001good evening everyone welcome to the august brunswick county board of education meeting for 2021. we'll begin with a moment of silence and then the pledge of allegiance led by mr bennett please stand those who trespass against us under god indivisible with liberty ladies and gentlemen before we go to the public address i need to say a couple of things everyone here knows all over the place there have been public disruptions to board of education meetings one of the places this occurs is during public address and we have a public address policy in which we have set aside 20 minutes every meeting for the public to express their opinions about items tonight we will have public address with differing opinions and as we all know we have opinions going on about this that and the other
002in which we have a lot of emotions one side or the other we have never had a disruption in a board of education meeting in this county when these folks get up and express their opinion about a subject matter we would appreciate it if you show them the respect that we've always done it may not be what you want to hear but they have a right to say [Music] thank you in advance for that cooperation first person for public address is john hall mr turner mr champ good evening oh hold on miss hall please one second let the green go over thank you this all and the remaining folks are going to speak public address i need to read to you part of policy it says discussions regarding particular individual employees litigation student records or
003other matters which may be required to be kept confidential may not be discussed in the open forum setting the chairman will have the authority or the responsibility to to determine whether matters of discussion may be inappropriate and rule the speaker out of order if necessary presentations would be limited to three minutes per person or three minutes per organization um it'll be three minutes long and at the two and a half minute mark i'll ring this bell to let you know you have 30 seconds but the time is up here on the screen okay and i think that will buzz at the three minute mark so with that uh miss hall you may begin good evening 5200 teachers have signed a petition to continue to teach crt to their students even if they are in a
004state developing legislation to ban the curriculum parents need to know what is going on in the classroom we already have a system for remote learning why not use it for parents to hear what their children are being taught the teachers would turn on their laptops and the parents could listen in teachers would be less likely to teach crt this brings me to my topic parents rights north carolina did not sign the u.s constitution until the bill's rights were added how come we do not have a bill of rights for parents i couldn't find one and other states have them why not us here are some rights parents should have and this is from florida h.b 241. first the legislation finds that it is the fundamental right of a parent to direct the upbringing and care
005of their children the state and any of its political subdivisions or any other governmental entity or any other institution may not infringe on the fundamental rights of a parent to direct the education health care and mental health of his or her minor child without demonstrating that such actions are reasonable and necessary the right to direct the moral or religious training of his or her child the right to access and review all school records relating to his or her minor child the right to make health care decisions a plan for parental participation in schools to improve parent-teacher cooperation a procedure for a parent to learn about his or her minor child's course of study including the source of any supplemental education material procedures for a parent to object to instruction material and other materials used in
006the classroom the right of a parent to opt out of any district level data collection and that is your social emotional screening tool question number one is to find out if the state needs to be involved in the family north carolina health department has no charts for any deaths from kids from 5 to 18 so i'm assuming there are none maybe i'm wrong but they're not putting it on the website so the parent let the parents decide if they want their children to wear masks or not and please everyone here remember that the experts told us 15 days to talk to stop the spread how did that work out thank you [Applause] our next person is chris was that close chris you were close yeah great very good you can tell us how to say
007it the right way aaron basic not too bad not too bad hello members of the board i believe the state house of representatives has recently voted to limit the teaching of critical race theory in north carolina schools and i want to thank those of you who are working to keep crt out of our schools but i believe groups like the american federation of teachers and probably other groups will work to get some version of crt into the schools in the future that's why i want to shed a little more light on what is said about crt versus what crt could be could be in practice time magazine quoted a law professor saying critical race theory ultimately is calling for a society that is egalitarian just and inclusive and in order to get there we need
008to name the barriers to achieving this type of society that may sound quite reasonable the brookings institute wrote that crt does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people again that sounds reassuring that sounds good but but what might crt look like in practice in the classroom i compiled a couple quotes from elementary textbooks to help people understand what their kids may hear if this subject ever does make its way into our schools into our classrooms the following quote is from a book written for kindergarteners and early elementary it's called our skin a first conversation about race it states a long time ago a group of white people made up an idea called race they sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better smarter
009prettier and that they deserve more than everybody else that's one quote direct quote from the book that seems quite contrary to how crt is often portrayed in some media outlets another book titled not my idea a book about whiteness currently taught in at least 30 school districts and geared toward children as young as six shows a contract for white children to sell their soul to the devil and it states that accepting their whiteness will get them stolen land riches special favors and the chance to mess endlessly with the lives of fellow humans of color again that seems quite contrary to how crt is portrayed in a lot of media outlets so again thank you for working to keep crt out of our classrooms and being skeptical to what is sometimes said in the media about
010about this topic and please continue to fight to keep it out in the future [Applause] next is stephanie hall of my comments along with some information to consider about program 19 along with some charts that pertain to coping 19 particularly related to our counties so um i just asked that you take the time uh to look him in and i ask that my comments tonight be included in the record from this evening i'm going to let everyone know that i'm specifically here talking mostly about high school students i'm sorry my children are older um we're facing another school year and a north carolina toolkit that was put out by the state just weeks before our schools are set to open again completely upending how our schools will be allowed to operate and if there is
