Board of Education Meeting - August 9, 2021

001[Music] called a meeting of the Cleveland County Board of Education for August 9 2021 in the order continue on let's pray father we thank you for today Lord we thank you for all that you have allowed us to do today and for the life that you've given us today and just for this opportunity that we have tonight to be together Lord we know that if we seek you you will give us wisdom father I pray for wisdom for our school board tonight Lord I pray for clarity God I pray that you would just Rule and Reign tonight Lord I Thank you for everything the school board does for our community and God for the way that you use them and I pray you just guide them guide us all as we're gathered here tonight father

002we love you and we just thank you for allowing us to know you it's in Jesus name we pray amen amen thank you next we have Pledge of Allegiance Mr Hunt yeah we have some special recognition tonight uh Mr Funderburk I believe you're first thank you chair McQueen members of the board Dr Fisher just want to take a look around make sure okay um I'd like to ask the principal of Kings Mountain High School to come down Dr Dustin Moorhead each uh each year the Cleveland County Board of Education recognizes the high school that has the highest cumulative unweighted GPA for all of its Varsity student athletes several years ago this award was named the Jim Tate the coach Jim Taylor award in honor of the legendaries Shelby High football coach and athletic director coach

003Jim Taylor and Coach Taylor's role as football coach and athletic director he strongly emphasized the role of academics to his players and coaches while serving as the county athletic director coach Taylor began the role of recognizing our student athletes for their academic excellence we are extremely honored that coach Taylor has done this um the 2020-2021 winner of the coach Jim Taylor Award with an athletic GPA of 3.41 is Kings Mountain High School congratulations to the students teachers and coaches at Kings Mountain High and here tonight as I said earlier to receive this special award is the principal at Kings Mountain High School Dr Dustin Moorhead again congratulations to all the Mountaineer student athletes coaches School staff for their focus on academics and emphasize and emphasis on student the student and student athlete foreign [Applause] coach

004Taylor Made it tonight uh guys [Applause] werewolf [Applause] I thought you wanted coach you ready for a quick peek here we are everybody in the end one two three one more let me slider [Applause] and for our next recognition we have Miss Wendy Finch chairman Queen members of the board Dr Fisher thank you for the opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of one of our own Terry Putnam Terry was recently selected as the North Carolina one community in recovery Champion award recipient for the Central North Carolina region she was honored at the 2021 North Carolina one community in recovery Conference held in June recovery Champion awards are given to individuals who have dedicated their talents to successfully promoting mental health and substance use recovery Terry currently serves as a project activate program director for ccs project

005activate serves to address the three tiers of mental health promotion prevention and intervention through a Continuum of Education Universal screening and appropriate services and supports for all students in response to varying levels of need as the Cleveland County Schools project activate director Terry promotes system-wide oriented change through multi-tiered system of support services to ensure that all students have access to programs and services that are matched to their individual needs and strengths as a Project Director she is working to develop sustainable strategies that can be scaled Statewide to enhance mental health supports and services within schools Terry also serves as the regional coordinator for the Southwest Regional network of the North Carolina School mental health initiative which covers 10 counties Terry has worked with ccs for more than 15 years serving in a variety of roles

006including District positive behavior intervention and support coordinator and Lead Behavior liaison and mental health coordinator we are very fortunate to have Terry as part of our team at Cleveland County Schools and we want to express our sincere congratulations to Terry for receiving this award foreign [Applause] thank you now we'd like to recognize any guests that we may have this evening do we have any principles or assistant principles Mr Moorhead anyone else do we have any teachers assistants with us this evening how about any teachers or ncae representative thank you for being here any elected officials I didn't see any and I'm going to include tonight if you're a parent of a student in Cleveland County Schools if you just raise your hand or stand okay thank you for being here next on the agenda is

007adoption of the agenda what's the pleasure of the board second motion by Mr Fitch second by Mr Blanton any questions or discussion on the agenda those in favor if you'd raise your hand and that motion passes non-zero all right next item is public participation we have six total signed up that puts us just over our 15 minutes if there's no objection I'll extend the time so everyone can speak alrighty our first speaker is Amy Steele [Applause] Mr chairman and members of the board a stand before you tonight is a concerned resident parent and voter of Cleveland County in full disclosure I'm also a 22-year veteran of healthcare delivery you may recall receiving a letter from me last week that I hope you've taken time to read in the interest of time I will provide you

008with updated information for your consideration covet cases are on the rise once again across the country including Cleveland County on Friday August 6th the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported that Cleveland County had 312 new cases in the previous seven days and 58 new cases just on August 5th this all translates to a documented rise in the rate of new coveted cases daily and it's getting worse better on August 4th Duke University School of Medicine professors and co-chairs of the ABC science collaborative warned that the 44 school districts that have decided to make masks optional may be flying blind as the Delta variant surges as a result several dozen children could die they said and even after Governor Cooper ended the Statewide mask mandate he is urging districts to mandate mask wearing

009in schools updated on August 4th the CDC recommends the following with regards to K-12 schools students benefit from in-person learning and safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall of 2021 is a priority due to circulating and highly contagious Delta variant the CDC recommends Universal indoor masking by all students staff teachers and visitors to K-12 schools regardless of their vaccination status and many schools serve children under the age of 12 who are not eligible for vaccination at this time therefore this guidance emphasizes implementing layered prevention strategies to protect students teachers staff visitors and other members of households households and to support in-person learning every year our children are forced to take part in fire drills for fires that may never start they practice tornado drills for storms that may never come and they practice active

010shooter drills for domestic Terrors that we pray never arrive if we do all these things to provide Safety and Security for our children then why would we not take all necessary precautions to prevent the spread of covet 19. in the Delta variant which aren't what ifs or possibilities but rather a clear and present danger that which we must defend our children from the death of one child in Cleveland County due to covet is too many especially considering we have the means to prevent it your Charter is clear the second goal of this board is clearly stated on your own website help these students in safe orderly and caring schools I encourage you to review the goals of this board and reconsider your vote on making masks mandatory in our Cleveland County Schools thank you thank

011you our second speaker is Miss Nanette leonhardt [Applause] I was told nobody could hear me so I'm going to pull that mic down to maybe everybody can hear me and sometimes I can hear you guys too so anyway I just need to hear you guys too so I know that the CDC out of Atlanta is not even recommending masks for their employees I don't know about vaccinations but I'm here talking about transformative social emotional learning AKA critical race Theory it is being taught in Cleveland County Schools so what the words will the left use to Rebrand critical race Theory transformative social emotional learning when you see the words like equity and Justice that's pretty much where a giveaway social and emotional learning now being branded as transformative social and emotional learning being taught right here

012in Cleveland County Schools has actually been around for a while having been championed by the pro-lift Nova Foundation who are very pro-crt the Federalist article how social emotional learning became another vehicle for anti-white racism in schools reported on how SEL becoming CR2 2.0 and warns parents accordingly SEL is CRT under a new name a game well played by the left parents beware on the off chance that CRT is not successfully rebranded as SEO they have to call it something else I suggest that parents be on the lookout for the following terms more often not they leave back to CRT or that type of thinking of course not in every instance so judge carefully listen to the words social justice Justice oriented equity diversity and inclusion systemic racism white privilege white supremacy white fragility these are

013just some inclusive underrepresented under represented I have had meetings to private meetings with some of you basically I've been told oh no crt's not being taught in Cleveland County Schools I digressed it is I'm ashamed of it and I really want you guys to give the money back that's all you have to do give it back and remove CRT from Cleveland County Schools Miss lynnhardt I have a question do you have any lesson plans any copies of any curricula or anything that shows CRT being being taught in Cleveland County Schools CRT are you asking about CRT you won't find CRT in Cleveland County Schools you will find transformative social emotional learning but I'm asking do you have any paperwork or any evidence that equates SEL to CRT as it relates to Cleveland County Schools as

014it relates to Cleveland County Schools well all I know is I do research and all of you know that you have received my email August 3rd on this very subject all the links are there but there was no there was nothing that applied to Cleveland County Schools or showed anything about CRT in Cleveland County Schools well let me ask you a question did you guys get funding from the federal government and then North Carolina passed it on down here the Cleveland County Schools if you have any evidence of that being taught in Cleveland County Schools I'd appreciate a copy and then we can maybe Euphoria request is in order but I don't want to be sued by the teachers union like they're doing up in Rhode Island so all right thank you thank you [Applause]

015our third speaker is Dr Katie border members of the Board of Education my name is Dr Katie borders I am a parent physician Community member and proud alumna of Cleveland County Schools for reference I believe the last time I spoke to you a percent of positive cases in Cleveland County was 12.7 percent in December 2020. currently today it is 16.6 percent our hospitals and icus are full people are waiting for beds in the emergency department and sometimes being diverted to other facilities there are children in the ICU with covid this is serious the American Academy of Pediatrics the North Carolina Society of Pediatrics and the physicians at Shelby Children's Clinic all recommend Universal masking these are experts at the Federal state and local levels all agreeing on a plan to keep our children safe I

016heard many if not all of you say last year that you wanted children to be back in school this is now your opportunity to keep them in school if we move forward with optional masks with the current spread of the Delta variant in our community we will inevitably be faced with positive cases in every grade in every school at least every week if everyone in a classroom isn't masked then all close contacts will have to quarantine whether they wore a mask or not this means that students and teachers risk being out for multiple weeks of the school year even if they don't have covet it means we have students trying to navigate a virtual system that is no longer in place to keep up with schoolwork it means substitute teachers who are unprepared to teach

017will be in the classrooms and that's if we even have the number of substitutes we need all of these scenarios are not ideal for our students that need to be in school please consider both the health of our students and teachers as well as their education as you make your decision tonight I urge you to keep all students in school by requiring that everyone present on school property wear a mask thank you thank you our fourth speaker is Donna austdale foreign my name is Donna Austell and I'm speaking uh today to address a few uh a few issues I'm going to speak really fast to try to get through some things and I'm going to cut off some of the things I plan to say that can wait till later date at the last board

018meeting in July you voted six to three repeat mask optional for students and for teachers and staff uh if you want your child to wear a mask that's fine and if you don't want your child to wear a mask that's fine I would like to to thank all of you who supported that decision because that was the most common sense approach to this issue of masking our children in schools with a virus from it that has a 99.89 overall recovery rate and all of us are already aware of the pitfalls of the of the children being in mask and their emotional and mental development now one thing I'm going to touch briefly on and I do thank you sincerely for making that choice uh everywhere you go every County every state you go in all

019you hear is about these numbers have changed CDC says this to see okay once you weed through all of that people really need to stop who DC and do we trust these numbers that are being changed every day if not every week uh on July 21st just a few weeks ago the CDC quietly recalled the PCR test by the end of this year that has been the test for the coveted vaccine or for the covid um uh pandemic and basically the article says after you read through all the jargon is that it can not tell the difference in many cases of covid from the flu let me just say this flu cases on average are 25 million cases a year we had the lowest year in history last year if we went from 45 million

