001thief here bulk president hemphill nolan here rabe here gorman here motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda yes yes nolan yes uh rabe yes gorman yes please join us in saying the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of america into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thanks to everyone who came out tonight uh we got a lot of public comment thanks to everybody who joined us on youtube watching at home giving you specific visitors you like them thank you for all coming out um i know that people have passionate views on all sides of these issues as we face the reopening of schools so welcome move on to public comment i'll just read them out you guys can tell it to
002the podium uh please keep your comments to roughly three minutes just because there's a lot of people i'm sure everybody wants to see their their piece so yeah if you want a reply and did not put an email address on we'll try and look you up but um so that's the reasoning for the email address so just let you guys know that so first we have kelly cameron sure they were i would like i said i was going to read them off in the order that they were handed to me so i can make you last if you want so maybe you turned it in last but you're first but if you'd like to go last i can shuffle you back in last okay i'm not going to move anyone else from now on so
003let's just go with this 10 williams all right my name is kent williams i have three children in 301 schools i'll be presenting my case that kids in all grades in district 301 should have the option to wear or not wear a mask we know from a massive amount of data in numerous studies that masks do not prevent the spread of viruses including kova 19. mass openings are hundreds of times larger than the kova 19 virus particles that's like throwing sand a chain-link fence and thinking the vents will stop the sand from going through it sweden-kept schools open from march through june 2020 with over a million kids in schools with no mass and there are no deaths from covid a german study of children between the age of 6 and 17 years old was
004published by the journal of american medical association showed that carbon dioxide levels were on average six times the reliable legal limit for indoor spaces while wearing a group of parents from florida sent their children mass into a lab for testing five of six were contaminated with bacteria parasites and fungi including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia causing bacteria by forcing our kids to wear these petri dishes you are endangering their health and therefore liable for any illness or disease they contract with well at school you are wearing masks down not because you think you should but because there is a eo mandate or guideline that says you have to what type of message does that teach our kids even if you believe something is wrong or unnecessary just do what you're told top 23 education
005and cultural resources which provides standards for schools to follow says nothing about viruses or mass wearing that lawfully says you have to file guidance legislators create laws and administrative bodies like idph isbe certain rules and regulations are then given to them for legislative body if you go to illinois.gov legislation look up 105 ilcs five slash 2.3.25 you also see nothing pertaining to mass exists idph and isbe report to the governor and then he may issue excessive orders which are guidance they are not laws laws need to be passed by legislators but our governor has decided he does not need to file the law by bypassing the step over the past 16 months clay county judge ruled the governor pressure submission emergency powers lapsed 30 days after he declared kobe 19 the disaster and all of
006his orders april 8 2020 that relate to the coca-19 disaster where void when created all executive orders have been void and illegal since april 8 2020. schools that state that if not file the gov and the state will not withhold funding if schools do not require mass so now we all know that there is no law that legally can require kids to wear mass in school but you are required legally by law to provide every child with a public education to deny student entering into school because they are not wearing a mask would be breaking the law we know kids are very very low risk of covet thankfully mass do not prevent the spread of viruses there are no adoptive rules regulations or standards in the illinois administrative code that states maps are required over
007100 schools or school districts have already made matters optional for upcoming school year and more are doing so every day like wheaton warrenville as we go on lamont two more paragraphs 2019 pandemic is over and that is a great thing and we need to start acting like it give our kids their child childhoods back and let's get back to loving i'm asking you the school board should do the right thing make it easier on everyone and make max optionals this year for every grade level we the parents decide what is best for our kids period the maths are not made optional before the start of school year and our kids are not let into the building because they are not wearing masks the teachers staff and school board are in for a very busy year
008when lawyers get involved and unlawfully discriminate against those who choose not to wear mass that's not a threat that is a promise thank you [Applause] thanks cut next to brian kelly all right y'all doing good thank you i'm also just going to read something real quick be quick all right so clearly this is a very heated topic and people on both sides of this debate may have strong feelings one way or another obviously whether you turn on the media outlet or another everyone seems to know what's best for everyone else bottom line is that this is america and history has shown us time and time again that medical freedom and free will is extremely important and pretty much a must you cannot be forced to wear a medical device you cannot be forced to take
009a medication that you do not want and you cannot be subjected to medical testing that you do not want if you and your doctor feel that a medical device will protect you from sars flu colds whatever then by all means wear the device if you and your doctor feel that a certain vaccine or medication will protect you from harm then by all means take the medicine or vaccine if your favorite news channel tells you to do one thing or another and you feel that it is the correct course of action regarding your medical needs then i suggest that you all consult multiple doctors and then decide ultimately your health and the health of your family is a decision that cannot be made by any government or government entity i know that you only have opinions
010whether based on media personal morals or pressure from higher ups or friends or family which everyone in this room experiences but the point i'm making in the end is that everyone has a right to their freedoms and instilled as americans and freedoms instilled by god as human beings the only option here is to offer guidance that can help people prepare to make a decision that is right for them these final decisions must be left up to the individual and their families it is an extremely slippery slope when you try to force things on people not saying that you guys are but just the government in general and that often leads to fights that play out in courts which again will happen so again make masks vaccines and medical testing optional and this has been my
011first and last speaking event on this topic and then unfortunately the next one will have to be represented by my lawyer thank you thanks brian uh next we have vera kelly hi my name is vera kelly and i'm going into sixth grade at pkms my mom and dad made the hard decision to homeschool my brother and i last year because of illegal coveted rules i'm really sad i missed my last year at country trails because of your illegal rules as much as i loved home school with my mom i want to go to school with my friends no one should be forced to wear a mask or do anything to their body that they do not want as students we do not deserve to be treated this way we need to see our friends smiles
012teachers smiles hug each other and be normal kids i am so proud of my parents for fighting for my freedoms and making sure to keep me safe they are teaching me not to back down and fight for what is right that is why i am here even if i'm scared please stop hurting us and allow families to choose what is best for their kids it is my body my choice my family our choice if you want to wear your mask so be it that is your choice i choose no please make masks optional i beg you thank you for listening to me [Applause] all right next we have lord kelly my name is lori kelly i am a parent a taxpayer advocate and freedom fighter in the light of the continuing recommendations in regards to
013the covid response procedures for schools in illinois i'm going to present some facts based in law not in fear schools provide academic instruction they are not health care providers my children will be attending school without a mask and they will not be subjected to any covid response recommendations such as and not limited to masks covet tracing covid testing quarantine etc my children will not be denied a free and public education and they will not be discriminated against and my children will not be excluded from sports and any extracurricular activities the school district has been in violation of the law students have been scared into submission by those in charge the district instructed staff to lie to students all year 301 has demonstrated they care more about politics than students and staff and the students are
014being used as political pawns my children and i don't wear masks i will not let us be subjected to that tyranny they want to go to school they can go to a ball game or a concert with thousands of strangers but without a mask but they cannot go to school without a mask and still be around their friends who they play with all the time the school district is in violation also of the nuremberg codes which were enacted to protect people from unwanted medical experiments or procedures done to them god has given me dominion over my body and the right to make decisions for the safety of my child's body as well no person or entity can tell a person what to do to their body we are protected against this in the first amendment
015rights of the united states constitution under religious freedom and we are protected again under the 14th amendment under rights to personal autonomy if we as a society start discriminating and segregating others based on medical choice not too far along the path it becomes crimes against humanity so in conclusion school district 301 has been participating in a worldwide medical and psychological experiment as ones who make the decisions for the district you all have been implementators and co-conspirators of this wickedness and in turn making your staff participate in the unethical disgusting treatment of our most vulnerable and precious commodities our children so do the right thing do the lawful thing and make masks optional [Applause] all right thanks lauren next we have sherry green hall green handle great here hi guys um thank you dr stern and
016district 301 board for hearing our concerns this evening um my name is sheri greenhagel i stand before you not only as a parent of a high school child in this district but also as a second grade teacher in a nearby district who taught through the pandemic last year i'm going to share some firsthand experience with you regarding the masking of young children that i hope will open your eyes to the impractical and unsanitary tests that we have asked millions of young children across the country to do during a pandemic that has largely not affected them first every fall teachers are required to complete several health-related activities in order to ensure the safety of our students we watch a blood-borne pathogen video and take a test we watch powerpoints and how to handle seizures we deal
017with injuries of various kinds we have epipen training ead training suppository training and last year we had a nurse come in before school to give us proper use mass training during the mass training we were taught how to properly put on and take off a face mask in order for it to remain sanitary and uncontaminated first you are to wash or sanitize your hands before touching only the ear loops of the mask then you are to put your fingers only in the ear loops place it over both ears without touching the front of the mask and leave the mask untouched until removed when removing the mask you are to wash your hands again lean forward touch only your loops and promptly dispose of the mask or place it in a bin to be washed touching
