001okay all right videos um you yeah guys i'm gonna start the mic check right now so the mic is unmuted but it's just me and robin right now hearing about knees right check check check [Music] check okay [Music] what [Music] you okay right now [Music] of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands um just a couple healthcare items and that you've got it in the back please find out your phones as well and we do need to take roll call first we have jay grover trustee nicole novak kelsey judy keane district clerk brian brown superintendent joel america myself trustee daniel bruno trustee cheryl cardone assistant superintendent of people's services excuse today is glenn goldbach ashley dreyer and sue marston okay first we want to do the approval agenda we
002also not want to do approval of the minutes can i have a motion promotion all in favor aye aye next we have uh core science recognition and good news business teacher of the year hello everybody thanks for being here today mr broker do you have a moment to share some good news about mrs b dave uh free to come right to the microphone thank you yeah i am uh oh you just called me foreign uh yes i'm very uh pleased to announce that that mrs boutique received the new york state business educator award for new york state is the top business teacher in new york state and we're so proud to have her here on our staff and uh just excited for what else is to come with all our new ventures with naf and
003deca and the expansion out running the deception stand and everything else so we're excited to have someone that's getting such recognition across the state on our staff we're lucky to have her thank you mr broker mrs mckay do you mind coming up to the microphone let's give [Music] uh maybe if you could just share with the board some of the major steps the business department has accomplished over the past few years and how your role has impacted that um well it's a team effort so i also have to thank cheryl chamberlain and chris simpson who are my colleagues and um we work really well together um but my since i i came to grand island in 2015 um i previously worked at kenmore west high school in amherst high school but um from the minute
004i landed here i knew that we could make something that was really good even grander and greater um and cheryl chris and i worked really hard um more recently we've opened up our academy of finance this year we have over 100 students enrolled in that program um grades 9 through 12. those students are receiving microsoft office certification they're receiving financial literacy they all have internships in our community and we actually have six interns right now who are at different locations on the island um participating in everything from service to marketing to hospitality to business management so we've been really lucky that we've been able to build our program i will have to acknowledge both dr graham and my gloria my previous principal who really were in support of career and technical education um here at
005the high school as well as mr fitzpatrick who has helped to grow our middle school program as well so we have students who are entering in here in sixth grade who are just eager beavers to become the next business um entrepreneurs um but then they can use those skills in anything that they do so we have engineers we have doctors we have lawyers we have kids who want to own our own hairdressing salons or want to own their own um you know food trucks and that's what's amazing about it to see all of our students succeed here at grand island and i can't thank the board enough and our administration because about their support and kind of always hearing my crazy ideas and always willing to kind of roll up the punches um we wouldn't
006have the program that we do and even though roger's brand new he's already very acclimated to me in his office asking like hey let's do this let's do that so um i wouldn't be the teacher i am without you guys and without the support of our students and our parents and our wonderful staff here at grand island and as an alumni it really makes me very proud to see this program thrive and to just keep on leading the next generation around here when my son comes comes up someday that's fantastic and just one more question uh how many academia finance graduates have we've seen so far it's just one year so this will be our first year of graduation i actually just worked with our secretary to put together we'll have our first graduation of
007this june um it looks like we're gonna have six graduates in our program but just to kind of put it into perspective our freshman class coming in is at 38. so in just four years we have done an immense amount of marketing and encouragement of our parents and our parents i think see really a great value in this and i think we're just going to continue to grow from here um and i think that's really wonderful and i just want to give a quick plug because i can't say this enough but um there's amazing groups out there and i'm lucky to be a part of this organization business teachers association which is who gave me the award along with um new york state department of ed and um those organizations are doing wonderful things for
008all of our students in advocating for financial literacy um which is really important in a post pandemic world to see out there so i'm really excited that our students will get that here at grand island that's great mr lyria do you want to add anything i know you've got a big part of this i'm just i'm just proud of our time working together i know amy has been someone who i can't take credit for hiring and she knows but i from day one got to meet her and got some work with her and i know that we had so many conversations about vision and what we wanted the program to look like and i'm glad it's it's happening and you're right there's a lot of kids coming into ninth grade that are interested in signing
009up for the classes and just gonna grow from here so yeah congrats on your honoring me thank you very much once again congratulations um so i see that we do have some people who have signed up to speak there are two sign up sheets one is to that would actually i believe it begins now right the public session for agenda items on the agenda today we will be talking about opening which will include a lot of the guidance and conversations around that the other one is for non-agenda items so for those individuals who filled out the one form to speak later in the meeting i'm asking you do you want to speak earlier in the meeting you want to speak later okay great just want to make sure that that's correct okay all right thank
010you very much hello good evening everyone um on the curtain agenda i'm going to be asking for the motion to approve curriculum and instruction amd um the curriculum first the first item on the agenda is curriculum summer proposals a lot of our teachers including mrs wute have been working hard over the summer to expand their curriculums and improve to meet the new standards as we constantly do the second agenda item is that we hope to bring back our field trips this year and this is a traditional yearly field trip that our girls um always varsity hockey team takes silly classic new york um tournament later in the year in january so we're asking for a motion that most perfect motion to approve curriculum and instruction a and b almost i'll second all in favor aye
011motion carry 4-0 thank you next we're going to go to personnel instruction we're gonna again ask for a motion to approve p i one through p f four motion to approve ti one fifty i4 with the addition of polisa alicia next we have personnel non-instructional um again asking for a motion approved pn91 or pni4 motion to approve non-instructional ki1 through pi form on motion thank you jude for that reminder for our principals here today do we have any um buddy being introduced then i'm going to ask mr austin to please stand maybe come to the podium so we're very very excited that the board has accepted the recommendation to add mr austin as a part-time community relations specialist here in the grand island central school district part of his contract will also have him working
