001okay welcome to august 23rd 2021 regular business meeting of board of school trustees held in public with a start time of 605 this evening if we can start i'll rise we'll ask mr hoffman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the fire of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice may be seated thank you mr hoffman all right to start our meeting this evening we have patrons comments item 2.1 will be patrons registered to comment on educational issues what i would like to do is we do have at this point we do have six names registered i'd like to go through the guidelines so that everybody understands the board will hear patrons legal residents and
002center townships or winfield township wishing to comment on comment on educational issues at the regular business meeting of the board of school trustees held in public patrons must sign the sheep provided back the room which we have and when their names are called to add to the address the board they'll move the podium in front of the room state their names spell them we spell them if we need them for record keeping address the topic topic that will be addressed patrons have prepared written statements on a topic they may present at that time a limit of three minutes is allowed to each speaker and this portion of the meeting during which participation public is invited shall be limited to 20 minutes unless extended by a vote a vote of the board speakers are to refrain
003please from speaking on personal issues and student issues so we can begin we have first on the list jimmy fox if you could come forward to the podium please state your name and address my name is james fox my address is 13036 cleveland street i currently have two students enrolled at lake street elementary i have a concern and two questions well question and two concerns uh on wednesday the kids went back to school on thursday i got a call from my neighbor asking if my first grader daughter was uh being sent home and i said no he said well i have to pick up my little guy uh apparently there was contact in the classroom a kid tested positive uh the parent was pending uh waiting on the test result to come back decided to
004send the kid to school regardless i never received a phone call from the school uh ten kids from that classroom were sent home my daughter and his son their desks face each other there's four desks in the group they sit across from each other i never got a call from the school i recall last month they were saying that we would get phone calls if there was any possibility of contact i don't understand how there was no phone call i think communication was like a big issue a big topic last month when we talked about it i still haven't gotten a phone call i texted the teacher asked her if she'd give me any rundown how are they determining who was in contact or what she said she didn't have an answer for it so
005that's that as far as the masks on the bus i know you guys made that a a priority that the kids had to wear the mess on the bus on wednesday thursday and friday as the kids were getting off the bus i noticed a lot of that nine kids getting off probably seven of them were as red as my grip and sweat ask kids what are you guys doing on the bus you jump around you run around now we're just sitting there so there's a sign seating on the buses obviously all the kids from our vicinity of six houses where these 13 kids are they all play together so they're required to sit with each other they have their mass on the windows are up they said that the bus driver has a small fan
006that blows on her the entire time these kids are sitting in a sardine can for the 25 minutes that they're you know right into school uh on the way home kids are pouring sweat i don't think it's it's healthy for them i talked to a lady that lives down the street she's uh got to stop before us she said her daughter got off the other day and she sat down with her she's been very hot face with red sweating you know i know we're heading into this sir yeah i know we're heading into cooler months and it should get better but something's done they're not even opening the windows on these buses this is kind of crazy these kids are first graders you know they don't know how to do it i think it needs
007to be looked into and also uh i talked to another neighbor and he has a sixth grade daughter and from my understanding the sixth grade girls are riding the school bus with high school boys i don't know if that's something you guys are aware of but it might be something you want to look into thank you for your comments just a reminder i do believe i stated in the guidance but uh as mr fox came forward as is just comments we won't com we won't you know engage conversation or go through questions during this opportunity to comment so thank you next on our list we have i'm sorry i can't read the first name but it looks like pierce i was small i wish to commend the school board and it's re in its recent
008decision to not promote critical race theory and all to avoid asking the children at all times expanding on the first issue all parents need to understand what critical race theory is and how it hides under different titles of intersectionality structural racism systemic racism implicit bias white privilege state violence against certain groups power racism colonization so that parents can respond accordingly if these topics come up to quote ronald reagan trust but verify pro-american education not alienating children from their own country is the goal secondly masking i believe works to keep people apart which can be a benefit in crowds masking on buses and possibly in hallways which might become necessary due to variants in the virus which have just appeared such as the delta and lambda which is causing a considerable new infection risk prevention is
009important with hand washing taking vitamins immunization with vaccine is becoming an obvious need we're indicated and should be strongly recommended and i discuss your concerns and you should discuss your concerns with your doctor just to make it more difficult recommendations change viruses mutate treatments improve so keep an open informed mind and stay healthy thank you thank you [Applause] kaylee chicky my name is kaylee chicky and i live at 1 three four five four cardinal lane cedar lake um first of all i just want to say thank you for um making the mass mandate go away at crown point high school i have um asthma that i was diagnosed with a couple years ago and i have friends that have been diagnosed with the same thing and it made it really hard to breathe in the
010masks and the positivity definitely is so much better this year i've only been going to school for four days and it's already a better year than last year was and i just wanted to say thank you for that because this is america and it's our right to choose and if people do want to wear a mask then that's also up to them and i haven't really seen any mass shaming or anything of the sort so i just don't really think it's been a problem and i hope that we can continue [Applause] thank you kaylee um olive santos stefano [Music] can somebody help her with a microphone please thank you i just want to make sure everybody can hear her thank you mr angel there you go i just wanted to say thank you for letting