018the mask at any time without washed hands resulted in contamination and possible spread of viruses and bacteria into the oral and nasal cavities not just covid19 viruses but all the other viruses that are still out there our nurse took this training very seriously with us i can tell you with all honesty that zero percent of my students wore a sanitary mask on any single day last year and i want to share with you just a few of my observations as a frontline teacher my students touched their masks all day long to the point that many were observably filthy before we even made it to lunchtime some had dirty spots on them from handling them and pulling them away from their faces so they could speak or breathe many masks were ill-fitting which caused students to
019tug at them constantly and you could always tell who had cheetos for lunch we had to learn phonics and reading behind masks i have been a teacher since 1994 and have never been more frustrating teaching students to read students need to see the formation of your mouth in the placement of your tongue in many of our english language sounds you can't successfully teach phonics behind a mask my incoming first graders i am told will be coming to me this year as non-readers and i will have to change my entire curriculum to meet their needs our district has actually hired a specialist to assist us in this effort many students probably my mouth breathers developed moisture circles on their mask throughout the day that would then catch particles as they breathed in and out they often
020would ask to go change their masks in the hallway and go to their backpack where a clean mask was shoved inside i guarantee you they did not properly handle the mask before putting it on most interestingly my students pencils developed a brownish film on them last year at first i couldn't figure this out then i concluded it was from overuse of hand sanitizer on top of already filthy hands you see the children were to sanitize their hands every time they came in and out of my classroom and before they ate because sending 18 kids to the sink at the same time is not time conducive many of my students used hand sanitizer over and over taking it on top of their already filthy hands this filmy dirt in turn made its way onto the surface
021of pencils and eventually turned their pencils into a sticky filmy brown this sticky filmy filth made it onto their hands because they touched them all day long and then it made it onto their masks i taught the last 42 days with all of my students face to face all day and ate lunch with all of them every single day in my 28 by 30 foot classroom so all 19 of us ate and socialized together for 25 minutes or more with our masks off lunch was their favorite time of the day because they could see each other's faces it was such a precious bonding time for us and became one of my favorite times of the day as well because i could see the faces behind the masks instead of their weary little eyes who were
022asked to make so many changes last year none of my students got covered either concerning my own daughter who will be a junior at chs this year she is a 4.1 gpa student in honors classes and went downstate for track to compete in two events she is a suite response responsible student and absolutely dreaded school all last year her attitude changed she became more introverted and missed out on many quality social interactions with her friends and teachers i do want to take the time to thank you for the decisions that you made toward the end of the year when you lifted restrictions and relax them a little bit so that our kids could play sports you try and wrap up your comments sherry okay thanks um just thank you for that um i implore that
023you make the right decision about mass wearing optional for the upcoming school year for all students regardless of vaccination status and there should be no discrimination in any way between mast and unmasked students thank you so much for your time next we have justin's end on i'm probably mispronouncing that too is justin here rendon i'm yielding my time for anyone else who might need it uh one one and nuna's um good evening members of the board my name is juan and tunis and i'm one of the parents that wants to speak against the option of making our kids wear masks whether it's temporary or the whole school year i want to make this clear i am 100 percent against forcing our children to wear masks now i do offer the compromise position that we make
024optional the usage of masks there's always going to be pros and cons against anything that we decide to take action against such as believing in research that wearing masks harm children believing that kids immune system is stronger than the average adults deciding whether getting the kobe best scene is the best action to combat the epidemic or in this event the usage of wire masks life is sometimes much easier than what we think and in this case is it normal for humans let alone a child to be covered with a mess throughout the whole time in school my answer for that question is no we are not meant to wear masks also this provides an opportunity for like a kidnapper to tape our kids mouth and to take them without letting our kids yell out for
025help because who because who would be able to tell what someone is wearing underneath their masks i want to take the next couple of seconds to talk about my experience to you guys in my case i trusted the government with their policies and their research to keep me safe during my time in service even though they have ex extensive knowledge and research they're highly inaccurate when it came to my health in the future in my life experience i was given the anthrax shot which is which is supposed to cause and prevent i mean excuse me prevent anthrax and instead of doing good it did more harm to my body and caused permanent damage i also was given the malaria pill to take obviously to prevent malaria and in recent research it has proven that it
026gives chronic brain effects i also wanted to i also uh provided the by the veterans health administration a cpem machine that of course would aid in correcting my oxygen intake during my sleep and learning two weeks ago i was thought to discontinue using the machine because it's causing cancer on patients i wanna i want you to take a second to think all these cases that happened to me was in a way to prevent a disease or an outcome instead it has given me a life of chronic issues i do not want this for my child or any child in general the decision that you all make right here now will decide if i let my child attend your school or start doing homeschool thank you for your time [Applause] thanks next was scott popovich good
027evening thank you for your time uh i'll be using justin's time so thank you justin uh my name is scott popovich i have two children in district 301. i first want to throw out two big things about kovid that the concerns of talking about kovid kovat is very political let's be honest it's very political the other problem with kova talking about it is that's very emotional it brings out a lot of emotions in people and the point is what i think is the true pandemic is cognitive i can't we don't say it now because i'm more nervous cognitive dis thank you dissonance edit that part out um when we held the belief and a fact comes to supersede that belief we still hold on to that belief because it offers us a false sense of
028security a false sense of control and so i want to challenge you check that in your heart right now and to really put aside your political side put aside your emotional side and use the logical rational mind that god gave you so i say all this for a reason i have been a registered nurse for over 21 years which has always been in the pediatric intensive care unit at a very large chicago suburban hospital in my picu i have worked with children with covid as well as some adults when we had to float i work with children from newborns only a few days old to teenagers i have worked with virtually every kind of surgery disease and or condition a child may experience during my time as a pqrn i have literally seen more children
029die from every age right in front of me then i've lost count sadly i have also had children literally die in my own hands more times than i want to remember along with this one of my own children had covid whom they caught from an adult family member so with all due respect to everyone in this room who has experienced laws i have seen the death of children far more than anyone in this room so if anyone would be susceptible to allowing personal experience to overrule their logic or reasoning i want to wrap my kids up in bubble wrap it should be me let's talk pediatric deaths from the flu for the cdc 2018 to 2019 there were 480 flu deaths now this is key the majority of those were baseline healthy kids let me
030tell you a kid dying from the flu it's ugly a lot of times they get put on ecmo a heart a heart and lung machine they become so bloated and swollen the family can't even recognize them it's a horrible gruesome death they're bleeding from every part of their body because of the heparin for the machine so let's contrast that to covet pediatric covet dust since it's its inception it's about a year and a half there have been 238 deaths now this is key nearly half of those deaths had two or more underlying conditions predominantly obesity and asthma which are largely self-inflicted with asthma at least it's very highly controllable if the person is compliant with their diet and their medication now anecdotally how many children have i have seen die from those infected with covid
031zero anecdotally about half of those who have been admitted with covet were not admitted for covet they came in for something else but the er tested them and they tested positive for covet so it skews the numbers they were never in for covet but with covet big difference the foundation for research on equal opportunity we estimate that americans between ages 1 through 4 are 3.4 times more likely to die from the flu than covet 19. children under the age of 15 have a 1 in 155 000 chance of dying of the flu but a 1 in 1.2 million chance of dying of covet 19. so what's the bottom line healthy children are more at risk from dying from the flu than covet so if the concern is about the health and safety of our children
032then why weren't mass required during flu season before going forward same covet magically disappears tomorrow going with your reasoning mask to be enforced every flu season then should it not conditions required to catch covert without a mask it's all about exposure time and viral load on average it takes five to 15 minutes of direct face-to-face exposure such as sitting at a table to catch covet but the other side as i mentioned is about the viral load how much virus we're exposed to so in theory a person with covet could sneeze and a person behind them walk right through that and not catch covet because they walked right through it and they weren't exposed to much of the virus masks the only mass that actually stops the covert virus itself is n95 and those have to
033be sealed perfectly to avoid any gaps now to be fair if a person calls or sneezes covey could be suspended in droplets which could be stopped by a mask but there's more to the story professor yvonne kosart of department of infectious diseases at the university of sydney those surgical masks are only effective so long as they are dry as soon as they become saturated with the moisture in your breath they stop doing their job and pass on the droplets which is about 20 minutes so if we're really concerned that much about our children we should make them change their mask every 20 minutes in school right now what about teachers catching cover from the students and spreading it big concern sure the evidence also wouldn't support that children rarely spread it to each other or
034to teachers or to parents if anything is the opposite adults transmit to kids a research study from binay brock israel it is estimated that kids carry a viral load 63 percent lower than what adults carry which thus affects the chance of them spreading from child to adult psychological effects 2019 the suicide rate ages 10 through 14 534 ages 15 through 24 5954. now anecdotally i have seen literally and i i've been using it the right way i have literally seen double the amount of suicide attempts in my picu and all the other nurse will attest to that most of those they said it was because of the loss of control the loss of hope that they had regarding covid now contributing to that was every day having to wear a mask thinking it's never going
