BOE 5 10 2021

001good evening everyone I'm current this meeting of the Germantown Board of Education to order at 7 pm and I ask that you join me in standing for Abel to say the Pledge of Allegiance and for a moment of silence and the flag is over to your right from the United States thank you official meeting notification Mr stausel yep public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who requested such notices and to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Northwest now Express News in West Bend Daily News public notice has also been posted in schools throughout the district and on the GSW .org website as well as cable access Channel 96. thank you roll call sadderberg here Medved no say it again slowly okay thank you

002loath here Borden you're myself I'm here reinemann here and Pollock here all right approval the agenda move to approve the agenda discussion no discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that motion carries we are now on to the favorite favorite thing for me board reorganization uh we're going to approve the positions for president vice president Treasurer Clerk and sisa number one delegate we do this on an annual basis this is per policy and per regulation as per the state of Wisconsin so we are all elected officials but no one is the board president until such time that the colleagues on the board elect the board president vice president Treasurer and clerk so exciting times I've had the pleasure of being your board president for the last nine years and I've had a

003blast doing it we've we've went through a lot of roller coaster rides uh at 10. Common Core uh CRT which we're still involved in that the masks and a lot of other things and it's been a pleasure for me to support everyone in the district when I first ran as in nine years ago I ran 100 fiscally conservative the taxpayer when I got here on day one I learned a big lesson it wasn't about the taxpayer yes it was more about the kids and when you get a dollar from the state of Wisconsin how do you use that dollar for the kids and also for the taxpayer it's a very Balancing Act and I'm pleased to say that the board that I've had at this board but also previous boards we've all been like-minded and

004we've all had the interests of the students in mind and also the taxpayers in mind past couple years has been very challenging with covid as you all know what's your why which why you're here for the masks I understand that I get it I've been dealing with that for the last year and a half but in the end we live in a very small community we're all friends family and all will be good no matter what is decided tonight no matter who the board president is We'll Be Good Life Will Go On and we'll be good so it's been a pleasure to be your board president but guess what I'm not going to be your poor president anymore someone else here or on the phone will be your board president and whoever that person is

005whoever the vice president is the treasurer or the clerk the Germantown school district is in good hands we all try to do what's right for our fourth almost 4 000 students and I'm very proud of what we've all accomplished in previous Sports so saying that I'm going to open we're going to the first vote which is for the votes for board president and after that vote is taken I will not be the president anymore which is a good thing but the new person will take over and control the meeting so I will entertain a motion for board president I would like Brian Medved for president do I have a second of that second do we have discussion I would like to make a motion to ask Mr Ray Borden to be president we had a

006motion for uh also for Brian bedman the board president so we have a second and we have discussion further discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed no three that motion passes thank you we are now on to Mr bedbug will you take over the board meeting please yes we are looking for a nomination for vice president I'll make a motion to uh to put in Tom Bernie be vice president second Brian you got to say discussion you have to say discussion can you repeat the emotion for me uh the motion was for Tom to be vice president we do yes we do any discussion no discussion hi hi nay can you do a roll call passes four three four three okay that passes congratulations Tom we are on to

007treasure I believe do I have a motion how many motion to nominate Michael oath as treasure I'll second can you repeat the motion yep it's Michael Loth for um treasurer Tom made the motion Bob second favorite aye aye opposed no Nate come on uh roll call it's four three four three yeah passes thank you we need yes okay can I have a motion for Clerk I uh I moved the motion to uh have Amanda be the clerk Motion in the second any discussion hearing none all those in favor all right opposed okay that sounds like that passes congratulations Amanda and we're also looking for a season one director delegate yep the motion I'm happy to continue that delegate I'll move to have Amanda continue that position second I hear a motion in a second any

008discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye opposed and that passes congratulations again Amanda um at this point I do have some place I need to be which is why I'm uh joining remotely and at this time I will turn the meeting over to the capable hands of our new vice president Mr Bernie and I will let him run the rest of this meeting I will be back at the next meeting um I I'm humbled and honored to be the newborn president and I am fully aware of the amount of work that we have to do and we will be getting to work immediately addressing all the issues that are facing the district moving forward and I want to thank everyone thank everyone for coming tonight um and uh I hope all goes well

009I will get an update on the meeting or be able to watch the meeting later on and get up to speed thank you all thank you Brian thank you Brian thank you all right we will move on to item 4A uh presentations MacArthur students and student representative yes I'm going to have Dr Williams come up and present his uh present his students greetings and welcome to MacArthur Elementary tonight I'm very excited to introduce our school counselor and our Mac leaders before they do their presentation I want to give a shout out our office staff we recently were in a position to hire some great great folks to serve in this regard I would like to give a shout out to Michelle Krieger and Jen Mason for their efforts if you talk to it oh yes

010yes [Music] [Applause] things are going very very well in that regard and so I just want to introduce again miss jores and our Mac leaders hi everybody I'm Ashley George on the school concert MacArthur I have some students here today that are going to introduce two awesome programs we have at MacArthur called the Mac leaders and game leaders and they're going to share some of the things that they did this year hello my name is Xander and I'm a Mac reader at MacArthur a Mac reader is a person who is respectful responsible hard-working and a leader in the classroom and in the school we were selected by teachers to represent MacArthur as the German to help the Germantown community Mac leaders work with Kiwanis International who helps out the community with a variety of events

011including senior Bingo night and the holiday parade and breakfast with Santa hello my name is Tommy and I'm a Mac leader since this year was a different Year many of the community events were canceled and thus we wanted to share a few different things we did this year when the school year began we created a video highlighting some of the staff in our building the students often see but maybe we're not sure who they were it was a fun way for students to get to know all the staff at MacArthur hello my name is Nolan and I'm a Mac leader another video we created was explaining how to be responsible in the bathroom by washing your hands and throwing away garbage with your winter gear by hanging up coats and putting boots under your hooks

012and by taking care of your materials by putting things away where they belong it help remind students throughout the school year hi my name is Brynn and I'm a Mac leader and a game leader game leading is another program we have at MacArthur game leaders work in teams of three or four to teach playground games to younger students to help learn fair play and good sportsmanship this year we had to play many social distancing games and become masters of creating and teaching obstacle courses hello my name is kilg and I'm a Mac and Maxwell both programs are all about helping students and be in a good role model so when the kindergarten and first grade teachers asked immaculous to come help the little kids get on their winter gear of course she said yes it

013was fun teaching games in the snow hello my name is Ben and I am a Mac leader as Mac leaders we also participated in Dr Seuss Week by going into classrooms and reading to the other students the students were so excited to have us come into their classrooms overall being a Mac leader has meant a lot to us we have learned about helping others the community our school and being a leader it has been a very rewarding experience and we are were all happy we were able to be a part of it [Music] they really did a wonderful job this year so thank you for giving them an opportunity to present on some of the things that they did thank you thank you thank you comments or questions from the board thank you guys for

014coming up here I know it's a big deal to come up and talk to a bunch of people that you don't know right everybody's got masks on you can't see us but thank you guys very much we're very proud of you thank you when it comes to this particular school because this is our home school for our kids so I'm familiar with a couple of these kids with the staff and obviously Dr Williams thank you for for coming tonight and sharing your story thank you thank you thank you [Applause] Mrs Dawson do we have a student representative report yeah I'm just checking if Tatum uh Catalano is here ah and as she comes up this is Tatum's last meeting with us I want to thank her for um her time as the student representative and

015it's been an interesting year to be to be such that and I've got a little card for Tatum as well okay all right so as you said this is my last update so after I give it to you um this is Dr Grace she'll be the new student representative next year she's the vice president of student council right now and she's very impressive and she will be an excellent student representative um so with that um at Amy Bell students are focusing on gratitude for the months of May and June this Thursday students will celebrate their school spirit with hat day and coming up on May 21st it's popcorn Friday at County Line the fifth graders will be graduating their dare programs this week as they get ready for middle school next year additionally on May

0167th the county line PTA held a Mother's Day marvelous muffin event to celebrate the special women in their students lives finally to celebrate teacher appreciation students brought in letters for their teachers received lunch as well as an ice cream treat and students wore their teachers favorite colors rockfield's Garden is getting ready for some flowers and vegetables it will be ready to go for the summer school gardening class we are also excited for our end of the year planning they have a day of awesome in our future and field day coming up at MacArthur students have a lot to be proud of three of their di teams qualified for Global finals at the virtual state competition additionally make sure you keep an eye out for the school's in-person students virtual concert students have been practicing songs

017that will be recorded and then sent out to families to mimic a regular concert at Kennedy KMS students and staff are enjoying all the learning and fun activities spring brings the track team has been busy with practices and meets while the spring variety show rehearsals are in full swing Germantown youth Futures KMS student council and the KMS PTA help staff celebrate teacher appreciation week which is May 3rd to May 7th showing teachers extra love for all the additional challenges that they have had to overcome this year thank you to everyone who made this week special for their staff and finally at Germantown they finished up their teacher appreciation week on May 7th which was complete with breakfast for teachers on Monday Cafe Zupas gift cards a snack cart and many other extra surprises we are

018so thankful for our teachers additionally spring sports are in full swing with Germantown girls soccer starting their season off 1-0 and girls softball with a 2-1 record thank you to W7 for covering all of our girls spring Sports this season as we are their homeschool um and thank you guys so much for allowing me to present to you this year [Applause] comments or questions from the board all right we'll move on to item four b six great coordinating Arts Mr thousand yes I'm going to hand it over to Mrs O'Brien and climber sure the proposal that we are bringing for this evening would be to Sunset the tech apps course in the sixth grade coordinated arts and replace it with an intro to Spanish and an intro to Foods course and then the intro to

019Spanish would be an introduction of Spanish a focus on understanding the importance of studying a foreign language and the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries and the intro to Foods course would introduce basic kitchen skills by preparing snacks so what I put in the board background was the budgetary implications the largest one being the Staffing so there would be a reduction of a 0.96 FTE and an increase of 0.1 leaving us with a net decrease in Staffing of 0.86 so a more formal proposal will come in the next two weeks and I just wanted to make this as an information item for you to know that this is going to be coming as a formal proposal later this month so Mrs climber is here to answer any questions that you might have as an introduction to this

020proposal support any questions I I have a question um what is the what exactly is the tech apps class as The Tech Guy on the board anything that's got Tech in it I like and seeing something sunset doesn't sit real well with me so what what are we sunsetting still will receive the tech classes for Mr filke and Mr Parish in the sixth grade so it's not doing away with all tech classes these are the app classes that teach the kids some introductory skills that own Tech applications that they might use in their core academic subjects some of the things that are covered are just the basics of schoology composing an email lesson the snap and read Universal tool typing some Chromebook picture Google Drive lessons and split screen lessons that are on Google so

021essentially really several different things to do with Google Docs Google Sheets that type of thing it's really a lot of applications that the students use on a regular basis in their core academic classes and can be integrated the learning of those things can be integrated through their core academics okay okay thank you any other comments or questions from the board all right we'll move on to items items to Ace committee update thank you I'll take that um just a couple things the ace committee has a meeting this Wednesday and the subcommittees have been been working on a few things I just want to share some of the the information that's been talked about and there's no decisions on any of these things but they're they're talked about and um feel like they're good things for

022for our kids and the the first one is um and this was included in the the packet but just the one page climate survey um as an idea to create a baseline to measure as we move forward uh throughout this next year is their do we see changes with our with our students in their in their perceptions um and then uh the other suggestion that we've we've been talking with several uh schools and outside groups and one thing that keeps coming back is that in order to make a real change in your District around Equity work to have an expert within this in the system um is the the true way to make to make change um so that's we've had that discussion um the group will have a a page on our website a

023page that would have just information of who the ace members are resources for family families and we're currently looking at other districts websites to get ideas from as well and really just an informational page and then a program that we're just we're going to learn about it's a free program called Listening Library and we're going to learn more on this this Wednesday but the the um my understanding is it supports books that represent all cultures and backgrounds throughout the through the library and we would bring more information about that once we learn on the May 24th ad hoc curriculum meeting so um and then we did several of us met with an outside group on restorative practice practices just to to learn what that is and to to understand what maybe some possibilities are for

024our for our schools and then the last thing I want to touch on um after last board meeting CRT was was talked about in the in the motion um rescinded the ban but there were still some questions on it and I just I just want to read a section of the letter that was sent out this is also on our on our website um and it's currently so if you go back in our district 10 years ago nothing has changed around CRT in the last 10 years it was always it's always been in these two elective courses the AP Literature composition the critical thinking and writing courses which are upper level elective courses in our high school CRT has mentioned in the AP Literature as one of many theories that are taught in Concepts that