020cases a year to 1455 cases so that makes sense to anybody I'd like to know that uh something else I want to bring your attention to there were two board members at the last meeting that um chose to share their experience with getting the vaccine and I admire them for that I admire them for their courage and speaking publicly about their health issues the two board members were Greg Taylor and Danny Blanton Mr Taylor said he made the personal choice to get the vaccine and he in turn had to miss the June board meeting due to being sick with covet after he was vaccinated and we all know of people's been vaccinated unvaccinated that are sick that are very sick not sick at all no symptoms so we've all run the gamut I'm sure with

021with many patients Danny Blanton shared his experience that he took the vaccine on the advice of his physician that's all still are you close here I am close all right about two more sentences and um on the advice of his physician now he has to deal with rheumatoid arthritis so there are not uh any adverse effects associated with this by uh vaccine now to the seven other members I got to call time seven other members on the board you did not disclose your health care or whether you took the vaccine or not and you know what I appreciate that because that's your personal choice and you're right to not discuss that sure thank you for your three minutes thank you [Applause] good I hope I'm reading this name right next speaker is Marshall Allen chairman

022abort thank you for uh hearing from me can you raise the Micah yes thank you the better yes I'm a proud parent of a sixth grader rousing sixth grader at Kings Mountain Intermediate School and uh I appreciate the vote you guys took last time on the choice there on the side of freedom to give parents the choice whether or not to master children my son as an example last year during the in-person in-person learning section he would return home every day with headaches I would return from work tears in his eyes and masking for Tylenol um I'm a bit emotional about it because I knew what it did to him see him crying under the sheets of his bed um just head pounding begging for fresh air basically it's a sensitive subject I say thank

023you for the freedom people that want to wear a mask I don't care they can wear masks I just don't want my child to wear a mask it's nothing ideological as purely to do with his health I just want to read a few stats we've heard a lot of stats I pulled some stats from the CDC today they keep changing as everyone says the latest data here among cases reviewed data were available for 41.9 8.9 and 49.1 percent of cases for hospitalizations Intensive Care Unit emissions and deaths respectively I'll make a quick guess among children adolescents to young adults with available data for these outcomes thirty thousand two hundred twenty nine that's 2.5 percent were hospitalized 1973 percent that's point eight percent needed to ICU care and 654 which is 0.1 percent Dot compared with

024much higher numbers with adults among children adolescents and young adults large percentage of hospitalizations 4.6 percent in ICU emissions at 1.8 percent occurred among children zero to four years of age among 379 247 that's 13.2 percent children adolescents and young adults with covid-19 on available data or underlying conditions at least one underlying condition or underlying health condition was reported that's 30.3 percent no one's saying coveted can't be fatal no one's saying it's not real it's highly contagious my whole family had it lots of my co-workers about it I've seen it spread to family friends whoever it's a thing it's going to be with us forever I feel like it's the flu and we've been through SARS we've been through H1N1 we've got this now and unfortunately we're stuck with it I just ask that you

025guys in the board air on the choice of Freedom this freedom for medical Choice we've heard a lot over the last few years about my body my choice and I just want to make a decision for my child that it's his choice and my choice to not have a mask if if other kids want to wear them that's fine if they're vulnerable absolutely if they're at risk for underlying conditions absolutely but thank you for Aaron's side of freedom thank you [Applause] our last speaker is Megan hopis good evening again concerned mom here I'm not gonna bore you all with the data and graphs and science because it is evident that a majority of our school board and a staggering 64 percent of our community do not believe in what the experts are literally placing in

026your hands to get through this pandemic this old silly thing is 25 pages from strong schools NC Public Health toolkit it was just updated 13 days ago recommending Universal indoor masking for all teachers staff and students and visitors in K-12 schools that's neither here nor there especially with this group tonight instead I thought we would play a little game that might help folks like you better understand our concerns It's called would you rather rules are simple two questions presented and you have to pick one that's it for the game tonight no answer is required because I got three minutes two minutes now we've got to keep it moving so here we go number one would you rather eat raw alligator eyes with every meal for three weeks straight or two have permanent orange Cheeto fingers

027for the rest of your life very serious number two would you rather serve on said school board and have to sit here and listen to these concerned parents discuss the safety of their children or to be at home watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune see how fun this is some questions are easy choices you're like duh number two who doesn't like solving puzzles with Pat and Vanna come on guys all right keeping it moving number three would you rather require mask wearing in all schools to help prevent the spread of covet and keep our children safe or continue to keep this political that took a serious turn didn't it all right last one but most important so I do ask that you pay attention would you rather one unmasked child test positive and every single

028person that that child came in contact with that's not vaccinated be sent home for 10 to 14 days or would you rather one masked child test positive for covid and that child be sent home for 10 to 14 days for that last question I would almost bet my life that all nine of you would choose the number two because I sat here and heard you say it for a whole year the bottom line is it's mask wearing is not required kids will not be in school end of discussion so do whatever it is you got to do with your Robert's Rules and the pleasure of the board I've been dying to say that and get these children back in school safely and keep them there because at the end of the day that is all

029we really want thank you thank you [Applause] all right next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes of the July 26th 2021 business and closed session uh that is the business session includes a general account of the closed session what's the pleasure of the board move to approve ocean by Mr Humphreys second by Mr Fitch any question or comments on the minute all in favor if you'd raise your hand all right that motion carries non-zero second is approval of the minutes of the July 26th closed session minutes these minutes will remain sealed because those were confidential matters it was a pleasure of the board motion by Mr Fitch second of Mr Shores and since that's confidential we won't have any discussion those are that approve of the closed session minutes if you'd raise

030your hand hmm any opposed all right motion carries eight to one Finance well we're on the committee report so we'll start with finance and Personnel Mr Shores thank you Mr chairman uh Finance Personnel committee met on Friday June July 30th excuse me let me install order Dan carpinski provided a finance update the biggest portion of the update consisted of sharing information related to the budget for 2021-2022 school year and time there's not an approved budget excuse me there's not an approved budget from the state and it does not look like a budget will be approved anytime soon however the state has given approved for school systems to plan and work at the same level they were at last year Mr krabinski also updated the committee on the status of the district's Esther funds there was

031a discussion related to the alarm at Esther funds for summer school and HVAC maintenance projects it was mentioned as a reminder that all SRX expenditures that required bidding be reviewed by Robert McDaniel director of purchasing prior to bidding to ensure compliance Dr Fisher shared information related to one strategic plan goals for the committee which was to study he classified salary schedule specifically information was shared related to the cost to the district if the hourly rate was increased to close to 13 an hour for some classified positions which would align with the state budget proposals and draft budgets by the general assembly because he gave an update at the end of the year 2021 the external audits in process the art is going well and there's been no issues or exceptions brought to Mr karpinski's attention

032at this point Mr karpinsky also shared the state of finance department explained the areas of work in organizations of the finance department swampler updated the committee on the current vacancies in the systems the majority of vacancies are in areas of teacher assistance and bus drivers this is not in my notes but I will say it as I did the last Finance of it we are looking for Teacher assistance and bus drivers if you are interested in a position please apply principals are working hard to get classrooms covered before the start of school year for students from August 23rd Miss Walker feels we're in good position Staffing wise at this time there was a business took place and the next meeting will be August the 27th great thank you Mr Shores there are no action items

033coming out of committee but we do have our standard Personnel report that's coming before the board for approval what's the pleasure of the board Mr chairman I'll need to recuse myself okay so uh may I make a uh just just one second all right go ahead I just uh we're gonna have any discussion on that committee report of uh I feel that on the state on our some of our County employees they're they have they get local pay instead of state owned right there in just a second let's finish because we got a motion and a second on the floor let's finish that part the Personnel report okay if you've got a question on them that's interested um any questions on the Personnel report all right those in favor of the Personnel report is presented

034if you'd raise your hand all right that motion carries eight to zero now you have a question yes uh on uh Mr Kapinski he was a token and I've done a little checking we have uh especially our maintenance employees a lot of them are on our local pay instead of state pay but their owners State retirement and by my understanding they've been told by them being local pay they will not receive that uh extra pay in other words that we pay them what we want to pay them you know as far as uh I guess that minimum wage and I feel like they're state employees too in a sense because their own Estate Retirement they should receive what are other employees is get and that's just as simple as that and I I just needed

035to bring that out because our maintenance boys they deserve or anybody that's on our local pay if we're going to raise the minimum wage up because of what the state does then they should be getting it too because there's basically they're at the end of the day they're state employees too because they're on a state retirement Dr Fisher do you have anything to clarify that foreign [Applause] that's really not how that works that's Miss plan that's a misconception and not really accurate um we do have state funds and local funds we have federal funds uh but when we set a rate of pay for a job classification that rate of pay for that job classification is the same regardless of whether that that position is paid out of state funds or out of local funds

036we have teachers that are paid out of a state allotment we also have teachers that are paid out of local funds because we employ more teachers than the state allocates for us we have teacher assistance in a very similar role we have Central Services we have uh classified folks like uh you know bookkeepers and data managers schools that are more than what the state would allocate so the idea that we would the state would raise a pay and because somebody's paid out of local funds they would not receive that it's just not accurate it's based on their pay scale and the pay grade that they're at uh if the if the state says for instance and just because they've done this to pass is that all employees get two percent raise well that would be

037everybody get a two percent raise regardless of whether you're paid out of state funds um local funds it really doesn't matter necessarily the funding source it is if if all employees get that then all employees get that if they move uh if the state would say okay we're going to give teacher assistance X then it would go to that classification and teach your assistance so it's really uh not broken down to the extension you're talking about from from a state local federal dollars we do we need to be talking to the state because by what I'm hearing that they are some difference they are on on that do we need to make some adjustments on that or talk to the state on that local because the state didn't have anything to do with the local

038funds we'll get those local funds uh from from our County we appreciate the support we get from our County manager and County Commissioners so those are the uh we pay with at a local funds we pay employees above and beyond what the state allocates if the state gives us X number of teachers yet because of having 29 schools and because one of the lower class size and do those things we we hire an additional 150 teachers then we can pay those out of other state funds we don't just take teachers out of the teacher fund we take them out of dssf we take them out of other title two title four title one uh all these different types of funding not just local funds so it all goes into the mix but there is an

039established teacher pay scale there's an established teacher assistant pay scale there's an established custodial pay scale there's an established pay scale for every job that we have and if we have a new job then we create a new pay scale so what what happens is is if if uh and we've discussed this in committee if we go back and adjust a pay scale then then if the state doesn't fund that adjustment that comes out of local dollars if you remember a couple and I'm sorry I'm going along with this Mr chairman you can feel free to good information hit the goblin send me back to my chair if you want um but uh if you remember a couple weeks ago a couple months ago we gave bus drivers a dollar hour more and so we

