking the resources to deliver to administer and read the test or if a family doesn't give consent to testing that's still an option i also want to share with the board that i learned that the guidance was taken down off of bisbee's website over the weekend and it disappeared for a couple days and new guidance and new frequently asked questions were published today i read them quickly in preparation for the meeting and i don't see really any substantive changes i was hoping for some clarification on test to stay but that was not found in there but
008i just want the board to understand that it's still a moving target and inside this plan i'm sure you saw that it talks about the need to increase or decrease mitigation strategies based on our results of course if no one is getting sick in our schools no one is transmitting the disease in our schools and the governor rolls back the mask mandate that would be an opportunity for us to move from masks required for all to masks recommended for the unvaccinated and welcomed for all and hopefully that will be in our future someday relatively soon and of course if we have high rates of infection if we have a lot of transmission in the schools we'll need to reconsider some of the other things that that we've rolled back and and the understanding that this
009plan was written in the spirit of student instruction is our focus and academic and social emotional learning and well-being of students so when you read this and you see places where it takes some liberties it's understanding that that that is our priority the priority to have a quality high quality school experience for all students we've also discovered mitigation additional mitigations for band choir i haven't read those yet but i suspect that they're kind of in the spirit of the additional mitigation strategies that we had last last spring those are not yet in the plan and we intend to add them to the plan as written once we've reviewed them uh if we think that they're good so that's something that when you're making your motion second and casting your vote tonight consider that there will
010be a chapter about ban and choir mitigation strategies in the plan that isn't in the plan tonight and of course you'll see those before we etch them in stone we've gotten a lot of feedback from the community since our last meeting you'll notice two meetings ago the one that we had on a sunday there was a large anti-mask contingent that was vocal during that and that also emailed or uh messaged the board or myself around that when we left that meeting with the intention of recommending masks for the unvaccinated and welcoming masks for all but not requiring them or checking you'll notice that in our last meeting there was a lot of pro-mask community members that that turned out and that have since emailed you or i about either thank you for uh upholding the
011governor's order etc and i just think it's important for the community to understand that when we met on that first meeting the one that happened on the sunday we had just received guidance from isb that said local school boards were going to have the discretion to make these decisions based on their data relevant to their school district and this board did that and i thought did it conscientiously after that is when we received the governor's mass order for all regardless of vaccination status in schools and that's what's reflected in this plan and i don't we don't have good numbers on how many folks think this and how many folks think that and how many folks are in the middle with an opinion but perhaps trusting the schools to do to do what what we believe
012is best but i think it's important for the community to understand that we're a school district and our job is educating children and we're not a political action committee so we're not in the business of alienating one portion of our population in the spirit of fighting a political fight for another we are navigating a landscape that's largely being handed to us by by springfield and executing that within the letter of the law to the best extent possible for the kids of district so the idea that the board is with this group or the borders with that group there's just uh that's just not it's just not an accurate representation of of what this the work that this board is doing and the work that the administration is doing so keep that in mind and when
013you look at the mitigation strategies and our ability to peel them back as things improve it says very clearly there that that's if there's not an executive order requiring us not to masks is the obvious example so the first thing that needs to happen in order for us to consider going from masks required to masks recommended for the unvaccinated and welcome for all is that order expiring so as long as that order is in place we're required to comply with that the idea that that we can be a change agent by violating that order is not only not our function but it's also not accurate isbe is an agent of the executive branch of the state of illinois government and they set the standard of care for for the public school industry so if they
014say they're going to enforce a governor's mass mandate by by refusing to approve or or revoking a school's recognition of schools that's the first thing of about four things that leads to a school district no longer being a school so the governor does indeed have the executive authority to do that our council agrees the other major firms that represent public schools in our area agree and they also agree that isbe indeed has the authority to do that so if you if you like what we're doing great if you don't it may be misguided to think that that is something you should blame this board for so that's just my little introduction there and there's been a lot of talk about what choices we have and what choices we don't and this plan is filled with
015choices that that the administration recommended to board or that the board supported because we believe that within the rules of the game this is the safest and best way for us to carry on educating kids at a high level and we're not just talking about academic learning but we're talking about the psychological fitness of our kids we're talking about the social emotional growth and learning and the entire school experience so i think that the plan does a nice job representing that and um i'm happy to recommend it later for adoption uh later in the meeting jeff i have a question maybe you can clarify this man mandates are nothing new we're we have several mandates from both the state and the federal government many of them unfunded which has been the frustration for decades i'm
016sure everyone along this table administrators and board members alike would love to go cheer and pick mandates that we would prefer not to have to enforce but the state does on it the federal government does on it they do audits of school districts to ensure that their mandates are and there are penalties today yeah that's absolutely absolutely right dean so we're governed by the school code which is the section of illinois law that governs public schools and isbe is essentially the governor's agency that not only implements re enforces and audits school districts to make sure that we're compliant with the law but also makes recommendations to the governor for and to the general assembly for new laws this is a little bit different being an executive order but it certainly has the same teeth and
017this board in the past has resisted an opposed mandate mandates particularly unfunded mandates even when we supported the content of them it's true because we don't believe that it's the best place to make that springfield is the best place to make a decision that could otherwise be customized for each individual school district in the state of illinois we take local control very seriously here and we have counterpart boards in other parts of the state where life is quite different the culture is quite different i've worked in a couple of them and we celebrate the idea that school may look a bit different there than it does here in fact we believe that perhaps it should the local needs assessment is completely different the the types of careers and experience that that they're going to have