035to end suicide attempts in teens nationwide are on average up 50 percent so it's possible possible that out of an abundance of caution we have killed more children than co through suicide then covet has variants very scare people right the delta variant everyone's worried about that viruses are very smart they want to live they don't want to kill their host the host dies the virus dies scott can you start the route yep please almost done thank you so as the virus evolves yeah it becomes more transmissible but it becomes less lethal they don't tell you that in the media though lastly the cdc is not a government agency guidelines is just another word for suggestion are any of you double masking like fauci said foxy also once said that hiv could be caught on a
036kitchen counter so please don't make it political don't make it emotional check your heart check your biases use sound rational logical mind to base your decisions on thank you thanks scott next we have uh scott holman schleicher hi my name is abigail schlecker and i'm going into fifth grade at country trails country trails has been my home since kindergarten knowing that at the end of this year i will have to walk through the doors of country trails for a final time makes me so sad leaving behind so many memories but it makes me even more sad that to think about how far i've been i need to look back to remember when things were normal i used to walk through the halls and recognize my friends smiling faces i used to love school my teachers
037when i got to see my parents for our class parties and mystery readers i used to love literacy nights and color run and field trips i looked forward to lunch every day so i could talk to my friends and play and eat and get daily jokes from my mom that pac for that my mom packs me for now the reason i look forward to lunch is so i can take off my mask and finally breathe all day when i should be thinking about math and science in my head i'm thinking about i cannot breathe and when is this day gonna end one of my favorite things to do each year was the daddy daughter dance when i look back i remember getting all dressed up and wearing flowers and looking up at my dad and
038dancing to our favorite songs with our my with my feet on top of his at the age of seven years old top at and being seven years old and in second grade i thought i would be able to have many more of these memories with my dad i never would have thought that i would be the last that it would be the last daddy-daughter dance ever because of covid when all of this was starting we used to wonder if an event or a party or a celebration would ever happen again we were disappointed at times i can't go through any more disappointment so i just set my expectations really low and that is sad i wonder every day when things will get back to normal i wonder if they will ever be normal again i
039feel like they are there are so many grown-ups making decisions for me but they they are not grown-ups that i know or trust it's politicians and all of you in the room that i don't that you don't know me making decisions for me you've never seen me before but i think that you should hear me and you better remember me as abigail schleicher because i am not just a student in the district i am a person and i want decisions to be made by people that i know and trust like my parents thank you for listening thanks abby uh next move jen slicker sorry hi everyone my name is jen schleicher and i have a second grader and a fifth grader at country trails elementary right now i'm appealing to the school board and administrators
040but i am especially appealing to you dr nolan you more than anyone in this room understand as a father and a child psychiatrist the toll that this is taking on the mental health of children that's probably why your wait list is over a year long ask me how i know i appreciate that more than ever children are battling anxiety and depression loneliness and stress and the number of suicides among children is skyrocketing their mental health needs to be as much of a priority as their physical health the masks are aggravating my daughter's asthma and anxiety she constantly has panic attacks from feeling like she can't breathe my seven-year-old son who has adhd and is on the autism spectrum has a harder time paying attention in class because his glasses keep fogging up and the mask
041and the shield are distracting him so many children are going to take years to overcome the deficits both emotionally and educationally that this last 492 days since their last normal school day have left them with 492 days i keep a tally on my wall i remember when i was on one of the committees to get kids to go back to school safely it took tons of work and time from everyone involved but i remember being so proud of our district for getting as many of the kids physically into school as possible when other neighboring districts took the easy way out and went full remote my children have been robbed of so many experiences so many joys in their life have been replaced with fear unreasonable fear of fellow students and germs and an illness that
042has and will have very little direct effect on their health statistically speaking now added in they have fear over what people think of them or how people will judge them for wearing a mask or not wearing a mask i thought we were supposed to teach them to say no to peer pressure you board members and administrators in this room have the power to make this stop after having so much of our children's childhood stolen and having so many of our rights as parents stolen you have the opportunity to take a stand and fight back you always tell us in iep meetings and at school parent-teacher conferences that parents and educators are a team take a stand and allow parents to be involved in their children's lives and health it is not a good precedent to
043set to let other people start making critical decisions for our children where is the line when does it stop it's not like you are putting a ban on masks entirely but you are putting the decision back into the hands of families if people choose to send their kids to school with masks that's fine it's their children and it should be their choice thank you [Applause] thanks john next we have kim cowell good evening these are some hard speeches to follow everybody's doing such an amazing job but i also did want to share my concerns as well for this upcoming year my name is kim kowal i'm a teacher for school district u46 and i have two kids in district 301 i'm speaking today to share my family's viewpoint on wearing mass next year i also
044wanted to thank you for all that you did last year to get our students in person it was really important for my kids to be able to have that opportunity and i know a lot of kids didn't have that and moving to full time toward the end of the year was really hard i know it was for you guys and i just want to thank you i have no doubt that you have the children in mind and that you're listening i strongly believe families should have the choice to decide to vaccinate their children and if their children should wear masks the facts support this you've heard it all today and you've heard it please make the right choice and allow us to make the important decisions for our kids surely you have seen the studies
045that show coven 19 poses almost no threat to children and that the risks for getting the vaccine are there as well the vaccine might be the right choice for some people but not others children shouldn't be punished for not needing the vaccine children should not be bribed or coerced into getting the vaccine and parents should make these decisions for their children based on their own needs and circumstances our kids have sacrificed a lot this past year they should not bear that burden anymore i am highly concerned about their health if they need to wear mass all next year in school and in sports i am also highly concerned about the segregation of mass and unmasked children and the effects this will have on their social and mental states this doesn't mean we should mask all
046students it means we should be allowed to make an informed choice we do not need to force mass on any children as they are very low risk please look at these facts continue listening to your families and make the right choice and allow us to choose these important decisions for our kids thank you thanks kim next to john barham thank you board good evening i know you guys are put in a no-win situation last year and i appreciate what you did for the kids to get them back in school because it made a big difference in my son luke's uh kindergarten year with miss normwell loved every part of it the thing that i had a problem with is when he got his picture he goes oh my gosh dad i've never seen what my
047friends look like think about that as a parent it irritates me but i also want you to think about where we're at in society i'm not here to speak on my behalf and i really am we the people are here to speak on everybody's behalf in burlington but i'm here to speak on behalf of one of your employees that's afraid to come up and speak because they're afraid they might lose their job if they voice their concern and to me that's tyranny that is something we do not need i want you to think about that an employee that's on your goal is afraid to stand here and they ask me to represent them tonight and i'm going to read what that person has to say the mask prohibits us from effectively implementing verbal communications to
048the students while i drive their bus they can't hear us they can't see our facial expression plus i must remove my hands from the steering wheel to pull my mask down to speak to them if i can't have a phone in my hand why should i have a mask in my hand when a student is in distress i can't see their facial expression and hear them because of the mask again creates further disruption to the driver while i'm trying to find out what's going on while the bus is in motion with the engine running and the windows open and the hatches open which is mandated also due to covet 19 so it's very loud on the bus in the warm weather it can get above 100 degrees on the bus while children are wearing a
049mask go to family fitness center wherever you're at put your mask on go on the sign and sit for a couple of minutes and see what it feels like that's what these kids are doing on the bus and that's why this person is making my uh time uh putting her up here to talk about this students do not always recognize their bus driver because of the mask i had an incident where i had to pick up my first student and i didn't have my mask on he walked up to my bus he looked at me he didn't recognize me and started to walk away i had to honk the horn and tell him it was me the fear in his eyes was horrific because of the mask they asked questions like why can i go
050play with my friend saturday sunday but then i've got to wear a mask when i come back to school on monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday i'm around him i'm playing with them they do plenty of spraying and disinfectant on the bus there's no need for a mask so i implore you as our board of education do the right thing vote on this tonight to make masks optional for all kids in the burlington 301 school district tonight we the people are here we the people will hold you accountable i can promise you that thank you for your time next we have mirror um my name is mary ormond i have three daughters um they attend lily lake but they they attend lilly lake but last year they got to attend 100 remote thank you for that
051keeping them safe and keeping us safe one of them has cerebral palsy which is a very serious brain disorder she also thank you for bringing up rsv she got rsv when she was five years old not a baby disease she because of her cerebral palsy cannot cough and cannot bring it up and so we spent two weeks in the picu as i watched her hook to a ventilator and i watched her explode like he said and i watched her struggle to breathe and i watched her fight for her life that i had already fought for when she was a preemie born at 30 weeks she wears a mask everywhere anywhere we wear masks to keep her safe to keep her alive to not have to sit and watch her in a picu struggling to breathe