011anyone that's still under the illusion that the governor has left mask wearing up to the individual districts i encourage you to read the revised toolkit and you will see that's not the case as of last tuesday there are 45 school districts in north carolina that have opted not to follow the state guidelines and two that are going to follow the state guide guidelines partially i'm here to ask why can't we partially adhere to the guidelines how much money has our district spend on air purifying systems for all the schools and buses in the district for touchless water fountains and hand sanitizing stations while my husband and i firmly believe that it should be a parent's decision as to whether or not our children should have to wear a mask all day at the very least
012our children should be allowed to take their masks off once they are seated at their desks mr barger i saw a facebook post recently you were up in raleigh and you were supporting the free the smiles bill when riding a bus changing classrooms or going out to the bathroom if they must wear a mask to help supposedly limit the spread so be it but seated at their desks trying to learn and while outside in the open air please let them take them off after all the so-called science for the last year has been that once you're seated at a table the virus can no longer get you i have written previously about finding a way to live with this virus now all the variants that may follow i'm imploring the school board administration and teachers
013in brunswick county to please make sure this next school year is about the students returning to some sort of normalcy consistency and getting them caught up academically live instruction in classrooms not classrooms with kids glued to chromebooks with other kids at home glued to chromebooks watching videos all day no extended periods of remote learning that only works for a small percentage of students and doesn't work for students with special needs at all let's find a way to meet the huge challenge of getting these kids caught up while having substantial amount of time and patience that it's going to take to get these kids caught up can the school day be about learning and still socializing in spite of masks the virus and the constant barrage of doom and gloom what are we doing to these
014kids more children have died in the past 12 months from suicide than covet 19. i'm sure data will be presented tonight for our county's health department when the statistics on the rising number of cases and hospitalizations are brought up i would ask how many children under the age of 18 are currently hospitalized in brunswick county and after the health department is done will someone from the district office be presenting any statistics on the current state of education in our county schools how many students attended summer school how many failed this year how many high school students dropped out how many students never showed up online or in person [Music] [Applause] next is amber dennison amber's not here caitlyn jackson good evening board members i want to first thank you for allowing me the time to
015speak tonight i'm not one to volunteer for public speaking as it makes me incredibly anxious however when it comes to access to education i'm willing to go outside of my comfort zone i'm here to advocate for creating an environment that allows for the most consistent face-to-face option for students tonight you may choose to make a decision about a potential mass mandate and this decision must be based on the data and the in the current toolkit this is not to dispute our community transmission rates of cobit are incredibly high at the moment vaccination rates among our youth are very low there's also no denying what the toolkit mandates in terms of quarantining the toolkit clearly states that of all students and staff are wearing masks and an individual test positive for covid that the only person
016that potentially may have to quarantine will be that sole individual if you look at the bottom of page 15 of your toolkit you will find that in a mask optional situation though there are various scenarios of who will have to quarantine i do believe that all board members central staff central office staff and most parents here can agree that we have the same common goal of creating an environment that allows for consistent access to face-to-face instruction as we all know this is how children learn best in order to do this we as a county have no choice but to be proactive and choose to mandate mask for all students k-12 and staff i do not suggest this lightly i know this is a sensitive topic but once again to refocus our number one goal must
017be continuous access to in-person education for our students this is not about a political agenda or a personal opinion but simply a realistic view of the consequences of an optional math scenario to me this is simply a priority test do we want our kids to have access to their physical classrooms and teachers do we want our student athletes to have the opportunity to compete do we want to try to get as normal of a school year as possible if so i think you must make the tough decision to mandate mass for k-12 at least for the time being potentially reverting back to plan c for any grade level or school is something we should avoid at all cost i know many of you have discussed an optional mass mandate for high school students but please
018look at the local data vaccination rates for kids ages 12 to 17 was at only one percent in mid-july according to our own health department hypothetically if this rate has risen to even five percent today that still means only about 50 students out of every one thousand would be fully vaccinated based on this and the current high the current high transmission rates i do not think there is sufficient argument against masking high school students when you are making a database decision i know it's incredibly hard to keep our emotions out of out of this at all times as well as our own personal beliefs but i'm asking that you truly consider the consequences of a mass optional situation all of us in this room are on the same team at the end of the day
019we all want what is best for our kids i thank you for your time thank you next is michelle williams thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak tonight my name is michelle williams and my daughter will be a rising kindergartner at belleville elementary school this year at 8 am tomorrow i'm supposed to take her to do her kindergarten assessment but i have great hesitancy sending her to kindergarten in a few weeks and a large contributor of my concern is related to masks in march 2020 we followed every rule to keep our family safe pulled our kids from preschool i worked from home our necessities delivered via various subscription services as an educator myself i spent 18 months somehow managing to teach virtually with a five and a three-year-old at home at least she's
020not starting kindergarten this year i told myself i can be thankful for that we have time for this to pass but it hasn't in fact the latest numbers have shown that the pediatric cases are rising and we've seen locally what happens when there isn't a mass mandate in schools we must learn from their mistake you sent out a parent survey and as someone mentioned at the new hanover county school board meeting it doesn't matter what the parents think this is a public health crisis we need to be listening to the guidance from the cdc it is not a matter of if but when and how much frequency our children will be in school with coveted positive peers the guidance is clear children who have been masked excuse me children who have been exposed but were
