001so okay that will call me order surprise for plenty indivisible with liberty [Music] this is fitzgerald here mr desire here mr carl yeah mr mosser mrs smith here mr steiner here mrs weaver see there you go okay can you send her a quick note to see if she's having any troubles okay well hopefully she made it home safely i know she was on her way and had to turn around for the bad roads so we'll uh hope that she's home and maybe just having some trouble getting on if you do see her join maybe let us know and we can go to the discussion uh so that will move to uh item 104 approval of the agenda it is recommended that the agenda for the february 2nd 2021 work session be approved as presented hey
002uh all in favor signify by eye so with that we'll move into uh the purpose of the work session tonight as advertised again was to identify potential next steps and any other matters relative to the ongoing folks mascot discussion we'll say that again we're looking for a positive respectful open discussion this evening uh in an effort to identify those next steps each member will have an opportunity to speak and just want to remind everybody of the principles of governance and leadership as well as our board norms that we listen to each other to listen to our colleagues without interruption gestures or expressions and i just ask that we try to keep it positive and student focused so with that um is there anybody like to volunteer to start the discussion on what they see as
003potential next steps or whether they'd like to start your discussions even though i'll start with me and just go around sure well very briefly and i'd like to revisit it as people speak i believe we need to continue some of the presentation format it doesn't have to be extensive it can be online it could be in person but i'm also willing to have contributions of pieces that could be on our website for linkage so in other words youtube videos um resolutions links to various groups that may support one side or the other more information that all of us can look at for better recent emails would indicate that i believe we need to have this discussion regardless of the outcome because i believe that the community is a bit confused as to what education is
004for all of our students and so anyway i don't want to dive into details of you know the conversations but at some point i think we need to establish an end to the discussion and what we may see as perhaps a date sometimes it doesn't have to be discussed tonight so sometime here in the near future how at what point i believe we need to continue the discussion number one um but at some point in the not-too-distant future after we've either seen articles or youtube videos even if we see them as a as a group and then perhaps have a discussion on those even i would like to suggest that we not have videos that are extremely long that would take an hour to walk so then we could limit that to 15 minute videos
005or something but i just believe that the community also needs to be educated because this is for all of our students the conversation because it it can reflect the final decision can reflect negatively on all groups of students i'll leave it okay i like a lot of the stuff that rob was talking about there in um we are going to be presenting a resolution the next meeting yes presenting a resolution the next meeting focusing on physical diversity and the theater things and using that as a guiding principle for the way that we should be proceeding um i feel that some of the stuff that we just come up and we've been discussing falls within the remit of that resolution of how we should be should be handling things um that we should be mark let's
006if i can interrupt you just real quick i see mrs weaver is on there let me get her on the record as being in attendance okay okay make sure she can hear mrs weaver can you i said i see you're rushing home safe yeah did she have trouble true you're muted yeah she turned around yeah sorry i i'm here i'm really bad roads in spring township and then i couldn't get up my hill so it took me 20 minutes to get up my hill we were concerned so we're glad you're home so we just wanted to check you in for being in attendance and join the discussion okay yep thank you okay thank you sorry for the interruption no no you're fine so yeah just say using the resolution chris was about that resolution however
007let's move forward um but furthermore to this it's whatever we decide on we've got to find something that everyone you can agree on we can't have something that's divisive in nature and there's enough divisiveness around so we don't want this to carry on uh it is i think it's absolutely imperative that we get the voices of the students involved we should be seeing something on that next week but we have our next meeting so be curious and see how that goes together um i i agree with mark in terms of the student voice i think it's very necessary that we as a school board we're representatives of our community the representative of our student government our staff i think it's necessary that we include all parties um and that that's central we don't want anything
008divisive um so i really think that it is our job it is our responsibility to continue to involve all members all people who have um who have an interest in in this district who pay taxes who attend our schools who live in our community that we move forward together not apart we don't i know in emails we've gotten we've gotten emails that said you know as a school board we move forward without community you know input or stuff like that we don't want to be seen as that we don't do that um so i think it's important that as we move forward we move forward educating not only ourselves as a board but also as right so we educate the community we all move forward together um and in part i think um i know
009i've gotten a lot of i've had people talk to us what i'd like to see in the future is at least some count some like of each building how many representations there are of the native american mascot in our buildings and maybe what the cost is to to replace that i'm not saying that that's what my final decision would rest on but i think people would like to at least just see that what what the cost would be and really i think as we know the cost we know how to make steps forward um but that's beside the point i think that as we go through this process we just need to continue to engage the community in these sessions where we have presentations where we we learn we get different inputs and get different
010perspectives so so that's that's kind of i think my idea for a path moving forward is if we have other presentations we have little informational sessions so that everyone can kind of be on the same page that the board's not moving at a faster pace in the community and people think we're getting left behind and we're all we're all going forward together and we all have the same information before our hands so everyone can kind of know what perspective we're going to be making a decision from you know that their voice is heard no matter who they are no matter what they do thank you max mr steiner we had a couple of representatives for architecture we both did but one more than the year exposed to the current climate capital projects in school what
011he delayed was that the moment prices for materials are a little high but they anticipate that's going to turn around the next couple months but that the bids that are being made are very um favorable for the school district because all these folks need to just keep their people hurt and they believe that that's going to be the case for the next year this is a firm that these are they're actually working in these contracts being signed checks are being written and that really struck me um because uh you know we got about a year and a half we got kicked off track like an architect uh but then over the last year going on now um of course copenhagen slowed things down and you know it had been mentioned though it had been months
012since we talked about this but we had special sessions in november and october i don't know that anyone has brought up anything about the elementary school since last summer and you know that's something i'm really struggling with here because that's something that is a much greater import to the entirety of our district and this board just completely uh while we continue to move forward be pushed forward on this something that's just much more consequential to the district uh has just been let go um i do know that there was a poll in september with the students to high school that the writing bright white did and the poll came back where 71 of the students to high school who responded just wanted to keep the low i think that is reflective of obviously our students