011us have the choice to wear a mask or not it's so nice to breathe fresh air and see everyone's faces again now we are able to do fun things that we weren't able to do last year [Applause] it's like emily valerius emily valerius 13414 cedar street and cedar lake um thank you for your willingness to listen to the parent concerns and students um i am concerned that there are many more harms oh my topic is quarantining i'm concerned that there are many more harms being done than good quarantining healthy children with close contact for 14 days the isolation lack of social and physical activity and boredom from doing school from home or quite frankly not even doing any school is unmotivating and depressing our children's do everything right everything we ask them to everything you
012ask them to from taking their temperature sanitizing cleaning dust sitting away from their friends at lunch wearing the mask on and on and they still get punished and shamed and sent home to be isolated even though they are perfectly healthy for doing absolutely nothing wrong and what about the kids in our district whose parents cannot be home with them for 14 days or don't have the capacity to oversee what they are doing or provide them support needed to get school work done the amount of stress this causes to families of healthy children is causing more harm than good they will fall behind and they are not getting a proper education it appears that you are doing things that are not useful to our kids by taking direction from the indiana department of health on this
013issue who i believe do not take science into account before they put the stuff out there this virus isn't going away no one can make it go away any more than the flu or the common cold before getting the advice from the indiana department of health what if you asked why are we doing things like quarantining healthy children for close contact tracing that we didn't do or don't do for the flu you will be chasing this virus into perpetuity by following this guidance quarantining healthy children with close contact 14 days is not sustainable instead of making decisions based out of fear could there be an alternate alternative solution in may i had a phone call with the superintendent's office and i asked about gathering information on these healthy kids who are being quarantining have they
014gotten any of the symptoms have they gotten sick and i was told um no that wasn't being done and why not because you know the nurses don't have time for that which is understandable but maybe ask for a parent volunteer to do it or hire an additional admin with the coven funds received collecting this type of data could have served very useful making future decisions and still could what about creating a cover covered waiver parent sign taking all the risk and holding the school corporation harmless to avoid the risk of being sued if that is a fear what if you said we are not going to allow this to go on instead we are going to stand up against this nonsense and we are going to stand for our students we want you to stand
015in the way of anybody that tries to deny our children a proper education or stand in the way of anybody trying to lock down and isolate our healthy children please stand for the kiddos thank you [Applause] thank you emily and anne and brandon pence this is my son brandon i don't know if you guys can hear me with the mask um cloven has hit my family really hard my son is autistic and takes everything literally when kovid first shut us down he would see somebody walking their dog and he would run screaming back into the house we had no transition this year now i get a phone call after all the schools were closed today to tell me that he gets the quarantine at home until september 4th how is he supposed to get his
016education now i have nobody to give me answers he just got back into school his first day of school he did not eat or drink one thing at school because he had no place safe to go do you want to tell them some things tell them um i wore my mask every day and um the only time i took it off was to eat stuff did you drink anything yet no why not um i didn't bring my water [Music] so now we are dealing with more anxieties of being told to stay home for two weeks because he was exposed on the bus his brothers was exposed but he made it through his two-week vaccination plus he gets to still go to school how are we going to deal with this i know nobody from special
017education is going to be able to give me an answer by tomorrow we didn't he didn't even get to make it through a full week of school before he's forced to stay home give us the option to distance learn or something so that we have consistency all year long for him i know you guys can't give me answers but i need somebody to give me an answer give him an answer you have anything else to say tell them how you liked going to school i finally got used to going back to school but um this will make it harder because i'm going back to staying at home why because you were exposed 14 days to keep this kid at home who's coming to educate my kid there's no distance learning how am i supposed to
018teach my kid all these subjects like seriously i need to know and i want to know now i'm sure that's probably time [Applause] we don't we do not have anybody else signed up for a comment we'll move forward the agenda and this we move forward with the agenda at this time consent agenda dr terrell thank you for your consideration this evening on our consent agenda we have the minutes as presented in 3.1 we have the approval to apply for and receive funding from the ido formative assessment grant we have the personnel agenda and then the voucher registered checks as listed thank you dr terrell you've heard the recommendation to prove the consent agenda as presented do we have a motion to approve moved by mr hoffman and sec by mr angel any questions or comments
019on the consent agenda all those in favor signify by saying aye hi opposed motion carries 5-0 and action items this evening 4.1 uh american association of teachers of german dutch was a spa german is fun mr harmon thank you mr president seeking your approval this evening for the american association of teachers uh of german for the german is fund grant uh for 400 or 500 and this grant will be used by the german club at uh point high school in order to provide a winterfest uh activities at the middle school hoping that this will then encourage students to participate in german uh when they get to the high school speaking your approval this evening to apply for and receive funding uh from the american association of teachers of german thank you mr harper you heard
