Board of Education Meeting Monday, August 23, 2021, at 6:00 p.m. at Valley Central High School.

001we're going to call to order the board of ed meeting for monday august 23rd at 604 and we're going to go into executive session can i get a motion to go into executive session to discuss personnel second katie all in favor aye opposed extension all right uh 5-0 and we're going to go into executive session [Music] so [Music] oh you okay okay can i get a motion to come out of executive session i'll make a motion share a second katie on favor aye opposed okay 6-0 come out of executive session all right um welcome to the regular uh board of ed meeting on monday august 23rd all right go louder [Music] we're going to start with the pledge to the pledge flag to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic

002for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay before we begin i'd like to ask that you note the emergency exits on the sides and behind you masks are required there's no smoking anywhere on school property you have a cell phone please silence it if you're planning to address the board under public participation please sign in uh there's a sheet provided up here on the table and we will get started with uh correspondence thank you joe thank you hello you very much correspondence brief tonight we have a orange county school board's delegates meeting delegates meeting excuse me on uh wednesday september 1st uh 2021 at 7 00 p.m it'll be via zoom that's all for tonight okay thank you john commendations okay none for tonight all right very

003good all right next on the agenda is the proposed consent agenda uh can i get a motion to approve angela thank you second d any discussion all in favor aye opposed abstention 7-0 6-0 sorry okay next on the agenda is uh reports thank you joe i'll start i just want to mention quickly because we have a big agenda tonight uh today we had a convocation and i want to thank bill miller and lori schmidt for putting that together uh induction excuse me induction and um we uh we've been doing this at valley central uh for a long long time it's a chance to invite our new teachers new employees in and spend a day with them um we started off with uh breakfast there was some staff development workshops just to get to know the

004district and hear about the district all our uh our administrators were there and we i i know bill and administrators and bill's office worked extremely hard to get people vetted through the process we had tremendous candidates we're very blessed in this district that people want to work at valley central this community has done a great job over the years of making a place where people want to come so uh another great job i was saying earlier and maybe we'll get a chance to invite the new teachers in just so you can see who they are and we can introduce them uh to the public we'll work on doing that but it was it was a real good day a good day to speak about valley central and uh what we hope to accomplish this year

005and the the other thing opening school i just mentioned real quickly uh sports started today i saw two um young ladies i was going down the hall on the way to um induction and uh [Music] they were coming i said what sport are you coming from they said volleyball i said are you glad to be back and their their faces were covered and they smiled i said i can see your eyes are smiling so they were shaking their head i think the kids are thrilled to be back but fall sports started today um i know there's a barbecue at alc which is always a sign that we're getting close to coming back that's i believe wednesday night we're meeting with the pto uh seven o'clock on thursday so things are in place and i know

006the kindergarten orientation and middle school orientation all those things are on the docket for this week so it's an exciting time i speak for myself i uh i'm i'm thrilled to come back i just take a little bit of a sidetrack i would hope someday i'm gonna be long gone i hope uh not too far gone but that we would look at changing this agrarian calendar that we we follow for schools it's hard on families and i think it's hard on kids to be out of school for that amount of time and i think there's some better uh ways to look at that but change is hard so maybe uh school boards i'm gonna throw that to maybe that's where it can start we're start looking at a different way to uh have vacations but

007break them up there's a whole myriad of ways to do it so anyway thank you joe and i'll let it keep we'll keep moving here thanks next on the agenda is the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction thank you so i just i wanted to talk a little bit about what the schools are doing for their welcome back valley central so we're very excited to be having the kids back five days a week all in person and the all of the seven buildings um came to me and barb gravel who is our attendance officer and said we really want to get kids excited about coming back to valley central to get engaged so we challenged all the schools to come up with some ideas on what they could do so that when kids get back

008the first two days because as you know we come back on a thursday and a friday and then we're out again and we come back on on a wednesday or something like that so um they have some great ideas so at the high school they're going to have an extracurricular fair where kids are going to be able to go to a fair where they're going to hear about all of the clubs that they could join and the different activities that are available and the electives that are available to them they're also going to be they're going to have banners and balloons and they're going to have some socialization opportunities homecomings i know mr burns called me the other day about a wonderful idea for a field trip for our 9th and 10th graders that will

009take place in october so they're very excited about that at our middle school again there's going to be music in the hallways and welcome signs there's going to be a period for the first two days where they will be assigned a housekeeping task and then an engaging activity so that kids are given the opportunity to socialize kids were saying you know what do i want to do when i come back for the first couple days of school it's like i want to talk to my friends again i want to be able to engage with them so we're going to give them that opportunity to be able to do that in a safe environment at the alc they're going to have extended periods with class teachers whole group team building activities a pancake breakfast at the

010elementary schools i know some of you know how we at the end of the year we have things like ice cream trucks and we have field days and things like that to celebrate the end well now we're going to celebrate the beginning um and they are going to have ice cream trucks for the children um there's going to be a picnic style lunch on the back lawn at ec there's going to be a friday lunch on the lawn for walden i know east coast and ham pt um a is planning on doing some type of petting zoo but really what we're trying to do is get kids excited about being back and i'm excited about school and seeing their friends and their teachers and i think the first two days of school and valley central

011are going to be a great place so welcome back valley central thank you marianne next is the assistant superintendent for human resources [Music] so as john said we had our new teacher induction program today at the high school we ran that in collaboration with the valley central teachers association the valley central administrators association we conducted five presentations with the help of our vcta and vcaa for 23 of our first and second year teachers uh thank you for those who from board of ed members who joined us for breakfast today it was a great day even given the circumstances it was nice to see some some young and some veteran teachers come into valley central with smiles on their faces and ready to go it was uh an energetic day for sure as an update with

012our hiring procedures we continue to use our olafs and nemnet programs to post all of our instructional positions nemnet which is a minority recruitment database is a new program for us all of our administrators are familiar with it and have been trained on and begin to use it with our screening process we are also evaluating strategies for recruitment hiring retaining a more diverse faculty and staff jobs fair job fairs is one of the platforms we plan to explore for the next winter into spring season into our hiring season to begin the 2021 school year we're working under new york state paid emergency covid sick leave for all of our employees who may require sick leave related to covid we're hoping that with the mass mandate we will keep the need to quarantine students and staff

013low our labor council is expecting that new york state and or the federal government may offer an updated sick leave plan for public employees when we have new guidance for that we will look closely we will work closely with our labor council to make sure we're interpreting and applying those updates appropriately and just a quick update with sports as superintendent exanta said fall sports began today the section 9 protocol committee met last week and they issued a statement the section 9 protocol committee has developed a set of guidelines for the fall 2021 season these guidelines are subject to change based on any further mandates from the governor the state department of health and the local county departments of health the state education department or new york state public high school athletic association the guidelines are

014as follows section 9 will conduct the fall 2021 season in all sports indoor sports of volleyball and girls swimming except when in the water are required to wear a mask this includes players coaches site personnel and officials indoor sports will allow spectators spectators will be required to wear masks outdoor sports will not require mass for players coaches site personnel and officials outdoor sports will allow spectators with no mask requirements section i reminds all schools to follow social distancing and all other mitigating protocols to keep all participants as safe as possible the section 9 protocol committee met last week tomorrow is the the leagues that meet the mid hudson athletic league the m hall and the orange county interscholastic athletic association the oci meet they both make up section nine both leagues will meet and vote

015to adopt these guidelines which i'm anticipating they will and these guidelines will be in place for the remainder of the fall season there may be some exceptions to this if there are i will obviously report them at the next board meeting thank you thank you mr miller next is the projected enrollment thanks very much as you can see um our enrollment is going to is pretty stayed pretty steady we're up um certainly about 20 kids from last year we certainly think coveted affected our enrollment as some people chose to uh homeschool or send to private school so um i know uh janine uh at central office our registrar uh has been extremely extremely busy and um people are coming in and that's pretty much par for the course especially um after a year that we

016had that people will be re-registering or new people moving into the district so uh our our numbers are good our class sizes which is always a concern are very very good there's a couple uh high ones maybe in elementary but not extraordinary high and we watch them and keep an eye on them so we're we feel like we're in good shape with staffing and we're ready to go so thank you john next on the agenda is the clover 19 back to school report [Music] thanks so i want to thank all of you for taking the time to fill out the questions on the form that went out so what we asked you to do is we asked you to take a moment to ask any questions that you had about the 27 or 29 page

017plan that went out to you so our plan went out to you in an email there was like maybe about one or two small typos in that so those have been corrected and the corrected version it was just dates are on our website so if you're looking for our back to school plan you can find that right on our website in the red tab and all the information is there so after reading that we asked if you had any questions so this may take a little while but what we did is we took all the questions that you asked and we categorized them into a couple of sections so we have questions that had to do with learning we had questions that had to do with quarantine and exposure questions that had to do with

018the learning environment questions that had to do with masks and questions that had to do with medical medical questions so basically what i'm going to do and some of them were repeat questions so i'm going to read those questions to you and i'm going to answer those questions for you then give the board an opportunity to ask our district attorney and our district medical um director if coordinator direct medical director if they have any questions for them or if they have anything to add to what i'm talking about so i'm just going to get started so the first question was will remote learning be available and this year it will not be available so all classroom instruction for 2122 will be 100 in person unless it is mandated otherwise by the state of new york

019the center for disease control and prevention has been emphatic in stating that children should return to info in person learning in the fall with layered prevention strategies in place according to the american pediatrics remote learning highlighted inequities in education it was detrimental to the educational attainment of students of all ages and it increased the mental health crisis among children and adolescents therefore returning to full in-person instruction is absolutely a priority for the valley central school district however if a student is quarantined due to covet 19 which we do not think under the current rules that we will have many quarantines they will be provided with remote instruction and this will be a combination of asynchronous and synchronous education and i know you know what that is synchronous is when it's live streaming asynchronous when it's

