001welcome everyone we're going to call the meeting to order it is 705. we waited a couple extra minutes we have some extra folks that showed up we want to make sure everybody gets in we move the line inside so they could hear us to start the meeting we don't want to exclude anybody so everybody can hear everything that's going on so uh we're gonna start off with our roll call Boat our roll call please Kimberly if you take care of that for us here Tammy High here Andrea Corey here Craig Meyer here Scott Middleton here who's the Schumacher here Tyson search here all right on to item two is our welcome and recognition of our visitors I think this is the biggest crowd I've ever seen here so thank you all for taking the time
002to come out participate in the process we uh welcome you every time and board meetings are always open to the public item number three we're going into public comments and I believe a lot of people have signed up to speak what we're going to do is everybody is limited to three minutes we want to be able to hear everyone in the past we have limited people and cut certain people off at the three minute time so we just have to be fair to everybody so you all will have three minutes to speak whatever you want to tell us is absolutely fine um and we're going to I think Kimberly has a color-coded chart she's getting the list okay I'm getting a list all right so basically Kimberly is going to keep our time for us
003so we can all listen and pay attention to what you're telling us and she's going to give you a warning I think we have a yellow card at a minute so you have a green card to start and then she'll Flash the yellow card at a minute and then she'll raise her hand when your time is finished I'm sorry red card at half a minute so so uh kind of everybody sees that so again we do welcome your comments we just have to be respectful and uh you know there's there's a multiple opinions on every subject and all we ask is a little bit of respect so with that we will call down our first person that signed up Dana McLean I'm sorry Dana McLean Dana here too okay and if you would before you
004start your state your name for us Dana McLean thank you so I have two students that are middle schoolers and my oldest my daughter has been vaccinated my youngest my son is not eligible to be vaccinated yet whenever he was born he was immediately taken away and he was given observation for well over an hour to listen to his breathing this was a very scary experience then before he was a year old he had colds that immediately became pneumonia and he had to get steroid injections four times before he was even a year old then he was put on a maintenance medication for 14 months to prevent him from getting um asthma are being diagnosed as asthmatic to this day he does not even remember this he does not know this he is not asthmatic
005however a virus that attacks the respiratory system could be detrimental to his health now people will be very emotional about the subject of whether to mask having it required or not and I'm requesting that the school board not make an emotional decision before any decision about optional masking is made please consider legitimate scientific research tonight you may be presented with the results of a Facebook poll this poll has the validity of me walking into my son's home room craft s if they agree or disagree that their homeroom teacher Mr Tullis is the best homeroom teacher how many are going to disagree might the results be skewed this poll is going to be skewed on the same Facebook page I was informed that Redbud made masks optional in order to be an example to other school
006districts and that because people stomp their feet rather than presented row Medical Data the decision was made to make masks optional Colombia is better than that we don't need to follow in redbud's footsteps I don't want to risk funding as well as lies over making masks optional I support parental Choice up to the point where it infringes upon other Children's Health and Welfare especially in a public school environment I support our superintendent's decision to keep masks required I support the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that all students wear masks in school schools should be a safe place for all students thank you thank you our next speaker Greg Schmidt hello y'all I'm going to try really hard to keep this sincere in three minutes is tough um if it tells your name
007first though please sure my name is Greg Schmidt and um I grew up here I lived almost my whole life here I graduated high school in 1993 here and my wife Nikki and I have decided to raise our family here a big part of that is because of the school district we love raising our family here um and I want to take this opportunity to recognize the tough spot you all are in this is not an easy situation to be in and I doubt any of you when you decided to run into this position thought you would be dealing with a life or death situation but you are and so we need you to know we're with you that's the biggest point of my story here I want to get into a little math though
008and and talk about the fact that I went out and I did all the research I did could I'm kind of a nerd as far as data if anybody knows me um and I read everything I read CDC and The Who and CNN and MSNBC and fox and I clicked on those click bait articles that said Delta is putting kids in the hospital and every one of them when you go to read it by the time you get to the bottom of the article if you really read it the experts are pulling back on that headline and they're saying kids do exceptionally well with this virus the kids that are in the hospital right now are the same number of kids that were in the hospital when there was a spike last time and the
009best math that I could find and it's really hard math for them to calculate is a .001 death rate of kids under 18 years old now you flip that coin over and you look at some of the math that we can look at that is real over what is almost two years now and it was a lot easier to come up with some of these stats and I'm going to share a personal story with you after I go through a little bit of stats on this but some of the numbers that jump out at you is a 50 increase in antidepressants in kids under the 18 in the year of 18 years of age and a 20 percent increase in suicide attempts in girls under 18 years of age my personal story is my wife
010and I sent our son off to college after graduating here in 2020 to Eastern Illinois University and we were super proud under these guidelines and he went into a depressive state so bad that we had to have the campus police basically go kick his door down to make sure that he was alive and okay and he's home with us now when we're doing a reset but so many parents that I know are experiencing that same thing right now it's very real so every night I want you to know I pray about this and in my prayer I'm thanking God for my family's health it's the number one thing and then I'm asking God to help us navigate through this epidemic that we're dealing with and what I hear back from God is I have you
011I got you your kids are going to be safe but you people were the ones doing this to them right now we're the ones putting them in this position wrecking their mental health and it's real and in closing the final thing I want to say to you is you all have to place a bet a tough bet like I said I don't envy you but you have to place a bet on physical health at .001 or mental health where if you don't change direction you will have suicides this year that we're going to be hit with locally so we're with you go fight for us I'll go with you [Applause] thank you guys [Applause] Mary Brooks hello my name is Mary Brooks and I just have a quick question for you guys um I am
012going to be a junior in high school this year and my question for tonight is what is the school's remote learning policy with the kids who are quarantined and how will the children get the help they need when they are home without instruction from their teachers now since we have started school a couple of teachers have reached out to their students offering remote learning if quarantined however I believe it should be offered to every student in this situation therefore I am nervous of being quarantined due to the exposure and not getting the help I need thank you [Applause] Chris culture a little bit taller than everybody else up here so uh most of you guys probably heard me last spring about the BLM situation we had if you were on the board you were not
013I graduated high school here in 1989 I served 12 years in the military moved my family back here from a pound Where I Stood on the school board for three years three and a half years so like Eric Greg and those guys are going to talk tonight we understand you're in a tough position but the realization is is that other school districts are making decisions that you guys are not and we're curious to know that the school board was given the opportunity to vote on mass or not or if this was directed unilaterally by superintendent so my question to you guys is simple have you as a school board looked into what happens if you do not file pritzker's mandate on masking and record quarantines what would happen if we didn't file that mandate and
014I want to remind you as a board he has no right legally to set a mandate you follow laws the laws by the ISB are already spelled out you as a board have the ability to Buck the system if you will mandates have not been voted on in the senator House in Illinois they've been voted down by Democrat and Republican Senators and congressmen so again you guys need to be the ones running this show our superintendent should not be making choices for the whole Community this we voted you guys in you have the power that's I mean I think I stand for everybody here do we agree with that I said in the spring and I'll stay in today you have a chance to divide or you have the chance to heal it is your
015guy's chance tonight to make that choice please do so no mask no quarantine for our kids if they get if they get sick that's on us and we'll put them in school take them out of school but if my kid's sit in six feet to three feet from some other kid it's not her fault she's just you know to get sick how many of us went to school with a kid next to us hacking snotting on his leg or whatever back in the day and all of a sudden this virus you know everybody acts like this freaking zombie apocalypse it's not happening guys the dad is out there you guys know how to find it to do the right thing don't quarantine our kids unless they are sick and let the board vote if we
016are going to mask and I'd like to see a hand a vote if that's not going to happen anytime soon tonight thank you very much [Applause] [Music] Christy daughtery foreign good evening my name is Christy Doherty and I have three children in the district I wanted to come to the school board tonight with some concerns as a parent these concerns include masking quarantine and remote learning I would like to understand why the change from optional masking in July to mandatory masking in August a mandate is not law given the Illinois House Bill 2789 did not proceed in the legislature local government has the autonomy to proceed with the will of the people the state board of education does not have the authority to sanction schools on this issue as we all know covet is real
017however according to New York Times only 0.2 percent of kids between the ages of 5 to 14 have died from covet in the United States compared to 0.5 percent from drowning and point three percent from the flu meanwhile we are seeing an increase in mental health and suicide kids need to be seen and heard and this cannot be done being a mask or being quarantined another point I want to understand is why vaccinated children do not have to be quarantined in a non-vaccinated child does according to CNBC 74 percent of people infected in the Massachusetts covet outbreak were fully vaccinated in addition on August 5th the CDC director Rochelle wolinski stated our Cova vaccines are working exceptionally well they continue to work well for the delt over the guard to the spirit illness and death
018they prevent but what they cannot do anymore is prevent transmission so regardless of vaccination status transmission can occur remote learning is another concern if a child is quarantined what does their learning look like a packet especially for the higher grades is not going to work some school board members might be concerned about being liable in case of a suit regarding covid according to 105 ilcs 5 school code individual school board members have Indemnity from the districts another idea would be for parents to sign a waiver that stated the school would be liable would not be liable for any covet cases I know the school board has had a difficult 18 months of navigating through all this we appreciate everything you do if we continue to follow bills that are not law what else will the
019school school be allowing in the later on our children are our future we want the best for them and as I know you do otherwise you would not have decided to be on the school board in the first place if we do not stand up for them now what will be risking in the future thank you [Music] thank you [Applause] Corey daughtery [Music] good evening my name is Corey Daugherty and I am a parent of three kids in Colombia um question I'd like to ask answered is Mr Grote was at the meeting with local schools and heard how other schools came to the decision regarding Mass why are other schools able to not be mandated but our school is I'd like to know if the school board has a line as far as how far
020do things go is it if more mandates followed does the school board plan on accepting everything is there anything we don't accept mask and quarantining may seem minimal but where does it stop unless schools start standing up it's just the beginning there's art there's already CRT and sex criteria flowing down being mandated on our children are we accepting these as well I know my family and many others have a line in the sand and if things don't change we will definitely be looking to move you know it's very sad to say that I mean our kids have been here going here for quite a few years and have loved going to this school so it's not something we want to do but everybody has to have their line so just want to let everyone know
021that you know the kid families here are with the board and here to help and that's all I have thank you [Applause] [Music] Ryan Hicks so first off thank you guys I think this is a testament to the community that we all came out but I'm sorry to interrupt can you start state your name for us please Ryan Hicks thanks Ryan appreciate so you guys you guys took this this position to serve our community and we thank you because this is the first time I've ever been to a board meeting I'm not active in the community other than raising my kids and you guys you guys are so thank you my biggest issue as well as I know others it's not about getting an argument around mask my preference would be that it's optional and
022that if you've got children that are compromised definitely if that's in their best interest but my concern is more around the the quarantining and and that's the the scary part if a kid shows up to school and they have symptoms send them back send them home quarantine them if we know they're sick quarantine them to take a gamble on someone that might have been next to that person for 15 minutes three feet apart which is difficult to document and prove to take that chance and take a perfectly healthy student out of school out of sports out of whatever activity it is that they're involved in as a precaution I think that's that's overreach I I don't I don't believe in that I think last year there was a lot of uncertainty and I think a
023lot of Extreme Measures were taken I think we know more now than we did last year and so I think that needs to be taken into consideration you're guessing is all you're doing by removing someone out of out of school you're you're checking a box hoping that you're covering yourself and try to protect protect more kids and I get it but the guest comes in you don't know how kids are going to respond out of school and on a personal note I've got two two students one's a junior and one's a freshman this year and I I've got my youngest here my other one had a previous commitment and so I'm not going to call him out other than if you would have told me pre-pandemic who would have responded better outside of the school