020the recommendation to prove to apply for and receive funding from the american association of teachers of german uh the grant for 500 to support the cphs german club we have a motion to approve uh moved by mr babjack second by mr hoffman any questions for mr hardman if not all is in favor signify by saying aye opposed most curious 5-0 at 4.2 uh approval to apply for and receive the idoe esser ii elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund to grant mr hartman thank you again uh this grant uh seeking your approval to apply for and receive the funding for the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund two uh grant this is in the amount of one million seven hundred twenty five thousand two hundred seventy seven dollars and twenty seven cents this grant
021was uh established after the cares act grant that took place uh just after the covent first hit the schools so this was kind of a second-tier uh grant and this is going to pay for uh some of the things that took place last year for a crown point community school corporation that helped us through the situation that we had with online learning the sanitation with career and technical education as well as staff professional development so this evening we are seeking your approval to apply for and receive uh the funding in the amount of one million seven hundred twenty five thousand two hundred seventy seven dollars and twenty seven cents mr hartman heard the recommendation approved to apply for and receive funding from the indian department of education uh grant amount of one million seven or
022twenty five thousand one million seven twenty five thousand two hundred seventy seven dollars and twenty seven cents do we have a motion to approve second as moved by mr smith and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr hartman if not all those in favor signal f5 by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and then we have 4.3 disposition of obsolete curriculum materials uh back to mr hartman uh this evening uh mr president we're seeking your approval the administration is seeking your approval to dispose of curriculum material that is uh out of date or uh uh worthless being worthless uh we're thinking that we're able to dispose of that in the appropriate ways that are guided by indiana code 522-20 thank you mr hartman you've heard the recommendation to dispose of obsolete
023curriculum materials uh that meets the requirement of the ic520-22-22 and ic20-26-5-4 and administrative guidelines 7310 we have a motion to approve still moved second moved by mr angel and second investor baby correct second by mr baby any questions or comments for mr hartman on this position of curriculum what typically do we do with those materials well we first thing with the curriculum materials print materials uh students have an option to take those they like and once that occurs then we can sell the materials or dispose them any other questions or comments mr harmon if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and then 4.4 is the disposition of surplus property we're going to go to mr akiwa thank you mr president um in a similar fashion or vein
024here the school corporation utilizes on-site stores for furnishings and equipment that are no longer in use at least annually we bring the expansive request or at least we're bringing you an expansive request this time to dispose of or donate these items which are no longer usable or they go unclaimed within the corporation we make every effort in the district to repair repurpose save and use school corporation property but in accordance with the requirements of indiana code 522-22 and board policy 7310 the corporation that has property that has no uh longer any usable life remaining cannot be repaired or cannot be acquired or have any potential resale value we either dispose over a donate exhibit a provides you a list of these items and we are recommending this evening that the board of school testers authorize
025us to go ahead and dispose of the items listed in exhibit a thank you mr akiva heard the recommendation to authorize the department of buildings and grounds to dispose of the items listed in exhibit a we have a motion to approve second and moved by mr hoffman and second by mr angel have any further questions or comments from mr akiva not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed most carries 5-0 thank you mr akiwa and receive information items we're going to start with the 5.1 superintendent discussion groups uh does anybody do we have anything to there's report to rdc is continuing to use its funds to make improvements to 109th street and continuing their side grants business as usual thank you mr hoffman anything else if not we'll move to uh chief
026academic officer mr hartman are we all good there thank you mr mr robert thank you very much um as we started the new school year i would like to just commend our support staff work that they do to get us ready at the school level at the district office level at the support center it is truly uh it's a major task to get the school year ready to go with all the components that need to be working together on on the first days knowing that there are hiccups that come our way during that but the work that's behind all of that is commendable getting all things ready to go and uh to receive our to receive our children uh in the community so uh just a thank you to our support for what they do
027thank you mr harmon how about a director of elementary education mr ramirez thank you mr president and board members i would just like to take this time to thank jillian alonso and the educators out at winfield for their involvement throughout the planning and building construction that has been going on at winfield it's really an exciting building to be able to visit and to see the engaged learning spaces that have been created for our students and the opportunities that our children will have out at winfield and also we are looking forward to starting the design projects and building work for macarthur and timothy ball working with those administrative teams and their staffs in their building so we really appreciate the opportunities to enhance learning and really the educational experience of our students throughout our elementary schools
028thank you about director of secondary education mr gene fermi oh yeah i just want to recognize our administrative staffs at the high school in the middle schools and all the staff that contributed to the week before school started with our parent orientations and our student orientations these events have been built into our culture kind of took a pause last year and it was great to see them put all that effort in and just the the attendance from our parents and the students that were incoming freshmen and incoming sixth graders at the buildings it was exciting exciting days for them and hopefully it helped them off to a better start for their school year so just appreciate work that was put in prior to the first day of school for that thank you mr g fermi
029how about uh chief human resource officer mr akiwa thank you mr president i would like to go ahead and also just thank and congratulate the outstanding job done by our uh support staff members particularly uh our custodial crews uh grounds crews getting our buildings in tip-top shape for the start this year uh furthermore um i'd like to shine a little specific focus here on uh pamelonian or food service staff um i'm not sure if you're aware but we have many events that take place meetings and and professional developments in particular the the new teacher orientation we had over 50 new educational staff members that we put through a two-week uh orientation various professional developments and um i i just have to tell you that uh pam's crew is just amazing uh what they do to
