001I'm calling this Board of Education meeting to order at 7 32. please stand if you're able and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence thank you official meeting notification Mr stelson so public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who have requested such notices into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Northwest now Express News and West Bend Daily News public notice has also been posted in schools throughout the district and on the gstwi.org website as well as cable access Channel 96. absent excused Pollock here before we move on to Citizen comments uh Mr stelson would like to bring up a gender approval I'm sorry approval of agenda I checked it over make a motion approve the agenda go ahead
002Tracy second any discussion all those in favor aye always that passes okay now before we move on to Citizen comments um we had a couple people signed to talk about policy there's a couple of policies that have been talked about the last couple of meetings and I just wanted Mr stellasland the update that we have not had the policy committee meeting yet and why that was sure so um I shared this with the this information with the board after our last meeting and I thought I'd just share it because I think some people will want to comment on this and it's policy 5310 which we will talk about on August 17th at our at our policy meeting but the this this particular policy um for the history of it is Neola Who is the I
003would say the school school districts across the country um Warehouse of policies um brought this or created this this policy and then in 2011 the Germantown School District adopted this policy and the truth is there haven't been updates or changes to this policy since 2011 but what I found out is that this was put in place back in 2007 with niolo because it it is supposed to act as an assurance to parents and students that school officials will not be engaging in such examinations listed in this policy without prior notification so the parent and student has the ability to object and there's also another policy 5320 on immunizations that says um that exemptions shall be granted for medical religious or personal conviction so I think the bottom line is we we do not and will
004not um do anything that to a student that that the parents or student won't know ahead of time and the reason we haven't ever sent notices out for this because the policy says the district will send a notification annually because we don't do any of these acts or examinations we don't send anything because we don't we don't do them so um I hope that that helps clarify and what what the policy committee will look at is how can how can we take what is in here and further explain it so people under understand that's the intent because that's the the truly the intent of this was put in as an assuranced appearance and and students can I ask the question yeah sure I think it would provide uh it would help me out a little
005bit because I'm in the policy Committee of provide more clarity in terms of okay when would we actually use this what examples we we wouldn't because then I would say that maybe why don't we just get rid of it so but we could talk about that next week though yep but thank you for sharing that yep okay thank you all right now let's start calling off names and I'll call the person and then the person on Deck Ellen Guthrie and then Kevin Curtis good evening can you restart my clock please thank you okay I am okay we are asking the Germantown School District to please continue to make masking children a parental Choice before Mass Exodus takes place in this school district as many of you are aware the cdac ignored 17 months worth of
006data to feed into the growing and unwarranted panic over the Delta variant of covid-19 and again recommended the wearing of masks indoors regardless of vaccination status in the 17 months since the pandemic began last March there have been fewer than 300 coveted related deaths among those 17 and under averaging about 204 per year by way of comparison over the past eight years the flu has killed more than double averaging of 456 children per year and oddly enough we have never masked our children during the flu pandemic however on the flip side a study of nearly 26 000 school children showed that approximately 68 percent had problems while wearing masks in schools these included irritability headaches difficulty concentrating less happiness reluctance to go to school difficulty breathing impaired learning and drowsiness and fatigue in addition a
007research letter published earlier this year in the Journal of American Medical Association for Pediatrics found that wearing masks caused children to inhale too much carbon dioxide this is simply unsafe as a result 38 parent advocacy groups across the state of Wisconsin have rejected local and National calls for new lockdowns and enforcing masking of their children in an open letter to President Biden and Governor Tony Evers I will read the pertinent parts of this letter to you President Biden and Governor ebers we represent over 20 000 Wisconsin families across 38 parent advocacy groups and we are here to inform you that your Uninvited reign of Destruction over the children of Wisconsin is finished we have watched the last week's unfold in abject horror observing our government institutions and leaders failing our children at every turn again
008your renewed calls for lockdowns enforcing mask mandates and masking in schools is not rooted in science it is objectively cruel to the most vulnerable in society our children we believe that you are in fact aware of this and continue to play political games with our children despite our efforts to work with you over the past 12 months we are here to inform you that this ends today effective immediately we will not mask our children in schools simply put they are not your children they are ours and they too are Americans with rights they are our responsibility and our most beloved they are not yours we applaud and support the school boards businesses and localities that have respected our parental choice we anticipate and appreciate their continued support of our right to choose what is best
009for our children and individual families we are strong we are united we are in control we will never and we have never and will never co-parent with the government or the local school board thank you for your time please continue to make masks of Parental choice in Germantown Kevin Curtis and then Teresa Schneider hello my name is Kevin Curtis I am a parent of two students at Germantown school district one at County Line and one going into early childhood education at Rockfield I already sent an email to all of you include asking you to put minutes back mask mandates back in the K-8 schools the reason I ask this is that all the students at the K-5 schools and half the students at Kennedy are unable to get the vaccine at this time this is
010the number one way to protect our students is to get the vaccine however since these students cannot get it they are the best the next best mask the next best thing to do is to require master all these students I've already shown I've already sent you information about about school districts in other countries who have had Mass who have had outbreaks with a Delta variant I've already shown you how summer camps throughout the United States have had outbreaks of the Delta variant infecting all their students all those kids under under 17. today I'm also going to bring a couple other things I've just recently seen since this has been the first week of school for many school districts down south in the Metro Atlanta area there are already not over 900 cases of the Delta
011variant in the school districts that includes students and staff in Indiana 300 student cases alone in Washington County Tennessee accounting very similar to ours in size there are four there are 41 students and staff positive for covid and 155 in quarantine already this has only been the first week or two at most of these school districts and yet we have these very high numbers including knocking out large populations of the student and staff population this is dangerous we need to do what's best for our students that is what we want the students to be back in schools we want the students to be there the best way to do that is with masks for the K-8 schools the CDC guidelines say that everyone should be wearing masks my own employer is asking that everyone wear
