001[Music] we'll start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice so we do technically have a quorum uh so first thing um non-public non-public session 9183a the dismissal promotion or compensation of any public employer of the disputing of such employee in the investigation of any charges against him or her unless the employee affected one has a right to a meeting and two requests that the meeting be open in which case this request shall be granted um bridgewater yes bristol yes danbury yes and groton yes hey we will go to non-public suicide uh we're waiting for heidi and friends [Music] all right next and the agenda is a public hearing
002so i'm going to open for the public hearing the newfound area school district will conduct a public hearing to accept and expend the funds from stop school violence threat assessment grant in the amount of 11 676.70 we're in a public hearing now to accept a grant um and do you know about the grant or is it could you sure [Music] the um team at that high school she would train me in october to develop risk assessment rubrics to keep our students safe [Music] any questions just for the public hearing regarding the grant yes yep it's public hearing yep in regards to just the grant yep cells um i didn't quite hear exactly what you said but do we have a violence problem here in our district high school just ask it's not it's not all
003about violence it's also both violent right and also like things that are going on at home and with with the child and which can go beyond just like the school right things that are happening in the community with those students i need a motion to accept the grants money and the second second all those in favor uh any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions all right i will close the public here next on the agenda approval or modification of agenda i don't have anything [Music] 6 30 now on the dot that's already on the agenda that's right on the agenda um okay next approval of minutes from june 14th so we were given the minutes from june 14th in our email i read through them any anybody have any large
004grammatical major errors issues with some minutes from june 14. who's still looking himself still looking i know nothing just anything else okay sorry come back to my agenda all right motion to accept the june 14th minute all right obviously all those in favor say aye well the second one of your second switch to a second sorry [Music] sorry any further discussion on the minute okay all those in favor say aye opposed extensions all right moving on public comment microphones open it is open for public comment it is open to agenda items only and you anybody that comes up to the microphone has a five minute limit it is open for the public hello my name is danielle um can you everyone hear me tell us your name danielle danielle yes from bristol um i'm here
005and opposed to that you guys do not force masking on our children for another year there's no reason to be doing it if you guys are here one with a mask which is his choice the rest of you chosen not to wear a mask which is your choice parents should have the choice if they want their children to go to school with masks it should not be forced that parents have no choice in this [Music] children are need that socializing they need to see faces some people need that to because they're hard of hearing or they have special needs and they need to be able to see people's faces they want to see people's reactions my child [Music] who does have some issues was so excited to hear at the beginning of the summer that
006you guys were not going to it was proposed that you guys were not going to do a massive date for the school i have since told them that you had your reopening plan that you guys want them to be masked again he wants to go remote which is no longer an option in your reopening plan how is that fair to our children our children don't want to go to school some not all because they have to wear a mask they don't like having to wear a mask how many of you guys have to go to work every day and wear a mask not everyone some people still work from home it's not fair to our children who have no say currently on what they have to wear at school that should not be one of
007them thank you [Music] john cella is from bristol again kind um show let him organize here any case i'm not one with what much of flowery words i did send you all an email this a couple weeks ago and i'll touch on that in a few minutes but since we're just talking about mass first i sent you all an email except maybe one i don't think i had the email address but in any case i sent an email today about a doctor talking about mask to a school board and uh in any case he was outlaying exactly why they don't work and he had the material to back it up and all that that he was given to them i hope you had time to look at it basically i am not for mass i
008don't think they work matter of fact everything i've seen it shows they don't work it's so simple i mean we're all adults we're definitely all know you know if they work or not so to pressure these kids to wear masks i i kind of border that on child abuse and then on top of it i think it's a psychological thing for them and then i saw this last spring of this last summer maybe it was uh it must have been early spring or something whenever they do on track i see kids running in the track and stuff with a mask and i said this is crazy but anyways i'm hoping that the plan doesn't have uh doesn't include mass this year uh and uh and that you can see through it and see above it