030to support and feed our troops as we get them ready for the school year uh i'd also like to uh thank all individuals and this is support staff administrators and teachers you know they all take take turns to fill particular roles to onboard and sort of plug in our new teachers into the school corporation in our operations and our programs and uh they just did a phenomenal job this year so for all those that uh supported took place and and made the new teacher orientation uh a success this year uh my sincere thanks thank you mr akiwa uh business business department mr reese i have nothing this evening thank you and then we could go to uh director of communications ms allen hi good evening um quick update we're kind of over the hump of
031back to school so the registration communications and things are slowing down but i am finally starting to work on the first strategic communications plan that the district has ever had this is a two-year plan that looks at some of our most important communications needs including adding additional platforms that we don't have yet but also some much needed training for things that we do have so we've added social media we've added websites and all of those things look really good but how do we make sure that they're working together in a way that's really reaching the maximum potential they can provide a shout out kind of goes to taft middle school they already took me up on the offer for training before i was almost even ready to meet with them so we've already met and
032they're taking off with some of those suggestions and i'm seeing some improvement already great and uh superintendent superintendent of schools dr terrell so there's several things this evening that i'd like to bring to your attention the first one i just want to start off and have a conversation with the board and with cabinet members who are present regarding covid kind of where we are right now as as a district where we find ourselves after the first few days in school so i'd like to start by just talking first about what are things that we are required to do versus things that are recommended to do so the first one i know was mentioned earlier this evening regarding mask on buses that is a perfect example of a mandate so that has been passed down to
033all school districts across the country from the at the federal level requiring us to have our kids wear masks on buses so that's that's not something that as a district we can say hey you know what i don't think that that's really applicable i don't think it's a great idea you heard about the students who are hot should we open windows yeah we need to figure out something there the issue of do students wear a mask or not wear a mask is something that is out of our control something that is being required of us so that that would be an example of a mandate another example of a mandate would be quarantining of students so our governor has through an executive order requires school districts to quarantine students now i think it's important for
034us to understand and talk through um and i'm going to ask mr akiwa to talk through what that quarantine process looks like in just a minute but it's also important for us to understand and acknowledge that last year we quarantined thousands of people and literally saw no direct correlations or transmissions within our buildings we understand that the impact was very significant at the same time we also understand that per the executive order from the governor that's not something where we can say i know we had an individual earlier mentioned and i think she's left why don't you just stand up against them and just say no well there are things where we can make stands and where we can have interpretation and decide recommendations one way or another an executive order from the governor is
035not one of those areas where we can do that with that being said before i asked mr akiwa to kind of talk us through what that quarantine process looks like any questions about that any comments about that okay mr akiwa can you just talk through and and give us an idea of what that whole process looks like as we identify students who are close actually i do have a question dr terrell there has been some discussion at the county level of the possibility of requiring mass in schools and that again would be something that would be out of our control is that correct that is correct so i might clarify that last year the health department dr vavilala who is our chief health officer here in lake county had the authority per the state to
036come out and give us a mass mandate and say that masks are acquired in schools massacre acquired and restaurants massacre required in any indoor facility the state legislature changed that and made it so that she could make recommendations but then the whatever group it is so here for us it's our county council that decides what those regulations and requirements can be she makes a recommendation to them at that point in time then they would vote as to if that is a mandate excuse me if they decide as a county council that in lake county they're going to mandate mass in schools and they have the ability to just say just in schools at that point in time that would be another example of something that given the term mandate we would not have any consideration
037in one way or another she had made that recommendation earlier and the county council did not approve it that is correct correct yeah they met last week and actually that was with her health board to then make a recommendation on to the county council and the board of health didn't have enough people present members present to have a quorum to vote one way or the other for that so mr akiwa if you would talk us through requirements for close contact tracing what that looks like sure um i think first of all it's an important understand that we've challenged all of our administrators to work very diligently to try to understand as best as they can where the students are uh that's seating charts you know where you can get those done and it's very common
038for teachers to have seating charts so this is not a big ask but we do know that things are a little bit in flux with schedules and whatnot as we begin the school year uh so number one having uh as best control as we can on understanding where students are at a given time uh easier said than done in the classroom and some of our loose spaces like hallways you know cafeterias and you know on buses while we do have seating charts um our routes are still solidifying people are deciding whether they're going to ride the bus or not so we're seeing still a little movement there but we expect by the end of this week that those seating charts should be locked in this helps us understand where our students are but once we're