024my gamble would have been on my oldest and it was just the opposite my youngest did an excellent job he stood up to the adversity and he responded very well my oldest he worked and worked and worked but missing the structure that he was so used to was a detriment to him and it did affect him psychologically in a number of other ways I see the red card so I'll respect the time but if you want to if you want to go down the mask route I would recommend no mask I would recommend optional but the quarantining we have to stop that thank you thank you Stacy Waltman I'm a little shorter than everyone else good evening to all the board members we appreciate what you're doing sorry again can you text your name please
025Stacy haltoman thank you um I would like to speak on a personal note first we have had covet twice in 20 months so for all of you who are wondering how long it takes before you get it again it's about 20 months four of the five of my family have had it twice one just had it last year so his immunity is still working and he hasn't had it again also we go to many many specialists we have many underlying circumstances in our family and we do not want to be vaccinated for those reasons because we do not know what else is coming down our Pipeline and we have enough health issues that we don't feel that that's necessary to take that risk um for the health department unless you are a doctor or a
026specialist I really would prefer for you to just stick to reading the CDC I guess because if you know what we know from having it and experiencing it you have a 99 right of being okay so we were also told when my oldest who was the first one to get it and he has underlying circumstances that his date of quarantine would end on August 8th then in the phone call we are towed August 12th and then when I asked to verify the date we were told August 8th again so if they can't get the dates figured out if it's 10 days or 14 days I really don't know if I trust them saying anything else about that um next I would like to know when we are going to take herd immunity seriously the idea
027of wearing masks to protect against covet and neglecting the dangers that mass can cause doesn't make any sense either studies on mass have been done and they found 11 dangerous pathogens on the masks they are as follows pneumonia tuberculosis meningitis sepsis keratitis granulomatis and you make emphasitis Encephalitis food poisoning Bernadette Fria which causes Allegiant airs disease staff that causes meningitis in addition Studies have shown that the virus can goes through the mask we only want the best possible education for our children and that is what the school is supposed to provide the mass and quarantine I feel are just a distraction my question for the board is if quarantined we understand the paper packet is being sent home with the children with Advanced knowledge of how to address a quarantine why is a remote option
028no longer in play like last year I have two students in the district one in high school one in middle school and one that just graduated thank you for your time [Applause] [Music] thank you Jason Holtzman hello uh board I'm Jason Halterman thanks for allowing me to speak and definitely thank you for serving I appreciate what you're doing taking time out of your schedule out of your family time to represent us our community definitely appreciate that I do have a couple kids in the district and so this definitely hits home and that's why I'm here speaking and I mean as we've heard from everybody in Ditto whatever everyone's been I've been saying already so the one question I have is if children are masked and it's the most powerful protection according to CDC website why
029are they quarantined if exposed so where in the school do you think they'll be exposed within three feet we request the administration to provide a seating chart for each classroom showing the distance between desks and students please and so and regarding masks definitely for mask optional but there's studies out there that we can all read and research and Google that'll show that unfortunately the virus goes through any any of these masks they've even looked at the m95 mask and the virus is so small unfortunately it goes through those two and so just definitely something to think about but again I thank you all for your service and we take this very seriously so look forward to the outcome of this meeting thank you [Music] Wayne Poulter got a question starting in a comment following it
030on the evening of the freshman orientation it was mentioned by Mr Reeves that the students would follow the Mandate set by pritzker to wear masks until he ends until the end or until the municipality the municipality says otherwise and according to the mayor Columbia mayor Columbia Bob hill we do not have a mass mandate in place for the city of Columbia would this is this going to affect the decision you make um and common I like to make because I don't pretend to know any more than the next person I do know that everyone has the same ability to educate themselves on both sides of it and and in my mind there's two people in this in this gym that know my three children the best and knows what's best for them and will always
031do what's the best for them so we ask that you allow us I would take full responsibility to raise my children financially physically mentally we asked you know I put full responsibility on you to make the decisions that the community wants that the community needs everyone has different needs but we need to take into account all of them and find something that works it's not one individual's job or responsibility to make the rules that's why you're elected because we look at you as just an extension of ourselves so hopefully whatever decision you make as long as it is supported you know we'll live with it one way or the other but it's on you to make that decision whether we like it or not that's where we're at thank you [Applause] Kelly hi my name
032is Kelly antolik um I have two kids in the district my first question is how are we all able to be here tonight without a mask on but our kids are going to school with masks I don't understand that so the masks are annoying in my opinion and completely useless because the virus is small enough to get through the mask however that is not the real issue the real issues are the quarantine and the lack of Education offered to the students who are placed in school-issued quarantines it is my understanding that when a when a student is placed into quarantine they will not be given the option to remote learn and I don't know why the infrastructure is already in place for them to remote learn because it was there last year you cannot give
033a child a packet and say here you go 10 days you're on your own the child will fail they will fail miserably and when they do I ask who is failing the child or the district how can you expect a student to learn chemistry geometry algebra on their own for 10 days with a packet and a few check-ins the kids do not have education degrees they should not be self-educating the teachers who are hired in the district do have the degrees and they need to be the ones teaching not the students my daughter is a junior in high school most people would argue that junior year is the most important year to prepare for college and you're telling me that if she gets put into quarantine she has to just figure it out your number
034one priority should be the kids and their education handing out a packet for 10 days sends a clear and strong message that you do not care about them or their education do you understand the impact that this has on their confidence and mental well-being I come here tonight to urge you to reevaluate your quarantine plans for our students there's absolutely no reason why they cannot remote in they're already adhering to the mass mandates and on top of this you're putting healthy children into quarantine it is also my understanding that the teachers are complaining about the remote option for quarantined students because it creates more work well we're all adjusting to this time we're in we all have had to take on more work in various areas of Our Lives you know how hard it is
035for a young child to learn diction and how to read without being able to see a teacher's face because of a mask so my point is all the students have had to make sacrifices during the time it's not just the teachers making sacrifices so the argument to remove remote learning for quarantining kids just doesn't work for me so I ask you please do what's right and reinsert reinstate remote learning for the quarantined kids thank you foreign Berger hi my name is Caitlin bromberger thank you so much for allowing us to speak here and we really do appreciate your time that you put into serving our community and our children Thomas Jefferson once said when a long train of abuses and user patients pursuing invariably the same object invinces a design to reduce them under absolute
036despotism it is their right it is their duty to throw off such government in layman's terms when Justice becomes law resistance becomes Duty Parents Choice matters we know our children better than our government does a government that is supposed to be for the People by the people and of the people under Illinois Law an epidemic is classified as a disaster which gives our governor a wide range of emergency powers for a limited time according to section 7 of the Emergency Management agency act it allows him to exercise the emergency Powers authorized for a period of up to 30 days Governor pritzker initially declared a Statewide disaster on March 9 2020 and has continually declared Statewide disasters every 30 days since if the governor and the isbe had the power to create mandates and revoke recognition
037status for Illinois schools why has House Bill 2789 been introduced into Illinois legislation HB 2789 would amend the Department of Public Health powers and Duty's law of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois it would Grant the governor the power he is forcefully and unlawfully executing currently at what point do we stand up to the dictatorship of governor pritzker who repeatedly circumvents legislation Law and Order free people are never ruled by fear it's been said that children are resilient these mandates and counter measures outweigh the possible detrimental impacts including the emotional psychological and physical health on our children Dr fauci himself recently said hopefully this won't have any lasting negative impact on our kids hopefully that doesn't sound very hopeful to me the weight of the resiliency we are asking our children to bear is a
038load too heavy for most adults to carry we are the parents We Are The Advocates we are the community we don't need resilience we need advocacy from you the school board elected by people of the Columbia Community don't let them take away the local power lawfully granted to you we need to do better for them we need to stand up and do what we know is right unmask our children thank you all right [Applause] Angelique hey guys my name is Angelique Hicks and I do also want to say thank you for taking time to represent our community and our the parents and the students so thank you so much good evening my name is Angelique Hicks and I have two boys who attend Columbia High School as parents our children are precious to us and
039I'm sure you can understand the severity of our emotion in this moment I want to be clear with my intentions and what I'm trying to accomplish this evening I'll try to accomplish understanding Grace and action my intention is for things to change within the confines of the Columbia School Halls my wish is for students to feel free have positive experiences that last a lifetime and have many positive memories to look back on my objective for the school board the entire School Board is to hear me and the other parents and take action against these unfair mandates that are acting like law I wish for the kids to see the faces of their peers and teachers and not be reprimanded every time they do my purpose tonight is to help the board realize that the very
040danger you are trying to run from is only creating more dangers for our students inclu including a rise in mental health concerns developmental delays and a drop in educational fortitude my intention is for the health and well-being for both student and teacher as they both have enough burdens to carry in a normal world my objective is to help the board see where they can be brave like us and stand up to Authority that is not well-meaning for our children to gather information from multiple credible sources to show the state educational system that their information is not the only information and that a global pandemic needs the voices of Top Doctors everywhere helping the public and the world to save lives my hope is the group of parents here tonight give you the strength to be
041the first to take a hard stand against coercion and tyranny that is dictating that we at the local level are demanding that are demanded to follow or else my intention is for the board to actually read the 47 studies that talk about the dangers of breathing in your own bacteria-filled CO2 for the late for lengthened period of time my intention is to find out where are you the board and getting your guidance and be transparent with that information and my intention is to see if you've actually read the studies that you are basing your decisions on my intention is to help the board understand that we the public live in a country where we vote for laws and fight for our rights my goal is to reinstate that as a free Nation we voted for
042our Representatives including you the board and we the people want our voices heard and finally my last intention is to join forces with the school board and make this the best year yet for all students I hope when this meeting ends this evening you as an individual look within yourselves to find what your intentions are for our children the future of our schools and your position here on the board I implore you to pray for guidance and listen your intentions can change the world and our school district thank you so much for this opportunity to speak this evening thank you Lacy rap all right good evening everyone I have four children three of them are School aged I'm sorry can you state your name for you please hi my name is Lacey Rabb thank you
043yes I have four children uh three of them are School aged only one attends Public School her name is Isabella Watkins and she's in the seventh grade um a lot of parents here have touched on a lot of things and the first thing I wanted to ask is please don't embarrass yourself by insinuating that this well-educated room of parents is getting all their facts on Facebook my stepfather has been an attorney in the area for 43 years so I'm going to touch slightly on the not legalities that are going on here and also I would like to let you know that my husband designs military and Leo apparel he travels the country to make sure that they have the top of the line material he frequents testing labs in St Louis these studies all say
044these masks do not work and he has seen it with his own eyes and has been at the testing facility he cannot be here tonight because he is on a work trip up before I get into the legality I just wanted to let you guys know I have a child who is diagnosed with pandas what pandas is is her body cannot fight off the strep bacteria it attacks her brain for years and years and years she was diagnosed as ADHD anxiety odd everything off the wall we tried different therapists different sleep studies trying to figure out what was going on with her it is not very well known that children can have these bacterial infections that actually cause their brain to collapse and this is what we're going to start seeing more of and a
045lot of parents aren't going to have the resources to get their child the child the help that they need not many people in the community are well versed in it okay as far as legality goes first of all the health department cannot mandate that you quarantine your child without a court order so it has to be a voluntary it has to be voluntary so therefore you as a school telling denying our child an education that we don't co-parent with you and I'm sorry and I'm sure most of you are amazing parents however that is not voluntary if you are telling us that we have to and the health department hasn't um second communal communicable diseases are not covered through Insurance liability please reach out to your broker and ask them to send you where it