021wearing masks do not have to quarantine as long as they are asymptomatic there is currently no remote option if you do not require mass how will you ensure our students do not have another year falling behind academically how will the districts handle quarantining whole classrooms how will you make up for lost instructional time we are not doing everything we can why are we not doing everything we can to ensure our students spend as much time as possible being able to be in school safely i would argue that you as the school board will make the most important decision for our entire community tonight because what you decide will have far greater reaching implications than just what happens at public schools it will impact our businesses that employ parents day cares churches it will impact all
022community members my son goes to a local preschool coastal day school his program was unexpectedly shut down last week for the last weeks of summer due to a coveted exposure another student was positive likely by their older sibling that attends the charter school 14 months of no covet exposures at this preschool but it was brought to its knees i am thankful that the preschool takes this so seriously i was given less than 24 hours to make other child care arrangements the numbers are rising many pandemic and epidemiology experts are predicting we'll be back to virtual learning by november now is the time to be proactive to minimize the ongoing financial psychological and educational impacts this pandemic is having on our community if the goal is to do the best thing for the economic status of
023our county and secure less dependence for social safety nets the mass must be mandated please make the right decision to mandate madison public schools to keep our students in school to help our businesses stay open to keep our communities safe thank you next on the list is francesca slaughter thank you and i'm i'm sorry i did not realize i was on the list to speak so i'd like to thank all of you uh for allowing me to say a few words this evening and i'd just like to start with a few simple questions how many are how many of our children love to do homework how many of our kids complain about certain school rules they don't like to follow you see our children are asked to follow rules and policies they don't necessarily like
024perhaps it's a dress code rule many of these rules are in place because it's for own their own well-being for their health and their safety and yet here we are today in conflict with requiring our children to temporarily wear a mask that weighs less than half an ounce to school to protect their precious health and life and that of those around them we all share the same goal and that's for our children to be in school with as little disruption as possible after all who wants to go back to virtual learning i know my kids don't they like to stay in school they miss their friends our community is currently experiencing the highest rate of the delta variant infection with less than one percent of kids under 17 having received the covid vaccine now though
025school-age children have infection rates higher than adults 50 years and older how do we keep our children teachers and staff healthy and in school with as little disruption as possible the answer is easy we do it by wearing a mask we can learn a lot from schools that have recently opened with a mask optional policy within the first few weeks outbreaks have occurred causing massive disruptions in lying while children have to stay home and quarantine is that what we really want or do we want to keep things as normal as possible keep them in school and learn while staying healthy it's really a no-brainer please don't be the reason why our schools are interrupted why children can't go to extracurricular activities and why games are canceled let's get our kids safely back in school and
026keep them there also kudos to the school board leaders mr barger mr benton and dr oates who took the initiative to meet with local medical professionals from levant for the very best medical guidance just like we don't go to our local plumber for crucial medical advice they went straight to the medical experts regardless of their personal opinion their political affiliation or their stance on mask wearing it tells me that these individuals for them it was vitally important to do the right thing for our children no matter their personal feelings that is true leadership thank you for your time and i'll conclude by urging all of us here tonight to be people of peace kindness goodness and self-control thank you thank you sarah carrico steve gainey david little hello my name is david little thank you
027for allowing me to speak i actually didn't know i was going to speak because they said it was a very long list so i'm not that prepared but i would like to voice my opinion i believe as a parent i should have the right to choose whether i want to put a mask on my child or not and send her to school if everybody places so much faith in these masks then let your child wear a mask but leave my child alone that's all i'm asking i'm so we have got to get back to some type of normality for our kids life this is and the data is conflicting everywhere you look there's conflicting data there are plenty of doctors and nurses that say that these masks cause more harm than they do good we
028have upper respiratory infections we have children breaking out with acne on their face because of these masks we have kids that don't want to come to school because of these masks and basically they feel like it's torture having to sit there all day and rebreathe the same air as parents we should have the right to choose whether or not our kids wear a mask or not we should have a right to choose whether we want them to have a vaccine or not and it's time for the government to get out of our business and allow the families to raise their kids once again i am also i'm a father i'm a pastor i'm a business owner and the bible teaches that that jesus christ gives us salvation to set us free and freedom comes from
029christ jesus now we have to put freedom back in our school system we have to put freedom back in our communities and our nation once again and that starts by relationship with christ jesus and it also starts with parents having responsibilities to raise their kids the way they want it so i'm asking this local school board to help facilitate freedom back in this community thank you [Applause] okay we're down to the board salutes mr seaman i come bearing a shout out to one of our leaders county schools is full of of course what we describe as lifelong learners the idea that we can be both the teacher and the student our entire life there is a unique professional development program that helps principals the leaders of our schools improve their skills to effectively lead the
030schools as we adapt to uh what is an ever-changing environment we are feeling first-hand it is called the distinguished leadership in practice program and a graduate is in our presence this evening this is a year-long program so our leaders are juggling the normal responsibilities plus stepping up to to learn some additional uh leadership skills as well so ladies and gentlemen if you will join me in welcoming dr jonathan deberry principal of town creek middle school to the podium for a second come on up here sir started his principalship right in the start of pandemicville dr jonathan deberry principal of the town creek middle school home of the coyotes by the way recently completed this leadership and practice program a year-long program for practicing school principles and is designed and provided by the north carolina principals