020assignments on the google classroom and there will not be a one size fit off for that it will be it's going to look different if it's a kindergartener or if it's a senior so but they will be provided with instruction they will all have every child will have a chromebook and we have gotten some new better chromebooks and we will have google classrooms established however if the valley central school district is closed as we were um when was that back in march of 2020 and um we're closed and the schools have to shut down for applause or any of that we will have a program in place for online instruction and that program is actually online as well at the very bottom of the plan you'll see our plan for online instruction so again they

021asked if there would be a hybrid option and no there will not be a hybrid option unless there are significant changes to the guidelines will in-person tutoring services once be offered to students that are absent from school for extended periods of time due to a medical condition some of you may know that there is a policy there's a board policy in place right now that speaks to home tutoring for children that are home on a medical condition that will happen it's one hour a day for our elementaries and two hours a day for our secondary and there is a process in place and that process can be found on our website as well question about band and chorus yes it's going to take place this year students in chorus will be spread out three feet

022apart if they are singing inside their masks will be on if they are singing outside they may take them off band students will be separated by six feet as much as is possible a very good question about vaccination will our children be educated about the vaccine as i am afraid they will feel forced no valley central will provide information about covid19 vaccinations to families via our website email and our social media it will not be provided directly to our students we will establish supportive policies and practices that will make being vaccinated as easy and convenient as possible for those that are interested in being vaccinated we will not make any student feel as though they are being forced to be vaccinated nor is it any part of our curriculum what happens if i decline to

023send my children into school you can choose to homeschool your children if you need information on that process you can find it on the district website under academics we do have a woman who works for the district part-time that is a liaison with the homeschooling parents and she can assist you in that process will the high school be offering in-person clubs and activities absolutely we are going to do everything possible to get these kids back engaged in school and that's what they like clubs and activities they will follow covet protocol in the same matter as during the school day this will also take place at the elementary school in the middle school so the next section is on quarantine will the quarantine rules be the same as last year no thank goodness because that was

024horrible for everybody so the cdc guidance defines close contact as someone who is within six feet of an infected person however in the k-12 classroom the close contact definition excludes students who are within three feet to six feet of an affected student if both the infected student and the exposed student correctly and consistently wore well-fitting masks the entire time so if we're wearing our masks like we are now and if i was to come excuse me okay okay i'm gonna keep going so if we were if joe if mr bond was to have covert at this time and we were masked and also it doesn't have to be three feet you'll see the cd guidance said three feet as much as possible and they were very clear that a school should not not open or

025not hold things if you can't have the three feet so it says three feet as much as is possible but if we have our masks on we don't have to quarantine which is a very important thing because the goal is to keep kids in school where they belong what will the protocol be for notifying parents of positive case exposures in the classroom it will be exactly the same as it was last year you'll be getting a phone call from either your school nurse or district nurse coordinator and then you will get weekly covet updates from central office what are your protective plans for children that are not eligible for quarantine the cdc has recommended the following nine prevention strategies which the valley central school district will adhere to promoting vaccination and providing information for those

026that do qualify consistent and corrective correct mass use mass use physical distancing of three feet to the very best of our ability screening improving ventilation encouraging hand washing and respiratory etiquette reminding students and staff to stay home when they are sick and to get tested continuation of contact tracing and quarantine when necessary and continuation of high standards of cleaning and disinfection so the next section is on school environment and it's a good question will there be temperature checks at the door no so parents caregivers or guardians will be strongly encouraged to monitor their children for signs and symptoms and of infectious illnesses every day through home-based screening so then there was another good question after that that said why has the daily temperature screening been removed and placed onto the parents and teachers this is

027arguably the single most helpful tool the school has so we checked into that and the daily temperature screening was removed from being done on school property because valley central did not have one student or staff member sent home with a fever upon entry last year parents and guardians were all asked to monitor their children before sending them to school as were staff instructed to monitor themselves before coming to work we believe that parents and staff did comply and we believe they will be again any student or staff that complains of illness during the school day will be isolated and screened by the school nurse if the health office sees an increase in students or staff coming to school ill we will revisit the daily temperature screening so there's a couple questions about air conditioning as

028you can see because it's freezing and that's why my glasses are fogging up up here what are we doing about air conditioning there are air conditioners in some classrooms in each building this summer we put in several air conditioners in each of the valley central elementary schools because we knew that that was going to be a concern about summer school so we actually put air conditions into every room where summer school is going to take place obviously the high school auditor this is air-conditioned and there are some other rooms that are um so what are we going to do well several years ago we did put up a referendum which included air conditioning in all buildings in the large common areas and that was defeated and possibly in the future the district will put up

029another referendum at some point so this question here about lunches how will lunches be set up each building will establish a procedure for lunches so that students are distanced from each other as much as possible students will put their masks on when they are done eating some schools will put procedures in place where students go outside immediately after they are finished eating some elementary schools may choose to have students eat in the classroom some schools may set up overflow rooms this will all depend on the population and the spacing available in each of the seven buildings for high school students that have opted out of having lunch period will they be allowed to eat in one of their classes as they have in the past yes absolutely will lockers be used in the secondary level

030at the secondary level at the middle school lockers are going to be phased in as the school year starts for each grade level students will not be required to carry many supplies lockers will be used at the high school and students will be reminded to not linger and to keep their masks on and they will try to do their very best to make sure that there's not as many children in the hallway all at once will elementary students be able to mingle on the playground yes students will be reminded to stay at least three feet apart and they will not have to wear masks what is the plan for better air circulation without making it too hot or cold we are aware that improving ventilation is important we will bring fresh outdoor air into the

031buildings to keep virus particles free i'm sorry particles from concentrating inside multiple inside doors and windows will be kept open as much as possible they did change this child safe fans can now be used to increase the effectiveness of open windows and windows on buses will be cracked to improve the vent the circulation how do the schools intend to keep the kids three feet apart in most instances this will be very possible um it's not from it's always from face to face so it's not from dust to desk so in most instances this should not be a problem however as i already said the cdc has made it clear that failure to be able to do so in all cases should never prevent schools from opening to full in-person instruction that is why they have

032also recommended other mitigation measures such as masking vaccination and hand washing will there be staggered arrival and dismissal times not at this time however walkers and self-pickup students and bus students are staggered already in many buildings so at the elementary level the walkers go out first and then the bus students go out the bus students are sometimes called a bus at a time so it really depends if you have um a suggestion or a comment about the pickup process i do encourage you to call the building principle so the next section is on masks and when i'm done with that miss dr reminor if you have anything you want to add i'm going to stop and see if there's anything that you you think that i may have missed will children be able to take

033mass breaks yes in addition to frequent short mass breaks mass will not be need needed to be worn outdoors which is a lot different than last year if you remember last year they were out there on the playgrounds with masks on so this is something to be very grateful for and we are encouraging teachers to take students outdoors as much as possible and they will and i know last year i saw lots of music teachers had the kids outside the band students were outside the kids were outside reading under trees berea has an outdoor classroom that's absolutely beautiful how often will there be mass breaks the number of mass breaks varies depending on student age and their needs we are instructing teachers to give staggered mass breaks throughout the day and to take students outside

034as much as possible we are also instructing teachers to encourage students to let them know that they need a break i did get a lot of calls from parents and i do appreciate those phone calls and those emails um we do i do want to hear you know your concerns and one of the things that a parent said to me that really struck me is that they have you know a child that isn't going to feel comfortable asking the teacher for a mask break so we i that is a good point and so what we're going to do is really have teachers working to make sure that kids do feel comfortable and saying you can tell me anytime you want you know don't feel badly we also have um at each level we have with

035the arp money which is the federal money that we got we have hired an additional student assistance counselor at the high school the middle school and also we have one that's going to be split amongst the elementary schools and part of their job is really to have children feeling comfortable and to have an extra staff that can help with all these issues surrounding covet what happens if a child cannot tolerate a mask a face mask face shields and or other accommodations including frequent mass breaks and social distancing will be considered for those who cannot medically tolerate a face covering a medical note from the student's physician stating the medical reason for not being able to tolerate a face mask will be required a meeting will take place with the school and the parents to discuss

036appropriate accommodations will my child have to wear his mask while attending gym class while indoors students will have to wear masks while in gym class but when physical education is outdoors they will not and physical education teachers will be holding it outdoors as much as possible as long as the weather permits this is a great question what is the end game for masks with children what is the threshold for this district to make them optional and not this one-size-fits-all for the entire state as stated we do have a reason to believe that an order will be put out this week or next week from the state requiring mass to be worn by all the individuals in district buildings it will be up to the health department to create the thresholds but the valley central school

037district is hoping that if we get to low transmission rates that then the state will say that we don't have to wear mass but it is not going to be up to us to decide would we advocate for that absolutely to have no masks and and less social distancing but that will not be a decision that's up to the valley central school district are all staff do they all have to wear a mask yes so everybody has to wear a mask yes including me if i'm in my office all by myself no if i'm in somebody else's office okay so thank you very much and the next section is on medical oh you know what i did say dr reminder that is there anything that you wanted to add about math squaring is there anything

038that you feel like we the questions did not cover [Music] yeah i i think we have a hard time hearing i'll just remind everybody that there's a signing sheet for public participation so please take advantage of that is this working can you hear me okay great so thank you for giving me some opportunity to actually um go over the reasons of why this is coming into place for the upcoming year and where all our children are going to be excitably 100 in person um i think that i wanted to go over um part of mass wearing but also about why we've come about to this reason of layered approach of protecting our children so we all want our children to be here safe and feel secure and the plan that has been set forth is

039really pointed out that that is the situation um i want to go over that right now is a very different situation with the delta variant from what we saw before so we do have vaccinations and there's um valley central's population is um actually well vaccinated um but the problem with the delta variant is that we're finding that there's only about 60 to 80 percent effective rate in terms of covering the delta variant which means that you will probably protect yourself from severe disease but it doesn't protect those that can't get vaccinated because they're too young which is a lot of our student population or if people are medically unable to get that so their question comes about where do we get this idea that mass actually help and we there is a lot of data

