Board of Education Meeting February 10, 2022

001foreign [Music] before we get started if you don't have a mask if you could get one in the back so we can start the meeting please well we may be close we're not quite there yet governor as you must know eliminate advanced paydays for businesses today we're waiting for schools and we would be discussing that here but until then we still have to live with the mass mandate for the governor sorry i know it's been almost in the third year of this nobody likes it i still see some faces that need masks [Music] what i did last time is take i took a 10 minute recess we'll just do a five times because tension long then we came back to give people a chance to get a mask and put a mask on if there's

002still people who can't find a mask or don't have a mask we [Music] we'll do an executive session and then we will then we'll come back again or two hours unfortunately it's all hours i did ask it's all hours i did ask that question too so i'm gonna have a five minute recess [Music] yes [Music] ones that you're denying access to buildings [Music] great see this [Music] yes i think [Music] yes [Music] you [Music] oh is yes thank you [Music] okay [Music] is okay clearly we're back uh i still see that some folks don't have mass maybe a couple minutes and you want to get masks motion okay folks we really would like to hear from you but we have to keep to keep to our rules so we're going to go on executive session

003now when we come back and if people are not masked then we're gonna i'm gonna adjourn it and we'll be done for the night and then you can check the website for what we've been able to have our next meeting we need a motion to go an executive session absolutely from the night [Music] no forward math [Music] you can't punish everyone thank you what [Music] yes so we're going live because our board members oh i gotta turn around gosh are in there in a cubby hole next to each other because they can't hear us speak for our children so hopefully i can say this whether here because i'd like to point something out before i begin i'd like to ask every parent who anticipates who anticipates running for the board just please stand up raise

004your hand if you're willing to run from the board replace their seats if anybody is ready ready to run for the board and not do that and speak for our children please stand up now i am one of them before you are a group of parents who are standing up and there are more because they just aren't here tonight that are ready to take our school back they're ready to take on the job that you are failing to do immensely you have chosen in there to follow politics and not science at the expense of the mental emotional and physical well-being of our children the facts and studies have been readily available that prove that masking children do more harm than good yet they state that they are merely following the guidance of of of science

005and cdc and everybody else but tuesday january 25th via recorded instances from students in this school proved otherwise after the new york state supreme court ruling they sent out misleading false emails and denied our children the constitutional rights the sake school district and the new york state board of education do not supersede the new york state supreme court and they were masking our children unlawfully but don't worry because that's being handled believe me it is despite growing incidences of suicide throughout povid i see no sense of urgency in this school to address this but rather encouraging the to enhance and encourage and keeping our children in a state of fear the mental abuse that is taking place within these walls by members of our staff is a disgrace you're being they are being put on

006notice of intent to hold this district fully responsible [Music] it's dating from 2015. policy also has the sacrifice school district but it also has a school from california schools from california's policy put it in pastel it's just you don't even proofread your power you know no the teacher just told them to stop what were they showing boy parts how is that possible that on a school issue device i'm okay [Music] if you could just write to us [Music] who was in the same place we all are i don't want this man i don't want my kids to grant them i'm begging you for the opportunity to let my work be heard please i i stand with you i support you i'm not fit thank you so much okay [Music] give you another minute there's still

007people without masks i i hear what you say kristen i know you can't speak so we do we're also is on the agenda that we're writing a letter to it is what it is yes all right ladies and gentlemen we have people here that are supporting us and i i stand in prison i'm gonna ask that we have some compromise here while we're sitting in this chair while we're sitting in close proximity so that we stay within accordance to whatever the guidance is we wear our masks but they have to give a little and they have to allow us to remove our masks when we speak at this podium we are socially distanced more than six peace that is only fair and i encourage the members of this board that agree to support us in

008that and nod and say yes because that is the right thing [Music] and she's absolutely right this isn't them stealing the win okay this is us winning for our choice all right that's why we're all here yeah we don't believe me i know this is not what any of us want who thought two years ago we'd be going into the third year with us don't want this to happen either anything don't worry but we haven't you have to be orderly so i want to stand for the pledge of allegiance foreign uh gonna have a presentation on technology and business curriculum is that ready all right uh my name is kyle crawford um i am the cte department leader um this is the cte bunch uh some of us are not present um for for several

009reasons but um with me tonight is andrew wager 7th and 8th grade uh technology education and suzanne tagbosh middle school and high school facts and then not present tonight is going to be kathleen fuller uh high school business jeremy anofsky new media and rocco pietrovesa high school technology education uh so first up is suzanne so thank you clicker's ready to go okay all right i need you to support me hi everyone um so the the first column here has the current in the left column by the courses that are currently taught uh facts of course is formerly known as home and careers and then before that was homec but we certainly do so much more than sewing and cooking and so in the left column where the current course is offered seventh grade is a

010traditional facts class eighth grade is the high school career exploration class where students are earning high school credit for actually exiting middle school and then the high school courses offered are foods and nutrition regional and international foods parenting and child development and high school independent living uh how to be an adult kind of a class the the column that i actually find more interesting is the right hand column these are classes that fall into the facts uh curriculum by new york state ed should our program ever have the opportunity to expand at the high school level we'd be able to offer so many different options and i won't bother to read them for you but i think with extra choices there's a lot of positives that come with that offering students different uh choices and

011electives on the other side of that situation is whether or not our student population has an interest in additional courses or whether we have the quantity of students that would be able to support adding additional courses in addition to uh your fax teacher i'm also the district's k-12 life readiness coordinator uh we had a great opportunity today to work with our fourth graders both here at kentucky elementary as well as e.j arthur on the topic of financial readiness and career readiness we really enjoyed the opportunity so thank you very much principals of the elementary schools um hopefully it was it was readily received and the children liked it um but it's uh working closely with kathleen fuller and david carlson who are the career uh readiness ambassadors for the school district uh very much enjoying

012the opportunity thank you very much um so like i said kathleen is not with us tonight but i will be speaking on her behalf um the current courses courses she teaches um college accounting which is full-year dual enrollment course with columbia green um she teaches ac 101 ac 102 which are used for a math commencement requirement college business math and computer essentials she also teaches uh the entrepreneurship program which is a pretty new exciting program that we have social media marketing and then eighth grade high school career exploration some proposed courses that she has in mind would be business communications and marketing business fundamentals um cyber security and introduction to business and finance um and this is a really great picture that she put on there we had a an electives fair uh just a

013couple weeks ago where all the electives teachers set up a booth outside in the hallways and we tried to gather up some attention from our student body to sign up for our elective courses she had a really beautiful display she is also the co-career readiness coordinator um as suzanne spoke about previously and i think they're doing a great job with that so far again tonight jeremy yanofsky is not with us as well he's new this year to the district he's our new media teacher in uh in the high school he's teaching audio production video production digital media collaborative design with minecraft and game design essentials some of the stuff that his students are putting together it's pretty amazing and um their their uh classrooms uh kathleen and jeremy's are being renovated currently as well uh

014again not with us tonight uh we are a pretty big uh department for for the elective side but um rocco is not with us tonight um but he is currently teaching ap computer science courses uh ap science computer science principles and applications um intro to engineering those are like his staple classes that he's been teaching but this year he brought on a wood shop class strictly wood shop class and it's taken off like wildfire no pun intended um he's doing an amazing job with it though so i'm doing on prof soraco on that courses that he's going to be teaching uh coming up are going to be theater design and construction he's been working with the theater department on building the set for all the musicals um if you go to the the new one

015into the woods um i think you're going to be surprised at what the what he and the kids put together and then we want to expand on the woodworking side of things uh we did in our department have that renovation that happened about four years ago already now um and rocco's really putting the wood shop to the test um with all the stuff that he and his students are building these are some of the beautiful woodworking pieces that they've been working on um gorgeous stuff andrew you can take over so i'm the middle school tech teacher i work with seventh and eighth graders and when i get to seventh graders they have no real lab experience yet so my goal is to get them in the lab get them working get them comfortable with different

016tools that you see here uh in our shop setup and uh just get them crafting in different ways uh from there we learned a little bit about product design in the design process uh we get into some electricity and electronics uh we also get into some manufacturing and we set up a manufacturing line and we learn a little bit about lean manufacturing and we get you know a whole class of kids that are producing a product and lately it's been these uh these folding stools now in eighth grade uh we pretty much explored the various fields of technology uh all through focus on design uh we create our own solutions to real world problems uh again focusing heavily on the design process we get into 3d modeling through cad or computer-aided drawing uh we get

017into producing the products that we're designing uh using our lab space we've learned a little bit about computer science engineering concepts and our goal here is to you know encourage students to pursue stem careers and also to further their their learning in high school with uh the rest of our department um and i'll wrap it up with with some of my stuff uh so i teach the advanced manufacturing cte pathway in the high school um with like a focus particularly on computer design cnc and manual machining welding woodworking and all around metal and wood processing uh the courses that i teach are ddp which is design and drawing for production um satisfies the high school art art find fine art credit and we also have an articulation with hudson valley for their blueprint reading class

018so if our students take ddp they go to hudson valley for their advanced manufacturing program they'll get that college credit i also teach power and energy which is an electricity and renewable energy course manufacturing processes which is our manual machining course we do welding casting uh in that class as well and it's a third unit of math credit so it counts as a student's third unit math which has actually saved some students from not being able to graduate so i really enjoy that class and then kind of the capstone course for the cte pathway is the computer-aided manufacturing class which is our cnc machining course and at the end of that course the kids can take a certification exam to be a uh cnc operator um i do teach an elective course motorsport technology that

019comes from my passion of motorsport racing i'll show you some pictures from that in a little bit here uh these are some photos from the shop space again we had that wonderful renovation so if you haven't been down to see some of the shop space please come down at some point and take you know take a peek but we've got our cnc uh machine space manual machining uh our display case with all the student projects i did bring a show-and-tell without looking in i did bring show-and-tell uh because a lot of the stuff that we make is kind of too small to see in pictures so canon that the kids make in uh in freshman year and then in 10th grade and then they graduate up to a fully machined uh working compressed air engine

020um and then by this time they are in our cnc machining course um they're making products like a connecting rod for a small engine or just a series of parts that they that i get from an online curriculum so some kind of cool stuff um this video i'm not going to play save on time we've already used up a lot of that so we'll move on from that but uh this is a video from a youtube channel fairly popular youtube channel and kasaki athens is in that youtube channel uh we machined a part for robot uh that a youtube channel is making they're kind of in the finishing process of it right now and uh just as a fun thing there the motorsport class that i teach um we built a 8th mile dirt track

021on school property thank you mr squire for allowing that to happen um and we build a go-kart every year and we go out there and we race it for time this year we're building two making some serious improvements on performance um and we are going to be racing greenville they're currently building one as well so two schools are gonna go head-to-head so let's see how it goes our kids are better i'll leave it off on um i did partner up um with uh linda soldner uh just a couple weeks ago um she teaches a um applied math class she brought her kids down and i showed them some some applied math in the shop so that was pretty fun and that's all we've got thank you thank you very much questions yeah [Applause] i like