012in the pandora city school district so wrapping up basically you know five days a week of community relations between town wanda and grand island mr austin has amassed a great amount of experience as a local photojournalist reporter and editor of the dispatch for at least 13 years mr austin i think that's right and beyond that you have many other years of experience in the same field we couldn't be prouder of you mr awesome you give everything of yourself and have done so without being an employee of grand island and covering all of our activities after school extracurricular board of education activities as well as our sports i'll tell a good story to the board i happen to go to the varsity playoff game against williamsville east and it was it was amazing our baseball team
013did an amazing job it was the sectional finals it was against williams real east at least got some amazing players one player that was drafted by the nature league baseball right and mr austin was there not getting paid taking photos of this event and was making himself you know at different points he was going around the diamond on the outside taking photos and you know talking to uh you know people that were out about their parents and so forth when he got to the williamsville side they started chanting larry's sidelines larry and larry sidelands is his twitter name uh some of you have been here and you want to follow larry's sidelines uh you just search for ad marry sidelines and follow him but what was remarkable was that this person who has specifically been
014an editor for the grand island dispatch for 13 years was known in williamsburg built by the students i thought that was remarkable that makes two of them so larry you want to say a few words oh i'm really grateful for this opportunity looking forward to working with the board the administration all the stakeholders they get your story out there and i'm looking forward to working with the community also and his first task is to help us with our calendar calendar so if the principals would like to uh tomorrow and help me get started on that that would be great um and and just for our community to know we are delayed in publishing our paper calendar uh mr oz i know all about missing deadline mr austin will be working on uh updating the website's
015digital calendar in the days ahead and then also working on an application for the founder that's mailed home i think to all of our families right so thank you so much mr awesome and congratulations thank you all right i have majority of the alphabet on here today um so i'm going to go through this as quickly as possible if you have questions um a is buffalo transportation contract for the school year this upcoming school year b c and d deals with obsolete items there is some equipment there is buses and there are textbooks everybody has done their proper due diligence and cross-checking to see if somebody would purchase these first and usually what we do with buses is um we will post them so we'll see if we can actually do sales with that the
016next item you have is e which is the certification of the school tax budget and tax rate i will let you know this information is going to change again it changed today and i got another email around 4 15 saying there is some additional information coming i am asking for approval um and then erie county can tell me how they would like me to move forward once those numbers are known but they're not known yet um but in just so you are aware we thought we were going to be around 20.41 due to the reassessment that was completed recently we are at 16 in around 1620 so um that has went down i'll let you know what it does in the future um is for capital project change orders uh there are a couple on
017here um nothing out of the norm just things that really deal with safety and security so we're trying to make sure like water isn't flowing on the sidewalks and freezing out near the concession stand we have budget transfers over 15 000 in g and then h is the american rescue plan uh this is the first grant that has required the board president to give her or his uh stamp of approval so that's why you see it um this plan is forever changing just so you're aware but when we submit for the grant you have to submit for the entire allocation uh even though it's a three-year allocation so as changes occur there i'll i'll update the board but this is the plan that we're going to push forward to the state another fun thing is
018the approval for the additional slots and pre-k providers through the additional funding we had about 50 additional upk slots and um jill morrish who is with mike but i used her a lot to help me push this out um called every single one of the families on the waitlist so we have a full upk program and those additional slabs are full day at both of those locations so how many total slots do we have now a lot um uh so the district has 36 full-day slots we gave away 50 slots and then we already had seven half-day slots so in the states world of slots we had about oh right because we converted you could convert your half day to full days and in the future if if the numbers change or we need to
019fluctuate we can go back to half day the only thing you cannot do is convert your full day slots to half day but half of these slots can be converted to full day so there's a lot of fun playing that will happen um each year and all of the cbo's are aware of that that is going to be a year by year review until hopefully the state will just combine the two allocations because they are two separate allegations right now really i just want to for our community this is remarkable news because we've only been able to find 36 half day in grand island now we're able to fund 86 folding slots and that's as a result of the upk uh in in our state aid that increased from 100 some thousand to over 400
020000 so this is a really big win for our families and the community who need this service and a lot of work in like we're getting there um and letters and such are going out but um those have been filled and we're excited for it um those are all of my action items all right so j through o is all informational for you um and the only thing i wanted to really hone in on is subject area o for food service um consultant plan this is a plan that we definitely should review um at our next board meeting or workshop we will actually have the consultant that worked on this plan coming in to do a presentation to the board and myself and patrick will also be providing a food service update so it'll come
021together well but there are some things in here that i would like the board to take action on so you will see it on the next agenda as action to really say we approve this plan and we want to move forward with it um there's a lot of work that's went for it but the the consultant sounded very optimistic in in turning this around and so wonderful yes it's been for years we've been trying to turn this around it's a process we have to yeah free lunches to everyone breakfast and lunch is free again um and really the legislative push i think is going to be to continue that way um so not only has our participation increase but so has st steven's participation and at the upcoming board meeting patrick and i will be
022discussing um something that we kind of did as a pilot with kagabine that would love to see happen at the other two buildings which boost breakfast participation so all of those things will be working [Music] so i need a motion to approve finance a through eye all in favor motion carry four zero special education with cheryl tryndam thank you very much um cse and cpsc meetings are still going on this summer so i need action on letters a and b and those would be the cse and cpsc program recommendations please perfect motion to approve special education people personnel services a and b thank you up next we have the superintendent's report with dr hello everybody thank you for being here uh being here in person to share your thoughts later or just to listen and