009that they're just they don't work they just don't work and they're really harming the kids more than you think um i have a uh a text message from another person that just has a real problem speaking and uh and this is from heather hack she lives in uh alexandria heather hack now she has four kids but in any case look uh i'm not gonna verbatim but i'm gonna give you the gist of what you're saying she's saying i'm i'm writing in support of parental choice in regards to children's ma medical decisions at the time of this writing nashua exeter winter squam and many other public school districts have acknowledged the decision of making authority uh parent parents for their children's medical decision masks are optional at these schools each family is welcome to meet their
010individual health needs the way they decide what works best for them the school district needs to recognize and respect the authority of the parents in order to maintain relevance relevance in the lives of the community members i personally know multiple families who plan to choose alternate to public schools such as catholic school or private school or homeschooling and it basically should go on what's going on in there you could tell she's the master for her are not the right thing to do and also as a school as a district you will lose more people you you'll lose more students because they will start homeschooling more and create these homeschool pods and next thing you know you'd ask another 50 or 100 kids and that's the last thing that we need to happen here because now
011you don't get the state money you know um any case that's what you want to say and you should just go on say a lot more but i'm not very good at reading as well so basically allowing medical choice demonstrates a level of trust in the community please join me in affirming the rights of families to make decisions independently and i said thank you for your consideration heather hack again it's not verbatim i didn't read it that way but you get to just what you were saying so we're hoping that you don't do math i hope you can see through the math don't work and you just don't do them i think it's very harmful to kids [Music] the last thing i want to touch on real quickly is crt pierre actually uh did write
012me back on my note i sent the letter to all he was about two or three weeks ago and he's saying that they do not teach crt in our schools and they don't teach it they don't plan to teach it and they're not going to teach it by any other name so that's to me that's a great thing i think it's the right thing and you want to teach crt which is a theory i think it should be done at home since it's a theory it's not a fact so i would hope that uh that gets carried through with each member here on the school board i had two school board members that did reply to me and the other i don't know what other five six for some reason i can't seem to reply
013to my emails i want to remind you all your elected officials right now i'm not voting for you next time i'm not having it i want a reply i expect a reply and i deserve a reply i have the right as a as a voter to at least get a reply and i think that should be as a little bit of respect on my end and if you want respect on your end then reply it's simple as that there's nothing to hide about not nothing to hide behind all right thank you hi um hi uh my name is aubry friedman i live in bridgewater i have two uh granddaughters ages four and six this thing on masking drives me crazy first of all it's totally out of perspective they've known since the whole thing started
014it was older people and people who had medical problems so clearly i mean it's like 0.04 kids have died with covet that's about 400 out of 330 million people in the united states so it's very low risk and actually is much greater risk of dying from drownings cancer homicide car accidents even seasonal flu so to put the kids through another year of this nonsense it's crazy and you know school is supposed to be a more pleasant experience a lot of kids don't like going to school to begin with why make it more miserable for another year it's been a year and a half so of course some parents they're kind of hyper about it if they you know want to subject their kids to torture that's fine but they shouldn't be able to impose that
015on all other kids who are attending schools and by the way i did actually talk to some medical people about what do you think about this mass controversy because they're the ones who work within hospitals and healthcare and so forth and they say actually the n95 mask fitted plus a face shield that's beneficial but the cloth masks forget it so they're not fitted properly people are putting them on every which way they're putting them in backpacks and pockets they're dirty so they said it's a waste that way they'd have to be fitted and who's somebody going to check when the kids come in every day that they're fitted properly and if you really want to take it seriously they got to be fitted right well you're going to check every child that'd be ridiculous and
016then when they go to lunch and recess and they take them off to eat or whatever they've got somebody who's going to check them again that they're fitted so it's totally ridiculous let's make school not a miserable experience and just let certain ones if they want to if the parents insist but not everybody else so please not another year of torture for the kids thank you [Music] good evening randall kelly bristol first of all i want to thank you all for your volunteerism i get it i'm actually the vice chair of the planning board and vice chair of the cip committee so i get what it's like to be the bad guy most of the time with that said i had a speech written and i forgot it and i can only jot down some