025are taught and an example of some of the other theories or feminist Theory political Theory economic theory post-modernism post-colonialism psychoanalytics and structural theories just to to give you a flavor the two mentioned courses have been offered to students for for many years and in short nothing has changed from from previous years CRT is not taught in our elementary middle school or any of the required coursework in in the high school only in those two elective courses and the the other addition that was made the emotion that was made by Brian Medved was also to have the ad hoc committee curriculum committee look at how does um two of our policies work or how can they they be connected to two of these two courses and the one policy is on uh controversial issues which we

026we have also the parental consent information policy and so that ad hoc curriculum committee will work those two policies into those courses meaning students who sign up for those courses will have an understanding we'll see the syllabus their parents will will see it as well so um that is is where we're at at this at this time thank you comments or questions from the board all right thank you for the update I'll move on to item five citizen comments um you all should have received a copy of our policy if you signed up to speak so we're going to ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less so that we have time for everyone to speak first up uh Ellen galtrey welcome I am here today to speak in regard to an

027email for a book study that was sent out to the entire Germantown School District staff is a potential discussion topic for a teachers in service that took place in March 2021 the staff was presented with a book and discussion guide for a book titled me and my white supremacy this book refers to terms such as white privilege and white supremacy and white centering just to name a few everyone has a story to tell and this is mine I want to explain what these words mean to me personally I am a first generation immigrant my parents left communist Russia with two young children to escape religious persecution in fact this persecution had been going on for years many of our relatives were murdered during the Holocaust men women and children shot and killed in their homes

028we left with nothing more than the clothes on our backs chasing the American dream and not knowing a word of English when we left we were immediately citizens of nowhere is the USSR banned us from ever returning to the country after you left my father worked many years as a maintenance mechanic making minimum wage and worked seven days per week as he could get double pay on Sundays just to make ends meet I did not grow up with white privilege and I am not a white supremacist these types of phrases are hurtful and impactful and are clearly stereotyping and discriminatory stereotyping happens when we attribute a certain trait or characteristic to entitle an entire group of people discrimination is how we then act based upon these perceptions therefore I cannot help but think that if

029this type of material is so casually presented to our teachers then teachers whether knowingly or unknowingly are teaching the same type of information to our innocent and highly impressionable children labeling an entire race with these terms is unfair and cruel I have three beautiful children enrolled in the Germantown school district and they have done nothing wrong lastly in regard to CRT I understand that CRT is currently taught in two AP classes at the high school however I feel it has the potential of being integrated into our curriculum in the future especially when emails like this one are being circulated to the entire teaching staff by Brenda O'Brien our director of teacher and learning we need a better solution and CRT is not it I suggest you reach out to the entire to the entire Germantown

030Community and the families that live here to get a clear understanding of how the majority of the population feels about CRT possibly with a survey set to all residents of the district or on a voting ballot I do not believe that anything that is this controversial and significant should be the decision of the board it should be the decision of the entire community and the parents that live here therefore T should be CRT should be banned immediately until this is done we stand United not divided thank you [Applause] thank you uh Ina Turner yes hi Ellen is my sister my nieces and nephews attend Germantown school and I'm here to support her for we the parents and we stand firmly against any attempt to implement critical race Theory into the German Town School District or

031any school district via any venue such as AP elective classes this ideology is a war not just with individuality and the free market but with the very foundational principles of our Republic we cannot allow the poison of this ideology to be promoted in our schools or anywhere in our country their purpose of Education such as the school is to prepare our children to be critical thinkers and productive members of our society by providing them with tools for success it should not be the goal of our education system to become a center for indoctrination of our children however that is exactly what critical race theory is all about when reading the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx you will find that one of the tenets of Marxism is State control of our education system for Marx it

032was all about fueling class Division and warfare today's critical race Theory introduces and adds race to this crazy ideology Marxism was focused on the destruction of the individual and advancing the idea of collectivism sounds great on paper critical race Theory does exactly that it redefines US based on race rather than our individuality it declares that America is always has been and always will be a racist country it declares that sorry it erodes the fundamental premise of America namely equality of opportunity for all and replaces it with equity to be achieved by equality of outcomes not by our successes individually current buzzwords that are being adapted by some schools like project-based civics class a euphemism for giving kids class credit for participating in left-wing protests as well as the concept of civics academies also known as

033incorporating critical race Theory into our social studies classes which do nothing more than open the door to this left-wing activism among our children being a Russian immigrant I will leave you with a quote from Vladimir Lenin who I ensure most of you know give me just one generation of Youth and I will transform the world and give me four years to teach the children and the seeds I have sown will never be uprooted we the parents no longer Stand By and allow our schools to become left-wing propaganda machines we will defend our children from this vile ideology thank you [Applause] thank you Alex Hardin good evening everyone I'm Alex Hardin from Colgate so I'm going to start just going to ask a quick question of the board I'll ask it once and then I'm going

034to ask each of you because I think it's an interesting and fairly simple question and that is do you support prohibiting all forms of racial discrimination against students of all Races including black white asian Hispanic in our classrooms right do you support prohibiting racism during public comment it's not about before during public comments it's just it's public comment not discussion with the board so you can't answer a yes or no question about if you want to prohibit racism okay so the board refuses I'll assume I'll give everyone including Brett stausland the the benefit of the dollar and assume that the answer would be yes I think we're all in good company that everyone here would oppose racial discrimination against people of all Races which is very interesting and Ellen mentioned this when Brenda O'Brien sent

035out an email about six months ago encouraging teachers to participate in a book study or on a book called me in white supremacy and I'll come back in detail a little bit more with this white supremacy is but what I'd like to call out in particular is is in this email I'm sorry teachers were encouraged if they wanted to use this study as their professional goal that evidence of progress must be demonstrated which would include actions that teachers are taking to implement in the classroom as a result of the reading me and white supremacy so that's kind of interesting so what is this white supremacy I think you know what's the big deal white supremacy is bad isn't it well this white supremacy isn't what the bad guys in World War II believed it's not

036what slave African slave owners believe okay to quote right from the book right from me and white supremacy the author indicates in fact that the idea that white supremacy only applies to so-called bad ones is incorrect and dangerous furthermore white supremacy is far from Fringe okay in white-centered societies and communities which by the way would include Germantown it is white listen white supremacy is the dominant Paradigm that forms the foundation from which Norms rules and laws are created this is from a book study facilitated by the director of teaching and learning furthermore white supremacy the system is a system you have been born into whether or not you have known it is a system that is granted you unearned privileges protection and Power I think that's that's somewhat interesting no Brett has described on numerous

037occasions that critical race theory is only taught critical race Theory by the way which whites this form of white supremacy is the chief fundamental principle of critical race Theory it is and Brett has has described or has indicated that it's only taught critical race series only taught in two AP classes I'll I believe you bro I believe that critical race Theory by that name is only taught in two AP classes however there's a big difference between teaching a topic and encouraging teachers to implement a topic in classrooms and that's what's being done I mean it says it right [Music] so the reason for me being up here is the board I hope you're aware of this when Brett tells you you know it's no big deal critical race here is only being taught in in

038two classes not not exactly okay I hope you realize when Brenda O'Brien sits up front in front of this group and wax is philosophical about how the loss of critical race theory is the loss of an important pedagogical tool that this is what we're talking about it's far from a pedagogical tool if you ask me and and I'm sure if you talk to Brian about this this this little book study he's going to dismiss it as only only 10 and 12 percent of teachers participate in this book study interesting I guess so let me get this straight we parents of kids in this District shouldn't care we shouldn't be worried at all that 10 or 12 percent of teachers are being indoctrinated to teach our kids cultural Marxism to the email says let me read

039it to implement in the classroom the results of reading this book about white so-called white supremacy we shouldn't be at all concerned about 10 or 12 percent of teachers doing that but we should be deathly afraid of a virus that has a 0.2 percent infection capitality rate so scared to the point that we force our kids to wear masks eight hours a day five days a week so board I'll be quick with the rest of this if you want to keep burying your heads in the sand as This Racist dribble seeps into our schools then I would just ask get get off the board and make room for some people who want to unite our community [Music] thank you uh Gail trap thank you I'm feeling Trapp I'm a resident and a grandmother been in

040Germantown school since 1987. this is my part two since I spoke a while back as to why I don't agree with critical race Theory States um across the U.S I hope you are realizing they are starting to ban critical race Theory from their public education and government positions and people are starting to look into it and guess what they don't agree they don't want critical race race or critical race theory in any aspect of their lives I'm a big fan of Ben Carson I don't know if anybody else in the room is [Applause] very very wise and smart man um he had this to say of all critical race Theory critical race Theory teaches to hate America and despise its history our schools have been teaching less American history and civics critical race theory is

041a deliberate means to sow Division and our nation from within now one example that I read earlier was because it causes division and then there are things that fuel that division and then the people themselves will then deconstruct their society from within all by ourselves does that sound familiar to anybody yeah exactly what's going on in our society and in our country right now and you hear it every single day on the news and we wonder why our kids are having difficulty in school what do you think this is doing to our teachers what if our teachers don't agree with this do we have a division amongst our teachers I think we need to be aware if there is because we're alienating teachers also also for me personally I turned off the mainstream media about

042a year ago and I use other sources for my news because we're being lied to as a country [Applause] but Ben Carson goes on to say that critical race theory is an anti-American indoctrination it's making your white students believe that they are bad people and that black students are victims and that the whites have created all of their problems so how does this affect the self-image of our students while they're developing good question he also asked would you rather judge someone on things that they cannot control or that they can control nobody can control what their race is but they can control their behavior so last time I was here there was a young dad who was a gentleman right before me that when he got up and he talked about critical race Theory being

043a marxist-based theory it was not received well by the group that was listening so then I went back home and I looked up My My by myself all the origins of critical race Theory and I found that in 1937 a Max horkheimer published the Germany's Frankfurt schools Manifesto called traditional and critical theory critical race theory is an offshoot of critical theories and Max horkenheimer I think that's how you say his name forkheimer is it documented Marxist it's well-known documented go back and look it up yourself if you want and if you didn't know the Frankfurt School is has Marxist and communist founders so we're going to go off of something from Marxism and communism really so when I heard that schools wanted to start implementing lessons you know across the country and everything on confronting

044your whiteness in our classrooms and the 16 19 projects I say absolutely not keep them out of our schools I heard last week on the radio about our teachers in our school being asked to read the me and my white supremacy book and this whole movement that is going on right now is a total assault on the western civilization our family structures our family values our American history and my own right for freedom of religion critical race theory is not in anti-racism anti-racism type of theory some teachers that want to teach this and have said that parents just don't understand or will be implemented into subjects and into the classroom like we can't figure that one out I am smart enough though believe it or not to determine that Marxism will never be the answer

045for racism so have your students then learn how to research how well Marxism has worked in other countries like Cuba and Venezuela and they are now third world countries thanks to Marxism because everybody's equally poor except for the elite people so I agree with the students that were here last time that I spoke when they were holding up science saying keep the politics out of our classrooms [Applause] uh Jason pipcorn I'm Jason pipcorn out of Colgate I have two kids named I'm assuming you've all read the emails I've sent you weekly bad Master for kids and the proof the proof how bad the mass started the kids the facts all the things I'm assuming you've all read it um so I'm not going to get into those details about that I just want to tell

046you a couple of stories talking to a student we were laughing and joking how are you guys you guys match the kids up for eight hours a day but they can take it off they can go to lunch they play Recess without a mask so it's kind of funny they're the same kids no masks right next thing a student tells me is you know what if I was walking down the street if I was sitting in a restaurant my teacher was in that restaurant or walking down the street I wouldn't even know it's my teacher that's sad that's absolutely sad think about that these teachers have no identity to the kids just think about that I got my kids telling me they can't understand the teachers half the time they just nod and say yep

047yep yep that's not I didn't sign my kids up for that just to assume what a teacher's saying and just not because they don't want to be embarrassed because they can't understand again think about all these things I know you guys just want these muscles on these kids aren't passing this virus along kids aren't what do you say a point point two percent affects these people right it's it's crazy I want to see these kids play sports I want to see them laugh and smile I want to see plays I want to go meet my kid for lunch one of these times I get done with work early I used to do in the past can't do it anymore we can't get into schools it's crazy putting a mask on my kid should be up