023hear what our draft opening plans look like as of this evening and of course for our board members you can ask any questions that you have throughout this presentation okay so i just i want to start off of course just sharing some background on uh what the country appears to be dealing with with respect to covet 19 and the new delta variant uh the picture on your left was taken from the cdc website between july 19th and july 25th red indicates a high risk transmission orange is substantial risk yellow is moderate and blue is low risk you can compare and contrast the changes in color between july 19th and 25th so the screenshot on the right that shows the same graph with more updated information from july 31st to august 6th so of course many
024news outlets and and i'm sure many people here follow the news this is what the big concern is with respect across the country the good thing is that i don't see a lot of red in new york state or in the northeast region so the the cbc website allows you to zoom in to new york state erie county is listed as accounting that is substantial yes uh substantial risk is defined by cdc has at least 50 positive cases so again erie county is listed as a county in new york state that has substantial risk you'll see that it's defined by at least 50 positive copic 19 cases per every 100 000 individuals over the last seven days so the most recent data came in on sunday to work on this the most recent data has
025has erie county at 61 positive cases over the past seven days the erie county department of health has this listed and posted on their website this is just a snapshot of cobit 19 cases by age group from july 25th to july 31st you can see that they're between the ages of zero and nine there have been uh boys and girls identified with copen between the ages of 10 and 19 and then 20 to 29 30 39 40 to 49 and so forth so that's just uh updated information from the erie county department of health a little bit more of a kind of a macro view of erie county new cases have started to grow since the end of june you can see june 26 with 49 new cases july 3rd 75. went down on july
02610th and back up in erie county to 173 297 and at the end of july 535 cases um as many of the board members now and some of the community know i take uh actually jude and i look at this data very carefully from the erie county dashboard website the arrow is pointing to grand island and they have we have been looking at this on a weekly basis uh since last march uh for grand island since last march of 2020 not 2021 march of 2020 there have been cases or individuals attributed to grand island who have been positively coveted this spreadsheet is what i keep track of on a weekly basis so uh september 4th of last year there were 152 cases in grand island and then the next week we keep track of the
027week to week change so it went from 152 to 156 and then 156 to 159 and so forth so in this column where the week is the net change from week to week and then you can see the percent attributed to the week tweak that change the most recent data as of august 8th this is august 4th but the chart hasn't been updated yet it'll be updated on tuesday that's where the 2011 uh individuals who have been tested positive for hope 19 and grand island and that it went from 2001 to 2011 over the past week but mr gloria can you read the percent week tweak change for the last lines 45 yeah so that's 4.5 0.5 so when we started school last year we were seeing week-to-week net changes of 2 early on and
028seven percent then you can see 12 14 23 and then 29 at one point but right now as of today it's half of one percent and this is what it looks like plotted on a graph so again i know it's a little redundant but we started school here and today you know we are at the end of this graph over here so so the number of individuals changing week to week really is is a small number that's really what i'm trying to communicate you can see obviously on december 11th it was very high here in grand island this is only grand diamond data this again is the cdc uh webpage that shows the uh a graphic that is the percent of the population in counties across the united states who have been vaccinated i am
029colorblind mr lauria so i cannot tell what these colors are uh but uh i i believe this is 70 and can anybody tell me what the color is it's like it's the darkest darkest blue so wherever you see the darkest blue across the united states indicates that 70 have had at least one dose of the vaccine in the united states and then this is a close-up of new york and in albury county uh 61 of residents have been vaccinated with at least one dose and i believe this number is attributed to individuals who are 20 years and up so i i would have to clarify that but i believe that's what they're uh indicating for erie county and then uh the really good news for grand island residents is that we're at 78.6 percent of
03020 year olds and up who are vaccinated with at least one dose on grand island i think this is really great data and it really shows that uh our community has really done everything in its power to consider the vaccination and uh you can see that there are other townships around erie county that are you know somewhere a little bit higher like here and some are you know lower in different areas so it really looks good that grand island has 78 of its residents with at least one dose so what i'd like to do now is take you through a timeline because i think this is very important so that you have the most up-to-date information on june 23 the governor announced that new york planned on ending the state disaster emergency which is originally
031declared on march 7th of 2020 he indicated that given new york's dramatic progress against global 19 with the success of the vaccination rates and declining hospitalization and positivity statewide that the state of emergency would expire after thursday june 24th of this year on july 7th the new york state department health issued a memo to all superintendents in new york state indicating that given the current low rates of profit 19 transmission school districts may decide to implement revised masking policies for the summer for the summer program on july 7th we did just that we switched our policy uh from following the mandate uh which was rescinded to allowing uh an encouraging but not requiring nest wearing indoors so that is why you see us today sitting here without masks if you're here without masks and our
032students who are coming to summer programming grades k through 12 uh can choose from your mask or not where it is on august 4th while i was on vacation we learned from the governor's office that as the copa 19 state of emergency had been rescinded either the their office the governor's office or the new york state department of health would issue guidance to govern govern the opening of schools uh in september they were leaving the decision regarding mass physical distancing koga testing vaccinations and so forth to local discretion extra exercise by school district and county health officials as of august 8th i've shared with the community in a letter uh about over a week ago that we are servicing 550 children grades k through 12 and we've only had one student identified as being positive
033for covid sure i'm just going to check with you just to make sure as of today that's still accurate okay so today you may have read the buffalo news or seen some articles or stories uh that the erie county department of health is going to meet with local superintendents a focus group to discuss mitigation that did occur the buffalo news uh indicated that they would present their guidance to us today that was not accurately reported in the book of the news so what happened was myself and other superintendents met with dr bursting and epidemiologists from the erie county department of health this morning at 11 o'clock their goal today was to listen to superintendents across erie county uh to provide them with their perspective on how to move forward for september uh dr burstein and
034her team did listen to the various perspectives and they have not finalized their guidance yet this is really important for our parents who may choose to speak tonight or who are watching online we do not have the erie county department health guidance they will be creating guidance for school superintendents so decisions are still some decisions i'll share today are still on pause until they receive their official guidance board members have any questions about that okay so the next slides are going to share with the board and the community just what the cdc is issuing his guidance so this is not the erie county department health this is not our school district so cdc is asking school districts to promote vaccinations among teachers staff families and eligible students so you know as a school district we