039identified with a positive case then our front office or our contact racing team sort of spring into action to go ahead and examine you know where that positive case has been uh in a given day uh within the contact tracing window in the school so i mean literally it's it's a team effort here this is not done by a single person many times it involves a dozen people and sometimes even looking at some video if we have to but we work diligently to make sure that we're identifying those that either meet the requirements to be identified in what's considered to be a three-foot circle or a six-foot circle based on the circumstances you know in hand uh and we we follow that you know precisely as best we can i'll please understand that you know
040as much as i'd like to think the kids stay in in their seats on the bus the entire bus ride we do know that this may not always be the case and it's hard for the bus driver to be watching out the whole time while they're trying to drive down the road but we do do our best to to pin down exactly where those students are and um then we begin notifying our families um which takes quite a bit of time we have to call our folks to let them know uh whether or not their student's been identified currently we do have the opportunity for those students that have could be of age where they could receive a vaccination they would not have to be contact traced or quarantined if they are asymptomatic not showing
041any symptoms and vaccinated so these are the procedures we follow i would like to say that we don't have practice in this but we do it's very similar to our efforts last year uh going through this so um i must say if you have any questions for or what like me to further clarify dr terrell um i just want to commend our nurses for just doing a phenomenal job getting all this uh set up and organized and and putting the timing to get it done so one other thing that has already just mentioned with contact tracing and those students who have received the vaccination so this is another example of one of those things that's not something that we can decide if we're going to acknowledge or not so one of the things that as
042parents are contacted about their student being close contact per the guidelines that we have received for close contact tracing from the state again the requirement per the governor's executive order indicates that if a student has been vaccinated and is not showing any symptoms of the virus at all then they don't have to quarantine that's not something that we get to decide that's something that has been told to us now the question that i've heard and has been expressed is how do we know when students are vaccinated are we requiring them to tell are we asking them we're asking them that's a parent's right to decide if they're going to release that information to us so that way we know at no point in time do we say uh you know if you would go take
043your kid and get vaccinated or here's a place to go get vaccinated again that's not our responsibility we leave that up to our parents to make that decision about whether they believe their student their child should be vaccinated or not so just another clarification there that fits into the requirements that we are given and why it's okay for those who have the vaccination and are not showing symptoms to not have to quarantine versus those who aren't showing symptoms but have not received the vaccination why they still have to quarantine so just some information there for all of you as you look at that our contact tracing it requires us for those without masks to go to a perimeter of six feet four good question so a point of clarification for this as long as we
044continue to not require a mask within our buildings it doesn't matter if two people within that classroom have mask on and the rest don't or vice versa 18 of them have mask on and two don't if every student in that classroom and mr aquila correct me or jump in wherever as long as it's not a hundred percent of the students wearing masks within that classroom then everybody has to be at that six foot mark so it's not well i had a mask on mr warney did not so therefore i'm at three feet and he's at six feet that's not how the language that has been passed down to a streets topologically speaking if we did have a masked mandate our perimeter is only three feet that's correct which would reduce significantly the potential number of
045quarantines that possibility exists so one of the things that we're doing right now excuse me as we said we would continue to review the information that's given to us but then also to look at our own data as we collect it so one of the things that we're doing right now over this first week of classes as we quarantine students we're doing it two different ways one right now based off of that six foot diameter because of not requiring mass within schools but then we were also looking at so if everybody had a mask on what would that impact of the close contact tracing be so that we can compare those numbers and and have that information as we continue to to review all of this information how together um so dr terrell in our
046classrooms not to debate if their our classroom sizes are appropriate however with the amount of kids in the classrooms have we taken have there been precautions sent down to the teachers to try to stick to a certain format i know we've talked about seating charts and getting them in place that we can do help help our nurses and everyone with contact racing but has there been anything further put in place to so at this time there has not as far as for instance saying everybody has to be in rows facing forward so one of the changes that has come out from the cdc and now the indiana state department of health is that that piece of that three-foot rule if everybody has a mask on and they're facing forward that and they're facing forward has
047been removed so you could still have students involved in group work you could still have students arranged in their desk where they're facing each other again that's not the requirement the requirement is simply if all students are wearing masks now it goes to three feet did i say that correctly mr akua mr mr hoffman alluded to it that you know everyone it's a high tension world when we talk about what we're doing or opinions but in my opinion to reduce the quarantine to three feet would help tremendously and that's the the one thing i've heard tonight that sticks out the most along with that where we were a month ago when we sat here we see a lot of familiar faces in the crowd this evening um i think things have changed and again we're
048just talking about opinion but my mind is that things have changed in the world with the amount of spread and the amount of i'd use some examples of schools to the south that may have started a little bit sooner than us and i i just find it hard to believe that we won't follow the same pattern and i'm a little bit more into belief that let's just jump ahead of it and and mandate the masks um it's just a you know express i want to express my opinion to everybody and let let you know how i feel about that and number one objection number one is to keep the kids in school master no mass quarantine contact tracing we do not want to go to a remote learning environment we want to keep the kids