031and assistant principals association we wanted to bring him in front of you just to offer a certificate of appreciation and also uh just give uh some much uh much deserving respect and applause for you sir come up here real quick tell us a little bit about the experience to the board to the superintendent to the community to the cabinet the experience for me allowed me to gain some feedback on how we practice administration duties in north carolina it gave us an opportunity to meet with different principals across the state and share your experiences whether it was in elementary school middle school or the high school so i'm thankful and i'm blessed and humbled to be able to stand in front of you bringing this knowledge back to our students here in brazil county schools congratulations
032dr davier you're still up i believe yeah i would love to uh to wrap up with some some stats as we have wrapped up summer school we've wrapped up the summer meals program just to kind of give you the nuts and bolts of of how it all went down child nutrition has successfully completed the 20 21 22 summer meals program for any child who needed breakfast or lunch throughout the summer it started june 7th it wrapped up last week in all about 64 500 meals were given out to uh to brunswick county students free of charge no questions asked just show up say you need something and get it to you then in transportation this is for the summer uh summer school program the summer learning program we had 53 buses running every day they
033averaged about 5300 to 5 300 miles a day we had 1370 students signed up for the school transportation program so almost 1400 riding the bus and then those of course uh who were dropped off and then speaking of summer school uh at last check that number may be up from now but 899 high school credits were recovered over the summer months so a huge congratulations to the students for getting uh getting those credits coming in and putting that time into getting the credits recovered a big thank you to all the educators who came in during the summer months to get it done and a huge thank you to all the staff who worked our summer school locations in elementary middle and high school to help keep all these young minds fresh and ready for this
034upcoming school year thank you sir ladies and gentlemen of the board we're down to approval of the meeting agenda everyone has a copy of the agenda there's any corrections mr chairman i'd like to remove action item number two as our guest from the board of elections isn't able to attend action number two calendar the calendar yes sir any other items into approval but the change second we might have a motion by mr barger to approve the agenda with the change mr robertson seconds all in favor say aye we're down to the amen the minutes of the special call meeting for the superintendent's evaluation a regular meeting in july and then the committee meetings uh july 20th everyone has a copy you have a motion to approve mr benton makes a motion to approve mr barger
035seconds all in favor say aye we have a number of items on consent that's previously been discussed and we have a motion to approve second mr barger makes a motion to approve mr robinson seconds all in favor say aye aye those items are approved we're down to action items we have an appointment up at this point for the board of trustees for brunswick community college and at this time i'd like to move to appoint ms ellen milligan to that spot so we have a motion to approve ellen milligan to the brunswick county board of trustees second by mr barber any discussion to say i'm very excited about that position with ms milligan she's served up here for a long time and she understands our needs and our relationships between the college and what we now
036need out of the college to feed our students we're we're we're doing uh great things at the coast but the kids have a lot of uh difficulty sliding over to bcc because their programs don't align properly with us so i think ms milligan is the right person to uh know what needs to be done over there to help us out any other discussion i think it's important to recognize all the people that put in for that mr chairman we have quite a few uh applications for it and uh all very qualified people but i think ms milligan is uniquely qualified in the position the discussion completed uh in motion in a second all in favor for miss milligan to take that spot please say aye aye so mr milligan is assigned to that spot for
037to represent the board of education we're at the update from dr oates from the toolkit all right board members what i'm going to do briefly is just to kind of take you through some information that we've gained since the last time we met just to give you a timeline very quickly you see in july 9th uh july 19th of this year uh american academy of pediatrics released updated guidance for schools that included universal masking that last sentence there all students two years and older and school staff were should wear a mask that was their recommendation and two days later that's when the state came out with the updated toolkit again it was basically saying the students in k through 8 should require all children to wear masking doors regardless of the vaccination status and then
038students with in 9-12 should ensure that anyone who isn't fully vaccinated including students wear a mask indoors and then just six days later the cdc updated their guidance to include recommendations for universal masking so that's just a quick timeline of what took place as we i'm sure we're all aware the overarching goal for us in brunswick county schools from the survey data that we sent out we learned that parents preferred face-to-face learning over remote learning preliminary student data shows that we know educational outcomes are better in a face-to-face setting and last year's quarantines and school closures disrupted learning and parents schedules so our overarching goal is at the bottom and that is to keep students in school and in front of their teachers for optimal learning that's the overarching goal for everything that we're trying
039to do as you are aware the survey that was sent out to parents and staff regarding their opinions on masking it was opened on july 26 and closed on august 2nd we had 3 237 responses for the question of the preference for the 28 20 21 22 school year this was from the parents 68.3 percent said that face covering should not be required inside for k-12 regarding parent guardian and staff choice um said that face coverings should be required inside for k-12 and then 7.4 required said face covering should be required inside all elementary schools for all students and unvaccinated staff so those are the results for that particular question and then as far as staff was concerned we had 905 responses to the questions and 60 of our staff came back with face covering
040should not be required inside the k-12 schools 25.2 percent came back with requiring all k-12 schools to wear face coverings and 14.8 of our staff require face covering should be required in all elementary schools for all students and unvaccinated staff so that's the information i wanted to make sure that the public was given that information the results of those surveys and you had that information as well since that did stay out for almost uh almost a week what i would like to do um at this particular time is have i see mr chris harrelson is here and he has some of his team members from the brunswick county health department so i will give them an opportunity to give us a lay of the land so to speak as it pertains to um coven dr