012masks including those vaccinated just to prevent the spread of Delta of the Delta variant this is very dangerous and we need to take action to it to prevent an illness or shutdown of the Germantown School District thank you Teresa Snyder and then Krista ewert so I am addressing the board about policy 5310 I appreciate you speaking on it first so the general question behind me was if we're not using it why is it in there why is it even there okay the policy states that the school has authorization to inject insert and size our students as long as the parents are informed at least once a year that this may happen but is not date specific for anyone saying this is about epipens and that kind of thing dad's policy 5330 that's not this one
013this seems to be falling right into place with the Wisconsin Department of Health's new guidelines about masking vaccine vaccinations and school-based testing that over 300 districts are actively using as of last week according to a health department website I'm standing here tonight to tell you that under no circumstances will this District or any other be inserting and sizing or injecting anything into my child as well as zero private bodily Parts being exposed to anyone not happening if this occurs there will be civil lawsuits not just me everybody behind me okay our children have the right to a public education you can see the equal protection Clause of the 14th Amendment let me say that again our children have the right to a public education education not Health Care okay the school needs to stay in
014their Lane when it comes to this the education doesn't education does not include being medical guinea pigs or test subjects for the federal or local government we have expected right to privacy and we plan on using it it is no one's business who is vaccinated and who isn't and segregation of those who aren't is illegal we are demanding this policy 5310 be voided immediately and taken off the plate secondly please trust us as adults to keep our kids home if they're sick we did it all last year and we'll do it again the quarantine of healthy kids was just detrimental to our kids mental health as well as their education and for what the amount of kids who actually got sick while stuck at home was almost zero and that's according to our school nurse
015and all her data please do not make the same mistakes this year and take away another educational Year from our kids please as parents and elected officials please hold strong on the optional masking for next year we don't want to pull our kids from this District but if we're back to the corner we are our children will be attending school this year if we choose to mask them we will if we choose to let them breathe fresh air we will if we choose as a family to vaccinate we will under no circumstances will we let a government agency or School Board mandate what is put into our children and we will not allow the district to test or vaccinate our children on school property let me be very clear we will not co-parent with the
016government or schools the past Decades of parents blindly trusting the school boards to educate our children are over we're here and we're involved thank you [Applause] Christy ewart and then Kelly Beagler hello um so Bob you actually stole part of the beginning of my speech in the Personnel committee when you spoke to the policies that um you wanted to added to the employee handbook so I appreciate that I hope that the board moves forward with the policy committee and reevaluates that fourth point but I applaud adding those three points into policy um to show Unity instead of segregation in our school and this leads me to tonight you are tasked to discuss and possibly pass the SEL curriculum for the Kennedy Middle School many of you have questioned the curriculum and have taken more time
017to review it thank you for taking time to pause and do that that's what we've been asking for to be intentional with our curriculum I truly appreciate it um as I'm sure you're all aware and the reason why you took the pause is sel has been used as Catalyst for um moving critical race Theory into the school either through framework using other terms such as anti-racist anti-bias culturally responsive teaching but I think now that you're on board with the policies that we've been asking for those can be used as a guide rail for the curriculum moving forward to ensure that we are intentionally teaching our kids things that we want to teach them um but I want I want to say that even if this SEL curriculum looks good looks clean looks like it's what
018we intentionally want to teach the website for second step is not it leads down the path of teaching socialjustice.org it goes down the path of critical race Theory ideologies so I ask that if you choose to approve the curriculum as it's laid out currently that you also make an intentional note that what's on the website in the links are not approved that what you have actually reviewed in red is what's approved and that does not contain everything that's on the Second Step website again thank you for your time thank you for listening to us and taking the steps that you have already truly appreciate it thank you Kelly and then Jody Graf good evening I would like to start out with the most terrifying sentence in the English language we are from the government and
019we are here to help and if that doesn't terrify you it should I want you guys to think about everything that I'm going to say after this with the context of that sentence once a government provides you with basic utilities the government then decides when to turn them on and off once a government pays for all of your education the government can then control the education and career you get to have once a government provides you with food the government can decide how much or if you get to eat once the government pays for your housing they control where you live once the government pays for your health care and Medicine the government can control whether or not you are valuable enough to allow to live once government gets you to agree to gun control
020you have no way to prevent the government from doing any of those things listed above I recently watched a video about a lady that was speaking about the Nazi Takeover in Austria to say history is repeating itself would be a gross understatement with the things that we are seeing nowadays right here right now we're headed for our next civil war we're fighting for our country we're fighting for our freedoms we the parents are leading a revolution a revolution to stop the woke culture We are Becoming woke ourselves but not in the way that the government will like we are taking back our country to ensure the continued security of our freedoms Ronald Reagan once said we're one generation away from communism socialism I speak for myself and many other parents when I say that we
021will not allow our children to wear masks we will not let the school covet test our children we will not let the schools vaccinate our children and most of all our children will not be discriminated against for any of the above reasons just a little side note about the vaccine that everybody's wanting right now because I do have a bit of time I question it because of the motives of the people that are involved in this vaccine it doesn't have to be political but it's become very political fauci holds patents for this vaccine Bill Gates has been videoed discussing mental changes of extremist Behavior using vaccines and it deposits protein spikes within the capillary blood vessels that are to fight this virus I don't negate the fact that there is a virus however these protein
022spikes are then collecting blood red blood cells and it's creating blood clots and it's very alarming when I see Cardiology receiving referrals at an alarming rate adults young people that have gotten the vaccine because the clotting is causing damage to their cardiovascular system causing Strokes causing kidney damage they estimate that potentially up to 60 percent of the people that have received the vaccine could be dead within a couple of years because of clotting and cardiovascular issues [Applause] Jody grab and then Ed Hertz good evening I stand before you tonight as a unified voice of all parents who wish to be the only ones in power to give consent on behalf of their children which of course should be every single responsible and loving parent on the planet we must all honor ourselves in doing what
