001okay all right good evening right before i do appreciate seeing so many people here caring for our students and for our school corporation this is the regular school board meeting of the bartholomew consolidated school corporation board of school trustees we start each of our sessions with the opportunity for one of our colleagues to offer reflections and this evening i'll turn to dr bills thank you dr shedd good evening i'm going to be reading a excerpt from chicken soup for the teacher's soul i thought we needed that for the beginning of the school year and chicken soup books are some of my favorites so i really like those books and this is for all the teachers out there i am a teacher i was born the first moment that a question leaped from the mouth of
002a child i have been many people in many places i am socrates exciting the youth of athens to discover new ideas through the use of questions i am ann sullivan tapping out the secrets of the universe into the outstretched hand of helen keller i am esop and hands christians anderson revealing truth through countless stories i am marva collins fighting for every child's right to an education i am mary mcleod bethune building a great college for my people using orange crates for desks i am belle kaufman struggling to go up the down staircase the names of those who have practiced my profession rings like a hall of fame for humanity booker t washington buddha john dewey excuse me leo buzzkalgia moses and jesus i am also those whose names and faces have long been forgotten but
003whose lessons and character will always be remembered in the accomplishments of their students i have wept for joy at the wedding of former students laughed with glee at the birth of their children and stood with head bowed in grief and confusion by graves dug too soon for bodies far too young throughout the course of a day i have been called upon to be an actor friend nurse and doctor coach finder of lost articles money lender taxi driver psychologist substitute parent salesman politician and a keeper of the faith despite the maps charts formulas verbs stories and books i have really had nothing to teach for my students really have only themselves to learn and i know it takes the whole world to tell you who you are i am a paradox i speak loudest when i
004listen the most my greatest gifts are in what i am willing to appreciatively receive for my students material wealth is not one of my goals but i am a full-time treasure seeker in my quest for new opportunities for my students to use their talents and in my constant search for those talents that sometimes lie buried in self-defeat i am the most fortunate of all who labor a doctor is allowed to usher life into the world in one magical moment i am allowed to see that life is reborn each day with new questions ideas and friendships an architect knows that if he builds with care his structure may stand for centuries a teacher knows that if he builds with love and truth what he builds will last forever i am a warrior daily doing battle against
005peer pressure negativity fear conformity prejudice ignorance and apathy but i have great allies intelligence curiosity parental support individuals creativity faith love and laughter i'll rush to my banner with indomitable support and who do i have to thank for this wonderful life i am so fortunate to experience but the public for you have done me the great honor to entrust me with your greatest contribution to eternity your children and so i have a past that is rich in memories i have a present that is challenging adventurous and fun because i am allowed to spend my days with the future i am a teacher and thank god for it every day and that is by john wayne schlatter chicken sue for the soul thank you dr bills if you are able if you stand and join us
006for the pledge of for allegiance it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all freedom all right six of our seven members are here our thoughts are with miss dehoff dwyer she had some surgery and we wish her to get well very soon so with that we do have a quorum and i'll call the meeting to order so just as a reminder we have here on our screen and behind us our mission and our vision which guides the decisions that we make here each and every meeting as well as our list of high expectation objectives which guide our decision making and guide the work of this school corporation so let's make this meeting a little more complicated the first thing that we get to do this evening is to have a
007public hearing and this has to do with the proposed renovations and improvements on school facilities that were discussed in depth at our last meeting they are opportunities to make changes at barcs parkside schmidt some roof wood placements solar projects and the purchase of equipment and technology so i get to gavel out if you've been to these meetings you know how much i love this gavel out and we will gavel into a public hearing this affords all of you to offer any comments about the projects that we discussed at our last meeting do we want to offer a summary yes thank you as you know anytime we issue bonds to do a building renovation we're required to hold two public hearings they're called preliminary determination hearings this is the first of those two public notice of
008that hearing was published in the republic on january 28th and sent to the county clerk's office for their knowledge as well and this is uh this is to approve eventually approve but to get input on the approximately 13.5 million dollar project to improve significant improvements to the on building envelope and educational learning spaces at parkside as well as the three roofs that you mentioned and solar project as well so with your approval we could open the floor for any public comments specific to these projects all right thank you are there individuals here that would like to talk about our 13 plus million dollar project mr phillips i think one of the items later on in the board meeting right is tied to this greg there is a resolution specific to just a procedural requirement as
009we move through the process there'll be more hearings to come in future meetings as well thank you there any questions about our future investments all right with that i will gavel out of the public hearing and i will come back to our meeting of the board of school trustees so we have the wonderful opportunity to recognize the of the folger outstanding teacher award winner good evening it's always a great opportunity when we can recognize amazing educators in the work they do each and every day at this time i would like to call forward john sattler the president and ceo of style insurance services as we announced our 2021 nfb fulton outstanding teacher award it's a great time good evening thanks again this is an exciting time to be here um just to refresh a little
010bit on the edna b folger award it's for the outstanding teacher and it's sponsored annually by sciho the iupuc center for teaching and learning the community education coalition and the columbus area chamber of commerce the edna v folger outstanding teacher award was designed to recognize the impact teachers have both in and outside of the classroom this award is named for local teaching icon edna v folger who invested more than 46 years of her life educating students in bartholomew county the folger award celebrates dedication to the teaching profession ability to motivate students and staff to reach their full potential innovation and teaching style and curriculum the ability to form strong bonds and relationships with students parents peers and contributions to the community outside of the classroom i am pleased to recognize peggy myers of columbus east
011high school as a 2021 edna v folger award winner like all previous folger winners peggy goes above and beyond in all dimensions both in and outside of the classroom she is committed she is a committed advocate for her students ensuring that they have every learning and life opportunity possible peggy designs individual plans for each of her students to help them reach their fullest potential along with her staff peggy patiently leads her students towards learning goals teaching social and job skills along the way she is the glue that holds the complex set of plans and people together peggy's innovative and creative approaches teach valuable life skills that enhance independence to help our students achieve personal happiness and success the coffee cart at columbus east offers opportunities for students to develop social skills by taking orders preparing
012and delivering beverages and accepting payments several years ago peggy introduced best buddies this program involves more than 50 students and creates integrated employment and leadership development opportunities along with one-on-one friendships for individuals with developmental disabilities peggy is also the coach for the ihsaa unified track teams the teams involve over 60 students and have earned national recognition receiving the unified champion school national award peggy is active in the arc of bartholomew county and has served as president vice president and secretary she freely shares her professional knowledge expertise passion and skills with colleagues representing at state and national conferences many folder recipients over the years are nominated by colleagues building administrators and sometimes parents but peggy was nominated by a former student this young woman was so inspired through her interaction with peggy that she is now
013majoring in special ed in college please join me in congratulating peggy myers recipient of the 2021 nfv folger outstanding teacher award [Applause] thank you very much for hosting such an important award and we can't be more proud of peggy myers so next on our agenda is an update of the coveted plan of action for this current school year thank you dr congratulations peggy on that outstanding award i know we didn't last year which is things the way we were didn't celebrate it maybe as we would have i know you had a neat celebration at columbus east high school though and glad that we're able to recognize you publicly here tonight congratulations again all right so we're going to jump right into the copa 19 plan of action conversation and coming around i noticed that way
014i think we have there's a number i wrote down 36 i think uh people prepared to speak so i'm going to be relatively brief so we can get to that that opportunity for public comment and then get into the additional board uh conversation and consideration of any changes in uh the reopening plan so let me dig into this a little bit just to walk us through it's been interesting how if we go back to a year ago in the month of july leading up to school what the conversation was about and whether or not we would be able to start school and then roll through the school year and we were able to i had to take a pause there a couple of times but we were able to start school but that was kind
015of the debate at that point in time was just can we have school or not coming on the heels of the spring and this year it's obviously different i i i think that at least with each individual i talk to there's a genuine desire belief that we can be in school so let's let's do that and then it is what about other mitigation strategies and specifically masks and whether or not students should be wearing masks or or students and staff members anybody in the building wearing masks or not so that becomes has become the conversation and as i pay attention to the emails that come in whether it's to me or to these board members that number um is has grown over the last few days and weeks but we've cataloged all of those we
016go back to june 1st at least take a a look at the the two months that have led into this we've catalogued those to get an understanding of where people are coming from certainly social media is a way to capture that dialogue in conversation so certainly can begin to get a feel for that and then we take a look at the information besides all of that stuff coming our way the input of of all of you people who certainly care about their children regardless of which side of this debate you're on your passionate care for for your children as well as all children of this community so as we take a look at that what other information do we have available to us and so i'm just going to show you some of that information
017and try to stair step it from the national level which i i understand sometimes there's questions about that and then coming back down to our local level because that's what we try to deal with is where are we at here in our community so these are just two maps of indiana that come from two different places and they are as up to date as as i'm able to find so the centers for disease control and prevention is on the left-hand side and our county is is outlined with the gray and shows us as red by their measurement the department of health also comes out with a weekly map that comes out on wednesday so the last time that map would have been updated would have been last wednesday it shows us in yellow in terms
018of the color designations red is the highest spread at the national level it is also the highest spread at the state level as of last wednesday the only county that was in red was posey down in the south west corner around the evansville area and then orange yellow and blue stair stepping down i didn't highlight hours but we are a one um there in the in the middle uh down toward the middle southern part of the state so that's that's what we have in terms of taking out the two pieces of information and i'll just comment quickly on this one before moving on is that a year ago we didn't take much of a look at the centers for disease control site and so i put it up here because you will hear a lot
019about that one and people will bring it up but it was not a part of our metrics last year and so i would try to not shove it aside but but move on to the more local in terms of what our circumstances and situation is just because i hear the debate around those numbers and trying to localize the conversation more so our local covet 19 task force does release information it was regularly uh two times a week last school year through the school year and then the summer times when numbers dropped they went to one time per week on thursdays and have now updated that to two times a week again back to mondays and thursdays so there is information today that actually then is dated for yesterday august the 8th in terms of where
020we are and so you see the new positive cases from yesterday in our community 23 the hospitalizations at 18 and test turnaround time was always something that we tracked i said a day so it's very quickly very quick for somebody to go get a test and figure out where they are with a positive or negative so that takes us then to more internally with bcsc so again just stair stepping our way down from what the national data says um and regardless of where you are with that and substantial spread what the department of health then says our numbers are and the reason between of the difference between the department of health and the cdc is because of the range that they capture sustainable spread in the the cdc uses between 1 and 49 the indiana
021department of education department of health uses 1-99 so quite quite the difference in that color designation but then you saw our metrics and then this is bcsc so as we start the school year and we look at last year just trying to start school and have school what our cases were in the first quarter of 2021 we had 29 positive test cases so as we entered fall break that was that was our number and as we uh look at today and actually that number could be updated because we've had four more come in since that that number was in there so for the first two days of 2021-22 our numbers are 31 positive test cases and the number of close contacts i believe is is 88. um so adding eight more to that one and
022then 24 symptomatic individuals have been have been sent home based upon the symptoms they display as they come to the nurse's office so that's just stair stepping the data from the national numbers that you all see here if you as you pay attention to the media all the way down to what is in bcsc today and that certainly gives us pause to have that many cases and we haven't even had the opportunity to really be together as students mass i mentioned is is the debate it's we have a lot of things in our mitigation strategies that nobody very little people have brought up to me in terms of whether that's good or bad uh with whether it be physical distancing or contact tracing certainly people have commented on those but they haven't necessarily spent much