040out there so i think the question came up i think the question came up of why are we following the aap guidelines as well as the cdc guidelines and the reason is there is data out there that so there is data out there if you look on the cdc's websites at the studies there are over 50 to 60 studies that go over about the transmissibility israel is ahead of us in terms of looking at covid including the delta variant so they have shown that in those schools that have lessened the transmissibility protection that there actually is an increase of children getting coveted i don't know if there's an understanding of mask is not the sole ability to prevent this if we were to look at um like people talk about the swiss cheese model that

041if you line the swiss cheese exactly and cut it exactly through there's holes all along but if you lined different methods of the swiss cheese where covet can't get through the holes that's how we're going to protect ourselves so the nine measures that marianne pointed out are the ways that we're trying to protect our children i have no political gain in any of this i have one that just graduated a child of mine that just graduated from valley central and i have two children that are still in the school system my goal to bring up this information is to outline that we want the kids to be safe that we want to have the measures in place that they can be safe both in mental health as well as with the covid the delta variant

042has such high transmissibility that if you were to take the numbers the viral load is a thousand times what normally would have been for the alpha variant if i can put that in real terms if it takes 15 minutes for the alpha variant to have passed on to the next person it now takes one second one second so we need all the barriers to be able to help to protect our children we are a community we were so hopeful that in june that at point one percent that we're coming out of it that this is going to be the end of it that we can come back to school without mass without hand sanitizer without all the measures that we have in place now we're going up to 3.8 percent over the last week there

043were 180 000 children that had con um have have coveted now and it's a different beast from the delta variant that excuse me the delta variant is a different beast in real stories we were just on a meeting with our hospitalist colleagues there was a young kid five years old in orange county went in and this is not scary i'm just letting you know what it is out in the community she was five years old she had gone in because she was dehydrated didn't feel well from the covid they decided to admit her for iv fluids not because she was in respiratory distress not because she looked any sicker she had no fever within two hours she was gasping for air it took them 10 hours to find an icu to place that child because

044there are so many children admitted to the picu it is a serious thing going on so i'm not here to scare you i'm here to try to give you guys hope of how we're going to get out of this as a community we have to not only protect those children that are not vaccinated and staff that is not vaccinated but our overall goal is to protect the whole community we did a phenomenal job last year i think marianne can comment on the fact that last year we had not one case transmitted in school and that was to the hard work of the staff of you guys of the kids we have to work together i mean i can't stress that enough this is our community these are our children we're not here to put any

045barriers on our children we're here for the safety and well-being of them thank you doctor so we're going to continue you do have a part you can absolutely sign up for public participation we're going to finish answering the questions okay i'm sorry that's just not the way that a board meeting it runs so we're going to keep talking i mean we're going to keep going on if you'd like to speak please sign up for public participation so we're going to go on with the medical information questions that you had that you took the time to write and i appreciate that and and you know as dr reminar said and i know dr ramanar's children and i i was the principal in their building and i and i have a child myself and i hear you

046saying they're not your children they're with us a long time and we don't have any reason to try to do something that we think is going to i'm just so thrilled that they're going to be back in person instead of sitting home in front of a computer screen does my son want to wear his mask to his first year in high school absolutely not he doesn't but but he's going to be going to school and i'll take that over him sitting home until january like he did last year so the next question under medical is about children with allergies my child has allergies which resemble covid will she be required to stay home every time she has an algae attack no your child will not have to stay home if they have allergies a medical

047diagnosis of allergies must be on file with the health office will all of the teachers and staff be vaccinated um many of our teachers and staff are vaccinated i'm just sure i think that it's somewhere about 70 percent am i correct mrs griffin it's about 70 percent of our teachers and staff are vaccinated however we cannot mandate vaccination at this time what specific studies are you using from the cdc and making your decisions i think that dr reminer spoke to that a bit um the school districts are not doctors we're not scientists and it is not our place to analyze various studies we take our guidance from the new york state department of education which is recommended that we create plans based on the most recent guidance from cdc and aap which we have done

048in addition just recently dr gellman from the orange county department of health recently put out a notice urging all residents of orange county to wear masks while indoors some of the businesses in our community have mandated that as well we also take the advice of our medical director and our attorney we are requiring mass at the guidance of all of those mentioned above will my child require a cova test if he misses school for a headache an allergy or anything other than covid if your child is exhibiting signs that could be covet 19 you need to contact your health care provider the school district will not require a covid test however you will need a note from your health care provider clearing your child to return to school can you honestly say that it was

049the children's best interest that was the deciding factor in requiring masks yes will the nurses have covered 19 testing available at this time we are not planning on testing however if it is later determined that testing is necessary we are willing to do so why are individuals allowed to sit at a table to eat at a restaurant but our children are not allowed to sit at their desk maskless to be educated by teachers and i've said this already about the guidance that we're following and i know that you also all know and you've seen in the news that the governor of new york state has stated several times that a school mass quarter will be forthcoming from the new york state department of health the main objective is to keep kids in school not quarantined

050and not home so the wearing of the mask is to ensure that they don't have to quarantine and that they can be in school i know that you've already heard that at this time there are two orange county children in the icu due to cobia 19. we believe that we are doing all we can through the mitigation strategies to keep our students as safe as possible has the school district established thresholds for enacting additional coveted restrictions so this is asking would we and would we have more restrictions valley central is using layered prevention strategies as recommended by the cdc we will maintain daily and weekly communication with the orange council county department of health and make changes to our plan if advised to do so this question was asking if things got worse would we

051go to remote instruction is there a threshold that would say if things get worse are you going to go to remote and right now there is no such threshold that has been determined will the valley central middle valley schedule dishes be forcing students to undergo cobia 19 testing without parental consent absolutely not as i already stated that we are not testing but even if we were to begin testing we would never test a student without getting parent consent first how many students contracted covet during the 2021 school year when masks were being worn we did not have one case of students contracting covet in the school setting during the 2021 school year when masks were being worn they contacted covet but not within this not in the school district so when we did contact tracing

052so i'm going to move on there's only two more questions so the next question is why has the school district not sent out a survey there are different viewpoints on mask and on online instruction as well as on various other aspects of our plan the guidance has been clear that instruction should be in person utilizing mitigation strategies after consultation with our attorney our medical director and the board of education the valley central school district has made the decision to follow that guidance in order to do our best to keep students safe and a survey not would not have changed that decision the plan that was circulated does not seem to cover any of the facilities outside of the schools what is the plan for district building including administrative building and the maintenance building the plan

053covers all the buildings in the valley central school district including central office so thank you okay so that's yeah i'll just go to the board if the board has any questions uh we have the medical director and we also have mr pettigrew our attorney any questions i actually have a question for you dan somebody asked me whether or not the board has the authority to require a mask and maybe you could address that for me [Music] under new york state law board of education have broad authority over the management and control of the affairs of the school district and to carry out all powers either explicitly granted under the law under on under the education law or any other statutes or by implication and for a number of years school districts uh under have been

054responsible for adopting plans school safety plans so in our opinion imposing a decision to to require all students as well as staff members and other and visitors who come into the school buildings would be consistent with the board's authority granted to it under the law thank you section 1709 of the new york state education law subdivision 33. you're welcome thank you thank you dan okay um so we're gonna move on the agenda um oh sorry all right go ahead sorry um pertaining to masks and the styles of mass i've been asked to ask the question is there a specific or a type of mass that's acceptable right now there is some people that are looking to use a mesh style mask is that going to be acceptable in the school district not all masks are

055created equally the particle of covid 19 is a very small particle and so you have to look at the ability of whether that is going to cross through the mesh depending on how small the the mesh would uh dictate that again this is that layering effect so say somehow we allow for face shield um mesh masks whatever is um layered in protecting the children from getting transmission is going to help so even a mesh mask is going to be more helpful than nothing at all but again um not i'm sorry science to back are we addressing questions now or how i i'm new to this so i just don't want to i don't want to upset anyone i'm here really to address your questions but why don't we follow the appropriate adequate so that i

056don't get in trouble too we're all here trying to get some answers so good okay um so um your question was there is no science about yeah so you you have to realize that in order to um the logistics of a mask if it's not a medical mask is not going to say that it can prevent flu and there is no mask out there that is going to be a hundred percent in preventing transmissibility and this is what we're talking about about layering techniques you can't just wear a mask to prevent covid does it help absolutely there's actually multiple studies that show that so in your question the box saying that it will not prevent flu anecdotally though are many layers of um of mitigation actually i don't know how many of you saw cases

057of flu this past winter i have to tell you usually my office is packed with kids with flu and i do not see one case so um you know and there actually is data out there that we really did not see as many of the wintertime viruses there has been a surge of viruses like rsv and group a strap when we decrease the use of our masks when the cdc had actually liberalized that we do not want to live in a sterile environment that is not the environment that i'm saying but at this point um kovit is taking precedence to protect our kids thank you okay so i just want to mention again uh last call for a sign up for public participation we're going to move through the agenda we're going to get the

058public participation quickly so if you haven't signed up and you'd like to speak please take advantage of the sign-in sheet move on to the agenda next is the racial and social equity committee report so in your folders the the board members will see that there were some recommendations given you to you from the racial and social equity committee so that was a culmination of their work from the 21 22 school year there have been many questions through phone calls and emails about whether the valley central school district is teaching critical race theory valley central school district is not teaching critical race theory but what is even more important to that is what we are doing and this committee that was um formulated last year they did an excellent job and we thank all the parents

059and especially the students that were part of that committee um they have provided you with a five-page document on their recommendations but basically they center around four things our school climate our professional development our curriculum and our staff diversity and as far as the school climate is concerned you are going to be getting a survey your children will be getting a survey it's a panorama survey there are research-based questions that will give the parents and the students and the staff members the opportunity to provide feedback to the school district on whether or not that they feel valued and heard and that their voices are being heard and that they feel like they are valued and used as vehicles for teaching and learning as far as professional development um our committee would like us to be