035have been actively promoting that we have offered vaccinations for students ages 12 and up with erie county we have offered vaccinations from our own local pharmacists who have come to our campus and have worked with their staff and teachers so we have been doing that and we will continue to do that with respect to mask use from the the cdc recommends that masks are worn indoors by all individuals who are not fully vaccinated excuse me not fully vaccinated they say on school transportation passengers and drivers must wear a mask on all buses subject to the exclusions of the cbc order and so forth masks are not required outdoors according to the cdc exceptions must be made for a person who cannot wear a mask because of a disability is defined by the americans with disabilities
036act and the cdc says based on the community need the administrators may opt to make mass use universally required for reasons including having a high or substantial transmission rate or for having a student population that is not eligible yet for the vaccine again this is just what the cdc guidance indicates at zavaka state physical distancing cdc says physical discipline should be implemented to the extent possible with the structures uh but not are within the structures but not to exclude students from in-person learning six feet of social distancing is recommended being those who are not fully vaccinated cbc recommends schools maintain at least three feet of physical distance between students and classrooms combined with indoor mass wearing by those who are not fully vaccinated cdc still recommends cohorting students with respect to lunch and cafeteria the
037cdc is saying maximize to the extent possible social distancing those who are vaccinated do not need a social distance and for fizdad recess no masks outdoors encourage to wear masks indoors in areas of substantial in communities that have substantial or high transmission sure so if the district excellent question so cdc is saying it's a must they're not recommending it they're saying it's a must the erie county department of health will look at all of the cbc guidance and then create their own so the cdc or the erie county department health may choose to mandate masks for all of your accounting they may choose to make it recommended not mandated they may choose to make it recommended for buses or mandated for buses so right now cdc says it's a must there's guidance with respect to
038screening testing from the cdc it says decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level screening testing may be most valuable in areas with substantial or high community transmission levels or areas with low vaccination coverage screening testing they're indicating should be offered to those who are not fully vaccinated and cdc guidance provides that people who are not who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in screening testing and do not need to quarantine unless they have symptoms that's very important right so the cdc is saying that if i was uh identified as somebody positive and i'm in third grade mr lauria is my peer partner and he sits next to me no okay good example we're in seventh grade uh where mr rory is vaccinated uh i become positive if
039he is asymptomatic according to this guidance he does not have to quarantine okay but in the third grade if he was within six feet of me uh for more than ten minutes he would have to quarantine regardless of being asymptomatic or symptomatic testing kids [Music] yeah we got them for free we do have them but we would not be using them in a few more slides i'll explain how we will engage in the operations and the testing so the cdc also talks about this new variant of coca-19 called the delta variant according to the cdc the delta variant is more contagious than past versions of the virus the concern is that more kids will get coca-19 and spread it to others according to the cbc the cdc is indicating that based on national antibody studies
040some children don't have symptoms that are infected and then can spread the virus the cdc recommends that if you live in an area with substantial or high covic which i said before you should have children wear masks in public indoor settings so uh these slides please for our public that are here today and people watching this is a draft opening plan and it's been created without the guidance of gary county department health so please understand that as i go through this these draft items so if it was september 1st today we would be open to full capacity our start and end times for each school in the district will revert back to the original start and end times that we have prior to the pandemic that means that all of our high school middle school
041students will be on buses coming to school at the same time uh and of course ending school at the same time he within kegevin and segway will also have the same start and end times after the beginning of the school year this also means that our district buses will be running at full capacity this is very important for our public to understand that if you're a parent and you're worried about that you know we would encourage you to drive your child to school but otherwise buses will be back to normal kids will be sitting shoulder to shoulder and that's going to impact other decisions particularly for our district as well as what erie county thinks about masking for example on school buses we are not anticipating offering a 100 remote model option for students however
042we do believe it's proven to be prepared to offer that model for students who are immunocompromised students who have a compromised immune system and if their doctor believes that child's return to a regular school setting poses a danger due to that condition they may be eligible for a year-long seat in the boces e-learning virtual academy so if anybody who is watching the board meeting tonight we've sent out a few uh email blasts to families uh please contact sheriff cardone at 773-8815 if your child falls within that immunocompromised category and then cheryl will work with your family to see if you're interested in a year-long season has to be a commitment for the year uh through boces for uh virtual learning does anybody around the table have questions so what will sure so um let's say
043you know i'm isolated and mr rory the school district will provide home hospital care instructional care for those individuals who fall into that category so the incumbent on the district to make sure that we have teachers who will work at the elementary level which is one hour a day for the length of time that they're out and quarantine uh that is that is not a deviation from any other child say a child who has leukemia they would receive the same amount of service so it's equitable across all areas of medical need and we will be able to provide those services for the elementary and the secondary secondary students get two hours of instruction a day um i have a question what about children with an iep if they're out on a quantum team is it
044will it be like it was this past school year would they receive their service virtually with the teacher okay [Music] thank you sure just to clarify though it those those services may be provided either during the school day or outside the school day right depending on the availability of teachers those are one-on-one services for special now there could be let's say it's mr luria and mrs cardone and this is you know dr harris who are quarantined they're all in the same class they may do a group you know depending on coordinating the time available for kids thank you okay there are people here get ready with respect to masks the erie county department of health will be issuing the guidance that i spoke about earlier their guidance may include recommendations or mandates that guidance will