023time on it's been this and i just i put this up there because it's it's not pleasant so as we receive emails and these are actually within the last two days today and yesterday just two examples from each side of that if if a person is four masts then they may indicate that our decision is knowingly sending children into harm's way and that is immoral and negligent or your negligence is putting our kids health at risk a couple of them against mass i fight for my grandchildren and many other innocent children you have subjected the evil oppression on and then we pay your salary want to make the decision for a child that we as parents have the god-given right to make for our children so again just examples of where this debate is and
024it's my hope as we get the opportunity to hear from each of you that again we recognize that the people here care for the kids of this community uh people may come from different places but but respect the voice of each individual that speaks and and then we'll move through that and let the board have the opportunity to consider everything that's been in front that it will be placed in front of them so as we get to that piece and before clicking on this nick i'll have you do it just so that i don't mess up as i did last time but don't click on that yet as we get into that the last wednesday the communities covered 19 task force met i'm a part of that conversation so i have the opportunity to digest
025everything that's being stated in those meetings and see where people might be going or what they might be doing and then coming out of that there have been has been movement within the community and so as we enter tonight i heard again today that the county for example has or is requiring mass in the county buildings and so the city and county has made those announcements over the last three days and then other entities foundation for youth made that announcement again yesterday as well so several things just moving as we're going along so one of the things that i would i would ask the board to consider is that as those things happen quickly and they have board meetings only every couple of weeks that there might be an opportunity to give the administration more
026flexibility in making those adjustments as quickly as possible based upon need we have felt like we need to get to these meetings to make have additional conversation have the vote and then move on but i would ask for that first of all so nick if you could click on that document hopefully it pops up there this is a google doc it is a copy of the plan that we had from the last time and i know that for many of you that i've had conversation with you're going to be disappointed in what i'm putting in front of the board just to have them converse about because that's the topic is mass and as we look at if this was approved by the board tonight as we get through your 36 comments and they have the
027opportunity to ponder those and then ask questions and discuss themselves that would be what's on the table uh to to determine there are a few other changes in this plan um so we start with mitigation strategies may change at any time as need is determined by bcsc administration so we are the ones that daily are involved in this conversation and dialogue to be able to adjust forwards or backwards mass specifically but other mitigation strategies and then the face coverings piece as is highlighted there being required as has been stated universally all indoors it already was on school buses the physical distancing piece we are asking our staff members to tighten up on the cohort piece of that and so as we entered the year that was not referenced in our our plan last year that
028did save us in terms of the number of kids that had to be quarantined potentially from a contact tracing standpoint i'll remind everybody on the contact tracing that the decision to do so or not and even the the number of feet and so forth is not a bcsc decision that does come from the department of health we are required to report the number of positive cases the number of people who would have been in close contact and then the quarantine time frames for those um if we could scroll down nick please we would get to the visitors piece so visitors which we were allowing visitors are allowing visitors this year so based upon the statement about mass they'll be required to wear those too and then school meals with the cafeterias we had went back
029to and then the word should is here we were encouraging different uses of spaces and just given our current state would ask our buildings to utilize the alternate spaces that they utilized last year to great suggest success in terms of being able to spread people out among the buildings so i think there's there is one other one the drinking fountains we have the the water filling stations and water bottles and people have used those effectively the water the drinking fountains can become quite quite a challenge so we would close those off at this point in time attach those drinking fountains again our water bottle filling stations and so we would continue to use those and then because i've mentioned mass now several times additionally with the athletics and extracurricular activities they would be worn as
030as they were at the end of last year by spectators coaches and not participating players while indoors so no regulation when we are outdoors so these this set of guidelines i'm putting in front of the board this revised set of guidelines are specific to the indoors not the outdoor activities that we have and are consistent with other um changes that have been made recently within the community but that would be the revisions that i would ask the board to ponder before we get to the public comments about this i would just ask the board if there any questions because then i think after the public comment we bring it back to you for consideration and not under my recommendation is not to have that under the consent agenda piece which is all the other things
031that tend to be not a lot of discussion is necessary claims adjustments and that you have this as a separate conversation and invoke all right thank you are there questions that my colleagues have about this revision things that need clarified rationale behind no particular questions dr bills hi uh dr shedd or dr roberts the i wonder if you could go back to the slide that showed the statistics about you're talking about their 29 students who how how many school opened last just a second here dr wilson no this is one of the first few slides that's okay well i know one of the names the slide that said you compared last year with this year the amount of basically i think you were saying the amount of students who have are positive now in two
032days or whatever long has it been two days or two days yeah it has so so just making sure it's clear in terms of how that number is calculated we are calculating the number exactly how we did a year ago is based upon as we start the school year do we have a positive case that's been identified even if the person hasn't been in the building yet do we have a positive case we now have to report to the state of indiana so if the reason for the absence is a positive test case then we report that so on friday we already had a number of positive test cases and so we had to report that very few close contacts because they had not been here so the close contacts are coming from some some
033maybe athletes in a sports thing but the close contacts will add up as we are now in school we have students in who then have close contacts from that circumstance so two days in number of students we know are now absent from school because of a positive test case and staff members but of that 27 positive test cases 25 were students and it's actually 31 now and the number is is 28 students so that the the calculation of numbers last year exactly the same manner of calculating the numbers this year that's why the comparison is made to how we started the school year rolled through eight to nine weeks of school and where we are after two days and so back when we met in july you know everything was seemed to be thought it
034was going you know pretty smoothly as far as the cases right and this has just happened microphone sorry so when we were in in july when we had a board when we had our board meeting we voted for you know optional mass that was at a time when cases were a lot i mean we didn't have as many cases at that time right so the rationale i guess for going to the mass just so the community understands because they're going up yeah we certainly would not have had this number we would have had a positive case from an athlete or something and again our ability to count when we're in session is different than our ability even to count then right right and so we are measuring today based on who's in school today and
035if they're not in school what is that reason we're a couple of weeks we just wouldn't have had that ability our positive test cases then would have been of staff working at that time and or um an athlete you know who now uh was unable to participate in extracurriculars and and had maybe close contacts so it's a little bit different comparison but but i but to your point things over the summer have have been different in in that the cases certainly have did go down and seem to be going back up and that's whether it's this data or our local number of cases in a day whether that's students or or staff and i think the piece that i've tried to concentrate closely on it's in talking with a number of people out here or
036or internally with our staff is what what about students you know we we hear the the information in terms of number of students who might contract covert 19 less less likely to less severe and so forth and so when we have 28 students already that number at least jumps out to us to to think about and then then dr debalsky who works closely with us and others in the community did cite what is being seen in the community in terms of our kids too so i think it is one thing when we listen to whoever outside of our county but it's a different thing when we're talking about our students our circumstances our numbers our level of severity and that's what our conversation has has started to be about and that again is summarized on
037one slide with that many numbers but there is more i think to that thank you you're welcome you very much are there other questions all right we will move forward and look forward to y'all's comments and so if you will those of you have signed up to speak if you'll please be mindful of the guidelines that we have so i have your names i'll call you up as you have listed your names here in the same order you have three minutes and we have this handy dandy counter here to my right we want to give everyone the opportunity to speak so i'll ask that you do your best in staying within that three minutes i will also ask that you are very respectful of each and every person who is speaking so that we can
038hear all the comments that are important for us to hear the other item that i'll mention is if the points that you came to make have been already said you have the opportunity to just stand up and let us know that that we will document that you are here to share those but we may not need to hear it literally for the third fourth time all right so with that i will turn and the first person on our list is misty hunter thank you i'm gonna ask we've got over 30 people to get through so please please be respectful yes my name is misty hunter okay you're going to have to like right up in your face so we can all hear thank you i am misty hunter as you vote on a mass mandate
039for bcsc tonight i would ask that you take all factors into consideration as expressed in previous board meetings as parents we choose to be here out of concern for our children and our right to make choices in their best interest as school board elected officials you have a responsibility to us as well not only to hear us and collaborate with us but to take our input seriously and making decisions for our children the pressure being placed on our school officials locally is being placed with one-sided and somewhat misrepresented data the community dashboard states the data includes patients outside of bartholomew county and those who are there for non-covered 19 reasons this means the data also includes patients who are not being treated for covet but receive a positive test so i ask are you being
040pressured with data that is a true representation of our county measures do not close your mind and ignore the medical data that shows the physical emotional and developmental damage caused by mask wearing this is not just an opinion of parents this is medical data blatantly being ignored masking our children presents a physical emotional and developmental danger that should be forefront of this discussion the obsession on the what-ifs and marginal risk of cova to children and ignoring the whole of our children's well-being as well as parental right is disturbing and is why many parents and community members are here tonight the journal archives of pediatric adolescent medicine shared these results from a clinical trial performed on face mask and healthy children in june of this year many governments have made nose and mouth coverings or face
041masks compulsory for school children the evidence base for this is weak i ask have officials influencing you taken into consideration or have you the data stating it is harmful to our children let alone the data showing it is not effective before pressuring to mandate masks the cleveland clinic states so far most cases in children appear to be relatively mild in fact the majority of children who get coveted have not required hospitalization the jama trial also states that most of the complaints reported by children can be understood as consequences of elevated carbon dioxide levels in inhaled air this is further defined as excessive carbon dioxide in the bloodstream they go on to state a recent review concluded that there was ample evidence for adverse effects of wearing such masks i encourage you to review the diagram
042of the packet that i'll provide referencing damage to the central nerve system heart lung circulation and more the international journal of environmental research and public health in april this year had this to say about mask mask squaring significantly correlated with o2 drop in fatigue and co2 rise headache respiratory impairment temperature rise and 100 moisture out of the mask my daughter a good student with no previous behavior marks was written up last year for pulling her mask below her nose to breathe she came home almost daily with headaches unable to concentrate and exhausted some of these kids will be forced to wear a mask from six in the morning until four in the afternoon with only a short lunch break are you willing to wear a mask for that same amount of time five days a
043week before you consider mandating it for our children against their and their children's will i would encourage you to do that and look at the research because of the time constraint i haven't even touched on the psychological effects and detriment to development but would encourage you to look at those medical findings as well the international journal of environment research and public health stated this also in april extended mass square by the general population could lead to relevant effects and consequences in many medical fields so as you decide the fate of our children in this matter please take into consideration the factors that have not been explored by bcsc to this point i believe the local official input can be valuable input it just cannot be the only consideration the coveted tunnel vision of those officials
044cannot and should not be your only source of information your responsibility is also to consider the risk to our children physically developmentally and psychologically by wearing a mask as well as the rights of parents to make this medical decision this virus is not going away and the experimental masquerading measures with known adverse effects to our children needs to stop thank you [Applause] so that's clark all right i apologize the next one is also hunter i'm i'm not even going to guess the thank you i'm so sorry i'm not good at reading my devon hunter my address is listed on the paper there all right so throughout school i learned about and took to heart the struggles of our of our founding fathers and the men who served under them they have established the freedom that
045we are getting to enjoy here today i believe they'd be proud of us for coming here to stand up for those freedoms and to defend them from being not away at in the name of covet in public health i think we should use their example and show our school-aged children that they have freedom too that they can speak up for themselves it isn't just a class in school that tells stories from 200 years ago but that the freedoms of the next generation of of parents and children is being fought for here today tonight over the past few weeks at this and many other school board meetings across the state in the country we have heard from several doctors and pediatricians about their ideas and opinions on dealing with this respiratory virus at this time i