060reminded that professional development and teaching and learning are adaptive processes and they need constant re-examination and the teachers need to develop the capacity to examine their own beliefs and their own assumptions and as far as our curriculum is concerned every student regardless of their race their culture their gender is going to benefit from high expectations and rigorous instruction so that is our main goal and we also are going to be looking at our science i'm sorry our social studies and our ela curriculums to be sure that students are learning about perspectives beyond the scope of their own as far as staff diversity our human resource assistant superintendent talked a little bit about that it is the goal of the committee to ensure that the district reviews its practices for recruitment hiring and retention of employees

061to ensure that there is equal opportunity for all potential employees all students in the valley central school district need to feel that their voices are heard and that they are represented in our curricula and that is what the valley central school district's goals are in relation to our racial and social equity committee dr um zelic kurland who is a teacher at the high school and he's also going to be serving as our diversity coach is going to be coming to a future board meeting so that he will be available to answer your questions and if you have any questions okay thank you all right next on the agenda is community participation art we'll start with you anything no okay uh angela okay i was able to attend the new teacher induction this morning and i

062just want to thank uh the central administrators and the vcta and vca it was very well done and very um nice welcome for our new staff members thank you thank you uh yeah i was able to attend induction as well and uh it's always fun it's it's uh definitely like the start of the year when you see the new teachers coming in and and very excited to uh see them this morning and and look forward to a good year so okay we are going to move into public participation 22. okay so what we're going to do is um normally public participation is a half an hour long uh what i'd like to do is make a motion to extend it to an hour so that we can give everybody an opportunity to speak uh can

063i get a second on that motion sarah all in favor close okay six zero so we're going to extend it to an hour um we are going to limit the time to three minutes for each speaker please be respectful of your time as it ties into everybody else's time and um sarah will wave her hand when you're at the second mark and if you have any um information documentation that you'd like the board to have you can set it on the stage i guess and we'll go from there so uh first up is eugena riddick hello um i just wanted to read something i wasn't sure we were going to be able to speak otherwise i would have bought my paperwork with me but i did want to read something from the children's health defense

064in regards to mandating coven 19 masks um okay so this serves as notice that the mandate for any individual to wear a mask against colvin 19 for employment or attendance at a university or other institution violates federal law all coven masks whether surgical n95 or other respirators are authorized not approved or licensed by the federal government they are emergency use authorization only they merely may be effective federal law states title 21 usc section 360 bbb and there's other sections there of the federal food drug and cosmetic act fdnc act states one individuals to whom the product is administered are informed that the secretary has authorized the emergency use of the product two of the significant known and potential benefits and risks of such use and of the excuse me extent to which such benefits and

065risks are unknown and three the option to accept or refuse administration of the product of the consequences if any of refusing administration of the product and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks eau products are by definition experimental and thus require the right to refuse under the nuremberg code the foundation of ethical medicine no one may be coerced to participate in a medical experiment content consent excuse me of the event individual is absolutely essential a federal court held that even the u.s military could not mandate ea eua vaccines to soldiers with that's changed um because i did see that pfizer approved the fda did approve pfizer but this still stands in regard to the masks okay so in a later in a letter dated april 24 2020

066the fda and fda stated that authorized face masks must be labeled accurately it may not be labeled in a way that misrepresents the product's intended use as a source of control to help prevent the spread of sars covid cob2 eugene i think time is up but thank you thank you very much i will try to send that to you guys in an email thank you [Applause] next up is alex rossi uh thank you for your time i have three students in the valley central school district um at each level i really believe everyone in this room cares deeply about the well-being of their children and students even if we disagree on appropriate safety measures uh right now the fear is palpable and has resulted in dangerous groupthink where empathy reason and critical thinking have been

067replaced by the unquestioned acceptance of ideas coming from one's own identity group the fear quickly turns to anger when these ideas are challenged because the narratives we latch on to represent a return to normalcy or so we hope one challenge can result in despair depression fear anxiety but often tragically results in further entrenchment to a particular set of ideals and the real tragedy is the hyper polarization to to the point where we see people that will not abandon the terrible ideas for fear being persecuted or rejected by their core identity group and canceled completely but they will abandon common sense critical thinking and courage to go against the grain when it's required so for the sake of our children we need to put the hysteria aside and think about the consequences our actions will have

068in this moment of history and the best ideas usually fall somewhere in the middle so i just want to make three points that was one of them the second one is about microns and masks okay here are some facts from subject matter experts in the areas of health and safety quality control industry industrial regulation viral containment environmental science the covet 19 micron is is one point is point one micron in size so for comparison's sake that is um visible dust in sunlight is about 500 times larger and the cross cross-section of a human hair is 40 000 times larger than a covid micron particles 5 microns or smaller can remain airborne indefinitely under most indoor conditions unless mitigated by air current or dilution mentally ventilation air will circumvent the covering and go around since airflow

069follows the path of least resistance the air where the air goes so does the virus most masks or face coverings are low efficiency non-fit and do not seal there's 100 almost 100 percent misuse of any covering by the population at large every one of you up there has touched your mass at least twice i watched since we've been here um touching the mass mass breaks pulling down heat further rendering mitigation useless especially in a k-12 setting regarding egress droplets droplets come they're a vehicle of the virus molecule but not the virus itself droplets evaporate but the virus survives contaminating the masks virus molecules can be expelled quite easily from their micron size because none of these masks are rated to block a micron of that size um not to mention the risks to wearing the

070masks of which i don't believe any of you have spoken about in children including psychiatric and pediatric issues so in conclusion the mass will not mitigate biotransmission covert measures proposed by the district do not have appear to have any input from health and safety experts in the field of viral or bacterial mitigation systems mandating the use of experimental medical devices not legal the cdc made recommendations they did not make laws and mandatory use of an eua medical device by default is removing informed consent through coercion and this holds true even if a new governor issues a mandate all parties in the chain of command are subject to liability in civil suits and therefore parental choice remains the only logical option thank you thank you [Applause] next up is amy rossi hi good evening my name

071is amy rossi i'm the parent of three valley central students and i'm a town montgomery resident first i'd like to say we are all here to advocate for our children i don't know of any parents who wouldn't go to the ends of the earth to keep their children safe that said i'd like to address species mask policy that was just introduced these face masks provide zero protection from any virus as we've all heard the back of the box tells you very clearly that this does not prevent virus transmission vc is yet to provide any parents with data regarding the efficacy of the masks all we're being told is the cdc says so that's what we're going to do they recommend american academy of pediatrics recommends so that is why vc is going to do it

072but you have not handed one of us in this room any type of documentation that has actual data on it telling us that these masks do in fact mitigate the transmission of covet 19 within our children and in our schools you're hiding behind the cdc you hid behind the state department of health and dr gilman whose name i don't want to hear again for a really long time but you hid behind that we're at the mercy of the state that's what i was told marianne many times by you and now the state puts it in your court and you guys go for full mask mandate my third grader was in summer school she had no mask it was amazing she got to actually see her teacher's face for the first time since first grade she's

073going into third grade now um she was very sad when it was over she asked me the other day if masks were going to be something she needs to wear and i haven't had the heart to tell her yet i just can't bring myself to tell her that she has been all summer with her friends and playing and going to carnivals and parties and barbecues and you know licking shopping carts at shoprite and she has to go to sh to to school though with the mask on because it's so dangerous out there right so very dangerous i want to know what you're so afraid of valley central i want to know what you're so afraid of by making masks optional for parents that it be parent choice you have failed your students by mandating masks

074and the masks don't protect them they protect you [Applause] thank you next up is paul di pierro can i can i just answer that um there actually is let's let's move on oh let's move on um so i've scrubbed through literature and i'm happy to for i'm not [Music] all right let's move on folks i will provide the studies [Music] all right folks please let's be respectful here mr di piero go ahead please good evening um i can cover a lot of the parents here um we've had two kids currently in high school starting high school this year my son i graduated a few years ago and i concur that i'm sure everybody has the best interest in the kids in mind but we all do read you know we do read the studies right

075we read from other you know doctors and specialists in their field and it should be the parents decision on the best course of action for a child but that being said i'm sure you're going to hear a lot of that today but a couple of things i want to ask addressing the doctor have there been studies on the effects of kids wearing mask all day especially during physical exertion do you want him to repeat the question i'm sorry um so um there have been studies looking at the ventilation um exchange um unfortunately there is not that much out there and you know i am the first to admit that we can only go by whatever data is out there at the present time do i have concern about what mask wearing may affect in the

076future yes because i don't have the answer to that i've dedicated my life for the well-being of children but the concern is that the real data that is out there and if we can equate mask wearing with productive i get that it's not completely 100 but we do know that these laying effects do help to protect the children not from giving covet our whole point is to protect the kids from kovid right and when we talk about the psychologically i just like to address that i mean the data that we're reading out there even with the delta variant is that i'm sorry i can't hear you the data that we're reading out there especially even with the delta variant is that the likelihood of kids getting sick or hospitalized or even dying from this virus

077is essentially zero right so what are the effects of the kids wearing masks all day especially when they're forced to wear them during exertion whether it's in gym extracurricular activities right or just running to class you know to get the class on time so can i go back to so i'm not frantic i'm not producing any type of uh percentage but it's not zero i don't mean to cut you off but there are a couple of things i do want to address also i don't think we're gonna get you know resolutions anyway so just before you go on one of the things we can do is any questions that you ask that we can write them down and make sure that you get the answers to your question within the next day or so so