052again she's seven she started this in kindergarten she's now going into second grade with she wants to go back to school so bad so bad you she's a baby kindergartner that started she loves school every minute of it she loves she loved remote because it was school she loves the teacher she loves the staff she cannot go back to school unmask she can't i can't let her i can't put that on her and i can't wish that other people can see her and pick you struggling to breathe i can't change anyone's mind and i don't plan on that what i plan on doing is telling you she's not the only one in this district who needs to be masked she's not the only one who will end up in the picky with rsv her pediatrician
053told us last week please please make sure she knows how to take on and off that mask correctly if she's going back to school please let me train her so we spent two hours in his office going over hand washing masks everything so she's prepared to come back to school but i'm scared i'm terrified that if she goes back to school unmasked or if she gets put in a classroom full of people unmasked and she slips up you have a seven-year-old who will go back to the fake you struggle to breathe struggle to cough and struggle to be here after she's fought since 30 weeks to be alive thank you for your time with our freedom that you give us the parents choice if the mask works where's the mask i mean if thank you
054we do understand that thank you okay next week thank you mary next week with kelly cameron because i'm not a concise speaker okay hi yes i'm kelly cameron um parents to a going to be a seventh grader and a freshman um you know i was going to read can you guys hear me i was going to read different statutes but i'm sure you all are familiar with these and likely all of you are um so the bottom line is that you know at a state or federal level no one can legally impose the masks um so that to be said i find it i don't know ironic that there needs to be a decision made about kids wearing the masks or not um but i'd like to appeal to uh the mental health piece of
055this so in seventh grade my now we're going to be freshman he has a couple of mental health issues and um i couldn't get him out of bed um the anxiety the depression add spectrum diagnosis i couldn't get him out of the bed um by the grace of god and literally logistically because two teachers happen to live across the street from us he was able to get through the school year if it wasn't for them um i i don't know that he would have been promoted to eighth grade um he is also medicated um but based on what was going on in the world um you know his emotions and then add you can't regulate your emotions he was a mess he was a hot mess and i was hot mess is his mother going
056forward to eighth grade and um having to wear the mask it was difficult for him to get through a school day um at times he uh he he really did a great job in my opinion of keeping himself together um because of the anxiety and the different things and him having to wear the mask statistically you guys heard this about suicides we've been on a waiting list for a year to get in to see a psychiatrist um that number to me is staggering but now i think it's pumped up jumped up to like a year and a half wait and this is you know in the community a lot of kids are having to see mental health providers because of the emotional effects of the masking i'm not sure what i what else i had
057with that so um i mean to me the the logic of it is if the government is not enforcing this and isbe and the illinois department of health and the governor has kind of like let school boards decide um and the science is there to disprove mass preventing covet then why why i mean the question of damask or not mask to me it's obvious but maybe not um i'm all for people parents parents being able to make the decisions about their children's bodies and well-being so let parents decide to mask or not mask thank you and thank you i know this has been a crazy year for all of you and i appreciate your perseverance in trying to get things you know right for the school year last school year and thank you thank you
058[Applause] thank you kelly and uh last is aaron all right well stuffy you again for all of your comments um we actually as a board haven't had an opportunity to discuss this together yet so you guys are uh ahead of the curve here so i do want to i do want to say something by the way um so uh again eric nolan somebody referenced me i i know some of you personally um a couple of the sisters that left i grew up with on the side of elgin in the mid 80s that they left so like i know a lot of people in here and i i really i really want to say i appreciate the fact that this did not devolve into drama and throwing things and screaming because i'm sure everybody has seen
059videos of something like that so i truly appreciate that as somebody who's on this side and i think uh you know at times it can be perceived as this us versus them thing which is certainly not the case for those that know me and hopefully you believe that everybody's up here whether it's our uh our support staff over here it is our superintendent assistant superintendent or the other people on the board we really are truly here to do our best so thank you for at least acknowledging that this has not been easy for us it's not easy for me as a parent it's not easy for me as a child psychiatrist it's not been easy for me as a community member to see people in my neighborhood and the people i care about struggling in
060different ways so i do want to say thank you and to the two kids that spoke fantastic jobs i really appreciate [Applause] counts that we will move on to our action items we need a motion second to discuss and approve the consent agenda so moved thank you revenue and expenditure summary reports are included in your board packet revenues are currently at 108 0.24 compared to 98.83 a year ago expenditures are at 95.90 compared to 98.69 a year ago these percentages are pre-audited figures and they might change slightly after we do the audit this past month we received impact fees of 142 895.33 for 22 home starts uh transition fees came in at twenty nine thousand four hundred and twenty five dollars and four cents this month total impact fees coming in for fy21 came in
061over budget at one million four hundred and sixty seven thousand five hundred ninety six dollars and forty eight cents of the six hundred and seventy five thousand dollar budget uh transition fees that go into the ed fund also came in over budget at a hundred and eighty six thousand five hundred and twenty one dollars and thirty cents of the 80 000 budget bills payable reports are typical for there's a final june payment that we do um to wrap up as much june as we can and for the month of july you'll see our bus leases in there there's chromebooks tuition those are some of the big big ones and then we'll need to schedule a special board meeting to go over the tentative budget like we always do um so you guys can discuss it
062in closed session and find a date and then we're also preparing for our annual audit that is scheduled to start uh august 9th as well thanks dude any questions oh yes nolan yep yes yes next motion secondary needed to discuss and approve the microsoft textbooks materials the memo was in your packet last month for information we took questions there it's been on display any additional questions for me yes next we need motion and second to discuss and approve the tentative budget for the northern keene regional vocational system second so tonight i'm presenting that by 22 budget for northern kane i'm asking you to firmly approve the sum of the budget it's been on display since friday so it'll make its 30-day public notice and also went in the daily herald um and then at the
063next board meeting august 16th we'll do the final budget okay so just to recap just for the few new board members that are here northern king county regional vocational system we also call it the efe-110 so if you hear those two words like kind of meaning the same thing it consists of four different school districts kane county u-46 district 300 us and district 303 the program kind of brings more class offerings and opportunities for all students and allows us to collaborate our efforts together and use our resources more effectively within all these schools this slide shows a bunch of examples of cte programs that we currently have offered at different schools this year they're kind of trying to focus more on strengthening and enhancing these current programs that we have which of these are housed
064with us so we have well we have our animal sciences science really for the regional programs or for the overall programs for the overall programs the overall programs we have a business strand we have a technology strand can you go back so we have accounting we have agricultural science we have business computer programming we have some drafting educational technology marketing video production and we also they don't have on here but we have a business strand and incubator all right okay uh regional programs that are offered are listed here the ag vet is housed at central high school and then automotive at south elgin high school precision manufacturing is at two high school south elgin new hampshire welding is at two schools as well elgin high school in hampshire and then coming in the fall of
06523 is their projection is to do the allied health care which is like a certified nursing assistant program and then the educator pathway would be for students that want to go into like early childhood or become secondary elementary or secondary teachers does cainlyn have a version of that now because they have an in-house daycare on property for staff there not anymore oh they don't is it is was last year the first year they didn't do it right okay so they did have some version of that yeah that's gone okay so funding sources there's four grants perkins five and ctei are annual grants that we've always had we did get two new grants awarded which are the cte career exploration grant and the career pathway grant perkins five is a federal grant and it's calculated based
066on the number of students enrolled plus the number of students in poverty at each school the cti incentive grant is based on the state grant and it's calculated based on the number of programs or courses being offered in the district and the number of students that complete one or more of these programs the career exploration grant is a one-time grant that we were awarded and it will be used to compensate students for internships participating in work based learning experiences so we will pay the business partner that hosts these students when they go and do their internships and then the cte career pathway grant is a four-year grant that is kind of it will be used to expand the education educator pathways in district 300 and u46 so this is revenues and expenditures projected out for
067fy22 since we're cash basis we record our receipts when they're received by the state and then we record our expenditures when the checks are actually cut so some schools might expend something but we may not reimburse until the following month until and i don't record it until it's actually cut um so that's why there's this big discrepancy on the fund balance and where it kind of looks so the unaudited beginning fund balance is 1.527 million and it's just due to the timing of receipts so the state was actually keeping up with their payments for the cte program that they were paying for it before we were getting all of the expenditures from the other districts so as for an easy example if you look at the under revenues the cti career exploration grant it shows
068zero revenue there because it's already sitting in the 1.5 million fund balance at the top we got that money the very end of june but we didn't have time to spend it until this coming school year so then you'll see it down in the expenditures there's 50 000 that will be spent and then when it's all said and done if all of this holds true we'll be back down to the 6 30 that we started um so this slide shows you just the cti grant allotment um you can see from fy 21 to 22 there was a slight increase and then the details if you want to see more details of all of this it's included in the budget that's in your board packet on pages four to six um i think it was about
069sixty eight thousand dollars that it went up and then the only major change or minor change in this is that we are adding a um an assistant position here um so we're going to split it 70 will be covered by northern kane 30 percent of the salary and benefits will be covered by central and this position is going to do some grant writing it's going to do some expenditure revenue tracking for us compliance with state requirements for externships um assisting in the mtss and all of whatever else it comes up with but those are some big big things that they're going to be doing and then this is the perkins 5 grant allotment not much change here either this one went down a little bit i think it was about four thousand dollars decrease from