022it there's a little project based learning and that's kind of the direction the board and schools headed in um do you can you describe any alliances you have with any local manufacturing that your students currently have with any local manufacturers absolutely um we've got a great partnership to do common um i've sent some kids over there they are currently employed um by common um actually a case study that they're doing right now uh one of our students he hasn't even graduated yet but he did turn 18 um so he's working there now full time while going to school um so we've got a pretty good partnership with the common i've taught a night class for them here at the school um for their new employees so we've been working on that we just recently went

023there before uh before the winner walked over there with about 35 students and took a tour of their facility on manufacturing day um we've partnered with uh saturn industries and hudson we've toured there in the past um the bryote family uh with innovative test solutions innovative machining gone and seen their facilities um and one of the sales reps that we got our cnc machines through he's been in contact with these with some local companies up in albany that want us to to come visit nice job um second question since we're moving into budget season um can you highlight any resources that you need to implement some of these other programs have been highlighted yeah i think one for sure is making sure that uh kathleen fuller's entrepreneurship class really has what they need we've been

024kind of fighting back and forth trying to get all the supplies that she needs she needs 3d printer a regular big plotter printer and that's been a little bit of a struggle to get that um and then i think between rocco and i discussing things um with say his wood shop class um things are not not cheap uh you know our our budget is good in our department but i think with the uh rate of inflation going up um i we're noticing that in the shop that things are are a little bit more expensive this year than they've been in the past and if we're continuing to expand we're going to need need more anyway but but those couple things you know i think are uh what we would need to support the program moving

025forward i'll just highlight that the athens educational foundation is available yes if you want to do some small brand yeah submit an application yeah actually uh we still have some equipment that we got from the cafe uh foundation andrew wager still using it i was using it in high school and now we pass it down to him so they've been a big help in the past for sure people's applications absolutely thank you um there's something to throw out there and i agree with mrs wallace and i think it's a great thing to have opportunity to go to these community colleges however the key word there budget for every student that goes to a assumes pursuing school or uh community school outside of their district there's a chargeback that comes back to the county so i

026did you know encourage you guys to reach out and i'm going to bring this back to on the board at columbia green to see if you can't afford some of these programs to the students here instead of going to hudson valley having to charge that and take your tax dollars and pass them outside to another school when you have something right across the river that's you know right here for you the only recommendation i am i meant to do this earlier but i do want to have a moment of silence for mrs tater who [Music] was in her 20th year here as social studies teacher and passed away on monday night thank you these are these losses like this put things in perspective sometimes unexpectedly i did want to thank two that uh when [Music]

027secretary mercer spoke on tuesday morning to talk to the children about the loss thank you for that moving tribute to mrs tater i want to thank at least publicly that we had asked for some support for for us for us and the greenville central schools catskills central schools carol durham central schools and quest are all stent counselors to be uh support for for us here and our counselors here did a superb job of trying to uh help people get through the day and and the week and and uh and the staff too i got a chance to come over and talk to a lot of the staff and they all had ringing tributes to mrs tater and she was very loved by by them all and by the kids and the kids already are talking

028about how they can remember her so uh just want to acknowledge that fantastic just follow from previous meeting i was just tired of myself we met with mr pickett after the last meeting just discussed what this was on topics weren't concerned so an hour discussing those topics uh at your desk and you've seen this before uh is a draft letter um from the board to the governor and also the commissioner of the department of health regards wants to say yes let's send this put on letterhead get out tomorrow in africa this follows up uh i sent a letter out last week all the superintendents in our region sent out a letter this week uh the same thing you know they got to give us a way out of here sooner you know randy can you

029follow up with the board uh summary of what you want mr pickett um talk about and what conclusions you may have come to just so we're all in the loop on that yep thank you yes questions one by one er that's your american uh emergency funding and within that what you're saying the commissioner for the department of health and he's not elected they're appointed by the gubernatorial person within that emergency funding that the department of education for new york state more or less is a pipeline for the funding for this alleged pandemic which they're trying to put it in as an infectious cuisine if you guys voted to take any of this money from them uh you may want to look into that because what i'm comprehending as you read this thing the ess er

030part has to deal with the school the elementary school and so on every six months they're looking to have the schools in compliance in order to receive this funding so i hope you make that clear in this letter that you're proposing up there and you read through this thing to make sure you have everybody's leaders and what you're looking to do to say no to that money [Music] stay on the yeah [Music] i'm a real estate agent locally and the first thing that i tell families looking to buy a house from me is that the administration for kentucky athletes is absolutely horrendous today to have our meeting we have to be able to have our meeting so i don't want to no i don't know this is the meeting so i don't want to get

031expressed a mother was here talking about suicide [Music] there's a public input time and then there's the agenda and you your mask is an answer i spoke to the attorney today i said can can the board not follow the governor's mandate on masks if you were here last fall you would have heard but the issue with that would be [Music] was to pay you guys three thousand dollars for each of our kids can anyone be in this situation i would have gladly done that i've got my tax return coming i can give you that though and if we were to vote to go against the mandate then we can be removed so it's it should be evolved that's that would be what would happen so if it's not something we can do it's a mandate

032from the government [Music] today [Music] this was a community task force um that got together we had 28 attendees there this monday night for the purposes of discussing any inequities in education in either uh both our elementary schools andorra middle school looked at enrollments and we looked at looking at new educational opportunities for those students we broke up in small groups for about an hour we came back had more discussion and looking for creative ideas to talk about our next meeting which is uh i believe on the 28th of february um on the topic one of the main topics coming back to the group um a lot of members wanted to look at only fifth grade back into the elementary schools so that's on the list of things to talk about a little bit more

033but a lot of the group also wanted information financial data transportation data as well so the administration is going to provide that at our next meeting and uh [Music] thank you updates at your table you should have draft calendar for next school year fairly similar to this year uh my all the questions were i saw somewhere [Music] um [Music] kind of follow our remote base schedules that we haven't placed us to tweak them over the summer so correctly they're wrong the secondary level they kind of go through their their schedule in the morning and then the afternoon office hours the elementary's a little more spread that spread out specials such as the same schedule that you're having place now yeah now that i've known that that's an assumption we can still do remote days school

034years that has to be that's at least manually okay yeah i have a question about the remote why would we take that like what would be the purpose of doing remote days because if we're looking to moving forward and away from this pandemic and potentially hopefully getting rid of masks and what have you and the restrictions are eased up why would we go to remote like why i mean if it's a snow day i suppose if we don't have any built in but what is the purpose because it basically reduces the amount of instructional time at least from my perspective like my child when he was remote on a couple of days instead of a full day of classes he had 20 minutes of each of his classes and then that was that and sometimes

035it was it's not the most effective way for kids to learn so i don't if we're hoping to move away from this pandemic i don't understand why we would do remote things [Music] i mean if there's a an educational reason that you would like us to explore fine but i don't it's yes sorry i'm trying to it's very difficult tonight um trying like we're trying to expect parents or like i understand what you're saying like we have like i know abby when she was doing remote it would be a whole whole day for hope we would have like the um specials and stuff like that but it's very difficult to try to figure that out especially when it's so close to the holidays or on a weekend where they have an extent because they're so

036excited like i looked at the christmas one and i was like my kid is going to do nothing that was my concern it wasn't that like i just know her brain as military she's thinking about all those other things and i know the other kids are too i'm not married yeah it was just i don't think we had normal school days like before thanksgiving or did we have like half days no no that's how i didn't know it like the goal was so we didn't run the buses but they had a half day remote or all right when does the calendar have to be uh approved by no we don't need [Music] days with the wednesday before thanksgiving a holiday or would that become a school day just to look into it right now we

037still need to get for the number so they couldn't have yeah so february exactly happens as a board of education and administrative uh appreciation month each month we uh have an appreciation month for a different group previous clients he's done our custodial unit uh agent assistance et cetera some other ones government's team or the school district establish the policies and the long-term direction of the school you know that's the role if you've all taken it and they've done a great job in that regard so of course nobody signed up for the last couple years of what's been going on not just here but across the country uh across the world for that matter you know being kind of put into the bulls eye a lot of things nobody asked for in our schools so just

038spend my appreciation to the board for everything you're doing your council and et cetera and try to provide direction and providing nine different voices if you will uh our ideas on topics as we go forward uh but then coming together and again uh centered on that idea that you know what's best for kids that's what we're gonna work towards right here at ca so as well uh again they put in operation for that you know they're here to make sure everybody is safe everybody has what they need to be successful it's a lot of work again nobody there was no pandemic class 101 when we went to get our administrative certification uh et cetera so we've all been learning as we go uh i would put our district up against any districts now we've handled

039the pandemic the last two years we've been in person since day one uh every day for those who want to be here uh and that's something that most districts did not do last year when they finally caught up to us this year our kids it's a difficult job oftentimes being put in the middle of situations i think they handle it with grace uh and they always make sure that the students they're working with or the staff they're working with um keep their dignity uh and feel uh respected when things be done you know again as a school went around the valley uh assuming went and run as well as the school district that we're in we are uh here at ca we're recognized nationally for the things we're doing in a variety of areas uh

040that's particularly well so it's uh certainly something proud of so again thank you thank you for the administration on behalf of everybody here february uh next topic uh 2030 destination and this uh last week we cancelled it as one of them briefly it's at your desk probably been working at for a couple years innovation committee uh met before the pandemics uh and put together uh where are we gonna be in ten years from now all right and beer arm uh kind of put into this timeline a little bit when those things may start to be either started implemented [Music] so the possibilities uh those things we're working on uh you know we'll be working on for that decade if you will for that address we ask the teacher leaders if they uh what should be

041our next step what you know all those what can we do uh by 2030 what should be the next uh steps there and share this uh deck with you uh for the first possibility um i know employers be coming to community school the teacher leaders the idea of early childhood learning pre-k should be an example of that so that was kind of their top priority moving forward you can see the other ones as well as far as community school just like a possibility a place where space and time are flexible uh students use a variety of technology tools teaching leaders we're looking at great configurations of how we uh do our grades and how we do our school day things like that how was your top do it now before that the third possibility all

042students uh developing a partnership uh in building those kind of goes apart questions you're asking partnerships and experiences of the local regional or international uh partners almost half of our teacher leaders uh again saw this as an opportunity to really focus in on helping our students build confidence in themselves become strong advocates for themselves uh and others as well so i will continue to look at that and also demonstrate uh readiness for life and careers which we are attracting to our readiness industries finally the last important possibility is to help our kids develop become effective communicators collaborators critical thinkers creative thinkers and being self-directed we report out to our parents each uh marketing period on the report cards as well uh 62 of our teacher leaders thought uh you know within that that realm of

043things we want to continue to work and help our kids build those those social emotional skills how to persevere how to persist as they go forward and also become a confident presenter in the student ownership of their learning once they chose it so if you recall we went through this as a board a couple months ago as well and with what the board had come up with and what the teacher leaders called with each of your top twos at least one of them matched you know so that's good i'll do that so that's the kind of work that we'll be engaged in uh you know the next do it now is if you will it doesn't mean the other ones won't be happening right this means we might spend a little more effort to focus

044on certain ones right now the ultimate goal is to make these four big possibilities of reality uh by the end of the decade and to improve our schools and be a place a destination for people to be send their kids questions on that finally a budget update uh just from albany as you know and ryan will get to in his report the governor released their state aid proposal for schools for the upcoming school year uh and so he'll get into that into those details in a minute there's really not a lot this year the state budget dealing directly with schools it's not like non-monetary there's no major things that are going on as far as legislation and in that regard that can be good or bad there needs no leverage uh to try to receive