046states that you will be liable if somebody sues you for their child getting covet and either sick or dying I promise you they will not have the jargon to send you because it does not exist I've heard different school board members State they fear losing recognition from isbe as Dr Ayala has threatened referencing 105 ilc S5 1a-4 she does not have the authority nor does the school board give her the authority nor can they Grant her the authority to withhold payments our unrecognized school districts or make final decisions under the contested case provisions of Illinois administrators good procedure act unless otherwise provided by law and there is no other law pertaining to that um a lot of people are brought up Bill to build isbe is acting like it is already law and overreaching lastly
047you as school board members cannot be held viable under 105 ilcs 5 10-20 you cannot be sued and it is laid out right there that you guys have amenity from being sued if something were to happen thank you guys foreign [Applause] my name is Jared dinkelman and I did not just come here to address the board or the committee I came here to address everyone I have two things I want to say the first of which or before I State my first uh I want to say that fear is a very dangerous phenomenon in the mind and fear fear is what stops cognitive and logical thinking dead in his tracks so the first thing I want to I want to talk about when this started I stopped and I waited for more answers I watched
048all kinds of podcasts Zoom calls from doctors around the world and they have led me they have said it themselves and they have led me to believe the first of which which is probably going to shock everybody here covid-19 does not exist does not exist we are all being lied to around the world as a World Civilization number two who here remembers about the Nuremberg codes the codes that were created for crimes against humanity they were established so that civilian people have the right to choose for themselves now being that the United States signed off on that everyone from the president down to local leadership is subject to those laws and codes I want to read you a snippet from article 6 section 3 of the Nuremberg code in no case should a Collective Agreement
049or the consent of a community leader or any other authority substitute for any individual's informed consent leaders should be aware that mandating Max on the citizens of a nation and preventing their access to food Health Care transport or education if they don't comply is a war crime mass or any other medical intervention must remain voluntary so with that said what I want to reiterate here or what I want to tell you is that Nuremberg trials the second Nuremberg trials have started thousands of lawyers around the world and ten thousand doctors around the world started the second Nuremberg trials on July 4th 2021. thanks Jared [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Nicholas Halford oh hello my name is Nicholas hoffridge I've grown up here from kindergarten all the way to high school graduated in 1999 and love this community
050and thank you so much for having us all here and hearing us I I have 16 years of flexible material and adhesive experience and I I work with 3m I work with all the different adhesive manufacturers and I do a lot of different work with venting as well as um different I also I've been working with n95 mass for a very long time that mask has not been designed for what we're what we are um up against right now and it is when you know understand mask understand particles that you understand the blocking anyone wearing a reusable cotton mask is just not following any type of science guidelines whatsoever um the the and also unless you're going to completely regulate and micromanage every kid's mask as they walk into the door make sure they have
051a clean mask you are you are posing so many health risks to our children it is it is the bacteria that gets collected it's called blocking um and as air comes in um and dust particles come in bacteria comes in Paris their parasites and all these things get trapped into the filtration material and it is more dangerous than you can possibly imagine what we are doing to our kids by making them wear masks and and no one in the political world seems to understand anything about filtration does not understand how the weaves work does not understand and the idea that they are mandating a a cotton homemade mask um and they've had a year and a half to come up with some type of government spec and government standard I've worked with a lot of
052different Labs I look at lab reports I have different types of adhesives tested to military specs I know what a pass and fail is and we have not come up with any type of standard it is completely Rogue on what kids are wearing and what they can buy off of Amazon and unless we're going to really look at this and micromanage uh come up with a spec that is going to to allow the correct amount of oxygen in collect the right amount of dust and gets rotated in a proper schedule um and unless that's managed and regulated properly you're going to to be causing tremendous harm to our kids long term and I have 16 years of experience telling you that this is the wrong type of filtration medical masks do not provide filtration and
053unless we have kids spitting on each other this is doing no good whatsoever all right thank you very much [Applause] Noreen Frederick foreign Frederick I don't know if you guys can see me I might need a chair to stand on I'm a little short um honestly I was not prepared at all to speak tonight but I want to thank you all for your time and more importantly I want to thank everybody whatever side you're on for speaking tonight because it takes a lot of Bravery to stand up here and to fight for what's right I came from a father who was a politician he came into his position at a time when his County was in moral corruption and he did something that changed the face of that and it wasn't easy all I want
054to say is that sometimes what is right doesn't mean that it's easy I am here to teach my kids to do the same thing I can sit here and I can say I'm only one person I'm only a mom my child's only a child who are they who what kind of voice do they have but a fire starts with a spark that's all it takes is one spark if I can't stand up for my children for what's right how can I try to teach them to do the same thing we live in a world right now where they're constantly trying to tell our children what to think how to believe but only if it's on their terms and only if it's what they agree with I'm not going to sit here and look at my
055son who's over there right now and tell him not to fight and not to do what's right when I don't want to do the same thing so all I ask of you guys I know it's really really hard and I know you're in a position I know it's hard to not be defensive toward what the government wants and Twitter what your guidelines are but what I'm asking of you is to take some time to think about it to pray on it to do what you have to do whatever that means to really reflect on what's right what is best it doesn't have to be it's because the authorities tell us that it is all of these people have given you all the facts they've spoken to you from the heart I'm not a doctor I
056can't give you all the statistics and all the numbers but what I can do is I can sit here and I can ask you to sometimes do and do what's right not just because it's easy you guys were elected this position nobody said it was going to be an easy position I think you hoped that it would have been that you wouldn't have had to deal with all this but now you are in a position where you can say where do I stand personally where do I stand do I stand for what's right even if it's hard or am I going to do just the easy thing because that's what I'm being told to do and like everybody else has said where does if it starts here where does it end what's the next thing
057that we have to be vaccinated that my if I don't decide to vaccinate my child they have to have a letter A all over them or they can't get educated so if it starts if we don't do something right now where is it going to go from here and the last thing that I want to say is the oath you guys when you came into this you took an oath and the oath says I'm not going to read the whole thing obviously I don't have time but the one thing I want to say is that it says I shall respect taxpayer interest by serving as a faithful protector of the schools of the school district's assets and that's all that all of us are asking you to do this evening thank you for your time
058[Applause] [Music] [Applause] Grace Wilkowski foreign ER at the school and I have been in the Columbia School District my entire life and I was not going to speak tonight if I'm being completely honest but I feel like I had something wash over me that I should voice my opinion because that's my right and I think that mass should be completely optional I firsthand have seen the hallways in the high school and quite honestly it's a joke it they they air off the hallways and that's doing nothing but more harm than good because we are now crowded to go down one hallway from each from the top hallway we have to go down one little staircase crowding us together which no one is social distancing and quite honestly it feels like the school picks and chooses
059when they want to social distance us just like in the morning before the Bell Rings they pack us all in the lunchroom and we have to set up lunch tables but why is it at lunchtime we have to social distance so [Applause] personally I think that the main reason why we are still having issues with mass and covet is because of fear we need to stop living in fear doesn't matter what you believe in or your religion or anything fear is awful and fear will take over your life and will make you do awful things things that you don't want to do things that you don't think is right and we need to stop letting fear control us because we're obviously getting nowhere and I just want to say thank you to all of you
060for letting me speak since I'm only a junior and I'm and I'm obviously not 100 educated on everything with all the facts and the numbers and the data and the statistics with everything but I know I'm 16 years old and I have formed my own opinion based off of things that I have seen and I think that my opinion matters and it should so [Applause] Taylor Etheridge [Applause] good evening my name is Taylor Etheridge and I'm a junior at Columbia High School my friends and quite frankly um the only the best way that I can put the what we want is we want a normal school year back the last time us junior class had a normal full school year was eighth grade year that was Middle School we walk in our freshman doors like
061oh man homecoming well prom not until Junior and Senior year of course and every event and every sport event like Friday Night Lights and that is the only thing that we could ask for back I've talked to many people about homecoming situations and how they want them and no matter what whether it's with school and whether or not it's going what's going to happen whether it's personally or with the school um we have uh we have been in trouble for masks trying to get them together which quite frankly really isn't fair but I understand and and no way that I want a teacher's opinion to change on me because my opinion is different than theirs um we we walk into school we're all friends and everything but we still are right next to each other
062in the hallways like Grace said like shoulders shoulder closer than we are right now and um it really doesn't make any sense but that's okay because if you guys are trying your best and that's all I can ask for you guys and um so we asked for our homecomings back because that's what high school is about and that's the memories that we want back we don't we don't want to put on a mess to cover our face because like everyone else has said it it doesn't really do much no matter what like I use the same mask maybe once like the same week and then I'll change it because I watched that one but it's not a clean mask so it's still getting me sick last year I had allergies and I understand the cautions
063that we took last year but it took away from the education of me and my younger sibling my younger sibling didn't do as well in school as I did because you know I'm just better than him like that um but that does not matter um but I've asked students and like on one of my social media platforms of what they wanted so it doesn't just come from me and my friends because that's not fair and it came to a 75 75 kids know and four people yes I would like to wear a mask so that's why we just asked for it to be optional it's not we're telling you not to wear a mask or not have students wear a mask because that's not on that's not fair on their part either um we all
064hang out this summer no mask none of us got covered we're all good um but we just asked for a Friday night life back um we uh we just want our high school like High School classes back and but I want to thank you guys for your time and thank you for everything you have done for us because it has been a lot and um thank you to the teachers that I've gone with this because the Google Classroom stuff is not easy because I'm struggling with it too but um we just asked that masks are optional just because it'll respect our opinions and everyone else's opinion and if the student wants to wear a mask that's completely fine too but thank you foreign I'm speaking off the cuff here so bear with me my name's
065Alyssa eynen now when covet first started my dad showed me a video of a scientist who had was was trying to explain that mass did not work he had a vape inhaled put the mask on and then exhaled smoke everywhere I think that just proves that masks don't work within itself so what I'm trying to say is we should make masks optional if you are so scared of coronavirus covid whatever you want to call it you can wear a mask but don't make everyone else here who doesn't like them and who doesn't believe in Mass wear them it's kind of ridiculous also we've never been scared of the flu we've never been scared of anything other than coronavirus so are we just going to be scared of the flu and all these sicknesses for the
066rest of our lives are we going to wear masks for the rest of our lives we have to get back to normal I think we can all agree on that [Music] also I'm a junior in high school now the only normal part of my high school career has been the first half of freshman year everything was normal then covet hit okay we had one homecoming we've had nothing else we've had prom who knows a prom is going to happen I know the seniors last year in the Juniors last year didn't get a prom coming or was that even going to happen this year none of us know I mean we've had normal high school events be taken away from us and it sucks and I think that we all agree that it's time to get
067back to normal thank you for your time [Applause] thank you anyone else anybody want three minutes of fame feel free to jump up there well thank you all for the comments [Applause] hello my name is Debbie allendorf and I have grandchildren that go to the Columbia School District I'm up here because I love my grandchildren and I'm going to ask the audience if you're a parent or a grandparent do you love your children you as school board do you have children grandchildren just none you love them right and when you took your oath that you would uphold the assets of the school I believe in my opinion that the most important asset we have is the children we love [Music] now we are America we heard our freedoms tonight and last I heard and I've
068witnessed as as living in the United States of America we have a flag that represents our freedom so we are a Land of the Free because of the Brave and before this meeting tonight I kind of wondered why we didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance but we do have freedom and we do speak the Pledge of Allegiance I ask the crowd that as we say that we will stand for our freedom we will stand for our children and will stand for the people we love as these are all wonderful virtues but love is not up there but that is the main reason I believe we are all here tonight so when we can we all stand for our freedom right now and say together the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of