023is right for us and our kids as individuals not as a collective group as not one single one of us are the same and we should celebrate that daily as a community as a district we must stop allowing anything to divide us we must agree that we are allowed our individual liberty and freedom of choice I read this on 4 26 and I'm here with this same message as it will never change and the district needs to stay consistent as well please don't turn your back on your decision for optional masks give these kids the innocence and right to in-person education that they deserve freedom is freedom is freedom mandates violate fundamental human rights notably the right to Prior free and informed consent for medical interventions in a free Society everyone should have complete power
024and control over their own bodies I urge you to do all in your power to never again go back down from the Democratic principles upon which this country was founded maintain Mass Choice maintain zero toleration of segregation discrimination or bullying on any topic to include anyone's decision to mask or not mask the last weeks of school show you where the overwhelming majority of your community's parents and students stand so please do not be distracted by a few saying otherwise allow families and teachers who want to mask to absolutely do so but we cannot want a choice to wear a mask and rob another the choice to not wear one or the choice to experiment with vaccinations or not never mandate vaccinations and start giving parents transparency every decision over person's body needs to be their
025own decision it is not okay that our health care workers are actively being demanded to inject themselves with an experiment and we must never mandate such of our teachers staff or students and then I'll end it as I legit hold back tears of gratitude sincerest thanks for implementing non-discrimination in the handbook thank you all for that and echoing policy to mirror that as well thank you so much for listening your jobs are not easy and you do it with Grace and we appreciate you listening to us thank you thank you foreign Hurst and then Kristen Barr hello I would like to speak and in term for the mask mandate I'm not for this um I really believe it should be voluntary um I know my grandson when he wears a mask it the communication is
026just not there and he's so much really you've been when it's uh um I do want to share something from a science standpoint and just to give you a little my background I'm retired 40 years as a mechanical engineer HVAC being my specialty in the HVAC industry we have to specify air filtration systems and this is basically an air filter basically it filters whatever you breathe in and removes it the virus particles and you can look this up on ashrae which is the National Organization the particle size are so small to make an analogy it's like throwing a marble and expecting to go the filter being a chain link fence expecting the chain link fence to stop the particle on marble it's physically not possible so like I say this basically acts like a filter
027the science is there the sound effective that's all I wanted to say on that thank you thank you [Music] Kristin bar and then James Fisher good evening first of all I want to thank you as my first board meeting him a little nervous my mom was a board member of growing up you guys have a tough job so thank you oh okay to start I like to quote my grandpa and he always told me you don't call a plumber for an electrical issue you've heard evidence and research from people today who are not medical doctors or scientists I however do have the credentials to present to you the actual and factual data in regards to covid I have a PhD from Medical College of Wisconsin when microbiology genetics and Immunology I've over 15 years experience
028in the biomedical field and I have extreme concerns over our children's safety at Germantown schools for this upcoming school year last May the school board decided to make masks optional and a lot has changed since then back in May the original coveted strains were not as contagious or infectious but the crazy thing about viruses is that they mutate and they mutate to survive we are witnessing that real time as you are aware the original string has mutated to what we call the Delta strain the string The Strain is much worse Delta is 200 more transmissible and results into up to 1 000 Times Higher viral load this is worse than smallpox the Delta strain has mutated to allow it to be transmitted by those vaccinated and now is the top 10 cause death for adolescents
029in the U.S mortality is not only the negative outcome Health statisticians estimate that anywhere from 10 to 45 percent of children under the age of 12 infected with stars or with covid will experience long-haul symptoms recent studies are showing brain shrinkage in adolescence which basically means brain cell death which is permanent cannot be restored brain cells connect replicate guidelines change over time because viruses change over time the CDC in American Pediatrics Association have shade guidelines changed guidelines to change with the virus both entities are recommending masks be worn indoors by schools regardless of vaccination status study and study study after study shows the effectiveness of a layered approach in schools and that masks work this is not a debate this is fact I would like to quote a woman who recently told me removal of
030masks doesn't make the virus go away the removal of virus will make masks go away so I'm asking us all to work together toward the common goal of eliminating the virus in our community so we can get back to our normal mask free world at the very least wearing masks will buy us time until the vaccines are available to our children under 12. once again I am asking you to listen to The Experts I urge the school bird to mandate masks in school protecting children must be a high priority thank you very much thank you James Fisher and then Jenny price good evening folks I came here today on a whim heard that we are going over some policies that I was unaware of and wasn't prepared like most people with a speech however my
031question is uh policies Laden with good intentions are the scariest of them all um even though it's not something that we practice and you stated that uh it wasn't something that we were going to do my next question to the board would be how do we remove this from the policy then if it's not something that none of us want as far as injections or private parts being shown or anything like that so my question to the board then is we need to have this removed from the policy and do away with the good intention of that policy that's all thank you [Music] Jenny price and then Sarah Larson um Brett you did mention the policy and I appreciate that but I do want to speak about it um it was brought up briefly a
032couple of by a couple of parents at the last board meeting and it seemed like you had no idea that it even existed um it does exist it's disgusting it needs to be discarded why in the world would the school need to make incisions into my children why in the world would the CH would the school need to inject anything into my child with the exception of epipens insulin Etc different policies um why would the school and what would the school need to insert into my children why in the world would the school ever need to examine my children's private parts what is happening do any of you know because it seems pretty fishy to me and a lot of other parents that this policy was updated in October of 2020 right when coveted vaccinations
033were ramping up I'm here to tell you I don't consent I do not consent to the school examining my children's private body parts I do not consent to the school inserting anything into any of my children's body cavities I do not consent to the school making any sort of incision into my children's bodies and I certainly 100 percent do not consent to the school injecting anything into my children hear me loud hear me clear I do not consent the next thing I'd like to address is masks I know that they are optional I'm hoping that the board keeps it that way we have seen you flip flop on decisions in the past we hope this is not one of those times if you choose to put a mask requirement back in place I'm putting everyone
034on notice my children will not comply with wearing face coverings of any kind not now not next month not ever they will not be sequestered to the corner of their classrooms segregated from all of their peers like they were last school year They will receive an equal education as all of the other students I will pick them up at the end of the day after a full day of schooling excited to see them just as I have done in the last four years we the parents are sick and tired of the utter nonsense and the charade that the masks are I'm responsible for my children's health not anyone else you will not be held liable if my child gets sick you just won't I am not alone in my feelings as you hear tonight there