017things while i was in the parking lot but either way it'll i think it'll suffice if you look up aerosol particles on the cdc site i think you're going to find that there's three absolute three studies that the cdc paid for that show you that aerosol particles are not stopped by anything this gentleman just spoke about n95 mask i do a lot of sheetrock i have to wear a neoprene mask over my n95 mask if not i look like tony montana when i'm done and that's just the way it is if sheetrock dust can get around an n95 aerosols are definitely doing so we've got to remember something about this is this whole virus is we've been subjecting us to every bit of this because i guess the only thing i can think of always
018is that we've been put through this because i lost my train of thought i apologize for that um it's the only only time in america's history that we've been governed by positive test results not rates of infection not cases of death and that unfortunately has been governed by a pcr test that now the cdc has told us is inadequate it's given them a substantial amount of negative positives of which now they told everybody by december 31st they need to find a new way of testing what happened to all those tests why are we not going back and seeing what is the people who have been tested positive for code do they really have covet we don't we are never going to know unfortunately so i guess to make a long story short there's so much
019information out there to counter the suggestion that we need mask especially for children this virus does have a bias for the elderly children are the smallest demographic impacted by this so and i think that is we all know the older we get the weaker our immune system gets and i understand that we have a lot of factors that contribute to that our diet our diet is the biggest thing i guess i'll just leave it at that i mean that's something when we get older finances make people eat things they really shouldn't and that weakens a lot of things also um i'll leave it at that i just wish that we take and you take the time and i understand some of these folks have sent you some information um i was in politics for a
020long time i i don't send emails anymore because i realize it's the same exact thing you don't get any responses because your response better be to the t because if not you're going to get a lot of scrutiny because of your response so i kind of understand why you don't return the answers sometimes but in the same assets like these gentlemen have spoken you are elected officials some type of response is better than none at all so you don't get this negative reflection and that you're ignoring your constituents so with all that said i thank you for your time and i hope you make the right decision for the kids thank you uh hello there my name is bradford knockler i am a teacher at the newfound memorial middle school um i've been hearing these
021concerns about masks and i certainly understand it that having gone the last year with having to teach in the classroom with a mask and having my students have to wear masks is a unpleasant experience i totally understand that and it's an uncomfortable reality but i can't hear [Music] i'm a teacher and i am from plymouth though um this is not your district but i work here sir i am teaching in the middle school so i'd like to think do i not have a voice in this matter or [Music] we've allowed teachers to speak in the past we will continue with that policy then someone's going to have to speak for him because i can't hear what he's saying if this is not a record i want to hear it [Music] um i think that as
022unfortunate as it is i do believe personally from my experience in my view within the classroom students should still continue to wear masks we have a number of students that are coming from all over the towns uh they're coming from a number of different family backgrounds and given that they're spending time in relatively enclosed rooms we need to be considerate of the fact that transitions still can occur and with the new variants developing that are proven to be more infectious especially the delta that we've been hearing about more recently i understand that we don't want to worry about this but until we are at a point where all of our students can be vaccinated and all of our teachers can be vaccinated we're not going to be able to do our job safely and ensure
023the safety of our students if we don't at least have some kind of measure of action to you know provide some safety in the classroom whether that be masks or vaccination or something going in just letting the kids do their own thing without masks that's posing a risk and i don't like wearing this like i really don't and most people would imagine would agree with me in that respect but i'd rather be uncomfortable and maybe have a little bit of trouble breathing if i'm talking a lot than have to risk the concept of has a student who's possibly been coughing today just got a pole or something more i'd rather have some measure of safety than none at all so that is just simply my anecdote like an anecdotal experience being a teacher that we
024should have something masks may not be the best option but i don't know what other options we have outside of vaccination which currently are not available for our students so thank you [Music] my name is debbie glidden i live in alexandria and kind of an answer to our teacher here i have a [Music] the university of florida lab did some testing on masks there's 11 dangerous pathogens that they detected on the masks pneumonia tuberculosis e coli diphtheria legionnaires disease staphylococcus those are among the diseases that they're finding in the masks and as far as the kids having trouble breathing because they're talking too much these are kids we're talking about they talk they laugh they play they should be able to do it and still be able to breathe and as far as the vaccinations