069the United States of America and to the Republic for which we stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] and I know they've thrown maybe some monetary funding for us but last I saw on my dollar bill it still says In God We Trust I School Board I thank you this has been a wonderful school that is why I'm here tonight my grandchildren have enjoyed coming to the school and I just want to give you support in us all in unity we can stand for our freedom together thank you all right thank you anyone else foreign all right I appreciate all the comments and you guys taking the time to come out here tonight I know there's a lot of emotions on both sides I think we're a little overwhelmed
070on one side than the other but that's fine too um the uh we also received an email from a group of parents and asking us to address some questions and normally we don't address questions and the reason is this is not a debate we would be here all night and none of us get paid so we wouldn't get overtime or anything so we want to go home eventually but also we're aboard so none of none of us have any Authority individually so I have very strong opinions myself as do many of the board members but until we actually reach a consensus we don't have any board action so we can't I can't speak for the board um you know board policy 8010 says the board presidents the official spokesperson for the for the school board
071uh the superintendent is official spokesperson for the for the district so we have both of us up here I'm going to make some comments tonight but the comments that I'm going to make are not as school board president I'm not speaking for the board I'm speaking for my personal opinions and Views so please understand that again I don't have the the permission I've I've spoke with a lot of the board members individually we have not come to a consensus we've as far as what I'm going to say so a lot of these is my opinions I spent like you guys I spent a tremendous amount of time on this and to some of the comments I I have read the reports on Mass so I guess we want to start let's go ahead and uh
072and start with the questions yeah why don't you read them because I can't see my phone very well I was trying to pull it up during I was trying to pay attention to you guys and see my questions at the same time prepare so apologize for wasting your time a little bit here so is that good can you hear me okay first question have you as a school board looked at what happens if you do not follow pritzker's mandates on masking and quarantines what would happen yeah can you guys hear me better [Applause] and again I'm I'll start right off the bat I'm not a big mass square I this thing has been wide enough in my pocket forever but I'm wearing it tonight because we're asking the kids to wear masks so far that's
073the official position of the school board and so I'm I'm trying to set an example so that's that's why I'm wearing this it is hard to hear so I'm socially distant so I think we're all all good with this so far so the question was have you as a school board looked into what happens if you do not follow up with Chris mandates and masking core unmasking and quarantines what would happen exactly so a lot of people pointed out so basically what would happen if the school board goes against the governor's mandate which I personally don't think he has the power to do it either but it's what fight are we willing to fight how much money or of your money are we willing to spend I hate spending other people's money I and and
074I despise wasting people's money especially that's not mine you put us up here to and somebody made the comment that you know we took an oath to to protect your asset and that's one of my views is what we're doing but so basically the governor and the state of Illinois have threatened to obviously take away our accreditation which honestly we'd have 60 days to they would probably just like water or I'm sorry Redbud went through they would send us a letter saying you have 60 days to correct we can fight it we can do all that kind of stuff it is going to take some time for that to really happen so we would have time to fight if we went that route but one of the things that no one's really thinking about is
075sports so the state can take our Sports weight instantly and that's something that we we would be really hard-pressed to get back in would cost a lot of your money to do it you know I always say don't fight a fight somebody else is willing to fight and we have two school districts currently that have already filed suit against the state let them spend their money let's ride on their coattails and see what happens again in my opinion guys this is just I'm not speaking for the board um the third thing is the uh you know again there's so much fear and and they're you know I've already well you're going to get threatened sued personally and honestly I'm not just I'm not afraid of a fight and if if I have something that I
076truly believe in or willing to stand up for I'm more than happy to do it um and I I don't back down easy but then I get I have to make a business decision based on what's best for the school board and you know emotions are high and and I understand and I agree with most of you but at the same time again we have to look out what's best for the school um I don't see her I agree and which brings me to I say The Best For Last again sorry this isn't the debate guys okay we're we're not we're not going to back and forth sir sir come on please and just be respectful I I we've sat and watched everybody and listened and gave you guys time and now it's our turn
077we've asked us to answer questions and I'm here to answer them and again I'm kind of I'm kind of bucking the system because this isn't typical for us to do and again that's why because we have to act as a board we can't act individually so I'm trying to address some questions and we're trying to go that extra mile and and help you guys out but the the number one thing in my mind is why I'm leaning towards and for enhancing the mask is the quarantine so basically we've added two teachers and one for kindergarten one for first grade so we're going to have a little bit smaller class size and so I think we can I'm pretty sure in fact I know we can we can attain the three feet separation so with a
078mask and three feet separation we don't have to quarantine virtually be be gone so all the ideas about sending a packet home and sending by getting ahead of myself but okay sorry question two all right if children are masked and it is the most powerful protection against getting coveted according to the CDC website why are they quarantined if exposed where in the school setting do you think they will be exposed within three feet we request the administration to provide a seating chart for each classroom showing the distance between the desks and the students please um do you want me to answer yes okay we are with the masks it is down to three feet in most cases um no one's going to get quarantined with this now we do have buses I do want to
079point out that our buses are extremely full this year compared to last year and quarantines will occur on the buses and so if you can go back to transporting your own children that would reduce their chance of being quarantined from a bus connection I'm just saying that in the buildings there's going to be some classrooms that there is going to be maybe one or two children quarantined last year it was a six foot radius who came up with three foot or six foot I don't know who came up with the 15 minutes I get it it's it's it's numbers there um but they do need to be the rules are that they have to be warned or not quarantined excluded from school if they're within a closed contact and that's going to be minimized a
080lot this year uh Mr Wagner do you want to talk about the if it's the mass star so important why are they quarantined pH and going on CTC recommendations this year it is down to three feet if both students are masked and it only applies to indoors there's no quarantining on anybody that is outdoors um the quarantining is under this communicable disease code local Health departments we have no say in that that is law that is under the communicable disease code the school board cannot override the quarantine the only people that have the authority to quarantine or isolate an individual is the health department and the crowd is correct the speaker was correct it would take if we cannot get voluntary compliance it does take a court order to quarantine or or isolate an individual
081isolation is when your positive quarantine is when you're close contact and obviously this past year we've had overwhelming support for voluntary quarantine we have not taken anybody to court we have not had to to force you know police officers outside a house or anything like that so but in the school setting three feet uh the the trick is and water was already been in school we are seeing a number of cases already with some close contacts buses and the Lunch Period are the difficult ones that the board if you can address those the seating in a classroom can usually meet that three foot separation and then we would not have to quarantine anybody if you can meet that three feet on the Lunch Period what we've been pushing is keep the kids seated at the
082tables for under 15 minutes and then we can take the Lunch Period out of that if they're only at the table for 10 minutes and then they get more than three feet apart after that you don't even have to go back and look at your videos or anything to see who is at the lunch because they're under 15 minutes so obviously the goal is to keep as many kids in school as we can last year we quarantined a whole lot of kids a whole lot of kids one percent of those children that we quarantine came back positive only i i i and all I'm here is to give you guys the numbers I I'm not taking your opinion on the mask I I agree with a lot of what you're saying on the mask obviously
083you can see when I'm standing here talking to you the front of the Mask is not going in and out I can feel it on my face all the air is coming in and around but that doesn't change the fact that it's a mandate from the the governor now that's up to the school board whether or not they want to somebody wants to challenge that in court but as as a mandate what's happened so far the letters have come down to the to Red Bud they were sent them already they're on probation they have 60 days to come issue a corrective action plan and then I don't know what the state's going to do after that you know and I don't believe anybody really knows whether or not they're going to go ahead and proceed
084with a penalty phase basically uh whether that be Sports looking at accreditation funding whatever this this mandate that he put out this time he's not I don't my personal opinion he's not going to back down from now legally if it's challenged Will he win I have no idea that's more above than what I I know that much about the law so um to keep the kids in school masking is necessary you can't meet the six feet that would be required if you're not a mess and like I said I have no control or very little control we can do some leeway and stuff like that as far as how close a close contact is but six feet three feet uh it's under the communicable disease code we have to quarantine them and then if they
085don't we don't get voluntary quarantine we have to turn it over to the state's attorney now will that be prosecuted and will that be taken to court you know I I have no idea Mr White yes I'm sorry I'm going to jump forward to um because there's another question on here that relates to you if the CDC according to their own website recognizes positive antibodies as protection from covid why can't students who have antibodies return to school in addition why can't students who test negative for covid return to school and I that's a legitimate question and the uh there is an option for antibody testing what the state has come down with is if you are a high probability of being a child's a high probability of being positive but was never tested say they
086weren't when we've already had this come up actually in Waterloo I had it come up today a whole family was positive mom dad and a child one of the children tested negative initially on when they were sick the parent and the other children got really sick then the fourth child did get sick but the parents were too sick to get him didn't want to take them out and get them tested so a story like that we as the health department this is where I do have some leeway on the quarantine we can say yes we will accept an antibody test on that person as a proof that they're positive and that is in the guidance from the school and from idph this year who pays for the test s right I'm just like wow whoever
087wants to test would have to pay for it I would imagine so so there is an option for anybody to test but no why is it not why and that that goes higher even than the state why are antibodies not observed that goes up to the federal level they're they're not observing them in any situation other than for 90 days why I have no idea that you know it it's it's not something I can say we're going to observe okay thank you sir John I have a question from a board member yeah so we have a workaround on the lunch is there a workaround that you can think of for the buses like windows down that's kind of like being out because it falls under the mass transportation law and that's why even if you
088do away with optional man if even if the school board or whatever was to do optional masking in school the buses would still be required that is actually Federal on mass transportation that's why you have to wear a mask on an airplane a bus a train anything like that that is not up to local uh or even State control that's actually Federal requiring and and they're looking at buses as mass transportation I'm not worried about like wearing the mask but the quarantine for it because our kids are so close together right and they're no there's really you know if if the bus ride is more than 15 minutes you know um the the work around right put these for the kids to move seats every 10 minutes to keep them from the total of 15
089minutes next it's 15 minutes next to a child in a 24-hour period so if if they're only sitting next to a child for 10 minutes and they're not around them for the rest of time because it's a different grade or whatever if they were to move to a different seat at a 10 minute they would never hit that 15-minute threshold it'd be difficult it could be done I guess that I mean that's that's really pushing outside the box but it would hold true it would meet the regulations and obviously I am just so I'm looking looking at schools or will be looking at schools as we get back comparing the masking schools to the unmasking schools now I may have to go outside the state if you know to look at unmasking schools personal opinion
090not Health Department not Public Health personal opinion I don't think we're going to see much difference on the masking he didn't see it this is the same talk I gave to Waterloo to Monday night we didn't see much difference in the states unmasking versus unmasking if you look California had some of the strictest masking rules in the nation Florida had some of the weakest they both we have about the same amount you and I had this conversation so I'm going to ask you a question because um we had this conversation in the beginning when it was mask option one was strongly recommended by the CDC we were of the mind okay then we'll just strongly recommend it and that maintenance masks are optional when the governor then mandated it we mandated it when they make
091masks strongly recommended again when will they do the quarantining and the distances as strongly recommended because that to me and I saw some of your faces with the moving on the Bus 15 minutes the frustration and the anti-logic in your eyes as a superintendent I deal with the state a lot and so I'm kind of numb to it but yeah it's if you can think of a logical way to do something sometimes the state goes the other way it just it is what it is it's a mandate when are they gonna or excluding I have no idea I you know there's been no talk of reduction on any of that stuff from the state at this point um who would we need to talk to like would that just be the IDP age I don't
092think they've discussed it I don't think you're going to find an answer they're they're tend not to look too far in advance on on issues um you know it's it's going to be difficult for uh to find out to do a long-range plan no I'd like to see it done as soon as possible I'd like it to be done as soon as we can you know as soon as we can compare non-masking schools to masking schools now we could do that from last year we had schools that masked and didn't mask last year maybe not not Monroe County but in other states and we could compare transmission rates in those two schools the difference this year and this is where I'm a little worried about the spread of the virus is the Delta variant it