045be issued so we do not have a timetable where the erie county department helps guidance they just started getting feedback from superintendents today every superintendent now in erie county can send their written uh ideas to the erie county department of health we got that email at the end of the day today so they will gather all that information they'll consult with their doctors and scientists and then create their own guidance what's important what i'm trying to communicate is if they provide us with recommendations or mandates right the district can choose to follow recommendations or adapt and remodify them guidance that is mandated will be lawful and we will need to follow lawful guidance from the erie county department of health so if there isn't a mandate or a legal requirement for mass learning the district
046is considering making that optional for parents so let me repeat that if your county department of health recommends mask wearing but it doesn't mandate and make it a legal requirement the district is prepared to offer parents the opportunity to opt out of that we cannot opt out of something that is a legal requirement of the district i just want to make sure that everybody here understands that so we definitely need to wait unfortunately i know everybody's anxious i'm anxious as well but we have to wait for the eric county department health guidance to be received and of course i hope you understand i will update the community as soon as that is available are there any questions from the board um i have a question for the children under 12 with distance in the classroom
047it will be three feet in the classroom and is it three feet lunch room music or is it six feet yeah excellent questions so definitely to the extent possible we're going to be looking at uh three feet so uh actually that's the next slide no that's great but to the extent possible we will set up our classrooms to maintain three feet of distance there okay there uh that will also be true in our cafeterias and our coral you know chorus rooms and band rooms to the extent possible and that is saying as of today without the guidance or mandates from the erie county department of health this is how we would function any questions about that so beyond that the district if we were starting today and remember what i'm saying if we were starting
048today and we were doing mass optional we would continue to require the heart screening form that our parents had to fill out last year we will continue to require children and staff who are ill to stay home sorry if we were starting today and males were optional do the children on the school bus have to wear the mask right so if we're starting today it would still be optional but but cdc says it's a must so we would talk with our internal team look at everything uh it may make sense for us to mandate that contraception and the children who aren't siblings sitting shoulder to shoulder can't even have three feet of distancing on pet buses so so more to come right now we're gonna wait to see how you know erie county provides us
049with that guidance or mandate also if we're starting today we're going to continue to use the thermal temperature scanners when students enter the building on a daily basis we'll continue to send students and stamp home if they develop symptoms while in school we'll continue to follow the same hand hygiene protocols as we did in the previous year we'll continue to implement the same cleaning and disinfecting protocols in classrooms and common spaces by our highly trained srp we would absolutely comply with the erie county department of health's close contact core intake requirements we don't have any say over that right now a close contact is someone who has been within six feet of an infected person for at least 10 minutes those individuals who are determined to be a close contact and we mentioned this before
050and if those individuals are vaccinated they will not have to quarantine if they are asymptomatic right so excellent question as of our conversation today with dr bursting she hadn't committed yet to that my my sense of the tone and the conversation is that somebody who's master would still have to foreign team that's my sense it's not what the erie county department health said out loud today at all so there they took all the feedback and then they'll create the guidance and then we'll see what's recommended but close contacting absolutely falls within their purview and we absolutely have to follow it and i'm sure he works a lot with them but it's it would be it would be an incentive right for for some families you know to what you're what you're saying you know to
051maybe wear them to choose them and ask if if it wasn't a mandate because then if if the irritating department of health said that somebody was mastered sitting as a close contact next to somebody else that they would allow them to continue the continuity of learning and stay in school because of mass that would be an incentive so that has been communicated to your attending department health we'll wait and see how they perceive that and so again um the district with you know with the board support purchased air purifiers for every classroom and office space throughout the entire district those will be in operation again in september to the extent possible we plan on offering free weekly or could be bi-weekly but the goal is weekly program 19 surveillance testing through operation expanded testing to
052the extent possible we also plan on offering free program testing to individuals who are not close contacts but not only available who opt into operation expanded testing would would participate in that this is uh this is a free service that's provided by the health and human services through the federal government in collaboration with the erie county department of health they're using grant dollars to help buffalo healthcare hire nurses who will go to schools for families who want to participate in operation expanded testing they will conduct the test our school nurses will not have to do that and uh the turnaround time is relatively quick for operation expanded testing and then uh you know information then is readily available for families who are interested in that proximal testing is different it's only through erie county again
053in the scenario that i said if i'm isolated or i'm positive mr lauria is my peer he is a close contact he is quarantined in third grade if he's not vaccinated i miss cardone who may be a proximal contact contact who may be 20 feet away from me in the same room families will have the option to participate in proximal testing only if they want to so when we're communicating with families a parent might receive a letter or a notice saying your child has been identified as a proximal contact to somebody who is has been positive if you would like to participate in proximal uh testing uh it will occur in such and such a date just let us know this is a lot to take in does anybody have any questions about proximal testing
054or operation standard testing thank you so this slide i i kind of already talked about the definitions of operation expanded testing and the partnership with erie county um and of course we would recommend that unvaccinated students volunteer for this but it's it's up to the parents and it's only consent based of course also we will have more information on operating expanded testing in the weeks ahead and as kind of a concluding slide for our community and our members that are here and people watching in life uh erie county does still have uh free vaccinations for children 12 years and up you can see on the 10th it's at ucc south throughout the day wednesday the 11th is at the erie county fair and then saturday the 14th at the north carolina community center so right
055now for our board if you have any additional questions about those be answered right yeah so i think the question is will new students to your school have an opportunity for some type of orientation so i know roger broker and your team you're you're working on a new student orientation do you have a date for that it's uh august 26th it's gonna be from six to eight here in high school and that's gonna be for incoming ninth graders and any new students to the district that are transferring in maybe from uh brokerage school or something like that remember i've sent out some reminders but that information is going to be going off this week and i know our other principles are working in the same thing next up we have the board of education reports