041was that survey secure as in one response per student or were these open that anybody could respond as long as they had the duplication was with the duplication was as limited as we could possibly make it under these circumstances so there may be a bit of duplication but we have okay thank you mr chairman board members superintendent for allowing me to come and speak to you tonight and give you uh an overview of covet 19 in brunswick county and also a little bit about the strong schools toolkit and cdc guidance for schools like the majority of counties in north carolina brunswick county has been experiencing an increase in our positive case rate since late june brunswick has a total of 10 830 positive cases 165 deaths 1054 active cases and 9 611 resolved cases we
042have added 1407 cases since the independence day weekend averaging 40 cases per day we have had 1057 cases in the last two weeks which is an average of 76 cases a day over the weekend we had 370 cases and two deaths come in this is the highest our case rate has been since february our coveted positivity rate is clearly going up also on the rise are the number of hospitalizations the number of deaths and the number of covet outbreaks according to the north carolina department of health and human services the highly contagious delta variant may account for approximately 80 percent of all copic 19 infections in north carolina the delta variant is nearly twice as contagious as previous variants and may cause more severe illness in unvaccinated persons the best way to protect yourself from
043covet 19 including the delta variant is to get vaccinated individuals have a lower risk of hospitalization and death and vaccination slows community spread there are many different providers and pharmacies in brunswick county that offer copit 19 vaccine including brunswick county health services currently 55 percent of brunswick county residents have received at least one dose of vaccine and 52 percent are fully vaccinated the north carolina department of health and human services has also issued guidance for the control of covet 19 in schools in the strong schools nc public health toolkit the toolkit is based on cdc guidance and provides schools and local health departments with cobit 19 prevention strategies as well as control measures such as isolation and quarantine the toolkit strongly recommends that all students and staff in schools k through 12 wear face coverings
044indoors wearing a face covering along with physical distancing hand hygiene and other measures is part of a layered mitigation strategy that helps to control covid19 infections in schools and shortens quarantine periods for example students who are not fully vaccinated do not need to quarantine if after a close contact in a classroom or other school setting masks were being worn appropriately by both the person with copic 19 and the potentially exposed person if students are not wearing face coverings the toolkit specifies a quarantine period of up to 14 days for unvaccinated persons in the event of a close contact with someone with a case of covet 19. however the toolkit also specifies that students may complete a 10-day quarantine if the student is not presenting symptoms of covert 19 after daily at-home monitoring additionally students may
045complete seven days of quarantine if they report no symptoms during daily at home monitoring and the individual has received results of a negative antigen or pcr test on a test taken no earlier than day five of their quarantine either shortened quarantine period shall require the use of a mask upon returning to school in north carolina the local health director determines the quarantine protocols for positive covet 19 cases based on state and federal guidance in the event a student receives a positive result brunswick county health services officials will reach out to them to inform them of the necessary quarantine requirements they must take so in conclusion we at brunswick county health services support the board of education's efforts to reinstate in-school learning in a safe environment by using the control measures recommended by ncdhhs and cdc
046we can minimize the threat of coping 19 infections in schools reduce the time students spend in quarantine and keep disruptions to schools and families to a minimum thank you for your time and thank you for being a valued partner to brunswick county health services [Music] oh [Music] we will take a five minute recess you guys need to either shut up or leave this ask him to leave [Music] [Applause] hold on a minute [Music] this is not an open meeting ask them to leave [Music] so that's [Music] please what they're saying the cdc has changed their guidelines so much [Music] we're going to take a five-minute recess and clear the room um you come on only during the public address are you allowed to address the board directly if it's not you can do it via
047email phone call every one of us has everything posted online i mean i've responded over over 700 emails this week no i said you were fine i said you were fine yeah i never went straight this lady this lady didn't speak out either we understand that it's just there to make everybody believe that it didn't be disruptive it's not fair he couldn't finish his presentation which is the problem we have to you know we didn't get to discussion of anything yet we still had questions with him all right call me meeting back to order anybody i have questions for the uh yeah sarah no i've already forgotten your name chris harrelson director for brunswick county yes okay and you work for mr stanley yes directly for mr stanley and your job is to um make
048public health recommendations and decisions as far as even outside the pandemic correct you guys do vaccinations health services during the during the year the responsibility of your agency is to provide public health guidance is that correct that's where these are guidance from typically um cdc and the north carolina department of health and human services okay and within the normal duties of your job you work with them regularly is that correct yes now you're supervising folks over your department is the county commissioner is that correct that's correct who's the liaison to the help board who's the county commissioner miss pat socks past sites is okay is any way into decision making at all or the stuff that you tell us um a lot of times they do yes sir say that again they do a lot
049of times they do weigh in on it um in this particular case um we have not had time to consult with our advisory board but that board's not it's not the kind of question of doctors and correct and so on correct yes it's the former board of health that's now the advisory board for health and human services right so when you make a a decision you release the decision to us and to the community is that that's in conjunction with them you guys come to an agreement of some sort and how does that work yes a lot of times we'll bring things before the advisory board and then they will recommend to the county commissioners okay you know guys as we're talking about the mass stuff here miss moffitt and i worked quite a bit
050last year to bring these kids back to school didn't we yes um and i want to keep them in school this year do you agree with that of course yeah um and what scares me is this bottom part of this page we all know virtual learning hurt our kids last year okay now some people had to be in person and let me be fair some people did good on virtual learning okay um so i don't want to put kids back in virtual learning who shouldn't be there his parents don't want them to be there right and you've already seen it i believe uh mr stephanie hall supported her document here as well the bottom of page 15 that talks about i'm going to summarize it here the bottom page 15 that talks about uh the