070twenty one to twenty two um and that the salary that i was just talking about will be split between both my brand so and that's all i have were there any surprises in here in the budget for you guys no no we we did i mean it took us a while to get going on it um we were cutting the checks and balancing and stuff like that but just yeah just getting the whole process set up okay thanks dude affiliation agreements so much second candy chicken let me take it uh the affiliation agreement i'm sorry those are the veterinary sciences that we always do the program sorry we have four additional veterinary sciences that have signed on for us next year we did receive a lot of um really positive um comments from our vet
071programs that we worked with this year they're very happy with the students that were coming from our program and what they could offer to them and the services that were able to provide those veterinary programs so we do have four additional ones signing on i think we're at our all-time high which is really great to see that all of our veterinary clinics across the region are really signing up and we're starting to have a name for quality students coming to their to their facilities to assist so looking for approval for our agreements so what the second one is yes all right that concludes our action challenge we're going to go on information items uh dr stern and dr mongan who will update us on the back to school as president gorman mentioned earlier this will
072really be the first um discussion on the new guidance that the board has had and so i'm going to give an overview a board can add into discussion at that point so big change that occurred in may 19 may 19th of of this year that's when isb came out with their declaration that they were preparing for a full return to in-person learning that the remote learning was going away and that the goal was to have all students in school to the greatest extent possible that was that first indication at that time uh it was kind of unclear what was going to happen with the other guidance because we had we had concerns as school leaders and our weekly meetings with the king county health department and with other superintendents that under the current under the
073previous mitigation factors it would be near impossible for us to get the kids to school uh if you were restricted to 50 students on a bus um some of those other things such as social distancing uh requested that social distancing be aligned uh with the three feet with the three foot guidelines and then we're waiting for that guidance to come out and we're waiting for the guns to come out and every week we asked when we were going to be receiving that guidance um we were all surprised when that guidance was released on on friday july 9th because we did not have any previous correspondence or knowledge that it was going to be released at that point so we've spent some time looking at the cdc guidance when the cdc guidance was released very quickly
074which was atypical for online very quickly ivph um and and isb supported that guidance accepted it in full uh the cdc guidance in full people who have emailed the board myself they are correct and that um the cdc has given local control uh the state's given local control and discretion to school boards but that's not in and of itself complete because the discretion is given to local school boards but notes that any decisions about prevention strategy should be metric driven and made in consultation with local health officials so there there's that caveat to it some good news for us is that capacity limits have been removed for school spaces so our capacity limits are gone and for school buses capacity limits are gone although i will tell you that under the the new guidance masking
075on school buses is still required it's not even a recommendation it falls under the public transportation guides which is in effect until mid-september so um in consultation with the health department others it's important to know that the guidance that masking is required on public transportation including our school buses but the capacity limit for school buses um has been increased to 71 so we can we can put our students on the bus capacity limits for gymnasiums limitations for cafeteria have all been lifted uh so under the guidelines we have full use of our cafeteria we have full use of our gymnasiums and the plan at because of that the plan especially the middle school in high school would be we'd go back to using our designated cafeteria areas and we will no longer spread out elementary
076schools will use their cafeterias middle schools will use a cafeteria the high school will use their cafeteria students will return to cubby use students will return to locker use so um under the new guidance that is oil presumably at the elementary school level same that 25 28 whatever that back to our pre covid schedule if you will correct so as we look at some of our metric data then as we look at our data um as a school district and as a county we know that uh for king county over 70 percent of eligible people to receive the vaccine has ever at least received one dose today i learned in my meeting with the health department that 42 of uh individuals in kent county 12 to 17 now are fully vaccinated for king county health
077department statistics then when we look at our own school district on metrics i can tell you that the practices that we did have in place last year and people being responsible we really had a very low overall incident rate and i think that's something that everyone should be commended on last year we had 260 students um that tested positive for cloven 19. those 260 students resulted in 1 315 students being quarantined so because we were quarantining at six foot social distancing at that time now why we don't have all of the data regarding the quarantine we only know of one individual of that 1 315 students that developed covet while in quarantine so um that's not linked necessarily to the school it just means that while they were in quarantine they developed covalent so when
078you look at our positivity rate and we kept track of our positivity rate by week through the entire school year central never had a positivity rate of over one percent of its population and again we we had um policies in place and some of those policies are going to continue because one of the things that the cdc guidance really stresses is that you look at layered prevention measures so you look at layered prevention measures and masking is just one of those layered prevention measures we have many more that are in effect and continue to be in effect such as daily sanitation and disinfecting of our surfaces so we will be continuing with daily uh disinfecting and sanitation of all of our facilities other things that we've done is we've increased our ventilation flow uh we've
079worked with that so that we've been able to increase our our air turnover rate to help maintain a healthier environment we've increased the disinfecting of our coils and we've um installed where wherever possible more advanced merv filters uh which are recommended for dealing with this type of virus that that's out there so we've we've taken some of those measures um social distancing to the greatest extent possible so we're waiting to receive updated guidance on contact tracing and on quarantine i was told today that we can expect updated guidance from idph most likely later this week what i believe is going to happen is that they're going to and again this is just this is what my thoughts right now doesn't mean that it's going to happen i believe what will happen is that they're going
080to align uh contact tracing with the three foot distancing and um our classroom desks are able to be set up for three-foot social distancing for for students again the goal is to keep students in school to the greatest extent possible they want students in school in their seats getting their education other things that we still be required to do is exclude individuals who are symptomatic from we'll have to exclude individuals that are symptomatic from our school buildings you know been waiting then for uh verification from health officials on their status i would not be quarantining anyone that would that falls underneath the king county health department so i'm not i'm not a medical professional i wasn't trained in any of that yeah i don't claim to be i'm just telling you from what i've learned
081from my meetings with kent county health department other health officials like failure raised problems that we've had with children not achieving what they could have achieved had they been in school full-time without math are you using both metrics or just i'm health going to enter into discussion right now with community because this is a meeting for the board for the board to hear that discussion um but i would be happy to speak with you on the phone if you'd like to call me so um so these mitigations are in place and when you look at the cdc guidance the cdc guidance recommends that um all unvaccinated individuals ages two and up where a mask went inside schools it's um again as people stated it's not a mandate it's a it's a strong recommendation from cdc
082that unvaccinated individuals should wear a mask and that's right there in the cdc guidance so when we look at our other issues such as positivity rate and when we look at other things that are occurring we have to realize that that everything is subject to change everything is subject to change because even right now we're three weeks away before students come back into our buildings and conditions could change and then guidance could change from the state as well but that said um underneath the layered prevention strategies that the board has at their disposal you do have um you do have some some choice so it really ranges from a more conservative approach to a more liberal approach to the mitigation factors the most conservative approach would be to require masking and anyone on h2 to
083age 12 who's unvaccinated um somewhere in the middle of that continuum because what i believe will be aligned with the social distancing guidance at three feet would be that when social distancing cannot be maintained at three feet and students were together under three feet then that masking would take place the example would be at the elementary school if students were in their classroom seats they would not have to wear a mask if they were moving their cubbies or working in small group work they would be messed up at that time in the in the cafeteria when they were when they're eating of course they would not have to wear a mask but if they were done eating and they're within that three foot social distancing then mask use um would be expected you would you
084would ask that that they comply with mass use at that point so and then um to the other end of it so let me clear can we clarify again todd that for for lack of a better description i mean this discussion is ours to be had correct right these are our children your voice does matter we haven't even said what we're doing we haven't made a choice yet i think the board the board has to have a chance to discuss this amongst themselves they haven't even done that yet so what what is also in the board's preview if they would decide to do is to say that that um they strongly recommend they follow the cdc's guidance and say we strongly recommend that unvaccinated people age uh two and up where we're a mask in
085buildings and then so i think it's important to also i will highlight is being on the board for three years we've never engaged in discussion you know during these discussions so this is not any different than any other time that we've discussed anything in front of everyone obviously as we've all everyone is acknowledged right like this is it's a heated and people are really passionate but again this has been consistent with every meeting that i've been a part of it for 35 months at this point that we we really don't engage back and forth you're talking about our kids well i'm sorry it's not going to be exception sir so we're going to finish our discussion please stop okay you are and you did and we if you would like further information please contact us