035are hundreds of parents that agree with me they are too afraid to speak up in fear of retaliation towards their kids so I'm speaking for all of them and their children so I hope you're listening and I really hope you truly hear us we are not going away I do not nor will I ever co-parent with you never they are my children my choice their bodies still my choice until they're 18. you wanted more parent involvement in school board meetings and now you have it thank you thank you Sarah Larson and on Deck is Alex Hardin my first item relates to the last board meeting where the report out was done on the usage and finances of the pool and fitness center that certainly was concerning though we realized that those were not going to
036be money making areas more needs to be done to promote it just as the PAC director is responsible for filling this facility alerting you to maintenance items the athletic director was tasked with that and if you recall at one of the first board meetings after those facilities open the athletic director was standing right here talking about free passes to start promoting the facility and then it seemed as though it just dropped off that needs to be Revisited within her job description because I think though we aren't going to be money makers in that area we need to be closer to breaking even because we need it financially as well as the community needs to have the visibility and access to those facilities my next item concerns open records requests and I guess you probably would
037not be be aware that on an April 2021 department head meeting at the high school there was an agenda item surrounding open records requests and the subcategories one in particular it could easily infer that maybe coaching was done on how to avoid having your content be part of an open records request I certainly hope that would not be the case but it may be something you might want to examine further given that transparency is such a huge thing at this point in time I'd like to thank the Personnel committee for and adding those points into the employee handbook Bravo thank you for the discussion it was very good I hope to see the board go ahead and affirm that motion at the rest of the meeting and as always thanks for all that you're doing
038for the district yep Alex Hardin and non-deck is Hope Unger Hello Alex Hardin from Colgate I'd just like to call to attention another attempt by director of teaching and learning Brenda O'Brien to cram even more of her radical social justice activism into the kids classrooms now given that her past attempts as seen in the extremely well circulated fall of 2020 emails were basically ignored by most of the board unfortunately and certainly by her boss the superintendent rest stopsland it seems worthwhile to go over this this latest effort so first Miss O'Brien indicated that the social emotional learning program SEL from secondstep.org will or might be paid for by a grant from the National Education Association the Nea that's the teachers union for for those of you in Rio Linda second O'Brien Miss O'Brien tried to
039pass this SEO program off as sort of an innocuous kind of Barney the dinosaur type of program simply teaching kids to be kind you know I love you you love me kind of stuff this is interesting because as a very Progressive Lobby organization uh the Nea a significant portion of the grants and programs listed on their website have to do with leftist political union social justice or Marxist black lives matter activism in fact right on the second step.org website they themselves have resources that will quote help you implement social emotional learning SEL in a way that builds on students cultural assets and quote critically examines systems of power so systems of power for if anyone has not been paying attention for the last several months with this whole critical race Theory nonsense systems of power
040that's the that's the evil white man putting down the black man that's that's what they mean by that that's teaching black people that they are inherently oppressed and white people that they are inherently oppressors it's it's abhorrent and absolutely sickening so I'd ask if those goals really align with with the Germantown Community you know is the message that you've been receiving from from us you know the parents over the last four months really you know hey please give my kids more more and more left-wing lunacy I don't think so so first of all please I'm asking you to stop this ridiculous SEL program even if it this particular one is is a decent program it is so obviously a trojan horse for for more of Miss O'Brien's garbage to put it charitably second I I
041and I'm I'm dead serious when on Earth will you pull in the reins on on Brenda O'Brien this is at least the third time in the past year that she has tried to bring her personal social justice Warrior ideals and demagoguery into the kids into our kids classrooms it's completely inappropriate and honestly I think it seems past time that that she'd be shown the door thank you [Music] hope Unger and on Deck is Gail trap hi I didn't really plan on speaking here today but after hearing a few people's speak I just wanted to put in my two cents now you don't have to have a PhD to know that science is real I also am a I have a bachelor's degree in complementary and Alternative Health and I have done much of my own
042research I have read a book in the past called when healing becomes a crime in that book I learned when the Rockefellers took over the Medical Association and they learned that they could make money from petroleum drugs hence pharmaceutical companies became the big money maker and all other health care modalities naturopaths herbal medicines any kind of doctor that went against the grain of allopathic medicine was considered a quack and were threatened to have their licenses taken away I don't believe masks are working I don't believe that they stop a virus from spreading what they do do is make you I said doo doo sorry what they do do is is keep bacteria in in you and you keep breathing that over and over and that tends to make people sick with bacterial pneumonia and um
043bacterial infections in the lungs okay I'm so nervous I'm shaking anyways I I pulled my kid out of school last year because I did not want him wearing a muzzle over his face because I wanted him to breathe freely he had a really hard time not being in school and he really wants to go back to school so I please encourage you to make Mass optional because I would love for my child to be socially engaged with his friends again he missed out so much over the last year and a half not being in a classroom with his peers masking our children is not effective okay our children are not spreading the virus back and forth between themselves there are plenty of studies that show this information and I believe in science and I believe
044science is real but I also believe that there is an agenda and that science can be manipulated and right now I believe our government is manipulating the science and hiding the science because there are plenty of doctors who are speaking out about this but they are being silenced and muted and hidden and de-platformed so please please make masking optional thank you I'm a little bit shorter than her and on Deck is bonded arms with concerns of the Copa Delta variant on the rise in the communities and many schools are back peddling and have reinstituted mass mandates mitigation strategies and quarantining I'm asking the board to please hold firm in the decision that you made in May and to continue to allow masks to be optional and to not mandate the covid-19 vaccine for our students
045while the past 18 months have been very challenging for all of us the changes in the school environment have had the biggest impact on our students a recent report consulting firm McKinsey and Company reported that the impact of the covid-19 mitigation strategies for the 2020 has led to students on an average losing five months of math and four months of reading education these numbers are even worse among students of lower socioeconomics status and the students of color 35 percent of parents report that they are very or extremely worried about their students Mental Health the ER visits for suicide attempts Rose by 51 amongst teenage girls students need to be in school they need to have less time on their devices and more time in the classroom to interact with their peers they should be allowed