040did that out of local funds those are local dollars that we did that we didn't just didn't say okay well we got X number of State dollars and if you're lucky enough to get out of the state fund you get that and if you're a local bus driver you didn't get that no it goes for everybody so if we decide to do that with uh let's say our teacher assistant so we decided to change the pay scale for Teacher assistance it's it doesn't matter whether we pay it out of the pot of money that would get from the state or the pot of money we get from from Mr Epling the Commissioners or we pay it from a pot of money that we get from the federal government and Title One title two or any

041other opportunity we have we we established that rate of pay and that rate of pay goes for everybody regardless of the funding sources now years ago um people used to get different color checks and all that kind of stuff but that that's gone I mean even then the the process was the same but the employee you knew that I got paid out of state funds or a mix or whatever employees don't know and honestly don't care as long as at the end of the month that that money goes in their account they really don't care if that's a state dollar a local dollar it spins the same at a Walmart or or wherever so um it's irrelevant there so if you have questions like that if we can help with employees to to to clear

042up any misconception but that's that's that's you know really not accurate okay did you have it yeah as the chair of the finance committee Mr Clinton I want to assure you that there's some things that we need to talk to the state about number one I need to get a budget which I don't think they're ever going to do and number two some of their laws are crazy uh and and I'll just say that for instance the reason we had to the bus situation was the state limits us on how much we can pay a bus driver and I was outraged we had one bus driver driven a bus for 20 something years and the state said we couldn't pay them a dollar extra an hour well what do we do we found in local

043funds in this chair it's I'm committed to making sure that everybody across the board gets the same but if you want to talk to the state talk to them about getting the budget put together all right that would help the finance and Dan kapisky a whole bunch all right all right thank you sir educational programs Mr Humphries Mr chairman uh educational program committee met on Friday July the 30th uh Carla Cherry presented the Head Start program information report to the committee this report was for informational purposes only and the information has been forwarded to the entire board when he first presented information on the Evergreen contract Evergreen is the company that evaluates one of our EC Grant programs proposed contract is part of the the ncsip grant the grant is starting a new five-year cycle

044due to the amount of the contract this contract does require board approval the only issue we have ever had with con with the contract with Evergreen is having to hold the invoice if the money's not in the account from DPI the money for the contract evaluation is part of the Grant and the grant specifies that we use is we use Evergreen there are two contracts one for the current budget and one for the carryover the committee supported the recommendation of the contracts and they are on the board agenda tonight Dr heinle highlighted the Jim Taylor award which we had just earlier so I won't go through that Dr huntle and Tamara Goforth presented the IXL learning invoice to the committee for add-on licenses for reading math and science K-12 the comedian gazed in a discussion

045on cell phones and discussed information in a meta-analysis article cell phones are seen by some staff is a distraction it takes away from the instructional Focus students can cannot get on the district's secure network with their personal devices there is a policy in place 4220 that addresses cell phone use a recommendation was made to update the wording of the current policy to include the wording instructional setting or instructional time this recommendation will be part of the full review by the policy committee at our next policy committee meeting is policy 4220 the committee discussed policy 4720 in student surveys the purpose of this discussion is to bring awareness of the policy and the relationship between surveys curriculum and student learning additional information and discussion may be needed on this subject with no new business the meeting

046was adjourned thank you Mr Hunters there's one action item coming out of the educational programs that is for the Evergreen contract and as I understand there's a not to exceed amount on that of 78 000 so coming from committee it needs no second are there any questions or discussion on the Evergreen contract all right all those in favor of approvement in favor of the EC Evergreen contract if you'd raise your hand all right that motion carries nine to zero operations Mr blank yes uh on our operations committee we met on Friday June out of the 30th the meeting was called to order Dr Fisher updated the committee on the process of our faculty's assessments from McMillan and plasma and Smith and MPS the workplace was beginning at the Quicken and representatives from MPS were scheduled

047to visit the schools in Kings Mountain and she'll be attend the ferries in the coming weeks several of the visits have already taken place that MPS will provide an update at the August committee meeting Dr Fisher Dr Fisher updated the committee on some work being done at North Elementary this work is being provided by someone in the community and will enhance the property property and allow better assets to the walking Track and the pla Playfield the CCS maintenance department is involved in coordinating the efforts and ensuring the compliance with the dick District priorities Dr Fisher updated the committee on two pieces of property that either the district is interested in selling or someone has expressed interest in purchasing the house on owned by the district that is behind Grover Elementary is no longer being used

048due to various reasons is it is is not included in the future used plans for the school the district and staff members are interested in attempting to sell the house in addition the district has been approached by members of the community about the Prudential potential purchase of the old Central School in Kings Mountain currently The Division II maintenance uses the first floor and partnership for children uses part of the second floor and the third floor after the discussion the committee recommended to direct the superintendents to begin the process of potential of selling both properties the recommendation from the committee for the board approve is to authorize the superintendent to initially begin the beginning stages required to sell the house behind Grover Elementary and the old Central in Kings Mountain School then uh our next topic

049was uh Jennifer walner and Chip Childers provided an operations update and included a monthly Capital project report the capital project report included in the board's information for tonight a list of surplus items from the CTE and the maintenance was presented to the committee for approval in addition to the CTE and the maintenance items three mobile units were discussed as Prudential Surplus items the committee recommended that the board declared the complete list of the CTE and the maintenance items as well as the three three trailers as Surplus to be sold Mr Childers provided the committee with some some requests information related to the pool repairs at Shelby and Kings Mountain High School the athletic lighting survey that was performed at all four high schools was discussed and the committee reviewed the results Dr Fisher and Miss

050wandner gave a quick Auditorium update and Holland and hammered are continuing to work to finalize the drawings and uh I'm going to go back to the three mobile units they were at uh number three school as two mobile units and one bathroom unit all right to finish out the operations committee report Mr Wiese presented a proposal that would allow ccs to engage in a technology buyback initiative and sell our used technology to a vendor Mr wiesen a technology team worked through their buyback proposal and our recommending Diamond assets to contract with for the buyback of our used devices they have guaranteed a minimum value of the devices at 270 630 with a potential value of up to 388 255. now to explain all that that the company takes the devices in they grade those a

051b c and d and then you get a value based on that grading the operations committee approved the proposal and will recommend to the board for approval Miss Brown gave an overview of the Child Nutrition program she highlighted the work that's been done over the summer repairing coolers and buying furniture and felt good about moving forward into the new school year Ms Brown is concerned about the Child Nutrition Workforce and other members of the administrative staff agreed that Staffing is a challenge in all areas the meeting was adjourned and the next operations committee meeting is August 27th so we have a couple items for Action first is the Surplus declaration you have those items in your board Docs and that is coming from committee as a recommendation for approval are there any questions or discussion

052on those Surplus items that that will include the CTE maintenance items and the three trailers all right those in favor of declaring those items Surplus if you raise your hand all right we have motion carries nine zero the Apple buyback proposal you also have that in your board Docs and that will be purchasing our old equipment for minimum value of 277 thousand dollars and some change that is coming from committee as a recommendation are there any questions or discussion all right all those in favor of the buyback proposal if you raise your hand and have motion carried and we have two pieces of property one is a residential property behind Grover school that's no longer used and the second is the old Central School in Kings Mountain that's coming from committee as a recommendation that

053we start the process we've not you know that's getting surveys done appraisals things of that sort so that we'll know what the value of those properties are if we get any offers or whatnot it'll come back to the board for approval on that any questions about those two properties are starting that process all right those in favor of starting the process to sell those two properties if you raise your hand navigation carries non-zero all right next is policy I don't believe that committed so there's no report but we do have a few policies let me get straightened out here we have several policies for approval they were on our list last time as first reads um so we have policy 3160 his moment of silence for full Board review 3460-e is early graduation application 4304e

054is notice of views of unreasonable restraint seclusion or adverse procedures 6430-r is purchasing requirements for equipment materials and supplies 2130 is board member compensation 7426 is contracts for licensed personnel are there any questions or discussion this coming from committee recommending approval any questions about any of those wait a minute uh 6430 was that in that and that group or is that in the first read now that's in the group for approval I'd like for it to be separate okay any other questions or comments well the 6430 that is on purchasing and the money and stuff like that I've been a guest now against the purchasing numbers that we put out there that 90 000 was cut the 99 000 was cut to 75 000 I've been against against it and I'm still against it and

055so it's still the same so so I'm still against that policy 64 30. all right we'll we'll pull 64-30 out and do that first so policy committee is recommending approval he's no second any further questions on 6430 all right those in favor of 6430 as presented if you'd raise your hand any opposed and that motion carries eight and one is there any objection to taking the other policies as a group okay I'll read those numbers get 3160 3460 4304 2130 and 7426 that's coming from committee as a recommendation for approval any questions all right those in favor of those policies if you'd raise your hand and that motion carries non-zero and then for information you have three policies for first read that's 5121 disposal of confiscated weapons drugs and alcohol policy 7730 is employee conflict

056of interest and 7730-r is employee self-report of secondary employment so those are there for first grade all right next is safety and you guys did not meet okay all right so no report from the Safety Committee next is our superintendent and covet update Dr Fisher [Applause] thank you Mr chairman members of the board uh we'll quickly go through some of this uh information here you've got a copy at your chair um had a little bit of updated information after I made those copies and so uh PowerPoint uh that you have on your computer and the one on the screen is slightly different a couple slides and so um make note of that just a couple things uh one and I've mentioned this before but uh the good thing about where we're beginning School this year

057is we do have uh we did get back into school last year going five days a week I think that we understand how we're going to go five days a week we understand a lot of the protocols with everybody in the building obviously when we're in Plan B for the first two thirds of the school year is a little different now that we're we went to plan a for the last you know for high school and middle school students really the last six or seven weeks of school and for some of our elementary school almost the entire last nine week period were able to do things with the entire building like modified lunch and and you know had the entire School building in there with no congregate grouping in the morning and afternoon so our

058administrators and our teachers understand what that was going to look like and how to do that in many ways the way we did School in the spring really translates to the way we're going to do in the fall with a lot of the protocols that are in place a lot of the layers of of prevention with that we had hoped that we could even relax on some of those other protocols unfortunately you know as we thought as we started the summer we really thought we were going to be able to but as we get to in a minute unfortunately covered data is trending in the in the wrong direction to be able to do that so we'll start a school with with many of those protocols in place Graham Elementary Early College High School as

059you know started school Graham started on school on July 17th today was the beginning of their fourth week of school I did have the opportunity to visit their school again today um lots of really good things going on teachers teaching students engaged learning I will say a majority of students at Grandma wearing masks today I didn't take up the poll count but I would say between 75 percent a lot of the students were wearing masks it was a mix there so the Early College started last week they just went to school three days a week last week we've had uh have had one confirmed case of covet at Graham with that one case we did have some contacts because of launch the Early College we've had a positive but it was a non-school day prior