025go that should be the kids kids between the kids and their parents it shouldn't be all over the school whether the kids have their vaccinations or not and thank you bretta for answering me she's the only one that answered me of the emails that i sent out and thank you my name is wanda andrea the school board has a responsibility to decide to mandate children when it masks i think that you also need to take a responsibility to do your homework and to do some research on the ramifications that mass had on these children's [Music] the suicide rate in 2020 for children has exponentially been higher than any other year for the simple reason is children are visual and they're tactile and when they have these masks on they're not communicating with their peers they're
026not communicating with their students their depressions their depression are higher i think if you're going to mandate mass i think you need to look at all of your ramifications before you make that decision uh my name is joshua reynolds from new hampton i have two boys in school one in elementary school the other one in the middle school and my daughter is starting elementary school in new york this year so previous years before covent my my boys have done great in school they love school and not a problem last year they were coming home headaches you know dizziness just not good moods at all um completely different mental state uh they've gone back better this summer so not to be the dead horse but the mask thing is terrible i don't know say i think
027a lot of it has already been said but uh and if it is your decision which i don't know if it is i mean it may be a you know department of health and human services department of education i don't know it's my first school board meeting i've been to so if anybody wants to give me any tips or information about how these usually work would be great but uh yeah last year the schools were kind of in like a like a comedy pow camp or something as far as you know my sons came home and said uh you know my nestle down below my nose and i got scalded for whatever they told me and i'm like if you need to breathe go ahead and breathe i said i don't care what happens you
028breathe so uh if we all love these vaccines so much uh and they're so great you know people are still testing positive for cover 19 after being vaccinated uh you've got the new variants coming out that supposedly the vaccine is useless on so where does the mask wearing end if it does ever if there's we have no idea what the long-term effects of these amount this mass wearing is um you know whether it be co2 poisoning for my job i am a frontline employee i work eight to 16 hour days and i wore a mask for a year year and a half and it was absolutely terrible i ended up in april i was in the hospital four days four nights end up having a heart problem and a hard procedure done i'm on heart
029man's now but i tried asking the doctors if it could be from mask wearing and they told me that some of you it is possible because of the co2 you're not breathing enough actual oxygen so they're going to put you on the oxygen and your numbers start getting better you start feeling great so i just don't want any long-term effects from my children and i understand if you want your kids to wear masks that's great whatever i'm not going to uh judge anybody for it but i just hope i put some real thought into this and hopefully uh that's about it thank you nice to see that we have another section later [Music] brian richardson alexandria so as part of the school reopening plan has that been publicized as has has it it's sitting there
030we're going to go over to the meeting okay so i mean the discussion we've had is is all discussion that is being thought might be discussed but we don't know what the actual school reopening plan is yet right right the board was given the plan on friday right to review over the weekend and ask the board for approval so we're going to review that right so just so for the for the folks that are here we're going to have this the meeting and their part of the meeting is going to be the school reopening plan and then there'll be a another public discussion at that can be used to discuss what we've discussed what we're discussing now that's correct just wanted to make that clear thank you [Music] anybody else for this public comment section
031okay sorry this is new my new agenda on my phone not having trying to not print so much stuff no i just had to switch programs all right next correspondence nope experiments superintendent report okay so we've had a busy summer aside from developing the plan which will go the opening plan which we'll be discussing later we've had a lot of maintenance projects in the district new flooring and the cafeteria in the middle school a new roof is being done at the middle school a new floor at danbury multi-purpose room and painting a new floor in the corridor at bristol elementary we have some more planning for more projects around ventilation and roofs and windows we developed our goals which are provided for the board that was as a result of we had done a survey
032of all of our staff the strength weaknesses and opportunities and threats so we took that information and we developed goals for the district for this year which end up being aligned with the strategic plan one of the things that we heard consistently through the the our analysis was that our people wanted consistency across the six buildings um and they wanted alignment and communication so we've developed plans for that i provided that with the board our second plan our second goal was to develop or is to develop and implement preschool the grade 12 practices to improve safety student safety health and wellness and we develop action plans for that and then the third goal is to develop and implement a comprehensive technology plan to include equipment replacement program replacement upgrades and technology coordination throughout the district