045more state aid from from the state uh in that regard uh so we'll have to wait and see if the advocating has begun to increase the amount of state aid that the ca is getting all right let you know we got three the governor's proposal the three percent increase state a which is the the minimum that every school got um uh in there so uh so we'll see what happens the state's supposed to adopt their budget by april first and so we'll have a clear number of what our state aid number is it's also the tax cap right over that in a minute to what our potential tax cap is um and he'll let you know that number obviously at least know what your revenue parameters are for the next school year and then uh

046next month certainly into april we'll get into more of the nitty-gritty of the budget so we have set our dates for our summer program it's going to be july 5th through august 4th we did put proposals out to teachers to encourage them to come up with some new ideas for summer school programming as well but we are planning on offering the kindergarten kindergarten now through sixth grade support for the students who are considered at risk and need a little bit of extra help over the summer to keep from regressing um we also we started our pre-k program it's off to a very good start we are currently in the midst of registration for pre-k for next year so we're highly encouraging parents to get their packets in so that we can see what we need

047to do with that so randy just put an announcement on the facebook page um to let parents know that they should submit their packets as soon as possible and then it'll be a first come first serve in terms of if they have to do a lottery we do have 56 spaces for next year because we have two classrooms that are from sake happens staff run plus an integrated classroom from our community business partner which is circle of friends so we do have a good number of spaces so we're hopeful we don't have to wait list anybody but we highly encourage people to get their packets in as soon as possible uh the next thing we're asking is to create two licensed teaching positions teaching assistant positions to confuse me this would be to provide teachers

048some extra in-class support for some of the rti needs that we're starting to find um this year so when they're doing their intervention box i'd like to be able to give them an extra set of hands to help them out and then the last thing for me you i think you all got to see a draft of our state audit from on mental health that's just a draft that's still embargoed so we can't discuss it publicly but we will discuss it in the future um we've had a chance to take a look at that there was nothing surprising in that draft um not surprising you just had a parent telling you that our child's been looking up you have to let us continue with the need [Music] it is not an audit of our mental

049health providing for students so once that is unembargoed we will go over what the results of that were and then we will make a corrective action plan for that particular training again for staff jerry it's going back to the pre-k again how many slots are available for next year yes 56. and if we have over and above that we're going to go to a lottery system we have decided we need to wait less based on when they get their packages so rather than doing the lottery first come first service is that two classrooms great that is three classrooms two of which are run by our staff and then one of which we had the community business partnership so one will be run by several friends that will be the integrated classroom so they'll be the

050providers of a special education service does that follow the same like has been less than half like more than half the facets correct yes so the county provides the funding for any special education students so they'll provide the funding for half of that and then the grant will provide funding for the other half of the regular education students [Music] free kindergarten did that you said that went well are we looking at the yeah the kindergarten kids come in for like kindergarten yes yes right kindergarten yeah yes that is part of the plan for summerslam okay because i i have a lot of parents like them okay i think it's a great opportunity for the kids to see the building a little bit before they are fully immersed in kindergarten if they haven't been all right

051so off c controller we did a financial stress report we scored a zero which is good a bad thing uh to show that we have no designation on the fiscal stress so i just wanted to share that with you with the interpretation purposes uh the next thing i had is we got a bill from south colonie central schools for our health and our health and welfare services for students attending christian brothers academy within the district so that will be going through uh mr squire pointed out our state aid runs did come in uh we got um seven million four hundred sixty five thousand five hundred fifty one dollars in the foundation aid i'll go over that a little bit more when i get a fun budget update uh which is right now so the budget

052update um really the estimated foundation aid i laid out for you guys the this year the estimated amount for 22.23 compared to the last five years um while last year we did see a 4.15 increase this year we are seeing again as randy pointed out that uh 3.08 number which is around the average for schools um for this coming upcoming year that is the first estimated number to us um things that go into the tax cap that this will get into include our pilot payments um right now save a lot ended in 1718 crossroads ended in 1314 but all others are scheduled um as you guys should see on the third slide there uh a total of just over a million dollars and from there we were able to draw our tax cap calculations i

053call it phase one just because um and our total exclusions summed up to 785 thousand six hundred and seventy seven dollars there um our maximum uh tax levy is there as are the increase i'll talk to the increase mars at eight hundred eight thousand eight hundred two dollars which is a four point three two percent increase uh comparatively speaking last year was at 1.97 i did put the bottom left-hand corner that back page of why do we see a substantial increase and a lot of that has to do with the 2019 capital project coming to a close in the near future here and because we just completed our energy performance contract resulting in 6.3 million financing um [Music] what anticipated pilots as a result of any more solar problems so randy and i met with

054the ida uh about a month ago most of those are coming 24 25 probably the you earliest how many are on track right now [Music] um the one the one across from pegasus and then after that two large ones so probably flip mine would be first and then the one and then the other one will go on the last one will be the power lines will be running down the railroad tracks so i uh again the pegasus one is pretty it's not a significant money but it's not a big one compared to the other ones the two um large megawatt lines could be in a range of 250 to 500 thousand dollars pilot and then the uh railroad track one more than that i mean not just by itself again but those haven't been negotiating

055now that's just well next thing on my list was the property tax cap we just talked about advanced therapy notice we did submit a letter via the mail and via email to advanced therapy letting them know that we would be using that space for our pre-k program moving forward so we are being transparent with them they did request to continue using that throughout the summer their contract does expire in all instances and they didn't require or ask if they need throughout the summer campus um so the last meeting you guys approved uh the small change to our ecaf uh extra classroom activity funds um creative action plan uh cheryl mathis myself and marianne romino our district treasurer had a meeting with [Music] clubs advisors club treasurers what not again to go over the expectations of

056our corrective action plan with as far as ledgers reporting documentation proper signatures we went over the classification of the seven different classifications for those signatures everybody seems to understand what's going on there see if the execution follows through and we did add club ledgers as a final documentation required for coaches club advisors for their your checklist as well um emergency connectivity fund ecf different than ecam ecf we were awarded seven hundred forty three thousand six hundred dollars you guys will see that uh later on the business section of this um of this agenda um that is a commitment from usac we've talked about this a couple of times now nicole and i have met quite a bit to talk about getting the devices needed the first wave of purchases is going to be for 100

057chromebooks and i'm sure she will kind of let us know where in the district those are going the number nine uh budget amendment originally i had a budget amendment put in here but i i spoke with the auditors again today and they had another follow-up conversation with one of their contacts aid planning um and they ultimately advised us uh to hold off on this for now so i did remove that i did not remove it from here to apologize for that um and finally i'll be quiet i promise the fire inspection reports are there with the link violations we were able to get a certificate of occupancies something i want to bring up is actually what dj talked about um contracting with another learning firm um have we talked about it well the auto committee

058has yes i don't you were on board for that right uh it was i remember the conversation yes right so i'm just i'm just throwing it out there for further discussion because that will be here sooner than later um maybe the other community needs to meet to see if they want to continue [Music] is it five years six years yeah it's been a while it's been a while so the thought of the other thing is to do our due diligence and you know probably look at another firm come in and uh [Music] updates you want to go down your list inside the elementary yep all right so um february was um a lot of fundraising that we've been doing this month um community service which is one of our uh priorities um our pto is

059conducting our penny wars and they're fundraising through great programs back to ce um and they do that throughout the year this is one of their really exciting uh fundraisers that the kids enjoy um our fourth grade community service is also conducting a can drive um to stock the shelves of the local pantry um and last uh district-wide we're hosting a fundraiser for the american heart association and we're asking our students and our families to commit to leading a healthy lifestyle on coach cardwell has sent a message to all of our ce kids as well as mr sparrow to all of our students district live and teaching our students activities that they can do independently um our goal is to raise five hundred dollars [Music] um to get physical education equipment in our schools um so

060lots of fundraising going on in february um one thing that i did want to let you know is that our concert for our march um our march uh fourth grade um chorus concert has been changed to the same date but it's been changed at six o'clock that is the evening that you have a board meeting at 6 30. so certainly we can do a few things we can either if we wanted to come over and hear one of their selections or possibly stream in um before i can take it and let you know but you can let mr sparrow know and then let me know and then i can share that with you because i believe that it's the same evening that we do have a music department presentation so you know which way we'll

061work it out so that you can see that it's um performance and this will be their first performance that they're performing by first graders kicked off the 100th day of school in style uh they came in dressed up as 100 year olds there's some pretty cute centennials there our staff also did the same thing and then uh throughout the morning they work through different stations uh in groups to uh make sets of 100 um activities which i think was your favorite it was literally times uh making a half with my stickers uh and so on um just like ms miller said our fourth grade students will be preparing um for their performance which will be uh next tuesday february 15th and uh we're gonna have a comparison performance uh it's at 2 15 in the

062afternoon and uh it's titled mighty minds my turn um you know you can take a look at the good news that's been shared um as always we've got a lot going on at the middle school um future cities was feels like forever ago but i think it was really just two weeks ago we did celebrate have fun at work day on the last friday of january and that really was a fantastic day um but i do i want to be serious for a moment and just say that um the crisis response team did exactly what the crisis response team was supposed to do um to help our our entire community um respond to a really unexpected and tragic loss um i have to you know thank mr squire for um putting the two-hour delay which

063our folks said was instrumental in giving them time to process and to plan and and get through the day to be there for kids um i have to thank everybody who pitched in pharaoh catskills west star greenville mcad green county mental health mr donahue um our own counselors who were grieving themselves um our teachers were phenomenal our kids i hope you get a chance to welcome ball i would i would suggest you walk down the hall and just see what they have um created and posted and i have an entire box of cards to give to the family um from from students who you know some of them didn't know her but just were feeling the loss in the building um this was really really difficult this was a really really challenging week and our

064staff across the district really just did a phenomenal phenomenal job um supporting each other and supporting our students and i think debbie would be proud so from the high school um i'm going to talk a little bit about what parents talk about we have a food grad going on by executive student association the aids assistance clerical food services and custodial staff i have suppliers for each one of you as soon as i've done um schools we dropped off in elementary schools high school or middle schools um there was also a qr code on here if you wanted to make a donation to the food bank um so again that's kind of campus-wide um some other good news we had four january slash february graduates cynthia cohen josie romeo sorry james greco and liam lyons uh

065cynthia graduated with a regis diploma and is planning on playing attending college uh josie also graduated with a regis diploma and she's attending college as well james graduated with regis diploma and he is he's entering the workforce and liam actually graduated with an advanced regis diploma and is planning on college as well so very excited for them very proud of them these questions so where students support this month's access to message and um officials and the whole feeling of myself has been going through fbl lessons the first one of this month was self management and full settings so the fifth graders have all gone through it six phrases today and tomorrow and second eighth grade is next week with ms essex myself [Music] i'm happy that it's transferring into our discussions when they see them