060to school activity that that created that positive case so we've gotten off to a good start at both Graham and the Early College currently as you've heard tonight as you know I've sent you the information our current Cleveland County and CCS covered data mentioned Graham and CeCe Early College from a CCS perspective but our County data continues to Trend in a negative Direction in terms of increased code cases and you you see that you've heard about that on the news no need to go into more detail there right now um just kind of a couple things on your radar and I know you're aware of this this Thursday is the first teacher work day for our traditional schools the 27 schools outside of Graham and yearly college and school starts for students Monday August 23rd

061so we're just right around the corner on that excited about the opportunity of school starting a couple things that we get a lot of questions and want to make sure we clarify as we talk about layer strategies to to prevent coveted spread a couple definitions and and this is stuff that we deal with a lot just to hopefully clarify a close contact what is a close contact close contact is someone who is within six feet for 15 minutes or more and that's a cumulative 15 minutes if I was around you for five minutes the next you know an hour later five more minutes and then two hours later we were together ten minutes that's that's you know 20 minutes of cumulative time so we're considered a close contact of someone who tests positive for covet

062and either party was unmasked and that's that's the important part if all parties are masked then that's not considered a close contact but if either party is unmasked that is considered a close contact the close contact tracing window is 48 hours prior to a positive covet test or symptom start date so if we start have a positive test on Monday and that was just because of a person tested maybe because they were going to have surgery or maybe it's because of something different and they test positive we go back 48 hours prior to that if they tested positive on Monday yet they started feeling bad on Friday then we would go back Friday 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms to look at that contact tracing window I appreciate it I know Ms Hansen's

063here her team of school health nurses and and Folks at the health department do a tremendous job of helping us with contact tracing lots of conversations many times in the evenings or on the weekends to help make sure we are doing a good job with that um given the the current Mass policy for our board meeting last last uh two weeks ago masks are currently optional for students and staff and and I've communicated this to to our principals and staff and and board members but I want to make sure publicly to remind folks that currently Mass are required for drivers and Riders on our school buses Transportation that's all School transportation that shuttles if we're shuttling students from we do a lot of shuttling between one of our schools and the early college or back

064and forth that is required that is a federal mandate not a an opportunity for us to to make that decision that is something that's mandated by the CDC so that is required for all drivers and Riders um I've got a lot of information on the next two slides and I'm not going to go into that you can read that um that is uh but you have that for your knowledge we get a lot of questions about quarantines why does this person have to quarantine because during night we talked several times about you know and some of it is because situations are different and uh now we've added in another layer of vaccinated versus unvaccinated so we've got two scenarios here we've got a close contact that is vaccinated um if you're a close contact you're

065vaccinated you have to wear a mask you don't have to quarantine but you have to wear a mask until you either get a negative test or for the duration of your 14 days again that's highlighted in that chart I'm not going to read that uh to you but I just want to make sure you're aware of that as you hear about close contacts you can refer back to that chart uh and look through that as that updates we'll make sure we continue to update you with with that Guidance the next slide that you have is is close contacts of non-vaccinated situations and again if you're a close contact with a non-vaccinated that's real very much similar to what happened last year and again if you remember going back to one of my slides it is

066if you're close contact it's either if either party is mask so if two two students are both wearing a mask and that does not consider a close contact if they're not wearing a mask one of the two is not wearing a mask and that does consider and classify as a close contact um a long list of things and I know when you look at this long literature like oh my I better get comfortable he's going to go for a while here but uh but I'm not I'm going to really quick quickly go through that um Health screenings and Temptation forms um we had them required last year uh by the state they're not required however Cleveland County Schools were requiring them this year at the elementary and intermediate school that is because with with the

067policy of mass being optional we want to understand and know what the parent intent is and once we have a parent's intent of the Mask then we can help to emphasize that with those students middle school and high school students obviously we need to continue with health screenings help have parents help us with health screenings if a student is becoming symptomatic not feel does not feel well they do not need to come to school but the middle school and high school students if their parents want them to wear a mask or in a mask it's their responsible to wear the mask our elementary Intermediate School students we want that teacher to know and that's that staff to know so we can assist and ensure that those students are a mask if that's what their parents

068choose we did continue to employ school health technicians as you know we have school health center conditions in all of our schools that's a valuable Resource as we continue to to remove students that become symptomatic and also deal with contract tracing they are another line defense with our school health nurses water fountains are still off limits we do have bottle fillers in many of our schools water fountains will remain off limits of school and physical distancing we continue to emphasize that to the extent possible our transportation I've gone over that just to hit that point again masks are required on all Transportation a rival dismissal if you know many of our schools a lot of times when students get to school you know they'll go to a common area whether it's cafeteria whether it's a

069gym and wait till class dismissed and we are encouraging and working with our schools on plans not to incorporate that we don't want to have areas where a large number of students gather so students when they get to school they'll go to class just a change of of the way we do business in the morning but that does help to mitigate potential spread of coven and not assembling large groups of students together of school and classroom cleaning will continue to do that continue to emphasize that especially the areas of high touch we know a lot more about covid we know a lot more about the spread of covid than we did when we started school last year but we do want our our school staffs our custodians our teachers bus drivers to continue to hit

070and clean especially in those high-touch areas remote instruction I've gotten asked a couple times or you're going to have remote instruction and we understand we will regardless of the situation we will have some quarantines and so some remote instruction will have to continue to go during quarantines we're going to have students that that are going to miss that so remote instruction has just not gone away but for traditional for our traditional schools quarantine remote instruction will be for some of those quarantine periods for students that are interested in full remote instruction no face to face then we do have Cleveland Innovation right now we have 125 students enrolled at Cleveland Innovation so that is the full remote fully online school but our other schools are full in-person learning um but understanding that that if and

071when we do have some quarantines we will have some uh remote learning that we need to continue to do uh quarantines you've got two slides that that give lots of situations around quarantines um we will continue to have quarantines if you remember I said we had one positive at Graham and had six close contacts that had to quarantine and that was during lunch and so even though at that time it was still under the masked mandate and they were wearing a mask it was during lunch and so we still had some close contacts School functions a lot you know things like Athletics will continue to follow the guidance by the hospital Thug Association uh just you know next week we'll have things like orientations at open house we'll have people in our buildings our principals

072are are really making plans to make sure we mitigate potential spread we're not having you know again not having assembly areas where all parents come in and hear the principal and they're trying to spread that out making sure we have uh physical distancing and social distancing is is being able to be used we encourage we strongly encourage parents to and they come to orientation to wear a mask and not to come if they are are feeling bad or not feeling well we can do some orientation there's lots of things online we don't want to to start school in a situation where we have people quarantined so we just ask that that our parents really respect that uh with with orientations open house field trips we're looking and taking field trips from an individual standpoint a

073lot of our field trips we put on hold some of our field trips because of where they're going and how it's happening we can accommodate and do the same practices at the field trip than we can at school it just depends on what those are so we're looking and evaluating all those but a lot of our field trips will be postponed until our covid data is better visitors non-essential visitors are are not going to be able to to come to school during the school day we do have some essential visitors some things that that we will need to do unfortunately though will not be able to meet the need of all those visitors you know especially at lunch we have lot of visitors when we come at lunch and just because of the the potential

074spread that may be encountered here at school we'll we will limit the uh the visitors at our school we do have some information that continues to come about the use of testing for Diagnostic and or screening purposes and let me emphasize that any testing we do uh if we would be for a student would have to have parental consent we would never test a student for covet without parental consent if you remember we did some testing last spring with a partnership through our telemedicine partnership with Shelby Children's Clinic and Atrium Health we did some on-site testing there we listened to a webinar right before we had a closed session today about opportunities for for Diagnostic and or some screening purposes but again that is really any any version of that for students would have to

075be with parental consent a diagnostic would be from a symptomatic standpoint to be able to ease and make that more convenient for parents and students to get that testing and get quick results there and then vaccine availability I know that I've talked with our partners at County Health Department vaccines are available encourage people to participate that if that's their choosing at last spring we did have vaccines available at our schools especially at our high schools we will continue to have a vaccine clinic work with our health department to offer that again that anytime somebody a student would would have to have parental consent to be able to to take that vaccine um and then just a couple uh points to finish up regardless of the mass policy and again I've I've this is I think

076the third time I've said this but I just want to make sure we get that information out regardless of the mass policy all passengers and drivers of school transportation must wear a face covering a mask at all times and so we will be prepared with a mask on the buses if a student doesn't ride the bus in the morning goes to school and they're you know under the current policy they choose not to wear a mask during the day they get on the bus to ride home we will have a mask available for them to put it on so they can make sure to do that the parents need to just remember that students must are required to wear that mask on the bus and again that's a federal CDC regulation um teacher staff and

077other students should perform self monitoring of symptoms and do not report to work is sick I think that this is a a huge uh piece of of helping to slow uh the spread of of covet in our schools too many times you know we have people that come to to work and I know this happens not just in our business but in other business and just feel like I don't feel right don't feel good two or three days later it gets worse and now we've got Cove and we've got lots of contacts uh people need to self-monitor we need the help of parents grandparents Guardians to help monitor symptoms from from students and if they're not feeling well to not to come to school to to communicate with their health care provider and and and

078get good advice before they're coming back to school if they are symptomatic and then again hitting the contract tracing again will occur for anyone six feet or closure for more than 15 minutes of cumulative per 24 hour period of a positive of a positive case is if anyone is unmasked and this includes classes where the positive case attends always groups extracurricular activity bus launch Etc all that stuff goes in there so just wanted to reiterate that there's some you know misinformation I think that many times circulates about who has to quarantine who doesn't have to quarantine but this is cumulative six feet or closer for for more than 15 minutes in a 24-hour period regardless of either one of those or mask or unmasked and I appreciate the fact that uh our partner at the

079health department Tiffany Hansen is here and so I'm going to ask Tiffany to come up and share a little County data with you and I think they're going to switch the PowerPoint Mr chairman real quick Dr Fisher just one clarification um I believe the school buses is a requirement that the United States Department of Transportation yes I think that's ultimately where it comes is from there and then then it translates into the CDC of yesteryear exactly right I put a uh a document on your places about the documentation of that requirement in front of the school bus transportation oh that was my question I was going to ask you I wanted to see the documentation from the from that great uh great uh gentleman upstairs that's yeah that's in your packet in this no sir

080if you look there's an article uh a printout from the CDC it's this one maybe Mr Shores got yours okay all right any other questions before Tiffany comes yes sir with the um if teacher or staff was in quarantine last year we had covered money to take care of that what what what's the results of that this school year if they're in quarantine and camping can't come to the workplace or or is there covered money in place to take care of them are they gonna have to take sick time well so last year um basically there was coveted leave and that was provided it was state federal leave provided from the government there is still contagious disease contagious disease leave um the at the state and federal level they have uh absolved the covid leave

081so there is from from the state federal government there's no more covetly but there is contagious disease leave that they can take Jennifer do you want to add anything or if they test it possible so our staff will work with them to make sure that they're not burning their sick time if they are quarantined during that time that's great because that is not they did not take sick days for that that's right all right thank you it's it's sort of the same thing Mr Glover of the coveted leave and contagious disease leave it's a little bit different we have a great relationship and I appreciate Tiffany and all that her team does and we have a great relationship because of the quarantines because to and I believe I'm right on this I think that to

082offer contagious disease leave it there has to be a a communication here and so we've been able to communicate so well that when we have quarantines they verified it the reason is obviously you do well somebody say oh I'm quarantined and just be able to take days off but we have such a good relationship that we're working together on all those cases to make sure and we do want to make sure we take care of our employees that they're not burning their days that if they are quarantined or they do have covered that they they meet the needs of that leave that's a great question thank you is there a maximum time on that contagious disease leave okay because it was limited to 14 I believe last year the state leave was limited to 14.