093is true it is more contagious you do have more the Delta variant has a higher viral load meaning when you're sick when you breathe out more of the virus goes in the air because it's heavier in your system doesn't mean it's making you more sick or anything like that just means it's heavier in your system and that's why it is more contagious now there's is it more deadly no it's not and there's even some studies that show that it's less and a lot of people like to talk about studies while we're on the mass I did a whole lot of research last week before uh I knew I was going to the Waterloo board meeting on masking the only legitimate study that I can find that is not a third world country was one out
094of Denmark where they did what's called a basically it's called a double-blind study it's a randomized study they're they're the scientific basically from the medical field they're the gold standard in science it's basically where you have a number of people that are masked a number of people that are say that they religiously don't mask so you have the two groups then you might they go out and these these were large groups you know of people these were hundreds of people they go out and then they a certain amount of time whatever the study length was for then they bring them back and they see how many people of this group were ended up catching covet how many of this group ended up catching covet what they found in that study was that two percent of
095each group ended up catching covet so virtually the same now that's not to say more studies need to be done but I still haven't figured out why I can't find any U.S studies there are none you can't find it the what what the studies have been done in the U.S are called observational studies is with this mask on if I cough or breathe out it stops large particles from going out so with that being said if I was sick you would assume that the mask would stop spreading of the virus you would assume that and that's where they're coming up with their assumptions but there have not been randomized stuck that's just an observational study and they're very inaccurate they're they're they're they're you know you can talk to anybody and and there's other observational
096studies you know we had a group here that was masking a group here that wasn't masked and this group got you know sick well that's an observational study you don't know why that's the case you know uh that's called an observational study the randomized study the gold standard the only one I could find was one out of Denmark there are some out of China but I would you know I wouldn't read too much into those so um and China and India were the other other randomized studies that I could find but there's no good studies I mean you can everybody wearing the mask right now can can feel when you breathe you can feel it on your eyelashes you can feel it coming out of here I don't want to say mask do no good
097because they do if I was to cough or sneeze this mask would do prevent a large plume from going out but if you're coughing and sneezing in a school situation you're not supposed to be in school anyway so is you're in a classroom for six hours sitting next to an individual that is positive is this Mass going to protect you my opinion is no it's not But there again more studies need to be done I don't know why we we still don't know how long this virus lives on a surface you know at first if everybody thinks back to the very beginning of this it was two weeks on a cruise ship remember that when the news came out two weeks on a cruise ship then it was two hours on a hard surface it
098was longer on stainless steel and less on something else and now it's oh it hardly lives at all on a heart more studies need to be done in the U.S so that people like you can make legitimate decisions on it um the you know same talk I gave to water the school board unfortunately school boards your hands are really tight unless you want you know unless you sink a lot of money into an underprepared to take a legal stand against not the mass mandate but the authority of the governor you know it's it's not whether or not he he made the mass mandate or not it's against whether he has the authority to to pass these things um this he's not going to back down you will probably lose your sports very quickly um that's
099the first one that's going to do and then they're going to go after the funding and then they're going to go after the accreditation it's not going to be here's a warning letter and he's going to kind of let it slide that's not the impression I'm getting this year he's not going to let this slide he's going to take it to the fullest extent now that's up for the your school board to decide how far they want to go with that but this is not one that he's going to last year there were certain things that he passed everybody knows I fought the restaurants forever keep trying to keep them open that was one that he he did the same thing did he have the authority to close the restaurants Washi stayed open you know
100they got a ticket and everything like that he wasn't going to put the political Capital into fighting that any more than sending State Police down to try to intimidate him this is not that case he's not going to just say threaten you he is going to follow it to the fullest extent that he possibly can I'm not saying he's going to win if you go the other way because I don't know that's above mine yeah but this is not one he's going to back down from at least that's the impression this this kind of feeds into the next thank you sir this feeds into the um [Music] [Applause] I'm jumping around in the email I have another question for John I thought that question was for Johnson oh okay John I'm sorry okay you're not
101gonna like me for this question but um okay so since one percent of the kids who were quarantined last year actually got coveted that tells us we're quarantining all these kids for no reason basically last year speaking of washies the state's attorney did not go after washi's for being open so what are the chances has have you had a conversation with the county on the kind of resources they would want to put into going after kids who or families who choose not to allow the voluntary quarantine I had a few conversations with the state's past States Attorney I have not talked with the current one and across the state what I'm hearing is the voluntary quarantine on a close contact can be challenging to prosecute a a isolation that's a positive case that's easy to
102prosecute and get I don't I use prosecute but it's not you're not thrown in jail it's to get a ruling that basically it's forcible isolation meaning there's police officers stationed outside your house and everything like that it can be difficult on a close contact the reason being is the three foot the six foot where did the can you imagine those of you who have some you know uh have been around Court can you imagine trying to fight that where'd the three foot come from and saying somebody thought that was a good distance where'd the six feet come from how come your eyes quarantined three how come we're not doing one so that's why from what I hear it would be difficult there are right now I just heard today from other health departments up north
103and I guess some Northern schools start sooner than we do down here um there are kids showing up at school breaking quarantine and the schools don't know what to do about it and the health departments are the least of the county that this came out of the administrative the health department said her State's Attorney would not take a case for a quarantine do you know what county that was no is that quarantined because they have coveted or no it's because they're a close contact the ones that have coveted all states attorneys that I've heard of will go after that and make you isolated if you're sick obviously we can't have you running around the school being sick it's the close contacts that are going to be the issue and it's already starting up like I
104said it's I heard of a administrator today on a call Clay County maybe one of those up north of Springfield uh she was telling us a story about that the the school called her that they had kids showing up that were supposed to be under quarantine from the health department we you and I have talked about this because I mean and masks or no masks is not to me the real evil the real evil is sending home the healthy kids because you and I have seen it last year they weren't getting sick so why not just leave them here it's the only thing you and I start having uh the more Flex like when I called you today and asked about the testing right you know I would love that if they would just take
105a home test and they prove Negative they can come back but they've got to get an alternate doctors if someone goes home with the symptoms so let's say I get sick I have covid I go home I I don't know if it's covered or not I'm sick and I take a uh I go to CVS and I take a rapid test and that turns out negative I'm still gonna have to go to a doctor to get an alternate diagnosis in order to come back to school without being out those seven days and that to me is wrong but those are the rules that we don't follow then they that's something right that's under the ISB that's that isolation tree that graph that we all have where you where you saw it from last year where
106if you're a close kind you know positive in this positive in that that's under that yeah and you don't have any play with that I mean they will you know um so yeah it's it's it's it's going to be a difficult year the only but what I'm hearing you say is that if we accept those tests no one would prosecute us to accept what tests the if I if I do the if I if I if someone comes to me and says that they've got a CVS test that says they're negative could they come back to school not on not under the you would be in trouble with ISP if you let them back into school without a doctor's note an alternative diagnosis is what it's called is what it says in that decision tree
107because you would not be following their decision tree that they said that you have to abide by um so it's yeah it's it you know the only difference this year and that's why I'm not saying you know last year we had one percent the difference this year is the Delta variant I'm not 100 sure that it and this is you got to remember I'm on Zoom calls all the calls every and even I don't know if felt the variant is really that much more contagious than the regular one because I don't know who to believe anymore it's you know um [Music] the the point I guess the point is though we can debate it all we want the fact of the matter is is the state has a mandate for excluding kids for close contact
108and for wearing masks and we don't like it and so the board has to decide if that's what we're if we're going to follow those rules or not it sounds like you've got the the if they're Mass you've got the quarantine stuff pretty much under control as much as possible you know you might tweak some things to do it but as far as unmasking everybody I wouldn't even say your decision is really whether or not you want to unmask everybody it's your decision is more or less do you want to get legal help to try to fight the State look you know that that that's more the decision because you know that that's what it's what that's what your decision is going to mean if you just elect to say Mass optional right now that's
109that's not where it's going to end yeah you know so this this gets in go ahead but if we go Mass if we say Mass optional now we're at a six-speak quarantine and we're gonna have a lot more kids yes right that's right yes and that is the carrot basically that the state is trying to push to get everybody to mask is if you do mask you know that that was their initial if you remember when this mask uh when the mass recommendation came out from CDC the state had there were no schools back in you know so the state came out and said we're going to follow cdc's recommendation that was all fine until the state started getting word that a lot of schools were going on the word for word recommendation word and
110that's when the governor came out and said mandate so you know it it we can work with the school either way you know obviously there is going to be more quarantine if it's six feet uh you know but it's it is what it is I don't know how fast it's moving through Waterloo already pretty quickly um we have quite we we have over I think when I left the office we have 16 we have 24 school age kids better positive we have a whole lot more than a close content now Waterloo apparently cannot I separate their kids quite as well as you guys can I don't know if it's because the school size or building size or what it is but we have certain students that come up we had one today that had 16
111close contacts he came up positive 16 other kids are going to be out of school for 10 days can I uh jump in real quick because I was on my phone and I apologize for that that's extremely rude but one of the questions is is could Mr Grody talk about the other districts and what they're doing and Mr Tallman who is the superintendent at Redbud just texted all of us and said we're no longer on the naughty list they have voted to do masks and um I said can I announce this and he said yes they agree that I love my high school kids that came here and talked thank you [Applause] I don't have to mask is off I can talk normal the best thing I heard tonight was when they said they just
112want a normal year they want their homecoming they want their prom if we try to fight this fight they won't have Athletics and whoever graduates at the end of this year while we're fighting this fight won't have a certified diploma and so when they go off to college they're going to wait now lawyers move slow State bureaucrats and lawyers are like sludge it's it's it's you know I mean when I'm sitting here we're talking about the rules I can see on your face just this I can't believe you're dealing with this like the movement on the buses and whatnot it's a crazy world we work in I hate it I love it because of these kids that you get to see but the bottom line is is that for them to have the most normal
113year what we need to do is put on our masks go to school and try and get the state to realize we don't need to quarantine the healthy kids that's the first fight the second fight being let's not wear the masks or do it optionally I get that it's um the next question next question yeah next question please I'm being told to move on I'm sorry we can't take questions at this point it's just we're making an exception doing this kind of answering the questions that are pre-formed and everything I know there's a lot that goes on and we'd be here all night I'm sorry all right next question what is the what is the school's remote learning policy with kids who are quarantined how will children get help they need when they are home
114without instruction from the teachers I know that the um the plan frustrated a lot of people because it said the bare minimum which is a packet being sent home the stats with the states that is the bare minimum that you have to do for these kids that are sick there's a few things that I want to make sure we're clear on one we don't do the bare minimum last year we did remote learning and we did it very very well but it didn't work for everyone and the complexity of trying to come up with one plan that works for everyone is impossible and so what we did was we just made a very clean statement not a list of what could be done because we didn't want it to be considered a menu but there
115is going to be the turning on of videos and people watching it there's going to be synchronous there's going to be asynchronous and and I brought this up before you know if in a science class if they're dissecting a pig this week while somebody's quarantined they might just they're not going to follow along and and watch the class but they could get a link that would be a online dissection process if you're dealing with a lecture you know they might get the worksheets through classroom and they listen to the lecture and they do the worksheets if that's what the class is doing but even for like kindergarten students um we have kindergarten students that could go asynchronous where we do videos that didn't work for every kindergarten student some kindergarten students last year were quite