013it's reflective of our staff not every single person i think the overwhelming majority of people just want to let this go and our community as a whole that's where it's at you know and so this weekend one of these moments you get where something's going on i gotta look at my phone right i looked on facebook the lockhaven express article about tonight and the response reverberating better bellefonte on the gap through rocker was not this s-h-i-t right that's what people are saying the people are looking at this board mid-pandemic are staffed burdened by everything that they need to do trying to keep the education of our students going and everyone is so beat up over the hand down this winter which is the middle and you know i can't go along to get along on
014this for christmas this board is so extraordinarily out of line with its community relative to this issue you know i think the option should be very clearly to just let this go the community doesn't want it to begin with you don't need it now it's burdensome to everyone right now unnecessarily and just by doing this this device like that that sweet spot since then december through january and the holidays and all this and this went away this is one thing that people in our community this meeting by being tonight has increased stress and pressure on everyone within the position so i i would ask the people consider plus just plain so i guess i will um start with the original question that was posed to us uh before this meeting occurred is should we so
015i got a few thoughts together and the following points i would like to make about why i expected the greatest perspective why i so believe me if i go back a little bit so the issue is thrust upon uh yeah is there any way you can talk louder i'm having a really hard time hearing you guys yeah and if the speaker needs to take their mask off that's fine sure so the issue was thrust upon us this summer um as i was taking my walk i got a phone call and my first reaction was no oh no oh no this is a hornet's nest and i would just like to not kick it and i would really like like it to go away uh this was divisive 25 years ago and i doubt that it
016has improved with time however six or seven months have passed and the issue still remains is it our job to pass it off again or do we have the courage and me personally too and i do think that we need to have the courage to have this issue my second point why we should discuss it is and again i'm going to use a personal example my kids are grown but when they were teenagers if one of them had said to me mom i would like a car and if my answer was we're not even going to discuss it that means nobody's getting a car so i think by not discussing it we're automatically saying we can't we don't even have an option to look at both sides my third reason is and i've heard this
017from a number of emails that we've all gotten is we can't talk about this now because of code but that is legitimate covet is very important however we have meetings twice a month and at each of these meetings we do talk about other issues it isn't just government we deal with policy legislation our budget our physical building we approve courses and our curriculum we don't just talk about the pandemic we talk about it plus other things so to say that we can only be talking about the pandemic and we can't talk about anything else is simply that's just not the case now today i had the opportunity to sit in on a county commissioner's meeting and they of course talked about the pandemic covet along with other things so the world has not stood still
018and i believe that the pandemic is an issue but life moves on and we have to talk about those other issues as well my next reason for at least discussing this is as mark said we are in the process of adopting a diversity equity and inclusion resolution and did not include this along with that simply makes no sense so another reason is we said we would talk about it we said earlier in the year that we didn't want to jump into anything rashly but that give us some time and we need to fulfill what we said we were going to a couple other things i i don't want to take the floor too long but i think it's also important to think about a compromise i think that it doesn't have to be completely throwing
019the baby up at the bathwater i see a very clear and easy path for a compromise that i think would make both sides relatively happy and i also would like to just state on record it doesn't have to involve a large impact to the budget any decision that we make now or in the future we can do so responsibly because that is one thing that we all have been working our tails on and that is to keep the tax rate down as much as we could so there's also the option of just phasing things out without costing anyone any more money so i i would personally never vote for anything that's going to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars there is no way and i think that i just need
020to make that clear from my perspective and i will just conclude with these two other things we had a presentation by dr lopez and by chief red hop walter brown and both of them suggested that our next step should involve talking to the local native american indigenous population in our community the boating members are the people who walk our streets and shop in our stores and go to our schools is this appropriate and if not what can we do better and we i would really like to see the people who have offered their services we reached out to people from virginia and washington as in state of but what about our local people because we're all good people we belfond is a wonderful community and this is why i think all of us ran because
021we like living here we love and revere our school district if there was something that happened to a student in in my classroom everybody just jumps on board and would have given money or a home or transportation or food or anything and we need to remember that we at the end of the day we care about each other and we need to get along we need to i think move forward but um because we said we would and at the end of the day think about we could have a compromise and i think it's something we could all agree on i'm diverted from that but i'm off my soapbox now thank you for listening yes because i talked earlier not all picture and very eloquent i would pretty much echo everything donna said um i
022do want the discussions to continue i do want to have student input um you know there are people that feel very strongly on both sides and that's good that's but we want to have productive conversations um again we can handle more than just the open and i for one cannot speak highly enough about our administration who has done a tremendous job with keeping our schools open and everyone is working hard teachers students tammy just unbelievable and we're still able to accomplish other things very similar to what donna had said um i think a compromise is the best way to go i don't think it should be one way or the other it's not cut and dry there are compromises out there you're never going to please everyone all the time but i think there is
023a way to come to some kind of compromise what i would like to look at is saying you know kind of having an end date similar to what rod had said is saying you know we'll have these conversations but by this date you know we want to make a decision whatever the decision is but kind of having an ending in mind saying we're not just going to continue on and on and on until whenever um i echo a lot of what has been said and so i don't want to repeat all of that but i certainly think we have come this far with this and and i think that it's clear that for 25 years this has been an issue that rears its head probably every three to five years um and so if there's