078that we don't have to keep going back and forth so we will write down all the questions you have and make sure that you get your answers okay one of them is what if any disciplinary actions do you plan on with these kids if they're perceived not wearing the mask properly all right that's one question the other question is if masks are required during gym class especially my daughter who has asthma stuff can they opt out of these exertion activities without any disciplinary action or add any penalties against them so those are my two questions if you have time to answer any of them right now that would be great okay thank you thank you very much okay uh next up is mark carasoni [Applause] good evening everyone i'm a parent with a child in

079first and fifth grade at mes and like many parents in my community i have my concerns i'm here to voice them first and foremost my wife and i are vehemently opposed to the requirement of masks we feel uh this response at this stage is completely unnecessary and no longer about safety but more about control and placating to irrational fears and politics masks are arguably ineffective it says it right so in the box like that gentleman said before i can read it right to you the one that my kids are going to be possibly wearing um it says it right on there that it does not protect others and them so if that's the case what are we doing here is this purpose to provide safety or are we just going through emotions um you know

080in in futility and academics it seems a little bit dogmatic to me also i have a question and this was mentioned before too why have children are seated and we have a three-foot social distance rule in place can't they remove their mask perhaps myself and other parents can compromise that in movement through hallways in common areas they wear a mask why given the statistics that children have the lowest transmissibility and serious health risks are we forcing them to endure and amass so long while ignoring that part particular health detriment yet last year before there was a vaccine available we were made to think in a restaurant you can walk in wearing a mask or around the establishment and then you can remove it while seated were you not going to catch covid in the same

081common area i mean seriously has any have we really abandoned critical thinking this bad at this point why are kids being subject currently subjected to these certain rules at the school but not in general public so after i leave school i can take them to somewhere and we can sit down and walk around normal but when they go to school that's what they have to endure what kid would like school so i don't know is this to quell irrational fear or is are you doing this for the potential of costly litigation i can go on about opposing science logic and medical facts that are relevant and real albeit is no use here you have made up your minds it seems and based on recommendations and possibly advice from your attorneys this will carry itself out

082well if this holds true you've also made up a lot of other people other people's minds including myself homeschooling will continue to gain in popularity and relocating will continue to get gained in popularity unfortunately like many others i know this requirement has been the impetus for me and my family to leave this school district and state as soon as practicable as parents we must do what's best for our children and unfortunately that is what i must do in closing to this board into the parents tonight who strongly disagree with me that's okay that is your right i have no enemies animosity towards any of you perhaps you're scared we all should be not of the virus but what is quick so quickly happen to society the only serious threat i see is totalitarianism censorship and

083media manipulation and at the end of the day i believe we all want what's best for our kids with that all said my wife and i feel it should be parental choice however i will leave you with this we are all on year two now of concealing kids faces creating this new insane norm which i ref i don't like calling it norm but that's what we're seeing we're 500 and something days past 15 days to slowly spread thank you mr carrasco hold on i'm not done all right this is a psychological war being waged against our children this psychological toll we will that is taking place in our kids will be unknown for years to come and those who support this will be culpable god bless america god bless our children and doctor just so

084you know there is opposing data available but for some strangers thank you mr carson please be respectful of our speakers thank you very much next up is ken o'brien ken o'brien good evening thank you for all coming tonight it's nice to see the community get together to speak about our greatest treasure our children after having a child in the valley central school district he's now 14 and going to happily thankfully oh my god he made it be a sophomore in high school this is my first board of education meeting i've never felt that i had to attend this time i do as you can see by my outfit i work in healthcare i have been in healthcare for the last six years after having a 15-year career in radio broadcasting just to give you my

085background so i have a little bit to deal with both having fcc and the government you know in my professional life and i deal with these issues that we talk about masks vaccines daily i want to thank the valley central school district for taking the cdc guidelines and protecting our staff faculty students and more importantly your families all of our families because i'm sure i'm not the only one who has someone living under my roof who cannot get vaccinated who cannot take the chance of getting sick we all have chronic diseases we can't choose our science you can't walk around and say you're pregnant or have hypertension or diabetes or copd or high cholesterol like myself or cancer or ms and then decide that the science between masks and kovid are inconsequential to us we're

086all able to make our own choices for our children we do that when they're not in school how we spend our time with friends and family is our parental choice but that accentuates even more the reason that when we all come together we must be masked i should not have to bear the responsibility of your social life and nor should my family one's parental choice should supersede mine make your choices in your personal life you're welcome to that i encourage it but allow me to make sure i can protect my family thank you thank you mr o'brien next up is beverly o'brien beverly o'brien okay uh next is melissa dorow i just want to say thank you i spoke i think last time at one of the other meetings when we were here and i

087just want to say i know you guys are really working hard for our kids and i'm not coming up here to yell to go into a tirade i don't think it's necessary we all care about our kids we're all polarized with many different opinions and thoughts on this subject one thing i wanted to bring up was with the kids and doing the sports and wearing these masks when they're outside or whether they're inside it's really difficult so if you guys would allow them to have particular sports themed masks where they have filtrations with the carbon filter inside something that comes off the mouth makes it a little easier to breathe kind of adapt this is very hard i don't know if you work out with one of these on i don't i have a different

088mask that i use so if you guys would be open to looking at other options for our sports players because the reduced amount of oxygen they're getting in it's my daughter plays lacrosse it's really difficult they have a really really hard time breathing with these paper type on so that would be one thing the other thing is my husband does hbac so he's been works mainly westchester rocklin new york city parts of connecticut and he's working on a few school districts at the moment and using some of the covid money to better ventilate the buildings so i don't know if you guys are aware of these types of things and what can be done but i had them just text me what they're doing they're putting in these ultraviolet irradiation and the air handling units

089which will kill the bacteria virus and they're installing an energy recovery ventilators to increase the amount of fresh air brought into the buildings without using excessive energy so maybe in the option of at one point getting rid of these because they're annoying looking at how we can better just clean our air ventilate it kill the bacteria and the viruses that are in the air and make that a safer option for the kids and maybe letting go of these masks if you want any information on i'd be happy to give you his number and his company but like i said they're doing a couple schools in westchester right now that they're using the coveted money for to do that so that's all i want to say and just say thanks thank you very much next is

090michael franklin so the n9 i mean the mask so if i have covid say i take it and i wipe my or i pull my mask off or i touch the inside then i touch the micro i take touch papers and i hand them to somebody else will they end up getting covered the possibility of it so it's aerosolized so it's supposed to be in the air and breathe in through the mucus if it's in the air in your mouth well in the mirror it's going through your right put your germs on stuff i'm sorry your germs from your mouth uh-huh so if i go touching stuff that i have covet and i touch my mask is there a possibility i'm going to spread it so um the idea is that it's not really in

091the saliva but in the respiratory tract so that's why the idea of like ventilation and blowing and coughing are what puts it in the air so you can't pass it by touching stuff or anything like that it is not um there on the surface usually long enough for you so now these regular masks that work how is it that these man how are you going to make sure all these masks are properly masked for these kids how am i going to how is the school going to make sure they have proper mass like what's proper what's going to stop it so i i think the mask has is that q a online i mean so i think that's already been asked and answered so i think um i don't know questions and answers are going

092to be online so you'll be able to look at that ass touch things touch your mouth touch inside the mask pass stuff along i mean that's what the kids are going to do i would think the passing of germs that way right yes that you would pastor it's not just about covid it's yes that is the way to pass yourself but i'm watching you all do the same thing touch stuff and touch the inside of your mask i mean if somebody's got a video you're gonna see yourselves touching all kinds of stuff touching your mask pulling it down so what are you stopping i mean that's what our kids are going to do the same thing that you guys are doing again it's the layered approach okay thank you all right next is diane de

093piero hello i just want to say like i'm just concerned about my children i have two in the valley central school district and one of them does have asthma and i'm concerned with her with gym i mean with all the children it's going to be difficult for them to keep a mask on all day they don't have private offices where they can take it off and wear it periodically throughout the day they've been home for a very long time and they're really looking forward to seeing their friends and they're really you're putting a lot in their mind of being so fearful of everything and i know my daughter one of them is very shy the other one will tell you about how she feels but the one with the asthma is very shine if an

094adult tells her leave the mask on she'll leave it on until she can't breathe she won't move it she won't take it off she won't complain and i'm concerned that she'll go to gym and she won't be able to perform an activity because when you wear the mask you're not taking breathing deeply enough so you're not oxygenating well and with asthma it can be a problem so what would you do with that is there going to be other activities that she can do activities that she would be left out of or what would be an option sure so your question is if there's an issue with your child during gym if she yeah i'm sorry i i just want to explain what protocols we have like so that her daughter doesn't feel like she can't

095so i mean we can notify the nurse that she has asthma and and right i mean there's steps in place already i imagine absolutely and there's also as we said for at least for the beginning and we're hoping that by winter there'll be changes but the pe is going to be held outdoors where they won't have to wear their masks outdoor we're going to do everything we can especially in the fall to hold jim outside every day so she'll never have to wear her mask right now if she's outside and especially what i would be telling as if i was a principal in the building i'd be making sure that that particular class that they were going outside unless it's raining and then we would do whatever we had to say there was another question

096is could they be alleviated from do they can they be not have to play that particular activity can they do a different activity where it's not quite as stressful so we will absolutely never want a child to be in a position where they're uncomfortable or where they're suffering from their asthma i mean this is not just my child this is many children and that everyone's falling into line following the rules by wearing masks and like the low transmission rate within the children and like i love my child more than anything like every other parent here does and i'm not going to fall in line i'm going to stand up for what i believe in and if that pertains to her not having to wear the mask it can be so because even being vaccinated we

097were told in the beginning you get vaccinated you don't have to wear the mask and that's not true either a lot of people have been vaccine and we're still wearing the mask this has been a long time for our children and they need to be children again thank you okay next up is magna skermo is that magnus come yeah okay am i allowed to take off my mask while i speak or no technically no but so do i have your permission to take off my mask so i could speak sure thank you okay uh thank you for the opportunity to uh put questions uh through the email or through the link i didn't have access to that link so i'm kindly asking if you could please write down my questions and please get back to