116successful with packets and so what we wanted to do was to make sure that we meet every kid's needs and we know that we can individualize it as long as we're not quarantining too many now that said the state superintendent today just started to bring back remote learning days and this is going to get into a rabbit hole of nightmares just understand that when we take attendance we have to code it a certain way and the remote learning days coming back is now where they can learn at home and I'm scared that it might be because they think we're going to have to go hybrid or we're going to have to go to real learning because of the Delta variant I want you to understand our goal is to keep kids in all day every
117day as much as humanly possible but the remote learning is going to be individualized you want anything there to say Mrs Smith I was just this is what I was going to talk about in my assistant superintendent report but yes in speaking with several of the teachers they discussed a lot of the strengths that came from last year with the remote learning and they also mentioned some of the more difficult things that they experienced and so the teachers want to be able to include what is absolutely best for students and so a lot of that will be turning on and doing the Google Classroom links and the videos like they've done in the past um but there are like Mr Brody was saying there are occasions when it would be better for a foreign language
118teacher to be able to record their lesson and then post it so that there's no glitching if you're trying to learn a new language same with our kindergartners if you're trying to learn to read or to speak correctly it becomes a little more difficult if your internet is glitching in and out or if there's some kind of static going on in trying to listen so the teachers wanted that flexibility but overwhelmingly it will be done synchronously very similar to the way things were done last year with just that opportunity to have some things go along the teachers all in the return to learn plan if you go towards the end of that paragraph it talks about the methods of learning will be communicated by each teacher and so the teachers will be sharing with the
119families if that is going to be you know what parts we will need to get on and join in on the Google Classroom what will be videos what will be expected to be there and then also though how they can be reached to be helped because no teacher in this district is willing to send a student home for 10 days and just tell them to go learn on their own that's not why they got into this profession and there's not a single one of them that is willing to just let them do that that was an overwhelming conversation that I've had with not only our return to learn committee but also in being out in the buildings and talking to teachers and they've also gone as far as to say it's no different than in
120the past pre-all of this when a student was out because of the flu or chickenpox or whatever it might be as a teacher when a student returns from being gone if they don't understand they do everything they can to catch that student up no different in this situation all right thank you um yeah I uh regarding the municipality says otherwise we're mandated by the State Board of Education and so the um it's the state board that we have to answer to they're the ones that uh have the stick so to speak and so uh we're hoping for the the one of these days soon for the local health department and the administration to work together on doing what's best for our kids given our numbers and look at the um the quarantining rules and the
121masking rules at that time the packets we talked about that oh the last one it's our understanding that Mr Brody's making an executive decision regarding Mass mandates and quarantines is this true and if this isn't true we would like a transparent vote from the entire board tonight to know where the board members stand please show us how you voted um Mr Grody is making an executive recommendation uh the the fact of the matter is is that every district is doing that and the ones that aren't are going through the process of changing their mind at the next board meeting um as we just saw Redbud did there's going to be more that are doing that because again those sanctions come and they ruin it for the kids and we're here for those kids said tonight
122they will be voting on The reopening plan which is with masks being mandated for the Governor's order I can tell you that when it comes down to it's no longer a mandate and it is strongly recommended we would go back to the strongly recommended language which is not a mandate um for me again it's that quarantine that's the one that I'm going to be working on more with but the remote learning plan will be voted on tonight so do we have anything to add on that one nope I'm getting back to also what else would happen if we don't go with the Mandate is our third round of Covina covid relief is up and which equates about 558 thousand dollars so if we don't approve the mass mandate we're ineligible for those funds which is
123putting more burden on the taxpayers as well so again we want to be good we want to be good stewards of your money it's it's not money that we've received or spent or anything else but it definitely does hit the bottom line you know thing too though guys what you got to understand is we represent the entire Community not just who's in this room so we have people at home without kids and you know we would have to if we win against this mandate is going to cost a lot of money and are we willing to knock on their door and say I need a check for x amount of dollars because we want to fight this Mass mandate when two other school districts are doing the same thing so we want to keep your
124property taxes down as much as we can we all pay them too and that's you're you're talking about two different things so it's we're gonna keep property taxes down or we're going to increase them and find a mass mandate against the governor with unlimited funds so again um that was all the questions sir okay I think that does address all the questions we had and again I'd really like to do more of a town hall meeting but this isn't the setting for it and this again we're kind of bucking the rules a little bit we want to communicate with you we want to be transparent I definitely want to show you where I'm coming from and you know there's two sides of her story and you know as the physics teachers will tell you for
125every action there's an opposite equal reaction and this is no different so no matter what we do and yes we have the authority we could say there's going to be no Mass mandate we're going to let them all all be and we understand you know we see the kids together and outside of the school and we know they're not wearing masks we're not stupid but again it comes down to what is best for the district at this time so again everybody again my personal opinions we're going to have a vote so you guys will see exactly how we come down but uh I want to share with you a little bit about my insight and and what's on the other side of the equation so sorry but I appreciate everybody's input you guys definitely made
126an impression I think on all of us again I can't speak for the board but definitely on me so all right we'll proceed with our business meeting item number four is our consent agenda and throw you the new to the school board meetings this is just a an efficient way to take care of the mundane items on our agenda there's only one change for the consent agenda okay um Mrs uh beckerer asked if they could have a lunchroom monitor as a vacancy that would be one more position into the lunchroom but that's to help us do the supervision and keep them more separated so that would be the only addition to the luxury monitor Administration recommends that we pass this as presented perfect any questions from the board comments would that entertain a motion to
127accept the consent agenda as amended Scott I have a second thank Tyson we have a motion in a second Kimberly can you roll call please yes yes all right item proved unanimously on to item four is our Personnel items that sounds considering nope we're on communication reports and presentations sorry all right perfect thank you and Prophet otwell is here with Mr Eckerman wonderful welcome all right we'll start with our administrative reports let's start with our building report well why are you up here I am the seventh and 8th grade Spanish teacher at Columbia Middle School I also teach at Columbia High School and I am the cea vice president so the cea came to the administration Mr Brody and asked if they could have a representative during this report so we're kind of uh we're
128treading new grounds here so we're going to see how this goes um we have had an amazing two days of cool it has been the longest and the shortest two days I've ever had in my life if that even makes sense um the the atmosphere and the vibe in the building it is amazing there's a vibe there that that I personally haven't felt for an entire year it feels like the quote-unquote non-covet normal year talking with students for the past two days their biggest concerns that they've expressed to me is not being able to open their lockers with the locks because we have two whole grade levels that didn't try didn't get lost so that's been that's been a nice change um our baseball and softball team started I think last week they're both having
129so far winning season so that's amazing too um I would like to thank Kurtz and his great crew for the summer the building looks absolutely amazing it's nice to see the middle school all white and not that all that gray black mustard stuff over there on it um to Monday we had a parent open house and I heard a parent come in and say oh my God these floors are so clean I can eat off of them I offered she denied but but that was a great thing to hear our gym floor has been totally expanded it actually looks like a brand new floor was laid it's been totally planted they've repainted we got rid of our old kind of jaundice yellow looking eagle and we have a nice New Bright White Eagle so that
130looks amazing um the past two days we have Miss heels and I have kind of reworked our schedule so our students went through all eight of their hours but we created a big block in the middle of the day to do a like a kind of a reboot kickoff session and over the course of the past two days our students um have been reintroduced to life at the middle school there has been different different quote-unquote sessions we've worked on relearning all of the different programs they need to log in we've talked about appropriate social media usage we've talked about lots of different servers service our three Behavior expectations all the different things that we kind of need to reboot and restart the school year and I'm going to hand it off to profail yeah so
131we had those kickoff sessions and I think it's been really good for the kids I think they brought a lot to the table um with what they were able to contribute to those sessions and one of the things we did today was an author um an author we met an author today of this book The insignificant events in the life of a cactus it's really good actually I read it and my daughter who's a fifth grader this year read it and she was gracious enough to come on a Google meet with us and I think the kids really loved it they had great questions um they really enjoyed it she showed us her pet bird that was really cool um the kids enjoyed that but it was just a nice way to to get to
132see everybody again um you know despite all of the changes in protocol and mitigations and everything else I've just been so proud of the way the students have reintroduced themselves to school life they've jumped right in they've had lots of it's been high energy positive energy I've just loved having them in class and one of our fifth grade teachers and I think this is kind of across the board said that our fifth graders are transitioning really well and I would have to agree as a parent of a new fifth grader at CMS um she loves it and so I think the past two days and what's going on at CMS have just been um really fantastic and I'm looking forward to 174 more yeah it'd be great not today but he's counting though no no
133it's a lot easier if you just do the weeks though then it's like almost 39 weeks thank you thank you thank you let's start our assistant superintendent report um so we've been working on several things one of the things that I've been working with the para committee our evaluation committee there was two changes that came down from the state one was on if so teachers can receive one of four ratings in their evaluation cycle it's excellent proficient needs Improvement or unsatisfactory and so one of them is if you receive an unsatisfactory there's now an appeals process so our para committee met together we came up with the process that would go through that that teachers would go through we are hoping that we never have to use it but it was mandated that that be
134in our pair of plan so we now have that in there and the other thing was currently teachers are on a two-year cycle when they're evaluated so they get an evaluation every other year this new ruling that came down is based on if you receive an excellent or a proficient evaluation and you're a tenured teacher that instead of being evaluated every other year you would go on a three-year cycle but you would still have an informal evaluation within those first two years and so that was something we weren't mandated to start that until next year but the committee agreed that it was something that those teachers work really hard to achieve those excellent and proficient evaluation levels and so that was something that we felt was very easy for the district to do and get
135into that plan so those two changes were made with the committee and we've been sharing that new information with the teachers during the opening day meetings um I've been meeting with the teachers a lot of things that they were asking for was more professional development on how they can do things um just a little bit better or just have a little bit more support and how to continue to grow and become better for all the students in the district and so I've kind of been presenting different options that can meet the needs of all of the staff on a broad spectrum but also in a more specific way and then the other thing I was going to talk to you about was the return to learn the quarantining plan so I don't know if there's
136any questions still about the the quarantine learning plan or if we kind of talked about that before okay that's all I have perfect thank you and the big guy all right there were no foyas this month um summer projects are pretty much done we have one more project that's kind of a summer project it got added on mid-summer I'm not sure if you're aware but behind the visitor um football field visitor bleachers there's a land bridge that connects the middle school and the high school and it has um it's about this wide right now and I would not walk on it we're going to Grub the bushes back in a way and we've got a metal Bridge that's coming in and they're going to have concrete bunkers and so it's going to be a lot
137more space there and a bigger bridge is going to be put into over that over that Ravine we're working with the Architects on that we did go through the Roe we will get a builder's permit all of those other things that you need for Bridges of such significance um our first day of school came back we're hoping that that bridge is there for football season but it doesn't look like it's going to be um there's an issue with supply chain lines here in America the beginning of the school year went well our mode today is reboot refocus get the whole year started to get Get Back to Basics and really start looking at the curriculum and uh Ms Smith is leading that charge and I'm excited to see where that's going we have taken a
138pause in our do this again in our strategic planning process you'll be getting an email from me tomorrow regarding the um the the values that we have and then writing those statements that some of you have forgotten to send me I got one so I appreciate the one I won't Point anybody out gold star is in my office and I'll give it to you later but that's it all right thank you all right we'll move on to item seven there are items for action the first one is a approved the reopening plan for the 21-22 school year yeah and we discussed almost every aspect of that tonight Administration recommends the board approved a reopening plan for the 21-22 school year as presented all right open up two discussion the important thing is you know last