024a way that we can come to some consensus about how to address this so it's not something that takes up time in another three years or another five years but this is not something that's new it's been here i mean it's like it's it comes up and and gradually over time the district has been addressing this um and i think that there's still more there uh and i i do like donna's suggestion of um what we learned from dr lopez's um presentation mr um villaloo and chief redhawk um that having you know some voices from the native american community and understanding um their perspective on this and and how we might be able to um honor their heritage our native american heritage in this area and and appropriate ways that we can do that i
025i think that that um would be a great presentation to understand that a little bit better um i i caution on the word of compromise only in so far as um what that means to some people but i definitely think that um there are ways that we can be proud of bellefonte show our belfast pride and also honor our native american history i think there are many ways that we can do that um so i i think that um people have to be open to that but i really did like rod's idea of um being able to share some other resources and other material that's out there and trying to show different perspectives so that we can um continue to learn on this i know that our first our work session that we had in
026november i think i know that i took some different takeaways from that and learned from that and um continued to learn so i think that having some additional presentations and i'd like to hear you know some people have mentioned some already i know one that i'm really interested in is trying to understand a little bit better about how um how we may look at this in terms of um either creating positive stereotypes of a culture um within our either our curriculum or our practices and how we might be able to do that um and and if we don't if if it's you know a lot of experts say that it's a negative stereotype that we are reinforcing um what's the impact of that what what happens with our students what do our students learn from
027that uh and how is that helping them to be um you know culturally aware and culturally sensitive uh and um in leaving and being that what we talk about in our resolution being the global ambassadors uh you know of bellefonte and so um that's that's an area that i'm really interested in the educational impacts both not only on um a marginalized population but also on our majority population as well and the impacts there and trying to understand how we can create more positive [Music] imagery more positive associations um and like i said i mean this is this this has been been going on for a long time and so i think i think as donna said i think we have the opportunity to approach this in a way in which we're listening and hopefully hopefully
028learning and growing together and finding a way that we um can uplift a culture and also impact our students education at the same time okay thank you mrs weaver oh thank you i agree with a lot of what was said i do agree though with what a lot with what jeff had said so moving forward i do know that as much as i agree with what jeff says i also know that the majority of the board wants to move forward with discussion so that's fine too but i also think that we have to be very diligent in allowing our community to be as involved as possible in this because we are elected by our community so we need to hear everybody and right now in covid times we're limited to our numbers and that kind
029of thing and it is harder virtually as i sit here um as i sit here and you all sit there but um i do believe that we have to make sure that we are giving do doing due diligence to our community and letting them talk as well and at all of our presentations and presenting it um i agree with compromise or whatever word you would want to use i know compromise is definitely very different in everybody's mind but it is about give and take um because it doesn't matter what side i stand on i'm willing to do give and take and seeing as how our country is divided now i certainly don't want to see that in our community and as i stated before depending on how this is handled it could be a very
030very divided community and not be pretty for us but i really i'm not going to keep reiterating everything what everybody else said so but i don't have any suggestions as to what is the best approach to move forward or which would be next but i also am not 100 sure that we also have to put a timeline or an actual date like august 10th is when we're making the decision i think that kind of pigeon holes yourself into it i think that we have to kind of let the discussions kind of guide us and as we see things maybe coming down then you look at maybe okay this is where our this is where we want to narrow it down to but that's pretty much it thank you so i'll uh just start by saying
031that i'm kind of trying to look forward as to what the next steps would be and uh to hit a few buzzwords that we've all heard time and time again i do think we're all sort of bouncing around the same idea of moving forward in a way that educates our community our students our board bored in a way that sets an example for others that are in this similar situation and i i remain hopeful that there is some solution out there that will get us to that point as far as steps forward and providing material i know i'm not sure if anyone here has looked at the pennsylvania human relations commission report or a case that was a precedent that was set locally i think that's probably something that we should put up and all
032read so we understand within confines legally and ethically what we should be considering or not considering so that's probably something i'll try to dig up that resource for folks i do think i don't see us moving forward without community support obviously and we've been we're engaged in this meeting this evening because we've heard a lot of community input to this point and one of the things that i see as our chart is to build consensus in the community and having the and i'm not trying to stereotype any discussions to to this point but listening to the same i want to keep it or i want to get rid of it i'm not sure helps to helps the issue move forward in a productive way so i julie and i had a lot of discussion and
033we feel that tonight was important so that we can sort of set the tone so that instead of people coming in here and and uh either being accusatory or talking about the past let's talk about the future let's let's put up positive proposals in potential steps forward and i can envision uh probably at least two meetings we all have livelihoods that we have to keep up with we have a regular board business that we have to keep up with that happens every other week uh i can see at least two meetings potentially more just dedicated solely to public input um around the framework that i'm talking about now so for anyone who is still you know feeling put out or not heard please understand your time is coming but we just have to get ahead
034of it enough to sort of set the tone have these discussions and give you the idea of how we see this potentially moving forward so that we can all act productively and not in a in an accusatory fashion or anything like that so i think that's important um that could happen potentially a couple nights in one week so it's all fresh in our mind but between that and and potentially another discussion meeting that potentially takes up an entire month now we talked about a timeline before which we did set forth and february was sort of geared around january was sort of presentations february was more public input and this type of discussion for hopefully maybe a path forward in in the march time frame i don't know like others have mentioned i'm not sure how
035appropriate is to try to nail down a date as long as we can maybe try to get at least two or three next steps advertised so people know what to expect and when they can participate in how so i do encourage people that want to offer input in the meantime please continue to email forgive me if i don't answer every single email sometimes the tone of the email it's maybe best if i just leave it alone for a little while but i do appreciate everyone who is offering input and if you if you just need to be scathing send me a personal email i'll take it it's fine we all got to get it off our chest i understand but let's try to get past that and move forward in a way that's that's a