048to me none of you none of them [Applause] separate loudness lyrics it shouldn't be up to you guys it should be up to me put a mask on my kid just remember this the particles of covet are 1 000 times smaller than the holes in all your mass sitting up there your masks are doing nothing you feel good you feel real real good inside you put a mask on it's all show it does nothing security blanket exactly thank you I've also been told I don't remember who responded to the one Eagle thanks for whoever did was half of you didn't respond on my emails um 89 of the staff has been vaccinated right so I was told months ago once this vaccine gets out we're gonna get back normally back to normal 89 has been

049vaccinated right we can all vouch for that we've been told that last two meetings the rest of the teachers aren't getting an accident what are we waiting for take the masks off these kids we don't have to whoever wants to keep the mask off right you want to match your kid great we have no problem with that it should go both ways that kid shouldn't get bullied my kids shouldn't be willing to take the mask I'd beg you I'd sit here I'm just a concerned day I'm standing here these things are messing the kids up mentally and physically the blood's on your hands when all this happens and years down the road take the masks off the kids [Applause] Teresa Schneider welcome I brought visual aids for everyone so I'm going to read after you

050all get one my my letter to the board is on the front but I have one other comment to make listening to Jason I forgot about the story I sent it to a friend this morning that was not in our district but a group of fifth graders want to want to cut a reading contest in another school in another District they were awarded 30 minutes of masculine's time we are now right we are now using oxygen as a reward for our children okay so I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention um the we sent out a survey or I'm sorry petition last week started on the 5th for all the Germantown residents loved ones of the Germantown kids you know that are in the district and that kind of thing and the heading

051on that petition said the following we the parents of the Germantown School District are respectfully asking the elected members of the school board to vote on mask wearing for the remainder of this school year and the 21-22 school year to be optional per the parents discretion parents need to make the decision to have their children masked in school if they deem it necessary secondly we the parents are asking the Germantown School Board to discontinue the policy of mandatory quarantine if a student is contact traced the percentage of students who become positive after an exposure in our school is minimal 10 days of missed class time is detrimental to the learning environment and the mental health of our children constantly being bounced back and forth from face-to-face to Virtual and Back Again we the parents understand

052that it will be our decision to quarantine our children if they are contact traced by the school that is what was on the petition parents loved ones people sorry didn't break it okay responded that they agreed with this so that's just instead of 349 parents standing up here and telling you the exact same thing I printed it off and gave it to you there we go now for my personal statement tonight well we understand that the school district is taking their cues from the CDC as well as the surrounding districts we would like for the board to consider the minimal amount of students that are testing positive during their quarantine okay I did I did attempt to get numbers from nurse Tammy she's very busy she was not able to get back to me with

053that and she has her own presentation tonight so I'm not going to to do that but I did attempt to get actual numbers before I spoke okay um the few that are from what we can gather are testing positive at the end of their quarantine period and after they have been still participating in outside the district Sports working and gathering in large groups these are kids the high schoolers older kids but they're still kids while we would like to believe we have complete control and know everything that they're doing it's not happening it's not bosses are telling their students the students that if they test negative no matter what the return date to school says if they're Negative they can come back to work they don't care okay it's happened happened to me these kids

054are going to school or they're going to work they can't go to school screw it they're negative but the dates aren't lining up correctly and I know that you're following the CDC stuff okay the parents that sent their children back to school in January with the understanding that they would be masked and can still have that option we would never ask them to make a decision that they believe would jeopardize the health of their kids and we the parents are asking the same thing those teachers that feel the need to be vaccinated have had the chance to do it we've heard the last two meetings okay all of our kids over 16 have had that chance we've been able to do that for them where there is no shortages right now there is no reason

055to keep them asked if everyone who's at a higher risk has been vaccinated I'm sorry to say this but the district cannot have it both ways either the vaccines work or they don't okay so please please stand with these 349 parents and vote to allow Mass to be optional for the 2122 school year and the remainder of this year with a voluntary quarantine if contact traced we respectfully submitted by the 349th concerned parents and loved ones of the students in our district that have signed your copies in Florida foreign thank you Albert Morgan welcome hi my name is Albert Morgan um I live in Germantown right behind the dog park so your dog's barking all the time it's awesome um I guess I am going to start out with the mass the whole Mass situation

056I have a daughter in first grade at Rockfield and uh right now she's learning how to pronounce and read and write and I I think it's really deterring her having the mask on to see her teacher's lips moving and for her pronouncing words like thirst and first and first like you need to see the lips moving in order to have to pronounce these words correctly because F and F can really get confusing for a six-year-old and seven-year-old that's just learning how to communicate um in my with the mass one from no Mass to maybe you should wear a mask maybe yeah you have to wear a mask now it's uh hey put two masks on like I don't understand why can't whoever's in charge follow you or whoever's running in say I don't know what

057to do it's pretty easy I don't know a lot and I'll admit it to everybody I don't know a lot about a lot of things so what I do is base it off personal experience who have I come in contact that swears by the mass and say it saved their life I haven't heard any stories about a mass saving any life from anybody I've ever come in contact with um and to me in the Africa what what his name was before you compared it to a muzzle and that's exactly what it is it's a muzzle providing us from speaking out against what's happening in the school district and what's happening in our communities and what's happening in our nation right now they want to silence us they don't want us to come together and work

058together people in power stay in power by keeping us silent and I am not going to let that happen anymore and as far as the CRT goes it in my opinion straightforward it violates the 14th Amendment in in short State and school districts have an obligation to prevent a learning environment that promotes hostility toward a certain race or sex CRT is just that it's promoting discrimination against whites my children should not feel uncomfortable being white and being taught that their oppressors for simply existing yeah and instead I'm offering a solution that a change to the curriculum should be how to deal with racism how to confront racism racism when you get it in your face in how to educate more about what what it actually means because a lot of kids don't even know what

059it even is you ask him oh my daughter right now on Seventh or in seven years old what racism is she has no idea no idea and I I just wanna Focus you know working together on us and being united not divided and that's going to be our theme tonight and in conclusion is I we gotta stop empowering the media and the government in other people especially on social media who are in power they are working to keep us down so they stay up thank you for your time [Applause] thank you uh Lauren Wayner Warner welcome thank the school board and everybody here tonight I don't want any disrespect I'm I'm coming here to talk about another topic that was put on the agenda a couple weeks ago in relation to transportation I attended meetings

060over a year long with my students when the boundaries were going to be changed and transportation was a big discussion about why boundaries were going to be changed I respected the school board I respected the school district because they gave us an opportunity to understand and to listen and to be educated on why these boundary changes were going to happen it was extremely difficult my family we have four children we moved to this District three years ago it was hard for us to comprehend the fact that my students were going to have to go to a completely new school for one year two years and then go to a middle school on top of that we were hit with this Global pandemic there are obviously multiple other things that are going on but now on

061top of that I have to try and explain to my fifth grader going into sixth grade that he has to get up 2 Plus hours earlier when he goes to middle school he's going to be on the bus with high schoolers I have a high schooler I have a middle schooler and I have two kids in elementary school there is a big difference between my fourth or fifth grader going into Middle School riding a bus with high schoolers not to mention the fact that they are now going to be sitting on a bus for double the time that they are now at that point in time when your children are supposed to be awake and thriving and learning and we want to educate them on all of these very important things that we are discussing

062they have to now be faced with waking up two plus hours earlier for what to save 250 000 dollars we were told when the boundaries were shifting when we were going to make you know the change in transportation it was going to save cost it was going to cut costs I have not received and I don't know if other parents have I have not received any literature from anyone regarding this topic again I respected the decision of the school and of the board and of all of the District Administrative because we were able to take surveys and participate in meetings we were able to ask questions and we were able to understand why you felt it was important to ship the boundary lines that affected some of our students changing the entire Transportation schedule is

063going to affect all of our students I would like to be given the same respect and to to Bob's you know directive in the beginning when you said you work for our students you do you work for our students you work for the community you work for the taxpayers and the students are the ones being affected by this and I don't understand why we have not been given the opportunity to understand why this change is being made it was just made we had no right to talk discuss be educated on it it was just done I feel that the board made a very negligent decision when they made certain decisions on on past things two weeks ago and I feel that this is to be taken just as seriously all decisions that the school board

064makes should be taken seriously and every single parent in this community has a right to understand educate and learn about why you are making those decisions and we should have a voice [Applause] so please rethink this entire Transportation okay 250 000 as taxpayers knowing what I pay in taxes I'm sure that we can figure out a way to save 250 000 so we don't have to make this entire shift in our children's learning environment thank you foreign [Applause] thank you uh Jenny price welcome hello my name is Jenny price and I am the mother of two boys here at MacArthur I am here to ask you to make masks optional for all students and staff I get a very emotional I apologize in advance effective immediately and also for the 21-22 school year both of

065my boys have medical excuses on file with the district nurse excusing them from wearing face coverings apparently that means that while they are allowed to breathe fresh air they must be shoved into the corner of their classroom behind Plexiglas to do so yes my children were placed in the far corner of their classrooms away from all of the other students and teacher because they have disabilities preventing them from wearing face coverings despite virtually all available data indicating that kids of this age are at nearly zero risk of getting ill or transmitting transmitting the disease to adults they were deemed and I quote a threat to the safety of others my third grader does not understand what's happening to him so his disability is a blessing in that sense let me add that they decided to

066name the Plexiglas that surrounds him Paul I'm not quite sure why maybe it made them feel better about discriminating against a child with disabilities a nine-year-old they can call it anything they want but at the end of the day discrimination is what this is there it is there is this thing called an equitable education how is singling a child out equitable we spent three years with him starting at three years old in intensive 40 hours a week therapy three years old and in those three years we focused many many hours on reading people's faces to figure out what emotion they were feeling that therapy continued once he started school now in just a few short months what he has worked so hard on for the last six years more than half of his life has

067been ruined because he can't see the faces to read anyone's emotions social emotional skills are being stifled due to masking my second grader on the other hand does know that what the school did to him was wrong we talk about it so he decided to wear a mask every day just so he's not alone he suffers with anxiety and sensory issues which by the way the CDC has stated that both of those are exemptions to face coverings instead of following the CDC guidelines on this issue which the district has been saying that they have been doing all year in regards to covid the school district and staff decided to pick and choose how to handle the situation when it came to my children and their lack of face coverings my son now suffers from anxiety

068attacks at school elevated heart rate headaches and teeth grinding which led him led to him needing a root canal at seven years old seven years old I don't know what your thoughts about that are but that is completely 100 unacceptable to me my children are being abused by the school district and you are hiding behind a public health emergency to do so if teachers are so comfortable and feel safe going unmasked to restaurants bars and Gatherings with friends then they are going to be safe with unmasked children in their classrooms the district nurse stated that 89 percent of the teachers in the district who wanted the vaccine had gotten their first vaccination as of the April 12th board meeting meaning that by now anyone who wanted the vaccine would be fully vaccinated so what is

069your end game will The Masks never come off everyone in this District deserves freedom of choice I know that many if not all of you on the board have children of your own let me ask you a question do you think that you know what is best for your children do you think that you should be allowed to make decisions for your own children now what makes you think that we don't believe and deserve the same thing my husband I have three letters behind our names that make us the experts and those three letters spell mom and dad we are the experts on our own children me and my husband no one else not the board not Mr stelson not Mr Williams I'm also asking that quarantining be stopped immediately there is no need to

070quarantine healthy students and deprive them of an education virtual learning is not an equitable education let's let parents choose whatever they feel is right for their children if parents want to continue to mask their children and keep them home if they've been exposed that's fine I respect their right to make those decisions for their children what I do not respect is people not allowing me to choose the same for my children I'm asking you to allow our community the right to decide what is best for our kids and make masks a choice thank you [Applause] thank you Krista ework hello my name is Christy ewert my family lives in Germantown we have three children that attend Germantown Public Schools one of the main reasons we moved here four years ago was for the great School

071District today I'm here to express my concerns regarding the receipt the recent board actions on the topic of critical race Theory and its place in our school district even more so I'm here to speak directly on the complete lack of transparency that has been displayed by our schools specifically superintendent Brett straussland and director Brenda O'Brien on this topic in a letter sent to parents since the last board meeting superintendent strausslin stated that CRT is only taught in two elective High School AP classes and that is not taught in elementary or middle schools or any mandatory classes while this may be technically true this is clearly skirting semantic lines CRT isn't intended to be solely taught directly as a topic it's intended to be integrated and Infused into all lesson plans at all ages through how