098me within 24 or 48 hours so the first question is on the website you say about advocacy and you list a whole bunch of organizations that for example the superintendents organization the chiefs organization teachers union basically if you can please provide information who is the which organization do you affiliate with regarding advocacy on behalf of the parents specifically not including the pta who is advocating or what liaisons do you depend on when you're making your decisions who is advocating for the parents and the children specifically that's the first question second question is uh you know we would be able to avoid a lot of confusion if we understood as a you know as parents who is making the decisions uh one minute you say that you're uh depending on the cdc then the orange department

099of health then the new york board of education the new york state board of egg education so please kindly let us know or let me know when did you make the decision to put in the mask mandate amongst yourselves at what meeting and can we please see a copy of those minutes so if we can please understand we go through the trouble of voting for board members we would like to understand how you make the decisions and who's making the decisions on behalf of the school board next question are you receiving any financial or legal incentives to completely go full time 100 in person are you receiving any financial or legal incentives or motivation to not to not go online and there is i see according to your website there is a lot of uh

100precautions put in place regarding the mental health whether it's for the staff whether it's for the children you even indicate that there's home visits i don't understand how that's going to be identified to is it permission that you're going to be granted or are there going to be specific families that are going to be targeted because of attendance that you're going to be conducting home visits or home health what are the precautions that you guys are taking to fill in the academic inequities that have happened to the children over a year and a half to almost two years i don't see anything on your website with the back to school plan regarding what exactly are you putting in place for academics are there going to be any covert relief funds how much have you received

101what coveted relief funds can you use to help these parents pay for private tutors to help their kids catch up okay thank you very much i'm sorry i have more questions please be respectful for others does anybody mind if i continue questioning okay please uh next next speaker is daniel dukasi please mr scrum if you want to i will absolutely answer all your questions i'm sorry but i have come to your office regarding an issue last year and i went in person twice to the school district never received any phone calls back from you so please understand why i'm in public and posting these for everyone to hear okay what we'd like to do though is have everybody have an opportunity to speak so if i could ask if you want to email your question

102my next question is when you say that there's 70 of the teaching staff or the school district vaccinated how do you know that have you received documentation say looking at each person's vaccination certificate will the t will the parents have the right to ask if their teacher has been vaccinated do they have the right to ask as an accommodation to be placed inside a classroom with a teacher that's specifically vaccinated and how many teachers or when you talk about quarantining you talk about you know you're sitting there reading off three feet six feet we need to just you you're talking to your community and you're talking to people that are your neighbors let me know if you're on a sports team does it mean close contact somebody from your from your your team is going

103to if they get in contact with someone that they can't play sports so please specific details which we'll address your questions but i ask that you you know allow us to move on give others a chance i i appreciate that but please again understand there's tensions in the room because you guys are not providing the details regarding the academics that these these parents need you're using masking as deflection parents want to know what exactly is going to be happening there's nothing in there regarding support services and there was a extensive summer school program in summer enrichment program for the academics and if you go on our website you will also see a presentation with what our what our cove with our coven money is being spent for and it is all about academics so that

104is all on the website why hasn't there been a ventilation so please we will answer all of your questions but we cannot again i'm going i'm going i have much more questions and i'm just going on record that i have been to the district twice and left phone calls left my emails regarding an incident that we were talking about social justice you know back in july and no one returned my phone call mr sarah twist was returned and nobody returned it thank you okay thank you [Applause] next is daniel dukasi daniel okay uh lauren sperry yes okay uh brian christian i situation you're trying to freeze this out holy cow good evening i'm going to turn to my side because i truly think you're very important it truly is about the parents um and the

105families of the students that attend this school so a couple things um since i wrote this earlier and i've heard a lot of things i'm going to go a little shorter through some of the pieces and add a couple things but a couple things i do want to thank you for your time i am a parent of actually one one student i've already pulled one of my students from the school district and strongly considering pulling my second that's not a decision i wanted to do or have to make unfortunately it's the position that i'm in a couple things i will thank you for number one um as morgan friedman eloquently has said time and time again you want to stop racism stop talking about it it's we continue to talk about it makes the problem

106worse i am extremely excited that i heard you mention about and thank you not talking about vaccination it is not your position to talk to our kids about a vaccination just as is not your position to talk about politics i will not stand for either of those and i will use every resource that i have financially time to take that on if that's going to happen and i hope that it does not so a couple things i want to call out commonalities number one our children need to have the best education number two our children to be healthy live good lives and hopefully ones that are better than us if they have done that we can all say that we've done a good job also i don't think 18 months ago 17 months ago anyone

107hoped to be here this evening and have to talk about this so let's call that for what it is whether it's contankerous sometimes seem like we're at odds nobody wanted to have this discussion what i'm hoping for is the focus is truly on the above mentioned and we don't lose sight of that and what we're standing for everyone is open-minded and truly listens again listens to others opinion because that's how real meaningful solutions are found the one gentleman spoke about things in his family i don't happen to agree with the gentleman in the scrubs but actually respect it and listen to what he said and i think he changed some of my opinion less anger name calling and a lot more i've been called names because i don't want to get vaccinated i don't want

108to wear a mask why can't we disagree respectfully you want to talk about making change with all due respect to the police officers i'm sure they're all getting paid over time i think there were three or four it's shameful and sinful that we actually have police officers those in power be brave don't worry about keeping your job actually do your job [Music] [Applause] if a decision is made and it's not the outcome you were supporting let's look back to see what we were really fighting for education and health with that do not sabotage pick up your kickball and go home but respectfully and peacefully continue to stand tall and fight for what you want to fight for what i see i'm not going to talk if you can wrap up please not going to talk

109about the data misinformation what i see is fear our freedoms taken away serving what's popular versus what's right in closing i implore you to consider the following things the virus is not going away it's a fact there's been one virus that's gone away if you decide for our children to wear masks it's a life sentence you have stripped us of our freedom of choice those this is important i have not heard one person say this those who want to vaccinate and wear a mask do it do it i implore you and those who don't don't it's called freedom yeah you can wrap up please we'll lean on education if i want to rob a bank i'll start a fire over there and i'll rob the bank over there masks do not equal not wearing masks

110do not equal sending our children home do not take away our freedom of choice again be brave and make the right decision and i'll leave you with this last point our children may not remember whether they had to wear masks or not but they will certainly remember how we behaved and how we acted our children are watching us so let's all be respectful and courteous thank you thank you mr christian next is julie partington i'm going to be very quick because i know i gave my time to someone else so um the woman that was up here for a while so just want to say i have two children i've lived here 20 years two children who have asthma okay i know that you guys say that you care about my child's health this year

111they came home every single day with a headache they can't breathe okay my doctor sits there i have asthma too and says it's a mental thing okay you can breathe in your mask you have to deep breathe okay i don't care six hours in this at my job i feel like i can't breathe either i have a headache every single day i wear these my kids don't they wear the cla the cloth ones they're 16 and 13. do you know what it's like trying to get those from those kids to get them into the wash these children there's been studies that say even in florida they did one these kids have such kind of bacteria on these masks and we're sitting there saying we're protecting from covid what about meningitis what about septus all these

112different things that are on these masks and you guys are saying that you care about covet care about the bacterial infections that are going to be in our children okay and just i understand delta is very scary i'm not vaccinated i keep going like this with the vaccine should i get it shouldn't i not but there's so many and i follow israel israel actually tells about the side effects of this vaccine so i'm also don't push vaccines on my kids okay because you don't know and right now you can't even sue actually today you can so but you know all of this i know you care about our kids i know you do all right that's what you guys do this you know that's why you guys are here i'm asking you to take a

113big picture and see what else is out there and i understand you're following the cdc right three years ago the cdc said mass don't work for the flu so what is the truth we have the american associative pediatrics they are deleting articles upon peer articles because they don't want to sit there and talk about the fact that these masks they're supposed to have facial recognition that's so so important to kids little kids for facials expressions and their development we've taken that from them i don't have a kindergartner but i'm sure it makes a difference to them and these people that you're blindly trusting and you said you've got 50 data put it on the website let me read them because i'm reading the stuff from everybody else i have to go and search like in

114israel because hours take it off of facebook you can't see anything on facebook can't see anything on youtube okay so to search for it all i'm asking is show us the science show it to us let me see what is in you guys are seeing all right i see that i'm getting time and i already get someone else time so i'm just saying julie partington mom and haven you have my email send it to me put it on the website thank you next is jeff vanzant i just want to um thank you for that i respectfully will send you the data that i have yeah absolutely um [Music] absolutely that's not just to you i think that's to you all and to the point of us being up here and doing this as jobs um

115we we are honestly trying to do the right thing every day i tell my patients and my kids the biggest thing that you need to do is be open-minded so we are trying to have this form respectfully i'm hearing what you guys are saying i'm happy to share what data there is none of us up here are here as gestapos the plan is in place right now but we we will present with data we have and we're making the best choices you can in terms of flu i wanted to say medicine there's the art of medicine in the science of medicine and we do the best that we can with the data that we have there if we don't continually change we'd still be leeching a disease with you know with leeches we are continually

116changing in terms of mask use masks have been there for a century for doctors to be in operating rooms for 10 to 12 hours a day all right okay good mr vanzant thank you can i have my time now can i have my time i apologize hello can you hear me what's going on right now is a crime okay for every study that you have that says mask work there are hundreds of other doctors that says it's harmful to kids and adults doctor can you tell me or the rest of us here what the dirtiest part of the human body is you're the doctor tell us the most dirty part of the human body what is it correct and you're all sitting out there breathing in the dirtiest part of your body brilliant this the

117science is brilliant we have a god up here that apparently tells all the board members that wearing a mask is going to protect us what's the difference between the air in this school in the air in washingtonville because in washingtonville it's an option can you tell me what the difference is in the air between the air and valley central in 10 miles away in washingtonville what is the difference in the air does washingtonville have magic air in their building what is it what is the difference in the air i pulled my kid out of school last year i'm here for all the other parents this should be packed there should be thousands of pantry what if he pulled all our kids out of school because we're sick and tired of having a school board or