018after public school are quite different so they may need different skills certainly a different life experience in other parts of the state it's a very very diverse state so we celebrate the idea of local control we do that even when we're on the right side of of whatever individual bill it is but the ones that we oppose hurt more because they make us to do things that we don't we don't want to do or we don't agree with or think our best and that's very very challenging and for some masks are an example of that but health and safety isn't the only category where that happens it happens in curriculum it happens in school finance it happens in transportation food service it happens in virtually everything that we do and the reason why that happens
019whether we like it or not is we're a public school so we fall under the school code portion of um illinois state law and the general assembly and the governor are the governing body for that and isbe is sets the standard of care by law so here we are that said i think that wearing the masks this year particularly if we're able to make test to stay work is going to return us to a much more normal school experience other than having masks on our faces because students will be able to learn cooperatively they'll be able to work more closely together they'll be able to do all the types of things that we've always been used to doing and more of them will be able to stay at school so i'm excited about that i'm
020looking forward i had a conversation with jill today i'm looking forward to the day where we can do all those things without masks on our face but i'm happy that there's a vehicle for us to get to there on the first day of school and in this case are the key to that before i move on to the next topic are we making comments on this plan now or are we gonna do it when we bring it up later either way all right um because all right excited just reading it through i just have a few comments that i you know um one um you know we are talking about uh in terms of changing um you know any any modifications to the mitigation strategies uh i do think it's strange that the the number
021of positive cases for the previous week in the in the district was three or fewer is that am i reading that correctly that seems to be entirely too low a number yeah i mean that's a number that is is up to the board um we checked with some other local school districts and that was similar we also look back at our positivity rate in the spring there were a couple weeks where we had four or five or six positives in a week there were many many weeks where we had zero or one so i mean i'll tell you i'm just when i the the number three stands out to me because basically in february my whole family got covered and it seems including my three children tested positive and it seems like so basically what
022you're saying is that february of last year if deloitte kids got covered then the entire district is off mitigating yeah that that i mean to me that just seems like the plan also says that we can do different things for different school buildings so i think if we if we have a situation there was a stretch of weeks where two of our schools had no positives none and it'll be up to the board whether or not you want us to say that those campuses can unmask while other campuses are still masked where we're at right now is it sure looks like this governor's order is going to go into october and what i'd like to do is track the actual number of positives during that period of time and review those numbers with the boards
023the board can can set the number that you want you know three was three or fewer is where we where we landed you'll notice that we chose 100 cases per 100 000 for our our three communities that's the orange to red threshold vern's done a lot of work on the numbers and really believes that blue is unattainable and yellow it's one in ten thousand knocks you out of the blue that's completely unattainable so we took a higher standard what i guess what the cdc would consider a higher standard on that measure but i really think that the magic is what's happening inside the district if there's lots of people getting infected we should do more and if there's few we should do less and between now and when that mask order ceases we can make
024that number whatever the board is comfortable with i'd like to show you the first few weeks of school's data so you have an idea of what it's going to be like and then you can set the number however you want if the board wants a different number in the plan right now we can have that discussion right now and change it before you adopt it i was concerned when i saw those numbers too and you know when you explained that those numbers were based on last year made me feel a little better you know because i looked at three and i was thinking we might never get to that there's also just this section in here that talks about low positivity rates within the community and or district could result in mass recommended instead of
025massed required right now i'm more comfortable with leaving something like that instead of having hard numbers that i'm not sure if they're attainable the metrics were in the spirit of how the board left it last time that they wanted a clear measurable road to masks recommended if you think that we were too cautious with the three we can reconsider that number right now were there other measures in there that you thought were too that was the one that jumped out at me um how do you like the 100 000 that i guess that's fine i don't really have a sense um you know i mean argument for i mean if if it's you know if word that's like the orange zone or whatever i guess um you know i mean to me it's not so
026much the numbers in the district as it is the transmission in the school that's the whole point of the mask so if we're not seeing tran i i'd be more focused on our kids coming to school and getting covered because if they're not that's i mean that's that's why we have a mask it's not you know i mean obviously there's a factor of you know kids in the district having it but again the whole point was i mean obviously kids last year had it what was frustrating last year was that we were quarantining all these kids that weren't getting it and so from my perspective like to me it's much more interesting to say what's the what's the transmission rate as opposed to what's the number in the schools right that that's the one that
027is most powerful to us too the problem is it's also the hardest one to really nail down for certain you know that the two that two students that may have contracted covid in school we we don't we don't know so i don't want to take responsibility for those two coveted cases um we were also six feet apart and masked and sitting in rows and facing the same direction like a number of things that we're not doing now so i don't want to set it so high that we take our masks off and then we have an outbreak i don't i don't know which mitigation strategies are the most effective because last year we did all of them so it's going to be interesting but i can certainly stomach that number at four or five um
028i don't think that it can be i don't think that you should pick a big number but we are going to be looking at if we do tests if we're able to do tests to stay how many close people who are close contacts at school test positive that's going to be a really powerful number i just don't know i don't know how big a number i mean it could be it could be zero or it could be all of them you know we need to live in that for a little while and the nice thing is during the mask order we're gonna have school so we're gonna have data on whether or not three feet in mast is working and if it's working wonderfully and the order goes away then let's try it without masks
029i like your idea of looking at the data not setting enough assessing the number if it does go to october assessing it then thank you you know we're it i would echo what julie said we're we're a moving target right now um gosh knows in the last week and a half the guidance has changed three times four times um and since we're currently under the mass mandate there's no there's no chance that we're rolling back anyway so i don't personally feel any push to change that number right now because we will have the first month or so of data before we even get close to changes and i know that if this board has strong feelings about that number or what we're going to do then of course we're going to be talking about that