072our teachers are taught to interact with our students as well as the way topics are presented to them so while some are asking where is it taught or when is it taught that provides a very easy answer by just addressing it as CRT you can say it's only been taught in two classes but if you ask the question how is this being taught to our teachers and how is it being implemented in our children's lesson plans I suspect the answer will not be quite so clear I further suspect that this and several other questions of this sort are why superintendent charlesland and director O'Brien are looking to avoid further discussion on it and shut it down by just saying it's in two AP classes it's my belief that superintendent strausslin and director of teacher in

073teaching and learning Brenda O'Brien and several other teachers like Mr Whitehead who spoke last week intend to re-shame the board and Community while keeping them misinformed on the true and their true intentions and actions providing them time and money to force this hateful racist ideology onto the remaining teachers and our students this couldn't be more evident than from the presentation given by director O'Brien and teacher Mr Whitehead when combined with recent Communications several concerned families have had with superintendent straussland and director O'Brien during these conversations they were informed families that no crt-based training has been presented to the teachers this is an outlet like oh this is an outright lie to the families copies of an email director O'Brien and has already been discussed here tonight have been emailed to each of the board members

074for this to be a surprise to you must mean that you're not reading the letters that you're getting from your community in this email director O'Brien explains to the staff that she's been working with lynetta Davis who is a consultant with the fern from umudu research and evaluation to implement CRT and facilitate staff training this consulting firm is of grave concern to me the founder Monique Liston describes herself as a chief strategist and joyful militant in her bio on the firm's website I urge you to take the time to review their website where they advise evaluation curriculum development and program design along with facilitation and coaching I would take great issue with the district using taxpayer money to pay a joyful militant or her Representatives to coach and consult our administrators and teachers in the

075in the development of our school's correct curriculum some of this coaching has already taken place during the march 2021 teachers in service as also has been addressed here tonight in those lesson plans and study questions that were used during that in-service have been emailed to each of the board members as well as a parent in the germatone and the Germantown Community member I'm shocked to learn that the administrators believe the solution to racism is more racism [Applause] why isn't there transparency to the parents and the school board and what is being presented to our teachers and children it also leads me to ask what else is being hidden at this time I would request the board rescind the band on CRT and extend it to theories that incorporate division based on any person's personal traits

076or characteristics I caution the board and community members to limit the ban to the simple term critical race Theory as the name can be simply shifted to another flavor of the day acronym while its Core teaching remains intact please keep Germantown School District unified not divided thank you Gene Mary welcome Gene Mary resident of Germantown the materials for tonight suggested the need for an equity expert for the district I will preface my comments by sharing an excerpt by a policy researcher published in hotels College critical race Theory formulated in the 1990s is built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism critical race theorists realized that neo-marxism would be a hard sell equity on the other hand sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality but the distinction is vast and important

077equality is proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence 14th and 15th amendments civil rights and voting acts is explicitly rejected by CRT in contrast to equality Equity as defined and promoted by critical race theorists is little more than reformatted Marxism an equity-based form of government would mean the end of individual rights and equality under the law federalism and freedom of speech these would be replaced by race-based redistribution of wealth group-based rights and active discrimination okay that said if the district maintains the teachers need to understand what Equity means there is no need to hire an expert [Applause] as a former teacher I know what a teaching spell pay scale looks like I am sure it has not changed much in the last several years it is basically an X Y axis with years of experience down

078the side and advanced education across the type top of it this is an equality based system every teacher has an equal opportunity to advance on the pay scale so forgo hiring an equity expert stick a pit in the pay scale and that will become the salary for every single teacher in the district regardless of yours taught or further education you will then have an equity-based pay system that they will easily understand I would venture to say that less experienced teachers with no additional coursework will feel no need to better their skill sets with more education and teachers who have advanced on the pay skill will not be happy you will have the divisiveness that CRT is intended to Foster and probably a large dose of resentment by a good portion of your faculty in conclusion

079our students do not need to be taught to distrust or hate anyone to feel guilty about who they are or to feel that they cannot be proud of this country skip the CRT spend the time teaching our Constitution and all of the facts about U.S history great [Applause] if you do that without bias they will recognize past mistakes and can move forward doing better if we teach the unbiased unvarnished truth about our entire history students will be able to make informed decisions about themselves and their relationships with others regardless of race Creed gender or any other divisive categories presented by CRT thank you [Applause] thank you Diane Peterson welcome good evening Diane Peterson I'm a resident of Richfield I was also a TA or a teaching assistant at Alverno College and one of the first

080women I worked very hard like you guys campaign one of the first of two women elected to the Richfield Town board in 1997. after 150 years the first women so I'm I left the meeting quite early last time and so I listened to the later portion of the teachers and the board put through your website tonight I'd like to address your new business item number seven d and teacher contracts and suggestion to have a director of diversity of equity sorry first let me address Mr Whitehead's comments at last meeting he was asked by either the school board or the superintendent to explain how and where CRT is found in the Germantown curriculum while Mr Whitehead has the right to speak and was asked to speak I was surprised with his expression of anger when he

081and I paraphrase wasted his time responding to an incomprehensible board action as a TA in speech class at Alverno we taught students to learn and identify who Their audience is when speaking as a board are you happy with the way Mr Whitehead spoke to you are you as parents happy to know the way this teacher spoke to that board since when is it wasting a teacher's time to explain to the board and parents what their children are being taught [Applause] tonight and last week should be upset by his tone the raising of his voice and his attitude against the board and also to the parents who were there or maybe some of those were on his side who's to know I just added that in fact it was an immortal it was a informational report

082not a persuasive speech and in that kind of a speech you use emotion to help promote the facts he was just supposed to give the facts as to where it was found we don't need his emotions you have mine right now but we didn't need his since I'm against CRT if I would have said that report you might have heard me say I was thrilled to find it only in two classes upper grade classes he didn't say he was concerned with the basic premise of CRT or how divisive it can be rather than his tone of voice and word said he was angry he had to make that report remember parents are taxpayers they pay his salary the parents should be angry one quick note on Equity that your Ace committee is looking at under

083suggestion to hire a directive Equity my grandchildren live in a suburb of Nashville one was adopted for Korea as a 10 10 month old baby attended a School in Tennessee where they hired a diversity Equity teacher after many children came home crying my grandson as well and what the teacher said to them and about them the parents thank you got together went to the school and they stopped the diversity Equity curriculum instead it's time for parents to demand a teacher to be hired to teach life liberty and the pursuit of happiness if it's not already taught here it may well be oh that man let me end with a quote from Thomas soul I think a lot of you may have heard of him education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today

084but it's replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination thank you [Applause] thank you Elizabeth Greene welcome foreign I've never been to a school board meeting but when I heard about the last one I just sounded like so much fun I had to come but um honestly I'm really um kind of shocked and appalled about CRT that it's even being proposed I know what titty Marxist like people have said um critical race Theory makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American Life categorizing individuals into groups of oppressors and victims it is a philosophy that is infecting everything from politics and education to the workplace and the military in fact we've seen the federal government has implemented a federal Dairy Farmer mortgage forgiveness program for it they they pay 120 percent

085of the Dairy Farmers mortgage unless you're white so this poor farmer as grouped with other Farmers to hire lawyers and fight it but how sad is that critical race theorists falsely accuse the United States of being a fundamentally racist nation and condemns capitalism individual rights and the Constitution CRT claims that American institution institutions such as the Constitution property rights color blindness and equal protection under the law are vestiges of white supremacy patriarchy and capitalist oppression all of which must be overthrown in the name of anti-racism ultimately critical race Theory and anti-racism policies would deepen racial divisions and undermine the very institutions that are essential to addressing poverty and inequality across all racial groups policy makers concerned about these issues should reject critical race Theory and Orient public policy toward rebuilding the institutions of family work

086and education which have been proven to lift Americans of all racial backgrounds out of poverty critical race Theory ignores evidence that shows that family structure educational attainment and Workforce participation are the primary drivers of inequality according to UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris the goal of CRT is to replace the system of property rights and equal protection with a system of positive discrimination if that's not an oxymoron I don't know what is tasked with redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to achieve real equality to achieve this goal she Advocates a large-scale wealth and property redistribution instead of teaching critical race Theory I propose we teach critical thinking after [Applause] a year and a half of lockdowns and virtual learning most students are behind in their education are we going to allow teachers

087to take Precious time out of the school day to teach victimhood instead of blaming people of A different race for lack of success Let's help students to understand that with hard work and determination they can achieve their goals America is not a racist country we voted for a black president for eight years and now we have a black vice president let's stop dividing people and let's embrace the great blessing that we all share in being Americans A House Divided cannot stand Martin Luther King Jr would not support CRT he stated in his I Have a Dream speech I Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character focusing on victimhood never leads to happiness or success and will destroy our Republic

088we are asking the Germantown School Board to do the right thing and reject CRT our children deserve better thank you [Applause] thank you uh Jody Graf welcome um since I like to start by going off script I thought it was really sweet that those kids came in today and I know that it was meant so well to applaud them and thank them for being here but it really breaks my heart that they had to be told I know it's scary to come up here when we're all in masks and I hope we really think about what that meant and that we're doing that to our kids every day so let's all please take a deep breath and reground ourselves in remembering that the voices of this school board and its meetings exist for parents and

089community members to be involved in shaping our children's educational experience this is not to be done by outside interests or by only a few we all matter we all should be here participating and thank you to every single person of every side that is here participating every single one of our kids and students deserves to feel safe and comfortable at school many of our kids don't feel safe or comfortable wearing a mask all day long five days a week some families want their kids to wear it some students don't feel comfortable for fear of being bullied or verbally attacked how many of us in this room were bullied as a kid for something that we were something about a substitute okay kids can act out and be intentionally insensitive as part of developing and attempting

090to deal with their own insecurities but since when has the response to that behavior been the creation of an equity committee and an equity committee that wasn't offered to the public for participation and I would like to be part of that if I would be allowed this isn't even about masks anymore like Jason said the virus is a thousand times smaller than the holes and fabrics so they don't even work and a petri dish sample would show most of these kids masks are literally a threat threat to their health because they're filthy plus the agenda was never to stop the spread it was to slow the spread there's a virus out there we're all gonna get it and over 99 of us are going to survive it so for those who say well there's only

091a month of school left or well they're just kids they're adaptable no and no [Applause] shame on all of us for allowing this to go on without listening to each individual student as to what makes them feel safe and comfortable at school whatever that looks like to each family they deserve to finish their last month of school in all of eternity feeling comfortable and confident and at their best to learn every day they are just children regardless of their age their innocence should never be taken advantage of nor taken from them it's been 14 months of mental anguish and stress on them we cannot place the burden of fear on our children it must end now masks must become a choice as I said last time we have an amazing Community here I saw an

092awesome picture that Kim posted of all different high school students coming together for a kickball game and she said that's what it's all about acceptance and genuine respect I couldn't have loved or agreed with that more that is what we're after here this isn't about masks this isn't about race this is about community this is about individuality and healthy parenting this is about kindness and sticking up from one another and being pissed off when somebody in the community isn't being treated well or isn't being allowed to be themself or take care of their family in the way that they see best possible I can't tell you the number of families that I've heard from that said they've moved here for this school myself included some of our best friends are looking to move here maybe

093you've seen them they're black and Asian and they come to many of our sporting events because they're like an aunt and uncle to my kids they don't want to live and walk anymore because they've recently felt a serious lack of community where they live so why do so many great families choose to send their kids here because we value the sense of community and we want everyone who wants the same if anyone wants to be part of this community and to look out for their neighbor and stand up for freedom and equality and transparency in just being a good person please be part of Germantown and this school district what there's no room for however is allowing anything to divide us as a community what there's no room for is entering this room with passion

094and not setting it aside to hear someone else's story and pain and needs what there's no room for is coming here to say I don't want bullying anymore and then snickering and jeering and bullying someone who has a different point of view or telling them they're not allowed to feel sorry for things that are going on with others because of the color of their skin doesn't match someone else's that's literally what happened last time and it's not okay in my house we live by the Platinum Rule and that's treating others how they want to be treated if we as a community can't even apply the golden rule of treating others how we want to be treated how the heck are we ever going to start treating someone how they want to be treated how can