036little bit different looking uh i do think that we've had some good presentations we've addressed some important issues i think the ide committee was a very good step and by the way i skipped you i think because i went over here now go ahead so the ide committee was a very good uh step and this issue rested solely in that confine we as a board chose to bring it out of there and do what we are doing but the two really kind of mesh they're going to function moving forward i think pretty important we through the course of our discussions and hearing what both sides of the issue felt appropriate and not appropriate the district has made some changes i'll let uh mr parker speak to some of those and i think we've had some
037very positive things correctly but again i'll let you talk about those um i would like to see us eventually have a format where we can reach out this isn't about just native americans so i know that that's the discussion tonight but it's part of a much bigger issue of marginalized groups of we all sat here to begin this meeting tonight and we all pledged allegiance to the same flag as americans and i've said this before where americans first and part of being an american in my view is learning and understanding and respecting the cultural diversity that makes up the american uh community or people and i think that's what we need to set the example that we are committed to learning about other groups identifying the the uh the various groups that might be in
038our community reaching out to them having them provide representation on any sort of committee or focus group that we have moving forward so we can understand the needs and look for positive ways to promote their culture and not give negative stereotypes there was discussion about maybe what the next presentation could look like you know i had that discussion i don't think there's one person in here that would disagree with the fact that negative reinforcement could have negative outcomes student outcomes but i also don't think anyone would disagree that positive reinforcement has positive outcomes for student achievement so again that's what i would like to see happen how can we turn this into a positive that gives representation from all groups and we've had the discussion uh mrs bernafer and i about maybe trying to identify
039groups and promote a different group every month within our schools and within our community so that we can learn about other cultures uh and and learn to respect them for the things that they do or the things that they they uh appreciate and call their own so that's how i maybe it's a utopian view maybe it's never attainable i don't know but i've always been in that camp of i'll throw the baby out with the bathwater as you heard you know it's not at all or nothing there has to be we have to be able to come together as a community and find a way to move forward and you know not look at the color of someone's skin or or what their hair looks like or anything else or what part of town they
040live in we're all just people uh smith identified earlier when something happens to someone in this community we pitch in okay uh you know we just i did that tonight without showing someone else a sidewalk because they weren't feeling good so that's the kind of stuff that we do here has nothing to do with anything other than being a responsible member of the community that's what i would like to see moving forward i don't know if eventually we need to work toward a focus group or a committee or whether we leave that with the administration as the ide committee we're looking for feedback from that as well um but somewhere we need to bring in that representation i feel i'll i'll leave it at that and uh this is i just want to touch on
041a few things that have been mentioned i don't know can you hear me kim okay i have a big mouth [Laughter] um in terms of where we are moving along i know the subject of looking at curriculum and looking at education and what are we doing with our kids keeps arising and it's come through emails and that idea of educating i think is is the part that i can pick up or at least start to pick up um we have scheduled uh curriculum audit uh equity in the uh curriculum audit uh we're working with diane yugona from the iu and as i mentioned at the last meeting she's focusing right now on the social studies curriculum only because it's freshly written we will move to the other curricula whenever we can it's a lot to
042try to fight off and chew right now i will also practice by saying that there's a million ways we can go and there are things to do and the ide committee is doing a great job it is difficult to meet virtually i feel like sometimes that we could get a whole lot more done if we could just have one night together and so um i think that's our struggles from my end and being a little bit slow um mr fitzgerald and mr marx wrote a course that will be required of all of our students it's coming to the board probably i'd say the march april time frame um along with some some ideas we also it will run through the equity audit by then as well too so half the year will be spent on
043local history our students will be learning about the history of belfaun and learning of the of the history of this area and the second half of the year will be focused on for better lack of work civics and being a good citizen so i think both of them are very excited about the course that they've created and i think that's the first step requiring all students to take that course is going to we'll get everybody with it um i will also add if you recall mr fedison talked about it it's even in the next year's course guide and there is a little bit of an overlap and a little bit of scheduling because we've had kids move through and we're going to make it a mandatory i forget which grade level but um so there's
044a little bit of glitches to get through to begin with but it will be of course it's required year long for all of our students the ide committee continues to meet next friday we'll be looking at the larger scope the larger lens of inclusion diversity and equity as we've talked about there's a lot of great sessions a lot of things going on so from my end um we're trying to move forward on that education piece the best that we can um the training next friday is also mandatory of all of our staff and so um we keep plugging forward in that education piece so um as far as um trying to educate our students and try to educate um from within quite honestly that's the easier part i think the harder part is educating our
045community and working with our community i will say this i don't know whether the time is right i don't know when the time is right but i can tell you that i cannot and i say it all the time and i'm not going smoke say enough about this community as we've gone through covid uh parents have been fantastic they've been supportive they have been um as divisive as the mascot is they have been absolutely the opposite when it comes to the pandemic and some people have very strong feelings about the pandemic and masks and the virus and all of those things but we've come together as a community to fight the virus together it's kept our kids in school we have teachers and staff working their hearts out so um i know what this community
046is capable of and i guess it's your charge to lead them too that's all i have to say thank you i do think uh and some other small things that we heard um just to pick your brain a little bit so in the one discussion we had uh they kind of identified it maybe the music we were playing in the morning oh correct correct correct correct so um if you recall when um she the chief spoke and said something about um the music that we were playing in the morning it was okay to play that music if we had some sort of like description like educate kids what's that music about what does that what does what does and he did a chant course that was really entertaining and it was really interesting to me
047um we are not to that point yet so we just eliminated the music in the morning um for now but i do like that whole idea i know at the high school there are morning announcements for students and i can see where we could pull that education piece into those morning announcements um at some point too those are things down the road but yes we did eliminate i forgot about that i'm sorry and i think the the board or the district as a whole has made the the bee that's on the three of the masks in here that is the district's official logo correct that's one that's on um like our crest is on the letterhead that kind of thing yeah so when we talked about someone mentioned phasing out with them so those are