030when it happens as well so it's kind of a this is a living breathing document and we are going to be constantly constantly looking at it for the next entire school year and probably then some so then i guess that leads into my second question which is to say um it's my understanding there was a lawsuit filed against the governor today so what happens what's our mechanism for reconsidering this in the event that there's some sort of preliminary injunction if it's i mean it is possible that if a judge rules that the governor has exceeded his authority then we're back to square one i guess right sure we can reconvene and reconsider anytime you want okay i think that's just something we need to be aware of because i mean i right now i mean
031i i do believe you know the governor whether i agree with him or not has the authority to issue this but if circumstances change i will be very much interested in and the circumstances may change my only point is this is that there is a non-zero chance that the governor is not the only one who has a say in this at this point he could a judge could theoretically rule that he does he's exceeded his authority in which case i'd be wanting to change this document pretty substantially pretty quickly i really i typically celebrate and enjoy the relationships that we have with other policymakers in the state but i will say that i was talking to dean earlier about the governor's address and what we've been through this summer was in my opinion unnecessary they
032told us in may that we would know by june 7th or 8th what the rules were going to be for opening school on july 18th we were told that it was up to local school boards so we spent a lot of time in the next two and a half or three weeks getting smart about it so that this board could make good decisions the board in my opinion did and then days later that decision uh was taken away from the board and the first thing that the governor said was that the reason why he had to do a mask orders because not enough districts did the right thing well that suggests to me that local boards didn't have the authority all along local boards had the authority as long as they made the choice that
033the governor wanted them to make well that's not choice at all is it it's maybe the optics of choice for a couple weeks but if and i understand the science is changing and what we're learning is changing and what we're learning about the new variants changing quickly i i understand and respect and and empathize with uh the jobs of the health departments and the recommendations they need to make they're under a good deal of pressure as well and they're trying to nail down new science which is challenging too but to say we're gonna have choice and then say he's taking it away because we didn't make the right choice it doesn't sound to me like choice at all so um so here we are executing the governor's will hopefully it will go very well i
034think that it will and hopefully it goes well enough where he retracts that or um it sunsets quickly and then this board will have another decision make then and this plan has a mechanism in in it for you to do so and do so quickly so we also understand that if that doesn't work this board may choose to put them back on and on and off as numbers rise and fall if necessary in order to keep kids safe and in order to keep the school experience good and that's that's our objective so if there's if you have other comments or questions you think about throughout the meeting we'll have a comment moment before adoption and we can talk more about it then otherwise if anyone else has other thoughts or comments otherwise i'll move on
035to the next item in the superintendent's report i just have a question on the test to say which you may not have the answer to but when you talked about the shield test and the 24-hour turnaround does the student stay in school for those 24 hours yes okay and then joe let me amend that a little bit if if the governor's mass order expires and the board says that the metrics are good enough for under for us to go to mass recommended during test to stay students must be masked in school so that student will stay in school but they'll be putting on a mask and there's a little bit of concern that's why i keep saying this masks welcome for all is i don't want to get into a scarlet letter situation where we're
036identifying students someday as unvaccinated because they're the ones wearing the masks or a student has exposed to covid because they're the ones wearing the mask anyone can wear a mask at any time but during the test estate program whether masks are required for all or not students that are close contacts and participating in tests to stay must wear a mask and that's for 14 days but it's a small price to pay to stay in school right and so i would just wanted to clarify that they don't have to stay out of school for 24 hours until their result and then a few days later do that again as long as they don't have a test or they have a negative test they're still in school and then there is another area that talks about a
037sibling [Music] who would not be eligible for tests to stay which is just a little is that based on the guidelines that we're given if we participate in this program because you know again the goal is to get keep as many kids in school as possible so if they're a close contact at school versus at home and but they're still in our district i just yeah that's why we can't test them yeah we actually pushed back against that one with the health department on friday and with the region today and it was unequivoc unequivocal black and white test to stay is only students who were close contacts at school are eligible for tests to stay one of the reasons is because they were both masked then um it's going to be interesting whether or not
038we can stick with test to stay if we go masks recommended down the road i don't know where again where that authority lies but i'm hoping that we can because i think it's a great program whether we're wearing masks or not but it was unanimous from two different bodies that using tests to stay to keep people who were close contacts at home or in the community still in school is a non-starter not acceptable and you're disqualified from using that as a as a quarantine strategy so it just sounds like we big fat can't did they give you any kind of explanation why i mean the kid is negative the kid is negative or positive is positive the only explanation why that i heard is that siblings are intermingling all the time at home and and
039they're not masked the mask ingredient was the key ingredient there remember that one of the motivators for us talking about masks before the governor ordered us to put them on was how good the test to stay program was and how that was a hard requirement of it so people who call the school and say hey my son's traveling whatever team i had an outbreak and my child was exposed they would do one of the other two quarantining exercises either stay at home six days get tested get a negative result come back and be observed or stay home for 10 days come back masked and be observed for four more so and this is a change this is a change where they took to get or that was always part of the test that was always
040part of it they're just doing a better job communicating all the rules i'd like to ask about the busing it says in the um that the buses would need to be cleaned between routes and a concern would be how long that takes and with our shortage of bus drivers if you could talk about that yeah money interrupt me whenever you want but you know we've got those four routes at central that as of today will need to be doubled and the time that it takes to clean those buses in between those expands the time interval between the first round arriving in the second round arriving have you talked to abc about cleaning in between those so maybe you and marion should sit down with them and talk about that so it's no big deal between