066we also have the star mentoring program that we started um so far we have 18 members of the high school interested and three of them remembered in place and we're still discussing more so that that has started to pick up in the beginning of march i have the cyber presentation cyber safety presentation i've been working with um uh i have been set up with community educators david we call from sarasota springs from the national center we can employ children so he'll be coming in we're hoping to march because right now they're not allowed to do referencing yet but they are thinking that by marx versus we are sure we have a couple of days um it's no start and i've heard like really great things from sarah parker's brains and rainbow prizes that they have

067come in from this that's which we're very excited for um and they'll also be doing a parent and gardening presentation as well just follow with them at the end of the day um um high school counselors wanted to give a shout out um that over 400 i believe was like 150 senior college applications have been submitted so far so they're really really excited about that um once bruising at the high school we're in the process of developing a ninth grade seminar to transition to high school in the middle school to high school um with personal development that we can access skills um i wanted to give a question also to our counseling team um i can't thank them enough for all their support this week from what we um planning and making sure that all

068of our staff and students felt supported they just want to reiterate what dr mercer said because i can't thank them um for special education update um as you can see i recorded my weekly um we're continuing the special life programming right now we're in the thick of planning and reviews we're planning 167 annual review meetings so i'll be we'll be in meetings for the next two months um our senior review is our bittersweet but we say goodbye to our seniors our last final meeting um and next time i uh see you in march i will have reports on you know what their post-secondary plans will be and what um what the difference that they will be here thank you on the tech services we have received the new clear touch panels which are victims from

069smart boards um we're in the process now of working through setting up the computers that are embedded in it and the software which is called snowflake so we are working through that all district employees are now currently using asap which is a paperless system for requesting timelock so that's all district staff as well as um the we ask the teachers what kind of software apps they'd like to add for next year so we're in the process of reviewing that and evaluating those apps and software the administrative team will be using each one and last but not least the cash stream that's done with inventory this month inventory all devices in the district that are on desktop attending dell boardsmart well thank [Music] to do that and [Music] okay so we have public input we have

070public correspondence and confidence i mean the agenda just want to recognize the six that came to us and everybody got the copy or the [Music] our rules for a public comment person's wishing to speak should indicate so in a on a public input form found at the sign-in table each person may come into the board once the first public input session is reserved for those who have signed up to speak with items on the agenda the second public input is for both agenda and non-agenda items at the public input portion of the meeting the board president the last person is wishing to speak to move to the podium and introduce themselves in any organization they may be representing at the meeting comments should be limited to three minutes we're gonna allow four tonight speakers are

071encouraged to submit in writing any additional comments comments about any employee student community member that's personal negative cannot be discussed in public personal negative or positive our administration will contact you for a private meeting if you'd like to comment about specific individuals the board does not generally respond immediately to issues raised but we may ask clarifying questions after the board has asked questions if there are any the speaker is thanked and he or she will leave the podium speakers are encouraged to submit their comments in writing as well the board will direct the administration to research the concerns presented and generally there is no discussion between the speaker of the board the board will not deliberate or take action regarding the requests presented at this meeting if public follow-up is required it will be presented

072at a subsequent meeting we ask for visitors to respect all speakers during the public session and to avoid engaging in other conversations while the board conducts business i have two lists so i'll go right from the agenda first tiffany i've actually already read mine when you guys were in your session um one thing that i would like to say since before that since i already read how what i have to say is you had a lady sharon with you that was sitting here bringing up concerns of children harming themselves sexual activity that is going on in the ipads that you provide for the school and it was a very big concern yet you dismissed her over a mask which has way lower of a death rate than anything that contributes to that so before i

073begin before i asked the parents to uh anticipate running for the board please stand up um many of them did and before you were a group of parents and there are more that are ready to take schools back they're ready to take on the job that you are failing at immensely you have chosen to follow politics and not science at the expense of the mental emotional emphasis for well-being of our children the facts stud and studies have been readily available that prove that masking children do more harm than good yet you state that you are merely following guidance get on tuesday january 25th via records and instances that proved otherwise because there were students recording just so you know after the new york state supreme court ruling you sent out misleading and false emails stating

074that it was only for certain portions of new york that's not true and you denied our children their constitutional rights the casa the kosaki school district nor the new york state board of education do not supersede the new york state supreme court and you are masking our children unlawfully but don't worry that's been all handled despite growing incidences of suicide which were just brought up and you couldn't hear anything about it because you had to hide throughout cloven i see no sense of urgency to address this but rather encourage and enhance this problem to keeping our children in a state of fear the mental abuse that is taking place within these walls by the members of your staff is disgraceful you are being put on notice of your intent of our intent i'm sorry to

075hold this district in full responsibility for their wrongdoings and there will be accountability for said actions our children will not be waiting for the okay to unmask and breathe freely from you hulkel or anyone else for that matter it is past time for parents to take back the rights of the children as well as ourselves they will be walking through these doors they will be unmatched they will show their smiles they will understand expression they will show their first truth when they lose it they will see their friends and teachers faces what you will see should you sing shame segregate remove or deny them their education is a lawsuit that will smash down upon this school far greater than any pumpkins from this moment on your days of playing doctor and proclaiming to be conduct

076this facility as a full-fledged medical facility are over from this this moment on our schools will be returning to what they are intended to be an educational system in which children learn reading writing and arithmetics not masks shots change segregation and i'll say it again agenda 2030 which you keep bringing up and it's indoctrination that's all it is you know it just as well as i know it just as well as your pockets know it with all the money that you received i leave you with this final part from the history books when law becomes tyranny rebellion becomes beauty that is those are the words from thomas jefferson if you stop banning books maybe you would able be able to understand those words and that is what our children are going to do they are

077going to walk through those doors they are not wearing a mask and you are not saying a word to them i swear to all that is holy you will be held accountable if you do because there is nothing scientific about this anymore hello you all know who i am so we already talked about the mask so i'm not going to go into a great deal about the masks but at the end of the day it's our freedom our right to choose whether we want to wear a mask or we don't and the masks don't help and i can share that from experience i've done for almost three we've been told to years and to max and to socially distance and i'm here to tell you like most of you i still got copic okay so

078it's about time the masks don't work okay our children have been doing this for almost three years this isn't about science politics has no business in our schools education that's what we send our kids to school for okay i'm gonna leave it at that and as one person brought up as far as the decline in enrollment maybe we need to take a look in the mirror and see why this is happening okay people are moving out people are choosing to homeschool their kids our decline speaks volumes leadership defines people don't want to move into an area where there's problems there's other places to move and go and that's what where we're at today where would it be better to put your kids in another district or move at a new york state altogether and it's

079sad and what i wanted to address is the email that was sent out by mr slider to the staff titled the ichabod train okay i find it disturbing and disgusting that a leader would send something out like that regardless if it was intended or not i don't care if you're a male or female how would you feel if that was your mother daughter grandmother etc okay receiving an email like that this is the person that is in charge of our children are you really kidding me right now we have petitioned this board with well over 400 signatures to remove this superintendent for its previous actions and history keeps repeating itself it is this board's job to do something your inaction is no longer an option and will not be accepted his actions should not be

080tolerated and he continues to abuse his power by taunting retaliating and making fun of others because they chose to be responsible and announce the school closure earlier because of the bad weather meanwhile we got a call at the last minute that school is closed which makes most of us parents have to scramble when you have children that you're like okay what am i supposed to do now i have to go to work this board continues to do nothing and silent approval of the superintendent's behavior is not acceptable you have duties as board members and while you can't be recalled in new york state you can certainly be removed for dereliction of duty and that is exactly what you're doing here we as parents taxpayers community members no longer accept and will tolerate this we are

081just done with it if that was anybody else that did this okay in a leadership role i would be terminated i would be probably prosecuted for sexual harassment this is not acceptable and we the people expect you guys to do something about this and that's all i'm going to say this lighthearted [Music] she actually asked me to give this to you first before i read them dear members of the puksaki essence board of education i have asked melissa slater to read on my behalf i am unable to attend tonight's meeting but wanted to have a chance to express my thoughts and concerns i have a son in the high school at ca he is a junior his last normal school year was when he was in eighth grade i am also a veteran teacher at

082another school district teaching middle school high school health and family and consumer science and on a daily basis i see how detrimental these masks are melissa has two pictures with her there of a box of masks masks that are being distributed to schools in colombia and green counties written on the side of that box is a statement that statement reads what read what it says it clearly states that it is not tested for protection against covid19 you are giving these out to your students faculty and staff to wear my to protect against exactly what these are supposed to protect my son his classmates and my family wearing a mask for six plus hours a day is not healthy kids are suffering from headaches getting bad acne and complaining that they have a difficult time time

083concentrating studies have found that there are chemicals in the masks that are found online or in stores and that fibers can be inhaled from such masks into the loans i know that some have suggested getting n95 masks for people to wear that's great if one is properly fit tested for an n95 you just cannot throw one on your face and expect it to do its job doesn't work that way next let's discuss the psychological harm that wearing a mask can cause wearing a mask does not allow for facial expressions to be seen our very little ones have not seen the smiles of their teachers or classmates in two years and they think that this is the norm this is horrible and sad please think about the kids faculty and staff in this district rather than

084the politics our kids deserve much better than this aurora lightheart parent hello um before you start my three i minute timer to take 30 seconds to address those who have attended the meeting tonight in support of parent choice in terms of masking but are not comfortable with speaking aloud i would ask all those in favor of parent choice in our schools please stand thanks guys i'm here tonight to discuss my concerns about our schools i'm appalled to see that a mass community for schools has not yet been lifted i simply cannot comprehend how one can attend a sporting event with thousands of people go to the movies the mall the ymca or better yet visit almost any school in any other state in this country without a mask but the second someone steps foot in

085a new york school a mask must be worn regardless of distancing we've been told it's because we're following the science yet the only science it seems we're following is political science our governor wants to follow the data before lifting the mandate but i'd like to share some data with you that i easily researched since the pandemic hit the cdc has reported emergency room visits for suicide attempts were over 50 percent higher than during the same time period in 2019 as of february 3rd 2022 the state level data report which includes the cumulative mortality for pediatric cova cases reported that all child cova 19 cases 0.00 to 0.01 resulted in death the pandemic may be what is killing our children but it's not coveted the fact that we have yet to lift the mask mandate to

086further help repair the damage this pandemic has caused our children is nothing shy of disgusting inhumane i'd like to share with you a few experiences my my children have had this year my oldest son plays a jv basketball team he attended an away game at taconic hills what i didn't know at the game was that they had a staff member on the side of the outlines yelling at her players to pull their mask over their noses my son who has a history of asthma had to remove himself from the game to go into the bathroom where he had a coughing fit almost vomited and thought he was going to pass out because he couldn't catch his breath he was alone in that bathroom struggling to breathe and i'm his mom and i had no idea

087don't count this against my three minutes please as if it wasn't horrible enough that very woman who was yelling at these kids over and over again to pull her mask up and removed her mask while surrounded by numbers of players and coaches to that varsity players into a microphone thank you in other sports within our school not jv basketball those coaches are amazing players had begged their parents not to attend certain practices because they were going to be punished for not wearing their masks enough in the previous game so the next practice would only consist of running with masks on the entire time i have never in my life seen a more widely accepted form of child abuse you have staff members literally chasing after students in pairing during parents during sporting events hiding under