051closed contacts if they're all masked only the positive person or the person who's symptomatic has to quarantine is that correct that's correct so if everybody this table is wearing a mask okay mr lemon test positive for prototyping he's the only one who has the quarantine if we're all uh symptom-free right yes that that is correct i mean this this guidance is for students in schools i'm saying we're students right yeah yeah if you're students yes okay now the same situation miss moffett isn't wearing a mask mr lemon's not working that's what we are they would have to quarantine is that correct yes correct okay so to keep the most amount of kids in school is going to be to unfortunately put a mask on um that's that's the interpretation that i have yes sir okay
052would that be the interpretation of your agency yes okay i hate wearing this thing as much as anybody else does okay i'm sweating over here i want one to get back to me from it my kids hate it they complain about it every day but i want to keep these kids in school guys you know all of last year we fought over and over and over you know and miss mama you and i were called davis over and over again i wanted his kids to get back in school we finally got him back to school i want to keep on there i want to make up the gaps that we have from last year for the personal learning you know i recall the conversation i have mr bill moore uh a couple days ago former
053high school principal and he said to me we can't put maths on the kids i don't want to do it either but i said let me ask you a question we're trying to make up the gaps from virtual learning what does that make up those gaps them being a classroom with a mascot or them being back at home on virtual learning he said well the mask don't work you know what i gotta be honest you can find anything you want to online right now you can find literally an article of information for or against anything in this world so i don't think anybody really knows what to believe anymore but he agreed with me right against the mass he agreed with you the best way to make up those gaps in learning from last year
054is to be in the classroom now does the masculine fear interfere i think it does but they're going to amend those gaps much more in the classroom with a mask on than they are okay and i want to make sure that we're keeping these kids in the classroom so i thank you for coming back today i know this is a very tense issue for you it is for us nobody wants to do this this is a hard decision um no matter what you do a lot of people are gonna be mad some people are gonna be happy but the end of the day we gotta keep these kids in school guys that's all i've got i had a couple i had a question um were you on board last like februaryish when you were yes
055so we were receiving last school year we received recommendations from the health department right pretty regularly we have a cluster here you need to close down this grade level to school whatever all of a sudden around the end of february we got a call from the health department telling us that those recommendations were done and you were withdrawing them all um that came to our to us through the superintendent the next day we received a letter from the health department reinstating a limited partnership basically and since then if i'm not mistaken we have not received any recommendations for anything from the health department would that be correct that's definitely great so something fundamentally changed in the system on february 28th i think it is when this happened do you know what happened on that date
056and why they would drew recommendations from us um i do not but if you don't mind i will call upon my team my covet team i'm here they work with it every day down in the trenches and they may have some insight do you guys are you aware of anything that happened back in february that was we shut down south brunswick high school and um some of the some of the board members received calls from a county commissioner and then two hours later our superintendent receives marching orders from the health department that all recommendations are being pulled all closure recommendations are being pulled and we are wondering we of course asked for writing we got this typed letter the next day changing our relationship with the health department and this is the first time we've
057had a health department member before the board since but you know that leaves us the question because you guys are giving us the advice on what we're supposed to do we got a new change of relationship with you guys and all of a sudden recommendations have not occurred and you know and now we're in months and we've had other clusters we've had other infections in the schools until the end of the school year nothing fundamentally has changed but our relationship with you guys has and that's that's concerning to me i mean i'm worried about and that's and we we're leaning on you guys as our our medical side and i mean i appreciate you from the medical side and that you know and that's and that means a lot to us because normally we're that's
058not who we deal with but i was just curious on how that happened because it worries me you know one would the day before you guys recommended closing the school the next day you're withdrawing recommendations and why we would get a withdrawal of recommendations it's something we would we we've asked for but we've not received that clarification on why that ever happened okay and um i would just didn't like you said you don't know why so that's fine we'll we'll throw up mr stanley i'll be glad to do some research if you could please that would be helpful um chairman okay to speak sure okay mr harrelson yes sir thank you for coming mr harrison and you know i apologize for this turning real ugly um and i know you're getting some very pointed questions
059and i know you're an employee of the health department and and and i'll answer mr ben's question it was political in nature and i know you probably won't be able to get to the root of that as easily as it would appear to be and i think we as a board understand what happened however i just have a couple of things first of all this meeting got to where i didn't want to see it go the last thing i wanted to see was folks have to be cleared from the room but things did happen but i have studied this tonight and in the past several days and two six weeks ago i too along with mr barger mr miss moffatt i didn't want to see masks back i wanted to unmask everybody get them back
060into schools and go from there i hate the mask i don't want to be wearing one tonight i don't want to see my family wearing them i've got family and friends on both sides of the issue but based on the latest statistics i believe just a few days ago and you probably got this information as well our local hospital is a 74 bed acute care facility and it was at capacity as of thursday and over 30 percent was covered quite alarming i also understand that new hanover hospital is quite packed with covent patients and i'm sure you keep up with statistics and trends this afternoon or this morning sometime around eight o'clock i learned that in the state of louisiana the delta variant is now impacting pediatrics at an alarming rate the critical care facilities