041um the middle routes and the elementary routes that's something we did in the spring and it's an interesting topic julie i'm glad you raised it because enhanced cleaning strategies is still listed in the mitigation strategies of isbee's back-to-school plan but health agencies are are minimizing that a bit because they don't believe that touch surfaces are a major transmission factor so it may not be necessary to do that and that would be better because that first round of buses could sleep in a little bit more thank you thank you because further down it says shared objects or equipment will be cleaned and sanitized before and after use when possible so if we could just add when possible for the bus cleaning especially if it means that kids don't have to get dropped off 30 40 minutes
042early yeah i mean if masks are required on the buses so their ability to touch a seat and then touch their nose is greatly diminished by the mask wearing so jeff will talk to our head nurse about that and get an opinion i'd love to save those 10 minutes off of that interval other themes about before we move on to the superintendent's report next i'd like to introduce matt he's going to talk a little bit about construction in fairfield cruise thank you good evening everybody since last thursday's construction update that was provided to you in board docs i have a little more information on the progress of the construction at cruz and feark since last thursday the cruise main office countertops have been installed all work associated with the skylights there was some drywall work
043and painting within has been completed along with the skylights the new led light fixtures in the media center at cruz were finished over the weekend and all of the media center carpeting was installed last friday we have a few remaining items at this point the fear countertops are delayed to the extent that the general contractor is having temporary countertops fabricated and will be installed later this week they currently have a the finished product scheduled for the 20th of august but we insisted uh that they get a temporary solution um in case that 20th does uh does not uh happen we also have some stair nosing on the two steps leading from the media center to the stage which is back ordered it's supposed to be in this week and then they can finish the carpeting
044on those two steps and be completely finished we also have casework drawers are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow tomorrow they were delayed and the lockers has remained unchanged since the beginning of the project um they informed us last thursday that they're still confident that the delivery will be on the 13th with um demolition of the locker rooms occurring on the 16th only when they arrive there any questions thank you very much thanks man great work jeff charles is going to talk about food service and transportation yes for food service i have a bit of good news the state has a program that they normally operate in the summer in low income districts that they're now expanding to all districts statewide for the school year called the seamless summer option and what that means is that
045all students will be able to eat for free this coming year regardless of free pay to reduce status so that's that's a that's good news um now as you know we partner with orland the food is prepared at their district and then we transport it here so we're working out some logistics we're anticipating an increase in numbers and the need of extra food so we're working out to make sure that quest can provide the amount of food that we need and that we have the truck capacity to get it here but those are good problems and uh so good news for the upcoming year i have a quick question on that will quest still provide like the monthly menus to everyone yes parents can plan ahead okay awesome thank you um and then on transportation
046we touched on it a little bit here but as some of you may have heard there's a there's a national bus driver shortage and our companies have been telling us since the springtime that that they're looking but they're they're having trouble recruiting drivers and so uh abc is our regular ed provider and right now it appears that they're going to be four routes four drivers short of servicing our routes so right now at central middle school we have 16 routes and they only have 12 drivers for us so that means they're going to have to take four routes and double them so four sets of kids are going to have to come in early then those routes will go back out and run the remaining four routes and then the same thing after school so
047we're working it out so it's not the same kids having to get in early or leave late but it's going to affect a lot of people we are on them we've been trying everything we've been contacting other bus companies who are short themselves so we've not been able to find additional drivers so we're just going to have to deal with it for a little while but they are doing everything they can to recruit as many drivers as they can any comments or questions about transportation so we have uh two condolences this month mary shinoda's mother passed away mary's an esl teacher at fulton and lynn rachel and andrew bastian lost their mother lynn is a parrot fulton rachel an early learning para at fulton and andrew is a pair at cms so we extend our
048reach of sympathy to uh mary and her family as well as the sebastian family we've got a nice list of celebrations ellie bulber and her family welcomed amelia page who was born on july 15th ali is a teacher of memorial dan collins is celebrating the birth of her 10th grandchild margaret kathleen johnson margaret was born on july 5th caitlyn caprio and family welcomed lorenzo antonio who was born june 30th and nikki wrote an 8th grade ela teacher welcomed delaney james into the world on june 25th sandy wojcik 8th grade math and science teacher her son dylan james was born june 23rd and jess edgar fourth grade teacher of memorial welcomed charlotte carroll on june 16th uh so we're so excited about uh the new members to the 146 family so that concludes the superintendent thank
049you right we're up to 4.1 citizens may address the board at this time as i say before every public comment we are very very aware that opinions in the community run the gamut on many issues not just mass not just covet but many many things we ask that everyone remain respectful that everyone be respectful of the time limit you will have three minutes to speak i will be timing and we encourage everyone to speak and we encourage everyone at home watching uh you are not able to speak during public comment but you are able to email the board or dr stay with the administration your thoughts as well so with that i'm going to open for public comment again please be respectful you will have three minutes thank you anyone willing to address the board
050hello my name is kim saraki when did we stop living life and started living in fear tomorrow isn't promised to anyone so live life to the fullest and let the kids be kids again back in 2009 h1n1 swine flu pandemic infected and killed more kids than clovik him did we shut down and wear face mask no we didn't so why are we so afraid when this doesn't affect kids like h1n1 did here are the numbers according to the cdc of what kids are more likely to die of suicide three thousand deaths per year cardiac distress 2 000 dust per year cancer 1800 dust per year car crash 636 cess per year seasonal flu 2018 2019 477 deaths conveyed over the course of 18 months 349. swine flu just one year was one thousand one hundred
051coped isn't going anywhere so we have to live with this just like anything else as far as these mandates they're just recommendations guidance not stop saying that your hands are tied especially when other schools are figuring them out if we are masking our children just to protect teens and adults from covet then guess why i have ground breaking news there's a vaccine just for that the cdc mentioned two weeks ago that the pcr tests are faulty and they can't tell the difference between the flu and covalent interesting since the flu magically disappeared stop testing fyi our little amigos never gave authority to isb cdc or the governor to decide when and if my child must wear a face mask all authority given to school is false under 105 ilcs or administrative code 23. i urge