088bleachers for the opportunity to catch someone without a mask or not wearing a mess properly the school posted two pictures of students with masks on while playing with legos my heart shattered while looking at this picture you can tell by their eyes they didn't even attempt to smile we've taken their smiles away from them i'd also like to address those children with learning disabilities doing their best to learn to write and to read trying to listen to words being spoken and watch the teachers pronounce the vowels the words we've removed these key strategies by wearing a mask i have seen endless accommodations in an iep yet allowing one to remove a mask to allow a child to learn the way that we have been taught their entire lives is not is nowhere to be found

089nowhere to be found a study conducted by brown's university scientists has shown a significant negative impact on child development citing a 23.23 drop in iq scores since the start of the pandemic we are emotionally educationally mentally mentally and physically ruining our children i have yet to find any study with any statistical significance providing that wearing masks in school stops at spread of cover 19. in fact the opposite is easily found foreseen masking of students has no correlation with community health or community transmission furthermore when you review the number of cuba cases of non-mass states versus the mass states the mass states have higher cloven rates there are many medical providers who stated that our children are the least vulnerable and should be the first to have the mass mandate lifted and for those who choose

090to protect themselves from cover 19 with the mask should do so one may mess things still protest the wear from coven so as long as so long as they're wearing a high quality mask i have heard over and over again that kids are fine they're resilient in fact not all kids are the same not all kids are fine our kids have been taught that since they were born to follow rules to respect others to respect authority there are many kids who are suffering in silence because they wouldn't think of breaking a rule or even worse refusing to do something a teacher tells them to do in the covet briefing yesterday for the first time ever our governor said something i agree with children still need adults to look out for their health and she's absolutely

091right their parents need to look out for their child's health their parents need to look out for their child's health and if that means we have to fight for what we know is best for our children here we are nowhere have i found that i gave up my parental rights by sending my child to school and we certainly did not give up our constitutional rights i'm here to let you know that my children have my 100 permission to enter that school building tomorrow and every day forward unmasked i'm not asking my kids to fight my battle i'm asking them to do whatever makes them comfortable and while i was met i was i will admit i was hopeful to never have to take on the teacher role again for my children i will happily reconsider

092the option to homeschool in the event our children are going to be forced to wear masks to mr squire the entire board all of ca faculty i thank you for leading the way in green county by providing an in-person education last year now we the parents the students and the community members will lead the way in unmasking our kids and returning to normalcy thank you for your time battling hi my name is fifth grader here at santiagos i'm here tonight to tell you a little bit about how the last two years have been for many students my last number of school year was second grade it's hard for me to remember what it was like before kobe when we all eat lunch with our friends walk around freely without masks and without being scared or

093worried that i will be yelled at for not wearing the right mask or wearing a mask the right way we were told that we would be able mass fix but that hadn't always happened that was thankful for miss circus who has never made me feel uncomfortable but not all teachers are like her that's have been many of times where i was yelled at by other teachers for trying to take a lit drink of water i have also been yelled at for taking my mask down when i need a bit of fresh air that this week was really hard for all of us in the school but it felt so good to be able to help my teachers please don't force me to hide my face anymore kevin ross hi my name is heather ross good

094evening i want to start by thanking you all for what you do i feel like being a board member can't be something that is always easy and for sure can go unappreciated we elected you to be our school board members because you ran wanting to do what was best for our children and lead the voice for them i'm asking you tonight do you feel that you've done that successfully growing up in this town and school district i know the majority of you maybe not super well but enough you either have or had children in the school or have children coming up to soon be part of the school you ran because you care i know that's why i stand here tonight i care about these kids and what i'm seeing is just truly breaking my

095heart sorry that was my niece i'm so proud i keep hearing people say my kids don't care about masks it's not a big deal and i can to an extent relate my kids don't like them but they're not complainers the majority of our kids are predominantly rule followers they're good kids they want to keep the peace do what their teacher says and go to school to learn but these days is that effectively happening from what i hear many teachers spend the majority of the day making sure kids wear masks appropriately kind the kinds of masks that the cdc says aren't even effective but i'm not getting into statistics tonight as many of the others that have gone before and will go after will cover that in my opinion at this point you have to live

096under a rock to not know what is being said on that note many stand here each week expressing their concerns and emailing you all to follow up i know we all stand here tonight doing the same my question is can i expect a reply to my concerns to an extent i get you want to know things you can't possibly know everything that is going on in our schools so you want us to come and express or voice our concerns however do you reach out after with your opinions and replies we feel like we're the only ones who care about our kids sometimes i know that can't be the truth you ran on a school board you must care so why do you not reply to our countless concerns can you not is it about money

097can you not say i don't know these things but i can tell you this is how we're feeling alone fighting for our children i just hope you truly listen to what everyone is saying tonight and you take this information and fight for our kids fight for their freedom fight for their freedom to breathe fight for their right to learn and effectively learn because what we've been doing these last two years although yes every effort possible and much appreciated it's just not quality learning and i think we can all agree to that thank you for your time so i took a little bit of a different approach this time around so i reached out to people and asked for um stories that they're not comfortable to share and that maybe they just didn't want to stand

098up here to share them so i'm here because i offered to speak on behalf of anyone who wasn't comfortable with their names being put out there or who didn't feel comfortable speaking there are so many stories that have been sent to not only me but to all of us who are leading this battle that need to be shared for everyone to hear but before i read the emails i received i saw something today that really hit home it really made me sad not just for my kids who are older and you know they're okay they're resilient mass don't matter they should be fine with wearing one all day long but for the younger ones think about kindergarten first and second graders this year they have never had a normal school year ever these kids have

099never looked into the full faces of a teacher or their friends they are scolded and constantly told to pull a dirty disgusting mask over their mouth and noses third fourth and fifth graders their last normal school year was kindergarten first and second it makes me sick and even more upset toward the individuals who are placing fear on these kids and who think math should remain a part of a child's education it's not okay so the first statement i have is a statement from an employee at eja for the last three months i'm seeing and being exposed to so much more i stood in a classroom while the teacher assigned a writing assignment where the student had to choose mast or on maths as the topic then read it aloud these are children in third grade

100that truly believe they will die without a mascot i gently put my hand on a first grader's head as he walked into class only for him to yell don't touch me i don't want to get sick this is truly damaging our children i hate having to enforce it as much as i hate having to wear one all day myself i just can't believe after all this time we are still wearing masks sad can't even begin to describe it the next statement is a statement from a parent and an educator i'm writing this letter as a parent and an educator but unfortunately due to this awful situation in education i've asked to not be named i want to share with you my experiences as both as a parent i have witnessed my children freaking out in

101the morning because they forget a mask or a mask has broke i witness my children place the mask on their face and feel naked without them i've witnessed my oldest rolling with it and my youngest not knowing any better because this whole school career he is the mast i had to take a step back after this and realize as a parent and as an educator i taught them that this piece of cloth is so important that they freak out if something happens happens to it that is a piece of cloth or that that this piece of cloth is so important you will get in trouble if you don't have it that this piece of cloth is more important than your homework because most teachers will give you another chance to hand in your homework late

102this is not okay i was and i still am forced to be part of this problem as a parent i'm done teaching my children that a piece of cloth is more important than seeing your face as an educator i want to see my students faces and i want them to see me i don't want to waste time enforcing mask rules because honestly i have bigger issues to face as an educator at this point like for example helping students catch up on their curriculum because they have lost so much new york state didn't change anything that has to do with standards or curriculum or take into consideration that students can't be taught at the same pace as we were pre-coping due to the fact some were fully remote and quarantined for weeks i didn't go into

103education to be a mass police yes i do tell students all day keep your mask up don't get too close to each other why because if i don't an administrator walks by not only do my students get in trouble i do too we as parents and educators are actually teaching our students to hide and not be social we are teaching them it's okay not to express your thoughts and your feelings because we can't see it as educators i'm physically and mentally drained as a parent and educator i'm tired of being the bad guy because i must enforce the district's policies on colbit i want to be an educator i went to school to be and actually see my students we are taught as educators to teach all of our students not just part of them

104and right now we are saying to our students i'm only teaching part of you because i cannot see all of you i wear my mask every day for eight plus hours i got both vaccines and a booster i washed my hands and used hand sanitizer daily and i still got covered it is time to learn how to live with covet and teach our students and children to live with covet not hide our faces from it please think about what we are truly doing and saying to our children and students and lastly was a parent of a third grader at uh kosaki elementary my daughter is a is in third grade in kentucky elementary she came home today upset because her class got yelled at by a teacher anyways anyway oh the kids pulled their masks

105down to itch their nose and she yelled at them and said at no point are they ever to take their mask off and they will be in big trouble if they do that's all i have for you tonight i had more but there's not enough time for it so thank you or send it to us okay i uh continue to find myself baffled by this board of elected people and it's unfortunate that we're missing members tonight when i ran for a seat at this table i had ideas thoughts some intentions i listened to people and i sat with them in their homes before i asked them to support me or to sign my petition to run i asked them what they expected from a school board and a school board member in a community like

106ours i didn't take their endorsement for granted the overwhelming response from most people was common sense and that's what i ran on it was a campaign it was not a popularity contest obviously it wasn't status quo and i promised people that i would stand up for them even if i didn't earn a seat at the table i had hoped to bring common sense to a table where common sense doesn't really seem too common right now maybe i gave the physician or even myself more credit than was deserving and as you guys know i never bring any sugar with me i cut it to you straight i call it the way that i see it and the way that i see it is that our words seem to fall on deaf ears a perpetual repeat of

107the month before like in the movie groundhog day because that's what it feels like standing here month after month and i'm sure for the board it is also tiresome to sit here quietly nearly comatose as we bring you our grievances and occasionally emotional voices when we come to you with concerns and questions time and time again and are continuously left to feel like we are speaking underwater drowning in your indifference we want real responses and we want real action tonight i am reminding you and those in attendance and those watching on the stream about the petition that was brought before this board with nearly 400 signatures parents students alumni tax paying voters and community members calling for the removal of randy squire i later received an email stating that the board was in receipt of

108that petition and it would be considered during mr squire's evaluation in may well no crap because i hand delivered it that wasn't the response that we felt we should have gotten from this board because we hope that those names matter and that the charges within the packet you were provided carry some weight and tonight i hope that it will also be taken into consideration that the the irresponsible and disgusting character that the superintendent continues to exhibit whether it be in the form of an email to staff members depicting a violent sex act involving smashing a woman over the head with a pumpkin or the fact that he then made attempts to cover it up by magically retrieving the email from the school server and its recipient but not the apology not the screenshots and i

109believe it's called conspiracy to commit basically saying that whatever crime that falls under because it does the choice was his to make and he made it ladies and gentlemen of the board i have taken the new york state sexual harassment course required of me and there's no mistake this applies the sharing of that subject matter in a workplace email is classified as sexual harassment whether you think so or not it was sent with malicious intent irresponsible judgment and only in hindsight did mr squire attempt to correct it and the damage was done quickly the news traveled at the speed of light and that evening hundreds of community members received some sort of shared post email text message highlighting the details of the so-called faux pas as well as the screenshot of the original email with