056work session to discuss retreat dates my father they actually came towards uh sound free board members possibly to table this until the other board members are there so everyone has an opportunity to go through the calendars for available dates for them perfect next item is public comment sessions general items not included in this agenda at this time public comments are invited from those individuals who desire to address the board of education on any topic which is not on the agenda residents who have previously signed up to speak will be recognized by the president when speaking please identify yourself first speak clearly and loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not more than three minutes to appoint a spokesperson if a concern is a group
057concern and if necessary or desired to supplement the verbal presentations with written reports personal comments toward a member of the community staff or board of education will not be considered appropriate first person we have for tonight is melanie greyback hello good evening my name is melanie grabeck i have two children in this district one is going to second grade and another into starting kindergarten i've also been a high school math teacher for buffalo public schools for 15 years i'm here today to ask that the board make mess optional for the upcoming school year i know you said you would know something you'd have to consider if the option came up to consider so i'm just asking you to consider what i have to say when you are considering as school board members you volunteer your
058time to represent our community's values when it comes to what is best for our children that is what we elect you to do dr graham sent on a survey at the end of june to find out what the community values the last question asked parents whether they want mass to be optional this fall 820 of the 965 people who responded said yes that's 85 many parents in our communities have written and called all of the health departments and the governor over and over again asking for the data and the people on the phone at these offices all say we don't have that or we don't track that if this is such an emergency that we're being forced to mask our children for six seven eight hours or more a day there should be data to
059back it up children do not deserve to be masked all day based on feelings or because it appeases the vocal mob or because children are resilient as if i i've heard people say which frankly makes me want to puke if you have data showing the kids there are major spiders of cohen show it to us if you have data that teachers or the kids are in danger of dying from coven more than other things we live with every day show it to us if you have data that mass work or do not cause harm please show it to us and we will leave you alone i've heard people say well the mass is the reason there wasn't huge outbreaks in school so how do you explain schools not only in our country but all over
060the world that didn't ask there's not a single case of a teacher dying because they caught code from a student if there is show it to us we're being told the cases are up but if you notice they aren't telling you the actual numbers anymore just percentages what happened to the death counter that they had on the screen every day with the total now they just use words like an alarming number a concerning number what number tell us the number i'll tell you the numbers as august as of august 5th there were 72 newly reported cases of coveted erie county and one death there was a seven day rolling average of death of zero why are we masking our children for zero less than four hundred children under the age of eighteen have died and
061coded in the us from the beginning of this 19 months ago and they all had bad underlying conditions that's 0.0005 percent we're more likely to be struck by lightning or killed a car crash that died from coving yet i don't see anyone wearing a lightning hat or walking around every day instead of driving when you stop making decisions based on feelings and fears and politics and go back to making well thought out data back decisions if they can't provide the data then i'm sorry why are we listening to them 30 seconds hey it's um deaths are down it's great news it's time to move on we have subjected our children to 19 months of this madness and we say no more they have given enough they are scared stressed out enough they just want to
062go back to normal we can give that to them we've gone through and done everything that is vast of us the time is up i beg you to stop waiting to be told what to do look at the numbers make the obvious decision if you want send out more surveys we've told you what we want we'll tell you again math should be optional to sum this all up i ask the questions requiring the children to wear a mask all day free from undesirable side effects and potential hazards if you can't unequivocally say no that we shouldn't be making the kids wear them the decision should be left up to the parents thank you thank you up next we have jennifer i'm going to apologize is it nursing america america thank you hello i am jennifer
063america i didn't appreciate the last time i came that i was not given the courtesy to take a few extra minutes to speak and then i was laughed at when i left the room and then the video was edited i have the original recording anyone who thinks that a concerned parent is a joke should not be sitting in those seats i understand there are protocols but you break them all the time when you want to i went to a recent school board meeting in naira county and about eight people spoke and they were allowed to speak beyond the three-minute protocol and even provided responses because they cared and chose kindness over protocol some parents believe that the risks of comed outrage the risks of mass while their other parents who believe the risks of mass
064outweigh the risk of covet we have different perspectives because we are all different so why not have a choice even though parents don't all agree on mass debate i do know all parents want the same outcome which is for our children to be healthy safe and provided an appropriate education we know that since grand island went mass optional for summer school we have had one case why did the health department no longer require schools to report daily cases to the state wouldn't a needs assessment been a great opportunity for them to determine the need because we can't just force mass on assumptions our children have the legal right to an appropriate education but these masks are hindering that right this has gone on way too long we shouldn't be normalizing face masks as part of
065our dress code we need to stop treating healthy children as diseases it's not about the health of our children and our community when children are forced to wear mass in school and then be able to be unmasked at a bill's practice with thousands of people shoulder to shoulder i called the erie county department of health today to ask about these claimed outbreaks in summer schools and camps and no one had any answer and i said they said that they would get a call back but i didn't we have the right to know this data especially if we're going to force our children to wear a mask new york state resident filed the foil requests from the new york state department of health requesting a thanksgiving mask wearing to stop covet in which they reply that
066had no records of such information if you read the front print on most consumer masks you will see something along the lines of not intended for medical purposes and has not been tested to reduce the transmission of these disease or doesn't prevent coven 19. if we actually wanted effective mass the manufacturer should be conducting scientific tests evaluating mass specifically for the ability to reduce the spread of coronavirus and the cdc and fda should be only recommending ones to and be effective there is no emergency or evidence to justify or enforce mass the erie county department of health can make organizations all they want but recommendations aren't requirements and mandates are not laws stand with us and give us choice to the parents we need to be focusing on other strategies that prevent illnesses like teaching