046the option to not wear a mask as masks make it more difficult for students to form human connection and treat each other with kindness and dignity the covet infection and transmission rate amongst children is the lowest of any age group I think it's like 99.97 that they're going to actually be seriously injured from it they have an overall relatively low risk the vaccine is readily available for any and all staff members would like to receive it we need to recognize the benefits and the normalcy that school provides to our students and we should not deprive them of another Academic Year with these mitigation strategies being the driving force behind their education and to kind of also um speak to some of the things that have already been said I I get more confused every single
047day when I look at um look at the media the mainstream media is totally brainwashing everybody that listens to it this is definitely a political agenda that is going on within our country at this point there's so much hypocrisy that I just want to vomit on a daily basis when I listen to things um you know you have the people that have the vaccine now they're the carriers of this Delta variant so they're the ones that are the super spreaders okay well did you tell everybody to get the vaccine well yeah that's what you're pushing children are not the carriers of these things um you know obviously within the adults masks aren't working particles are way too small they go right through doesn't do anything for kids all it does is make them sick and
048you know the hypocrisy that we are seeing within this political agenda is absolutely um mind-boggling and it's brainwashing people so say no to masks and this next year keep it optional thank you [Applause] hi Vonda Don's Germantown um I don't want to go into the science of everything I think a lot was said about science um I did want to talk to a couple of things that weren't mentioned on this um policy 5310 but sort of leading up to that um just in real time experience uh regarding the current situation some of the news and all the data and everything what I can tell you from my own experience is that my patients I am having a lot of patients post-vaccine calling saying I'm positive and I'm sick what do I do I also have
049a neighbor who is an RNA freighter medical floor and she told me today that 100 percent of the nursing staff are refusing vaccination because of their experiences treating host vaccine patients who have many medical problems and are not diagnosable they also have a lot of post-vaccine coven cases so I don't think she's lying to me so I think you know we have to respect the complexity of the situation um in regard to this policy it was revised October 12 20. so I don't know who we revised it or if parents knew that it was revised but it's concerning and the wording is very concerning um it says sorry I have to get this up again the board shall directly notify the parents of students at least annually at the beginning of the school year of
050the specific or approximate dates during the school year when any non-emergency invasive physical examination or screening is scheduled the term non-emergency what does that mean who declares an emergency and the term invasive physical examination as everyone has said here is really bizarre so I can't understand who it ever puts us in any school policy I can't understand who revised it in October of 20 I don't understand what you mean by non-emergency when is it an emergency there's so many things wrong with this particular policy and the intents behind it so I appreciate your time and your respect for all these diverse opinions and experiences presented here today thank you all moving on to item four approval of the minutes July 19 2021 Board of Education I have a motion move approval of July 19 2021
051Board of Education minutes second any discussion yes Mr Lewis yeah a couple of things item 11. the acronym CTE is not defined item 13 the acronym ECP is not defined in item 16 the acronym SEL is not defined so if we could please update those three items sure any further discussion seeing none all those in favor all right opposed that passes item five reports and information items returned to school update Mr thousand yep thank you um so this this is a report so there's no um you know decision or action on this I'm just sharing um again repeating a lot of what we said or what was said at the last board meeting around our return to school um as shared last time sorry um you know we'll we'll approach the year knowing we we
052potentially have to be flexible and adaptive to to are changing surroundings um and but the current plan right now is masks are optional notices to families if their child is in close contact with a positive case students will be in person for learning we do not plan on offering vaccines or covert testing in our school families will be asked to monitor their child's health and keep them home if they're not feeling well if a child does test positive we ask that they get a negative test or wait out the quarantine time and if a class or grade level reaches a high absentee T rate for illness will notify families current board policy is if 30 percent absentee rate is is breached for the same type of illness that the policy says we will look at
053closing down a class grade or school and then our instruction for this school year is we will not be doing concurrent meaning we will not have a teacher with kids at home that are virtual while there's kids in the classroom and trying to teach both both platforms at one time if students are absent for any length of time they'll work out a learning plan with the teacher one of the plans is it will not be synchronous meaning if there's three kids from a third grade class um and someone might say well can't they just can we just turn the camera and let them hear what's going on we don't think that's the best way the the we'll and we'll share this with staff when they return in a couple weeks but that they set a
054a way to communicate with that child with our with our learning platforms that we have a lot of our communication is done electronically but um you know we're recommending that a teacher would set a specific time to to log in with that child almost like a phone call but do it with video to help explain anything so let's say the teacher has a prep at nine o'clock in the morning that they would they could connect with that child at that time or whatever whatever time the teacher would choose to fit into their schedule and again it's almost like going back two two years ago that if a child was out if they were ill you figured out how they could to do their work and all so if they're if they're ill ill we don't
055expect them to be doing work either we want them just to rest and be healthy um the other the other piece that is not um in here but it's in the next slide is the quarantining piece and that's something again if if we are able to determine if someone was a close contact with a positive case we'll let the families know the families have the um the option to decide if they want to quarantine or if they want to um take them to be tested or whatever they want to do um we will leave that in the hands of the um the families and we would just ask that then they would also just monitor if their child starts exhibiting some symptoms and something that um that really I would like to use moving forward
056and this was this was more and I shared this with our um our school nurse nurse um and it's really it's a guidance it's not a hard metric this may be hard to see but this will be going out to families tomorrow also with some just more information of stuff I just shared in that previous slide um so Washington County Health is using a different metric this year than they did last year or on burden rates and so they've basically said we're going to do a seven day average and there'll be a number from 1 through 100 and it can mean different things and currently if you look at their website we're at a 30 which would put us in the moderate risk mitigation and for us it it lists face coverings optional contract tracing