095we ever expect our children to be a better generation if we're not walking the walk parents must be allowed to parent when mom had an issue and needed to stick up for her son she went to the parents of the students she had an issue with and she went to the school and that is how things are going to get resolved individual accountability allow parents to parent if they're not willing to step up and do that they're going to have a real quick Awakening when their kid gets expelled for bullying allow parents to parents make masks a choice stop categorizing our kids celebrate them celebrate their individuality catch them doing right you catch them being kind superheroes in elementary school the wall behind you at the last meeting in Kennedy was filled with lessons and

096it said how to get others to like you be respectful smile full of simple tips on how to be a stand-up person good in good out teach that teach positivity ownership and confidence teach student body and Community Unity it's not okay to teach our kids to divide themselves into categories instead of all be on the same playing field while being beautifully different stop discriminating against kids who don't want to wear masks and don't allow discrimination or segregation in our schools via student on student teacher beliefs on students or divisive curriculum against students and if you're not willing to stand up and stand for these things that's okay just please step down and let somebody else take your seat [Applause] [Music] we need a ban on questioning instruction or other treatment of a student based on

097the student's race and make masks a choice thank you [Applause] thank you Melissa thiermann welcome my husband and I moved to Germantown six years ago with our two young children now three kids for the great schools in the Germantown School District in talking with many other families in the area and tonight others mentioned as well this seems to be a very common theme so many families have moved here because of the high standards in quality education of this District I'm confident that approving critical race Theory to be incorporated into our schools will force families to move to a different school district and the impact of CRT will destroy our community during the last school board meeting I didn't hear from anyone that is in favor of CRT as to what is in the curriculum that

098is so essential that we need to have it in our schools but when I did my own research I found so many reasons why it shouldn't be in our schools consider the lawsuit that was filed in Nevada where a senior high school student was forced to take a sociology of change class in order to graduate in this critical race Theory based class students were required to disclose their race gender religious and sexual identities then students who identified as white or male or heterosexual or Christian are labeled with derogatory terms and they are asked to undo and unlearn their beliefs that stem from oppression the senior in this lawsuit refused to partake in this class and was the and therefore received a failing grade the situation wound up in court on grounds of unconstitutional and long

099story short the students feeling grade has been removed that's just one example of many in a publication by Christopher ruffle founder and director of Battlefront of public policy Research Center States many examples of how CRT is unfolding in other districts in California first graders were forced to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and rank themselves according to their power and privilege first graders in Springfield Missouri a middle school forced teachers to locate themselves on an oppression Matrix based on the idea that straight white English-speaking Christian males are members of the oppressed oppressor class and must atone for their privilege and covert white supremacy in Philadelphia fifth graders were forced to celebrate Black communism and simulate a black power rally to free 1960s radical Angela Davis from prison where she had once been held on charges

100of murder and in Seattle the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of spirit murder against black children and must bankrupt their privilege and acknowledgment of their thieved inheritance critical race Theory preaches of division placing students into groups based on certain intrinsic characteristics you are either privileged or oppressed no group comes out on top it is nothing but negativity we need to instill positive affirmations to our children and in our schools if a child hears every day that they are a victim then that is the mentality they will have wouldn't you rather all of our children here every day that they are amazing and intelligent and kind and a leader and destined for great things same thing for the white oppressors as identified by CRT I want my child hearing positivity every day

101not being told and taught negativity just because of the color of the skin he was born with I don't deny that racist incidents may occur in the district many parents and students shared personal experiences of harassment as a last board meeting this was extremely concerning to me so I reached out and was able to connect with a leader in our school district who explained that Germantown school district has stricter disciplinary standards compared to all surrounding area districts when it comes to topics like harassment I learned that all incidents is reported by a student or parent are investigated a statement is taken from anyone involved in the incident video footage from cameras are reviewed Witnesses are questioned it sounds like it's a very thorough process I also heard from this leader that a large majority of

102experiences shared during a recent board meeting were being heard for the very first time in a public forum why isn't the standard procedure being used and these events being reported when they happen perhaps that is a better place to start than critical race Theory I do not see how critical race Theory or any similar ideology will benefit our children and our community it will only create further division we need to come together we need to instill in our children and in our schools respect confidence Integrity willpower honesty accountability positivity and individuality we need to stop this division please I am asking you our elected representatives to our school board do not allow critical race Theory or any type of this ideology into our schools we need to be United not divided thank you [Applause] thank

103you Meg Makowski all right Cindy Welsh thank you thank you for the chance to come here and offer my thoughts of a recent anti-bullying campaign the Germantown High School put together my daughter is a ninth grader at the high school and I'd like to say how much I've appreciated the opportunities she's had at the school between the education she's received the sports that she's been able to participate in even if she didn't make all the teams she tried out for and most recently all the effort that it's been put into bringing back students in a way that balanced safety of the students and staff with the needs of having in class learning resume as quickly as possible I don't pretend to see all the work that has gone into this school year but I certainly

104appreciate it so thank you what I wanted to touch on today was regarding a recent video that was presented to the entire student body after several several weeks ago it was in response to some significant concerns that have come up around the respect of students at the Germantown High School and particularly with respect to sexual identity having not been aware of the video or its presentation until my daughter mentioned it one day after school I reached out to the school in hopes of seeing it I was told that some students had received the video via email through teachers but if I wanted to see it I must go to school I went to the school and the school was happy to assist me to I met with the vice principal and watched the video it

105was very appropriate and the anti-bullying messages were good what I didn't appreciate about the video was these were 14 year olds 15 year olds and 16 year olds in the video with with other staff and students and their parents had no idea that they had been shown the whole school and staff had been shown this video so I hope you can tell the concern I wanted to bring to this meeting tonight was that there's always been announcements ahead of time to parents when sensitive topics are being presented to our students to get parents to have a talk ahead of time with our kids and hopefully get the most benefit from these types of forums these things can be difficult to talk about and it is certainly Uncharted Territory at times that we need to work

106together together as parents and Educators to ensure that the right message is offered to students as each family sees fit and in particular in this case helping our kids understand how important this message of eliminating bullying from our schools so I ask that in the future the school continued to make parents aware ahead of time so we can all know what is coming and work on together on bringing up the Next Generation thank you [Applause] thank you Chad Manson welcome thank you hi my name is Pat Matson I have two children in the district one here at MacArthur and one four-year-old future student the board passed a motion at the last meeting to make masks optional for summer school and I can surmise you are prepared to vote the same for the 21-22 school year

107this is premature I have searched the CDC in a multitude of other scientific sources to find any guidance that success suggests that this is appropriate and there isn't any I did however fill this binder with scientific information that supports the continuation of mask usage especially in schools I had to spend much of my free time pouring over data to condense for you during my busiest time of the year as an educator because it appears you didn't spend any time on it to be thought leaders you must use accurate vetted data to produce that thought in the most recent update to the CDC guidelines there are five key prevention strategies that are essential to Safe delivery of in-person instruction number one is a universal and correct use of masks this is Paramount in a time when

108the American Association of Pediatricians and the Children's Hospital Association reported that childhood cases are up to 22 percent of all cases from three percent last year Wisconsin is part of that rise yeah Wisconsin is part of that rise according to Dr Sean O'Leary Vice chair of the aap's committee on infectious diseases this is partially due to new highly contagious variants and in-person school relaxing mitigation standards recommendations by our Wisconsin DHS and subsequently by the Washington Ozaukee County Public Health Department are to wear masks in schools and to quarantine when close contact occurs note we had a positive case in the school district last week imagine if that person had chosen not to wear masks despite a lot of popular opinion children do spread it and that could have caused an outbreak within our community now

109it was stated last at the last meeting that we are doing well and why not test it out over the summer in this scenario the test subjects are our children and a test failure would be why Community spreads severe illness and possible deaths those are just the known outcomes now what we don't know is what the future holds for our children who are infected by kova 19 and neither do the experts yet but think of varicella disaster or chickenpox parents used to actively infect their children at chickenpox parties because it appeared relatively harmless to children it was quite dangerous to adults decades later we found that an immune response could reactivate the virus manifesting in painful source that could lead to other more extreme and permanent outcomes imagine the ramifications of this virus that attacks

110the respiratory system could evoke a similar response I know it's not an easy decision but why does fall need to be decided now we have updated vaccine schedules that show all students may be eligible for vaccines close to the start of the school here or next school year but as of now zero percent of children under 16 have had access to vaccinations zero percent that means one hundred percent of those children that means 100 of those children are vulnerable to those who choose not to wear masks and expose them in closed settings if we mitigate for just a bit longer once all school-aged kids can be vaccinated the science will support a removal of the Mask requirement I have heard citizens and board members say it should be an option to wear masks but I

111remind all of you that those who choose to not wear masks I did not speak up when you were speaking it's it is not a free-for-all I respected your time please respect mine so I've heard citizens and board members say that it should be an option but I remind all of you who choose to not wear masks you will spread it to those who do do according to every single evidence-based study I will remind the people who said that these masks don't stop the spread of viruses these Mass Stop droplets aerosolized droplet spread and that virus is encapsulated and droplets if it's not encapsulated and droplets you can't spread it now lack of a safe place to learn means that our children will be denied their blessings of liberty by the sport if you don't

112trust the science you shouldn't be a member of a Board of Education please don't guess you 've dated when it comes to our children's safety I actually printed this out for you would you like to review the scientific data no okay if you could please leave it with Brenda O'Brien sure that way the board can reference it thank you uh Cindy Schrader Germantown High School graduate 1928 longtime Germantown resident and a very concerned citizen who attended the meeting on April 26th I came to the meeting with my mother and my aunt who both live in Germantown I thought the agenda was to discuss a CRT curriculum in our schools but I was horrified as the night went on I must say the entire night was pretty intimidating for a lot of us all we heard

113was student after student some teachers read the typical race made in garbage no one discussed the curriculum the propaganda and whining about race just went on and on one woman actually got up and called us racist and I am offended by this I grew up here I am still here we are not a racist Community we are a welcoming committee community I was at the meeting for an hour and a half and never had an opportunity to ask my question and if you actually do your homework regarding CRT it is a Marxist teaching which attempts to promote further division in communities once it is accepted it is packaged as equity kids get radicalized Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of our Constitution states that we all as individuals have equal protection under the law equity

114which CRT teaching encompasses states that each group receives the same outcomes as every other group this is racist plain and simple this is Karl Marx teaching and this has no business in our schools in Germantown a teacher's job is to educate our children in math science Reading Writing but not equity also there's discussion surrounding an equity officer I ask why Thomas Saul the great Economist quote no one no one Equity program has ever lifted anyone out of poverty lastly Miss Brenda O'Brien the director of teaching and learning has recently advised her teachers to read the book me and white supremacy and examine their own white privilege again this is racist this book is written without any facts it is not written in good faith and there is no evidence to support the writings in this

115book I cannot believe that a director of teaching and learning would introduce such racism here we are not judged by the color of our skin but the content of our character thank you [Applause] thank you Alyssa Apollo welcome hello I spoke at the school board meeting two weeks ago and voiced my opposition for a critical race Theory at that time I am disappointed to see how some of you have backpedaled on your decision when in the spring you were running for election and I specifically asked this question and I was told that CRT had no place in our schools so were you telling me what I wanted to hear or were you willing to hold true to your word it's also very concerning that what Sarah Larson pointed out at the last meeting was that

116when we when the school administrators were asked if it was in the schools they said they didn't know now you tell us it's been in the schools for the past 10 years in the AP classes so which is it you do not have your finger on the pulse of what is happening in our classrooms you need to start knowing what your teachers are doing and what is being taught day in and day out our public schools which receive funding for public dollars do not exist to groom our students into activists for particular causes shame children for their immutable traits or deny them their childhood it is immoral to reduce them to their racial and gender categories and to teach them to do the same to others we should not be promoting our schools to conduct

117educational programs and pedagogy that stereotype scapegoat or demean students on the basis of race should be focused on academic as Excellence not left as politics I bring up academic Excellence because the U.S news and World Report just released a 2021 rankings Germantown ranked number 22 for the state which is two points lower than we were the year before I was very disappointed to see that Germantown students had only a 51 math proficiency and a 57 reading proficiency meanwhile schools in our surrounding areas of Whitefish Bay Cedarburg Grafton Mequon both Brookfield schools and New Berlin all had higher rankings scoring three to fourteen percent higher in math proficiency and six to fourteen percent higher in Reading proficiency this is embarrassing Brenda O'Brien are you proud of these numbers because I am not and I graduated from