046want to thank all those individuals for their passion and concern and for your time to come here and share with us doctors take an oath to do no harm this is their oath and i know that they take it very seriously and i respect that with it with that being said and with all due respect i would suggest that their perspective is incomplete and that their objective is very specific there is much more to this decision than health and safety first as much as we all respect and appreciate our doctors and nurses and health care officials they are so immersed in this work that they may lack the whole perspective of life outside of the hospital i know from personal experience that our work can consume us and that we can lose perspective especially in
047the midst of a crisis i want to call for consideration of all perspectives there are others who took a took an oath to defend the constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic and there are some in our community at this moment that want to strip that freedom gag our children and stuff a sock in the face of anyone who opposed the narrative of fear and control i have personally spoken to two close friends who are medical professionals who are unwilling to share their comments publicly due to the probable harassment that their practices would endure if they spoke out against the local health care providers narrative this is abhorrent and insufferable how can any of us be informed and intelligent citizens if we cannot find um the information that we that we need our decisions when
048and valued opinions are censored and the facts manipulated or hidden by those in a position to do so this is not the place for corporations of any kind to manipulate fact or censor ideas to bolster their own interests i believe this is happening and i hope that we can see it and act against it quickly before it affects our schools any worse than it already has it's time to balance the scales of public safety and liberty back towards individual liberty we have been scanned and tested and called away from work and quarantine and all those things and suffered in the name of public health it is done there is never a promise of ending covet any more than anyone ever expected to end the flu if we keep sacrificing freedom at the altar of public
049health we will end up with nothing but safety and no liberty or freedom and the pursuit of happiness will end having nothing but breath in our lungs there is no statute in the constitution by where someone with more education can take your freedom [Music] roy west hello my name is roy west and i'm the father of three sons which are currently her two sons are currently in bcsc three sons i have and two are in there i want to thank the board for voting to let the parents have the right to choose while attending back to school functions it was easy to see there was overwhelming overwhelming support for our children to be unmasked i know that voting to make mass optional was not easy for some of you and i appreciate that original vote
050i know that you're being pressured to reverse that decision now as you're pressured to remove the freedom of choice i would like to ask that you think about this for a moment if roles were reversed would you consider removing choice would you ever consider telling parents they were not allowed to send their children to school with a mask could you tell those parents they're not allowed to choose i bet the thought of that gave you a sick feeling of the pity your stomach that feeling is what i and many others have right now at the prospect of our freedom of choice being stripped from us there currently seems to be two popular options on masking parental choice and a mask mandate so what's the difference between them well with parental choice could you wear a
051mask of course you'd have that option and you should with parental choice could you choose not to wear a mask yes you could choose that with parental choice could you choose a hybrid approach where sometimes you wear a mask and sometimes you don't again yes you could do that you could have that option see parental choice isn't forcing anyone's beliefs on someone else so what about a mask mandate well with a mandate everyone will be required to wear masks regardless of their beliefs their choice is removed therefore mandating mask is effectively one group of people enforcing or imposing their thoughts and beliefs on another group of people i know some of you may be thinking freedom's great and all but your freedom isn't worth someone's life while i'm certainly glad the brave men and women
052of the armed forces have never felt that way [Applause] over the years they've gladly given all that they could for the freedoms we have in this country are we thinking of their sacrifices when we remove freedom in closing i respectfully ask that you remain resolute and steadfast in your original decision to give parents the freedom of choice [Applause] oh thank you brendan dunville good evening everybody thank you all for the opportunity to come talk in front of a forum like this to speak our minds to try to get our opinions out um first of all i want to encourage everybody just to stay curious to listen to understand and not to respond listen you have two ears and one mouth for a reason right so just let's all take everybody's comments be respectful and uh
053and approach this uh from a loving way my name is brendan dunville i've lived in columbus for uh well since 2008. i have three children all three will be in bcsc this year and i hope pray that the decision of whether or not to send my children to school wearing a mask will remain that of me and my family i'm an engineer by trade i love data but i'm not going to speak to any data tonight because quite frankly in the few minutes that i have a couple minutes now we could all use that time to find data supporting and refuting both sides of this debate so instead i'm going to approach from a qualitative standpoint which when the data doesn't support one answer that's where we go only myself and my wife can tell
054you how our our children are responding and reacting and dealing with this situation when they come home each day from being in school for six to seven hours with their face covered no one else here no one in any school has to handle that situation their emotions how they are living with that and coping with it and that's why i wanted to be my decision and my choice because i know my kids and i know how they're going to handle it i'm concerned particularly about my oldest son when we told him that this decision might be reversed he immediately got emotional sorry and it all my heart sank to know that he was already dreading the thought of going to school with masculine the way he did for the last six months i'm concerned about
055my middle son who's in the legato program which we love love to death it's a perfect place for him but knowing that his mouth and all of the mouths around him for he's going to be spending 80 percent of his day hearing a language that he's not his natural language his native language trying to form those sounds and learn how to speak without being able to see the mouth of his instructor i'm concerned about my three-year-old going to bright beginnings and also not being able to see the mouths of those around him who he's learning how to form sounds and speech and how that's going to affect his speech development beyond that of course masks muffle our voice i'm not wearing a mask because i want to make sure my voice is heard and so
056there's just the acoustics of it so much of communication is non-verbal to see a facial expression from here down or completely completely changes the message that is conveyed from a person in a conversation imagine a child who's already reluctant to speak introverted quiet shy and they have to repeat themselves over and over so their teacher hears them what does that do to their emotional state when they're already reluctant to speak but they have to speak up over and over and over in front of a situation they're uncomfortable in there's so much more there's data again on whether masks are even effective or not and all of those things 100 compliance the fit the quality of the mask just even if it's clean or not my seven-year-old last year was proud that he figured out he
057could drink his chocolate milk through his mask that was a big car he loved it but how dirty is that mask and how often do these masks get cleaned is everyone washing their cloth mask every single night is everyone throwing away their disposable mask and putting on a new one every single day and so without a hundred percent compliance without quality masks without fit and form and function the mask cannot be effective could you come to a closed mr dunville absolutely um i i will close just by saying for me for my family the detriment of wearing a mask having to wear a mask all day long for my children far outweigh the benefits we know there are benefits masks do have some effectiveness i understand that but i also know that in our situation
058with our health with our place in life it's not worth it to me and i'll be very sad if that's the decision that's made for us thank you justin starts don't all right try to talk quick three minutes goes by really fast thanks for being here tonight nice to see you guys again i spoke last time about contact tracing this time i'm going to speak a little bit about mass and i'll talk about that too i took a few notes from the the slideshow and i noticed that some people had said that to you guys that you're putting kids in harm's way by not having a mass mandate that's probably not a good feeling right to be told that you're putting kids in harm's way um i also saw some people on social media saying
059that right that dr roberts is putting kids in harm's way the school board is putting kids in harm's way well i also saw those same people dropping their kids off in car line okay so you either believe in it or you don't and people that are sending these messages telling people that that they're putting kids in harm's way that then turn around and drop their kids off well you either don't believe in it or you're a bad parent by your own standard 88 kids in two days it's a lot of kids i would ask that after we leave here tonight to follow up on what i asked you last time would you send if you would send some emails to the indiana board of health to find out if we could reduce the contact tracing
060or get rid of it i want to follow up on that and find out if anybody's fighting for that because 88 kids need to be in school what are the numbers how many of those kids got covered did they do we do we care to know are we just sending them home so science shows us i've seen science show us two different things mass work masks don't work aerosols right that's the big thing on the anti-mass aerosols go through we're not seeing um the numbers rise where there's no mass mandate and we're seeing your numbers rise where there is a mass mandate it's it's pretty hard the data is all over the board but i've been told and this is what i'm most concerned about that because i'm a person that doesn't have a degree
061in epidemiology that i don't matter that i can't voice this that because i build fireplaces and work for an hvac company that i shouldn't be allowed to speak on this matter i've been told that on social media from other people that because i'm not an expert that i shouldn't be allowed to talk on it the last time i checked i'm an american and that gives me my right i'm a very proud veteran father husband and baseball coach who loves his community and i do have a right to speak today i will not sit down i will not shut up and i will not comply i said to somebody the other day aren't we all thankful that the world didn't listen to the experts in germany in the 1940s that somebody was willing to step in
062because everybody in germany was listening to their experts [Music] what kind of world would we be in if we were all just robots listening to our experts experts tell us we're not supposed to drink smoke do dangerous things live life experts you'll find an expert to tell you not to do something on a daily basis we can't just be robots we have to ask questions and we have the right to have a differing opinion mr stoke could you summarize yes thank you so i would like on behalf of my children to ask you guys to to not have a mask mandate and on behalf of all the kids that can't be here today that don't want to wear a mask they don't work they're not doing anything for these kids in my opinion please thank
063you sarah huff good evening my name is sarah huff i actually sent you school board and dr roberts an email today with a powerful three-minute message from a functional family physician dr dan stock who recently spoke at the mount vernon school board meeting and he's getting a lot of press he had a lot of things to say that really resonated with parents people and i've sent you all the data you guys can can read through that but i want to summarize for everybody else if they've not had the chance to watch that video he made some really valid points that we will not eradicate a virus not any more than we have with the flu that a vaccine is counter to natural immunity and fights the virus in a wrong way which is why we're
064seeing variants become worse than it would be with natural infection this vaccine does not prevent infection or spread it only lessens symptoms and that we're ignoring other treatment options for cova 19 like active loading of vitamin d ivermectin and zinc which have had success in preventing hospitalization for peoples with infections so i'm just summarizing that you guys can read it yourself but i'd invite everybody and i'll send you guys an invite to come listen to dr stock speak september 30th he'll be here in columbus i also sent you guys a study from the university of louisville which i think we've sent before that shows that mass did not predict lower growth rates of covet 19. and otherwise stated they they didn't slow the spread so if they didn't slow the spread why are we discussing
065introducing them again to do the same thing over and over again an expected different outcome is the definition of insanity i could talk about the uk's approach to not masking children and multiple other studies and practices across the world but i don't have time in three minutes i also like some other people kept hearing that hey my voice doesn't matter that the people in power who have already made the decision for eu school board have already told people that master coming back for our kids guaranteed so how can these people be so sure when you haven't even voted on it how can it be when they haven't shown up here to voice their reasoning their rationale and their support for it how can it be when we heard that the majority of the 2000 community
066feedback surveys on mass optional plan was in support of mass optional is there something that we don't know going on in our community so i was going to bring my kids here tonight so that i could have you school board if you decide to vote in mass that you could tell them that you're going to dictate that they wear a mask when we know that they don't slow the spread of covet that you are going to dictate that they wear a mask even though we take preventative health measures to keep them healthy through supplements nutrition and exercise that you guys are going to dictate they wear a mask regardless of what their parents might choose that you guys essentially know better for our children but i didn't and i'm sad to say we had to
067make a really hard decision and we withdrew our children from bcsc because we want personal medical freedom we want to be have two-way communication with our school boards and accountability and we want to know that our voices are heard and i'll wrap up real quick because i know i'm out of time but i just want to say that i'm still here because i've not lost hope that we will come back to bcsc that we will restore a balance in our schools and communities that allow all parents to send their schools to school with peace and confidence it is the right choice for them so myself included in that and i'm also speaking for teachers and staff who want to have the same freedom those who don't feel like they can come up here and speak
068on their own behalf i'm also advocating for them so i'm standing for individual medical liberty and choice i this our freedoms do not end where other people's fears begin we all deserve a choice mask your kids don't ask your kids vaccinate or don't vaccinate we are all people we all decide can decide for ourselves thank you guys [Applause] so if i may amy manatee okay i would like to start today by referring to dr robert's recent statement that it's time to go from survival mode to thrival mode and looking at the way the school day started this year it's clear that you have the majority support in that approach a majority came to schools without mass while others felt comfortable and supported coming to school in mass parents are aware of the covid task force's