048just some things to consider and for people that might be looking at this later to make them aware and i think uh we have the crest too the crest we use the crest a lot in the block vlog and i know you've given direction to uh i think we used to use the look things that we can use to say this places where the logo used to appear that were easily changed you've already given that direction to to not use that i believe like handbooks and things like that oh yeah the hands just don't work the handbooks don't have them one they have a block b that changed before a lot of this too i thought so yeah okay there's been sort of an ongoing there's a conscience just effort yeah okay all right let's
049go back around the table again and see if anybody wants to continue so um regarding the focus groups i think that's actually something that's a result of a decision focus groups are normally how are you going to proceed afterwards does this look good in other words if you have an advertisement you want to get out you have a focus group for that if you want to you know let's say retain the mascot to change something else within it that's a focus for it but it's post decision it's what you do after the decision is made i want to briefly revisit the idea of 71 of the students want to keep i mean that that's what we're talking about is we almost have a third of our student body saying that this is not reflective of
050us that we consider this a bad for our community um so it brought to mind a grandparent who visited us some years ago at a board meeting upset because his minority grandson was being bullied in the schools and [Music] it was very compelling the same person i know as opposed to even considering changing the mascot so this is one of those things where it's whosoever ox is being born at the moment and so this is about minorities like you suggested it's about all minorities we have to be cognizant of the fact that that i actually am very pleased that almost a third of our body the student body reflected on this in a meaningful way that got everybody considering what this mate represents so um i want to also mention that while we may be
051shifting without actual action by the board those things can shift in a month so if you look at the stadium there's nothing up there that has the master i want it within a brief period of time that can change that was a deliberate effort on our parts not only in relation to this but also in relation to past having those kinds of things is an actual you know it does cost extra money to have those things on there within a blink of the eye there's a wrestling map that has a huge indian headline i mean if we don't take actual action that says we either want that or don't want it those things reappear this is the same kind of thing that happened to radford ratner and other places they were phasing it out just
052through the administrative works that athletic groups can on their own bring that back so um i got some other things written down here but i'm not so sure exactly when we should be discussing those um one of the common themes whenever these kinds of issues this particular issue is being discussed people always mention that we're too busy and that we're honoring them by having the mascot and all that so that's the education are we truly honoring them and if we are how are we doing that because that's completely lost then so you know and i would hope that perhaps we could put together something that could uh you know if we're going to have some links on our website and stuff that we could perhaps some a couple people say yeah we would like to
053see that on there or whatever you know i don't i have a number of them that i think are very legitimate links just like you want to have the piece on there for the human resources commission there was something else here well did you talk about cancer cancer culture comes up a lot does anybody here know anything about the doctrine of discovery so those are the kinds of things we need to start with with the discussion of history with pennsylvania and up through to the present day so when we're talking about the history of the native americans and all that we need to actually start at the very beginning and so that's in some of these youtube videos and some of the information that i have that i would like to share um just we
054have a long way to go i don't think we should limit this discussion always to just tonight and special nights so we have a board meeting coming up tuesday normally we're done around 8th grade if we could have like a half an hour discussion within that next meeting to continue you know where are we going to proceed i would like some ideas for perhaps the leadership of the board as to how you would like to proceed and i think we congrats if it census around that some agreement presentations or whatever we would like to see just discussion okay so uh mrs weaver here in the next empty seat there um i guess part of my question back though is while i i agree there's a third of the student population who do not you know
055like the name and i'd be curious to know why like what's their take on it why do they feel that way but i also want to remind that there's also two-thirds of the population that do like the name and in the same token i'd like to know why do they like the name and it goes back to again um i agree we have to go with the manure or to understand the minority groups and stuff like that but it also still is kind of about the democracy as well i mean if the students like it too and the majority of our community like it too we also have to respect that as well and i agree with rodney when it comes to the focus groups i think that's more of an end product versus a
056right now product because the board needs to discuss this all together and then maybe break apart when we get to more of an end product thank you thank you very much not really um i did pull up that article that talked about this um it was based on 300 student responses which is which is just one third of the student body so is it truly representation is it is it multiple multiplied from there so but beside the point um yeah i think just as long as we as long as the continued discussions that we have have absolute merit moving forward and have not new material that will help us make a more informed decision that is going to be acceptable to us [Music] i i like some of the other ideas from this we'll bring
057them up to our folks in the idea as well to discuss i have some other things that i've been holding back that were potential resources for the resources we could but it will involve um some discussions with those people because they're reluctant at this point to get involved but they could have some credible uh input to the discussion and see how we're moving forward so um i thought mrs weaver brought up a very good point um the why of why people may or may not like it i know we talked about compromise and i was just kind of in my thinking we can i guess come to a solution if we kind of know what it is exactly that makes people not like our imagery or what makes them like it and see if it's
058something that that we can address uh to make i guess to sort of make that compromise more feasible so we're not you know completely throwing something out or completely keeping it we're we're kind of we're listening and we're adapting to to what what's being you know um what the what the actual issue is i i don't know what the issue is i don't know um why people may like the mascot i i mean i know you know people you know they want to keep it or they want to get rid of it so i guess um as as julie said i think a couple people mentioned that we can't really keep the status quo we have to find out how we can grow and adapt to something that would be more acceptable um so i
059think that the why why what what it is this specific issue and how can we adapt it that we can kind of find that that middle ground and i just kind of wanted to touch on what you know mrs smith said when we first got that email in the summer i was like oh no this is a whole this is a whole thing and i would have loved to just you know pass it aside and say no we shouldn't talk about it but i don't think as a elected official as we all are i don't think that's responsible of us and even as an american citizen when our neighbors are going through some trouble most times we don't just say no we're not i'm not going to help you we're not going to talk to