033so we had a really good couple of days with the administrative team working on that really placed a high value on the input that all of our employees had in that process um let's see i'm going to leave it at that do you want me to review the plan at this point no no because that's okay no that's on the agenda later okay so we'll stop there uh elsa is not here any other announcements or recognition nope okay old businessman old business special education procedure manual review amendments um [Music] that was in our supporting documents as well you know that we got i need a motion to approve that yep okay a second okay uh any further discussion all those in favor say aye opposed extensions okay new business policies for second read we have
034jlcj for concussion head injuries and management guidelines iica dash fnasd field trip approval form igdj interscholastic athletics ikf high school graduation requirements igd co-curricular programs and ikfc awarding of diplomas [Music] okay i need a second i need some on the second promotion um any further discussions on policies for second reading okay all those in favor say aye opposed abstentions okay next um on the agenda audit services that would be me um we had partners with lansin and they gave me a call a few weeks ago they lost their governmental auditor and they are not able to do our animal marketing services for us i have called plots of consensus from concord and they gave me a fee schedule and i have their fees are about 500 more than the lanson but their single audit which
035we also do need is twelve hundred dollars less so in reality we are actually saving about five hundred dollars by going with quadzic and sanderson and we can sign a contract with him for the next three years and i'd like to um google to do that okay what was the name of the company again logic and sanderson closet [Music] okay so you need we need to um have a motion to approve that new contract with the mentioned name okay any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions okay pierre the school reopening plan so we are our health management committee is recommending that we open up the year with mass optional for our students and staff but we do recommend and actually we have no choice that mask will be worn on
036the school buses and that is out of our control because first student who's our transportation contractor is requiring mass but we feel right now you know things have changed a lot so since our plan to your point um when we were required to post our plan in june depart department of health and human services was still recommending mask at that point we were required to post that plan in order to receive federal grants covert grants so since then department of health and human services has backed off that recommendation and they're not recommending mass in school so we're going to take them up this the way we work all of last year was we followed department of health and human services guidance so we will continue to do that um so basically uh the only thing
037we're gonna keep doing is we're gonna strive for three foot distancing spacing of our students really stressing the hand washing especially in the elementary students when they would go out they'll come back from recess or a lot they're washing their hands all the time and the nurses really feel that is also an effective mitigation measure so we will keep doing that so other than that the plan is almost all back to normal and we'll follow nha guidelines for athletics which right now are no mass i look at the town by town covet cases i looked at it today before i came to this meeting and the newfound area is in really great shape there's hardly any covid in any of the seven pounds but what i ask the board to do is you know to
038give the administration uh the authority to make changes if we have to we hope we don't have to um but if things change what we would like to do is take it as a very uh regionalized approach within our region so if we had some issues in danbury we would deal with danbury and maybe danbury would have to go to mass for a short period of time but we would deal with it like that so um that that's our plan so it's pretty much back to normal um and we you know and this has all been agreed upon um our school nurses last year were just absolutely tremendous for us the work that they did they attend weekly meetings with dr chen on you know via zoom and they continue to do that so they
039are behind our plan 100 percent and then i'll agree to it [Music] are they surely out either for the quarantine period or a negative pass good question i've not included that yet because we're waiting for guidance on department of health and human services in fact our nurses are attending a meeting this week about that we've heard that the quarantine rules are going to change so i did not i would i didn't include it in there because but once we find out how we'll add it to this and we'll let the board know but again we plan to follow whatever they whatever dhhs recommends that's what we're going to do and then recess are we back to mingling kids yeah nope they will mingle uh you know the data shows that virtually no covet is transmitted
040when anybody is outdoors and so we all feel very safe and have our students outdoors so we're going to have normal opening procedures if you recall last year you know they they weren't allowed the morning recess we're gonna have morning everything will be back tomorrow and then does the middle school keep their recess yeah whatever they had prior to last last year some of the middle schoolers were able to go out for 15 minute walks right we'll have to talk to jay lewis about that so katie they might have made him ask a mask but i don't think they typically well brad would be able to tell yes no unfortunately you can't because we're in okay sorry but so basically that's the plan but you can at the other public comment i'd like to ask