083it takes a full team to have all the you know with code but you got so much going on and there's so many times I mean it's like okay you know Jennifer and I talk a lot what do you think and then let's call the health department see what their things and there's so many impromptu uh phone calls and conversations of making sure we want to make sure we take care of our employees take care of our students and get it right because sometimes the guidance does change sometimes you you know encounter situations through uh through dealing with this for 18 months you think you've encountered every situation and then next thing you know you have a situation that you've not dealt with and so to be able to make sure we we do the

084right thing um this may be a Tiffany question but I'll ask you oh it may be though already I can already tell you um at the end of the last year I'm recalling I haven't looked this up but at the social distancing or our distances had dropped to one meter which was the who's recommendations from the beginning has somebody stretched that back out to six feet or are we still at 3.2 feet with it it is at six feet uh if one of the parties is non-mask then it is six feet yes sir that's right Dave Miss Hanson you're all set Mr chairman fellow board members thank you and Mr Humphreys just to kind of expand on that three feet versus six feet um Dr Fisher is correct so the CDC guidance still defines direct

085contact as six feet for 15 minutes with the strong schools toolkit you'll see that there's a little bit of relaxation now between three and six feet still doesn't necessarily make them not a contact but it does allow the schools a little bit more flexibility on how close to place children okay okay um so really kind of my presentation tonight is really focused on data and metrics and some of the questions that you all had at your last meeting and really kind of where are we in Cleveland County and so the first plot slide if you're following kind of ncdhhs the kova dashboard this is an image that you'll likely see on there we have 12 708 total cases in the county recover 12 047 so about 95 of all of our cases have recovered our

086estimated Active cases so these are the ones that have occurred in the last seven days these are the most likely to be under quarantine um or isolation restrictions there's about 430 of those in the county and if you've been kind of following our data you'll see about four weeks ago this number was about a hundred um and so we're definitely experiencing some uptick on the right side of that graph you'll see that those lines obviously are increasing total deaths unfortunately we're at 200 and excuse me 231 residents hospitalized actually got an update shortly before I arrived here we actually have 25 residents that are currently in the hospital percent positive confirmed laboratory tests for Cleveland County we're at 16.6 today in North Carolina was at 11.1 percent this graph um I really like it this

087breaks down all the ages across kind of the entire pandemic on lab tests and they're comfortable copies they have copies of this yes okay um and so you'll be able to see um really the colors outline what ages are impacted and when they're impacted and I'll draw your attention to kind of that red circle and you'll see over the last four weeks we've seen a trajectory of increased cases what I will also draw your attention to is some of the age groups that are being impacted so on here you can tell mostly impacts are seen in our 25 to 49 year old age range although we are seeing some slight increases in the 0 to 17 recognizing that 0 to 12 cannot get vaccinated um this image is another one that's also displayed on nced

088HHS kova dashboard this also breaks down ages but what this does is really give you a percentage of the total cases that we've experienced in those age brackets and so 0 to 17 we've had about 1500 cases about 13 of all of our total cases in the county 18 to 24 12 25 to 49 about 35 percent of cases which is similar to kind of the trajectory that we've seen along the course of the pandemic 50 to 64 about 23 of our total cases are 65 to 74 year olds account for about 10 percent and then 75 and above is eight percent of our cases and then you'll also see on the right hand side really just breaking down to individually how many cases fall into those age groups one of the things that the

089CDC ncdhhs references kind of community level transmission and where you should be at according to your community's level transmission we just transitioned actually today ncdhhs updated this and so this is a direct link to the CDC this is kind of the community transmission map and that's how they determine low moderate high risk or substantial and high risk levels of transmission based really on total of new cases per 100 000 residents and then percent positive Diagnostics and then as you can see from that image of North Carolina most of the entire state is in red what's likely leading and contributing to many of those red counties in our transmission transmission levels as you've heard tonight is this Delta variant so the graph there on the left really depicts region four of Health and Human Services which

090North Carolina falls into and in that kind of orangish bar you'll see that is the Delta variant and if you follow that along really over the last four to six weeks we've seen that start very small in the two to three percent of all sequenced lab tests being done to right now where we were on the middle of or the end of July was about 80 to 95 percent of all sequence cases in North Carolina really are the Delta variant and so from kind of the state epidemiologists and what they're kind of saying from the state level is if people are getting sick in our communities and we're seeing that it's most likely Delta variant just because of the level of sequencing that's being conducted one of the things that research is also telling us

091related to Delta is that it has a little bit higher transmission rate than the regular strain and so we've heard anywhere from about two and a half to three and a half times the level of transmission Delta has versus the original covets train so for every one positive instead of two we're now getting around five or six of people that could be impacted by that the next slide really depicts our vaccination rate so the leading preventative strategy for impacting the Delta variant as well as the covid-19 pandemic is vaccination um so this really outlines age breakdown on vaccination in the county as a percentage of the total population and so as you can see you know our older population 65 and above they are highly vaccinated for the total amount of the population that they

092contribute or that they make up in the county one of the things that was also added to the dashboard today was this ability to break down 12 plus vaccination 18 plus vaccinated 65 plus so you can kind of see some of the different variations depending on the age categories so 12 plus year old vaccinations in the county were at 46 for a single dose 42 fully vaccinated for all individuals 18 and over we're about 49 with single dose and about 45 for fully vaccinated um so I think that we're making strides as a leading preventative strategy and one that we're very much promoting at the health department as well one thing that comes with our vaccinations is also breakthrough cases and I know someone had made a few questions of your last meeting about the

093numbers of potential breakthrough cases that we had in the county this is data collected from the state for breakthrough cases which are really anyone who would test positive for covid-19 after they've completed the vaccination series and so I kind of circled around there with a 0 to 17 recognizing that you know 0 to 12 can't be vaccinated so this is really our 12 to 17 year olds that are fully vaccinated so they've either completed two doses in a two dose series or one dose in a single series and this is region seven which at the top you'll see really outlines a number of the counties Alexander Catawba Iredell Rowan Cleveland Gaston Mecklenburg Union Cabaret Stanley and Anson counties and we've had 28 individuals in that 12 to 17 category that we the CDC classifies as

094a breakthrough case meaning that they got fully vaccinated and then beyond that 14-day window of vaccination they actually test positive again and then the last slide I'll leave you with and I know that you guys have seen all of these strategies but CDC ncdhhs American Academy of Pediatrics Dr Fisher has mentioned it strong schools toolkit really is this notion of layered preventative strategies it's the most effective at really lowering our risk of transmission covid-19 vaccination encouraging those that want to be to get vaccinated proper and consistent use of face coverings physical distancing when we can ventilation strategies if there are some that are being are able to be explored taking advantage of that incorporating good hand hygiene practices good respiratory etiquette especially as we lead into flu season that's very important testing availability so really

095just encouraging folks to get tested if they are symptomatic or screen if that's an option symptom monitoring don't come to work if you're sick don't send your child to school if they're sick and then really just strong disinfection practices all of these kind of coupled on one another or a combination of them really help us lower the risk of transmission [Applause] that's all I have any questions for me any questions from the board I have one uh how many deaths in Cleveland County from 0 to 12 have we had four there is zero deaths from zero to twelve in Cleveland County how many hospitalizations from zero to twelve yeah that one's a little bit more challenging I actually reached out to the state to see if we could get comprehensive hospitalizations on zero to twelve

096and they weren't able to get us 0 to 12 on hospitalizations they did send me National Data and for 0 to 12 we've had just two percent that have been hospitalized and that's National thank you I'm kind of curious on the chart with the is the Region 4 variant proportions what's the difference between a VOC and a voi variant of concern and varied of Interest so that the CDC classifies the different variants so if you look at that other chart where it had the kind of bar graph with the variant levels there are variants of interest and variants of concerns and the CDC classifies those based on transmission How likely they are to develop severe illness all sorts of kind of different metrics go into establishing them as a VOC or a voi because it

097looks like there's three more variants the list could be on Delta and the Iota right has I guess several different subclasses yeah so there's a lot more out there besides Delta right right because the virus and so um many times it does mutate just by nature of of their composition the state virologist had shared with me just the level of mRNA or RNA the DNA sequencing that makes up this virus is very long and so as it replicates it makes mistakes but those are the variants that have been identified the Lambda is not in the United States yeah not yet Mr Blanton what about 12 to 20 I'm telling on Jaws uh Mr showers is uh thing uh of cases on death of the Kobe from in Cleveland County of 12 to 20. yeah 24.