086we'd be happy to get back to you the administration is more than willing and once we actually make a decision if you stick around you'll probably hear the decision okay okay i'm sorry you feel that way there should be some communications this is time for board discussion it's time for report discussion public comment has concluded sorry todd redone so i think you know i i've battled back and forth of this kind of to talk about i have i've mentioned a buddy of mine who's at lori in his communication with the cdc every week because of what he does at lurie as an infectious disease doctor and really kind of talking back and forth with him and i really think that the concern for me is that if if let's say there is some recommendation made
087that masks need to be worn at certain parts of the building at certain times of day based on how crowded kids are let's say transitioning into the building and todd and i had talked about this last week as i think a really creative solution um that when butts are in seats you're unmasked it's you know understandably i know we had an educator speak which i certainly appreciated um so this idea that when we're there especially our k2s who do need who do need that facial stuff we have that capacity to do that in classrooms but that said too any recommendation that's made now also to the whole point of this tiered approach right is that as we follow metrics we can say great we're doing well enough let's continue to move in the direction just
088like we did all last year by the way we pushed as hard as we were allowed to push at ultimately the recommendation of dr monica and dr stern us essentially following their recommendation which i think we were fairly unanimously in support of from what i recall um and so i think that the challenge from my perspective is if it isn't it's it's it's should be optional all the time the perception is going to be that you know we are forcing kids to wear masks when instead saying great like i think any time you're in this all or nothing category it gets really dangerous so either you have to wear masks all the time or else or we should never have to wear masks at all and i just don't think either one of those are
089realistic for the start of a school year that is my take on it it's really scary for me as a physician to be like we were masked full-time nine weeks ago not even nine weeks so by the time the school year starts it'll be nine weeks from the end of the school year and then to kind of move to we're just going to do you know it's going to be parent choice essentially family choice we'll call it right that that parents can can be in charge and again as somebody who fiercely believes in autonomy in my office fiercely believes in autonomy when it comes to medication and all that i appreciate the passion that people have had um and so you know the choice that i make for my kids they know what they're going
090to be doing next school year that's just because they know what their expectations are going to be and i think that having some sort of compromise i don't know is the right word because i don't feel like my my desire to consider something else other than 100 masking at all times is based on trying to appease anyone or anything like that but i really think based on the metrics that we have in our area and the data that we had last year now granted that was obviously wearing masks to be very clear right 100 masking at all times i think we we're we have the luxury of pushing a little bit away from mandatory masking for the full day i do not to be very clear at this point i do not think that should
091flip to it is just it's optional you can do whatever you want whatever parents choose whatever you know parents kids choose when they're not around their parents whether that's opposite of their parents or what their parents think whatever that is um i don't i think that's a little bit dangerous to go that far right on day one i think that might be let's check for four weeks and see what happens what about we get through labor day weekend and that's three and a half weeks and then a week after that we say what happens after but that's only 27 28 days of school what would happen if we used our data then to see what's happening to see where we are and i've talked to todd and jeff about the fact that just because of
092our zip codes we're fairly isolated we can isolate our zip codes for our district specifically with the exception of 60175 basically which pulls all of that west side of st charles in so i think we have the luxury if the king county health department can get us that data in an accurate fashion i think we do have the luxury of doing that because of where we sit so we can do things differently than u-46 we can do things differently than aurora and even geneva and st charles to be fair us and kaneland are fairly similarly situated as far as the makeup of our district's rural and all that kind of stuff so i would like to see us be a little bit more assertive while recognizing that there are probably going to be times in
093the day because of how kids are physically around each other that there may have to be some some on and off but that would still include over 90 if not 95 percent of the day unmasked for the most part which i think i told todd that i think that was a really creative option for for especially for k5 and to be very clear which are we mostly talking about k5 right now okay i just want to re-clarify that yeah this discussion is really pretty much focused around ec5 okay well we're suggesting that 612 go with uh optional mass obviously we would always recommend that they weren't mass if they so desire or if they're vaccinated but it's optional um but for ec5 i think our our belief is as well that academically we do believe
094similar to where i think the second grade teacher will spoke about the phonemic pieces childhood first and second k it's essential that they can see the mouse uh so if we can get them inside the building within that three feet which is generally a characteristic of our classroom it's a little bit more of a struggle for early childhood or kindergarten i did have the pleasure of speaking with our vice president of our union who is also an early childhood teacher uh who does believe it's also essential and feels confident that that's a good choice for us to move forward with i think making sure we still have mitigation factors in place we will be removing um the sanitation in terms of hand sanitizers from the elementary based on the cdc recommendation but every school except
095for the lake has classroom sinks i think we'll have to develop a rotation for washing hands especially if we aren't masking and they would mask to go to the bathroom if they're going to be closer than that three feet distancing i think music is a concern making sure that you know it's up to the teacher but if music if they're singing with closer than three feet they're gonna have to take some additional things but we would want to set protocols for some of those elements to ensure that people are feeling confident so art and music are larger classrooms than our standard classrooms are similar yes they could be larger but for not elementary they're pretty much a classroom so they're pretty similar with our matches in middle school and high school they're a little larger
096and just based on spacing alone if we you know x is on x's on the floor whatever that might be three feet we could we could be within that recommendation and potentially a mask softening yes okay what about the tables that we have in art are they able to be do we need more tables in the art classrooms and there are great schools two people per table which is close to three feet they're pretty pretty good size they might be a little two and a half feet you know i think it's up to a teacher where they locate them replace them um for the most part and the cdc guidance does state that there there may be times when individuals need to be closer than than three feet for certain types of work this guided
097agreement if and if that's the case then you have to look at your layered prevention strategies that you have in place for the for that time being right so i have a question so what you're saying i think what uh eric is saying and doctor what you're saying is that in lieu of just having a blanket policy that look in this uh ec through five we're just gonna have the masks we're trying to craft a policy that creates as much flexibility to allow the kids to be in those classrooms without the masks is that right the second thing is that you were saying dr stern that the the layered mitigations have to be informed by the metrics and the metrics of of health and a lot of the metrics that you described from the last
098year where we were in the throes of coven were very good for us but we have to recognize don't mean that that was because we had masks and other layers of mitigation so those positive outcomes were a consequence of these efforts i think i think for sure correlated maybe not necessarily causative probably a combination of the two for sure for sure sure but but that and that's where again i would say if we get past the first time we're having really any kids in our buildings without masks on that that if we wanted to pull back further to say you know what maybe we start with k2 so at pick pick a time it's an arbitrary time some point in the future sooner rather than later we look at what our metrics are in the
099district and the community by the way right it's not just about our numbers of our students because that's not a metric of like where we are in in our central part of kane county but that we then would look and say all right at what point do we say we need to look again and say man we've done really really well we've only had x positive cases um we've we've had no secondary case positives that might be correlated to a positive case in school i think this does um continue to rely on the the the good will and honesty of our families right so we don't send somebody to school who's coughing incessantly we don't send somebody to school who has 100 100.5 fever just because well they feel fine i mean so i think
100that that just again has to be stated that we need to make sure that people are still doing their best the same way when we weren't thinking about cove it was just the flu you wouldn't send your kid to school their runny nose had a fever and malaise like you shouldn't be sending your kid to school right which what you said is important because we're no longer doing um the daily self monitoring no longer requiring that of of students to enter the buildings but we would ask that if people are symptomatic that they that they stay home and that they they seek proper medical care uh you know for whatever it is so the self-certification will not occur and just to clarify too i i think i saw this in one of our emails do
101we have two liaisons this year again for k5 we are still trying to shake that out i think at the middle school in high school and talking with um karen dave we believe middle school high school will be better served by teachers working with the students who might be out for any reason vacation whatever they're out for elementary we're still trying to determine if some staff last year liked it some staff prefer to do it on their own maybe giving them a choice uh definitely probably keeping two just for the flexibility so there is good communication between the teacher and the home in the event that a teacher doesn't have the time to do there to keep with the um we get a glance some of that information was on campus for our parents and
102community members so that our liaisons can work with students who are out for an extended point of time if that's the case um so we are still looking maybe two but we may increase that if we find that teachers really do think that's beneficial it could be one per building um we're still kind of shaking that out right now to see where the opinions might be from teaching staff if teachers prefer to do it on their own then there may not be a necessity to increase that number and there'll be no video this year that were like video access synchronized no uh as a matter of fact for the if we have students who may be on for a long time we may have to go to maybe edmentum which would be our video course
103for an extended course to keep up for any course yep to help them stay abreast of the content if they need additional assistance the the growth high school the goal is to accomplish what we've always wanted as administration on board that is to have all of our kids in school to the greatest extent possible and um that remains and why why i would like to see covid completely behind us i think we're we're all in agreement with that we're we're not quite there he had and there is issues as we go into the fall and like i said we did really well last year we did really well last year and i expect that we will continue to do well i i just think that we need to consider a measured approach and that's why