049in school so that's not something i'm favorable of but i just think it's the the best route yeah i think i think it's early and um you know we're four days into the school year so i'm looking forward to seeing what this week kind of shows us as far as quarantine numbers and um also looking at what the difference would have been uh if we were in a mass situation what those what those actual numbers look like so um that's that's kind of where i stand with it just too early to tell but we'll see we'll see what the future holds doctor general as a point of clarification i think talking about students that have been vaccinated and whether or not they have to a parent has to share that information and my understanding as
050you indicated the schools would not require that if a parent chooses not to share that information would that student then be treated like an unvaccinated student for purposes of quarantine that is correct i'd like to follow up with mr warney's comments and you know one of the oldest adages in education is the need for seat time there are the butts in the classroom that's where you learn i'm sorry that people are experiencing difficulties but you have to understand there's only so much we on this end can do we're trying to do what we can to minimize this the spread of this disease by the same token what can you people do because somebody brings it in it's going to spread okay we don't have control over that we have control of our school buildings we
051have control of our school buses we're trying to be as least restrictive as possible in good conscience and using good common sense now as as we've discussed if we get mandates we don't have a choice we made a decision a month ago and within virtually within days after that decision was being made the the spread of this disease was was going rampant across the country fortunately this county or this part of the county isn't experiencing that rapid spread like many parts of the country so you know mass are voluntary but it takes cooperation from everybody to make that a successful policy so that we don't have to mandate it so you know people want to blame the school corporation sometime the blame is on your neighbors or people you don't know and again we don't
052have control over that we try to take that into consideration and formulating our policy but i've been on this board for over 19 years and i've said it before and i'll say it again when i first ran for the school board i spoke with the then superintendent and said how do you become a good school board member the singular advice was do the right thing and that's what each one of us up here is tries to do every time we have to make a decision that impacts any child in this school corporation or their families thank you you know one of the things i probably should have started this with and i actually even have it in my notes start with this and i failed to do so so i apologize but i think it's
053important that we recognize the civility that has taken place in our schools you know there was emails that we received during the summer about mass shaming or bullying if kids are wearing masks compared to those who who are not and i'm not saying that there is not an isolated incident or something has taken place but i can tell you overall having been in our build all every one of our buildings over the last a few days the way that our kids are handling this and working through this our teachers or administrators are to be commended if students to choose to wear a mask they choose to wear a mask and they just continue to work through that i think this audience tonight and the way that you guys have approached this the um emails that
054we receive from others and we receive them from both sides expressing their opinions about they think we should wear masks we shouldn't wear masks one of the things that i'm very proud of here in crown point has been the way that we as a group as a community have interacted with each other without the nonsense that you see in a lot of places so thank you for that you know i think as we move forward one things that we're going to continue to take into consideration is the debate before us really is not about our mask a great strategy or a strategy for mitigation of covid that's not the point the point that the thing that we have to look at and we will continue to look at is how do we keep kids in
055school that has to be our number one priority you know i think mr hoffman you made the comment that we will continue to do the things that we need to do we've taken steps to make sure and i know that there are people out there who will hear that and say well that's not true because you're not requiring mask once again i think it's really important for us collectively to understand our approach to this has been as the health experts tell us and require what we need to do from a health expert standpoint that's what we'll do for instance if the county decides or says that we need to mandate mask we will do so the governor's executive order indicated we need to quarantine students with close contact tracing and gave us the stipulations of
056how that should happen we will do so when it comes to recommendations we still look for our health groups to give us and the ability is there for them to make the mandates they need to make the mandates about the health side of it as an education system as a school corporation our job then is to figure out what it is that we do within our buildings from an educational standpoint to continue to move forward with that uh i just want to kind of put a bow on what i had to say and uh agree with mr babrick and it would be nice to get some information but also stress as dr terrell said that it's not a game it's serious but absolutely if you can use the rules of any game at your advantage
057to keep kids in school that that's what it says i'm not you know the the idea that this works or this doesn't or you know whatever it's i just hear that the rules of the game are if you are mass you're three feet if you're not you're six feet and i'm very with the blinders on to hear that and think wow they're wagging a carrot here and it could give us an edge so that's why i kind of put a wrap up what i had to say there one other thing that i'd like to address and i'm going to ask mr mrs ramirez and mr gin fermi and mr hardiman if they would address this and i know that we continue to have students who are put on quarantine and how they're receiving their educational
058support if you guys could just talk through a little bit about what that would look what that could look like i know it's a little bit different at each level but just give examples of what we can do there yeah okay if i can go ahead first we as a department of curriculum instruction uh put out the practices that teachers should engage in not only when we're in person at the beginning of school but also in the event that you engage a student that goes into quarantine quarantine to maintain that a level of education a level of instruction so that the child can continue to grow set up so that upon re-entry the student is ready with their class within with that with the practices that we uh we learned about last year we grew