098I didn't even give those numbers for you Mr Blanton but I can truly follow up with that one because I did not gather that one for you tonight because uh you know we got children that's 18 19 years old in school and that was the reason I was we'd go from there uh one other question uh would you agree as a medical professional that this virus has a host and will be around forever I think a virus by Nature yes no but it could have an animal host it could have some other kind of host right right that's how viruses continue to rest yes as long as it has a cell tone habit it will continue to replicate yes Miss Hanson quick question here on uh on the Breakthrough cases you're saying that's through region

099seven and there's multiple counties within region seven what's this correct all right and so 28 out of of Ages 0 to 17 in region seven have had breakthrough cases correct so if you look at cases of fully vaccinated in Cleveland County of 12 and 12 and up 38 35 666. what's that perfect from Cleveland County vaccination rates in Cleveland County right right at 42 rates all right so that number out of just Cleveland County is point zero zero zero seventy eight percent point five to twenty eight two two that are to the number in Cleveland County so that number of breakthrough cases in Cleveland County is actually going to be less than that correct okay thank you yeah one one quick question Me and Everyone Every Other Board member and everybody in this uh in

100this building have had discussion about covid especially knowing that they would probably be an update at our meeting and I've heard today that uh that Cleveland County ranks in the top three or five with the high percentage in the state is and I don't they never see it but that's what I hear so is that true um and so that's probably referencing number of cases per 100 000 and our percent positivity which is used to kind of determine that transmission level mapping and I haven't seen today how high we are on the chart but I know last week when I got an update we are um definitely trending in the top 10 of of the state as far as transmission rates based on those two figures yes and and on strategies to prevent that the

101top two on the list here is receiving the vaccine and the next one is proper and consistent use of face covers is that correct that is correct yes any other questions from Miss Hansen thank you are we going to continue to have some conversation when we can excuse me Dr Fisher or we can have further discussion yeah before we move on I would definitely like to have some more conversation you know when we met last uh I feel like we met like a day or two too early it's a lot changed uh over that time from that meeting that we had that evening to where we're at right now um I don't know I know all the board members received a email I don't know if the public realizes it but we received a email

102from the um children's Shelby Children's Clinic here in Cleveland County and basically in their email I'll be happy to share it with anybody their recommendation is for us to change the policy for mandatory mass for our students and staff these are individuals that we trust these are individuals that we majority of our citizens have trusted to take care of our young people and a memorial school board members we always look for guidance if we're going to do a project building a add-on to a school we go to The Experts we get the engineers we get them to do all the stuff this is a time that we need to listen to The Experts uh I look at the Shelby Children's Clinic as the experts in this as Ms Hansen said looking at the PowerPoint two

103of the top to make sure that we can hopefully get the numbers down is vaccinated and proper and consistent use of face coverings my goal and I feel like everybody else's goal here with the school board is that we want our kids in school and if we don't do something we are going to be sitting in classroom after classroom home and they are not going to be in our classrooms and in our schools where they need to be at it's a concerning to me over the last few weeks I've had a number of teenagers that I've spoken to and it's constantly that I hear that they went on mission trips outings with other teenagers Church Gatherings going on trips and they're consistently telling me the number of students that have come back positive with the

104virus or they're all quarantined and that's just our churches and youth groups going off once we get them into the building if we don't have masks our numbers of students and staff to be quarantined will rise and I understand when people say it's your right I mean I've voted last time that we make it optional but a lot a lot of things have changed back in 1985 I refer a lot of stuff back to my career up when I was with the highway patrol back in 1985 a lot of y'all might remember they passed the seat belt law and I've had to deal with that throughout my whole career because I got out of law enforcement in 86 and I've heard it you know it is our right whether we can wear a seatbelt or

105not nobody needs to tell us that we need to wear a seatbelt I've heard that and I heard that well they passed the law that they had to wear a seatbelt to protect that person wearing a seat belt testing and surveys and crash stuff and it kept on after a time they decided to make everybody in the car to wear a seat belt and the reason I tell you that why did they make everybody wear a seat belt why can if I were to seat belt and Mr Hunt don't wear a seat belt what does it matter it matters a lot I'm protected in that seat belt but if I'm involved in a crash I'm not protected from him because if I'm involved in a crash the number one injury that you get is the

106other passenger in the vehicle hitting somebody in the car Head to Head so it's not that I'm just protecting myself with the seat belt with Mr Hunt wearing his seatbelt he is actually being protected I'm being protected so he won't come over and injure me and that's the way I look at it we've got to protect our kids you know there's a lot of people that will probably wear their masks but we've got to keep our kids we've got to keep our students in the classroom it is so so important that they're there it is frustrating for teachers and students to wear a mask I'm the first one to say I don't like wearing a mask but I'm not wearing one tonight but I'm gonna have to start back I've always wore it on a

107regular basis but we've got to do something to get these numbers down it is not it is not good it's nothing to brag about but being the top 10 of the state of how the highest percentage are covered that is nothing to brag about and we as a school board like what Ms still said when our goals is to have healthy environment for our students has safe healthy environment and we've got to be able to do that and I support that we change it to make it mandatory mass for our students and staff that are on our property no commissioner just to lay some ground rules I know everybody wants to speak you want me to give everybody a chance to say what they need to say and we'll we'll hit everyone that wants to

108talk and then if we need to do a second round we can discuss that and then so Mr operation okay thank you thank you Mr chairman um I'm not going to argue about science on this because you can you can go out you can find dueling phds in epidemiology and biology all over the place somebody could teach me to fly the space shuttle easier they can explain this all this virus stuff to me so I'm gonna take a different approach on this um we're going to get a civics class Mr Glover just very aptly pointed out and I'm coming from dot I totally get the seat belt but they passed a law that's the key phrase the legislator passed a law so Mr Glover operated under an enabling act for the highway patrol I operated

109under an enabling act for the Department of Transportation we operate under an enabling act for the public schools in North Carolina there's a thousand pages in this thing I haven't read every word in it true confession I haven't read a bunch of them not all of them so that being said we have to operate within this set of laws North Carolina General statute 136 and 47 and contained in this explicitly addresses the powers and duties of school boards most importantly ensuring that all students receive a sound basic education we're in the education business articles within this legislation clearly Define the school's role versus parental rights and Authority most notably in medical and Health Care issues schools were not authorized to provide or administer any medications or medical devices without a parent or legal Guardians written

110consent we cannot legally give a student a cough drop or a Tylenol without parental consent the only Inception of this is in case of emergency Health Care for the U.S Food and Drug administration's web page the FDA regulates face masks including cloth face coverings and surgical mask is medical devices when they are marketed for medical purposes medical purposes include and I'm still quoting include uses uses related to covid-19 such as face masks to help stop the spread of disease we have never been in the business of administering medications or medical devices to students without parental consent and we should not start now in my opinion it's not our place to tell students to wear a face mask or not that's the parent's decision to make and like I said the last meeting I trust our

111parents to make an informed decision thank you tomorrow I'm going on Mr Humphries he should be a parent's decision I'm not telling a as I said before I took the shot and I if anybody wants to take a shot that's their business if they don't want to take it that's their business it's their life it's not mine but we do not have the right to tell someone that they have to do this or we go in communism I've just said Point Blank is that what we're doing I'm saying it should be a person's choice mostly of the parents on the underage and our teachers it's tough for them to teach up there with that mask and understand because when we've got our Mast on I can't understand anything of what anybody's saying Harley with my

112hearing there's a lady spoke to us tonight she give us down the road about math well she didn't have one on she should have had one only she is going to get on us like she did but I you know I can take it she can get on me all she wants to it's a person's Choice thank you everyone else Mr Taylor thank you Mr Queen I want to I want to clarify and make a little correction uh yes and on our last board meeting I did say I did have the covered vaccine um I'm pretty sure I went along to that and said that personal choice was my choice to get it it's also my wife's choice my daughter's choice and my son's choice when I had coven I spent seven days at home

113wife both kids free to go about their business didn't have to quarantine so I say that to say it is personal choice if you want the vaccine go get it if you don't don't go get it but when it comes to you sending your kids to Cleveland County Schools and you want us to make a sound decision for best education if they're not in school they're not getting education if they're not able to get to quarantined they're not able to get the vaccination and they're not able to wear if they're not made wearing a mask then they're going home and if they can't get on with their students that can't get on internet they can't get to the to be able to get the education they need then what are we doing what are we

114doing it for yeah it is your choice and it's not my choice to to say why or why you don't do it but my choice is to uh my the way I feel is the children that aren't able or aren't don't have the option to take the vaccine should have to come in mask now if the kids are able to come grades 9 through 12 they have that option they choose to take it then I think we give them the option but that's my and and to touch on I got email after email after email we sit here and listen to everybody talk that it's that it's part of that is politicized I said it before and I'm gonna say it again I'm not voting for The R I'm not voting for The D I'm

115voting for exactly how my conscience tells me to vote you know if anybody's upset with that sorry thank you Mr Taylor Miss Green okay I just want to say that I'm not pushing a vaccine on anybody I do believe that vaccine is a personal choice um myself along with all the other school board members we got several email after email after email you know some of them were stating things such as studies out of states that does not apply to us and I know we're looking at overall but when we have our local people here our local Health Department our local children's clinic telling us things that are facts some have said it's common sense I think common sense is listening to The Experts no I don't personally like math myself but if it's going

116to help protect others around me I'm gonna wear it um you say that we're in the business to educate kids and that's what we are here to do but it's going to be hard to educate our kids when they're not at school because they're quarantined at home and even if um a kid is vaccinated and they've done everything they can they have a mass on trying to protect their self if they're within six feet to an unvaccinated kid that tests positive they have done everything that they can to protect theirselves but they still have to go home and quarantine and so I just think we can educate our kids better if they're in school um and it's a lot of concerned parents and we've gotten some emails about well masks are dirty if you see

117what's on their mask and I don't mean no harm but they sell disposable masks that you can wear and throw away or you wouldn't let your child wear a pair of socks for seven days a week without washing them correct so why let them wear a mask seven days a week without washing it so I don't I that that excuse right there is just you know kind of and I don't know the word to say this properly but like I said I just wish especially the kids that cannot make a choice to get vaccinated a lot of parents want their kids vaccinated that are under 12 and they can't get them so I just think that we should do everything that we can do to protect it and it's not one thing the vaccination is

118not going to protect everybody the math isn't going to protect everybody but when you start doing different things learn I mean we had very good results last semester uh in the spring and I think we could come back and have those same results I just don't want to see a lot of kids out because they're quarantined I don't want to see Sports counseled I don't want to see things moving into the future senior projects Council graduation I just want us to be able to go to school educate our kids and do what we have to do whether we like it or not it won't be forever but let's just do what we can to keep our kids safe Mr Hunt I think if we take the politics out of this debate we can use rational

119decisions and come up with decisions that's best for our students and our staff we know that the Delta variant is is here and it's real we've listened to people from our health department give you the statistics and we can't deny that they're not real because this is someone that's out there monitoring that if she hadn't come to this board meeting and and to let me know what those statistics are you know I wouldn't know what they are right now and you wouldn't either but she came and she gave us a presentation and I don't think she made them up say we're not here to tell parents what to do to infringe upon their rights but we vote on policies and procedural things that must happen in the school we voted on tonight we vote on

120my vote on something every board meeting that basically dictates how schools Iran so we need to come out for the notion that we're not telling people what to do you know people put us here for a reason and that's to use common sense the Delta variant covid-19 is more rampant in the younger generation now than when kovitz started 18 months ago we listen to The Experts then when we had to make a decision to close schools we thought we were going to close schools and be back in a couple of weeks that did not happen we're still dealing with it today I just want us to err on the side of caution I don't like to mask no more than anyone in this room I hate them but I weren't I'm saying with covet happening