104um i thought like at the elementary level whenever you cannot maintain social distancing of three feet at that point you would need to wear a mask one at your cubby when working in a small group type situation i do believe that that is most in line with the recommendation of the cdc and then as as dr nolan said i think we can look at at our metrics data at our local data because we're different our community is different than um sections of belgium other sections of belgium or other sections of aurora for instance so i think you need to when you look at king county you have to look at your region and what's happening in your school district as well um i think i know uh esther you mentioned um that heroes in favor
105especially of the you know younger kids and and being able to be without masks um and uh i know i think you're still here she hiding back there hi i'm sorry i'm just kind of just out of curiosity esther i guess you can speak unless uh we have anybody for cure so general kind of set consensus on the part of teachers at all levels we don't really have a consensus as far as comfort level or whatever that might be i think it's mixed i think again you're you're looking at what you're seeing in our community it's a mixed bag of where uh staff are at um obviously anybody can mask up if they so desire and choose to do so um i think with no matter which way we go you know it's not unlike
106last year there's never an easy way to make a popular decision we're not going to 100 either way we go um same thing for our staff we're trying to get a sense of where we're at i think dave didn't have a good handle on the middle school high school yet he had not like surveyed them hadn't heard too much karen had the opportunity to hear from some of her staff and the student or teachers at that level that some of them i think primarily because it is hard to teach phonics it's hard to teach emotions it's hard to teach those elements in early elementary when you cover up half your face and you're only seeing your eyes um so they found it was very difficult for literacy for some of the social emotional learning that
107needs to occur to have them messed up so that's where the creative idea of you know at least one of their classrooms which is primarily most of their day for elementary unmask them so that we can get them the education that they need so we don't have further delay in terms of some of the academic progress that we're hoping to see with our students this year please note that you know teachers respect as administration board we respect the viewpoints we respect the viewpoints of of all who reach out whether whether or not they agree or disagree with us or whether or not i may personally agree or disagree with them um one of the tenants of our district is that we've always always been respectful and tried to focus on on the currency of ideas
108and um i think that i've received just like i've received numerous emails from members of your group expressing your viewpoint i have received numerous emails as well from other community members asking that we continue with with masking as well so they're even in our community there's there's different viewpoints you know that's just the way that's the way life is so i think as as a school board as we move forward when we look at the guidance i'd like to see what the quarantine guidance um actually states when it comes out um because that that may clarify too as far as like our contact racing like i want it to be aligned i'm hoping that it's going to be aligned but what that comes out with that can that can help the board with even a
109more important decision as well and that quarantine issue uh and the contact tracing issue is related to the the impact that um the school have with the number of kids required to be out of class because of exposure is that right correct so the the the the um less stringent the um the quarantine requirements are from the public health departments the more flexibility the school will have the school board will have in crafting these policies is that am i understanding that is correct okay that's correct and there's there's still discussion going on um and again strong feelings uh on both sides of this but there's still discussion going on at the state level regarding um optional optional testing which then could be tied to the shortening quarantine or avoiding quarantine and i say optional testing
110because there are a couple tests that are out there there's the bindex now test which is a nasal swab which is now free to school districts but you have to get a clia waiver which is not easy to get and then there's the shield test which i heard today from the health department is now going to be made free for all school districts it's a saliva test it's a pcr test but again that would be something that even if the district did move in that direction that would be that would be something that people would have to opt into so and i can't tell you the amount of teachers who flooded my inbox with support of us reopening those schools but they were served as a teacher's union and they're scared of being publicly crucified
111they find so much data so i'm just saying that that you guys implement that are unrealistic and that they are just scared to speak up because of being publicly used so one thing you know i think we've done a really good job following guidance from the county health you know they're following the guidance from the cdc we're taking what the county health says and as a board member for 10 years so long but i think that's that's our best way of approaching this we're not medical doctors on this board we're at some are you our educators we all are volunteering because we have a passion some of us are medical doctors sorry eric dr nolan you are a medical doctor i am not jeff is not i don't believe you two are no i could
112be wrong so personally i feel the most comfortable going with the guidance that's given to us from the people that are making these decisions and we've done this for a year and a half and i think continuing on that same path it makes it pretty easy for people to kind of expect what we're gonna do because we're following along with what they're hearing in other places and that's i think we should i personally feel we should continue down that same road it's proven positive for us up till now and i think it'll still prove it to clarify what does that mean that you would be in favor of what's what todd has said kind of what you guys think we're talking about that's what i just want to clarify that's the guidance i've heard is
113what they're saying is when you can maintain that social distance of three feet of three feet masks off when we're in other areas if they're saying we shouldn't we should be looking at masks we should be doing that it's what are they saying as you're moving around from places and as we said too i mean we're three three weeks and two days away from the start of the school year so who knows what's going to be imposed at some point but the whole the whole time through the school year last year we were always looking for when is the next restriction going to be lifted so we can push that and so i think that in the interest again of starting off in a metered fashion in a tempered fashion with a goal and i
114i would i again i'd throw data out there in the future whatever that means five weeks i don't i don't care what date that is but we figure out like what does that mean and at what point can we um increase the capacity for again for instance ec2 to have more time with unmasked and then again what does that look like when we do another oh great now we can do three five because we're looking really good and now we can have k5 unmasked for those who choose to do so for those who choose to mask right so then we we may have the flexibility but i think that that's where we use the data we have now to inform you know i think a moderately assertive but appropriate intervention plan with the goal that
115we continue to push where we can to use the best data that we have which again we're relying on another entity to provide us that data to be fair so that's just something we're we're left at the at the you know the the will of the king county health department um and so that would be a potential you know just time frame thing for us again todd you guys know best what that communication is like um but i think that that is i think that's a reasonable place to start and i know you mentioned that we already need to have another meeting anyway which we can talk about in closed session officially which would be before school starts obviously correct for the budget yeah so i think that gives us another opportunity to kind of
116sort out if anything has changed that we need to kind of change our recommendation for that well it has to be so we'll talk about that in closed session there will be a special board meeting that will need to be scheduled for um looking at tons of budget and we would probably tie any future recommendations to that meeting there's yes between people in the community or does the community just go up there and speak and you guys sit there silently and then you guys make your speech with no rebuttal at all is that how it typically works yes yes is the honestly i'm kind of confused by what you're saying i think the actions we're looking at are for ec through fifth grade to be unmasked as long as they're within that three feet and
117above distance under three feet we're asking that they put mask on so to travel if they're going in the hallway closer and going out as a whole classy to the restroom doing those types of things if they're outdoors obviously unmasked for six through 12 we're suggesting that uh it is recommended that unvaccinated individuals wear a mask just like they said but basically it's not it's an optional um opportunity for students and parents to make those two choices for six through twelve that's we're gonna recommend to the students that they do that yes okay just i mean to me it seems kind of difficult for a teacher when they're all on math to say okay now it's mass time um i think a simple saying that's good i think most kids will do it um obviously
118it's not mandated so we're recommending that the kids it's not we're not trying to take a lot of time to do this um the whole catching cove or any other thing is probably airborne and somebody said you know you have to be there for five reload 15 minutes next to him we're talking so it's like walking down the hallway to go to the cafeteria isn't gonna happen so it's almost like why bother yeah that's my kind of my eyes and you know you're in line to get your food half the kids are already sitting down eating because they bring your sack lunch um you know it just seems like i don't know i'm all over looking at metrics i've got a period in time and obviously we get more strict guidelines we have to do
119it last year we were on a mass mandate so that's what we did great we're not we're discussing it right no matter what you guys have said we're discussing this um for the first time and so we need to figure it out so we have options but you know after seeing these it's fine i think we're fine to go with that option and recommend but just so the public knows it's not a mandate and if you feel strongly about your kid not wearing it they don't obviously have to and for those that do they will but it's still a recommendation to try and keep everybody safe so and be respectful trying to be considerate this is what we're going to recommend to our students right i agree and i would agree with you jeff i
120mean i i i would assume that you know we would support our teachers and saying we're going to do our best but we're not going to have arguments in class over that right like i completely agree with minimizing any sort of impact i tell people that even when i go to a restaurant like i don't even say anything to my kids they don't could go to the bathroom daddy sure and they just are in the habit of putting a mask on just because that's what they're in the habit of doing i don't tell them they have to dish as they have it with them and that's just what they do they like their masks it has personality they don't care um you know so for most it's not a big deal right and in my