110the link from urban dictionary this also denotes the mutiny of this ship called the ca school district that i had previously warned you all about the screenshot had to come from somewhere so pay attention ladies and gentlemen whether it be an inappropriate attempt at humor to disparage another school district for their choice to close campus ahead of what was forecasted to be a potentially dangerous storm to mock the name ichabod crane when their athletes have often showed in number to support us in our triumphs as a school that has stood gracefully even in their own defeat to cheer us on or whether it was an attempt by mr squire to seem likeable and funny in the face of scrutiny neither replied i'm almost done how shameful it is for a person in a position like

111mr squires to behave so unbecomingly this evening there are people here who agree that this individual has become a cancer in our school district creating a toxic work environment and a hazardous place for our children to be despite all the best efforts of teachers and supporting staff make no mistakes like this man has and the understanding that his behavior poor character and continued arrogant and disrespectful attitude of randall squire should not nor will it be tolerated any further we suggest that this man meet at a minimum disciplinary action a formal suspension with no access to school resources tools or devices until a full investigation or an immediate evaluation by the school board and the school's attorney has been made we expect that you will also cooperate with any filing parties which will arise and their

112attorneys will be named if this board does not act accordingly we are putting you on notice ladies and gentlemen of the board of your own liabilities and women if you allow the men on this board to to poo poo this away and to remain complicit then you are just as guilty just as guilty we put bruce cavanaugh on trial for hearsay we've put people on trial for far less than this and you know the law and you will follow the law because we will make you follow the law [Applause] i want to be clear that i had read about uh not having negative or positive comments about staff and i respect that and you said the only person let me finish okay because i was going to say but i mentioned that a couple of

113meetings ago that the unusual situation here is that mr squire is like our employee like our supervisee and this is the only way that you have to do that like everybody else you can request beatings absolutely so i i do well i want you to know the media is watching i am here is a member of i'm letting you know right now that your board needs to take action there is no further discussion okay i just asked that people continue to be respectful i think people generally [Music] okay [Music] is [Music] a lot more people that wish to talk thank you well you showed up that time aurora promised here hi i'm aurora i've i've stood here before i i was here in september speaking about a much actually as i would like to say

114now slightly less important thing because it has gone down after i almost got into a fist fight in that process i'd like to start off by saying that i'm not here to talk about bullying but i'm here to talk about masks tonight my peers and i cannot breathe in them for me and multiple other people will cause asthma attacks or anxiety attacks it's even worse when you get both at the same time trust me i speak from experience and i speak on behalf of my peers my mother and i there's a few things i would like to point out the first thing being that you were denying the children of ca their education that they are entitled to on the 25th my friend and i here when the night before when they lifted the mass

115mandate for everywhere in the state we came to school the next day extremely relieved that we were able that we were going to be able to breathe at school we were denied access to the building for an hour and a half until we decided to comply so i would go and get our education i have my medical information on file with the nurse that i cannot last a long period of time in these masks and i was threatened with iss we were threatened with iss if we did not put on masks and enter the building you cannot force us to sit in a school for six hours or more especially if you play an indoor sport and you cannot force us to wear masks some teachers don't even give out mass breaks anymore and i

116find it utterly ridiculous we are trying to help our mental health and you are punishing us there have been multiple articles written that mass can make social anxiety a lot worse than it already is one article states that some mental health specialists worry about people who have grown dependent on mass to shield themselves from human connection if it gets serious enough the dependency amounts to form social anxiety or disorder another social anxiety disorder another one says for people who struggle with social anxiety having a break from social obligations and showing your face in public might have felt comforting beyond a face mask purpose beyond face masks beyond a face mask's purpose for containing covid wearing a mask almost serves as a security blanket this matters a lot because we've been in mass for so long

117and when people start to enter public places without masks people with social anxiety will then become the outcasts if they still continue to wear the masks and then that will just make it build up even more because then they are getting judged so if you're insecure about your face but then you decide to wear your mask out in public that's just going to make it even worse i really hope you understand that there i feel like we should start working our way back into not wearing masks and easing ourselves back into because i know that i have been able to struggle and there have been multiple times where i have wanted to lock myself in a room and just cry because i cannot breathe and i want you to know that i do not care

118about these masks at all and this is exactly what i think of them they are trash i hope you understand what i'm saying i'm to petition the state and the governor no that is your job i'm suggesting that this is a way to turn your your feelings into advocacy starland palmetto [Music] i have so much to say which start off i'm saying i'm a ca graduate of the class of 2002. i played volleyball i ran track i was on chorus and drama club and i was in student council for a year i was involved but i didn't stand out or make waves my thing was to sit back and watch and remember i was happy my children were going to be attending the same school myself my husband my father my sisters my mother-in-law father-in-law

119brother-in-law and uncles and aunts went to family connections are important to me as i have lost so many now i can go on from here and tell you how disappointed i am with this district and the 20 years since i graduated with this district stance on bullying hasn't changed it still blame the victims not punish the bullies but honestly after attending these meetings in person and watching later and hearing things from people who work in this district it doesn't surprise me considering the biggest bully in the district is sitting right in front of me remember it's my mo to watch and remember the fact that i am standing here speaking should say volumes to people in this room who know me i don't like public speaking i don't like speaking out i don't like making

120controversy that being said i have two more things to talk about first i want to ask about the murals in the school being painted over why i was disgusted when i saw the high school cafeteria a while ago all the beautiful artwork that was there when i was in school is gone either taken down entirely covered up with gray paint or replaced with smaller copies of their former glory now i hear there's talk of taking down the murals that have to do with native americans why what is wrong with you is the art hurting anyone no is it depicting natives in a negative light as one of the artists no it's absolutely not unless there is an active plant to replace them with more artwork there is no reason to take any of them down

121the artwork on the walls is one of the things that makes this school warm and inviting clearly it's not the school board and with everything that has gone on in the last two years our children deserve all the cheer that this district can give them now for the real reason i'm standing here is because these stupid masks these masks are having a negative effect on our children mental and physical health my children used to love school but at least once a week i hear from my eight-year-old but he wishes he can go back to kindergarten so things can be normal again my daughter is 13 and asthmatic she was just up here she's having a more difficult time than he is she can't breathe later on causing difficulty concentrating and coming home with horrible headaches

122multiple times a week because of the constant masking even though it is in her health file with school nurse that she has a condition she is still forced into a mask to attend school she was denied entry to the school for an hour and a half when she tried to exercise her right to breathe freely while getting her education on january 25th what is wrong with you you threatened a student with a known medical condition with in-school suspension for non-compliance when all she wanted to do was attend school and be able to breathe while doing so does that seem right to anyone no your children learn social young children learn social cues by seeing faces and children our children in the elementary schools are not getting that with masks masking and isolation has been noted

123as cause for 50 rise in suicide attempts resulting in trips to the er for girls between the ages of 12 and 17. my daughter falls right in that category from the beginning from february to march of 2021 though the increase started in may of 2020 according to the cdc not to mention the rises in diagnosis of anxiety and eating disorders now is the time to take take a stand and free our children from these masks let their lungs breathe freely and free their smiles to shine hear me when i say this i am not the only one watching and remembering now we all are and you are elected officials who work for us and if you won't work for us we will gladly replace all of you people who will and the little power trip

124you pulled at the beginning of this meeting was more nothing more than a delay tactic and if you were you are now discriminating against people with medical conditions like myself and my daughter that make it difficult for us to wear these masks are you that afraid to look people in the face cameron slater uh good evening everyone my name is adam slater i am a sophomore here at kosaki and every day i come to school and before i can even walk into the lobby someone is yelling at me to mask up or put a mask on but the truth is that no one likes to wear masks and i myself hate having to wear a mask the forefathers of america built this country on foundation of freedom and someone forcing me to put on a

125mask against my will doesn't feel very free to me you might say that no one forces anyone to wear a mask but if we don't we could get in trouble personally this sounds like an ultimatum wear a mask or else i have a story about this two students were walking down the hall they had their mask below their noses someone told them to pull it up they were they didn't they were then later given referrals because they didn't they didn't wear their mask back to the topic of freedom in order for myself to feel free the masks have to be gone i don't feel safe without a mask then if you don't feel safe without a mask then no one is going to tell you that you can't but if you feel safe not wearing

126one i get in trouble for trying to make myself feel safe i say that school is a safe place but i don't feel safe there because i'm always worried about getting yelled at to wear a mask i have a question if you wear your magical mask that prevents clothing from entering your body why do you care if i don't wear one if i can't get you sick if you have your mask on i think that everyone should have their own choice when it comes to wearing a mask or not staff members take more time out of their day to yell at students to wear a mask instead of actually teaching us the skills we need for our future i want to close this speech with a quote from a philip randolph freedom is never given

127it is one and today we are here to win our freedoms thank you for your time hi good evening my name is cameron slater and i'm an eighth grader here at ca today i would like to talk about my experiences with mass improvement i've been bullied by peers and threatened by staff members i feel masks are uncomfortable and they affect the learning during one of my classes i was threatened by my teacher that if i didn't keep my mask on my face he would tape it to me i feel that it was inappropriate for my teacher to talk to me a student in such a way asking me to pull my mask up and keep it up would be a different story the way he asked me to keep my mask up was inappropriate also

128it could have been handled differently peers and teachers tried to get me tested for losing my bliss years you lost your voice you have covet me losing my voice is not a symptom of cobit leave me alone teacher losing your voice is a symptom of a student i don't feel safe coming to school you aren't vaccinated and your mask is never up me my health is none of your business student well it is because i come to the school to learn not to be afraid of co teacher please go down to the nurse's office to get tested for the comfort of your peers i then walked down to the nurse's office to get tested i told her the situation and she took my temperature she asked about any other symptoms and i answered them no

129she then sent me back to my classroom where i was bullied again as soon as i sat down student she probably didn't even go to get tested i did so can you please just leave me alone at the time in the class we were taking our fast bridge which is a test to see growth over the years all the bullying during this period built up and i started to cry i sat out in the hallway for the rest of the block crying and just trying to finish up my fast bridge which i didn't do too well on because they made me overwhelmed and my head was in a hundred different places the teacher then came out and talked to me asking what the nurse said i told her that she told me that i didn't

130have cloven i was fine to come back to class she told me that she trusted the nurse and that it was fine i feel that students shouldn't outburst their feelings during class teacher was understanding of their outburst and tried to get me tested without my parents consent also my parents don't want me to get tested at school no matter what students speak irrational hurting each other without even realizing it the masks at school are tearing students apart students are constantly telling other students to put their mask up or to have it over their nose which is understandable but it isn't their place students are being aren't being considerate of other students feelings i feel it is important to let you know that masks aren't comfortable they are affecting learning and it gives you a hard

131time breathing i'm never getting mass breaks either i feel it is hard to breathe during physical activity masking's negative impact is learning they interfere with teachers communication about lessons i wish school looked different in many ways saying six feet apartments are hard to socialize with friends not being able to do labs and science because of precautions affecting lessons lunch is difficult to socialize with different people each day because you have to scan a barcode each quarter to make a seating chart it makes it difficult to stay with different people on other days covet is affecting us in many ways and making our school days hard sometimes thank you for your time good evening i would like to start out by saying thank you to the teachers support staff custodians nurses counselors administrators mr squire and