069advice to change the policy based on an increase in coba 19 hospitalizations but parents are deciding what is best for their child's overall health and development government agencies and task forces are not are only focused on covenanting they are not required to focus on any other aspect of the health of an individual as parents we do not have that luxury and we have to consider all areas of health and well-being for our children if we mandate mass again instead of making it optional we know all too well that those mandates are not easily changed we are now being told that vaccinated people are getting and spreading the current variant while being told simultaneously to go get the vaccine that is showing to be ineffective against this current variant we are not even a year into
070this vaccination process with this new information coming out with this new information i think the current contact tracing plan needs revised i think the unvaccinated individuals should not be treated any different than vaccinated there was not much evidence that students contacted students contacted cova 19 last year while sitting near someone in the classroom i do not think anyone should be kept out of school to quarantine just based on an exposure we should only quarantine individuals if they start to have symptoms the protocol of not implementing quarantine until symptoms is the policies of most businesses at this time the students who are at the lowest risk of harm from this virus should not have stricter quarantine guidelines than the adults do in the workforce as parents and as a community we need to ask more of
071our task force and our providers in this community the community and country as a whole has lost faith in the cdc isdh and american pediatric academy this puts a burden on our providers but is a burden that can be overcome we need a broader approach to this virus and we need the medical community to start opening conversations with each other about what more can be done besides masking and vaccination we need to be more open-minded and informed we need more open-mindedness and an informed plan of treating patients before they even arrive at the hospital we need to know that our medical community is working together to discover any combination of treatment that may work for patients and that they are not pressured into one uniform treatment by political influences we also need to know that
072they are listening to concerns of people who have had the vaccine and feel they've been injured or have had side effects we also need providers to address the concerns of those who are worried about the vaccine we need compassion from our medical community and a different approach besides just demanding mass and vaccinations as community members we need to find we as community members we need to find those providers who will listen to our concerns as individuals and find the providers that are willing to practice outside of the box of the current political pressure thank you [Applause] jenny heikelbeck before i begin i ask everyone here today to remember one overarching truth we all love our children and want what is best for them i think we can all also agree that in-person school is better
073for most students than is online learning if in-person school is indeed our goal we need to do everything we can to achieve it i am here to ask the school board to please institute mandatory mask wearing for all students and staff in order to keep our kids in school as long as possible as people who value education we must acknowledge and respect the expertise and guidance of our health care professionals those who have spent their careers dedicated to learning and practicing their craft their intent is not to deceive or control us but to issue guidance to keep our community safe as people who value education we must also be willing to learn from the alarming outcomes we see in other communities in our state and beyond who did not get out in front of this
074new delta variant those communities are now experiencing uncontrolled spread of illness unprecedented numbers of young people who are seriously ill and a shortage of hospital beds and medical personnel as people who value education we must believe in the science that has proven that mask wearing reduces the spread of covet which will in turn keep our kids in school in person for as long as possible we may be tired of masks and they may be an inconvenience but kova doesn't care what we think or feel making masks optional is a lot like telling kids that it's okay to pee in their area of the public swimming pool the problem is is that we're all swimming in the same pool if nothing else surely this pandemic has taught us that we are interdependent on one another whether
075we like it or not please our kids need to be masked in school as we all do when indoors in public to keep each other safe and to keep our students in school for as long as possible thank you i will continue to ask for respect of everyone that is speaking please michelle carr i want to first thank you for not asking people to give their address out in public i had many people write to me that they couldn't come up here because they couldn't share it with all the bullying that's been happening i am a mother and a substitute teacher i was here doing the same thing last year that i am right now and i felt that i was listened to but i wasn't heard so i kept my children on bridge the
076entire year and i was not alone in this my family sacrificed a lot in order to remain safe the only place my oldest went to was a c4 class that was held every other day for about an hour each time after two weeks my oldest displayed symptoms of covid the virus spread to three out of the four people in my household and quarantined us for a month i don't have time to describe to you how terrible our mild version of this virus made us all feel i cannot fully describe to you the fear and the helplessness that i felt as a parent knowing that my other two children had this virus that so many had been hospitalized and killed from these mild cases that gave my oldest and i long-term symptoms for the next six
077months we couldn't have the heat in our home above 70 degrees and we had to limit the use of the oven dry heat made our lungs tighten and it made it really hard to breathe because of this i was given an inhaler for the first time in my life my oldest son suffered from not being able to regain focus this is a result of being exposed at the beginning of the school year so i'm hoping this time parents will like myself will be heard over those who are bullying us online on the 5th of august this year new daily cases were at 1051 and the positivity rate was 7.4 same day this year we had 2058 cases and 8.5 positivity rate i checked on the cdc because the metrics wasn't up for our community and
078like you said it was a high spread this means we're not in a place of normalcy for back to school and with lack of any precautions we are not going to stay in person every day this year with four days of being open with a masked optional approach anderson had to quarantine over 100 students in indianapolis more than 80 4th graders had to do the same thing and this is merely the beginning i understand that not everyone is going to be happy with every decision made yet i'm reminded every time i speak that my concerns regarding health and the safety of others my response is this freedom comes with responsibility individual freedom is limited if it places other people in peril i can't smoke in buildings i am not allowed to drive a vehicle while
079intoxicated i'm wrapping up i have to wear a seat belt i can't drive while i hold my phone at school kids adhere to a dress code they are limited to the information that they can access and children over 18 are not allowed to smoke on school property individual freedoms are never boundless so it's silly to continue to use this as an excuse to yell loudly in a call for freedom remember we have the right of life over liberty if our leaders are willing to take the step to require a mask for a city and county i ask that these leaders please take the precautions we did last year and protect everyone at our school thank you gwen grossowski i'm tied didn't hear worthy yes it is my name is practitioner you'll have to pick it
080up quick this yes my name is gwen krasovsky and i'm a family nurse practitioner working in columbus for the last 14 years more importantly i'm a mother to two elementary school students in bcsc i am here today to discuss the common ground that i believe most parents and educators agree on in person school is best for our children i am thankful for my children's school and teachers last year who made e-learning seem as normal as possible however even with their best efforts it was nowhere near normal i have many patients who did struggle during that time not only with learning and keeping grades up but with depression anxiety lack of focus and lack of motivation i did not treat one student last year for anxiety depression or these problems because they had a basket at
081school it was because they were home and not in person with the threat of the delta variant its increase in ability to spread to infect our young kids and make them sicker than last year's kova did you have a responsibility to keep our kids in school and most importantly keep them safe the evidence over the last school year is clear masks decrease the spread of coven 19. however masks work best when they are worn universally while there is some evidence that masks provide some protection to the wearer they work best when everyone wears them i wear my mask to protect you you wear your mask to protect me it is undebatable that vaccines provide the best protection against this virus but are low vaccination rate among teens less than 20 percent and inability for children
082under 12 to yet be vaccinated show that this is not a layer of protection that we can yet rely on we now know that even those who are vaccinated are capable of spreading the delta variant without even knowing they are infected i read an article that explained each measure we take to protect against coven 19 is like a layer of swiss cheese individually they will help some but cases will still slip through the holes if we stack multiple layers of protection for our kids social distancing hand washing and masking the holes become smaller and less virus can slip through thereby decreasing the chance of quarantine or e-learning in other words our kids stay in person for school it is time to use all layers of protection now our community is in a dire situation we
083are now in this actually high spread i need to change that because it changed of coven 19 transmission with a stronger version of this virus now we are hearing that indeed this virus is making younger kids much sicker yet the headline in the paper on saturday indicated bc opens with a return to normal there is nothing normal at the beginning of this school year when it comes to this virus we cannot wish deny or ignore this virus away this virus does not care what our definition of freedom is it will continue to find the most vulnerable bodies vulnerable bodies which is our unvaccinated populations it will replicate and mutate to become stronger and will spread even further this will happen again and again and again until we can get more people vaccinated dispelling the misinformation
084surrounding the safety and effectiveness of effectiveness of vaccines is my job your job is to keep our kids safe keep them in school and help us to keep them healthy we cannot have it both ways we cannot have inconsistent masking and expect the virus not to spread the evidence is clear masks work make the right decision tonight and vote to require masks in school our children's education year will be better for it their health will be better for it and our community will be better for it thank you william reed good evening superintendent roberts thank you for the work that you do and the work that your team has done that email stuff has got to be crazy bcsc school board thank you for the work that you do i started off with an intro
085here that doesn't fit because very clearly there is pressure on you to change things so i want to start off with a general comment about statistics we hear a lot of them these days i mean we've heard them so far just both sides here and depending on who we're listening to the same number can lead us to two different conclusions now i know enough about statistics not as much as probably some but quite a bit to see the manipulation at play when context is missing and when correlation is confused with causation it's very important to understand the difference mask question overall that keeps coming up is a straw man yes safety yes masks are safety theater but more importantly it's distracting us from the real issue that's at play the real issue is who's in
086charge of you and who's in charge of your kids it's a simple answer in my eyes i'm responsible for me you're responsible for you you're responsible for your kids for people concerned about the latest virus you should do what you think is right for your family thank god we're in america and we have options we can get a vaccine not the kids yet but the adults can a lot of places don't have that benefit you can stay home you can order your groceries on click list you can wear a mask you cannot wear a mask i don't care it's your choice sign the kids up free learning move into a different school you've got options consider yourself fortunate the trouble is we've got an idea among some in power that the collective should tell the
087individual what to do it doesn't matter if it's fast scenes masks what's okay to say on social media i think we've got two things that are at play a political power play and a lack of faith in our fellow human to make their own decisions the former requires more time than what i've got here tonight one minute but know that collectivism is unamerican and i oppose it as to the second personally i have faith in my fellow american i think that they can excel and make good choices for themselves and their family i also know that they'll make mistakes we all do but we learn from them and we improve the next time around in america the individual is sovereign in but a very few select things that we delegate to government let's remember that
088so what we're seeing here in the mass debate is just another skirmish in the fight for individual liberty as the board you're lucky that you get to play a part in it i hope you'll choose liberty over statism [Applause] danny career i'm pretty sure i didn't do that name well i'm so sorry hello i want to say thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak tonight i'm actually going to be reading comments from a teacher who did not feel like they could speak tonight but feel strongly about the well-being being of our students these are the comments i have they have there have been multiple medical professionals coming to this meeting and doing work in the community offering their medical opinions in the fight against copenhagen i'm an educator here in columbus and my
089expertise is in knowing and understanding students every day myself along with 800 others are tasked with developing meaningful relationships with the students we teach it has been a joy and a blessing to see each of our students faces this year going back to school the feeling of complete normalcy is something that has been lacking over the 18 months and you can feel the difference it has made in our schools just as our medical professionals have voiced their opinions and their areas of expertise i can only offer my experience as it relates to the social emotional well-being of our students over the last 18 months i have received zero communications about a student having severe copin 19. however i receive more calls emails and personal communications with students parents and counselors about students struggling with their
090mental health than all of my other years teaching combined conversations with students advocating for themselves telling me that they do not feel like themselves and they just need more time to finish assignments emails from parents about how their child is struggling and cannot seem to get anything accomplished at school and calls from counselors informing me of when a student would be returning to school from a suicide attempt offering strategies make their return to make their return easier i know that student mental health doesn't fit neatly into a chart of per 100 000 cases but the impact is and will continue to be far greater on our students than that of copa19 normalcy is once again being threatened and my heart breaks for my students i have to see the disappointment on their faces as they