052you to read and find one line that would grant that authority to require masks in school spoiler alert it doesn't you are elected officials by the people and we the people have had enough in case you haven't figured this out if you don't draw the line here it never ends it's time for the school board admin and parents to stand up for our children's rights unmask our children hello ladies and gentlemen hi my name is david soraki i didn't prepare speech um i just had a couple quick comments obviously we didn't see the whole plan and what the mitigation strategy looks like for this upcoming school year but what i would like to see is and i don't even know if it's possible is that last school year when the kids were outside learning they
053were socially distanced extensively it was over six feet and they still had to wear their masks i don't know if the flexibility is there this year if that could be a possible masquerade because i know last year they talked about um the kids having mass brakes you know during if they were outdoor learning but that didn't happen so i'm not sure if that's something that could be implemented and then um the other thing was uh when we start if the mandate ends or whatever and we start peeling the layers back if another parent mentioned it last week i thought it was a great idea to uh even before the complete removal of masks there was an option to where the kids in the classroom could take the masks off to make it optional so it's
054like they're still using them in the hallways going to the bathrooms but at least have the that sticky like that could be like one the first layer coming back so that was it thank you thank you hello my name is brian grossman my daughter is a preschooler here hopefully this is a topic we can all agree on tonight i'd like to speak about critical race theory in the hallways and classrooms of district 146 which according to my eyes are very real board of education please review queer queerkidstuff.com and learning for justice to be honest i wanted to come here on guns blazing but after some discussions with people i trusted told me to tone it down in recent weeks i stumbled upon some of these posters like this one in the hallways of central middle
055school this picture is lindsay amir that states we the future are unapologetically queer and there's another poster in the hallway right outside from learning for justice according to the mission statement of queer stuff queerkidstuff.com amir created the site is the lgbtq and social justice web series for kids it adds that the short videos are a tool for parents teachers and lgbtq adults to help them explain these words and ideas to young children in their lives recommended for all ages i floyd the district this morning to obtain all copies curriculum training education contracts etc within the district retaining the critical race theory once received that will move forward accordingly if members barry casper and lloyd remember a conversation we had in my driveway in march pre-election you guys told me there is no room in our
056classrooms for politics and crt which includes lgbq black lives matter and 16-19 project i proudly planted barry lloyd dunlap enchilada's name in my lawn and i come i campaigned for you in a small corner of my world i assured my family and friends who voted for you that they could trust that i'd be watching our board so here i am against my intuition i'll give you the benefit of doubt that you simply didn't know but now consider yourselves warned that crt is happening in your schools tonight are you going to tell me that the posters aren't crt if so you're dead wrong critical racism theory has no reason no room in our classrooms and i demand that all posters and curriculum be stopped immediately us parents will be watching we will not be backing down
057and i and we will defend our kids i truly look forward to see what the foia request reveals 30 seconds please let me know when the posters are taken down to central middle school thank you [Applause] hmm good evening my name is shane wilson my son will be an 8th grader here at central i have to agree with mr saraki about something we don't really know what we're talking about you all do you've seen this plan the last we got to hear about the plan was at a meeting a week ago before the governor's order came down so we're speaking about assumptions i'm assuming that you're going to have masks in school i'm assuming that you're going to have masks in all schools for everyone i'm assuming that's why you're all wearing masks tonight when
058you weren't a week ago but that's an assumption i don't really know what your plan is i'm grateful that you're doing that i think that's the right move you know mr lloyd complained last week he said that this the the government was forcing you all to make the decision that the illness was being put on you now the government has taken that away from you and i think you're upset about that as well the truth is it really doesn't seem to be the issue anymore whether or not masks work we know masks work that's the reason people like me want you to be have want you to be mandating masks i want you to do more than recommend it because it protects people who do not have coping from getting it it protects people who
059have coded from transmitting it that's that's a known fact the issue seems to be we don't care about that that the safety of our children is not the issue it's inconvenient i know there are people in this room who believe that because they're not wearing masks now despite the fact that it's required i don't know when it became inconvenient to look out for the safety of our children and my biggest concern is that the moment you guys get a positive number i need positive in the sense of encouraging enthusiastic that you're going to rush to take these away you've been behind the curve each step of the way you know with a year ago this time we were all ready to go come to blazing with just normal school until the government shut it down
060the first chance you got last spring you eliminated all those requirements despite the fact that this very administration recommended against it that didn't matter the recommendation of educators and experienced physicians was thrown out the window because you didn't want it so 30 seconds thank you i'm asking you to have a different approach this time around i'm asking you to be patient i'm asking you to see this through i'm asking you to let masks let hopefully vaccines for all of our elementary school students let these things do their job before we race race to do something that maybe isn't in the best interest of public health that maybe teaches a different lesson to our students thank you hello sandra bailey um i wanted to bring up something that was already talked about well i spoke about
061it again last week is the removal of the masks in the classroom i want you to think about it every time you go now the governor said put your mess fast on okay let's put them back on i want you to go to a restaurant and keep your mask on the whole time if that's what you want our children to do in the classroom because when you sit down at the restaurant you take your mask off so the children should have the same right to sit down take the mask off thank you so all right my name is lauren sander and i have two kids one going at this school the other one when they are here what i want to say it's the mouth is the dirtiest thing of the human being are you
062guys agreeing with me so this is not for dialogue between the board this is time for your comments okay so what i want to say is we are wearing this the virus is way smaller than this yes it's like we're putting the fence against mosquitoes it's and it's proven and we have lupuntania we have ddraw we have the other japanese nobel prize doctors they are all working our kids we're going to stay in fear we can't see a face expression anything so you tell me this will save our kids this we can control them in our houses look at them we go nuts because what or for what they getting sick there is no doubt about that no no no so what i want to say is this mask they don't help us how do
063they build their immunity getting dirty am i right i am everybody knows it so what we're gonna do we're gonna keep hiding till our governments decide that we are free again so my thing is i don't want my kids very mess i'm not scared i need everything out that's all i have to say um we've lived in this school district my husband was born in the soldiers church he went through it my four children went through it we now have been listening to things and they said get involved in your school district in your village to see what's going on i already have found out some of the things i was going to ask i was going to ask about critical race theory in the schools i wanted to know do we say the pledge