057and communication of close contacts that's all that's in that box if you go to the red box all the way to the bottom the high risk mitigation strategies in there is face specs are recommend ended which means there still would be optional there would be school-wide communication it would just say Coney Island parents are we're in we're at 100 or whatever it may be um and really that notice is just to let families know that okay our numbers are are up and we're using numbers about specific to our school not our community um and just to be more more alert and and looking for um you know making checking your child to make sure that they're well and then um contact tracing is is the same around quarantining and um the um intermittent intermittent closures
058is on there but that's meaning if we're if we're to that point in that red we will probably be reaching our our policy of 30 percent anyway so it doesn't mean it's automatic it just means we'll have to look at that and make some considerations just like we did this last year we had situations across the district we had to shut down a second grader shutdown on eighth grade um if it gets there and that's that adaptive and flexible piece but the goal is keeping our students in school um and as long as we can so um and and also I reported last last time that area schools schools in our Cecil one um that almost all of them were planning Mass optional that has been disrupted over the last three weeks there's schools are
059taking different approaches to it some are and there's several board meetings tonight so I'm not I'm not sure and I didn't want to I didn't want to I was going to put the the graphic up that shows all the schools and what they're doing but I know it won't be accurate because so many things have changed with some of those schools but at our August 23rd meeting I'll share what I can can confirm at that time some are looking at mass and motion some are looking at K5 only some are using their own data metrics to decide what to do which I would say that's more or less where we're falling into is that we have our policy of 30 absentee rate and also there's just so many different variations of how schools are starting
060the school year out um and see someone did mention tonight and CDC did come out and recommend Mass indoors regardless of vaccine status I'm on a call tomorrow with Washington um Health with Erie superintendents and and um to hear hear where they stand and I'll share that with the board once I know but um really this is this is where we're at in the information we have at this at this time any questions from the board yep uh thank you for sharing this information I think it's uh extremely uh important and we're not done with this conversation I know that but getting back to the vaccine um what percent of our staff has been vaccinated I think it was 80 last year we were talking about that yep and um that that's for people who
061have reported to the nurse that they people were not no one's required to say that you've had the vaccine but of those that reported it was about 80 percent um last last and we're not mandating vaccines no and I don't think the board will ever go down that path of no I don't think I believe we can of those that did let us know 80 percent okay so I've guessed it's higher than that great thank you just to clarify two of Mr thousand nowhere in there does it say that mass will be required at some point if the level gets too high our cases our burden gets too high we will highly recommend Mass but we will not require that yeah it'll only be required for board presidents well of course it doesn't it doesn't
062say that no okay moving on to item six building committee updates from August 9th 2021 Mr Paul thank you uh I'll try to make this quick there's a lot of items uh that Mr Eric's gonna give given us an update on uh a couple of those items to mention is that there were some chimney repairs at a couple of the different schools he also gave us a GSF update that's our our maintenance company that we're working with uh they've been doing a lot of work at all the different schools they're still in process with uh going through all of their checklists as far as getting everything prepped for the start of the school year he did notice Mr Erickson did mention that there were going to be some classrooms that will not have gotten the
063full deep clean as far as the floor and the waxing but he assured us that the actual cleaning of the room and any other sort of mitigation for that will be done in time for school a lot of stuff going on here at the high school with we got an update on the pool deck and the ongoing discussions regarding the the tile issues that we've experienced in those conversations will continue uh he pointed out that there's a semi truck over over near the track uh the track work has been delayed but the expectation is that they will begin the work this week whether permitting and they'll work around any of the activities that occur at the field the big piece to to mention is roof leaks that there are some new roof leaks over at
064County Line and several at MacArthur that are being addressed as soon as possible and he did give us an update on on the PAC leak as well those that research will continue as as far as trying to find out exactly what the problems are it sounds like some of the the issues were thought to be resolved however there still seems to be some minor leaks also in the committee we did have a couple of positive positive recommendations that we are sending over to the finance committee regarding the administration building digital control upgrade which uh previous meeting we asked for for the crew to uh to get us a new quote on the work rather than spreading it out over several years to kind of just do it all at once and Mr Erickson did point
065out that going down that route probably saved us in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 thousand dollars and also we had a positive recommendation to the finance committee for district compartmentalization doors work that needed to be done as well that is all thank you any questions okay thank you moving on to seven finance committee Mr Lowe yes the finance committee met earlier this evening we consented to pay vouchers for it was a shorter period of time but from a last month through the beginning of this month um Brittany gave us her June variance report and it was quite complicated but I think the Highlight is a surplus of approximately six hundred and thirty thousand dollars not all of that but some of that will go to fund balance so that's a really good news for
066the district next item was mentioned a little bit by Tracy the fire doors that closed during a lockdown at the school's must be rewired to close independently from the fire alarm system when a lockdown is activated so I have a motion to move forward with a positive recommendation to the full board to award Stanley Security a contract now to exceed twenty three thousand nine hundred and sixty one dollars funded from the building and grounds Department fund 10 budget to rewire the compartmentalization doors on fire alarm system to work independently with the access control system okay thank you that's coming to the border with a positive recommendation does not require a second do we have discussion see none all those in favor aye opposed that passes okay in the last item was on the full board
067agenda item 7c we bring forward to the Board of Education with a positive recommendation to purchase schoolology Learning Management Services for an amount not to exceed twenty six thousand four hundred and thirty nine dollars and five cents okay that also comes with a positive recommendation does not require a second do we have any discussion see none all those in favor aye opposed that passes and that's it thank you Mike Personnel committee Mr Barney yes uh first Personnel committee met earlier this evening um we've got quite a few things to bring forward to you um first thing we talked about was an enrollment update so if you look in the background that'll show you that we had two classes that were in the red the administration had new information as of tonight saying that we have
068actually an additional grade that's also in the red because of that the committee brings forward a motion to move forward with recruiting for three ftes uh be first grade at Mac kindergarten at Rockfield and kindergarten at Mac okay that comes with the Positive recommendation any discussion I have a quick question do you have the actual numbers for that kindergarten classes for Mac if we broke it out into four groups yeah I I did a quick calculation um it would have been like 25 25 26 26 without the or without the ad sure sorry 25 26 26 with the ad it's um 19 as the average okay thank you anyone else seeing none all those in favor all right opposed that passes all right um next we discuss the employee handbook we have several motions regarding