067and practice irregular proper hand washing reminding children to keep their hands away from their faces wiping down surfaces ensuring symptomatic children stay home providing our children with breast produce and wholesome health with healthy foods promoting physical activity supporting their mental health and social interaction as an individual and collective linking families with outside resources and other ways to prevent it was stated um this is not my speech but you're stating that the cdc or the erie county is saying that only the vaccinated um unvaccinated has quarantined but we already know that vaccinated spread it too so why can't why aren't they quarantining as well they can spread it to someone who is unvaccinated so that just doesn't make any sense and a lot of these guidelines don't make a lot of sense thank you thank you
068[Applause] up next we have dev stan van zarante ah i just want to say first i appreciate everybody this has been a tumultuous 19 months what everybody's done what we've all gone through emotionally physically mentally everything it's been trying on everybody you know and i appreciate it um i was an essential worker because i sell a lot of this pve to departments in that and so i'm aware of what she was speaking about not fda approved i mean all these kids come in with a jersey mass or a we're not they're not being guarded from anything let's put it that way just putting a mask over your face just putting a t-shirt over your mouth or like a you know scarf that's not protecting anything and if we don't have a high humidity transmission rate
069and that was stated because of your facts one um covet case over the summer why are we going to put our children back into that storm of barriers and barriers on the lunch table and boxes in the gym my daughter is going to go to cagavin second grade you know i hate to say she was resilient but thank you jesus she was resilient because i know a lot of children were not and you all reached out because there was obviously a lot of psychological issues you've done that a a great job on that there's mental health you know if anybody needs counseling i think it's fabulous but obviously if we need this counseling if we if there's psychological emotional issues this isn't the best thing for our children and we all know that we're all
070sitting here with no masks so why are we going to put our children through it yet again my daughter was going two and a half days sidway the other two days she was going to saying somebody's child care do you want to have face masks two and a half days no math what's the point they don't that that i don't understand so all summer neither none of my husband myself and i've not been sick at all and i'm one case of everybody has underlying conditions but i i believe it is not legal for them to mandate that we as a district parents seeing that 85 of us said we don't want to mask on our children that we should be allowed to make that decision for our children and help them out we get all
071get sick in the winter we are we all get sick in the you know january february my daughter was sick from october to january on her off and so was i she could say i could say it's going to happen we all get those different strains of flu every year this isn't a it's not like a smallpox scenario and i think the the media is politicize this to the nth degree for financial gain and it's not that that's not what's going on but these kids cannot go through this again i hate to see any kid put a mask on the bus get off take it off in school if we opt out what is the point and i'm not upset with the board i mean i'm just telling you know as a parent and i
072have you know you know i don't know how many other people here have more kids i could only imagine it was incredibly mentally draining and stressful for me to be working full time being an essential worker and then having to school my daughter at the same time i was at rook and i'm sure a lot of parents can say the same thing i don't want to go through i cannot go through that again i can't and i know none of you want to go to them you guys have kids you don't want to see your kids go through that you know what's going to happen they're going to pull it down they're going to work none of this works so this mandate is not legal and if we're going to follow the mandate it doesn't
073make sense if we should be allowed to make our own decision and we all know from the surveys thank you for the surveys because i filled every one of them out that you know what we all want and i understand that you have to follow certain guidelines but is it a guideline is it a recognition is it mandy is it legal where does that what buzz work i just don't understand that's what drives me crazy about all this that's all i mean i just i've set it off really i would be hopping out i would totally be acting after my daughter i've sold these products i know what they do and what they don't do so me personally i have i'm i'm personally invested in this for my dog [Applause] next we have mike good
074ryback i'm mike grebeck my wife was the first one to speak i don't have any notes or uh speech here but i guess i just for you guys um you guys have to wait to hear erie county and their recommendations and so on um everybody in this room that's advocating and what doesn't want math for the kids when they've asked when they called there isn't data for kids there isn't they get to run around if you can even get somebody whatever the case is i know there's ample studies and so on on masks the from bacteria inside them to stress to speech to all these things i'm sure you guys being an education you see how many times are you giving a lesson with your mask and the kids can't hear you can't hear the
075kids i mean all that stuff i don't know i don't see the emergency at least for the kids and so if you know you guys hopefully erie county makes the right decision and does what they're going to do but for the most part i mean we all can see what these masks are doing i know my kids hate them i'm sure most kids you know don't like them so hopefully you know the school year starts off and everything's you know the way we want them okay up next we have colleen huh hello my name is kellyanne cost most of you probably know me because i'm not quiet when it comes to these things um first of all i would like to say also thank you for everything you're doing i would just hope that you
076take that around the information that we're giving you today back when you do draft whatever you're sending to the county but i'm here to request the school allow optional masking when they begin i know we discussed this at my last year it happened over the summer but basically everyone has thought based on the survey majority of our parents don't want it but if we're going to talk about statistics based on those statistics these kids are not at risk from this disease that doesn't mean that some won't get sick and let's face it the flu is part of normal life they keep talking about this variant this is what flus do we get a flu shot every year for different types of blues and i'm nobody minimizing anyone getting ill but the damage from the masking
077and the social distancing is a bigger risk to our children's mental health and physical health than coveted itself and this is based on numbers from the american academy of pediatrics in the state's reporting point zero zero to the point zero three percent of all child children copit cases resulted in death point zero zero percent to 0.03 on a different note the cdc reported as of 6 11 2021 suicide attempts have increased 51 ages 12 to 17 in just one month in february of 2021 to march of 2021. mass are making normal socialization difficult and children are losing vital time with their peers it shows in the numbers that were also released increased mental health issues and i think it was colorado in the winter time they had to declare a state of emergency and they