041a question about in the academic needs section the second bullet here the district will hire two full-time literacy specialists etc etc um are they going to be available to help the kids with catch-up growth as a result of some who have fallen behind it yeah the feeling with the principles was that a lot of our students fell behind in reading you know and this is really um so the two specialists will be one shared between the middle and the high school and then one for the four elementary schools it's really to support because you've got to remember also it goes back to march 2020 you know we can't forget that we had a large block of time when nobody was in school and remote learning was really new and maybe not as effective so yes
042it is ketchup identifying students who've fallen behind and to support them and bring them back up to grade level with reading those are for the public those are grant funded positions so we've added two literacy specialists an additional guidance counselor um because we really don't know we have a number of students who will be returning back from remote you know they they they chose to be remote or their families did and they're returning back to school so to um i don't know whose point it was somebody talked about mental health and depression and things like that so we want to support our students who are returning and maybe having some of those issues so that's why we've added a guidance counselor and that's paid for through the federal covert grant yes i have a question
043here sure you mentioned that the policy would be parent's decision on masks for their children but that if something changed that the administration can make a decision um i ask that the board be notified before that decision is made and that if there is a temporary decision made that the board be called together to have a discussion of it and have input into how long that policy would be changed for and what parameters well that's up to the board to decide i think and didn't you say they're get you they're they're making more information about quarantine and what they're recommending if there is outbreaks right we don't have that we don't have that but we will have that before school right then we'll have that in the next for the next for the 23rd right
044whatever next week it is is it the 23rd or whatever the second monday is is that 23rd i think so sure yep it is okay see i knew that so yes so yeah that's up to the board to decide i mean one of the problems is it's such a fluid you know last year we made the decisions in in our office because things you know things would come up on a saturday afternoon we're working saturdays all the time doing this stuff so it's it's really to have to wait to convene a meeting to make a decision i think it just makes it difficult for us i mean sometimes the timing is right we're coming in you know we're going to have a meeting in a couple of days but i i thought it worked well
045last year um but that that's purely up to the board to decide i think it did work well last year i think that the two monthly meetings and the time in between is short enough to have you make a decision and then bring it to us let us know and then have [Music] unless us i'm out of the country i work 24 7. so i would never object to getting an email and having emergency meeting call on a moment's notice as as allowed by like i said it's up to the board it's that's not my decision i just said that the way we did it last year i think worked pretty well i thought we were very responsible our decisions were very thought out and they were made you know were data driven and i
046i we had a lot of compliments on the way things went last year a lot of people were happy that their children were safe so but like i said it's up to the board to decide that that's not my decision any other discussion somebody want to make a motion for the opening plan i'm going to accept the newfound area school district 2021 2022 school year opening plan as written [Music] any further discussion all those in favor say aye i oppose extensions okay so for the public i'll be posting this plan tomorrow morning on our website so you can view it there um newfoundland school district goals but you kind of already went over those in your superintendent report right yep i would ask that the board approve our goals gotcha okay sorry i was switching
047back okay any further discussion regarding the goals all those in favor say aye opposed abstentions okay next on the agenda approval for superintendent oh wait a minute um we need to do we've got to have on the agenda the hiring and resignations because they were new they weren't on the well they're already but you already had given me authority to do that right but we still have to approve them so if you want to do it we still have to make a motion to approve them okay yes we'll make that letter but we should do it actually that should be letter g and approval for superintendent should be h because because of sequential of how it's done so the resignation megan campbell an english teacher and then requesting for hiring for sean bean ariel mahoney
048switching to a full-time english teacher and kelly thomas for director school counseling we need a motion to accept those resignations and hiring second any further discussion all right um all those in favor say aye hi oh my goodness gracious yeah abstention sorry anybody against it abstentions there we go this is what happens when you stay home all right next uh approval for superintendent to hire and accept resignations until the next scheduled board meeting second okay any discussion any discussion all those in favor say aye opposed abstentions uh board member comments i am very happy with the rio green plan i'm so happy to see this that we're moving forward i was really going to be upset but it was not i'm like it is written as so but i'm very happy to see this and