091re-enter the building with mass on the small amount of normalcy we are so looking forward to is being taken away again by science that is murky at best teachers know what a school feels like when the energy is sucked from it something demoralizing or tragic happening while putting students back in mass may or may not protect students from coba 19 it will 100 percent negatively affect their mental health of many of our students if this policy has changed you as a school board are actively hurting many of our students i am begging you to please reconsider unless you have a case so strong infallible in every aspect to be what is best for the whole student thank you thank you noelle taylor oh it's noel i'm sorry that's my granddaughter's name sorry hello yes okay
092as long as i get called to dinner i'm good all right um i'm dr noel taylor i've been in practice here in columbus since 1995. and uh i have several people pressuring me to make comments this evening and i've handed that off to somebody else so i'm going to make my own we've already heard in great detail how wonderfully masks work so i'm going to quote dr anthony falci march 8 2020 who says right now in the united states people should not be walking around with masks there's no reason to be walking around with the mask when you're in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet or two but it's not providing the protection that people think that it
093is and often there are unintended consequences now think of kids when you hear this next part people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face that's an unintended consequence dr ramon ofkowski a cardiologist in washington at a senate hearing in december of 2020 testified under oath masks do not work the wall street journal reported in november 11 of 2020 the projected number of lives saved in the implied case for mask mandate are based on a faulty statistic dr paul alexander a canadian epidemiologist wrote surgical and cloth masks used as their currently are have absolutely no impact on controlling the transmission of covid19 virus and current evidence implies that face masks can actually be harmful roger w coops a phd in chemistry from the university of california writes a mask and that term
094usually refers to either a surgical mask or an n95 mask has no benefit in the general population and is only useful in controlled settings and finally new england journal of medicine may 21 2020 said we know that wearing a mask outside of health care facilities offers little if any protection from infection let's see 46 seconds i guess i'd better wrap it up um you already have received by email the transcript of something that was presented on youtube which by the way has already been taken down so your transcripts are now worth a lot more dr dan stock in mccordsville indiana spoke at the uh shoot mount vernon mount vernon thank you board meeting last night and made some very good points the bottom line is you cannot stop the spread you cannot make these numbers
095that you've planned to get better by doing any of the things you're doing the cdc and the nih are prevent presenting information that is counter factual and it is simply sad that you have chosen to follow the cdc and indiana what is it called board of health guidelines because those guidelines are counter factual i hope that gives you some information if you would like dr stock's stuff in writing paper rather than email i've got that available thank you very much thank you alrighty anna i'm sorry thank you can you hear me okay yes could you clarify your name i'm sorry that's he's actually said it correctly anna denoyer oh wow all right thanks thank you um i'm a parent to elementary age children at bcsc my children are not able to be vaccinated yet i
096am vaccinated but i'm wearing a mask to protect my unvaccinated children the elementary school age population is unvaccinated and not by choice and we as a community have a responsibility to protect our vulnerable members including children students in the elementary school successfully wore face coverings last year and i understand that there were some students for which this posed some challenges the vast the vast majority of the elementary population had a great year and most of the time did not seem that they minded being masked as an added benefit the face coverings with face coverings the children were much less likely to catch other illnesses and missed fewer school days as a result with such low vaccination numbers in bartholomew county and with today's numbers rising the indianapolis star reported 350 new cases today in the
097state within the schools since opened i'm kindly requesting that the board considers requiring masks at the elementary age level for the for those kids that do not have the option to be vaccinated the benefits simply outweigh the negatives there have been studies that have shown that long covet and children prevent cause some learning issues brain fog things like that and what we're doing we're by by sending our kids in it's it's conducting a real life science experiment where we're placing unmasked kids together and enclosed buildings in the height of a pandemic i think one thing that we can all agree on here is that no one wants to go virtual again i think that's there's a lot of different opinions but i think that's one that everyone here can agree on all i'm asking for
098is to put masks on kids in the elementary age level until they can have a vaccine it's just a couple of months and it's just a piece of cloth thank you amanda deinfeld hello i'm amanda dornfeld i'm a physician here in columbus indiana for the past 14 years except when i was in new zealand for the last 18 months but i'm back i'm here to speak in supportive masks and i'll keep it very short and sweet because there have been excellent points made by my colleagues but i just want to keep my kids in school and i'm a mother to three kids in bcsc schools at elementary middle in high school and i think our best chance of that is to keep our kids protected with masks yes i understand the parental choice but as
099one of the other parents said and healthcare providers said a mask your my mask only protects you it doesn't really protect me and so we all need to be masked to have the safest environment and so to keep our kids from being quarantined and to keep my kids in school and your kids and all of our kids safe i think it's best to have the masks and i think it was a great analogy of the pee in the in the pool we all have to breathe the same air it's really inconvenient but it's a pandemic this is not a normal time so thank you for your consideration this is a really hard decision and lots of commentary so thank you thank you natasha singh oh i'm sorry i've just natasha singh here okay if she
100returns will remember bring back the end all right page two amy london [Laughter] good evening um first of all let me i just want to say congratulations to peggy myers i know she left already but as a life skills teacher myself for the last 22 years i wish i could be half the teacher that peggy is she is amazing so again she's a great great choice for that award i just want to share a few things with you because i know we've had lots of people speak cea and bcsc admin we accomplished a lot over the summer so some good notes to start on uh we now have a certified staff handbook we collaborated on the strategic plan we began informal bargaining had formal discussion and we started working with our new superintendent of human
101resources so as president i appreciate all that a collaboration yesterday i shared results of a survey that our cea members a small group of our caa members took with the board and with admin so you could see how that group of teachers felt about our reopening plan and the biggest concern they had obviously were masks and according to the data from those members that filled those out they were more comfortable if everyone was wearing a mask in the school buildings at bcsc well i'm not going to share the rest of the results with you because i know we have lots of time what i do want to share with you is that with any changes no matter how you vote this evening to our reopening plan ca wants to work with you to find the
102best solution for kids all teachers members are not and we'd like to do that as soon as possible so whether that be an emergency discussion meeting that we need to have soon but we would like to do that and i also would like to invite a member of the board to come and be a part of that as well since this is such an important subject to our whole community we're putting a list of questions together that members have things like are we going back to bridge what happens if i have to quarantine as a teacher so we'll share those with you so that we can work on that together i also want to thank admin for being consistent with meeting us with us for discussion and sharing information i think sharing information is the
103best way that we can reduce the stress of everyone teachers students parents everybody included um but i also think and i think someone said i heard someone say this earlier too no matter what we you choose to do tonight somebody's going to be happy somebody's going to be upset but the one consistent thing we have is tomorrow morning i'm going to get up and go to work as a teacher my own two kids are going to go to school thousands of kids are going to show up at school bus drivers are going to be there custodians are going to be there but we have to remember we all have a common goal we want everybody to be safe so cea would like to work with you to do that together so i look forward to
104talking to you more about that and scheduling hopefully some sort of a discussion meeting to talk about our plan thank you thank you tamiya oreo good evening i'm tammy iorio i'm a pediatrician in columbus and i've been working here for about 20 years i'm also a parent of two current bcsc students and two students who have already graduated from bcsc i don't want to repeat what's already been said but i do want to share what's happening in the world of pediatrics last year as many people have commented there was very little effect on children in general from coveted illness there were some rare complications something called misc that you might have heard of in the news but in general covid in children was very mild this year appears to be different so this is not
105just a conversation about what happens with elderly family members and neighbors or high-risk individuals kids are being affected with the delta variant i can say in the past four days in my office i know of at least five patients in our practice who tested positive for covid these patients ranged in age from two months to 20 years so really the entire range of ages that i would ever care for is it true that this is still much more of a mild illness in children i think some of that remains to be seen however there are many more kids in the hospital already lately than there were last year and i want to broaden the conversation beyond columbus even though the point was made that we want to talk about our own community and say that
106i contacted some colleagues who work in indianapolis at riley hospital and at peyton manning hospital for children these children's hospitals are full the indianapolis children's hospitals are full and it's august and that's not normal for pediatrics that's this is relevant though because this is where our kids go when they get really sick we don't have pediatric sub-specialists in columbus so if our children need specialized care from pediatric heart doctors pediatric surgeons pediatric cancer care they go to riley not all of the children who are in the hospital in indianapolis have covet but some of them do and we want our kids to be able to get the care they need we want all children to get that and when emergency rooms are full and children are spending the night there because they can't get an
107icu bed because there's so much respiratory illness including covet that does affect us here even if we're talking about indianapolis so the fact that we didn't see a lot of serious disease in children last year before delta doesn't protect us this year and it means we need to be we need to reevaluate the situation many parents and children don't like masks i get it we've been wearing them non-stop all day long for 18 months but many children are fine i see 20 to 30 children in my office every day we ask those over three to wear masks and they do not all have a problem with this i'm very grateful for the families who are willing to work with us and encourage their children to wear masks as i shared last month there were things
108we saw last winter in a busy pediatric practice like mental health issues including anxiety and depression as the speaker before commented none of that that we saw was due to wearing masks the anxiety and depression that we saw was related to stress at home stress not being in school so we also did not see a single demonstratable health problem that we can attribute to a mask so we the physicians nurse practitioners who are all here are not here because we have a personal or political agenda we're here because we care about the children and the families in this community thank you thank you lindsey anderson i'm sorry lindsay anderson hi there i'm lindsey anderson i'm an internal medicine physician with columbus regional health and i'm here to advocate for universal masking at our schools i've
109cared for dozens of patients with covet over the last year and a half many of whom still struggle with respiratory cardiac and neurologic complications i've grieved with patients who lost husbands wives parents and grandparents due to covid i've been asked by my colleagues to help care for sick inpatients when the hospital was overflowing and the doctors were getting infected and unable to work i don't think many people realize that there are limited resources when it comes to health care there are only so many beds in our hospital and when they're full you have to be transferred out there are only so many doctors nurses respiratory therapists and other critical members of our team when they get sick and have to call in to work the hospital can't operate the problem is the hospitals around us
110are filling up too this means if your child breaks his arm has an allergic reaction to peanut butter needs stitches or you have a heart attack get in a car accident or need emergency surgery you simply cannot get the care you would have prior to covid we all take for granted that if we or members of our family need health care we'll get it unfortunately that's simply not the case in the middle of this pandemic our local health care system has seen a strain on its resources like never before universal masking in schools will help avoid this most importantly i'm a terrified mother to two young children who are not old enough to be vaccinated against covid we know that the delta variant is nearly twice as contagious as prior variants we know that the
111number of children hospitalized due to covet has increased significantly just over the past few weeks the previous belief that children are not affected by covet is simply no longer true i'm asking you to follow the guidance given to us by the cdc aap state department of health community task force and our local medical staff all agree that universal masking will help contain the virus and will help protect our most vulnerable we already have policies in our schools around weapons immunizations bullying and many others all of these are in place to keep our students and staff safe students and staff don't get to choose to bring a weapon in school because these policies acknowledge that the decision of one student can detrimentally impact another student's life universal masking is no different thank you for giving me
112the opportunity to express my opinions today i'm hopeful that our community can come together and do what's right for each other even when it feels uncomfortable thank you tara hurwitz great question tara hurwitz h e r awesome superintendent roberts president chad and members of the board i urge you to make face masks mandatory in all bcsc elementary schools since july 19 2021 when the board last approved the current policy cases have increased by over five thousand percent we're now in the highest risk category and over a quarter of positive cases involve children under the age of 12. the case numbers now exceed the case numbers back in july 2020 when face masks were last mandated in bcsc schools while individuals over 12 can receive a vaccine most elementary school students cannot and while we should
113be able to rely on those 12 and older in our community to be vaccinated to protect those that can't unfortunately our vaccination rates in bartholomew county are under 50 percent the wrist to elementary school students remains roughly the same as it was back in july 2020 when masks were mandated bcsc has stated that it will continue to monitor the local spread and is prepared to make adjustments including the requiring of masks if circumstances dictate if bcsc won't mandate masks when cases that are increasing exponentially we're at the highest risk level and now local authorities not just national authorities are recommending math squaring then what will it take now i've heard multiple people testify about freedom of choice and cases being mild in children as reasons why a mass policy should not be enacted but i