132the board of education for working tirelessly to navigate through the protocols keeping our schools open and in person for our children we've been guided for two years with the best intentions to do what is best for our children and i am so appreciative of that i am here tonight to plead with you to please listen to what our children families and community members are now saying the time to stop enforcing a mass requirement for our schools is now i'm not against masks masking may be okay for some but please understand it is not okay for most which is why i'm advocating for individual choice i know that there are a lot of adults who say that the kids are fine or that the kids are resilient they'll be okay we are here to tell you

133the kids are not okay they're not okay masking for all is not the new normal nothing about this is normal nor should it be i have so many emotions hearing stories from so many of our ca students including my own children with most coming from the recent few months stories of teachers and children bullying others because they chose not to get a covet shot or they don't feel that they are wearing a piece of cloth on their face properly stories of teachers telling young students that they are going to die or kill their classmates and teachers if they don't keep their mask on for the entire day how about our youngest children who have only encountered a school where they do not get to experience expressions from their teachers or classmates those same children who

134are afraid to receive a pat on their back or a tap on the head because they're so deathly afraid that you'll die from a small show of affection how is any of this okay our children are not okay their mental health is not okay we are creating so much division within our schools and making it near impossible to give our children the proper educational setting that they deserve when my husband and i first had our children our intention was never to homeschool i can no longer say that this is not an option we wanted our kids to experience all that ca could offer that just as we both had a great education rewarding extracurriculars sporting events with stands full of your peers school dances concerts lifelong friendships and most of all amazing memories the anxiety

135depression stress and strain that these last two years have put on so many children is heartbreaking as parents teachers school workers and administrators we have the power to try to mitigate that now as of tomorrow i will no longer give permission for my children to be forced to wear a mask in school i expect them to be able to receive the education that they deserve in school with their peers and put the focus back on education not politics without fear of repercussions or punishment the state education department was quoted in a statement on january 28 2022 to the usa today network new york by saying that the department and i quote does not recommend that school districts impose discipline upon students for not wearing masks since we have all been following along with the guidelines

136and recommendations put in place by the state education department from the beginning i would expect that we as a district will do the same here immediately it starts with us parents and community members and next goes to you to advocate for our children by doing what is right let ca continue to be the leader for our other local schools in our area as you've done throughout this pandemic thank you please brandon warhol i'm not brandon but brandon is at the senior volleyball night so go see a riverhawk um good evening mr squire members of the board education parents of my fellow students and members of the villages of kosaki and athens my name is brandon morehouse and i'm a senior i'm a senior of the class of 2022. i would have liked to stand before

137you all tonight and deliver my statement personally but my commitments to my volleyball team took priority i write to you the members of the board of education urging you to leave green county in the return of normalcy within the walls of our schools it is time to lose the masks and it is time to free our faces i was only a sophomore when this school closed down in 2020 just barely being able to perform our school play and in march everything that followed was cancelled and never to be made up there were seniors who would never again get to perform in their abandoned chorus concerts there were seniors who would never again be able to play in their final sports seasons of high school there were seniors who would never again walk through the front

138doors of the school never to return before graduation these seniors got their final moments of high school torn away from them as we entered into the start of the 2020 2021 school year much was still uncertain of what was to come there were still many unknowns regarding remote selling and coveted protocols but amidst the ambiguities my hybrid schooling schedule this school district was one of the few districts in new york to be open full-time while other schools watched us to see what would happen with our handling of covid it was the district that led the charge in keeping public schools safe and open while some schools will remote full-time i remember half of the time this district stayed 100 open and for that i thank the superintendent the members of the board of education and

139the employees of the district even as a junior i couldn't have ever imagined missing many of my memorable moments that i have experienced and while the previous school year was a significant improvement from the one before my heart still aches for those seniors who missed out on a complete normalcy nonetheless even in all the inconveniences and setbacks we as a district have overcome them my senior class has been far more fortunate than the previous two even though everything has not been entirely as we have expected the circumstances have been easier and the challenges have been my new when compared to the classes of 2020 and 2021. and now in my last remaining semester of my years of high school i urge the board to release the requirements for the masks on students and faculty new

140york is one of the few remaining states that still have mandates mass that still have mandated mass in public schools and it is time for that to change it has been almost two full years since the initial shutdown of our schools and in that time we as a country have gained tremendous knowledge regarding covet and the handling of it we have developed several vaccinations with a large percentage of my peers in the high school have received and we have learned that the odds of severe illness and or deaf in children ages 5-17 is microscopic it has been hard for children of all ages in this district since our shutdown and at this time we reward our resilience we haven't been able to be with our friends and peers under normal circumstances and teachers haven't been

141able to see their faces of their students this district was one of the first to step forward and keep our district open full time last year and i pressed the board of education to try to lead the way on our road to normalcy not only for the for the county but for the state of new york it is time to lose the mess it is time to free our faces to mr squire and the members of the board of education you have our support in this endeavor thank you for your time marianne line guard members parents teachers and members of the community i come here tonight as an advocate for my children in regard to the mass mandate since the day i knew i was going to be a mom my top priority has been

142and continues to be the safety and well-being of my kids i know every scar every sickness they've endured their hopes and dreams their fears i know more about them than anyone in this room because i am their mom that is a responsibility i take very seriously i have taught them right from wrong to uphold the law but also to speak out and stand up for what they believe in even if others try to sway them otherwise life is about choice and it should be left up to our choices the parents to choose what is best for our children if a parent or child thinks the mass do work and feel safer with it that is their right to choose to wear one same rules should apply to those that think the masks either don't work

143create more health risks than they prevent etc then it should be our right to choose not to wear one i'd like to talk a little bit about history in 2003 we had an outbreak of sars virus 2009 we had h1n1 and years prior to and after there have been various strands and variants of the flu every year the cdc estimated that the flu had resulted in 9 million to 41 a million illnesses forty thousand to seven hundred and ten thousand hospitalizations and twelve thousand to fifty two thousand deaths annually between 2010-2020 never once during those pandemics or any flu season had we been forced to mask up to prevent the spread even as kids and we are still standing here today history has shown us powerful changes start with someone who is willing to stand

144for what they believe with if rosa parks hadn't stayed in the front seat that day the world we know now may have had a different outcome it was about choice it was about saying enough is enough and we as parents have had enough of the assumption that you and our governor for that matter think that you know what's better for our children than we do i will continue to stand up not only for my kids rights but my right as their parents you may decide to listen or ignore my words which history is shown more often than not at these meetings that they fall on deaf ears you may decide that vaccinated children don't have to wear masks anymore but those who are unbacked still have to which could result in a negative impact on

145the school for segregation and discrimination against a certain class of students or you can actually listen to what we were saying master nomas is our right to choose about our kids health not yours and my kids are done wearing math as of today jennifer millionaire hi um my name is jennifer miller as you just said um i'm in the 8th grade and i am here to talk about my experience on january 25th so um i would like to start out with masks make my anxiety heighten and triggers my ibs to make me not feel good and to the point where i've had to go home many times from school since masking this year i've gotten stomach problems needing a gi doctor and migraine's so bad that i've needed to get a word um [Music] pediatric

146neurologist i cannot express how relieved i felt when i heard the news that i would not have to wear a mask as the supreme court had ruled it unconstitutional i was so happy but as i went to school the next day i wa i tried walking that building which i had gotten stopped by one teacher and told to go the other way which i had to walk past dr mercer so i walked past dr mercer i tried going into the other way i got denied going through asking if i needed a mask if i wanted one which i stated i did not want one i was very respectful through this whole experience which then i was sent to talk to dr mercer which i did voluntarily which then she made me and my peer stand

147outside in the cold until the lobby was clear so me and my friend had a way outside in the cold with snow on the ground until the lobby was cleared and then we were forced to stay in the lobby for i don't know maybe an hour and a half which the lobby is cold i don't know if you know that but we were forced to stand there with when we got denied many times to talk to dr mercer we were not allowed to talk to my to doc to talk to dr mercer quote-unquote she was in a meeting she was not at the meeting she locked herself in her room excuse me no i would like to finish do not interrupt me do not interrupt me please rather that you did not focus i i

148am going to continue just say principal instead of her okay um as me and my friend were sitting in the lobby waiting a teacher had walked through because her station was outside to watch the children as they walked into the building when she walked through the lobby to go back into the building she asked us again if we needed a mask which i politely stated no and then after i stated that she laughed at me sorry she laughed at me and then i proceeded to wait in the lobby until i eventually gave in and said i would be forced to go into the building and wear a mask just so i can get my education um i cannot mentally or physically keep going to school under these mandates please do the right thing and drop

149the mandates schools are not supposed to hurt kids there's they should care about us and i do not feel like they do [Music] i would like to have someone speak with you about january 25th that we can arrange that and you can talk to them about all these things will it actually help or am i just going to keep it all right think about it oh i have one more thing to add that i was also given the decision that i would either have my mom be called to take me home which was also denying me the right of my free education that the state requires i would either be have her take me home be sent to iss or be forced to wear a mouse obviously i chose the last one um but i

150think that's all i have bless someone just to check in with you [Music] okay and sharing with you is the person who left yeah there's no reason in this day and age that we're done with this section [Music] to add something the other day when i was sitting in one of my classrooms i saw mr randy's wire your beloved superintendent walking down the hallway without his mask off and i would like to know why the person who was leading all of our schools in this school district is forcing us to wear masks when he was clearly walking down the hallway without his mask so i would like to have an answer to that please preferably in the next five minutes they call it rules for me not for me yeah unfortunately thank you we'll have

151to get back to you i don't know the detail for that but we're moving superintendents [Music] we're done with this section all right so yeah my name is sam anderson i'm a father i got two children that attend the school district um one of them's in elementary school one of them is in middle school um we've heard a lot of a lot of people for the last hour and a half have gone on about what's going to happen with the mask we're going to send our kids to school tomorrow with no mats on we're gonna do this we're gonna do that and you guys have all sat there and your heads have gone like this okay your heads have gone like this what is going to happen tomorrow when the kids come to school when

152the kids come to elementary school tomorrow morning what is going to happen and my kid's going to come through the door or no are the kids going to come through dr mercer you've been watching your computer the whole time are they going to come through and see that or is she going to walk in or is she going to get stopped in the door and held there for an hour and a half like these two girls yes public input okay so what where where am i getting something back so i don't want to get somebody in touch with me we're here for answers today and tomorrow morning this is what's going to happen so there are things that we can do besides come here every single month and this is my first month and i

153apologize to my kids because i haven't been here like i should be all right there are things that we can do if you're watching canada they're going to ottawa and shutting the place down we can shut this place down we can come here tonight what's going on i am sick and tired of getting all the run around from everybody all right it's not a mandate it's a requirement it's not a requirement it's a mandate it's a guideline what is it nobody really knows we don't know mr squire what is it is it a mandate requirement guideline what are we doing [Music] this little kid this little kid right here is told that he can't go to recess if his mask gets below his nose by his teacher he's told he can't go to recess [Applause]

154what is the answer tomorrow morning when sammy comes to school is he coming through the door without a mascot it's not appropriate for this time it is appropriate when does it become not appropriate win win you're up for election in two months three months i don't care if you're running or not you're going to get beat you're done what's that amount you're going to run it on all right what is the answer i got a whole list of principles over here what's going to be the answer tomorrow morning mr squire can he come to school tomorrow without a match we're going to take a recess take a recess we're not moving on this is what's got to happen 10 minutes so there's no answer that's the problem again there's never an answer we and listen