064of allegiance every day in school again then this is not a back and forth how do i find that information you can email the superintendent if you'd like to know okay and everything that i wanted to say people have been saying they say they cannot isolate the coded virus that so why don't we test the kids for the flu before we test them to see if they have copied since they can't tell the difference between the two in alberta canada all the mandates have been lifted because no one could give a sample of a coven virus to prove that there is a covenant virus so why in the schools you have to test for covant why don't you test for the flu or why don't you ask the governor to produce for you a coveted
065virus to prove that there is something that you're fighting it's a shame that my grandchildren are so afraid to hug you or touch you or when you go to school now if you have a best friend in the playground and you can't even hold their hand to play with because you have to stay three feet away you meet kids at school you don't even know what they look like for you to go play with them another time or you see them on the street you don't even know who that you're looking at so like i said my husband and i we don't have any children here but we will be coming to these meetings to find out what's going on in this school district because i do think it's a shame that you're masking all
066these children when the virus for a child is 99.99 percent recoverable even if they get it and you're doing this to them all day long thank you anyone else profoundly comment and a daughter at central we've been parents in this district for 12 years approximately and in the last year and a half that all my kids have been in the school this year they have their esteem has dropped dramatically their ability to communicate just with their siblings with their peers they're they feel socially isolated because of this mess there's i just i don't ask these kids there's no need for it i absolutely disagree with it my kids are more um they feel more of the need to have this on their face than anything and it's it's saddening they are more shy than ever
067they are less um likely just to even come up to our family and be around them like they might have been 18 months ago before all this nonsense became our unfortunate reality and um you know when or if one of my business forced to stay home because they were in close contact the cross-checking last school year was well crappy if there is a need for i'm assuming there's going to be a cross-checking which is also nonsense um that should be improved my two little ones at fulton were forced to stay home too many times because of close contact nonsense which sucked their esteem and it's not my daughter's kindergarten abilities to just be where she should be academically and but but my fulton school district the school there rather was not on top of letting
068central know that maybe my daughter should have been home as well i was like i'm not going to pull my daughter out of school because she's fine i didn't want to tell my son but i had to because he was he's a sibling which it's just ridiculous we had never done this before and there's flu pandemics when there's a cold it's just it's just not necessary um when my kids are outside in gym class when they're outside at recess they get winded and they don't want to be as active because they have this thing on their face and it's not really a true mask break because they are still forced to wear it and how are they truly getting a break how are they truly getting the chance to see their peers 30 seconds they
069can't i mean when you have this over your face the only thing you can really see of someone else is their eyes they don't necessarily need a person's face as well as my junior high kid it's just it's not the way these kids need to be so i these guys need to go [Applause] do hi crystal schultz um i have two boys you remember me the two board meetings go on march 13 2020 was their last day at fulton um since then we have homeschooled um i was really hopeful on july 18th that there was a chance that my kids would be able to come back to fulton we love love love my kids are sad that they don't vote fulton anymore not they don't love me and they don't love me as their teacher
070um because we certainly had a great school year going on field trips and being able to just live freely um i think it's really sad what we're doing to our children both of my kids have had ieps my son had speech therapy from the time he was seven months old because he had feeding and swallowing issues therefore he relies on lip reading and he also still relies on people to be able to read his lips that's impossible with the mask my other son had ot issues thankfully both of them graduated out of their ieps in january of 2020 by the grace of god and two months later the pandemic hits so they no longer need the school services um but the social emotional factors in this are being overlooked um my son had problems with
071coping mechanisms and negative self-talk when he was in kindergarten first grade and his career and first grade teacher were just wonderful along with a lot of the other um one of my favorite parts about fulton was the community and the events that you all would have and the family nights and the gatherings and being able to come to school and volunteer in the classroom for various events like that and just the thought that that isn't going to happen either is really just doing our children the disservice and another year this is nonsense and um i will not be sending my kids to fulton unfortunately and i'm gonna have to tell them that because two weeks ago i was pretty hopeful and they were too and i'm sad additional public comment okay seeing them we're going
072to move on 5.1 union reports is your union report no report from the union 6.1 consent agenda can i have a motion to approve the consent agenda i moved to approved item 6.1 approval of minutes 6.2 approval of closed session minutes 6.3 approval of the discretion destruction of closed session tapes 6.4 approval of financial items and 6.5 approval of personnel items is there a second any discussion yes in the in the minutes jeff i emailed you today then i just wanted to clarify that um it states that the board would like to hold the graduation outdoors with the rain date scheduled indoors and to clarify that that's not a final decision and that the board will be updated on the cost of holding the graduation off site before that's made permanent further discussion hearing none
073uh secretary calderon casper yes dunlap malloy yes enchilada yes lloyd yes barry yes ninja yes six at six approval of district 146 2021 2022 covet 19 response plan i've i guess you know kind of a number of the parents did raise something my understanding is the mask mandate is indoor only there will be outdoor mass breaks correct that's correct i mean outdoor sports are no masks right whenever students are outdoors they do not need to wear their mask okay thank you okay is there a motion i move we adopt 6.6 approval district 146 2021 2022 cloven 19 response plan is presented is there a second second any further discussion um i just wanted to talk about something about it like school sponsored activities i didn't see too much talked about extracurricular clubs sports and other
074activities we're planning on bringing some of those back to the district this year okay because i think it's important it's a good point that got brought up um you know we've family engagement is very important to me and i'd like to see that happen as soon as possible we intend to have open houses and parent-teacher conferences in person parent-teacher conferences is something we should probably talk about because of how successful they were virtually so maybe there could be more than one component but open houses in person restoration of field trips all of our students will be in person so clubs will be in person obviously athletics so very much a return to pre-coveted school life i'd like to keep you know keep the community coming in keep it as open as possible there was another