069the employee handbook the first is for the support staff section uh specifically removing the phrase such leaves shall be non-cumulative except after three years of employment so the company brings forward a motion to update the support staff section of that handbook okay that comes with a positive recommendation doesn't that require a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor aye aye aye opposed I'll abstain thank you okay the next piece for the handbook is under the vacation section in the support staff section the Administration has asked for the phrase after the first year of employment be deleted so the recommendation from the committee is to approve that change which will transition to a July 1st allocation for vacation oh yeah that comes with a positive recommendation doesn't that require a second any discussion seeing
070them all those in favor aye aye opposed I'll abstain all right uh the handbook also shows the schedule for the normal work day including teacher and student arrival times and student teacher release times do the change in schedule at schools this year the Administration has requested that we update that section of the handbook so the committee makes a recommendation that under the normal workday section in the teaching staff section change the normal workday as presented okay that comes with a positive recommendation does not require a second any discussion see none all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes anything else yes Also regarding the employee handbook the committee brings forward a motion to add the following to the employee handbook Germantown School District prohibits the use and or practice of any pedagogy resource materials
071or staff professional development activities within the district that would compel or direct students or staff to personally affirm adopt or adhere to any of the following one that any sex race ethnicity religion color ability age or national origin is inherently Superior or inferior two that individuals should be adversely treated by virtue of sex race ethnicity religion color ability age or national origin and three that individuals by virtue of sex race ethnicity religion color ability age or national origin are inherently responsible for the actions committed by another member of the same sex race ethnicity religion color ability age or national origin okay that comes everywhere with a positive recommendation does not require a second any discussion see none all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes all right then we moved on to the activities
072and athletic handbooks this will be the first time that the middle school will have a co-curricular handbook they have a lot of activities so it would make sense that they do with that the committee brings forward a motion to approve the middle and high school co-curricular handbooks for 2021 2022. okay that comes with a positive recommendation does not require a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed that passes all right and lastly uh we discussed a new co-curricular contract um so the committee discussed advisors for the powerlifting program apparently last year there were 24 students who qualified for the national championship so that's pretty exciting for safety reasons the administration is recommending that we have paid advisors for that position so the committee brings forward a motion to have a head
073advisor contract and an assistant advisor position at 2500 and 1800 respectively okay I come to the positive recondation does not require a second any discussion see you none all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes that is all from committee okay thank you moving on the new business discussion in action to improve Germantown High School Palm and dance overnight requests Mr stelson yes the um Department um the Palm group has asked the board to approve an overnight travel request that they have to Schaumburg Illinois this this week actually August 12th to August 14th and this is a competition and if they um place at a certain level at this competition they would ask the board to approve and they qualify for the the national competition in at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida that
074they would ask the board to approve the trip February 16th through February 21st 2022 if they qualify for the event okay do I have a motion I moved to approve the overnight travel requests for the Germantown High School pom and dance team to travel to Schaumburg Illinois from August 12th to August 14th 2021 and wish them the best of luck second any discussion see none all those in favor opposed bad passes I hope they have a great trip and good luck the discussion in action approve KMS SEL material Mr South yes um I do have Brandon Cole here the Middle School assistant principal um to speak on it if you have any questions I believe Becky Whitman is here as well if you have questions um and um but I'm going to pass it to
075Mrs O'Brien at this time sure and I'm going to hand it over to Brandon Cole and Becky Whitman to just give a brief background on kind of the process of requesting these materials um good evening so last year the district had a district-wide SEL committee that used Jennifer Rogers as our consultant there was both building and District level work KMS explored SEL curriculum due to the growing social emotional needs of our students that have been occurring for the past decade we explored several different curriculums and we selected Second Step because of its research and evidence base that it's in line with other District initiatives it's seamless transition that it offers are K-8 students since the elementary is currently using that curriculum it teaches 24 lessons approximately that are broken down into four units mindset and
076goals recognizing bullying and harassment thoughts emotions and dis decisions and managing relations and social conflicts it focuses on the growth mindset of which our Germantown way is founded thank you I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion to approve purchase a second step for grades six through eight if the awarded grant that was applied for is received the first year will be paid through the grant if not funds will be taken from the appropriate account for Kennedy Middle School second any discussion yes uh so I'll just jump right in we were given we requested at the last meeting to see if we could get access to the course or the courses for each grade so that any one of us could could go ahead and take a look in detail within the uh at least
077in my experience I had access to basically the Powerpoints and videos that were included the lesson plans in the student handouts to be somewhat blunt I was a little nervous knowing the organization that prepared this material that where the grant would be coming from and I do have some concerns with regards to a couple of things it's actually not necessarily a concern regarding CRT per se but there is within the seventh grade material unit 2 Under the recognizing bullying and harassment there are some topics here specifically in lesson nine what is sexual harassment and so I I do believe that it would be important to inform our parents of the topics that are being covered here because they're I I have I've been going Sixth and eighth grader this year so I missed the seventh
078grade piece but under what is sexual harassment things are referenced like sexual comments being sent sexual pictures touched in a sexual way so the discussions that could occur during that particular lesson and that unit overall I I do feel the parents need to be aware of because some of them could be quite detailed or explicit or however you'd want to consider those topics um just for just for the the audience because I know it came up as is concerned uh I've you know I've got no problem saying that in in unit one of mindset and goals for each one of them because some of the videos are reused throughout each grade based off of the topic and in the introductory unit of mindset and mindset and goals there's a video that kind of kicks things
079off and there is approximately three four seconds that there's a BL on March that's shown but that's in the context of something of a three three and a half minute video regarding goal setting regarding uh how to break down your goals how you can achieve your goals those sorts of things now it's that video actually has nothing to do with goal setting though it's kind of that introduction in the lesson plan I'll mention this to you in unit two of the sixth grade uh session regard recognizing bullying harassment nothing in the presentation for lesson eight but within the lesson plan is part of some notes that teachers are presented with as far as what students might say or do or bring up there is a mention of someone has more privilege so there are I