060you we're not going to do that you know it's like you meant like john mentioned he was out helping people shovel snow we help each other out in this community in this country and we talk to people even if it comes to a decision we you know in the end whatever we choose we at least know that we did our due diligence we did our responsibility as citizens of the united states to to fully explore to have those discussions as the democracy merits so um i think keeping this discussion you know going but also you know uh showing the community that we're still very much a school board we're still working on the issues of curriculum we're still going through and we're keeping the schools open we're putting the students first but also making sure
061that people in our community who feel discriminated against we're listening to them and hearing every voice in our community not just not just the majority you know not just saying doing what's convenient for us nothing worthwhile is easy so we always hear that statement so i i think it's beneficial to keep keep the discussion going but also remind the community that we are dedicated to education we're dedicated to our students we're dedicated to serving the public in the best capacity possible okay yeah the red and white already cool 300 respondents it was i would say obviously it's not a scientific poll however when you do polling for like the state of pennsylvania fifteen hundred or two thousand people reaches a point that you say okay this is pretty representative 300 for the high school is
062represented i would also say that 71 of the respondents agreed that it should stay the same 17 responded they wanted change 12 reported they did not so it wasn't that 30 one year um i'm a democrat um progressive there are a lot of things in this country that we need to do better with acceptance and tolerance and i'm fully supportive of a lot of those things there was mentioned in the cancel culture um i'm also well aware of that i got a big problem with that i call it for what it is when i see it and it just hit the news in the last week or so san francisco's school board apparently somehow their finding of george washington and abraham lincoln to be unacceptable uh in their school district i don't know exactly what
063they've taken now and whatnot um that just you know we're we're not there with this but we are in that range moving in this regard um it's so we've had a lot of talk here today we've had no tangible outcomes yet i don't know that we're gonna be able to see any kind of table while it's a lot of we got to talk more we're going to talk more we're going to talk more it's irresponsible it's cruel from the perspective of people in the community have a significant attachment to the identity of the rhetoric to keep this on a string with that now people are kind of insinuating well you know it could not be that i don't know at the same time trying to keep the door open to that possibly being the case
064that we eliminate so what problem i mean is it stands right now we're going to come out of this meeting with no definition as to what we're really doing with this we're just going to have more discussion and everyone out in the community is going to be like on a stream in that's if we can't make that we we could have that discussion without it being something that is agitating to the community unnecessarily so the overwhelming majority of the community by saying okay that's not on the table right if the board would say we're not looking to get rid of the right break right we could have this discussion and everyone be fine let's let's engage let's talk about this but as long as people feel as though the possibility is there that by not
065saying that it isn't it it is not it it's off the table people aren't going to want to hear this discussion that we're talking about a lot a lot of people just are not going to be able to hear this higher discussion people are trying to uh float out there and i just i am the complete opposite i do believe it's celebratory the right writer no one calls our athletic team something that is mocking or negative in nature you know throughout all of this the most important thing to our parents has been to safety and education their students but the thing people have been most passionate about has been their athletics people take that seriously and it is celebratory toward the red raider native americans it's always been the case so it's a positive and
066it's deposited by my personal viewpoint we'll look at it differently i understand that but my position in fighting this is fighting on behalf of the community and also i just don't get it i don't see this as is the issue that people want to make it out and if it would were to reach that point it would be it would be hurtful to a lot of people unnecessarily again i'm using a rural curl a lot but also if we didn't have that this whole discussion of native americans two three years down the line would be gone and never again would native americans be a consideration for this that's just the reality so it's to cancel culture in regard to potentially erasing our memory our or you know our having a care for the people who
067came before us as well as being hurtful toward the people within our community so i just in in if we're just having a discussion like again we've had this is our third special meeting on this so we're talking about having more specials just to be able to say okay well we're going to do more education in regards to native americans again while we have other things that we're just not addressing that we need to be addressed specifically with developments it's just disproportionate and weird frankly unless the big decision is what's on the table so you know i i don't i don't imagine the board's gonna say you know what that makes sense okay we're gonna let people know that's off the table i i seriously doubt that's going to be the outcome from this but
068just know what is being proposed here tonight is just flat leader and it's something that is unsettling for the community because something that is important and means a lot to them is on the line that we're just dangling that way thank you mr snyder anything else i'll be moving forward mr gazar i think we kind of agreed that we should have more public input and i was just hoping that when we do so that we can have some rules or some focus uh questions when you present could you please speak to this and i think that would maybe keep from happening what you had said let's not just rehash on board i'm against it i believe that's just because otherwise we'll probably just sit this is why i think this is how i see it
069differently which i probably have already stated in public um so yeah i guess i i guess i agree with that i mean i guess what we need to figure out and what what what do we want to have answer what do we want to the question be responded so just keep in mind like we can set the tone and we can set the framework but we can't tell people how to respond no we can suggest if you please speak for this absolutely right and then i guess about the majority in the minority you know i've thought a lot about that but i think as as a public school teacher um if there is even a portion of your student population that is not being served properly who might need accommodations we might say well the
070majority of us my students don't need accommodations but if there is even our five kids or 10 kids or 17 percent or 30 of the students who have a problem we can't say sorry the rest of us are okay with it not saying what side i'm on but i'm just in the habit of thinking of because we're a public soul we have to make sure that we are kind and inclusive of everyone so i think that's just what i wanted to respond to you about the majority and the minority might not necessarily work in this case and if you can indulge me i i i was really searching for well who said again uh not necessarily saying where i land because i'm really for a compromise but who said that the native american mascot is
071harmful is that your question like he said it's weird like you said who said i'm just clarifying your question but your question why is it why do people view it as i don't mind interpreting here when i said weird yeah no weird is us continuing to have this discussion okay okay that's weird to the community why are we having this discussion if it isn't just going to end up resulting in getting rid of the red raid like why are we dragging it out having all these discussions and all this stuff it's just a simple all we got to say is okay we're going to do a better job of educating on not on on this like why don't we continue to have to have private meeting work sessions and all of that have this discussion