118Germantown in 2005. this is disappointing we need to stop wasting our precious class time on these divisive and damaging agendas and focus our efforts on concrete foundational education [Applause] as for the ace committee's recommendation for a director of equity this will be a complete waste of money and time having an expert in this field will serve no purpose to our student body as there is no agreed upon expert criteria it's only people who like CRT who designate these peoples as experts in the first place thank you our school should not be spending money on these experts when you can't even put together a decent busing plan because of budget [Applause] I recognize that some of the students in our schools have experienced some very sad disgusting and Disturbing Behavior at the hands of their peers

119I saw the Burger King video it was abhorrent I fully acknowledge that what those students chose to do was wrong and no one deserves to be treated that way but we cannot think that implementing CRT is going to fix all of these problems because it will not we need to work together find Solutions and have transparent rules and Punishment when students engage in this degrading Behavior again I ask you to continue to educate yourselves on this topic that you please review material from both sides as I have emailed you twice resources from websites articles YouTube videos and podcasts that all speak to this content and for anyone here I have handouts it has over 50 resources that you can look up and educate yourself I have listened and read to every single one thank you

120[Applause] thank you uh Scott Heffley welcome thank you for the time per usual kind of tough to me to follow any of the stuff that was said earlier as as you know where my where my interests lie so I won't be talking about Transportation CRT or any of those things um you know I named myself the budget guy I guess and my concern I hear a lot of you know passionate people out here and they all want the same thing we all want the same thing to be the best school district we can be you know however that shakes out however we do it so on the idea of curriculum there was a was brought it back in February that we want to start a Virtual Academy and this was in response to losing 65

121kids due to covid who found a virtual option elsewhere okay so we felt that that we should look into that option and I agree with it as long as we're going to hold the same academic standards that this school has had albeit going down according to the last speaker we still are pretty darn high in the state the least the latest one latest rankings I saw there's a couple of them out there niche.com a couple years ago we were 16 out of 371 districts number 16 out of 371 school districts in the state I think that's high I know there's others that are hired near us but that's still pretty high okay so what I see on the agenda that we were going to discuss this and ask for a grant from the state to

122have us look into CRT and have it be available not this following year but the year after and I think that's a great idea let's get the grant let's research it let's talk to other people who run one and let's see how it goes and if it makes sense we'll do it I don't think the 65 kids that left are coming back I really don't if they're coming back they're not coming back virtual they're coming back because all the teachers are vaccinated and the parents feel comfortable okay we had trouble with delivery of virtual when we got caught by the virus I get that now we know better about what we need to do and I think we're going to have less virtual kids not more that's just my opinion so rather than waiting for

123a grant we appear to be charging ahead and setting up a Virtual Academy next school year not the one after to study it not waiting for a grant but to actually do it and then I brought it up before in Mar or February March we're looking to do it with the school district that is way below ours from proficiency waable okay far far below so I don't know why we would do that thankfully disclaimer okay maybe not thankfully both my kids went through the entire School District my youngest one graduated during colbit okay he was a senior so I don't have a kid in the district but I still have a passion for the community and I think and I know you're discussing it later I think this is a bad idea my opinion because

124I would never want my kids to experience a level of proficiency professionalism education lower than what we currently provide and that's what we'd be doing if we offer an option from a school district that's nowhere near the level that we are at I think that's a very foolish idea and then and I might be wrong and I know there's going to be a report about it and you know what if I'm wrong I will come back to this board and apologize and stand corrected because that's what I do okay we would be paying this School District virtual 4 700 to send one of our kids there to be taught by their teachers who by the way as a school district are nowhere near us I'm not going to mention their ranking you can look it

125up it's on the board agenda board packet so I have no idea why we do that my question is did we survey all the parents of the district and we parent we're going to be starting to survey parents about a lot of things right ask them what they want ask them do we want this and if we do it and if we get a grant to do it and if it's sponsored by this Community these administrators and they say we're running it then I'll I'll be for it other than that I am not in favor thank you [Applause] thank you uh Matt Yankee good evening I'm uh Matt Yankee parents of three kids in the school district uh with the fourth starting school in a little over a year I'm here as a voice for

126much of the MacArthur family and I wanted to read a statement on the negative effects that your vote on new busing and Bell schedules will have in particular on the MacArthur students families and staff I believe that this issue should have been tabled last board meeting due to the magnitude of much more pressing issues that were being discussed I understand that many are upset about the early start and pickup times for both the high school and middle school which I also agree with and was addressed a little earlier but I can say at least all the high schoolers in middle schoolers are in the same boat or should maybe say the same bus at this point MacArthur is being put at a disadvantage for many reasons compared to their peers not only in the district

127but those in the surrounding areas as a whole we have an overwhelming deficit and the biggest Factor outside the mismanagement of funds over the last five plus years is a it's declining enrollment so the way to try and fix this is to make decisions and hurt our children and not encourage Community growth we love to compare ourselves to other school districts as we just were hearing a little bit here and post about how great Germantown is in relation to the other districts in the area well how about these comparisons out of over 30 districts throughout the wow counties so Waukesha Washington and Ozaukee there's only one one school district that has staggered elementary school start in end times out of over 80 elementary schools throughout all these districts MacArthur Elementary would be the only one

128that starts after 9 A.M and ends after 4 pm now are those things something to boast about and to draw new families into this district there are currently five new subdivisions in Germantown that have houses going up in them as of current elementary lines each of those subdivisions fall in the MacArthur Zone do you think those families are prospective buyers find that as a pro to send their kids to Germantown Public Schools parents are not able to start work until after 9 A.M or some students will be getting home just before 5 PM every day even though they all live within five minutes of the school of course opposition has not been risen by those families at County Line who get to move up their school days for what many find beneficial both for the

129kids and parents Amy Bell in Rockfield everything pretty much stays status quo but then there's MacArthur which happens to be the only title one Elementary School in the district so that's meaning that over 40 percent of the students are on a free or reduced breakfast and lunch program those students are now being put in an even greater disadvantage in their peers some of those students may not be receiving a meal or a good meal for that matter from lunchtime the previous school day until breakfast at almost 9 A.M the next morning the district lays out on its website an explanation of the title one program with a quote from the Wisconsin Department of Instruction it reads title one is a federal program that provides funds to school districts and schools with high numbers or high

130percentages of children who are disadvantaged to support a variety of services its overall purpose is to ensure that all children have a fair equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education and reach at a minimum proficiency and challenging State academic achievement standards and assessments that does not sound like our school district is supporting this program for for that overall purpose as a matter of fact it seems as if they're doing quite the opposite parent student and teacher has to sign this title one compact maybe it's time that the school board also signs it I find it all quite alarming considering the recent Equity issues brought to light in this district and community now not only are Title 1 students families and staff affected at MacArthur but all Mac families are kids being in

131Kids Club in the morning for over three hours before school starts the extra costs associate associated with the before care and it being passed along strictly to my MacArthur families My Son Nolan who uh spoke earlier in the meeting as one of the Mac leaders is going into fifth grade he has a ton of extracurricular activities just like most kids in this District he has basketball practices in Mequon starting at 4 30. tackle football here in Germantown that we are arriving at before 5 PM my second grader Elena has piano on one of the nights at 4 30 and soccer in Cedarburg on other nights also by 4 30. there are many MacArthur kids now that definitely will not be able to ride the bus won't have time to grab a snack or finish a

132little homework before these activities start but their peers will this applies to those peers in Germantown and the surrounding communities don't forget that my son will also start learning two hours earlier when going from MacArthur to KMS the following year I know that the staff at MacArthur voiced these concerns along with the difficulty of young children to stay focused and actively learn to later gets into the day and now they are being asked to do so even longer it is embarrassing that when discussing options at the March 23rd meeting not a single Committee Member nor Mrs altendorf nor Mr stelson brought up a single one of these concern it was all about the money now I'm sure you don't like to just hear complaints so here's what I would do to fix this money issue

133and it's not just threatening to cut staff which is one of our biggest Assets in this District start Maybe by not just automatically extending our contract with RightWay year after year contract after contract I understand that right way in Germantown school district have a long history of essentially growing up together but why are we not at least looking into different Transportation vendors Germantown decided to extend the current contract that we had going through the 2122 school year last September mind you in the middle of a pandemic and during the whole back to school with debacle this once again was done without a single look into what competitors could offer or a single discussion by the committee or board we now have a contract with RightWay through the 24-25 school year on the other hand we

134seem to get multiple Chromebook in iPad financing bids to compare what is offered in overall costs I actually think I counted eight bids on those why do we do something like that for a couple hundred thousand dollar expenditure but not for a 1.5 million dollar plus expense like fussing I asked these questions through an email of our board members and I got a response solely stating to compare our transportation costs to other school districts well it's impossible to compare to other districts when what is being offered to our students especially MacArthur students is a far inferior product compared to what the surrounding communities give I can however compare Germantown school board and our transportation committees process to other school districts West Bend just selected their new busing for the next two years their process included

135a request for proposal which was sent to nine vendors of which four responded they formed a committee of District staff and parents that conducted three site visits for each of these vendors they came up with a mathematical evaluation sheet that assigned ratings in three categories safety and Equipment references and expertise and costs they then picked the winning bid based on that we on the other hand in Germantown looked at one thing costs not the children oh and by the way that cost was from one vendor one and with all that said the MacArthur students families and staff all suffer due to a lack of foresight laziness or just downright ignorance the district preaches a whole child approach but apparently that doesn't apply to all the children in our schools but it looks good from a

13610 000 foot view as our superintendent stating the March 23rd committee meeting thank you [Applause] thank you Kelly fetcher good evening my name is Kelly butcher I spoke last board meeting my first board meeting it was quite an adventure I was asked to read a letter from a Community member that was written anonymously they didn't have the guts to stand up in front of everybody and read that but they wanted a voice so as a nurse I'm a voice for people I'm going to start out a little bit with masks so once upon a time on the OSHA website before it was erased because it didn't meet the mandates and the storyline this surgical mask here this humble little surgical mask was designed to work in effect like a vacuum cleaner bag a one-way valve

137kind of in a way of sorts designed to work in a sterile environment once it is saturated in about 20 to 30 minutes with warm breath it then becomes more detrimental to the wearer breathing in particles if you're in a contaminated environment so it doesn't really protect the person breathing in because again it acts as a vacuum cleaner one-way valve type of situation the n95 mask a little bit better filtration designed for a contaminated environment so construction workers you know Dusty projects you'll wear these you'll also notice that those fibers still get in your nose they still go around the mask this mask does nothing to protect the people surrounding the wearer because it essentially offers no filtration when they breathe out so in order to to bruly filter hopefully this minute particle from the

138virus you would effectively have to wear both of these nobody's going to do that my kids already think that school is a torture chamber and then we go ahead he does he literally does because he has some issues with ADD and ADHD and then we go ahead and we force him to wear a mask and the the fibers are even more porous in these guys not to mention the fact that most people will wear them over and over multiple days in a row they don't properly wash them or disinfect them they often don't dry before the next wearing thereby they develop mildew and mold and people then inhale those and worsen pulmonary conditions so with that being said I'm going to also jump into a little bit more from the last board meeting on the

139Hot Topic of critical race Theory so my son came with me last time and he made a couple of observations now he's an 11 year old boy he made a couple of observations he said wow Mom they laughed at you when you stood up there and you talked he said that's not very respectful when they're looking for respect that's an 11 year old boy he after hearing about the story of I noticed that Meg is gone unfortunately um after he heard about amari's story he called the kid out on the bus the next day he said dude that was wrong it was not okay my middle boy has a crush on Meg's little girl and I think it's the cutest thing because his brother will Heckle him like brothers do his cheeks turned pink his

140ears turn pink and he gets all embarrassed because he's got that little boy crush I think that's adorable I was laughed at because I said I grew up colorblind I grew up in Milwaukee one of my Fondest Memories of my mother growing up was getting to go to the bank and getting to see Rita the tall pretty one this statuesque black lady she was so sweet to us I don't teach my children bad things and I don't think most of us teach our children bad things and at one point in my life I signed a blank check up to and including my life if it was asked of me to defend everybody's right to free speech it doesn't mean freedom from consequences but free speech everybody should have their voice and the mom that's sitting

141up here this time she talked about educating we can't hold people accountable if we don't educate them I 100 agree with that I celebrate other cultures with my kids I find it fascinating to learn about them and I think everybody should find it fascinating to learn about other cultures because I find people fascinating I find their Traditions fascinating at one point in my life I have a very German Heritage at one point in my life I felt like I should be ashamed of my Heritage because of what the Nazis did and then I realized how silly that was because it wasn't me I didn't do that why can't I be why can't I be proud of my Heritage the way that every student of color should be they bravely stood up here and shared their