139year it was we couldn't have kids in school all day every day and that was so important and I think that's part of the mental health issue having kids in school every day all day is so important and if we go ahead and continue following the order then that allows us to only quarantine at three foot which means we're going to be quarantining very very few kids and after listening to John Wagner then those parents have a choice to make if they're going to sign off on us excluding them and if they don't sign off on it then they take the chance of what could happen right I understood that correctly so um I would I'd like to continue with the mask just to be able to keep those all the kids in school as
140much as we can I think that's so important and I I agree with Tammy I think keep getting the kids in school and keeping the kids in school and as you said I mean we were we were in a little bit and backed off and then a little bit more and all that last year and I think keeping the kids in school it should be our number one priority I believe personally um that we should probably get options for the homecoming Proms and stuff like that to be possibly held Outdoors so that the kids don't have to wear masks and they don't have to social distance and we can get them back to a more normal year I would hate for a senior this year to graduate and not get any accreditation um if we
141chose to go against this mandate that was set by the governor I mean I'm a mask optional person until the Mandate came down but with reading everything that goes along with the Mandate I'm not willing to put all these kids our staff and that stuff at a Jeopardy um I would much rather see the kids stay in school every day all day with the mask on and try to return back to as much normalcy as possible I do want the seniors to graduate with a diploma that means something anyone else so I'll share my thoughts too so I can tell you that me personally not you know just as Greg did earlier as as a parent and a member of the community I am not a master um you know I work for the federal
142government I you know understand how compliance works so from my school board position you know I'm going to do what it takes to keep the kids in my daughter that's in the middle school you know it hadn't it had a toll on her the emotional piece of it I saw how it affected her mentally being out of school not being with other kids not getting to learn firsthand everything being remote that was just not the best option for her so as a parent and a school board member my my first priority is keeping them in the classroom if that means that she has to wear a mask I'm going to give her a new one every day of the Disposable masks that are in my opinion less restrictive um and and that's my that's my
143choice as a parent I'm gonna that's what I'm gonna do is give her a new one every day so that she doesn't carry those you know pathogens are viruses or whatever gets on the master in the day from day to day but um you know it's really that if following the rules means we wear a mask and they get three feet and we can do three feet with the classrooms and that's where I that's where I stand everyone else um I'm going to speak up a little bit so personally speaking as an individual I don't agree with the governor's mask mandate and the quarantine protocols being put in place by the Illinois Department of Public Health I believe the best decisions are made locally and by individual parents blanket decisions across the state just don't
144make any sense um until there is a court order and validating the executive order and there are two suits pending one in Clinton County and one in McKendree County I don't think we have any local control we could we could vote against it tonight but I don't think it amounts to anything I don't even think we have the option um we're backed into a corner uh we're being bullied and uh to defy the executive order it hurts the students I was most moved by the kids that were brave enough to come and speak tonight and you know so how do I justify to tailor Etheridge that and her parents that her diploma that she has worked 12 years for is unaccredited how does that affect how she applies to college what she does I I
145don't have the answer and to say that the Illinois State Board of Education is just bluffing uh they're not bluffing they're actually doubling down and digging their heels in um and do I think they have authority to do it no I don't but they are doing it and so who gets hurt the kids get hurt again and the kids have been hurt enough the you know I've lived through it I'm still living through it with my children it's been a nightmare and the kids are getting hurt I you know not to pick on Taylor she's probably gone but Taylor's an athlete Taylor she you know so do we really want to after all the time she practices and plays games to take away her ability to participate in ihsa activities no that's not just Athletics
146it's gullible it's the band are we going to take that away from the kids again I mean I read the letter that the isbe sent to Timothy Christian High School who said they were not going to file the Mandate and the thing that really stuck out to me was that you know seniors who graduate from a non-recognized school or receive a diploma that's not recognized by isbe this action is irreversible should the school later regain its recognition status and these students will forever have a degree from a non-recognized school I mean it's unbelievable but that that is what they're doing so you know I've I've told many people I would never vote for masks because I I just I believe the science I believe Mr Wagner tonight um but if the masks keep us in
147school keep them playing keep them doing what they have to do then I think that is the bitter pill that we have to swallow so you know that's that's my position I couldn't agree with you more so I just have one more time yeah please I don't normally talk right but um what you what you said before is I totally agree I'm not I'm not willing to to spend District dollars to fight this we have a couple other school districts that that are leading the charge for that and that's that's great uh the other thing is I think you know I know it's a very passionately by parents tonight um I hope they realize and look back to it was just last month when when we voted to to um go mask optional right so
148um I think from that they understand where where we stand and I should say for myself or how I voted last time um but the in Andrew's point it's we're backed into a corner there is they gave us no option and and by Design and isbe is is not the most responsive body in the past but they have turned these things around for these schools that have voted against uh the mask mandate they turned around it so so quickly and coming down hard on them um and honestly it's I wouldn't say they were totally unresponsive before but you know it's hard to get things out of them before this is something that they're very fervent about to Mr Wagner's point I mean it's not they're not backing down so I want to see kids play
149play sports I want to be able to to follow our quarantine guidelines follow the processes and keep those kids in school perfect thank you anyone else I mean I talk way too much tonight and you all kind of know how I feel I mean I I Echo everyone's sentiment that spoke tonight and I he just goes against my grain to require these mass and you know when the governor came down to it I was one of the first ones going oh heck no they're not going to happen in Columbia we're going to fight this and everything else and you know what though when you take the emotions out and you get down to the business side of it or backed into a corner I mean it's we can't waste your money and and the other
150people that don't have kids in school we can't just throw these dollars especially when someone else is willing to fight and we have two school districts that are in the fight let them spend their money I'm happy to run on their coattails and uh but it drives me crazy it's it's a this is a painful vote for me personally but uh you got to go with the greater good again in my opinion so any other discussion all right who's going to be brave enough to make a motion to approve you Scott that was easy all right got a motion on the table a second Timmy all right Motion in a second can be a roll call please unfortunately yes all right all right motion carries so anyway we do appreciate the input and it's not
151going on deaf ears I mean I I you can tell by the comments everyone's made if we thought we had a choice or any way out of it I think we would definitely go for it so and I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed and I do apologize for disappointing that's not why any of us ran for school boards so all right next one next one good don't leave yet Mr Wagner please with compromised immune system severely they need to really talk to their doctors these are not mass or not making everybody that much more safer than you can have and compromise child in the classroom now because I've heard that I heard that in order I heard that here tonight too that they the parents want to ask us their
152child that's some underlying conditions these are not going to protect them okay thank you all right and line of action B is our approval resolution to work with the regional board at Regional Office of Education for voluntary covet testing and this is actually something we probably should have brought up during the question it's a work in progress is really what it is originally I was not a fan of the on-site testing of covid for schools and the reason was originally it cost us money you needed at least 100 kids to volunteer to get tested they'd be sent home if there was false positives it just didn't seem to make sense to me um since then they started to change some of the rules it is now no cost to us the Roe is looking to
153get a group together and so the 100 would not be there and if we do get people that voluntarily test they test every week if someone then gets excluded for a close contact we could test them every it would be test on day one so like if I if we are here today Mr Meyer gets sick I'm going to be quarantined for a close contact because of that today that we're together zero I'd come to school tomorrow on day one and I would take a test it would come back negative I could stay day three I could take the test and stay day five I could you know and so I I basically test my way through the the exclusion so I don't get quarantined the problem with this is I want to just be
154above board with the board is um if we do this that's all well and good I think it's a great option for the um for those that aren't vaccinated yet and can't be uncoordinated or excluded but it also then gives other people the option if I don't want to get vaccinated and I get excluded it would allow me to be able to stay in school which again my number one goal is to keep everybody in school I want to work with the re and have your permission to do that it might cost um because if it doesn't fall through if it falls through with the Roe we might have to have somebody drive up to Springfield every week to drop off the tests there's some details that are still needing to be worked out um
155the other thing is and Mr Wagner you can correct me if I'm wrong my understanding is once we go to mask optional the the testing for staying is no longer on the table right so the carrot that there or the little carrot that they're hanging out in front of us is only good when we're masks mandated once they're optional and we go to a six foot thing I no longer contest to keep them in and so I've when I found that out just the day before yesterday I kind of went that doesn't help me at all because I was really excited about the once we get to six foot this testing would really help um I'm hoping that they change that rule have you heard anything like that not yet no no foreign how can
156you say that an asking is doing it you think so how people say that I'm asked s360 so they're going for this is a constantly emotional so I'm hoping things will change as we go along um there is some leeway in some of the wording as far as quarantine now it's necessarily as high as speed or in the state that the local Health Department can but for me to go against a state guideline I have to have hard evidence to justify meaning a school that schools that are automatically schools that are masked have the same infection rate that would be a justification so we would say that's pretty good nice way even with myself does us being a part of this testing assist you in getting that information is there in your mind any reason
157we should or should not participate in the state's voluntary testing not right now and the benefit I would say proceed with trying it it's nothing to stop it it's more to get it going you know try it no right now no I because it hasn't been done long enough yet for me to see the problems if we start seeing false positives pop up and we start quarantining kids that are close contacts to false positives or hope the big issue is this whole family you have a positive child that all the siblings can pull out too yeah I guess so what I'm asking the board is to give me permission to work with the Roe to do what seems to be reasonable um because if if we do this I want to get on as quickly
158as possible because again the state moves like sludge and so getting onto that list you know this testing won't happen for a little bit um so I guess the recommendation is is to allow me what is there a downside the downside would be that [Music] um there might be some kids with false positives right right but again those are parents that would make that choice with that knowledge so if they are you can stop the program in school s I just want to be very clear when we do this test to stay it's only while we're all masked and that's that's the part that that frustrated me because it seems to me that if you've got a system where you can test to stay you should be able to do that with six feet or
159three feet or whatever it's just I mean if you're testing negative and you can stay why wouldn't you yeah we're in Illinois and we can come up with guidelines like I said it is ultimately the local Health Department's authority to quarantine or isolated individuals but if for us to go against a state guideline on the important we have to have something good to back it up which we quite possibly would I want to say one way or the other right now we can address that once the mass can come up we don't know who yet on that so that's kind of why you know you guys are you know last minute or now who knows what's going to happen a month from now you know and maybe Delta will start to Wing will start to
160go back downhill we'll start seeing that mask and unmasked schools have the same infection rate you know things may change can change pretty rapidly so I don't you know you're Mass mandatory now that may not be that you know it may not it may be long it may not be that long before you can look at making a change we just don't know right now okay so what's the logistics if somebody does test positive in this do they go get a formal professional test no no the the test that they're using is the University of Illinois test um it's a mouth swab saliva test it seemed to be accurate enough for that now they can go get other tests if they'd like to and then we have to look at each you know each one
161obviously the PCR is still the gold standard test so each case has to be looked at if there are conflicting tests we have to look at each one to determine was there an exposure you know and one was negative one was positive you know you can test too soon you know it's more likely to get false negatives than it is to get false positives but there can be false positives okay and then is again logistic wise is it do we get the results instantly because we said talk about running tests to Springfield is that is not instant but along with that you can be using what's called biomex now if people have probably even seen them in Walgreens and stuff those are the one tests that are using for tests to stay so you basically