121the way it is right now on the increase we cannot ignore the fact that we've got to put some things in place to protect our children and the adults that's in there in schools with those children every day because if we don't we've seen other counties that started back to school and we've heard on the news what's happening with with covet is spreading and if we don't take the politics out of this and use common sense it's going to spread here in Cleveland County Professor Mr Shores well I took a lot of phone calls just like everybody else has so the calls I get are my kid can't learn because they're in that mask they can't breathe they have allergies they're claustrophobic it's just it's a horrible situation at home but I made a comment

122last week and I'm going to go up and clarify that I didn't quote something that I talked about so let me before I got done with the last meeting the article was on my phone so I'm going to text it to me but I looked at that one and I looked at a number another other news articles and I many of them ran this story and shame on them if it's false but I will quote the alacuna chronicle June 12 2021 a group of local parents sent six face masks to the lab at University of Florida requesting an island analyst of contaminants found on the mass they had worn the resulting the resulting report found that five mass were contaminated with bacteria parasites fungi including three with dangerous pathogens and pneumonia causing bacteria the analysts

123detected the following 11 and I'll not read them all because to be honest with you I can't pronounce some of these long words but I can understand pneumonia I can understand tuberculosis I can understand meningitis I can understand food poisoning I can understand Lyme disease uh and these were washed before the kids put them on and went on to school while I was there an interesting article came up on pubmed.gov a government website where a bunch of doctors did a study on surgeons wearing masks and without reading that entire report I'll read you the conclusion the source of the bacterial con contamination in surgical Mass was the surface of the surgeons rather than the operating environment moreover we recommend that surgeons should change their Mass after each operation especially those Beyond two hours double layered

124surgical masks are those with excellent filtration functions may be also a better alternative so this was basically telling those surgeons that after two hours your mask is dirty and we're asking a kid to wear it for five to six hours a day I can't I can't do that a former President Biden coveted advisor and top epidemiologist Michael osterholm stated and I quote we know today that many of the face cloth covers that where that people wear are not effective in reducing the virus movement in or out osterholm the director of Center for infectious disease research and policy at the University of Minnesota then I decided I can go to the CDC and look up some numbers there since January of 2000 which was the beginning of covert to July of 2021 which is 16 months

125it listed from the ages of one to four 41 deaths and from 5 to 14 119 deaths is relate to covet that's why I specifically asked that lady how many deaths in Cleveland County have children zero to twelve she said zero I asked her about hospitalization she could tell me an answer then I went on and looked from zero to four who had the flu in 2018 and 19 was 266. with 25 328 hospitalizations Age 5 to 17 with 21 000 12 hospitalizations in 2019 and 2020 age zero to four 254 had died so let me go back and say that zero to four 266 children died of the flu 5 to 17 211 die of the flu age zero to four 254 in 2019-20 died of the flu Age 5 to 17 180 died

126of the flu that's double the amount of kids that died from covert I wonder what in the world would happen if we put all these statistics together and have presentations on the flu which we've never amassed kids for I have had someone send me a video that I think can explain something a little bit better than I can if you play that video thank you sorry um because we're doing things that are not useful and we're getting our sources of information from the interstate Board of Health and CDC you actually don't probably to read science before I'm actually emotional Family Medicine physician that means I am specially trained in Immunology inflammation regulation and everything being recommended by the CDC and State Board of Health is actually contrary so things you should know about coronavirus and

127all of the respiratory viruses they are spread by aerosol particles which are small enough to go through every mass by the way in literature that supports all that is in a flash drive that we presented to you think as a matter of fact it quotes at least three studies some sponsored by the NIH to that exact fact even though the CDC in the image have chosen to be important to be ignored within science that it need to have done um that is why you keep struggling with this because you cannot make these viruses go away the Natural History all of us are Detroit viruses is that they circulate all of your long waiting for the immune system to get sick recently with these machines and then they cause symptoms and they have animal reservoirs is

128very important Point knowing you need this virus go away the CDC has managed to convince everybody that we can handle this like we did a small box for me to make a virus go by small plants that no animal what does it works the only managers would affect the skills that's why we were able to make that virus go away that will not happen to this any more than it dealt with influence of the common cold versus the course of the social virus had no viral respiratory person though is there anything else that has animal in other parts so the reason you can't do this is because you're trying to do something which has already been tried and can't be equally importance is that vaccination changes none of us especially with this vaccine I hope

129this board will start passing itself before it considers taking the advice of the CDC the NIH and State Board of Health why we're doing things about this that we didn't do for the Commonwealth influence on respiratory in central virus and then ask yourself why is the vaccine that is supposed to be so effective having a breakout in the middle of the summer with respiratory viral syndrome is know to do that and to help you understand that you need to know the condition that is called anti-mediated viral enhancement that's conditioned done when vaccines work wrong as they did in every coronavirus study done in animals on coronaviruses at the SARS outbreak and the question for a sensational virus for a vaccine used in a vulnerable individual done the wrong way there's like to not be done

130right for respiratory virus which has a very low pathogenicity rating causes the immune system to actually fight the virus strong and let the virus become worse than it would with gated infections and that's why you're seeing outbreak right now in fact in that flash drive they're going to have coming to you in the emails with six extractor only a study showing at 75 of equal 300 coded 19 positive symptom cases in Varsity of Massachusetts operator were fully vaccinated therefore there is no reason to treating any person vaccinated any differently than any person unvaccinated you should also know that no vaccine even the ones I support him would give to myself and my children ever stops infection in 2014 it was outbreak with most of the National Hockey League the only people who came down the

131symptoms of the people who were unvaccinated or unknown vaccine status boy that sounds like a great argument for vaccines but a question you should ask yourself knowing that half of the people who came down with symptomatic disease had no contact with an unvaccinated or unknown vaccine status individual where did they get the disease and the answer was from the vaccinated individuals no vaccine prevents you from getting infection when you get infected you shut past especially through a viral pressure reporting passages you just don't get symptomatic on it so you cannot stop spread you do not get these numbers that you plan on getting better by doing anything they're doing because that is a major viral respiratory packages if you can't prevent with a vaccine because they don't do everything you're wanting them to do and

132you will be chasing this the remainder of your life until you recognize that the center of the siege control and the Indiana State Board of Health are giving you very bad scientific guidance and instead read the articles that are going to come in the email or on this flash drive and listen to the people in this audience here tonight who actually recognize the advice they are getting from the C is counter factual and that's why you're still fighting this with this vaccine and supposedly it's going to make all this go away but suddenly managed to paint and outbreak of coca-19 development in the middle of the summer who invitamin D levels are Amplified by the way the other thing that necessary any vaccine restriction he considers that there were no other treatments available and I

133can tell you I can treat over 15 covid-19 patients that between active living with vitamin D I directed and zinc that there's a single person who has come anywhere near a hospital and we already have studied to show the huge shooting 2500 kilo Brittany 55 your risk of covenanting death will drop down to through one quarter of the population average the United States and there are active treatment trials included on that black strike and the sort of the same is true so if you're going to discriminate based upon vaccine you should also discriminate basically 125 hydroxide vitamin B level zinc taste test response and probably previous infections since there are also studies that flash arrived and show that people who had recovered from covid-19 infection actually get no benefit from vaccination at all no production

134and symptoms no reduction to hospitalization and suffer two to four times the rate of side effects if they are subsequently vaccinated therefore the policies that you're facing under totally counterfaction I don't blame this word for that but I know you aren't scientists and you thought it was reasonable to listen to the CDC NIH in the Indiana State Board of Health but I would encourage them instead you listen to the people out here in this audience and read what's on that day to drive and if anybody here in this board has any questions about anything on that I will come back and sit with you you would like to explain the science behind this and if you're worried about being sued by somebody because you don't follow the guys who deceased in the NIH I will

135tell you how many have a pro bono expert testimony at your disposal I will testify in Tennessee this course turning down all this specifications for free at any time thank you thank you if if this board moves the Mandate mask we know we're gonna have to have a medical exception I am not going to expose kids but medical conditions that's what we're going to do when we mandate we're going to have to have a medical exception and one kid sitting in the elementary class without a mask and ask the teacher why do they not have on a mass what's the teacher going to say are we willing there's enough bullying going on in school are we willing to let people with medical conditions bullied get picked on or whatever because they're not wearing a mask

136in folks if you don't realize it there is bullying going on in school and some of these people these people with these medical conditions already have enough problems they don't need to be set there and singled out because they're not wearing a mess because of medical conditions thank you thank you I think you're the only one that hasn't spoken yeah I'll just say a few quick words uh not much I have to say after that video other than I believe it ought to be the choice of the parents whether kids wear a mask or not I have also received many emails from teachers who are asking for us to not pass a mandated mask where this is coming from teachers uh here in the Cleveland County School System they say they can't effectively teach with

137kids in Mass the the concentration rate goes down they can't concentrate they have severe headaches uh dizziness they can't breathe so therefore they do not pay attention in the class so I think we need to listen to the teachers of this of this school system as well uh and we need to leave that an option for the students and teachers and prayers all right well I'm not gonna I'm the only one who has spoken I'm not going to add anything because there's been plenty said um I will point out uh Dr Fisher has gone through our coveted protocols as it stands masking is optional in the classroom it is mandatory on buses for students and drivers because of the federal mandate so and that's the way it will stand in absence of emotion differing from

138that can I ask a question of Dr Fisher yes Dr Fisher use forward it as an email and um it's always good to see if that information is accurate I just want to make sure it's correct but this email that came from a health school health supervisor that's saying that if all students are masked masked by all con contact tracing is very limited the con contact tracing is is limited mostly lunch and other activities it supports is that is that is that correct yes sir that's my understanding that's correct and I think that um if everyone is wearing a mask then you do not have contact tracing and so I think the point of the email not to add words to the email was that if you have people without masks um did you have

139contact tracing because you have the potential for spread so even if you had everybody with a mask you would still have contact racing during launch during Athletics there were times where where somebody would not be masked so if you remember going back to my slides uh where the contract tracing was it was six feet for more than 15 minutes in a 24-hour period if either party is unmasked so even if you had a classroom where you know not everybody in the classroom was masked but but if you had the people that were six feet away from a student and that student was masking everybody was around six feet with mass then you would have quarantines but if any of those were unmasked and you have more things and also and throughout the email it said

140a 14-day quarantine would be potentially a 60 hour instructional hours or loss for that particular student so we we uh when we equate instructional hours we look at six instruction hours per day that's why we go in our instructional Day from a from instructional album perspective whether that's elementary middle or high school so for a day is really six instructional hours that's taking out lunch taking out recess okay and I respect everybody's opinion and and I really enjoy hearing hearing discussion I want to say it's discussion I think it's healthy for this board to sit around and to have discussion I think it's healthy to hear from from the individuals that came and spoke this evening um but there's a we are school board members I'm not a health you know a doctor in no