114just wanted to point out that we already asked students to take health-related mitigation measures for illnesses that are mild in children but are designed to protect the community as a whole and one of those is the rubella vaccination every student that attends a school within the state of indiana is required to receive the mmr vaccine now we're all familiar with measles and mumps but rubella is a relatively generally a mild illness in children but the reason we as a society have made a determination to take this mitigation measure is to protect the community as a whole you see if a woman acquires rubella during pregnancy it has devastating consequences for a fetus so i'd like to think of masks as an extension of this long-standing policy of taking mitigation measures in schools that are designed
115to protect the community as a whole and the beauty of a mask policy is that if circumstances change if case numbers drop if vaccinations increase in our county and if vaccinations become available for those 12 and under this policy could be easily reversed dr roberts talked about the board acting or being agile making quick decisions and so again i'd urge you to make face masks mandatory in all bcsc elementary schools thank you thank you david porter my name is david porter i'm a family physician in columbus i've been here 24 years so i'm the old curmudgeon doctor i see a lot of adults kids i still deliver babies so i do it all for the most part this past fall they did ask me to come into the hospital and take care of folks that
116were sick with kovid so i have taken care of uh coven patients directly uh you know there's no hoax about covet it's very bad illness last year we were lucky we didn't have as much problem with kids this year we do have problems with kids getting sick i'm i'm tired of wearing a mask your medical professionals are tired of taking care of sick people but it's what we do and we do want people to remain healthy that is our our highest priority mass work i'm not sure why we're debating that but maths do work vaccines do work please i would like to get past the foolishness of debating that because they do work they do prevent illness if your surgeon comes into your operating room without a mask on you should run away so we
117were amassed to protect you we we're mass and protect our families i'm tired of being worried for my family i'm tired of my wife's a teacher i have a son who's a teacher i have a son who's a student we are very tired of debating this issue we need to protect ourselves we need to protect our children they are our most valuable asset so let's stop debating this issue please protect our children thank you very much i will ask again that we are respectful of everyone who is speaking here tonight rachel kirschner hello i'm dr rachel kirschner i'm a pediatrician and mother of four and the perspective i want to bring tonight is as a specifically a pediatric hospitalist so i have the sole responsibility of caring for the community's babies and children when they're
118in the hospital here at columbus regional and last year was a bizarre year in many senses of that phrase but our season for respiratory illness last winter was unlike anything any of us had ever seen we did not have bronchiolitis we did not have asthma flares we did not have covid kids inpatient we didn't have influenza because of masks masks worked they kept our kids safe we are seeing more children being more affected even here locally i admitted a coveted positive teenager two weeks ago who was previously healthy and within 24 hours needing transferred to the picu where she still is currently so i am begging and advocating for people to consider making mass mandatory to protect our children i am here to just convey this perspective that many of you have been blessed to
119not see thus far but as these parents who are watching their children struggle to breathe look up at me with tears streaming down their face they typically ask one question what could i have done differently and the medical community is telling you loud and clear vaccines and mass work and whether or not you choose to follow that guideline i will still show up every day every night all hours of the day and night to care for children and i will do my best to see that they get healthy but there are so many things that we need to do right now to keep this from becoming a big disaster so thank you for your consideration donna robbins hi thanks for hearing us tonight my name is donna robbins and my husband andy robbins has been
120a functional medicine consultant for 28 years he wasn't able to come tonight he was out of town so he asked me to read some things for him here are some hard facts about masks the types of masks that are supposed to protect us from viruses were never intended for that purpose their use with surgeons is to prevent droplets like mucus or saliva from dripping into an open suture during an operation they are not intended to prevent transmission of viral infection having said that masks are effective in stopping fungus bacteria and airborne particles that are visible to the naked eye but they are not effective for viruses because viruses are too small the holes in the cloth mask that allow you to breathe are 0.10 microns microns in size however a virus is 0.23 microns in
121size which is 625 times smaller than a human hair which means viruses will pass right through the holes in a mask like an insect passing through a chain link fence masks not only do not stop viruses but the things they do stop are like bacteria and funguses they get trapped on the inside and the kids continue to breathe them back in all day this was demonstrated in a school district in florida in june where parents sent in their kids mask to a local lab to have them analyze to find out what was on them the lab found no viruses but they did find several strains of pathogenic bacteria such as streptococcus pneumonia myobacterium tuberculosis e coli staph and the pathogens that cause sepsis meningitis rocky mountain spotted fever and several others is that really what
122we want our kids breathing in all day especially since the masks do not stop the viruses everyone is so concerned about this is one of the reasons that dr russell blaylock md in his paper face masks pose serious risk to the healthy he cited 13 scientific research articles showing that masks are not only not effective against viruses but they are also potentially harmful if worn for long periods of time dr anthony fauci himself in a response to an email sent to him by a lady asking his opinion on masks early in the covet situation said the same the viruses passed right through the material of cloth masks he wrote and i quote the typical mask you buy in the drugstore is not nearly not really effective in keeping out virus which is small enough to
123pass through the material yet that's not what has been telling what he's been telling the general public for reasons we don't yet know about here are a few other headlines about mask wearing the cdc in august 2020 said that wearing a mask during prolonged exposure to covid won't prevent possible infection they didn't define what prolonged exposure was but rest assured a child being cooped up with other kids and teachers all day is certainly prolonged exposure thus the cdc said masks are worthless in these situations stanford university published a study with the nih proving that masked and i quote are absolutely worthless against covid and there are tons of other articles and studies along these lines that you won't hear about in the media but for the sake of time let's move on about the delta
124variant itself the delta variant while more transmissible than covet is actually less virulent which means it's less dangerous it's a medical fact that when virus mutates it either mutates into something that is more transmissible or more virulent but almost never both in fact please summarize your time's up okay i'll try to do that it's very rare that a virus even mutates into something that is more virulent in this case the delta variant is indeed more transmissible but not more virulent and some medical experts have come out to say that the delta variant might produce symptoms similar just to the common cold so do we want to expose our kids to pathogenic bacteria trapped in masks that they breathe in all day like staph and strip and pneumonia just so we can stop the common cold
125the cnbc reported in june 2020 that the world health organization said that asymptomatic transmission of covid is very rare and the largest study in the world on kova transmission in china involving a staggering 10 million people showed that asymptomatic transmission of covid didn't occur at all that's pretty definitive proof why aren't we hearing about those studies in the news then there's the psychological damage to consider kids are being taught to live in fear in one another their social skills and their social interaction are being blunted because of not being able to express themselves or read each other's facial expressions but you need to summarize and please in summary the mask mandates were never about science but about control clearly the science just isn't there in favor of masks but it is there showing that they
126don't work and worse yet they cause physical and psychological damage thank you [Applause] rachel reed that's all right would you please use the microphone it helps everyone thanks sorry um uh i'm dr rachel reed i'm an ob gyn in our community for the last 12 years and thank you for allowing me the moment to speak i really don't have a lot in addition to say my colleagues have really said just about everything i think is important everything that this group needs to hear i would like to speak very briefly not as actually as much of a physician but as the parent of three children in the bcsc school system two of which are too young to be vaccinated we've heard a lot of talk about masks clearly i'm here to advocate for universal masking but
127i want to specifically speak to mitigation efforts you know we've sort of spoken a little bit the opening plans talk a little bit about you know the mitigation efforts sort of there's three points masking contact tracing and social distancing and um i just sort of want to say that the amount of distancing we're getting here is so much more than my children are getting in school right now and i completely understand why that's the case a lot of kids went back to school it's a big community but there is essentially no opportunity for social distancing in my children's classrooms which is purely leaving universal masking as our only real mitigation effort my children are already describing sitting hip to hip at the cafeteria tables in a cafeteria that has two full grades in it zero
128space my son is describing sitting at a desk in which his classmates desk is just right next to his to the point where they're touching constantly i get it it's elementary school it's going to happen but if universal masking is something we can do to try to decrease the risk these students are going to have every day in school it is an easy thing to do um and then i think just real quick i want to make the point you know i'm not just an ob gyn uh well i am but i that means i delivered a couple thousand of the babies in this community the children in this community but i'm also trained as a surgeon which means i've spent the last 20 years of my career wearing a mask wearing a mask for
129four hour six hour in my training eight hour long surgeries i know what wearing a mask is i know what it means i know what we are asking it is quite simply right now the right thing to do thank you aaron cole can you hear me that's perfect my name is aaron cole i'm a physician a family physician here at st crest family medicine in columbus i've been in this community about three years and it's a wonderful community i'm really thankful to be here the last 18 months half of my time here has obviously been traumatizing for a lot of people in a lot of different ways you know we we are as many people have mentioned we're all here because we love this community and we're trying to protect our children um one thing
130that i feel like isn't getting touched on enough when we talk about all of these prevention measures that some people are for some people are against is that nothing is certain and i think we all want certainty we want something that either completely works or it's not worth it we want a vaccine that is 100 percent or what's the point if somebody might get infected still we want a mask that is 100 or it's not worth the potential risk um which i'm still trying to figure out fully what that risk is i understand there are some a lot of thoughts on that when it comes to the social distancing you know we talked about a six foot rule the virus doesn't know what six feet is but we know the closer you are to somebody
131the more likely you are to get infected the virus doesn't know the six-foot rule but as science progresses about this virus we know that it is much less likely to spread past six feet it's not perfect when we argue these things when we say that they're not perfect it doesn't mean it's not going to help wearing masks is not perfect but it works as we could see from this winter it was as dr kirschner mentioned very strange to not have babies struggling to breathe on the floor from rsv that is an every year thing we saw so few children with respiratory issues this winter partially from a lot of e-learning partially from the extra masking that the entire community much of the community was doing we argue that viruses can easily pass through masks as
132we've heard from a couple of people here today from the not board certified functional medicine doctor who's going viral right now however many and most of these respiratory viruses are actually spread through respiratory droplets which are very much largely blocked by masks hence our quiet winter when it came to these respiratory bugs last year we had one child pass away from influenza in the united states it's usually between two and three hundred mass work please require them this year justin gifford thank you hi i'm justin gifford and if you don't know me i grew up here and went to bcsc schools and after some time away in ohio and india moved back down here to raise my kids they're in kindergarten at southside and second grade at southside and you'll note that both of them
133are too young to be vaccinated we are fortunate enough to be able to do bridge learning during covet last year and i'm going to go ahead and put air quotes around fortunate um but bridge learning was done in a response to a once-in-a-century plague whereas today we're dealing with covid for about 18 months but it seems to me that bcsc is treating the matter as if it were novel and it isn't clear what methods it can take to mitigate the risks we know how to mitigate the risks vaccination distancing and masks the kids are clearly fine with the masks they wore them last year what the kids aren't fine with is staying at home indefinitely and that's where bcsc's inaction and his current policy are going to lead infection to kids and schools are going
134to shut back down as i said i grew up here and i went to bcsc schools 17 year old me was an idiot because that's what 17 year old boys are but there's something that 40 year old me and 17 year old me agree on which is i'm not really impressed with bcsc's judgment calls i wasn't then i'm not now we've got a new variant of covid that's infecting children and is putting them in hospitals bcsc's current position is disappointing and um especially in light of the fact that about a year ago north women's cross country team was told that they weren't allowed to run in their sports brawls in the fall heat because somebody called to complain clutching their pearls that it was inappropriate folks women have been running in sports brawl since before
135i was in high school but bcsc told men and women they had to wear shirts in the september heat so that leaves me to wonder if you're going to force young men and women to don climate inappropriate clothing on 10 mile runs how come we aren't enforcing mass mandate to mitigate the risks of students contracting most deadly plague to appear on earth in a century last time he checked we still had to provide vaccine records for our kids to come to school and i'm fairly certain that although it's her favorite piece of clothing if my daughter showed up in her green bikini with the red poof ball fringe she'd get sent home so what's the hold up in protecting the kids by making him wear masks you guys aren't on the school board to make