118some doctor tell us what's healthy for our children i'd like to know when it ends it was 17 months ago when governor cuomo got on tv and said for two weeks we've got to put on mask to slow the curve it's a year and a half later when does it end is it four masks next year is it a diaper what is it when does it end do you do i mean somebody brought up the fact about going into a restaurant and taking off your mask have any of you gone out to eat at a restaurant in the past year any of you are you're all sitting home in fear because you're scared of getting covered when you go into a restaurant according to the new york state health department you got to put a

119mask on but as soon as you sit down you get to take the mask off it's absolutely ridiculous that any of you are following the science that keeps on going around and around in a circle it's absolutely ridiculous and you're perpetuating it on these young innocent children you made a comment that you saw a couple volleyball players walking in the hallway they were so happy oh then you oh their eyes were happy do you know how disgusting it is that you can't see children's faces other kids can't see their friends faces and you're all sitting up here you're hot you're all sitting up here hiding behind some bullcrap science put your hand down i pay your salary it's ridiculous it's all stuff with the gavel please be respectful i am respectful you work for me

120i don't have to talk to you respectfully you work for me please be respectful i am trying to be respectful but these parents are pissed off okay thank you mr vanzant thank you for what thank you for speaking to us where are my answers i asked you where is the science where is the science that tells us the parents the difference in the air between washingtonville school district and valley central it's 10 miles away thank you mr vanzant where's the answer i want to know the answer okay tell us where's the answer thank you mr van sant where's the answer sir be respectful of me give me the answer i don't have that i have one i don't know you just make it up as you go thank you very much where is the answer

121i don't have the answer right why not who does who has it who has the answer thank you mr vanzant who has the answer thank you mr manziel does the d.a have the answer who has the answer thank you mr vanzant for what mr bond for addressing the board where is the answer where i want to know the difference between the air in this school district and this the air in the in the washingtonville school district what's the difference okay we will take that as a question what guidance are you following why can't you answer i'm asking you a simple question and you people looking at you staring at deer and headlights so we'll take your question we'll do the research on the air between answer my question now why is it so difficult you

122know the answer answer it mr vanzant please are you kidding me you should all be fired each and every one of you should all be fired [Applause] and if i have to start being a ringleader of this community i'm going to throw my hat in the ring because i've got doctors in my family i've got lawyers in my family i've got 180 almost 200 relatives in orange county my family's been here for close to 150 years and all of you should be disgusted about what's going on not only in our community but in our country look what's happening in australia do you want to be rounded up there's 24 000 kids are rounded up and put into a gymnasium and vaccinated so far two of them have died in australia what is happening in our

123country is disgusting and you in this district are all part of it and you should all be ashamed next speaker is jennifer watson hi thank you it's hard to follow that i believe i i support everything that jeff you say uh thank you for standing up here and saying that um i agree i've faced all of you plenty of times before and i'd like to say thank you all because i know this is hard for all of you to sit here and listen to it you feel maybe personally attacked or maybe you feel detached from it and say just be quiet get on with it there's nothing we can do about it but it's true we do pay taxes here and we do have a right to speak the way we feel and we've been

124told by other groups in the community that we're going to be mad dog parents and we're going to be up here screaming and shouting and not representing the community the way that it should which is bs because that comes down to my children our children i gave birth to four of those children and i have to listen to other people tell me how they want them to live their lives yes there's a virus i understand that art did you say miss saratwa that vaccines will not be pushed in the school that is what i said okay so if a teacher if a teacher has a discussion in the classroom and they're talking talking about covid or vaccinations does the teacher have the right to say to the students how many are you a vaccinated i

125think i already answered that question and i said i didn't hear that answer no and i said it would not be part of it and every principal that is in this room now and that has spoken to us at central office meetings knows that they are not to be talking about the about vaccinations in the classroom we're not encouraging them okay so this is the other thing i'm going to tell you a quick little story and doctor this is directed to you so in talking about masks and vaccination i have a family member who was injured by a vaccine a vaccine that was given to prevent covid she was the caregiver for somebody who needed 24-hour care for parkinson's and guess what now they need both 24-hour care because she suffered a blood clot to

126her brain and can no longer use her right side of her body or speech so this is my point to valley central school district and to all of you and all of you who might be in the social equity justice group it's my right to say what i want for my child just like it is for all of you thank you for listening to everybody today and if you come up with any scientific data on how this is a hundred percent will not affect our children or maybe put up the data about the the new vaccine that was approved to be uh well what is it by the fda put up the vaccine um information on how many injuries there have been through that i have a right to choose and my right is to

127say no no to the vaccine and if i have to send my children to school with a mask i'm asking you listening to all these parents to take into consideration the restaurant part you can walk into a restaurant you can sit at a table and you can take your mask off let them do that at their desk and you will have probably half of these people go away thank you for my time thank you miss watson uh next is mark baker hello you gotta pardon me it's got a new knee um well i didn't come here pro prepared fully but i like to say i came here with curiosity um i do believe you all put a lot of thought genuine thought into the care of my children and everyone else's child i see it

128how we try to get the masks to work in the multi-layers i can understand that i personally don't agree with masks i can't mess with my glasses fog up i don't agree i can't see you now i don't i don't agree with my child she's six years old having to have to wear a mask full-time in school um it it's not healthy for she's as a doctor you all know the child development psychology 101 they need the basic facial recognitions of the children of their friends of the teachers of improvement of disapprovement you know they need to know that and they need the interaction my child's starving for interaction she's actually intelligent because she's stuck having adult conversations all day um i really would like if you could consider or reconsider uh mashed mass being

129optional uh apparently washingtonville felt that was good maybe we could follow some of their advice maybe use some of their data whatever could work um i really do think you try hard i was actually came in here semi-demonizing you before i walked in being all upset but if you actually like people said an open mind you truly do care i could see it i hear it in your reactions and your remarks and i thank you for that i think that's caring and kind and considerate i would like my daughter not to have to wear a mask i'm glad it's not outside which is great that's a start but could you possibly look at what washingtonville did and maybe we could work that in because if it works to them i can't see why i couldn't

130and i would really she needs to facial recognition she needs that it's i don't know what else to say oh that's beautiful um the other thing is um well that's basically that's it i think we have an open mind i'm glad you're not going with a critical race theory i'm very happy about that i hope you don't think about the 1619 project either i hope that shouldn't be brought in [Applause] and if you well a silly point but if these masks are so contaminated it should be a biohazard receptacle form but that's that's you know down the way um yeah i mean that's about it basically i i do thank you i really i broke my glasses too the master well the mass caught i'm sorry i don't mean to be an idiot but the

131mass caught it then it was fogging up then i couldn't see what i was riding because my mask my glasses are fogging up so then when i tried to clean the grass so i broke the lens sorry all right thank you ma'am thank you mr baker yes please reconsider and to steal a line my body my choice you know that was my great ending thank you thank everybody uh next is joe partington let's come out all right you guys have any hand sanitizer no i'm serious everyone's been touching us do you guys have any hand sanitizer handy oh oh no i have some i was just wondering because i watched you speak for like 15 minutes with somebody with your mask down i watched a guy who told us where to sit with no mask

132on then i watched you shake her hand and she shook his hand and she shook his hand and then i watched you play with your eye for 15 minutes and i watched marianne sit there for a half hour with her mask down so my question is oh also you guys all shared the same mic without hand sanitizing so as a musician one of the grossest things ever is using the mic after somebody but you got the mask on so you're safe um i uh that wasn't a bit i was asking a question i want to apologize to this i know this dude right here i got snoopy with and i apologize for that i got snippy with you now you guys i'm not going to apologize to so um my question is who conducted the

133tracing for the students when you said none of it came from the school who conducted the tracing to make sure it didn't you're funny the word the woman behind you our district nurse coordinator she's in charge of doing all of the contact tracing all of our nurses work with the department of health so yeah you don't need to address her but every time there was a student not allowed every time there was a student that had covid we went through a contact tracing we worked with the department of health and there was not one instance where someone got covered from another student in the building that is how that is what you at the question that was asked and that was the question we answered and so what they would do is they would find

134out so if we had someone that got covered very most all the time nobody that was around them that was quarantined came down with covet and we know that and so that is the data and the woman behind you did a fabulous job and we should commend her for the work that she did in looking at the data and follow up follow up if i may i you didn't raise your hand yet right i'm not i'm i come off sarcastic when i'm really nervous so i apologize the funny thing is natural that's all natural but the the sarcastic thing um you said the students when they were home if if they were god forbid covid and they had the quarantine what about the family members did they catch kovad because logically thinking if i go

135with my wife and my three kids and we go sit down at dave buster's and my kids are exposed to coving we ride back home from dave and busters and we're sitting in the house after dave and buster's would we not all catch it and a lot of times the family members did get covered from each other we had many instances where the family members did catch covid we had several siblings and parents who all did have covet okay no i was just i was just wondering i wasn't trying to get an applause on anything i just have a microphone so i figured i'd use it um i i heard the name dr gellman and i know somebody said they never want to hear that name again so i apologize what is her field dr

136gilman is uh is the commissioner of health are you asking me what her particular field is yes i think that you know the answer to that i wouldn't ask if i did but thank you for your time i'm not sure that i do know she's a foot oh oh she's qualified oh i i really didn't know but i appreciate you shocking me with respect that was cool so uh i'm gonna leave now and uh oh here a little bit of hand sanitizer for you guys thank you next is kevin and elizabeth kyle to give him extra time all right so a lot of people have touched on everything i just have a question in your back to school you guys did say you're going to be promoting vaccinations or not that's on the website that's