061are at max with pediatric patients from age 10 to teenage in the state of louisiana and this ain't hearsay statistics this ain't from the cdc this is factual information coming out of the hospital is it okay to say that's true information have you heard that this morning yes so it's a fair assumption and i'm not trying to sound like an attorney here but it's a fair assumption that we're learning in the past few days and probably the american academy of pediatrics i'm a medical person so that's who i look at a lot i try to reduce my exposure to the political component of this yeah the cdc is sometimes biased and other information is sometimes biased but unfortunately that that's who we have to rely on as professionals right that's all we've got and from
062a liability perspective i'm sure mr greene would agree that's really what we've got to go on because we're not immune from civil action when we negligently follow the direction of the rumor control builder right but based on what you've said and based on my interpretation of the toolkit if we fail to mask our students if let me back back up in this the toolkit guidance and in the administrative codification it clearly states that the local school board is required to work with the health department we are required pretty much to take your advice yeah i mean i think there's some wording in there it says the school district shall cooperate with their health department in determining or making a decision that's pretty clear and i would be pretty much an idiot to say health department
063i'm done with you don't want to hear from you that would be pretty stupid i think you have a master's degree in public health i believe i've looked at your credentials i've done studying tonight prior to tonight i know what everybody's credentials are their roles are who's what and it would be stupid of me i have a degree in peer medicine or i'm a paramedic credentialed individual pretty stupid for me to sit here and say i'm gonna dis discount what you have to say but basically what i've heard tonight if i discount what you had to say and say students you're not going to wear a mask you're going to go to school you're going to turn around if there's been an exposure we potentially are going to shut the entire school system down and
064you're going to enforce that because i believe you not you individually but i believe we saw enforcement action earlier last week and you're going to enforce that yeah we we have to right now it don't matter if we're brunswick county schools or charter school or for kids only so you're gonna shut us down we could get an entire school district shut down potentially well we we steer away from shutting schools down we think that well we don't like that decision we certainly must quarantine and isolate right and take those control measures and give recommendations to you guys um for to give you guidance yeah shutting down's an ugly word yeah it really is it really is but i'm old-fashioned that that's just the way it is it could lead to that uh we might not
065want to call it that but we've got to call it what it is but that's just where it's at and so you know i really don't know what else to say i hate the mask i don't like them i'd like to take it off tonight and throw it away i know miss miss muffet or who else may have some more prepared statements but i am not qualified nor will i risk a child's life tonight i'm gonna go to bed and sleep tonight personally so that's just the way i feel and i hate we are where we're at tonight but i'm gonna use some common sense here and the last time i checked my salary wasn't from the board of education i volunteered for this gig and i'm not shouting at you i'm just putting it
066on record i'm doing the very best i can to be here and that's what i intend to do what's the vaccination rate of our high school students in the county uh let's see um the percent of 12 to 17 year olds that have been vaccinated is five percent five percent five percent steve average is over 50 is it not um i i don't know five percent of our kids are vaccinated in high school yeah well he's a 12 this is a middle school hospital okay yes from 12 to 17 year old there are 1720 individuals that are vaccinated so not even a high school worth of kids okay what's the hospitalization rate of a child below 18. um we are not aware of any hospitalizations for a child under 18 or any deaths yeah right
067currently gotcha not in brunswick county you know mr robinson said we sat at our committee meeting before my trip to raleigh meet with representative miller and i went up there to work all through the spots so this hall is exactly right but since that point this document came out the toolkit age 15 the infamous page 15 everybody keeps relating to and i was forced to change my mind if i made an emotional response just as a parent because my kids do go to brunswick kind of school it would probably be an aquarium but we are tasked with making policy for twelve thousand plus students here it's not just my kids not just miss marcus kids not just mr benton students it's for everybody's kids and if the overwhelming goal is to keep them in school
068i had to change my position i'm man enough to admit that and anybody that was sitting in this room wants their kids to stay in school unfortunately these stupid maps have to be worn and i feel for i don't think everybody should have turned around in the room i still didn't mr london i said that to miss muffet i think the ones who were out of blind should have been taken out of the ring so we could have orderly meeting and discuss this with you i don't like putting the sheriff's deputies in this position but we have to have an orderly meeting if everybody sit here and let us have discussion we can have a special efforts now i'll stay here all night if i had to talk to him but we can't do the
069business of the board as well as shouting and yelling i wish the people who weren't doing i could have stayed at the end of the day we need to do business as professionals and as adults because these kids are watching guys what's the recommendation of dr rose i have something i want to read yes ma'am for him just to say it um i don't agree with the people that were thrown out of the room who did not who are not disruptive this is america we have freedom of speech and they were not being disruptive i don't know why they had to leave but this is what i'm going to say about masking masking is a delicate topic it's polarizing and i understand that these are tough times that we live in and there has never
070been a more difficult time to be a school board member i think you guys would all agree with that i have two graduates of south brunswick high school and a rising sophomore and i'm grateful to all faculty and staff who have endured the last 18 months my desire like you guys is for all students to receive a sound quality education but my position would be to make mask optional it should be the choice of the parents students and staff whether or not to wear a mask mask or debatable one study will find that they reduce the spread of covid19 and one study will find that they did not help protect anyone one doctor will say yes to the mask and one doctor will say no to them i personally reached out to a chromologist which
071is a physician who specializes in the respiratory system and i asked for professional assessment regarding mask and i quote cloth and or surgical masks do not reduce the spread of an aerosol particle virus such as covid19 in fact cloth and or surgical mask are full of moisture harboring germs such as strep meningitis e coli tuberculosis and staph in quote therefore i would vote to make masks optional all of those who prefer to wear a mask or a face shield can choose to do so that's the operative word those who choose to not wear a mask should also have that option dr oates i commend you for doing a wonderful job in providing multiple opportunities for all faculty and staff to be vaccinated children over the age of 12 have also had the opportunity to become