075potential but there was a line about deliveries limited to vestibules for visitors do we think that that's still necessary you know someone dropping something off for their student they can't stop into the school office anymore well it's just a matter of keeping reducing the introduction of potentially more close contact still recommended and well to joe's point there's a definition of a close contact meaning you have to be close for 15 minutes i mean do we find that parents linger in the office for yeah no no they're not they're not here for 15 minutes transmission is really more of a factor than close contact for a visitor yeah i would talk about parents dropping off or like the delivery like the kids are ordering food i know that was limited last year where you know their
076ipad off at school if they forgot it and i would hope that we're not leaning towards that again seems like parents should be able to drop something off in the office that's what's i think what we're all saying here right yeah yeah also um with some of these clubs is there a way we can make it maybe they can do go outside if they so choose i mean we we have a good six weeks of decent weather at the beginning of the year get outside if if the teacher is in charge of it so i don't know if there's tents or they might need or just tables outside that kind of thing and potentially even like during the school day if teachers want to take classes outside chairs or you know there's additional supplies needed
077so we can spend as much time outside as possible would the board like to make that change about visitors to the school building dropping off things to come inside the office i and i thought they were we were relaxing about contact through service contacts there was that they were less concerned about that yeah it was really a mechanism for face-to-face time so they would just deposit the issue in the bit or whatever they're delivering in the bin in the vestibule then we would go out and get it i think last year that and correct me if i'm wrong parents weren't able to drop off anything and so for me i wouldn't want a kid's whole day to if an ipad would be necessary to have to go without it and so just for the item
078to be able to be there if a parent was able to those kind of circumstances is what i would be thinking yeah that's what the plan says now is that the parents can bring things for the kids they'll just deposit in the bin in the vestibule so the kid won't be without it's just i'm fine with that as long as as long as parents can drop things off that i had the same concern about not being able to drop things off last year but as long as we have a mechanism for that and a mechanism to get this the item to the student i'm fine so where are we landing on this further discussion any further i'm wondering so where are we landing on this parents can come into the office and drop stuff off
079my last comment was that i agreed with what was in the plan that it if they have a mechanism for the vestibule that's fine as long as parents are able to bring their items in for their students and that's why i'm asking because that's not i don't think what dean and jill and i just said and patty i think we said we would like parents to be able to come in the office the way it was and drop things off that's for the majority lance i'm finally we'll make that change before we edge it in stone okay other discussion okay secretary calderon casper yes dunlap lloyd yes gelato yes lloyd yes barry yes ninja yes moving on information items 7.1 tentative budget for 2021. yes are you okay if i do it here do you
080want me to come up there all right so this is in board docs and also there's going to be a presentation on the screen behind you this is our preliminary budget it is a requirement of the state that we present a preliminary budget that stays on display for 30 days and then next month we vote on the final budget so in my world budgeting is a year-round process this is where we are the august board meeting the preliminary budget next month will be the the final uh budget so as part of this presentation i want to talk for a couple minutes about the results from last year compared to the budget and then we'll look at the upcoming year's budget so a lot of numbers i apologize but if you in the first column there
081i got my fancy little pointer i'm sorry got a new toy revenue compared to budget was almost right on if you see local was a tiny bit over state was a tiny bit over federal was a little bit under but the overall budget came in at 100.13 percent of what we budgeted on the expense side we came in significantly under budget and that was mostly due to covid the shutdown if you see purchase services the third line down we were about a million dollars under budget and that is mostly due to buses not running we budgeted for it not knowing what was going to happen and we had a long period of time where we didn't spend anything on buses same thing with supplies with kids not in school supply costs were down the capital
082outlay number is just an estimate of how much we were going to spend on construction and that's mostly a timing difference we are going to spend all of that money we just didn't spend it during that particular fiscal year so you throw all that into the mix and we were almost four million dollars under budget on the expense side so the summary revenue was 55 000 over which is good and the expenses were 3.7 million under for the reasons i just explained so even though in that first column you see we budgeted a 3.5 million dollar deficit last year we actually ended slightly positive 262 thousand dollar positive results for last year now if you recall this i presented this exact slide last year it was a 3.5 million dollar deficit but that included some
083one-time things uh construction and some bond special interest payments so if you take that out and just look at what our operating numbers were it was still a deficit usually we like to have that be a surplus but it was a deficit last year of just under four hundred thousand dollars and remember that number i'm going to come back to it when i talk about the upcoming year's budget um i'm going to skip that one so moving ahead to the upcoming year so we're starting i'm going to start with just kind of a broad overview then get specific and then i'll end with the overview again so we're starting the year with 38.6 million dollars as a fund balance we're anticipating revenues of 43.5 million expenses 47.4 and that's a deficit of 3.9 million which
084leaves us with a fund balance next year of 34.7 these are all just estimated numbers but these are what we're working with and again uh even though it's a 3.9 million dollar deficit we have some one-time things that are not normal operations so we have almost a million and a half in construction finishing up the projects at ferric and cruz and if you recall the board voted to abate a million dollars so property tax revenues will be less by a million dollars so if you take those two things out that puts our new operating deficit at 1.4 million now if you remember uh last year it was 400 000 deficit so this year so the deficit on an operating basis is getting a little bit worse and it's something we're going to have to address
085in upcoming years we have we have a very healthy fun balance and it helps us during times like this but this this trend can't continue so here's the revenue side and as you can see the majority of it of our revenue is local that's property taxes interest things like that and then smaller amounts from the state and from the federal government totaling 43.5 million on the local side then most of that money comes from property taxes and it's from two different levy years so we'll get the second half of 2020 um taxes which was uh the cpi was 2.3 percent so we're getting 2.3 in new revenue half of that and then it's the first half of the 2021 taxes which the cpi for that is not known i'm estimating three percent it's actually probably
086going to be higher inflation is running very high right now but i use three percent for the purpose of the budget but when you when you consider the idea of the abatement which was a million dollars our property taxes are actually going to be down by 790 000 they're up by two percent but they're down by a million and then also interest revenue uh continues to decline if you recall two years ago we had a million dollars in interest revenue last year was about 500 000 and now this coming year it's going to be about 200 000 interest rates are just very low and as our old things roll off that we were getting 2 percent on now we're having to reinvest at 0.3 or 0.4 so interest revenue is down food service revenue is