155i like mr squire i know a lot of people don't i hold on and there's things that he's done that are definitely suspect this week with ichabod that's all suspect i don't know what story is with that all right but let me tell you what let's get some answers because you guys aren't holding him accountable if he did something with ichabod i don't know the story i don't care but you guys got to do something you just sit there behind your mask and do nothing go to your door and take your mask off and talk because that's what you're going to do i'm sick of it out of control out of control goodbye goodbye president go no okay everybody else wants to finish the conversation and you just want to leave go what are we

156doing ladies what are we doing mr wallace what are we doing what is the answer what are we doing what are we doing tomorrow morning when the kids come to school with no matters come back at me please i want to hear something i want to hear something [Music] here [Music] people oh yeah [Music] oh [Music] thank you [Music] no particular order uh we've been talking about this administratively you see social media as well you know there was a anti-mass uh that supposedly happened tomorrow like all across the state for that plus i just want to share something again please bear with us here so we we asked our attorney right that's one of the attorneys you know what's what happens if we just ignore the mass we just sell it people there's no more

157mass mandate all the administrators can lose their license okay that's one uh and technically the board is violated their oath of office okay by overturning it so the commissioner can remove them other things as well or take over there there is a negligent supervision liability risk i think i can mention that our insurance carrier could say you're on your own all right so the next time somebody slips and falls in the parking lot it's coming you know out of our general fund instead of from our insurance carrier paying for that so uh so by deliberately violating the law order of the commission of health everyone in schools must remain massed we violated a duty towards towards a plaintiff or something like that so it puts us puts a district at risk that's what our attorney

158was saying department of health fine department of health can fine as one thousand dollars per day so that's from our attorneys we will send this out um earlier tonight or tomorrow morning certainly you can see that as well so i'm just letting this i'm just a messenger here from our charities you know this is just it's been a horrible week right we all agree right especially in our middle school our whole school community because anybody who's seventh or twelfth grade had death you know and and to add this on now uh tomorrow to put this on our staff to you know et cetera i think nobody wants that i don't think uh i certainly don't uh you know with that uh but but again talking to our school attorney we called another attorney we're obligated

159to follow this i mean i you know we do not make these rules we we're tired of the mass okay i'm triple messed up because of all my bronco crap all right so we all want i hear it every day in my house you know uh as well uh etc you know dave constantly says you know dad i've only owning ninth grade as a normal year you know so i i get it all right you know my daughter hasn't had a normal college year all right because not only she has to wear a mask yes well that'd be vaccinated right you go to college everybody knows that so we we all understand the squire family gets it the bachner family gets it the wallace family gets it we all get it and we're input been

160put in a position schools all schools not just kidsaki athens right where we're the police the judge and that whatever else for uh mass mandates etc etc and so again we feel we don't feel we've been advised by our attorneys who are there to keep us from getting sued for that right and again uh that we have to follow the mass mandate which is part of our code of conduct right at this point so so tomorrow uh if kids come in without masks like you know like any day we're gonna we're gonna offer them a mask and we're going to ask them to wear a mask and i think if you truly talk especially your your kids we're fairly we're not as strict as to say as most of our neighboring schools are because all

161right who's going to put that out there and so we're just asking for your patience right to just you know have them bring a mask where you know and i you know when kids say that the teachers are shaming them or you know that is not acceptable and you got to let us know you can't wait to a board meeting to let us know these things because we can't deal with them there's there's no excuse for a teacher making a kid feel uncomfortable or rather wearing a mask all right so but if i don't know about it if doctor mercy mr burley doesn't know about her you know mr martial we can't do anything so you gotta let us know you gotta give us names you know not now but you know so we can

162can handle for that because that's just no excuse for that for sure putting the onus on the kids so to speak so uh so kids come in tomorrow morning we're going to ask them if they don't have a mask here's a mask and offer them a mask if they don't want a mask then we're going to have them depend on the age group we haven't go into a study hall right that's what they're going to be we'll contact the parents you can either come get them you know that's what we hope to do um so that's our plan right now at this point you know that's not what you want to hear uh for that but are you realized that the kids don't come by like kind of like the grocery store thing like where

163people you know could be asked to wear a mask that they didn't they didn't get at least there to take them out and get a thousand dollars like right we don't do anything if we just ignore it then we can be live okay because i think we all know kids how can you what's that to what extent are you liable like if we're liable let's say are they going to just get rid of the entire district because a couple kids getting schooled i mean you guys are all going to lose your jobs they can go after you they go after the administrators they go after our license that we have this policy told them to wear a mask and they didn't how is that your fault just people know about it right right then they

164can't stay they can't is that you could have some kind of liability hopefully nothing would happen but if i get randy sick because i refuse to wear the mask you know people people can suit people can see the dick right people can sue the district that's what the attorneys say that's our liability five years from now you're gonna look back on this moment right now you are this is your opportunity right now to make a difference and maybe maybe you could lose your position on the board yeah it's not just that i'm not sure it's not just that though that's okay we need to stand up at one point somebody needs to stand up in this country and no one do shut up all right you understand is what happens if there's an injury to

165a child being asked and playing a sport in gym well there's always that liability but this is this is particular [Music] to begin with how can there be a stand you know and that's that's the other thing we can't do anything about the governor have you talked have you written to the governor have you also done i was talking to chris two days ago and chris kane is trying yeah that's what and i'm coming here to you guys well we're sending a letter too we are sending a letter i think we also have to be [Music] fully english [Music] you honestly believe that being a small district in the poorest town in the state that the state's going to bring down the thunder on sacks it just puts a lot of it just puts a

166lot of positions that we don't have it puts actually there are other people who don't want it [Music] we're just trying to explain why we have to go [Music] and i'll give them ten more just in case they drop it in the snow thank you for listening nobody wants this to come we're done [Music] and i understand that but it's just ridiculous because it's no different than i'm going to use an example right businesses masks or drugs the people that are working behind the counter have to wear masks and be exposed to the people coming up into your face how silly is that i mean let's be honest my school district which is super strict we can't even be employed said that there's hope and it's the first time because my superintendent is way more

167strict every single child wears a mask all day unless you're outside so that's a totally different situation but i'm just saying like there's hope because we were told just last week that after february break there is hope that that kids at least don't have to be mad teachers may still have to be but whatever i just don't know what we can do especially to think about putting that stress on the middle school teachers tomorrow it's just not it's just not caring listen i get it it's disrespectful i'm sorry i'm on this end of it and it's disrespectful okay and i and i and i understand what you're saying but you have to understand i'm on this side of it and i'm i'm on that side too i'm a parent tournament in the district and being

168the first school to take a risk of doing stuff like that and i just wanted to say thank you from a person who's got wrestling interests and i thought that looked very positive on our district and i want to thank you thank you thank you for saying something to me that's right that's right all right good night where we do business if technically we need to say we're coming out of the second session so motion to approve superintendent's recommendations on policy it's the first final reading of two social media and printed materials and second reading of policies we are skipping me right yeah i hope to do that in public so we could say that we're doing something c uh one two three a and b motion second a discussion uh yes i know we

169talked about i don't think giving it to the teachers but i didn't know [Music] the kids were scheduled to come in the friday afternoon before this people are right now right now okay so then it'll be a conference day and the kids don't come in kids do administrators come in today or just teachers [Music] teachers administration everyone but students would be required to be here that day 27. the 20 stuff right i'm asking to make sure that it wouldn't be the teachers that were singled out because we're looking at giving them something for doing i thought that's the 15th i know but making sure we're not replacing it with something else well they'd be here 27th anyway that's why i'm right that was my question i don't want them to feel like they got good

170friday but now they're being singled out for a different day that's my concern instead of having kids they won't have kids they won't have kids but i want to make sure i okay but the students are now off on the 27th of may 27th that they originally had school but now they'll have administrators and all teaching staff and faculty okay and the 15th are we just giving who is who was supposed to be here on the 15th just teacher okay so you guys already had uh is this this will that come out yeah on april 15 some teachers would have been here because most of them had already backed out but agent assistants it's a vacation day in their contract already clerical custodial um administration everybody else interestingly because they had the day off already

171i'm asking yeah that's [Music] 180 we also give them may 27th [Music] and this stuff and to work on them being happy i create cupcakes but i'm saying like having fun that's not oh my god we have no that's right for the 15 randy had already sent something out to say that your choices were if you wanted my job you could badge out but if you were coming in it was your own time to plant in your room so there wasn't any um organized thing that was going on on the 15th so if you move that same concept but then we could have some fun with your breakfast maybe it's been a long compliment i always eat food at any point that's what it looks like so they can come in but not do any

172work on may 27th well there it's personal planning so they'll be working but it's not yes but it's not playing because we're going to give that to everybody else off so then everybody gets a day that one i'm here [Laughter] [Music] somebody's here 27. can we revisit the 27th part would that be better for you what's that can you read is that the 27th part would that be better just do the 15th right now if we come to a consensus on that i'm ready to move on we don't have consensus we gotta table it and move on to other maps randy what were you just about to say about the twin center well we are back and forth i honestly trying to figure out what the goal is i mean we want everybody to have

173a day off but so is the board okay with everybody being in the 27th if you feel the aids and assistance and clerical should have that payoff i'm going to go away whatever you well it does make sense that way during the beaches but then at least the asian assistants get a day otherwise they don't get anything right because they already had that and then what if people already badged out from the 17th because then 15. well if yeah they could either use it for the 27th or we'd give them the option if they would want to come in on the 27th because they'll be food and it'll be super fun tara is going to come out and and so um decide not to pass out because we also look for the teachers in the

174past we have the two calendars so there's two conference days labor day first all the stuff you gotta do the second day has already been a day get ready [Music] and the addendum nice and loud so everyone at home [Music] all right vote to approve a recommendation of the superintendent to approve girls wrestling as an inter-scholastic athletic sport to begin in 2022-2023 nissan i um i just want to commend all of our staff especially the fans in the high school in the middle school um this year has been trying in many ways but this week has been unimaginable and the kids just feel the outpouring love from the staff and i i appreciate that um i know kids that have been very hurt this week and they just they feel that support from the school

175and it makes me feel like you know they are love and they know that that's it sorry i'm just gonna take you back and just say it's an incredible loss and the way that everybody has bound together for that purpose to support each other has been really commendable and i can't imagine losing a colleague because i know that i've been blessed enough to be in my building for 17 straight years and i can't imagine losing someone because they're family and so our heart my heart goes out to everybody in the district so i was here tuesday just to see i was too bad people couldn't see just how kids were taken care of and staff were taking care of each other that day it's pretty amazing to see i mean kids some kids you know

176were crying or they'd be in rooms and i mean there were people that were here that were in another room that they could go to if they wanted to but most also want to be with the staff yeah or with each other and just like be in little groups and talk and that or walk through the halls and hug people it's too bad people couldn't see that and now i feel bad i think we've shell-shocked the whole administrative team and uh it just wiped away all the good freya thought she got served well i looked at the papers