136easy decisions you're on the school board to make the hard decisions that are in the best interest of the kids i would suggest you cowboy and cowgirl up and enforce a mask mandate thank you [Laughter] maris smith or marcus smith i'm so sorry sure i mean whatever whatever you signed up for maurice i feel like i'm at the wrong meeting but uh i'll talk about it anyway my name's marcus smith i've got two kids at bcsc and very impressed with the school system and appreciate all you guys do my concern is with the teaching of critical race theory and i guess from what i've seen i would oppose it and ask that it not be taught in our schools it seems and i would like to say that i am opposed to racism bullying and
137unfairness across the board i hate any of that and i don't want to see you but i see a critical critical race theory putting one group of people down to lift another group of people up my son had several several topics last year dealing with race and his classes and he came home with opinions that i thought were wrong and i definitely did not agree with also business and town is teaching um or requiring some of their staff to do race training and um these guys are leaders extremely well educated and they are just feeling oppressed and they are afraid to speak up and share what they believe and my concern is that that this will happen in school as well and so i do not want to see something taught that pushes one group
138down to lift another group up and i would definitely like to know what is uh what is going to be taught if critical race theory is being taught thank you very much mike sisk all right i'll note that one just in case amy hale hi um i'm amy hale i'm a local physician and many of the points that i was going to make have already been made but i just have a few additional things to add first off i wanted to point out at the last meeting that a lot of what we talked about was the fact that we can keep our kids home from school when they're sick that was discussed i think as a potential mitigation strategy so i did just want to point out and remind everyone that pre-symptomatic spread is what
139has made this virus so difficult to contain so that's just another point in my mind in favor of masks um i also just wanted to say you know we're tired i understand everyone is coming from a different place but those of us in healthcare we're we're really tired and we we don't want to take care of sick kids we don't want to see kids in the hospital that that's that's no one wants that um so so please know where we're coming from and understand that we we do care and this is coming from a place of caring we know this pandemic unfortunately is is far from over but all of our kids deserve to experience in-person learning this is not a normal school year but it doesn't have to be a bad one so please
140make the right choice for our kids thanks sivagama ramu sudaram a mother of all kids in my opinion am also an internist here at columbus regional health um i'm pained to hear how our kids are suffering masked or unmasked and i'm here also as a reminder that sarsko v2 which is the virus that we're talking about is still active and still a very true threat to human life i share everybody's frustration with this virus that has changed our lives so much in many ways but i also share the pain that so many of my patients experience all these months as well this is an infection that even if you're survived can have lasting symptoms for many months and many years maybe years so the strategy is not to get infected and if we do not
141to spread it to others one of my sons is six and so he's not vaccinated that mean that means he's more at risk for getting the covet 19 virus falling severely ill being hospitalized and possibly dying from it the only protection he can have is that he and the people he's going to be in close contact remain masked as much as possible even in the event that this happens he still has a risk of being infected however he may not experience the severe form of the virus because of likely low viral load and this is not just one son i'm here to speak of it's all my sons and daughters everyone all the kids who did not have the opportunity to do what we did at your age just be careful and be around their
142peers masked on on or unmasked the facts we know so far which we you know pretty much have gone through this firstly source cov2 is spread primarily from person to person through respiratory means sneezing coughing talking singing all these can release the virus into the air secondly there are new variants of sarco v2 off note the delta variant which is more transmittable transmissible than the common cold in influenza i have much to experience with the recent massacre that happened in india because of the delta variant of the virus i do not know what else to call it people died in scores and loss of life is not easy in shot we have a respiratory virus which is more transmissible with the potential to cause more severe disease and here in the us we know it
143affects the unvaccinated people disproportionately now who are these 12 years in about who are being misled because of many reasons and more importantly the precious under 12 year old children who are still waiting for their vaccines how do we protect these vaccine non-eligible population we know a very harmless but effective way masking i can break it down as to why there is no reason why you should not mask up and why it more importantly it is an absolute must if you're vaccinated you can still get the virus and if you're lucky enough to survive it you might spread it to someone who may not if you're not vaccinated but eligible it is your choice either to get or not get the vaccine which by the way has immense benefits but it is not your choice
144to decide on the health of another person because of your behavior if you're not vaccinated and not not eligible for the vaccine the only way to protect you is the proven ways of wearing a mask physical distancing and hand hygiene so even if you debate from any of these population groups there is no reason that can be given not to wear a mask believe me we do not enjoy wearing a mask it simply is a matter of doing what is required out of us in any given situation also i have not seen one patient in my office during these trying months die or fall ill from wearing a mask but i have lost so many of my dear patients solely to this virus so i do request that we as a society stop making unjustifiable
145excuses and make wearing masks it's cool mandatory we need to do this right now before we lose anyone as my colleague says when it comes to kids even a point zero zero zero one percent fatality is just too high i thank you for this opportunity to bring forth my thoughts and i hope you decide on a solution that will keep our kids happy and more importantly alive and healthy thank you very much stan mcgiffin sorry my writing is pretty poor it's ian but uh oh i'm sorry no not a problem i was scribbling on there um so if you remember last time i was here i brought up the topic that i felt that the masked media is just grossly inadequate for a virus that's already been brought up the other piece that you continue
146to see in the news see here right is the cdc and everything's always read if you look at the positivity rate when you guys voted on mass last in bartholomew county i believe it was point eight percent and now it's up to one point two percent so if i was a if i was part of the news i would say that's 50 increase it's a huge deal right headlines everywhere but 50 increase of a near zero number is still near zero so we're still not in a do or die situation here i would propose that we wait it out see how things go a little bit give the original decision some time um to assess it i guess the other piece that i really wanted to come here today for was to kind of just
147give kind of a personal testimony from my family i've got a nine-year-old and a six-year-old and it was mentioned earlier that kids don't really care whether they wear masks or not and honestly my children didn't complain much about it wasn't a huge deal but knowing seeing the writing on the wall for this how this year was going to go i asked them directly if masks are not mandated would you rather go to school or would you rather home school just to give you a little background i've got one child my nine-year-old that's pretty social doesn't play with themselves i expected him to pick school no matter what um and then i've got a six-year-old that does like to just do his own thing i expected him to pick home school no matter what the input
148conditions were so i changed the input condition just two different ways with masks and without masks so without masks my both of my children surprisingly said they wanted to go to school so both the one that i expected and the one that i did not expect wanted to attend public school switch the inputs what if we mandate masks what is your what would your decision be between public school and home school and they both chose homeschooling it turned both of them with just that one input changed so it's it's a big deal they really didn't complain much about it their issues they had was my oldest son had a headache most days that he attributed to he thought maybe it was the way it was pulling on his ears it could have been the co2
149that he's breathing back in because of the masks who knows but that was a piece of it and then my youngest child he didn't really complain but he chewed through i don't even know how many masks put holes in them literally in kindergarten so i mean it's just not a useful mandate i feel like and i'm obviously on the parental choice stance here in my opinion it's it's we live in america and so we're in a free country and we should be allowed to make those decisions for our children thank you thank you jennifer thomas all right can you hear me all right my name is jennifer thomas and i'm an ob gyn physician and parent in columbus indiana thank you for allowing me to speak i appreciate everyone's hard work in making such an
150important decision i just wanted to reiterate what my colleagues have said in regards to recommending universal masking in school as physicians here tonight we've all dedicated our lives to caring for the health and well-being of our patients and community we do not take this lightly at all we are constantly searching and educating ourselves on ways to improve this care and with covet in the past year it is no different for the time being we have the vaccine social distance and masking and with children who cannot yet get the vaccine we are left with mass and social distancing our plea is that we mask up for now for our community and numbers to decrease so we can finally take off our mass for good thank you i just want to check again the two names that
151i mentioned earlier natasha singh okay all right thank you for letting us know and is it mike sisk all right thank you all very much that's the end of everyone who signed in i'm sorry did you see yes i'll give you three minutes sorry i did not my name is jason major m-a-j-o-r i had no intention of talking tonight i will go home tonight and i will have learned a couple of things it seems like half of the group is four mass half the group is not i don't want to impress upon you the need to wear a mask or not wear a mask what i want to impress upon you is the importance of having kids in school all right and i would ask mr edwards if you would please stand up just for
152a second just so everybody knows who you are earlier this year my daughter had a friend at east who had contemplated suicide this individual was doing some cutting on their arms they shared that through snapchat with my daughter i went into school after seeing just enough of this that i could not handle seeing this kid hurt himself anymore i walked into the office the office granted me some time to talk to mr edwards he was kind enough to listen and he was gracious enough to act and i just want to commend him and the rest of the school for taking the time to work with that student i am 100 confident if school was not in session that child would have never got that kind of attention and so as far as i'm concerned i
153i i don't i believe in freedom too i don't think you should require a mask that's that's something i think that we should be able to choose but at the same time i'll also ask you guys as a board to not go back to a virtual element of school because i do think that having the kids with each other around each other even though there might be some drama but i believe that that is the best opportunity for all kids to learn all kids to grow and for them to get the help they need so thank you mr edwards all right that is the list of individuals who've signed in again we appreciate very much you've taken the time to be here the sun has set it is dark outside as i'm looking so i
154appreciate the time that you have all been here with us it's been a valuable information it's been very thoughtful i appreciate the research the references that you all have given us to read so thank you for that as well we do have more to do this evening so i'm going to continue on on our agenda and it is time for our what and our board commendations so to my colleagues mr grimes yeah i'll try to do this one quick but i would like to mention uh the bands of columbus east and columbus north combining um this year to form the sound and spirit of columbus and um under the director under the leadership from north the band directors mr munoz and mr burton at east mr rogers and mr brookshire and i uh reached out
155to each of them to just kind of check in and see how things were going in regards to that uh collaborative effort between the two high schools and mr rogers uh was able to share with me that it's been a wonderful experience so far he really thinks the community will be able to see the advantages as they perform at home football games at both schools and he says that the students have worked extremely hard and have all helped each other and been incredibly encouraging of one another and then from mr munoz he said that the directors spent three months prior to the combining of their forces on a daily basis preparing for the change and he is happy to report that it's been near perfect since they started he said the camaraderie of kids is
156some of the best he's ever seen in his career and excellence pride commitment the three points that they are trying to emphasize and then lastly to quote mr munoz when our seniors graduate regardless of which school they attend daily they will come away with a set of life skills that prepares them to be positive empathetic and committed citizens of their community so i you know wish them well during their competitions this year and look forward to seeing them in action august 27th at the northeast football game all right thank you for that highlight are there other commendations from colleagues all right school board member reports any committee meetings so far all right cabinet reports we have dr pleek on the agenda about good evening again i'm coming to share with you it is an annual
157expectation that we share our teacher evaluation results with you before august 15th each school year and here is just a pretty graph picture it doesn't give any numbers or anything like that that gives you since our inception of this rubric nine years ago of the overall results of the different areas of the evaluation and i will get into more some more information in the next slide but one thing i do want to point out is here under the academic success we do see an increase in here with the learning outcomes something that could have been a part of that increase was for the academic success in 2020 july july 1st 2020 the school letter grades for standardized test scores were allowed to be removed to school corporations chose to do so and bcsc did choose
158to do so at that time so it's no longer a requirement that could have impacted the score going up and also the learning outcome here is we did have a few lines four lines and we merged two of them together because it was very redundant language that could have impacted not sure but i just wanted to tell you the differences in the since last year now the pretty graph now to the data numbers of the evaluation system this shows you the different years the nine years are different categories and the overall averages and i just highlighted the top one consistently each year continue the trade that ms heine did over the years she always highlighted the top one and one notable difference this year is we did see the udl as far as being the
159top category very slightly and another thing we do tend to like to do is look at the where our teachers are coming from and the universities they attended i will tell you that if there were any groups under five i did not include them for risk of not wanting to make them known to others and being able to identify them and out of all of our accounts of all the universities there are over five here i will show here foreign country we had six that over six there from other countries and right here is a big number 156 out of state since they were graded five we did count them in the group here for you to see and i highlighted the top three in each category unless there were two ties then we had