049i would like to say the same thing that when i saw how that was i have my feelings and i've had a lot of reading on the subject probably not for the last and i do i did get an email from mr sellers but i did think that i wanted to reply at the meeting so because i thought a lot of people probably were asking the same questions i did get your email but i thought i should respond at the meeting because a lot of people would be asking about it and the state has also come up with some guidelines results of ours against teaching critical race theory in the schools in new hampshire that's a good thing to hear that's it yes and i'll be sharing the guidance we have uh guidance from department
050of justice and department of education that i'm sharing that i think i sent that out to the board and also that'll go to the teachers so there is guidance for teachers but we're confident there should be no problem for us to follow that frank thank you i have two items i'd like to mention the first is there's been several mentions tonight about responses from board members and questions being answered [Music] that comes up a lot and a lot of people don't understand the rules and i'm glad melissa was very clear that public comment is for agenda items only i would tell you that when you get elected to the school board they drill into you that no individual school board member can make a decision on their own and say this is the policy so
051they're hesitant for people to get into a debate with you about what you're testifying about or what you're expressing because if there is a public statement made they want to be careful but what gets out there is that it is the position of the board now those of you who know me i never leave my opinion at the door and i reserve my right to say my thoughts to you whether they're the board's thoughts or not and i'm very careful to say this is my personal opinion and i do always respond when i get a question asked some members they're hesitant to do that because somebody may read into it something that they really didn't meet particularly if they get called on a phone and you don't have that paper trail to say oh no
052see i said this is my personal opinion we had some correspondence from a gentleman today that emailed all the board members i did respond to him um and i made it very clear that it was my personal opinion so maybe that helps you understand why we don't debate the issues with why we don't a lot of times feel comfortable particularly our phone call returning a phone call my second thing i wanted to comment about was who brought up the critical race theory twice i have asked if we have any of that in our school and pierre asked the superintendent of the school principals it has assured me that we do not i can tell you a number of school districts in this state are currently under right to know requests and legal actions over this
053and i can tell you they often say oh we don't do that and it's later found out that they did but they didn't realize it so um i'm cautioning us to make sure that we are now in compliance with the new state law because our school district doesn't need to spend unnecessary legal dollars and parents in our school district should feel assured that when they're told something that they can trust what they're told so i would suggest if you contact the school with an email and you want a response collectively then request that a vote be taken at the next school board meeting on whatever you you know you are asking so that you don't feel that you were adored thank you and just a reminder that if school board members respond to all it
054is considered a forum and it is considered a meeting so we have to be very careful about how when what we do respond to via emails as well based on right to knows and and you know if there's more than four school board members it can be considered a meeting just like school board members if there's more than four of us and we all for some reason showed up at the homestead at the same time it is considered a school board meeting and everything that is discussed has the potential to be underway to know so just so people know some of the rules and regulations based on emails and things and i can assure you i read every email i get so personally that's just me i absolutely read everything and i keep it in
055mind as we're personally as we're discussing things here at our board meetings so any other board member comments okay um next public comment only on agenda items prayer policy five minute limits john son of crystal so we the opening plan i just want to say you're not hearing the parents they don't want you to put masks on their kids period they don't work don't put them on ever again it's just bad news it's psychological damage to the kids and you're hurting him and this guy that actually had his heart condition if that's what he had my point is it could have been from a lack of lack of oxygen your organs need that what oxygen so therefore i'm just saying listen to the parents give the parents the rights you don't have the right you
056teach the kids let us parent all right don't put masks on the kids again because it's a trickle-down thing if you do it the ttcc does it someone else does it the library does it someone else it just goes snowballs and it just it's just a big interruption and i really believe it's it's what really is bordering on child abuse hours i'm concerned that's my opinion all right i know i can't talk about the or can i i'm going to ask you the email i sent since they discussed it on comments what do you mean what the email i sent to the whole board you can bring it up so my point on that is i do appreciate the response i don't expect every you know reply to all but again your elected officials i