142stories and I think that's fabulous but I don't think that critical race theory is the way to go because we look at it being detrimental to one culture in particular it's always the oppressor it's the good versus the bad that's not what it should be we should learn about other cultures we should learn about other ethnicities and traditions but it should be equally it should not be to the detriment of one or two we should celebrate people we should absolutely recognize the differences but we cannot continue with this situation of bad bad I've seen the emails about the book Brenda you're real popular tonight with your book sorry but I can't say that I agree with that either because when I look at white privilege I didn't grow up with white privilege my mom was

143a single mother most of it was on minimum wage she didn't have a college education she worked hard to get where she was and the things that I have today I have worked hard to get I have earned every single thing it has not been white privilege and my boys are learning that they are going to earn things they are not just being handed things one of the moms stood up last time and she talked about moving to Germantown for opportunity she wanted her kids to have a better opportunity and I think that is the best thing in the world to give your kids is opportunity but people need to understand the difference between opportunity versus outcomes they are not the same you can have equal opportunity but you don't have to have equal outcomes

144because not everybody is going to have an equal outcome there are students that are going to excel at certain things there are students that are not going to excel at certain things that is because we are different everybody has the different abilities but everybody should have equal opportunity so for these school districts that are going in removing AP courses that's not equal opportunity for all students that is actually detrimental to all students because it's not all white students that are in those classes it is students of other races so while I haven't seen Germantown go to that extent I don't want to see Germantown go to that extent we purposely chose Public School so that my children would have more opportunity versus a private school and I respect those parents that want those opportunities for

145their kids but people need to understand that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome our history is not there for us to erase it and our cancel cancel culture that we have nowadays our history is there to learn from it if you don't like it great that is awesome learn from it so you don't repeat it learn from it so you don't repeat it should we learn about Marxism yep we should why because then we won't repeat it [Applause] our history is there for us to learn from our mistakes that is how children learn growing up they make mistakes as a parent you want to protect them but you know that sometimes you have to let them fall so that they can learn from those mistakes so let's learn from our mistakes let's teach things

146equally other cultures teach it equally transparently educate I'm on board with educate finally in terms of the buses all I have to say is are you guys really crazy enough to put middle schoolers on with high schoolers that's a recipe for trouble it is just a recipe for trouble my kid has already heard things from kids that have older siblings that he's repeated that have up all me don't do that to the kids don't make them sit on the bus for that long thank you [Applause] thank you that was the last person that signed up to speak as Ernie also wants to speak this evening welcome state your name for the record please my name is Kim Grant but she wanted me to read this Eve that was sent okay yeah I called Meg earlier

147I'm sorry no it's fine thank you um this this is a letter I don't know who wrote it I'm just going to read it for her good evening members of the school board thank you for listening to all the statements at the April 26 board meeting and for rescinding the ban on the critical race Theory I feel that it was all in a step in the right direction but tonight I would like to address how conversations between staff and students are handled after students speak at board meetings last week one of my daughters involved in an incident said that she spoke about at the last meeting were talked to by a teacher that was present during the incident he told her he heard what she said and began talking about the incident this was done

148in private in a private setting but it made my daughter extremely uncomfortable I made a formal complaint and a meeting was set up with the teacher and administration I do not feel that the meeting was productive the teacher involved sat there staring at my daughter the entire meeting and did not say much he did not apologize to my daughter after being made aware of the discomfort he had caused her and all he said was he took her in a private room to talk about it I explained to him with the subject so sensitive in nature it was very inappropriate to talk to her about the incident without a parent being present I explained how much trauma the entire incident had caused my daughter and I talked about how moving her away from students using racially

149insensitive remarks so she wouldn't hear anything they said was not right wasn't was not the right approach to solving the problem not one time did he apologize to my daughter we were given Sports analogies by Administration on why the band incident was handled the way it was and once again I had to explain that it happened that day and why it did not apply neither staff member at the meeting even acknowledged what I said about the teacher being inappropriate by seeking my to speak to my daughter about what they heard her say at the board meeting they kept focusing on the incident that happened saying things like but nothing else happened after that day right the reason I was there was because of my daughter was uncomfortable with what the teacher did after the board

150meeting it gave the impression that it was okay for staff to address what students are saying in a public forum even if the topics are sensitive in nature and the student referenced that specific teacher in their comments we felt rushed aside and left the meeting feeling more hurt than before we walked in what happened was very discouraging because if students know that they will be asked about things or what they said they would no longer want to speak out about what is happening this is something we need to fix we are offered to let our we will offered to let our daughter drop from the class which we have decided to do but it just doesn't fix the overall problem how do we fix this and thank you for listening so now that was the

151one for me but I'm sorry I've sat here and it's taken every bit of church that I went to yesterday to keep me from reacting disrespectfully or with disrespect as other people have had comments when someone of an opposing view spoke so I'm going to ask respectfully that everybody just listen Because unless I'm missing something the board voted to rescind the ban on critical race Theory but I never heard the board say that that was the only thing that was going to be taught I believe I left with the impression that we were going to explore racial sensitivity classes and racial sensitivity and diverse training and classes for all Races I'm really getting tired as an African-American woman thinking that the black people the only people got problems Asians have problems Hispanics have problems white

152people got problems everybody has problems but everybody needs education there's no way you're going to know how offensive it is for a black person for a white person to only quote Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech but you never say anything about his other American speech if you listen to that Martin Luther King stands there and specifically describes that there are two Americans listen to them look it up YouTube education some of the stuff I've heard tonight is the perfect reason I said that we have to and explore a curriculum that expands and that teaches respect for all Races I've heard all these complaints but I haven't heard one solution I've heard everybody give what this shouldn't be and it's Mark says I don't give a dog gone about the critical race Theory

153I don't care if you throw it out tomorrow but what will you replace it with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness didn't happen for my great great grandparents it did not here's the product I said respect because I didn't really love you I sat there and listened to everybody I don't care how it pierced my heart hurt me that I can listen to immigrants I don't have I cannot say anything about you I don't know what your ancestors went through I don't know what the people of your religion went through I can only tell you what my Grandmama told me I can only tell you what I experienced as a child in the South I can only tell you the threats of my son's life after he spoke at this last board meeting that's

154what I can tell you tell you I watch my son crawl up in the bed wondering why just because I spoke out why do I get the threat don't show up at school tomorrow that's what I can tell you I want to know what y'all replacing places how many people have looked at other school districts that incorporate cultural diversity and training in their curriculum cultural sensitivity in their curriculum how many people actually look and see other school districts that make it work no we cannot have life liberty and the pursuit of happiness not all the time it's it just doesn't happen it is education and it starts with you if you have a kindergartner that comes to school cussing where did they learn it from then it's up to the school to let them know

155that's not accepted here so if you have a racial student that's left up to tick tock Facebook and all this other social media teaching them what's acceptable if you leave that up to them who's redirected into telling them what's acceptable and what's not so instead of banning everything why can't you work together I said it in the last minute we cannot be so far to the left and so far to the right that nobody's willing to meet in the middle I'm willing to meet in the middle I'm not a victim even though I was referred to as that little I'm not scared to say it but I'm not a big I raised my son not to be a victim although he has been racially profiled although he has been the target of a lot of

156racial that's just making stronger baby get it together I got you your sister's got you your family has you your church has you when am I going to say your community has because nobody else I can say I can't say it I'm gonna say this I'm the one that has a GPS on my truck only because when he said he wants to go to his friend's house I need to look and see what that address is nobody else has a camera on their rearview mirror just in case he gets pulled over we got double protection that's the life I live those are the steps I have to take but without education do you think I just tell my son or I do these things just arbitrarily no I do not I tell him this is

157the reason why because your cousin was shot in the back by the police standing still stories for days so no I don't know who threatened my son I don't know who sent him those emails it could have been a student in Germantown it could have been one of your parents I have absolutely no idea those are the fears that I live with although after my initial anger I said you know what the news I can't say it was from Germantown I can't say it was a student I could just say it was somebody that was ignorant but to have an African-American son and somebody threaten your son and you don't know who it is you know what kind of life that leads I'm still gonna stand on the fact that we have to find a

158way to incorporate cultural sensitivity for all cultures I even say if you're going to ban the n-word you better find every derogatory term that will be culturally offensive to all Races it's not a just about me being black I get it black lives matter yes they do weight loss nine everybody like nothing that's fine Jesus died for all thank you Jesus but what I'm saying is that if we are going to be so far to where I and I don't want no SOB stories I want nobody Pat me on the back I almost feel sorry for yourself my hand don't do none of that just do better just do a bit educate yourself look at other curriculums because I promise you the next meeting I have with someone at the school board I have a

159whole curriculum of at least five school districts districts that incorporate cultural sensitivity and have a cultural diverse map now let's look at this and will it work for our school will it work for our students because I just can't I I can't I don't want to be looked at as a the reason why I posted that kickball picture was because I said this is what my son and I fight for nobody at that kickball game had any disrespect we all enjoyed ourselves but this was after my son's life was great because him speaking of at the so we're going to State the facts let's State the facts I would definitely encourage you since we all want to be on Martin Luther King's bandwagon listen to the other America listen to his letter from the Birmingham

160Jail he did promote non-violence but I promise you that man spoke the truth and all of it wasn't that one dream that he had so we gotta stop dreaming wake up and start living that's what we have to do and I'm saying this as an African-American woman I don't care if you agree with me or you don't I'm used to I'm used to the looks I'm used to all of that I grew up in the Backwoods of Arkansas that don't bother me at all but what bothers me is the life and the world my son is going to live in his children and his grandchildren if God don't come back before me sorry I'm religious y'all thank God I really just want to find that we stop focusing on critical race Theory don't belong here

161it belongs here it don't belong here well if you ask some of my ancestors U.S history is a low slave if you look at it might not be popular with it but it's a little slave when we look at how this country was founded it could be a little slave so incorporate everything and educate yourself properly then we could probably be able to to have life liberty and the pursuit of happiness but as long as we stay in ignorant Bliss and try to act like call it on matter then why is it on the job application why is why y'all check that little box because guess what I checked other because the way you look at me as much as I'm mixed up with I ain't all black so you don't know what I am

162race does matter it does I have several friends that work in Human Resources so I know what they're required of African-American Asian I know what you have to do and I know that some of them they'll look at they're just not going to hire because we don't have likely for you so yes white people get discriminated again sometimes because of affirmative action y'all want to speak the truth let's speak the truth yes it doesn't matter but until we educate our children until you put something in your curriculum until you learn to celebrate the Heritage and the hard work and everything of every culture that comes here we're still doing a disservice to our children I'm standing not for color I'm standing for Education period and that's that's the part that I have to say whether

163it's popular or not I'm okay with it but unless we discuss it unless you look at all areas it doesn't have to be the critical race Theory I really thought that's what the ending of rescinding it was that you're going to look into other options you just wasn't putting the whole blanket over it and they were going to look at it and pull out this and pull out that like I come here today and it seemed like it was doomsday and y'all said y'all throwing it after kindergarten I didn't get that and if I'm wrong somebody please correct me from the last board meeting I thought that you all were going to look at it and take an educated look and we were also going to look at other diversity and sensitivity classes and courses

164and history that should be taught at a certain level so when are we going to have weeks that we celebrate every culture African-American culture because Hispanic culture German culture all of when are we going to take time that we celebrate everybody's history I took time listen y'all y'all take time to listen to me I'm from a good Baptist Church we get out of church like three hours later I speak loudly and it's not because I'm aggressive it's because I grew up on the farm and I had to yell over the track to tell Dad mama had finished lunch that's why I have allowed just my nation but I want to use my other voice to educate children because we're missing the points so yes that and finally on the whole debate about the mass if

165I want to wear a mask leave me alone I'm gonna put my mask up my hair that put his mask on he gonna put his on because all of us suffer with covet and then my little three-year-old grandson and my daughter just spent an hour and a half at Children's with my other grandchild so yes they can don't minimize my experience and what my family is going through what they have gone through and I won't minimize your choice not to but what I would ask is respect me if I ask you if I got pre-existing health condition s so since having coveted in large heart your regular heartbeat and my epileptic seizures have started back so yes I have long lasting effects after it it's not an excuse it is my choice but don't minimize