137what you guys sent here you said that you were not at all going to be promoting that children get vaccinated but on the website it actually says you guys will be promoting i said that we weren't going to talk to children about it in the classrooms but that we would be providing information on the website not providing information it says you're going to be promoting it because that is one of the mitigation strategies from the cdc and we do believe that you weren't going to be promoting no the question was if we were going to be talking to your children about it and i answered that question by saying no that we would not be talking to our your children about it but that we would be central will promote vaccination among teachers staff families

138and eligible students by providing information to cover 19 right by promoting it and i said through email i just i'm not i'm just trying to i'm just trying to get a clear answer that's all because you said it twice so far not to students but on this right okay then i will go back and look at what the plan says on the website but we are absolutely not going to be providing information and encouraging children to get vaccinated to the children themselves are we going to provide the information on the website absolutely if it says students in there i'll take a look at that okay thank you that's all i have um okay so then also you said that the wearing of masks has to do with the transmission rates and that would be revisited

139if the transmission rates were low enough to revisit that decision and decide whether or not masks will be worn what is that lower transmission rate is that something that you guys have that you can give to us what is that what is that rate that that we need to know when that will be revisited for our kids not to wear masks no we don't have that and it's actually one of the questions and we'll take all the questions that i answer tonight and we'll put the answers up in print but we don't have anything from the department of health and the department the new york state department of health is going to be coming out with someone with in within the next week it would be great if they could say that if there's this

140certain transmission rate we can stop wearing masks but that's the thing right now it's only recommended so you guys are the ones saying we're wearing masks not new york state not the cdc so it's your decision it is not new york's decision is not the cdc's decision so what is your low transmission rate that will allow our children to stop wearing masks i think i answered that and i i just want to throw this out there quick too a lot of the questions that uh you guys went through in your little question answer that you had um you you gave explanations for you read the question that someone posted online and then you gave your answer there was one that you didn't however it was are the masks in our child's best interest and you

141just said yes and then you moved on there was no explanation given for that whatsoever and i would like to know how the masks are in our child's best interest can that be answered well we'll we'll expand upon the answer and then when we post it online i don't know that we're in a position to answer that right now but we'll expand the response expand on what though you haven't answered at all i mean i don't i mean the only thing and i know that you keep saying that you know it's not us and and that washington mill did this but there are 16 districts in this county and washingtonville is pretty much right now a standalone um what's the difference no that what's the difference can you let me answer so you keep saying

142that we should the school district and the board of education should just decide but there is guidance that we are following and i know you don't agree with that guidance and i would be stupid to say that i can know one way or another whether that guidance is true i've read the research that you've sent i've read the research that the doctor has sent but i'm still not qualified to make that decision so we follow the guidance from the center for disease control i know you know i'm sorry to interrupt you i have a daughter that goes to school in south carolina she's in middle school and they've been in school already and they have had no issues whatsoever with not wearing masks in school and they have not had any higher covet rates with

143the children not wearing masks and they started school over a week ago so i mean i mean i know it's guidance from the cdc but how come south carolina schools they seem to be doing fine with whatever they've implemented but we're gonna i mean what and yeah that's many states my daughter just happens to be one that's in south carolina but they seem to be doing fine well yeah it's not but you guys are are harping on this guidance but there's so many other districts that have just done what they thought was morally or ethically the right thing to do and they seem to be doing fine instead of following guidance and i'm gonna i would like to look into south carolina and florida because what i have the links but what i did read

144recently is that there's a lot of quarantines happening in those states that there's there may not be a lot of cases of covid but there's a there's hundreds of kids that are being sent home from quarantine maybe that's not true what i read but that is what's happening in the south there's a lot of kids going home and they're in quarantine so they're actually being instructed my child my child goes to school in south carolina and her stepmother is a teacher in south carolina so i can very well send you some links if you would like thank you thank you okay next is mike scotto foreign good evening board good evening mr saratoga it's good to see you again and dr reminisce good to see you again i happen to know both those ladies uh

145mr sarasota took care of my children she's done an excellent job and dr remington saved my son's leg after he had gotten a staph infection so i have a great affection for these two ladies the rest of the staff i don't know personally questions are this or statements the cdc guidelines for massachusetts changed when the wuhan hit in march of 2019 october 2020 in 2020 i apologize because i know a teacher a nurse who teaches mass guidelines and those guidelines changed because the mass usage states three hours you change the mask as i remember had told me this is my daughter um are you aware of that if not you should be legally speaking okay we have so many issues to deal with if a guideline is set as leaders and advisors you're taking certain

146things into consideration not everything apparently since most of you probably didn't know about the cdc guideline changes that's step one two ladies and gentlemen hospitals are understaffed the nurses have been fired and laid off around the country as you all know and read the papers and seen that's why eicu's are crowded there's not enough staff it's not the amount of cases it's the amount of nursing staffs that they have out there go to any restaurant in any part of the country and they're understaffed because the federal government's giving them free money and that's another issue and that's wrong okay so those issues there have they been considered in your decision-making process well the hospital's icus are crowded well they're crowded because there's not enough nurses and doctors that's a main reason so we don't want

147to talk specifics because my daughter who is sitting behind us got a vaccine shot about two years ago and she had an allergic reaction to it and she's been in medical care since then so as we all know vaccines hurt some and help some that's that's issue if you want to get a vaccine get a vaccine you want to wear a mask wear a mask but too it or to recommend guidelines at it i worked in the epicenter of the wuhan in the bronx we lost more people there to death than anyone else in the 60 members i worked with only 10 came down with the wuhan and they all recovered and we all cross contaminated each other every time we worked the city of new york changed some guideline policies to try and separate

148us didn't work it never works only 10 guys out of 60 in our house other places got worse but everybody made it through cross-contamination happens no matter what you do masks are not designed to stop microorganisms from getting through as the doctor is well aware of and also keeping rooms colder doesn't help keeping them moist does moisture sinks the microorganism to the ground keeping the windows up and air movement that's something that does help so our operating rooms are cold it's to keep the blood flow slow not to keep the contamination down i don't know if you people have been advising that have you studied that or been aware of that understand the medical science the cdc lies because of political pressure we all know that you're educated people up there how much time i

149got 30 seconds oh okay they do lie they don't tell the truth you all know that if you deny go no they're no they don't and we know that we're educated people i'm not as educated as anybody not bored up there perhaps but i do read and i do research i think you should think about this masked mandate kids want to wear it wear it if they don't want to wear it it's not making a big difference makes some difference but not the big difference that you think it does or that you're letting people believe it does or that maybe you think it does remember the cdc changed the guidelines when they were one hit because they couldn't fulfill a billion masks a day two times three times a day to change it for everybody

150in the country they didn't change it for health they changed it for other practical reasons which is always at the end of the day probably money so i just thought you guys should know that maybe i'll help make change a decision at some point thanks guys dr eminer next is emily diaz hi everyone so i'm actually new to the valley central school district i have a kindergartner starting and he's been in preschool for the last couple years so um but i just wanted to say that i support the masking mandate and have a personal story so my mom was a picky nurse or pediatric icu nurse at westchester medical center um and what she saw were that some kids were coming in they had covered but then they had these side effects where they just

151lost like all transmission they went into comas and it was really really sad she lost some of them um obviously she was all messed up so she washed her hand she was messed up she didn't get covered but i just don't want to see anybody have that kind of symptom happen where your kid just goes in a coma like that um so that's that's basically all i wanted to say so thank you thank you all right that concludes the public participation portion of the meeting we'll move on with the remainder of the agenda next is old business and can i get a motion for the adoption the resolution for 2122 opening plan sarah second d on favor post extension 6-0 uh next can i get a motion for the approval of curriculum k-12 library media

152angela second katie all in favor opposed extension past six zero uh next under new business can i get a motion for the adoption of the 21 22 district goals angela second sarah all in favor right post extension pass six zero thank you ah what's my spot where's my page seven okay next is uh the tax levy so i i need a motion for the confirmation of tax rolls authorization for tax levy and establishment of tax rates [Music] sarah second oh i'm sorry i'm sorry actually allen has to do roll call i'm sorry ellen oh dee second yep yes okay okay i'm sorry all right can i get a motion for the authorization of tax warrant second katie yes thank you all right thank you all right next is the review of world language curriculum uh

153spanish a1 spanish a2 spanish c1 and spanish c2 is available in central office for review next on the agenda is the first reading of policy so um this policy is extremely long so i'm not going to read it all it is available on the website for review but i'm just going to touch on uh what the policies are so first is policy one five three zero smoking and vaping on school premises the language in this policy was revised to add the use of ingesting cannabis on school grounds exhibit three two three zero e the org chart is available on the website for review policy 4000 instructional goals the revision is a new template which reflects the state's learning standards as indicated in the commission's regulations and conforms with the state's next generation learning standards additionally

154this policy language addresses issues of educational equity inclusivity and diversity regulation 5420r student health services this section on immunization was revised to reflect that religious exemption is no longer available to students all students must either be immunized or have valid medical exemption policy 5460 and 5460r child abuse maltreatment or neglect in a domestic setting regulation this policy and regulation will revise to include language regarding cooperation with child protective services in the event of child abuse malnutrition or neglect investigations policy 8112 health and safety committee the language was revised to include a member of the health and safety committee in the state visual inspections as required by the commissioner's regulation policy 8220 buildings and grounds maintenance and inspection language was updated to reflect the revision to the commissioner's regulations regarding building commission surveys and visual inspections

155so again those are available on the website very lengthy um please take the time to read them okay next is the um nisba board of directors election i'll take a motion on that d all in favor opposed extension 6-0 thank you and i need a motion for the establishment of public hearing for district safety plan on september 13 2021 at 5 30 pm art second angela all in favor opposed extension passes 6-0 okay that is all we have on the agenda for this evening so i will take a motion to adjourn all right second katie all in favor hi who's nobody extension past 6-0 thank you very much folks that concludes our meeting for tonight thank you for coming [Music]