080would say there are elements in here that parents should be aware of that we should be aware of if you happen not to get to that level of detail but as far as the presentation that's prepared as far as the teacher notes as far as the student handouts I didn't see a lot of that actually I didn't other than those items that I mentioned I didn't see any of those terms that are currently being used that have been brought up in public comments or or anything that I else that wasn't brought up that I'm aware of that refers to some of those things so I appreciate the concerns that were brought up I spent the time going through every single thing watching every single video and and these are some of the things that I
081happen to have noticed of of concern if I take my board hat off for a moment as a parent of an angling Sixth and eighth grader this really you know the two two of the three sessions deal with my kids but putting off the board hat again you know the one thing that I think we might want to consider is is just a parent notification regarding some of these topics and I will say we do send out a Weekly Newsletter to parents so when these topics are coming up we can definitely put it out there so we're informing our parents about what it is we're discussing especially if it's something that can be controversial or sensitive and we've done that specifically in the past we've had friends come in and of Washington County speak specifically
082on sexual harassment and so I would send out an email to all those parents and give them the opt out option same same as what we do with our suicide act now curriculum so those are specific they're not even in like a weekly handout they're specifically sent to those parents of those students who are receiving that curriculum in a timely fashion several weeks prior to those lessons being given there's actually one other thing there's a tale in my notes uh eighth grade unit four managing relationships and social conflict there is presented in a couple of lessons a link to a website called love is respect dot org and as part of that I didn't dig I'll be honest I didn't dig into each area of the website but it does talk about dating healthy relationships
083personal safety supporting others there there are some things that I think at least a certain segment of parents should be aware of they should be aware of that site and I Elevate that concern for those parents because that website actually speaks to you being able to double double click on the escape button which directs the user back to a Google page so it I understand if I if I'm a kid if I'm an eighth grader and I have some questions I'm struggling with and I go to this website and I start to look around and I don't want Mom or Dad to look over my shoulder I get that but at the same time I think we we need to to make sure that parents are aware that this website is referred to in this
084material so that they can take the time to also review that in that would be a perfect opportunity to encourage parents during that unit four to open up those conversations with their kids and open up their communication to try to bridge any Gap that might exist there anyone else okay um yeah I appreciate Miss O'Brien getting us access to that material I did go through uh two of the grades six and eight um saw a couple of things that Mr Pollock mentioned but um to me I I don't see as big of a concern now that we've passed this I think it would more come down to how things were being taught not necessarily what was being taught and and I guess I don't necessarily have a problem with it going forward you know given
085some of the the warnings that you've mentioned certainly we need to notify parents when certain topics come up anyone I didn't check it I did go through the material as well and I want to thank all of you for pertending that to us and giving us access I went through the lessons and I didn't see anything in there that was concerning to me as far as Middle School age children I thought it was age-appropriate one thing I do think is that if we don't have kids that are socially emotionally engaged in their learning they are probably going to struggle and we know that you know throughout the child's education that that is a big problem so I do believe that this is a necessary thing and I do believe that it will be handled appropriately
086um I do like some of the lessons that are in there and I think some are probably better than others and I hope that we can pick and choose and come up with some good stuff as far as what the audience is saying the website is kind of hideous and the funding is not exactly appropriate for me to take money from the teachers union but if they're going to give us money to help our kids I don't know that I have a problem with that necessarily so I think social emotional learning is important I don't think it should be our entire focus in education and I don't believe that it is so I'd appreciate the work that you guys are doing and I appreciate you giving us the access to this and being able to
087vet it more appropriately so Brian uh I want to thank Tracy for doing that deep dive on the curriculum and I just want to mention that we didn't have this conversation I've been on the board for going on 10 years now we've never had a conversation like this on curriculum we never got down to the 5 000 foot level times are different right curriculum committee did no I understand I understand but at the board level we never did this and it's it's uh breath of fresh air that we're having these conversations we're taking time to discuss to do a deep dive on on the plans and everything so I want to applaud everyone for elevating that making this an issue because things are different right now when something comes forward from Administration we're going to
088do our due diligence and if we have to press the pause button we're going to do that if we have to say no we're going to say no but I think the board's done their due diligence on this and I support this um so I want to thank the board for doing this [Music] I mean for a sixth graders you guys okay we have a motion a second on the table all those in favor opposed no that passes moving on to item C discussion and action regarding District academic standards for 2021-22 school year that's uh Mrs o' Prime that's all Brian sure uh the academic standards for this year would be the same as what was approved in the previous year there are no new changes to the standards there are some that are being
089revised or in the process of being revised but there are no additional standards than what was approved last year okay do we need a motion to approve the standards again this year yeah yeah you have to do it I'll entertain a motion move to approve the above identified notice of adopted student academic standards for the 2021-2022 school year and posting of the notice as required second any discussion so you not know who's in favor aye aye opposed that passes discussion in action to approve donation Mr stelson yes and asked the board to consider approving a donation of five thousand dollars to the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County in support of Summer and back to school youth engagement programming do we have a motion make a motion to approve the donation and thank
090the donor for their generosity second any discussion see you none all those in favor opposed that passes whole session the board will and Board of Education will entertain a motion to convene in a closed session pursuant to statute 1985-1 EEG Wisconsin statutes is appropriate discussion you'll see negotiations the plonkite racists are Associates contract or possibly confer with legal counsel the board may take action in closed session if necessary or appropriate to entertain a motion to reconvene into open sessions to take further action if necessary and appropriate hand or to entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting roll call we'll be going to closed session pursuant to 1985 one e and G second now roll call Manfred yes Barney yes reinemann yes Soderberg yes both yes Orden excused Pollock yes we are in closed session at
0918 57. thank you all for coming drive home safely [Applause]