141means but when I have the the experts I call them I wish I could talk to the health director but she's she's already gone but when when the number two thing is properly and consistent use of face coverings that tells me man if we're going to beat this thing if we're going to keep our kids in school we might not beat it but if we can keep our students in school we need to wear face coverings when we have 16 doctors to send us an email and they're giving us the recommendation that our students need to be masked these are trusted Health Care Professionals and then we have another doctor to come and speak and tell us his recommendation that we need to have our students and staff Mass I mean I don't know what

142else the public can do to to tell this board for us to do that in saying that I I'd like to entertain a motion that we make Mass mandatory for our pre-k through 12 schools for students and staff and teachers hold on just a second did you have that written out I did not I do not I do not write any of my emotions out because I want to hear discussion because I'm not sure what I'm going to vote until I get here so I don't write my emotions up please say that again I'll make it uh Cleveland County Schools Mass mandated for pre-k through 12th grade in our schools for students teachers and staff second name okay information about Mr Glover and second of Mr Hunt for a mandatory Mass Pre-K to 12. students

143teachers and staff all right any discussion on that yes well it's not on that motion now but I've got to just I've got a one thing I'd like to say well how are we going to play Friday Night Football with eight plus teens 50 or more players on each one of those teams if they got to wear a mask yeah okay okay all right any discussion or questions about the motion according to the motion as I understand it those were medical conditions we are mandating have to wear a mask so I always had that exemption I didn't hear an emotion the motion was to mandate it for everybody K through 12. everybody's everybody Mr policy is there anything in our current policies that allow for medical medical exemption oh absolutely yeah yeah in fact our

144policies require parental consent for any medical device but by following the general statutes and that's that's kind of where I've got the problem here we're home so so last last spring Mass were mandated they weren't mandated by a school board they were mandated by the governor of the state of North Carolina back to back to civics class we'll leave the federal government out of it because they don't have any authority over school systems anyway but you have the governor and down here is US the school board we're just above the water board we're just about the lowest ranked elected officials in the state of North Carolina as far as Authority goes our Authority our Authority is very limited it's here it's very clear we don't have medical authority over parental consent so how we can

145sit here and pretend to mandate something when we don't have the legislative authority to do it is beyond me and we should not have the legislative authority to do it the governor absolutely he's the governor of the state he can mandate things with executive orders that's the way the law works so we want to talk about this being political politicized hey let's go there what's up with the governor if this if masks are so important and it's so vital why does the governor of the state of North Carolina saying oh no no you know watch his body language when the reporters ask him about that oh no no we're not we're vaccinating he don't want to go there because there's a midterm election coming up that's political that's politicalization right there look we're the school

146board we're concerned about schools look at all of our policies look at read through the general statues we're supposed to be focused on education there's a Department of Health and Human Services or it's all kinds of layers that deal with health concerns and I'm good okay any other discussion on the motion sir we don't recognize folks from the audience I'm sorry we had public participation earlier I've seen your hand up but we we just don't have uh time for that uh any other questions or discussion on the motion Miss sink I hate to put you on the spot and I usually don't ask a question that I don't already know the answer to but in lieu of Mr Humphries analysis as far as legal authority of the school board is the motion in order as

147far as mandating masks because there's an executive order from July 29th that essentially pushes us to the tool kit and the tool kit leaves it in our discretion to use the word should um we we have the discretion of the school board to choose to have masks optional or to mandate mask of course there would be medical exceptions that's part of the toolkit guidance so because while there's an absence of legislative Authority we do have the executive order which does have the force of law the executive order essentially pushes that to the toolkit and so that's what our guidance is so so we we do have the discretion to make that choice um we won't be breaking the law either either way we vote um thank you the the earlier comments by Mr Humphries about

148the the history of us not um directing medical decisions and without parenthesis I would say is is still very accurate um but this specific decision about mandating versus not mandating we do have that discretion and that that's because of the executive order because of the executive order from July 29th yes sir yeah I'm not going to argue with somebody that does this for a living but I will anyway I'm not going to argue with you just just a quick question I mean so the executive order says should uh the recommendation in the toolkits I should so two shoulds don't make a must right well we we have that option we have to or don't have to I'll get that but I I can't help but wonder if we're not trying to operate under color of

149law instead of direct force of law I understand where you're coming from and I think that if you know the word should could could eventually be litigated I think that the the general understanding of that executive order than pushing it to the toolkit it does give us that discretion and my legal opinion um but I do understand a lot better there could have maybe been a stronger word used to make it more clear I I know where you're coming from so so would you agree that if this was a huge concern to the governor of North Carolina he has the absolute authority to say must and then it's mandated I would agree with that statement yes sir any other questions for Miss saint any other discussion on the motion I think we're done with you

150all right the motion on the floor is to make masks mandatory for pre-k to 12 grades for students teachers and staff it's been moved and seconded and discussed last chance for discussion once gone twice all right those in favor of the motion as presented if you'd raise your hand any opposed motion fails four to five suppose we still got business to conduct um Mr Blanton did you have any further questions for Dr Fisher well yes I just wanted to ask that question uh if that had a past what was going to do about those football 11 football players Friday night let me ask it as a High School Athletic Association given any guidance as far as athletes in sports is really just for guidance that is is in school day remember we played with mask

151last year right but because they're going to be closer than six foot I'm sure Friday night they're no question if if I'm going to watch that football game if they're going to be further than six foot apart because it's going to be exciting how they're going to tackle somebody down six foot away from each other some wide splits what is what is the guidance for athletes from The High School Athletic Association the guidance for athlete I mean there's not a mass guided for athletes okay okay all right but in turn if that football team's all in the locker room unmasked and there's positive in that locker room or when that team's together the whole team is quarantined for 14 days not some out of two weeks of practice and could be two to three ball

152games that's right the the the and just so you're aware the quarantine guidelines that we discussed uh in in my presentation were for the school day really at eight to three mindset it was not referenced to Athletics Athletics is entirely different uh piece that's governed through the association those quarantines aren't uh always aren't the same uh they're actually more severe into Mr Glover's Point you're exactly right if you have a close contact whether it's in the locker room a close contact from a game close contact for those you will have folks in a warranty for that well those same kids is going to be going to school that's playing football because they can't play football for us being going to school and if they're going to school then there you are exposed again they're exposing

153women oh okay and wear a mask all right next item on the agenda is student transfer request you've got those in your board Docs what's the pleasure of the board I make a motion that we approve you motion by Mr Blanton second by Mr Fitch these are confidential so there's no discussion those in favor of the student transfer request if you'd raise your hand at motion carries nine zero next to board member communes Mr Taylor do you have anything uh I do appreciate the discussion we had I we we can all disagree and agree on different on multiple things um that's it Miss Green Mr Blanton I'll just I believe I can let it slide tonight too because I feel for the people all right Mr Shores Mr Taylor tell your dad again thanks for

154what he he's done uh even though he was a Shelby high and I was Chris I mean [Laughter] uh skipping right over me was yes you're okay go ahead uh again I'd like to congratulate Kings Mountain High School that's very very and and Mr Taylor's father for being a great example for academics in sports uh just just clarify one thing from the last meeting I did say that I'd had a vaccine and I have not had any ill effects from it and that's just me personally um I'm definitely would never tell anybody to do it but I'm telling you just from my experience I haven't I didn't have any issues with the vaccine so all right thank you foreign I just I appreciate it and I always look forward to to discussion and um you

155know as you said you asked if I wrote down my um I had that written down my motion I try to come here with the open mind every time I mean at the last board meeting that I didn't know what decision to make until it was time to vote and I was still shaky at that time so but I appreciate I appreciate everybody up here on the board and everybody respecting each other and giving everybody the opportunity to talk and I think a good healthy conversation and discussion is always good for our board thank you Mr Hunt I concur with what Philip just said I do appreciate uh conversation the debate and uh no matter you know if we disagree we've got we've got to learn to get along and uh and do what's right

156for the students and uh I feel the way that I do and you know I spent 40 years in Cleveland County Schools in the classrooms and I just want to see kids in school and I just feel like that this this covet virus is uh we can better prepare ourselves and the students by putting a layer of protection there even though people don't like the mask it's just it's something that's necessary right now hopefully down the road uh you know we don't even have to have a mass discussion but I do I just feel like that uh based on what I've seen and what's coming uh there's gonna be a lot of kids missing school and I just don't want to see that Mr Keller do you have something you want to add he passed

157okay sorry I was trying to find the Kings Mountain Shelby Creston Burns their accumulative GPA in regards to the award that Kings Mountain won you know that that award was named after is named after my father Jim Taylor but every coach in in every High School in every in every Middle School they you know Athletics in Cleveland County is above par in in most in more than most counties in North Carolina but it's not it's not just one individual coach or or one individual sport or whatnot the the whole athletic department as a whole they I appreciate the way they put the effort in to make sure that the student athletes know that grades are number one so I just wanted to touch on that and thank you Mr Shores for what you said I

158appreciate it I believe all these the averages very good it's really really great and to run off the I think about every year we have a sport running for the highest GPA in the state of North Carolina is that right Mr friendburg and we had one team that won that last year or two or something volleyball basketball well one year one year so right I just want to act out that's fine uh and and I'll I'll just add that uh it's no secret everybody knows this board got off to a rocky start back in December and uh I I do appreciate the way the the board has grown and we do have healthy discussion and uh we'll be friends and share the cookie in there and closed session here in a minute and uh Hopefully

159Dr Fisher brought the cookies but uh I do appreciate the board and the time that they they put into this study and and all the phone calls and emails that we we all entertain so do I have a motion to enter into closed session Mr Shores I think I must be going in closed session pursue at the general statute 143-3-18.116 A1 and A3 to enter close it says to discuss confidential Personnel matters and consultant board attorney and preserve attorney-client privilege okay all right motion by Mr Shore second by Mr blank those in favor of closed session and that motion carries nine to zero all right we're back to our conference room okay we'll call our meeting back to order do we have a motion to re-enter Open Session by Mr Humphries his second second by

160Mr Hunt those in favor of re-entering Open Session if you raise your hand all right that motion carries nine zero all right in closed session we discussed uh two confidential legal matters with our attorney and then we have a couple recommendations for vote here in Open Session first is a sixth amendment to the superintendent's contract to extend his contract one year keeping all other terms the same well it's a pleasure of the board motion by Mr Taylor second by Mr Hunt those in favor of that motion if you'd raise your hand no we that was on the superintendent money okay well I was told no it was just the one it's two separate votes is that a yeah all right that motion carries 9-0 then we have a recommendation from the superintendent to approve the

161administrative contract renewals for our executive team and that will also keep all terms of their contract the same except for extension of one year it was a pleasure of the board all right Mr Fitch and Mr Glover those in favor of the contract essential if you raise your hand any opposed that motion carries eight to one and I think we're down to the good part do I have a motion to adjourn all in favor go home good as well