072like we're stringing it out and making it weird for people if we're not taking it off the table or not that's what's weird about it well earlier today i i was just looking around for and i don't know if this is getting into too much of the leads but i can say this very quickly open discussion please um who what group what whose official position is that a native american mascot might not be the best might be harmful so i'm going to read this list just just pointing that it's not necessarily cancelled culture the modern language association has gone on the record to say that maybe native american mascots such as this might not be the most art can be harmful um the naacp the american psychological association american anthropological association the american sociological association
073the naci which is the oldest largest national or native american organization in the country the aclu the anti-defamation league the rainbow coalition the quakers the united methodist church the united church of christ the presbyterian church the southern christian leadership and universalist church state laws against it are in california maine oregon wisconsin proposed in illinois massachusetts and nebraska and washington so i was just looking for is this something that we're not dreaming of but is there a legitimacy here and based on that list oh and the national education association like i think if there's a legitimacy in the question okay mr brookman um yeah just a couple things um i do i would like to know the why from both sides why why is it that you think it should not be changed or why do
074you think it's offensive to me that's important um to know that um i would kind of want to echo back to what donna said about having the courage to do this and also what julie said about how it's been pushed down the line pushed down the line pushing down the line it takes a lot to have this discussion i mean it's very controversial um you know we have some people that want to keep up we have some people that would like to be changed and it takes courage for us as elected officials to have the discussion um i've gotten so many emails people saying you're not going to get reelected if you continue this session i got upset about that but then i said well i'm elected i have i have the courage to represent
075the people that would like to have this discussion and if i don't get reelected because of it then so be it but i have to do what i feel is right for everybody to continue the discussion i agree with what jeff said you know we're having this discussion because we would like to come to some kind of decision whatever it may be um i mean at this point i'm just rambling but i think i think it takes courage to have this and to move forward with it yeah i i i don't want to repeat what everybody else has said but i do think if you look at our history here in belfast in our history even in terms of civil rights um you know with underground railroad that went through here i'm sure there were
076varying opinions um at those times and in the great school i'm sure there were there were varying opinions at those times i'm not sure where the majority stood or the minority stood on those opinions but it was there was divisiveness and and i think bellefonte found a way to kind of lead the way and set an example i'm hoping we can do that here too i think that one of the things when we talk about inclusiveness and being an open and inclusive community i don't necessarily think that majority rules means that you're an open and inclusive community and so that's fine if you're in the majority but if you're not that sends a message to those that aren't in the majority and um and so i think when i look at what our ide committee
077is trying to say and what we tried to espouse in our our resolution that we worked hard on um is that we want to be open and inviting to everyone we're listening to everyone and that's where i think this is important so it's not like yeah we'll listen to you and we agree with you but you know when we disagree we're going to get our we're going to get our way you know what i mean and i think that that and that's why i think that it's important for us to to explore these issues it may take time and i mean i don't know what's on the table or what's off the table and i don't think it would be fair to make that determination on this outright and i hope that people that are
078listening understand that we are trying to look at these issues from all different perspectives and hear different perspectives and try to understand different ways that we might be able to build consensus around this issue and so i think it's um you know i mean i think that that it's important that we have that transparency rather than saying you know we're going to do this and that's you know the only only way that we can consider this issue um i think that's the responsible thing to do and hopefully people understand you know kind of the the information that we're trying to seek and how we are proceeding with this this um you know discussion the the next steps so that um even if they may not agree with even if they may not agree with whatever
079decision whichever side kind of you know feels that they prevail you know that that they understand how it was made you know what the found foundational principles of that decision were so i think it's more more of the same i think what everybody's saying but i do think that that it is important um and to kind of to to look at these issues the only divisiveness i have is trying to decide whether we're in a snow day or not which is there's never an easy answer to that either that's all i have to do and you have people in your people that are happy with you and people that aren't happy i've heard from both sides yes i heard great screams this morning of joy so i have to tell you thank you personally you've
080done a great job okay so trying to i'm glad that we're having the conversation we need to have this conversation i'd believe me there's a hundred things i'd rather be doing uh potentially on instead of attending a lot of special needs but um we're having a conversation i think we made some progress tonight some of it was venting which we all needed to do and some of it was presenting ideas uh i would like to go around just one more time and just ask people what you would like to see as next steps forward and doesn't have to be a conversation it can just be word out an idea whatever what i'm hearing so far we're talking about um potentially adding some data and resources that's accessible uh identifying various cultures in our community which
081probably falls back to a demographics for administration uh creating some sort of a framework for representation to identify what the real issues are and come up with positive solutions on how to positively reinforce the various cultures in our community that maybe doesn't address this specific issue but i think it falls in line with the discussion um i'm hearing that the possibility of phasing out an image to prevent uh other outside groups from bringing something in while we're in the middle of things i heard that uh i do think it's important for us to review legal precedent that's already been uh litigated in our state uh just so that we know so that we're not trying to push an idea that is seen as really wrong ethically or legally we need to educate ourselves on that
082and we need to make sure that we i got to find a way i think we should present that to the community in some way some condensed version of is there something anything that we're doing that was identified in that report as not appropriate we should make that known to the community and then we should take immediate action just stop that whatever that is uh if it's already been litigated and tried in court i don't think we want to be trying to reinvent the wheel here so um i'm also hearing that uh well of course we've already had some work on the resolution on equity that'll be coming forth i do i'm hearing that we need to continue to encourage and support our ide committee we're going to be a key group moving forward and