059last year and implementing those into this school year quarantine situation such as making sure that the agenda is always posted for our students beginning at the beginning of the day so students can have access to that if they are warranty or absent or uh for some reason it can can can perform work to be able to connect with the child through a virtual uh uh through a virtual kind of a application such as zoom we have goguardian we have opportunities through repair deck and flip grid those are some of the tools we have so that we can engage and get feedback from students as well as give feedback to students during the course of the school day uh so those are the things that we are we have prepared for in this event yet at
060the same time it is not like being in school and i think as we consider and think about the situations that we're in we want to try to help students to stay connected we want them to continue to be engaged in the instruction and the growth and then we want them to return so that they are not disconnected from the rest of their class so mark sabrina do you have some maybe some specific uh examples right now well i mean we're just starting to hit the quarantines but as we as you said you know expectations were laid out to the teachers at the secondary level you'll see more of the buzz course being used and the teachers communicating to their students through their buzz course through their agenda through emails and just continuing on similar
061to what we were doing last year but we do have a lot of those other new tools that the teachers got much better at over the course of last year that we hope and encouraged them to use but the big thing is to make sure that those students stay connected to their classrooms and their in their curriculum and that may mean different things for different students but i the teachers need to reach out and make sure they're communicating during that time whichever way they can do the best for those students i know it's a little different for the elementary at the elementary level as well teachers were given the same guidance and i think the positive is that they have experience throughout last year and how to deliver instruction to students who have to quarantine
062by utilizing our technology tools that we have and making sure that really each situation is a very individual situation what it's going to look like for a seventh grade student versus a first grade student could very greatly differ also taking into account at home support that may be able to be provided so our number one goal is again making the curriculum accessible to our students keeping them engaged and again making sure that we tailor that involvement based on teacher direction as well as partnership with the parent or caregiver so that we are working to figure out what best meets the needs of each child and what is a manageable practice thank you yeah mister mirrors i started interrupt but it feels like the heat is actually blowing instead of the air conditioner mr key would
063take care of it it is a little toasty we're just trying to experience the school bus situation that was described before apologize trying to bring a little humor in with that we have a gremlin that lives within our thermostat back there and every night about 6 30 it whatever reason jumps up to like 76 and it doesn't just cool the cool air it goes to heat yeah so we're not trying to smoke you out i promise we're trying to work through that so um any any other questions things that we can talk through here for you as a board dr chair i think it's important to touch upon the process that how the board arrives at a decision perhaps when it comes to covid also how your administration processes the information as it comes in
064i know you said there's data points and there's you're following the tracing you're following the positivity rate in lake county there's a lot of factors that go into that but perhaps it would behoove everyone to just hear how frequently your administration is monitoring that uh the process how once you gather information you come back with perhaps recommendations or discussions with the board if you could just explain that i think it might be helpful to the general public yeah thank you for bringing that up um so some of the information that we continue to monitor so if you were if you go on the indiana state health department's website there's a whole covid portion of that and you can actually drill down into uh region one which is our region up here uh the several counties
065in this part of the state but in there one there are several things we look at for our county in particular we look at the positivity rate what's happening with that how that continues to fluctuate but we also look at things such as you can go in there and it'll break it down by age bracket of what the percent is testing positive in each age bracket and i don't have the brackets right in front of me but it's like one to four five and it breaks it down to that specific and we try to look at those and i look at them on a daily basis as far as excuse me the information that we share is cabinet has an entire cabinet weekly we do that but then for instance because mr akiwa the biggest
066piece of what he's doing is working with our nurses and quarantining he and i and ms allen work together daily to review those numbers and look at what that is where the impacts are taking place then also depending on the day the need where we see the different hot spots that are coming up and this is not just referring to this school year but going back to last school year at that point in time getting with the directors of elementary ed secondary ed exceptional ed and our chief academic officer to try and figure out what are the things what are the needs how are we going to address those learning situations as we just talked about with them communication that i have with the board is on a regular basis sometimes that's daily most of
067the times it's many times throughout the day just to try and continue to keep up and let you guys know where we are we continue to utilize our website to put our covet information out there so we are as transparent as possible with the number of close contacts but then also positive cases that we're seeing within our district again understanding we're four days in but that information is there so it's a continual process i wish we didn't spend near the amount of time that we do spend on it but unfortunately that is one of the main topics that we've got to address right now and try to continue to figure out what is the best way to meet the needs of our students and how do we keep them in buildings thank you though for