078had to open a separate wing of the hospital for mental illness from the kids being admitted a number of youths from the mental health alliance the number of youths experiencing minor depressive events increased by 99 000 last year the number of youth experiencing severe uh depressive events increased by 121 from march of 2020 to march of 2021 there was a 44 increase in teen suicide the mental what this is doing to our children mentally is so much worse than getting a flu and that is based based on today's data from the cdc website and i know someone else stated this the total deaths from children from the eight from age one to seventeen of in the whole country specifically with covid but also with underlying conditions was 349 people total deaths from pneumonia last year
079was 842. this is straight from their site i'm not making light of anyone's death but i know the psychological and emotional damage that is being done is much more severe and i wish it would take that to the department of health 44 increase in teen suicide last year that's what's killing our kids not covet this is this is where the fear for our kids should be we need to allow them to choose to mask or not to be allowed to socialize with their peer social distancing is damaging our youth in ways that we cannot even imagine suicide is the second leading cause of death in teams the first is accidents younger children are having difficulty learning to speak due to masking teens are committing suicide at an alarming rate we have no idea what the
080long-term effects of what we've done to our children the last 19 months is going to do please take this information to the erie county department of health i understand that some of this is out of your control but allow mass to become optional those who feel comfortable wearing them wear them those that do not should not have to they should have the freedom of choice please help us teach our children that we are the land of the free and choice is part of that thank you up next we have jellonia and jim mulcahy um i'll give you a break from masks uh well i appreciate the fact that you folks have been so fully focused on colvin life does continue i believe the board has an obligation to provide parents and taxpayers a statement of
081its stance on the teaching of critical race theory in the 1619 project in the schools this is issue isn't going to disappear if the advocates are determined to poison the minds of our youth and wreck our country her statement should be delivered by the start of the coming school year it needs to be clear and direct with no dancing around the issue critical race theory is nothing but marxist propaganda and dogma the 1619 project is pseudo history with no context both have a goal of dividing americans by race neither has any claim to be an academic subject as has been pointed out by others rental assaults on basic american values are due to failure but that doesn't prevent piecemeal insidious attacks on the periphery such as these that will ultimately erode and destroy our society
082now the question arises whether it should be discussed in the schools it would be ideal if it was possible to do the myth squatting of this nonsense in the high school so that the students didn't carry this uh baggage into life however like everywhere else choices have to be made because there's only so much time and i'd be surprised that the district is geared up to properly incorporate this into its curriculum but if it does this nonsense shouldn't be studied in a vacuum text that have actually examined the data should be included the perfect starting place would be planets souls trilogy race and culture migration and cultures and conquests and cultures it will change your view about lots of things reading his books if the district chooses to include this in its history course or
083other courses the syllabus and each course should explicitly state what is going to be discussed and what text and other materials will be used these should be readily accessible on the district website the public has the right to know what is being taught in their classrooms now i'm turning to the mask issue here most of the cdc data percentages you've are worthless because their denominators are inaccurate they're not useful denominators yes we know how many people got sick but the percentages are really suspect however let's take a look at the number for granddad we said 78.6 of people over 20 have had at least one shot we also said that 2011 grand islanders have gotten colbin that's roughly 10 of the population so that means roughly 90 of the island is protected against us i
084mean if you've gotten coping and survived you're actually better off than if you've gotten a shot uh studying israel showed that you're six to seven times better off so we've got 90 percent it's hurt immunity as fouching has been spouting for the last year and a half we shouldn't be concerned at this point and that concludes the public comment sessions next item on the agenda committee of full items of information roundtable does any of this ever get like responded we're not allowed to ask questions i didn't expect to ask this i'm just curious just congratulations thank you and the whole business department because they all were parents daryl for special um students along with enl students we have over 100 students participate um at the august 30th meeting i will you know one of the
085beginners at um summer school and i'll look at the pbs benefit that i will also be presenting to talk about but it was a success i can't believe six weeks just came by um but it to is hillary and devin and max um at the frontline people for this um summer school since we expanded it to 8-12 this year it was a huge undertaking so thank you very much welcome larry i can't wait for you to start doing some stuff on the website i have plenty of stuff for you um also august is a heavy month for grants so all of those will be submitted by august 31st we are entering audit within the next week and our favorite people from the state controller is sent doctor graham and email so we'll be doing their
086audit as well i really don't know what they're auditing at this point but just so you're aware thank you and uh for me welcome larry and uh fabulous job with the summer school roll out really just went off without not too much to add i know that the west new york law conference is uh occurring this week there's a half day session on the 10th and a half day session on 12th both sessions are virtual we do have some board members and jews who've signed up for that which is great and we hope that i'm actually on the committee uh that helps plan for that so please let me know some feedback on that virtual conference i'm looking forward to being with danielle uh actually i think it's wednesday danielle just unless i will double
087check our calendars but our new board member orientation so double check our calendars that's coming up this week and i'll tell you for the board there's a lot of hiring going on between now and august 30th so our august 30th our board meeting will be very busy and i know we'll have some people to introduce to you some new hires so we're looking forward to that as well so thank you okay upcoming dates august 30th board of education meeting and workshop august 31st superintendent's conference day september 1st first day of school september 13th board of education meeting and workshop and september 27th board of education meeting and workshop i just want to add one more note for the board our district facilities committee which includes joy glenn and ashley will be meeting on wednesday august
08825th it's virtual it starts at six o'clock just want to make mention of that it's a big meeting i think felicia will be there and [Music] lost mike and nelly and we'll hear from uh our architects and construction managers they'll talk about the structural engineering report for pepperdine and talk about the potential of a future small admiral project uh that would that would be up for the board's consideration in the future so very big meeting hopefully everybody can attend thank you now it's time to join the regular board meeting motion to adjourn regular board meeting at 54. all in favor aye you