162have two testing things you'd have the random testing that students maybe want to sign up for weekly testing that's the U of I test but then you would do the one three five and seven would be 5x9 which is a rapid test so how long would this study need to go on before a decision could be made because the today as far as schools masking and everything well before you consider it enough data to actually make a decision based on because right now we're 18 plus months into covet and nothing seems to ever have a final a date of closure of you know if we do this for 60 days or you know we would need at least you know I I need to see schools at least for a month before there'd be enough
163data you know depending on how many schools I could look at if in within a month I have 30 schools that are unmasked in 30 schools that are masked and they all are coming back about the same that may be enough if I only have one school that's unmasked and one school that's Mass to compare that data to decide on close contact quarantines you know that's a little bit questionable you know and it depends on the number of cases if you're talking to school that you're talking two cases in a math school in two cases that's not enough cases so I'm just going to be looking at all the information I can you know and as soon as I can to give guidance on that do we have any Baseline data from 2020 yeah yeah
164so how is that being used and it it didn't show much difference in the schools the problem that we had with black the past years was the schools were not in full capacity they have ABDC you know ABCD days we had social distancing that was greater back then this is a whole new school year a whole different variant whole new school year classrooms are full different school year you know we can't but it's not but they're not different schools they're not different environments it's different capacities you have a bunch of tiger kids this year you have a different Fair a completely different bearing that you had last year that has much higher viral loads so we don't know how that's going to spread we don't know if the mass are going to show protection so
165has any virus in history gotten stronger as it progressed stronger over time yeah but the ideal virus the muted people like to think about mutations oh it's trying to mutate into something it's not trying to mutate into anything it's just random there's millions of mutations the ones that stick are the ones that are more contagious the ones that are less contagious die out because they just don't get spread to another person so the predominant variant is more contagious the ideal virus is one that's highly contagious but not deadly a deadly virus is not ideal because it dies out once it kills its hose it can't spread you can have a highly contagious virus that does that does the hose that's that's the best virus of it it could help hope to mutate them and yeah
166they can get stronger than get weaker typically they don't get weaker because the variant that's around will continue to be around a weaker one will not if one virus doesn't spread as easy the one that spreads the easiest is the one that's going to be the dominant virus so it can't go down it can't go together it's hard work to go the other way now it can be more contagious but less severe now that would be a good thing to happen but it can't be the more the contagious the viruses the more predominant that virus is going to be in the setting less contagious virus is not going to overtake a more contagious virus is stronger foreign because it does add another level of complexity another whole set of rules we got to keep in
167track of and it it it not being able to test to stay with six feet once we go mask optional I find it less some advantageous but I still think that that it wouldn't be bad to try it and then we can drop out at any time so my recommendation would still be to to work with the Roe and see if we can get in on this Mr Grote can I ask you a question certainly in in the materials it talks about Mass breaks and we haven't talked about that at all it says it'll be included as needed for students throughout the day the duration and timing of breaks is determined by the individual School leadership team can somebody elaborate on that um yeah the first thing that I want to say is that last
168year Mass breaks were more difficult because you had to keep them within the six feet one of the things about this year is is that once outside you can take off your masks and then you don't have to quarantine for close contact so I could literally have my class go underneath a tree outside take off their masks and be outside and so we're going to see more breaks for that does it because there'll be more chances to take kids outside and so what we're going to need to do is come up with a plan and a schedule so that everybody gets those Mass breaks but I think that once winter comes it'll be harder because it's colder but uh until then yeah do you have you talked to any of them so PE will be
169outside as much you know weather permitting so they'll be able to take their masks off for PE um recess they'll be outside and then the teachers will still utilize the outside space um when the weather is nice last year you guys ate outside didn't you or do you plan to reinstitute that or no schedule a break schedule last break we also teaches we will go out and actually so close do we have any outside seating like for kids to sit anywhere other than on a curb stop or on the grass because the classes are 40 minutes right I don't know um is there any reason they couldn't sit on the ground yeah yeah just have class outside we do have also have random uh so I'm just still kind of trying to figure out if
170we're serious about being outside why we're there's no accommodations at all other than the grass because you know there's this is a long-term thing hopefully for at least a few months till the weather's good as long as the weather's good and the more comfortable kids are the more they're going to pay attention if they're not so I'm just I'm just curious of what's being done or if there's anything because I think we may be able to do more to make them excuse me Mr I'm a more comfortable learning environment yeah are you I saw you like thinking about an outside classroom where we have a big gazebo and and picnic benches underneath it that the whole class can gather or what do you what are you doing just chairs you know I mean we've chairs
171are not hard to do even just having chairs for them to sit to where they can comfortably sit and so like the folding chairs out by the door and the Tacoma class can take it out because there is concrete for them to sit on right they could sit there okay well we looked into tents originally but there was a problem with permitting or structure to put up a semi-permanent structure you need architectural drawings and um engine and Structural Engineering so we looked at the trophy tents and um it just became cost prohibitive even to rent them we would have to get architectural specs and and an architect to get through the Roe that's that's the Roe that's not yeah that's not you know for building for building permits we need uh yeah it's an Roe
172permit we have to get stuff that's really yeah Mr Ackman um last year the CMS added an additional lunch did you decide to stay with that this year um I would say the high school has added an additional Lunch Period initially they took it back but with all of this going on they went ahead and added that third Bunch period back at the high school so not to be particular yeah we're kind of getting off subjects a little bit so yeah so the recommendation is for the board to approve a resolution um for me to work with the Roe on um voluntary testing again I'm not sure I was I got my answer or I understood the answer anyway so why do we go into Springfield once a week you have to drop off the
173test it's the results or the tests the results the um the actual well you have a rep like sample so yeah I think what he says we have a rapid test and then you have that second time and right now the Roe is looking at hiring someone to do that because for every test that you drop off at the state they give you eight dollars it's it's uh you know but you need to it these are again these things that they're trying to do to encourage and it gets to the point where I'm thinking for me I'm looking at it as if I can keep kids in school with this testing process then I'd like to try to do it right but it does add a level of complexity and a level of frustration because
174you're dealing with another state program okay so to keep it simple for my thing so I'm asking permission too I understand that I understand that what I'm I'm stuck on the Springfield thing and the results so are we are we sending this to Springfield to get the results or are we giving Springfield the tally of the results once a week no I think the actual tests go to Springfield okay I think and so that's what I understand so if there was there was there was a there was a rapid test so you know the results right here and then there was some some other tests that do you have my test Mr Wagner yes goes up hey John John that's right here yeah that testing going to to Springfield it's kind of a package deal
175what is actually going to Springfield a Suave of the swab all right so we do on day one we're gonna do a rapid test and we're gonna get the results instantly from the test to stay you're using what's called bionics now okay but to do the test to stay program you need the shield testing which is the weekly testing oh that's a week okay that's that's what the difference is so the voluntary we're just taking a random sampling to send that to Springfield once a week where the return to stay we're doing testing house all right cool all right oh and they wanted tools to start to use it they first started out that tier one and two schools were going to get a three three four were working at the table I'll let nobody
176sign up for it so then they made it free to everybody yeah well when still nobody has signed up for it yesterday but is it good for customers so you could just go perfect field so to test to stay you must do the shield to get the violence okay gotcha gotcha I was wondering how we were gonna know foreign [Applause] would be to proceed finding out about setting it up and everything and then after the problem we pull out yep yes all right I know we beat this dead horse so we'll just be added to the monthly agenda the results are the ongoing progress of the test so we can gauge that as we go I could I couldn't I could collect the data and share it with you and put on your superintendent report
177yeah all right any other discussion a motion to approve Mr Grote to work with the Roe to implement the testing I'll make it okay Adam made a motion Lisa seconded I can really roll call please hi yes yes okay motion passes unanimously on to C which is a privilege purchase of a 2022 Bluebird 71 passenger bus from Central States Bus Sales and a 2020 Chevy minibus 18 pasture with one wheelchair lit from Southern bus and Mobility we sent out our our bid specs to all of the companies we normally send those out to when we do these bids we try and get two buses a year in our transportation fund this is um the lowest responsive bidders for these two buses and the recommendation is that we award it as presented foreign discussion so you
178said we sent it to the ones we normally send it to how many companies did we send the requesting um I believe the three I also saw it posted in the legal notices of the Republic times I believe yeah but no one ever there's no bus companies that have really ever so we don't get those in so we get them from the three that we've always worked with before and what about Midwest Transit did they bid on it do they respond Midwest Transit and yeah I can look into that all right oh yeah all right another discussion it is in the budget that we're putting on display so perfect is that an entertainment a motion to buy a couple buses I'll make the motion Thank you Lisa 20 or a second thanks Scott Kimberly roll
179call please yes yes hi [Applause] motion passes on to D which is their approve the 2021 to 2022 budget display yes the budget is on display you all have a copy at your table as I always point out if you go to page two I believe line number 22 is a key line page two the budget summary page will tell you your estimated beginning fund balance online on on Row three uh then you'll get your total receipts of revenues which is 15 million and your expenditures of 15.7 and so if you look on that road 22 you'll see that in the education fund we're projecting a 728 thousand dollar deficit um last year we projected a 700 000 deficit we ended up two hundred thousand dollars in the black so that's a nine hundred thousand
180dollar difference there the year before that we projected a zero and we were seven hundred thousand dollars in the black so um I was hoping that I'd have more time over the summer to really dig into the budget and try and find out why we have such variants I did not get a chance to do that this summer um I trust that I'm going to be watching this very closely we do have the fund balances to absorb that seven hundred thousand dollar deficit um but this is on display and so if you look at it if you have any questions please call me I'd be happy to sit down with you and talk about it any questions regarding the budget right and we just approved the display of the budget correct yeah we just okay
181entertain a motion to approve the 2021-2022 budget display I'll make a motion thank you Adam I'll second it and your second thank you Kimberly roll call please yes yes hi yes yes yes motion carries a letter e is established the date and time for our 2021-22 budget hearing and we've historically done that at 7 pm on the regularly scheduled meeting which actually is actually on the fourth Thursday because the budget has to be on display for 30 days and so um I recommend that we do it at 7 p.m on September 23rd and the regular meeting would occur directly after Thank you Lisa have a motion on the Florida second thank you Tammy Kimberly roll call please hi yes yes yes all right perfect pressure curious all right letter F is the approval and accept
182of the second reading of the board policies the pressure issue number 107. these were on display from last board meeting the recommendation is that we approve them as presented with the following notes 1 30 is the mission statement review we are if we ever get around to the strategic planning process and that changes we will change it in policy at that time so this is fine to keep that and then Mrs gocher actually reviewed it and and uh saw on 120 I didn't have this in your notes but uh we have parando still listed as our special education Co-op and we've been out of coriando now for seven years we're going on our seventh year and so um we should probably take prando off of our special ed co-ops Adam and Scott are the two
183board members on this committee did you guys see anything that needed to be noted most of this was really just legally's updates and whatnot I have nothing else yeah nothing else well did we update the mission statement during our planning meeting remember with all the posting notes and I thought that was that's the mission statement that's in here okay all right so that's it that is the most updated one yes okay so my understanding is since we have deviated from the standard plan our changes or remain constant even when we approve this we're not going back to their language we're staying right with us right right okay yes any discussion questions all right then I make a motion to approve the Press policy 107. very second I'll second I keep getting late everybody have motion
184a second I can't really roll call please yes yes yes yes yes all right yes all right that concludes our action items item number eight is our discussion items for individual board member comments I know we got a little off topic on the deal and we're talking about some outside things so this is perfect opportunity if you guys want to resume those conversations and foreign prerogative you guys have definitely heard enough from me tonight so I'll shut up executive session since we did pass the uh mandate we no longer have a needy for executive sessions there's no pending litigation so mark that off the list and the last thing is the German somebody like to make a motion to adjourn I'll make the motion that one didn't take long I think it took me a
185second a second Andrew thank you give me the roll call please yes yes yes all right yes that concludes our meeting thank you for the ones that stayed the whole time I'm impressed [Music] foreign