068the question anything else with covet if not let's move on to something a little bit better yes let's go down how about i've got a couple more things before we go okay so um so a couple of the things that i want to talk about is beginning of school um it's amazing every year as you will go through our buildings i try to get into every one of our buildings the first two days of school to see our our parents the excitement as they bring their kids to school the amount of work that goes into that first two or three days is just amazing behind the scenes and appreciate so much our teachers our staff as they continue to work through that the taft development on the site is full bore if you guys haven't
069driven out there by that i encourage you to do so lots of big equipment moving lots of dirt right now they're working on actually the footprint of the building making that what it needs to be and getting it level with driveways just some really cool opportunities there and in the near future we'll come to you guys with an opportunity to go out and turn the first shovel of dirt have a ceremonial proceeding with that as well so kind of an exciting opportunity for our our district mr ramirez mentioned the elementary development at both timothy ball macarthur real excited about where that is leading right now and continuing to help us address the growing needs of our district also at the high school we're getting pretty close to being to the point where we're narrowing in
070on what those things are that we're going to address there working through budgets and continuing to meet the challenges that are faced right now with the coveted shortages and different things that are happening there so really an exciting time here great to see our enrollment ticking up from that pre-covered numbers and just again appreciate the start of the school year and all the different aspects of that so thank you thank you dr terrell and thank you for the opportunity for discussion this evening as mr smith brought up at some of his hopefully just if nothing else informative to the public that may have some questions how about other business of the board does anybody have any other business to discuss this evening one thing i might remind you of diana has sent you emails regarding
071the fall conference down in indy she i think a couple of you have already responded and we've made the reservations for that it's not too late to get in on that but if you would just the sooner you can let her know the better chance of all of us getting in the same hotel and and different thing there it's a great couple of days if you can take advantage of that that'd be great other business good how about uh mr smith you want to kick off board statements of appreciation mr fabric yeah nothing for me miss trafford i am going to recognize the members of the town of winfield council and thank them for their attention and cooperation and working out approvals for our new middle school in winfield township with some anxious moments but
072i can tell you that for a small municipality like they are they don't have a lot of money to work with um they had a lot of asks from the school corporation typically as they indicated if this were a a subdivision or something it probably would have taken up to a year to get necessary approvals and they did in a much more expedited time frame than that and for that we appreciate it because we do have a schedule to we need to have a schedule to try and get that project started so it can be timely completed and opened in 2023 two years from right now so we thank them mr angel um just to the high school staff for the back to school event morning of monday last monday for the welcome back to
073the school corporation for everybody uh whoever was involved in that russ and his staff dr terrell uh the band was there it was energetic and having it in the uh gymnasium just added a little flavor to it like it was an old pep assembly back in the high school days so how about a nice welcome send-off so and we should probably thank dr terrell also for the uh a little bit of a change in culture to get the uh community standing when you're here to fight song oh yeah yeah we played the fight song twice because not everybody was quite awake i think and he was going to play react he was going to have them play it three four five times until everybody rose right so that's that was uh the coaching background came
074out to him and everybody listened and adhered to it and we were only able to get through two of them and the jazz band was nice too and a jazz band there while we were having breakfast and it was just so exciting to feel the energy in the cafeteria and then into the gymnasium so great job all involved thank you we should probably thank and recognize our union leadership for speaking uh at our back to school event this year for the first time in many many years thank you for your participation yes next year she may request to go before our student council president well not nothing with much with much detail but i do have a few items i want to congratulate mr hoffman just told us news this evening that he's going to
075be grandfather for the first time a new granddaughter so congratulations mr hoffman we had the uh the back to school that mr angel mentioned and i think uh as we talked about the the band and cheerleaders i think we were told many years ago the extracurriculars at crown point the participation rate was somewhere around 75 80 percent and encourage all the kids to get out and participate and then there's a correlation to the grade point average that went along with those that are participating it was really pretty special to see and it looks like that tradition will continue especially coming out of the struggles of this last year obviously but emails no not there yet new teacher appreciation the new teacher not appreciate but the new teacher week and mr g and fermi uh bulldog
076rush i know that was something that you were had a big part of back in the day and passion of and all these traditions that are now their traditions it's not like oh we're trying this thing called and um i hear a lot of community comment on how well they're received and um even the the new teachers the appreciation and the welcoming that they get i i hope those are some traditions then that while when us at board members are not here anymore we'll continue for a long time because of the amount of appreciation that comes out and i think the key words too appreciation um is great um first day of school you know it's nervous for everybody nervous for parents that was amazing so i was just trying to wrap it up with
077some highlights and excitement and uh and one other thing that just mentioned earlier you're welcome to continue to email the board we all receive it we read it um sorry that at times recently we did have to put together a template response just to keep it you know to get a response to everybody so they know that so they would know that their email was read i think was maybe most important that someone just doesn't think they're sending an email to a black hole and when we had opportunities to personalize them we would but we'll continue to respond and read your emails as they come to us does anybody else have any comments before we wrap up this evening if not look for a motion to adjourn moved by mr angel in second by mr
078hoffman all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed most carries five zero you