087going to be down also we talked about how food is going to be free but it's the the local component where students are paying for their food is going away but it's going to be offset you'll see on the federal side by the government reimbursing that so you throw all that into the mix local revenue which is our biggest source of revenue is going down by 3.4 percent in the upcoming year here are the numbers last year it was 37.3 million this year 36 so it's a change of negative 1.2 million but remember we're abating a million so a million of that is because of the abatement and really the rest of it is because of interest going down so that's the local side on the state side we are now moving to tier three
088there's four tiers last year we were tier two which is higher level of funding the state considers us to be a little bit better funded compared to everybody else in the states we move down to tier three that'll give us sixty two thousand dollars of additional funding which on a 40 million dollar budget is not a lot um everything else from the state is being held flat and a note at the bottom the state still owes us 187 000 from last year but a year ago at this time they owed us 260 000 so it's getting slowly better so the state revenue summary 4 million last year 4 million 73 this year so it's it's going up 64 one point six percent then on the federal side so we talked about how uh food service
089is gonna be free for everybody and the reimbursement for the meals that we serve comes from the federal government this time so federal revenue will be up by 300 000 it's offset by the local of negative 200 000 and then also we have um the second round of the esser grants last year we got 300 000 in sr1 this year we're getting 1.3 million in sr2 so that's a million dollar increase that is mostly offset but it's a grant so the money they give us we have to designate to certain things so um even though it's more revenue it will lead to increased spending as well so that's the federal side so the numbers there uh 2.4 million last year in revenue 3.4 this year so it's up by a million dollars and it's entirely
090due to that esser grant increase so putting that all together the revenue from all sources so you can see local is down big state is up a little and federal is up big and all together it's a slight decrease in revenue compared to last year all right so that is the revenue side so on the expense side here's where our money goes and you can see the top two lines as it is true for most school districts are the majority uh salaries and benefits comprise about 70 percent of our budget and then with the rest spread among the things that are listed there so 47.4 million total in expenses and here's how each of those are changed from last year of course the biggest change is salaries generally those were three percent raises for the
091staff and then we have additional staff the majority of which is funded by the esser grant that we talked about the revenue side the expense side a lot of it is here and then also the benefits for those same people so salaries and benefits are up um purchase services and supplies ones up ones down they about offset each other capital as we're winding down the projects the the amount that we have left to spend is decreasing each year and then that other line is where our bond payments come from and we have some bond issues starting to roll off we've been talking about that and we'll see the first part of that this year so bond payments will be lower this year so putting that all in the mix the total expense for the year
092is 47.4 million and it's up just a little bit 175 000 compared to last year so i started with this slide i want to end with it also um the district is in good financial shape 38.6 million as a beginning fund balance um we are going to spend more than we're taking in this year but a lot of that is on purpose uh with the abatement and with construction that we're using the fund balance on purpose so the fund balance as of june 30th next year is projected to be down to 34.7 million and again so it's a 3.9 million deficit when you count everything but then if you take out the one-time things it's 1.4 million still leaves us in good financial shape but the 1.4 is something we're going to have to address
093in future years and i think i think that's it recommended cash fund balance for cook county is roughly 50 percent right so it could be in dollars in our case oops let me uh 20 22 million roughly right a school district is considered generally to be healthy if they have a fund balance that's equal to 50 percent of their revenues and we you can see the beginning fund balance we're at 88 38 million fund balance out of 43 revenue that's 88 percent and even the 34.7 at the bottom is 80 of our revenue so we're we're we're doing well financially that's the other reason why the board's been in a position to be generous about capital about facilities bricks and mortar and the reason why we've got really good and improving physical plants at all
094of our campuses so we we really celebrate the physical of this board and previous boards it's put us in the position to be able to do that i can't wait for you guys to see ferrig and cruz and it doesn't make any sense to take out a loan to use the analogy of a homeowner take out a loan when you have the money in the bank to pay for the home improvements exactly right we also don't want to use those fund balances as an excuse to start um having operational expenses outpace revenue because that's like using your credit card for groceries so no action required on that this is just information next month we'll do the final budget that the board will be asked to vote on and at that time i'll do another shorter
095presentation and go over what has changed if there's any changes between now and then j money and keegan and for the board's information darcy asked me to relocate the regular september meeting to cruz i believe your announcement for that's required as part of the preliminary final budget sequence will need to be updated and reissued and keegan since we're going to be at a different location let's make sure that that the community knows where we're going to be for that regular september meeting let me ask a question going back to transportation so for the parents that the kids who are going to be leaving school later like how soon the parents are going to find out like what students those are because i know a lot of parents count on their middle school child to pick
096up their to get home in time to pick up their grade school child yep i think a letter goes out from each school at the end of this week maybe or next week and it will be in it will be in the letter that goes at the normal time so we're still we're getting close to finalizing all the routes but it will it will go out next week i would say that information okay 7.2 revised policies first read so there was a a good number of these that are being proposed that are on the list of five-year review press does a five-year review of all policies so that no policy ever gets stay on they update the footnotes and the references legal references and some of the terminology that's a large majority of this but
097the policy committee is also recommending five 330 which is a change in the maturity of vacation days for non-union classified staff and what's motivating that recommendation is those that that language is part of the pending esp union negotiations that um you'll be considering a draft of the new contract language it includes these changes in it and this board's always treated non-union and union employees similarly so the policy committee is recommending these changes so that classified staff vacation matures uh similarly whether they're union or non-union the rest are not substantive changes and there's no action on this at this time this is the first month's read and then we'll have action on these next month comments questions okay 8.1 communications do we have any we do not hearing that we do not do i have a
098motion to adjourn i move to adjourn is there a second second discussion secretary calderon casper yes dunlap malloy yes gelato yes lloyd yes barry yes yes we are adjourned [Music] thank you [Music] you