057want to know how you think so i know how to vote that's all just tell me how you think so i know how to vote that's that's my reason for asking thank you danielle from brussel so thank you i appreciate the updated school opening reopening thing i wish that you would post it so the public can see it before we come to these school board meetings i read it a few hours before i came here what was posted online so the public can actually know what you guys planned the plan was that was written online was about the masking that could have probably saved some time for everyone if we knew that it was going to be optional a chance of it having parents and the public updated makes a huge difference and it might
058help make it easier for you guys because then you're not repeating yourself and repeating and repeating back to the emails just a quick like hey i received your email would be great too i know i've emailed some super um some of the school board members superintendent because there's been issues in the schools and i want to deal with or i want some opinion on it or guidance on where to go that would be great to have as well like you said you guys are elected officials except for the superintendent who is hired but still you are teaching our children you are representing the teachers and helping the teachers teach our children answer us it's our children that's all we ask i ask that you guys i my belief is that you guys should have read
059the whole reopening plan so that we all could hear what it is because that is more than just a masking there's more pages than just about the masking i have no idea what's in there you guys voted on it we have no idea what else is in there we should have a right to know you guys voted on for public comment well what's the public comment good for other than you guys hear us talk whatever we're talking about why isn't that open up to the public why do we not have that before you guys are voting on it all i'm asking is for transparency prior to votes do i think it's right that administration should be able to choose if they need to change something without having the board meeting no that's why they have
060emergency meetings that's why you can hold emergency meetings you are hired school board members are voted in they are elected officials they're not hired they are supposed to be looking out for the public's best interest for the students best interest who's to say our administration at the schools and the superintendent's office are in the same line of view as the what seven towns that you guys represent it should go to the school board any new changes because of a fluid situation i am very clear on the fluid situation i work in healthcare i am an essential worker it is very fluid i get it but it should be brought to the school board for any changes of masking or changing how we're going to do schools and all that is are the elementary school students
061still going to be eating their lunches in the cafe in their classrooms or are they going to go back to the cafeteria yes you said that it's supposed to be how it was prior to all of this but we don't know we don't know what's in that reopening plan you guys voted on it we've had people that are looking on their phones from the school board show that you're passionate about this that's as parents we're passionate about our children's education maybe not all but you have few that are we just want to know it's not much to ask for we want to have our opinions heard thank you brian richardson alexandria i uh you you guys all know where i come from with with sun um we attended a katy um luncheon on last thursday
062officer sucklin spoke others from the dea spoke there were 93 000 people last year that died of overdose now overdose is is is a uh is just like a mental illness a lot of it comes from mental illness first and and and what not well we aren't we're not hearing anything about this because of because of uh cover 19 and and the uh the obviously there is a there is a pandemic and obviously there there are people that are dying from it but i i i i ask you to please keep that in to keep that into focus and understand that what what happened last year with the pandemic with the the pandemic exasperated the epidemic of of overdose and there was 20 000 more people that died last year and a lot of it
063had to do with what the decisions that we made to to uh and and the decisions we made as to how to go about shutting things down um and whatnot um i i i thank you folks for your i commend you for your decision and your thoughtful decision on this on the school reopening plan i think uh i i think you you were a lot more thoughtful than most or many um school board school boards in the state um i i appreciate you fran for for your uh for for speaking to to the people here so that we we understand more about how the board the policy of the board and and i i actually under i actually understood that i knew that that you uh you needed to to it's a difficult situation to
064discuss something personally um with an email but doing it with your opinion that was that was a great way to to speak to the the question and i just want to thank you for for uh for listening to these folks and and just uh your thoughtful um your thoughtful discussion about it i think you did a uh commendable job with that thank you anybody else for public comment approval manifests robin or sue sorry um june and july 2nd okay any further discussion on manifests all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions okay 7 30 i moved to adjourn the meeting [Music] oh my gosh you