072vaccinated the level of fear has paralyzed so many and covent will mutate and there will be variants from now on we are so afraid of becoming infected and dying that we can't get busy living at the end of the day the state nor a governing body of any kind has the right to tell a parent how to make medical decisions regarding their children i believe in freedom of choice and the constitutional rights of all citizens all americans have the right to medical autonomy and the right to make choices for themselves and their families and that's my statement other questions for the health department no no no no not me all right thank you sir thank you very much thank you mr harrison dr oakes board members at our last board meeting when when asked what
073i recommended regarding masking my response similar to yours it was to allow parents to choose my feeling at that time was based on the seemingly decreasing rates of transmission as i felt that we were seeing the light at the end of the covet tunnel however a month little over a month later a great deal has changed and based on the information that i and some of you have received from my medical experts is my recommendation to require mask in all of our schools for students and staff student and staff and also recommend that we revisit this requirement each month as we stay closely connected to the medical professionals for guidance again this is a recommendation that you can accept reject or modify mr zachary mr chairman mr chairman okay uh dr h could you just
074cite your resources and i understand this my father was making a comment as i did we cited some of our um uh resources which mine were outside of the i don't got specific decided i spoke with a physician at duke university in person i met uh my list could go on but could you just cite that resource information in addition to the health department starting of course first with the toolkit yes of course our health department and also in a very lengthy conversation with the health officials in nova health okay that was with i did not get attend that meeting but that was with multiple staff with at least two if not three physicians potentially yes epidemiologists infection control folks guessing i feel for miss mom what missed my bro because literally guys you can
075find something forward against this and every every time you absolutely i don't disagree with anything anybody in the audience was saying um but at the end of the day i want to keep these kids in school and the stuff coming from the state from the governor tells us if we want to keep them in school they need to have a mask on that's what i'm doing i think this is i think it's clear the tool kit was set up in a way to tie in our hands as the speaker said it wasn't about us masking or not they're giving you the choice the problem is you're going to end up with 25 of your kids on quarantine immediately i mean just look at one child on the bus in the middle with 72 kids we're
076gonna lose at least half the bus because there's three kids to a c this was set up to make us fail and have to mask or make the infection so or quarantine at least so prevalent that we basically were running virtual academies anyway and i mean and that's my problem and this comes down to sports as well i'm really disappointed we only have five percent of our high school students vaccinate i mean if they if we had a higher rate than that we wouldn't have any sports go down i mean yes quarantines are going to happen but they're exempt if they're vaccinated and that's that's really sad for me because last year it was a tough year for sports people in sports like all these teams these kids work so hard and then they have
077one player on the team go out and somehow get the covet and now the whole team's in quarantine they're missing games it can't be rescheduled this is a this is a tough situation the only way i see it with the way the current toolkit is structured is them is to mask at this point and the the only question i have is what to do with the staff members who are vaccinated because the double mask if you will the double party mask requirement does not apply to adults so it does not matter if they're is that correct health department it does not matter whether they are double master or not they're if they're exposed to a student they're still going to quarantine unless they're vaccinated so the there is no benefit for putting the mask on
078our vaccinated staff i only see and i see a negative on that as they the students can't see their face um while they're teaching and i mean and that's where my only difference from dr rhodes's recommendation would be at this time i mean i'd like to revisit this in 30 days as well after you know we get more ongoing whatever we see fit to we can always review this at any meeting of course but i'd just like to uh i'd like to make a motion follow dr road's recommendations with a small change of allowing our vaccinated staff to be unmasked while teaching i just like to add to you mr bender if you could amend it for me actually to allow sports uh while the athletes are playing um indoors um they don't need to
079mask well so volleyball players don't need to ask while they're on the court i would i would totally amend my yeah so just for sports if it could be amended so that the um the athletes that are on the court playing or when they're running around and stuff like that we don't end up running around with these masks on this is that's kind of yeah in accordance of course with the high school athletic association make sure they uh keep their eligibility i just don't want us to be in conflict with them if they require masks i don't want to disqualify our students from being able to play or any eligibility issues that's my high school athletes what is your opinion of that oh i don't think a child should be playing in a mask at
080all running i mean my child was in physical therapy this summer and i think i reached out to david joe was almost hypoxic because she was riding the bike for her knee and yes and her um oxygen level fell to 91. because shallow mask yeah so anybody doing the strenuous activity however doctor that needs to be written an outdoor of course will be examined yeah outdoors exempt but you know i don't want people on a basketball court volleyball wearing a mask while they're playing i agree with that motion took me a second i'll second it with that eventually any other discussion all in favor say aye i'm opposed are we voting for like masking schools that we're voting on where are we voting yeah well i'm i'm gonna be opposed because i'm gonna say optional
081but i i know i'm outvoted so fair enough next thing on the agenda is discussion announcements today was the first day back from staff teachers we have a great deal of professional development that's taking place across the county from this point on it was good to be able to greet a room full of beginning teachers beginning to the first time teaching about 30 folks we had in there this morning and was able to just greet them and they were eager to begin and i think the ones that we have gotten will do a great job for brunswick county schools i will be canvassing the county dropping into different meetings but i just want to let you know that the teachers are back the staff was back and everybody's ready to get back to business and
082we have 30 new there were 30 in that classroom and that uh this morning thank you sir our motion to uh go to the closed session secondly all right