121office i don't wear a mask when i'm in the office with my patients um uh but you know that that's you know kind of where we are and that's again my that's my choice right and that's what my kids have just been around and that's just what they do on their own um so uh you know you know so i i think that we i like what you guys have come up with and i think that's a great place to start with the goal of continuing to push forward as we feel we have sufficient data to do as reasonably safely as possible right nothing's foolproof we know of course i mean i was in the schools a lot last year i was in kindergarten classes a lot like of course they're not staying six feet
122apart to the best of the teachers are doing their best so it's not about either israel isn't happening it's are we doing our best to meet to meet those goals as laid out by the entities that are making the recommendations to your point laura right um people certainly above and beyond my pay grade to to to know it to have that information so we're gonna what i'm hearing us say i just want to make sure we're all clear so what i'm hearing is that um we are strongly recommending the students wear a mask if they're under three feet distancing um anything that's three feet or more we are not requiring that they may amass it at any time during that time and if you take it off it becomes unsanitary so you're asking now that
123these kids take on and off the map to go into the washroom where fecal matter is floating in the air and then put that thing back on your face like this just doesn't seem right so so again i mean with the way that i kind of formulated my head is if your butt's in a seat you you know the recommendation would be that you know you are not required to wear a mask and if your butt's not in the seat and you're moving around theoretically a class or in the bathroom right where you might now we can put more than one kit or whatever i forget we're doing last year however it was that they were kind of trying to limit the bathroom time and i think that that's kind of you know a reasonable
124thing to start with as laid out but you just said esther recommended not required when moving around that's the key recommend it recommended when moving around early childhood through fifth grade they're at 12th grade you're 12. 12th grade so it puts illness back on you so my question then is in the the last academic year was it also a recommendation that our kids wear masks in the last academic year we were under a mask mandate that has been removed okay we are no longer under a masking mandate right so now it's up to us to decide whether or not prevention measures so and also some of the stats jay were keep in mind some of the buildings were at half capacity because the kids were monday wednesday or thursday friday that's right um you know
125or tuesday thursday or tuesday friday i you know some people the stats aren't really you can't put your arms around them right so but that's a good point i i didn't think about that so now everybody's going to be in the building correct so that actually raises the concern that previously you had a fraction of the student bodies in the building now you have the entirety but for fourth so i think the data for fourth quarter though didn't we didn't see a significant increase when we had everybody in the building okay so we we have you know eight we have eight weeks of data nine weeks of data yeah our rates remained low even when we brought back greater populations of students and again i think it was due to to many variables i don't
126think it was just one variable but we had we had layered prevention strategies in place last year and what i'm saying is that going to this year we have to have layered prevention strategies too we just have to be well thought out and how and what's reasonable with them you know to keep it to keep everyone safe because comments that were made were accurate you you you have to have enough exposure and enough viral load and if you're just walking past someone you know when they sneeze it's going to be very very unlikely that you're going to pick up something but if you are around someone and they have that viral load and you're around them for a decent length of time then the odds do increase we did do 19 weeks so in 192
127week periods we did uh from august 31st all the way to june 4th we tracked every two weeks the percentages so a fee if that's in your packet that we can keep components well you can see we never had over that one percent positive rate that dr stewart talked about we talked about the number of students we took the number of people that were currently in-house so it wasn't students that stayed home so from the beginning of the year we had about 3 800 individuals that were in our school system every day you know coming back and forth either morning afternoon or all day and at the end of the year we finished at 3 934 people so we had a good 70 to 75 percent of our body our both our teaching body and
128our student body in-house and we never exceeded one percent of positivity rate as we monitored the positive cases we had a lot more out in quarantine we did not count those because they had to go but they did not become covert positive they did not contract when you think about the mitigating factors we had last year we had masks that was one of the mitigating factors but all the other medicating factors were keeping in place the sanitation the disinfecting all of that social social distancing whatever possibly wherever possible um the ventilation that dr stern spoke about so all those mitigating factors we are not removing uh we're continuing we still have an extra custodian i have on hand at the middle of the day uh to help with bathrooms you know additional sanitation in the
129bathrooms some of those areas that are more high contact areas uh that will remain this year as well um and forever to keep kind of that that down we're hoping as well that takes care of some of the flu bug um right that you always see in the school years that you have year over year as well that's stomach thing that goes around just before conference time right because you have the ventilation that hopefully will improve many of those metrics that we put in place those will stay in place as we enter the score even though i mean our positivity rate was low but you can see by looking at the data that uh it was the week after halloween we had a little bit of a spike and then right after the winter break
130we had a little bit of a spike again we never surpassed one percent but we were one of the few districts to jump in aggressively and put the kids back in school yes right which and we brought people back after the adaptive pause that the health department goes for after thanksgiving yeah we didn't stay closed to bring this up eric you'll love it um so i've witnessed in the community a lot of communities the bullying that's going on about whether you get vaccinated or not you know people are being attacked if they are either being attacked if they're not so what are we going to put in place to just ensure that our kids who do choose to wear masks aren't being attacked or the kids that choose not to wear masks is that kindness
131awareness i think dr nolan brought that up a little bit earlier we're going to reach we're going to reach a point in our community we're going to have people in our schools that for their own personal reasons they're either not going to be managed or they're going to be masked and what we don't want is we don't want bullying or harassment of individuals for whatever choice they made we would ask that people be respectful of other people's choice so that just might be something teachers need to but we would follow the same bullying guidelines as like out in the handbooks that's just another thing that cause trust me i've watched it a lot in our in in our community in other communities you can't win no matter what you do someone's telling you you did
132it wrong so um and even coming people coming in the things on facebook nobody's giving any of us a chance to talk about it as a board and they're gonna they're assuming we're gonna do something they disagree with and we're also parents so yeah so we're all feeling the same thing everybody in this room every teacher is feeling on both sides of the fence and it's just i just want to just kind of put it out there and i i feel like that's just another opportunity for i think we all realize that there's strong emotions that that are in play regarding this issue and people feel strongly about it i get that i respect that um we would just ask that people be respectful of individual choice autism exception for my son to wear a
133shield instead of a mask and he was very excited uh because the mask really most of his glasses and he ended up getting rid of the shield and stop praying because kids were like why aren't you wearing masks and kids were harassing him so he just he was like right it just wasn't going to stand and i just put the mask back on he you know he didn't like it but he said he suffered through it it shouldn't matter at the end of the day and everyone's it's a great opportunity for us to reinforce with our students how to be respectful to others because you never know what decide what they're going through in their lives at the end of the day you know i say that about people i work with all the time
134you just don't know what else is happening and that if we lead with people are doing what's best we'll all be much more successful through this instead of assuming we're not going to do what's best yep any other comments all right and move on to our kevin project update direct follow is here to give us that info this is the best part of the meeting [Laughter] thank you so capital projects for this summer our central middle school abatement project went off without a hitch we completed that uh the week right after the fourth of july which allowed us to start the window project um the high school window project should be completed by the end of this week and then uh we're gonna bulk up with the second crew to continue on at central middle
135school some of the operable windows are going to be a little bit delayed just because of you know equipment and and getting that stuff available but we're in pretty good shape with both of those projects uh the central middle school rough replacement went without a hitch also got the gutters on and got everything didn't experience any issues or any hold up so that went really well our staff's working hard at getting buildings cleaned we're probably in most buildings 75 at this point we all know it was a little bit of a short summer so we're going to be uh going right to the very end wrapping things up but that's going really well we got a lot of painting painting work done um some floor replacement at the high school so some of the odds
136and ends again some of those things just because of material accessibility and timing we're this we kind of scaled back this summer on on the work we tried to do again like i always like to reiterate our staff is is working hard the mitigations you guys speak about our staff takes a lot of pride in what they've done and what they continue to do and i will say that we will continue to do that to make sure those kids can be in those seats because that's where they should be so our staff is going to continue to do the things they've done to make sure that that happened some of the mitigation factors dr stern talked about all the vendors that we work with and the things we try to do in those perspectives are
137for not just for covid it's for a lot of health it's for all the airborne pathogens that are in their mold everything else so all those the modifications we've done to our air handlers all the things we've done with ionization and the extra disinfecting is going to help for all of that stuff so it's just going to provide better air quality moving forward in all our buildings so that's why we're going to continue doing those things any questions one of the well so which windows at central middle school are going to be held up before the operating the operating windows so it's just the operating windows they'll have all the fixed all the units that will be in it'll just be the operating okay so there'll be there could be some blank supply wood in
138the ones that they don't have gotcha but everything will be and it'll be usable yeah it won't affect any classrooms thank you any questions thanks dean awesome thank you all right last we have uh foil freedom of information act we received a foil from construct connect requesting our bid tabulations for the asbestos abatement and for our refuge service uh which went to group and so we're able to comply with that foia ensure that information all right that's it for open session with the motion second to journal executive session yes yes yep yes we'll take like five minutes thanks again everyone thank you for coming out