083hearing that we need to identify for the public a framework of what we're looking for try to give your presentation to answer this set of questions or something like that to offer positive solutions uh knowing that some of you will still need to vent and we get that we'll endure but um let's let's try to vent and then move forward in a positive way whatever that means so um again we are having this meeting because we cannot have private discussions as a group so it is necessary for us this is the only place that we can talk as a group to move forward uh and that's one of the things that we're doing here so uh i don't see us as pushing things down the line i see us i like the comment about um
084uh you can sort of give a framework for a timeline but as long as you're making meaningful progress we just have to agree on what meaningful progress is so that we're not looking like we're attacking each other um so with that that's what i've heard so far let's make another trip around the table does anybody have anything else they'd like to add to that list for next steps i'd just like to remind you that i would like to see something at the next meeting some kind of report from the leadership perhaps how you would like to friend friend the next presentation or whatever it may be in other words you're there to help guide us a little bit through these discussions i do agree with jeff who's who's gonna listen to all of this who's
085willing to go to the web pages that we may provide i am not hopeful i am simply not hopeful um it's one of those issues where people get angry if it's changed and if they're not really provided the information on why it's been changed it just won't i'll give an example miami of ohio university changed their mascot from the redskins i guess it's been about 20 years ago for the red hawks and so when you talk to they did an interview it was in the washington post when you talked to the current students they talked to one of the fellows and some of the older alums were around and they were still talking about those foods and stuff in the toilet said they're so cute because what happens is over time people people adjust it's
086the ones who are older and will resist if that's what it comes to in the future it's just not going to go away that music it's just the way it is so i would like to just simply like the leadership to come up with some recommendation that i would like to see i don't want this to drag out they simply don't i would like to have at least two of these kind of meetings a month if possible but also at our regular meetings at least be apprised or have questions as to where we would like to go and perhaps limit that discussion to like 15 minutes left i've been i've been on uh committees and other things even at the county level where we said we started the meeting at seven o'clock we're gonna end
087it at nine and we got a lot done in that last half hour now i'm suggesting that we put a timeline on the discussion at the regular meetings to try to remove it so in other words you would have cut me off two minutes ago so just to answer that a little bit one of the problems with at a voting meeting having this on the agenda i don't know discussion yeah and then who's going to be the one to tell oh well i'm sorry so you five got to speak but now the rest of you 15 sorry you have to come to another meeting all right and that's what we're that's i understand it's a level so that's what i'm trying to avoid i well the other option john i'm sorry no go ahead it's
088okay the other option is to have the regular meeting adjourn go into a 20 minute work well and that's so and that's not unheard of that's what i'm talking about seems to be a separate meeting for the purpose of public inspection it would be well i'm saying the work session itself would not require the public people yeah or or for the purpose of further discussion we could do that as well i'm fine with it okay mrs weaver anything else as far as next steps moving forward uh just to make sure that we definitely have at least two meetings for the public and to make sure that their voices are heard i couldn't agree more and i'm also of the belief that if it takes three to have everyone who wants to speak and that's what
089we need to do thank you um dr patrick same as mrs weaver mr steiner anything else said my piece smith just thinking about rules for public discourse and polite discussion maybe somewhere a good reminder because that's super important okay i echo what donna said i i think at some point we'll also have to think about what those public session comment sessions how they're structured given our environment um i i think when we can see people in person it's it's i mean more favorable than than online um and and and perhaps more accessible for folks um although maybe some there might be risk for some with i mean i don't know what's going to happen in the next few months but i think at some point that is a discussion that we may need to have
090and i like i like the idea of a possible work session after a regular meeting i mean that's what i was trying to figure out when we looked at thinking about cancer tonight's me is like why would we want to meet on wednesday for a meeting on tuesday but um yeah i i think that that could be very possible i also um am curious about who gets to decide what resources go up on the website or those resources who's if we need to are we betting any of those are we are we letting people figure those out themselves i mean something that's something too that that i think i think it's the more information we can get out the better i will just say um i'm not promoting or for not promoting the idea i'm
091just saying that if we are to put a link to a website on our page that website needs to be fully vet for appropriateness um i don't know who would do that or what that would look like you know a different administration exactly that's something they're engaged in but that's just one thing to consider let me just say that if anybody uh and we checked with our solicitor on this as long as there's no back and forth if someone has maybe you have an idea for what that framework would look like okay there is no harm in sending that to the administration or sending it to board leadership as a piece of information don't expect a response don't send it to all the members just send it in as a tool for consideration there's no
092problem with that if you want to hold it and have the discussion whatever you send would just help the discussion when we do have it in public there would be no discussion behind the scenes so it would just help maybe save a little time when we do get to public discussion and if we find a source maybe that could be presented the same way yeah absolutely you're allowed to give information we're not allowed to collaborate so i don't want people to uh live in fear of sharing useful information if you can limit it to just sharing information and not discussion and john if you could kind of reiterate for the public that we don't hold sessions in private i've seen that so many times at work i know talking behind closed doors and so trying
093to keep them trying to keep the meeting positive and not wanting to point some of that stuff out but just to reiterate there are no private sessions we are not allowed to meet an executive session to discuss this matter we're not allowed to meet answer email or phone calls uh as a quorum to discuss this matter and we don't and we have not which is why you hear some of the venting that you hear here this evening because there's a lot of stuff just pent up energy that people need to get off their chest and you heard some of that to see trust me it's it's all being done in public meetings and once we feel that we can set the framework in the tone you will if you want to speak you will have
094that opportunity i don't feel comfortable saying well we can only have two sessions for public input because we've heard enough we're not going to do that if people want to continue to come in and offer input we'll have three four five sessions if that's what it takes until people are done talking hopefully we can make it a lot less venting and a lot more uh solution oriented that's the best i can say at this point so again if you're reviewing this later this will be posted on our website as a resource uh just like the other work sessions have and uh i think we have enough information moving forward that we can have a discussion on how to approach this either at the next meeting or what the next steps are so thank you everybody
095please go home safely kim you're already home good job and uh just travel safely sorry for making us come here in the snow so that we entertain motion to adjourn something take a second okay saturday