160the top four felt like the olympics there a little bit so top three got recognized and in that some consistency you can see throughout but then you can look at the numbers in the count as well you have this previously to be able to review apart here the years of experience something we always want to look at where our teachers are and for the 2021 school year we had 337 teachers with your zeros to five and i do want to make you know that this is bcsc years of experience this does not necessarily mean years of experience in the profession this is bcsc years of experience six to ten years 114 11 to 20 151 21 to 30 102 and plus 30 24. i hope those 24 keep staying we need all the veterans we
161can get and this just shows you the overall averages account and the overall average and one thing that you'll see is the trend typically is the more years of service the higher the evaluation scores so some general information i do need to make a correction here where this says dude in cova 19 that should be the top line right here and because i thought somebody might ask well how does this compare to the 1920 school year i didn't do a good comparison of that because 1920 it was a hold harmless year due to coven and so teachers could can keep their same score if they wanted to from the previous year our new teachers were evaluated for the new tool but also if teachers could request a new evaluation if they wanted to so it's
162not a great comparison for that year as i mentioned the school letter grade line item was removed for that year due to law passed and a highlight that i saw was 62 percent 10 years or less of bcsc experience so we have 62 percent 10 years or less of bcs experience and of that 62 percent 6 percent zero years of bcsc experience and the average certified staffs bcsc average of years experience for our school corporation 10.1 years questions from colleagues i'm curious what were surprises to you the surprises not necessarily a surprise it's just our years of experience one thing that i do know i can't i have to give some accommodation there to nick williams he did help me pull the data and help me put it together and as that i kept asking
163more and more questions of him so i think next year we may have an additional slide i would like to know years of experience in education overall to be able to compare that information to the bcs year's experience and we can see what impact referendum has on that and then of the 728 teachers 44 had zero years of experience i wanted to make sure to look at that as well and no other additional surprises to me we know enough in education to sometimes not be surprised how does any of these results impact what we think about for professional development or what we might focus on before the present presentation tonight i did meet with amy london and review the results with her and share that information as well as cabinet has this information as well
164to look at that obviously we always look for great opportunities to expand the knowledge of our instructional framework udl as well as as well as our behavior framework of pbi guests so there's always some discussion of how we can improve those efforts i know we did have a great virtual turnout to our udl institute so we're very grateful for that that many educators took advantage of that but it's up to the schools individual schools to look at the needs of their buildings for the pd they offer and it's up to us at the district level to decide what areas we need to move in as a corporation for overall for everyone okay thanks thank you any other questions all right thank you very much thank you thank you nick for all that work as well
165so i'm going to supersede this that is all right as dr roberts mentioned earlier um given the amount of work and research and comments that we've received we wanted to put as a separate item the boards vote on um the revision to our plan of action related to the virus and i don't know if you want to show that again if there now that you've heard comments if there are questions that board members have this would be the time so as we get into that letter a is in regards to the reopening plan so my recommendation to dr would be to take letter a if you're so inclined you make a motion on that particular one and then once that vote is done we can go to the rest of them as consent agenda items
166the minutes the supplemental contracts so which would be b through h is what we would have remaining there so we would just separate that piece sure thank you for the clarification so to start our conversation i do need a motion to approve the plan of action revision as presented to us so move thank you mister thank you pat mr bryant are there i need a second second thank you dr bills now we can ask questions you you look like you have a question mark right there yeah thank you so there there were comments regarding quarantine guidelines can you just remind me exactly what our quarantine guidelines are and where those come from how we modify this yes service we'll um i'll try to and then ms thompson kelly wherever you are i might need need
167uh backup so the quarantine the the state requirement starts with the identification of a positive case and so once we identify that positive case we are then required to determine who the close contacts are and once we identify the closed contacts we begin the quarantine process um the the quarantine days that we are requiring of those close contacts is 10 days and does vaccination status impact the it does thank you yes so with our current um guidelines it would be a an individual who is able to to determine or demonstrate that they are vaccinated would not have to quarantine individuals who are unvaccinated or do have to quarantine that's that's been in the plan since the beginning ms thompson any additions to that are there other questions regarding the revision as presented to us all
168right oh silent one i will call the question then those in favor of the revision of the plan has been presented to us if you signify by saying i i i and those opposed all right dr those revisions have been approved unanimously thank you then i would also request the next set of items which begins with letter b the minutes of the regular school board meeting from july 19th as well as those from the strategic planning session of july 30th supplemental contracts field trips professional leaves the school fundraisers list as well as the claims and payroll that is listed there we have claims that are dated august 9th of about 1.5 million we have a pre-run from the month of july which is about 16.3 million dollars of expenses that we had our payroll covers
169two different sets of times so june 21st to july 2nd and july 5th to july 16th those total about 4.3 million dollars we have a resolution to establish the savings parameters and to hire the underwriter and bond council mr phillips at the public hearing today in regard regards that or in response to that i would ask for that approval additionally we have permission to receive bids for the hvac building control projects and dr bozeman reviewed that those at our last class for me so that those are the additional items i have for your approval all right i could use a motion for items e through h yeah b through h yes um thank you miss wilden thank you for that motion in a second thank you mr grimes are there any particular questions about these
170items for dr roberts or his team all right all those in favor of items b through h as they've been presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i those opposed all right dr roberts those passed unanimously thank you dr pleek one more time i request i request approval of the human resources recommendations as presented this evening all right thank you we did have a corrected list for the special contracts in front of you as well because not all of it uploaded correctly to your board document pdf that you have it cut it off at a certain place so those additions are in front of you all right thank you i noticed that thank you i have a may i have a motion to approve our human resources recommendations as presented to us so
171moved i'll take mr brian because i heard him first and second dr bills is that fair all right any particular questions for dr pleek all right those in favor yes real quick two days in are we doing okay you're okay staffing and all the classrooms we have 102 teachers hired and we're looking for a few more but um we're two days in thank you for that all those in favor of the human resources recommendations as presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i i those opposed there you are dr pleek this is our opportunity for individuals to offer their input their comments i'll ask of each of you mr grimes yeah um just uh thank you to all the speakers here um this evening from no matter what side you're at and i
172will try to get through this quick but i would like to you know share a few things and as a parent grandparent and sitting here as a board member i sincerely believe there are legitimate concerns on both sides of this highly emotional controversial issue i also think either side could find no shortage of information supporting their views i also know its human nature to gravitate to the information that supports our beliefs causing our beliefs to become even more extreme and as a teacher i know masks aren't fun for kids they're not fun for teachers you know as a teacher i want to see kids faces their reactions their smiles and even occasional you know expressions of concern and i know there's there's really no debate that mass do make teaching and communication more difficult but
173i also know as a teacher the turbulent last year and a quarter going back to two school years ago the last quarter the adverse impact of being away from school did to the kids learning their mental health their motivational levels and the list goes on and on and sitting here as an elected official you know that's not a responsibility i take lightly and i think it's important for us to consider all feedback comments concerns from community members and and truly consider them with an open mind and on top of that as as a representative of district 3 i know we all received a lot of communication emails but as a representative specifically of district three i think again as an elected official it's particularly important for us to listen to the constituents of those we
174represent and i know the emails that i received personally from those who reside in district three um were all strongly in favor of a reopening plan similar to the one that we just voted on and then looking at our policy manual again guiding our thinking and i think this came up at the last board meeting first and foremost letter a under board member ethics it's thinking always in terms of children first and thinking about that and again there are so many opinions out there but i i really believe the health and safety of our kids their families and community members helped guide my decision along with another point that was brought up this evening the importance of keeping kids in school and they need to be there and whatever we can do to increase the
175likelihood of that happening and not having to go back to a virtual environment i believe that we're obligated to do that and then lastly i think it's just important for us to continue to remain flexible moving forward because i think about the only predictable thing about this is the unpredictability of it and we know things can change in a very considerably in a short amount of time so that concludes my statements thank you very much miss wilden i would just add to that and say i think the plan we approved on july 19th was the right plan with the information that we had at the time and i think the plan that we approved today is the right plan given the information we have at this time and i encourage and know that the administration
176will continue to just look at the data and they'll help steer us in the right direction as we go forward so i think all of our goals is to make this wave as short as possible and hopefully this will get us there thank you mr stenner switching topics i i am going to continue to follow the amazing story that came out of east high school though terrible accident and the life-saving actions apparently of a couple of students just amazing and it made me feel scared and good all at the same time correct yes we have a lot to be proud of dr bills you know mr grimes and miss boyden just and said everything that kind of i wanted to say about tonight i thank everybody for their emails and their input tonight whether you're
177you know happy or unhappy with the decision that was made tonight but i i agree that in july i felt like it was the right decision and then today i felt like it was the right decision so thanks for saying that that's all i have mr bryant i just want to say that this is not something that is in stone uh it could change in the next month or so so though if you didn't get your way or didn't get you away far as a vote is concerned tonight uh it's not over you know it's unpredictability i mean we're gonna look at it and continue to look at it our way through the school year right up until the very last day thank you for that i think what i leave with is that there
178are so many people we all share caring the most and the best for our kids and i believe that everyone here depending upon what they had to say particularly or caring first and foremost for their kids and that's what we are here about i appreciate all the information that was shared with us i think we made a decision in alignment with what our city has done what our county has done we do i think the second thing i want to say is we all want them in our schools we know that they do better they we know that they do better having a close relationship with our teachers with each other and working collectively so those are our two primary drivers and i believe that was the driver of absolutely everyone that we heard today
179and i thank everyone for that and we will continue to learn i trust our administration to be i believe our word has been agile so as new information comes to us as our city and county get healthier if you will and our decisions at that level are made more positively that we may not need some of the guidelines that we've approved tonight i respect that our administration will make those good choices for our kids and for our staff and teachers as well dr roberts i think plenty has been said dr shep but thank you for allowing me just to add a word or two i think from a plan standpoint that mentioned they're not setting in stone and i think that is critical i from a personal as well as professional educators standpoint i hate
180to put mass back on our kids walking through the building buildings on monday or it should be on friday and or today and actually seeing smiles in the classroom was something that we had not seen for quite some time and and that that matters it is a big deal but given the circumstances we indicated our last meeting that as information changed we would we would adjust to that i agree with miss wilton that the circumstances today took us to a certain place but i appreciate the agility that you've added to the plan by giving the administration the opportunity to continue to look at the data and pivot quickly as opposed to waiting for a board meeting two weeks from now or next month or we do have situations where the meetings are one time per
181month coming up with breaks and so that gives us some additional flexibility that i think was a very important part of the revision that you made this evening so thank you dr shed i wonder if dr roberts could also spend a minute talking about the phase in of the planned revisions that we adopted tonight sure mr stenner and we'll need to work on those but in terms of timing um as i think everybody saw on the plan the actual effective date is wednesday so realizing or believing that this meeting might last a little bit of time tonight and communication might be a little interesting heading into tomorrow we will use tomorrow to have communication and then adapt wednesday thursday friday so we will use this the three days of this week as that adjustment period
182of time from a mask and every other mitigation strategy that was that was changed dr hack and mr jensen will be in communication with their principles on working through that i have had conversations with miss london in case changes were made as to what we might need to do what would be the direction to give to teachers um what would again be the the work with administrators so much of tomorrow will be spent on adjusting and getting ready for wednesday and the changes that will take place thank you and then evaluate the end of the week and see with those changes what does it look like after after three days of adjustments thank you all right we are finished and this meeting is adjourned