166my choice to separate myself because I don't never ever ever want to experience that again okay thank you thank you please say your name briefed Melanie Smith I'm ward has a communication issue um I've been to a couple of meetings and I've also watched the videos and it just seems like the conversations are definitely one way um we've heard that theme here tonight in all sorts of different kinds of conversations and with the new groupings of people in your various positions I'm asking you to reconsider a putting actual phone numbers where people can reach you on the board website because it just goes to one person who never is there and doesn't pick up the phone there's it's the same phone number for all you guys it's not an actual phone number and it's very

167difficult to reach you I was able to reach two people mostly because they actually got back to me and so I was able to ask them for a phone number so we could discuss things I also think you should have more dialogue some lady said there's problem with board meetings and the structure but there needs to be more dialogue in in these matters and this lady who was just speaking was fabulous I thought she was great at the last meeting as well um you know that there's a lot of frustration here and I think half of the issues would go away if you just had actual conversations with the parents about these things now after the last meeting I did take the time to request the curriculum and I have a copy of it here

168and I went through it and it does have genderism feminism criticism and all these different kinds of things in it socialism Marxism deconstructionist criticism which is a basis also of critical racist Theory and what I thought was interesting is that it's in the class of critical thinking so okay I thought that might be good but when you go through it the way it's written it's it is not even handed in how it describes the different theories so I would say that this as a as a curriculum uh has some flaws the other thing that it does is it seems to be incredibly repetition repetitious about um applying genderist um theories to uh books like um I'm not even gonna go through this right now it's just so I'm not going to take everyone's time but

169I don't think it's even handed I did ask for the lesson plan but was told by Brenda O'Brien that lesson plans aren't collected so if lesson plans aren't collected how do you actually know what's being taught I mean you can actually print this give it to someone but if they're not teaching that how do you know what's actually being taught in the School classrooms so I think that's kind of a red flag I also asked for the reading lists and was told that the individual teachers do that and um it just kind of was shuffled away this was an email from Brenda today um I'm not for critical race Theory I've learned about it I've educated myself about it I appreciate your comments I think you're right whatever it is something needs to happen but

170I think a lot of it starts with better communication with the board and the parents that's my two cents thank you okay well we are well past the initial hour we're into two hours of community comments here so I will move on with the meeting um moving on let's see item six uh approval of minutes I'll entertain a motion move to approve the April 26 2021 Board of Education and April 26 2021 closed session minutes I'll second all right any discussion all's in favor say aye aye opposed that passes all right uh item seven new business uh item a discussion and updates with possible action regarding return return to school report including mask wearing for 2021 2022 school year and quarantine issues Mr thousand yes thank you um just starting off with this graphic that

171we do every time um you can see there hasn't been a ton of changes in the last two weeks and these this is community burden um so not not necessarily the schools but the community each of the communities um I did a little um but I shouldn't say I did it it was um collectively the urea superintendents have a Google doc and they they put questions out and we add information into that Google doc um and these are several questions that were posed and you can see um the different schools that have um committed to different portions of the mitigation uh for covert right now and that first that First Column it says it's asking the schools that are using three feet for quarantining purposes right now which means all the other schools in the

172area are using still using six feet you can see there's about eight schools that are including Germantown that use the the three three foot piece below that um schools that that have committed to optional mass at summer school and some schools that have decided already face coverings optional for 21 22 school year you can see there's five well there's five schools that are looking at it some have committed it but um five schools are looking at it two school districts have masks in motion which means that they're worn indoors and when they're moving about the a building and that's Hartford and Aaron School District Facebook where face coverings are not required Outdoors you can see again there's one two three four five about seven schools in that category the contact tracing is no longer necessary

173and quarantine's not assigned that I can add graft into that to that list when I put this in the PowerPoint they hadn't decided yet and what that means is that they are they're still contact tracing meaning if a child was within three feet of another child who was positive they let those that family know and the family has the decision to either send their child or they could keep them at home it's their choice on that obviously if a student is positive then they they go through the regular quarantining and with that is that that happens that like what Grafton is doing in a couple of schools are looking at that is the kind of the caveat to it and elbrook just sent something out last week regarding this is that the child doesn't have

174to quarantine if the family doesn't want to if they've been wearing their mask when they were in close contact so that's that's how they've been approaching that so anyway that's uh from area school districts a couple updates um Elementary Middle School cases Elementary um we we have still have one here there but it's not as as frequent Middle School continues to have a few cases it's high school is where most of the cases are occurring and um Washington Ozaukee health last last Thursday shared that they've they had 60 cases positive cases and and all high schools between Ozaukee and Washington County and Germantown had 30 of those 60 cases of positive cases and that put us at about 12 percent of our kids out if you remember way back in August we talked about if

175we hit a number of like 20 or 25 percent you know we'd monitor it and so we weren't meaning if they hit those numbers we would go fully virtual that's not we're not close to that um at this at this juncture I know last meeting um there was a motion for um optional mass for the 2021-22 school year um and we pulled that back because it wasn't on on the agenda to be voted upon and it is uh today the other piece that's that is um I'm sharing because other districts are starting to talk about this is what I just explained about the quarantining pilot where contact tracing would still occur parents would be notified parents would have the the choice to decide if they want their child quarantined or not and obviously watch watch

176for symptoms and if they do then we'd ask them to get tested or keep them at home so um any and then I also have Tammy here um and she's going to give the shortened version of her Powerpoint um yeah I will do my best to keep it pretty short so you just tell me which yep slides to okay so this first slide I just wanted to bring up the CDC and why we kind of followed the CDC so this first slide just talks about their mission the CDC is the agency that the healthcare workers and public health workers look for guidance on disease management next slide so what they do the CDC actually investigates what makes people sick so they can stop an outbreak from spreading they also work with other agencies like the

177FDA and the USDA on investigations and follow up with actions on how to prevent the spread next slide so this of course did come from the CDC as you can see the link is on the bottom on how masks actually work to control infection so masks help prevent the spread of disease they blot respiratory particles from going into the environment along with any microorganisms they carry not only do they block large product particles but they also block particles smaller than nine micro microns when humans speak more of these particles are released into the air at a further distance than just breathing and human Studies have been conducted that show 80 percent of these particles are blocked when we're in a cloth masks our students do have mass breaks throughout the day they for example recess

178snack time launch when getting a drink and whether permitting students are taken outside they are allowed those Max breaks during I know PE a lot of our elementary PE teachers do take the kids outside while they're permitting as much as possible and they do take their masses off from my understanding next slide just a bunch of different research articles that show why masks are worn in school that there is very minimal spread next slide on the flip side it also shows a bunch of research articles that show the spread inside a closed building when masks are not worn and how it's spread slide this I thought was actually a pretty good video it's a seven minute video that actually has a like 3D demonstration of schools and specific areas and schools so there's a classroom

179there's the cafeteria and then there's the teacher's lounge and it actually shows as a student is talking and breathing all the particles are released into the air and how the spread how far it spread they also talk about when the student has a mass mask on they also show the decrease in the spread of those particles within the air we won't show the video but I did send it to the board and they all saw that so that was I just thought a really good like 3D demonstration of how it spreads and we can put this PowerPoint on the website perfect so this is I thought was a really good just visual that the CDC had talking about uh 17 schools they actually did this study in Wisconsin out in I think it's Wood County

180that out of about 5 000 students seven kids who had covet zero of those staff members got kovid as long as masks were worn in school there has been no known spread between students to staff staff to students students to students most of the spread that you would see in school is actually from staff to staff slide so this is some of the numbers that we've had so this this was actually kind of difficult to get so what I actually really wanted was the number of students who had illnesses but we were actually unable to figure that out through Skyward and how it's put in there so what we did is these are the number of days that students missed that were ill so like if you look at the high school for the school

181year of 1920 last year students missed almost 4 000 school days from being sick and we were able to differentiate illness versus medical appointments vacations other things this year we've only had 2500 missed school days due to illness and that does include all of our kids who are covered suspected and covert positive so just having covet positive that's really what most of those illnesses are so that's a huge decrease in all of our schools I don't have county lines on there but I can say them out why would I have them here so last year the absences for County Line were 984 and this year we're at 564. so it is a huge decrease now again Mass are not necessarily the whole reason why those are decreased there are other measures that have been in

182place as in you know small groups cohorting staying home when you're sick and really emphasize that you really emphasize the hand washing all of those types of things oh if you want to go back so if you look at actually the covet student cases those from this morning I did not include I believe the two or three that we had at the high school today those are the amount of covet cases we had so far this school year out of those cases those are the amount of students that were quarantined based on those cases now I do have to say I think that data might be skewed and I think those students that are quarantine are actually higher because the way it's pulled from the system some of those students are actually quarantined multiple times

183where I think that's only counting them once so that could be a lot higher I do think that is skewed but now if you look at that out of all of those kids that were actually quarantined there's only a possible and we have to stay possible because we cannot confirm that only one actual transmission from student to student happen in the entire district and that was at County Line we can't prove that but based on what we do know with the students friend group where they were sitting in school all of that stuff that's what makes us think that that will happen in school at the high school we can determine based on my conversations with my healthy today that before April 22nd we have had zero Transmission in the high school from student to

184student we can almost say from zero from staff to student from student to staff as well after April 22nd we can't really say what is happening we do not think based on the data that we have previously that it's still a spread in school we do believe that it is outside of school we do believe it's you know front groups it's warmer outside kids are getting together they're not wearing their masks outside and they shouldn't have to so we do still think that it is zero spread within the school the high number of cases that we're seeing right now is due to outside of school that's what we still believe next slide so right now at the beginning of the school year over the summer and things we could see CDC was stating that they

185thought the percentage of household contacts and household spread was about 12 now that we had a whole winter of kovid they're actually looking at 75 of infections happen within live-in family members within five days and that is actually where a majority of our elementary infections have come from is due to family members having covid that is really where it came from whether it's an older sibling or a parent that's where I believe a majority of ours cases have come in the elementary school next slide so we're still here oh it's not 7 59 for our school students it's 79 as of this morning 79 high school students it was actually 75 on Friday but I got the new Total at 79 this morning so that's why I just didn't get rid of the price um

186but this week FDA is supposed to approve the emergency use for the age groups of 12 to 16 for the vaccine so that is another positive we are still at the 89 for event for staff fully vaccinated but I just want to make it clear that just because you are vaccinated does not mean you still cannot get covered the vaccine is only 95 effective so you still have a five percent chance of getting them getting the virus I have cat staff members who have had fun fully vaccinated the whole two weeks have had symptoms have had covered fully sick so I just do want to make that clear So based on all the uh information I just presented I actually have a couple different proposals I actually have two so the first one here is

187based on this school year and I do think that we do need to make quarantine optional for our students I do think the parents should have that right to State whether their students should have to be quarantined as you can see from the numbers that I have listed it's not spreading in our schools at all yes we still have high Community spread but it's not in our schools it's not spreading here I do think that's important however I do think that having the optional uh the optional quarantine for parents is having masks still in place and the reason is is based on all the information all that research that chart that I showed you is all because masks are in place all of the mitigation rules that we have are still in place even moving

188down from six feet quarantine to three feet quarantine it's still not spreading so I do believe that that's really important uh the other piece to that shoe is I still think that within this proposal the post hold contacts should still be quarantined because you have the higher transmission rate within your own home than you do within the school so household contacts if you have a positive in the household the household should quarantine but any content tracing that happens within the schools that should be an optional for the parents to have their child quarantined if a child or a staff member does within those next 14 days does have symptoms of covid we would have them isolate for the 10 days and request them to get tested as we do now that's our that's been our

189procedure all year I would recommend that procedure to stay in place with the new proposal that I have the second proposal is for the 20 20 21 22 school year and summer school I do think that summer school is a really great opportunity to make our masks optional masks outside we already know even CDC has saw that Contracting covet outside is very minimal our students are spread out having the breeze being out in open air does make it less likely to contract the virus I do also think starting in summer school of this summer all contract tracing include included with the quarantine should be discontinued and then in the beginning of the next school year I do feel that we should start to move to all of our previous house guidelines as we had prior

190to kovid I also think masks should be optional for the 21-22 school year and not required so those are my proposals for today I just have some final thoughts that I would just like to share in regards to all of this I understand the frustrations of families and staff I do have them my own as well my personal opinions do not always match my professional actions as I try to follow my my professional practices of my ethics we all we have many families and staff on both sides of the pandemic some wanting absolutely no guidelines some will still wanting every guideline possible my Halsey and I have heard all of it all sides this is a process and we need to be able to find a balance we need to be respectful to whatever the

191outcome of tonight's meaning brings this Wednesday May 12th is actually national school nurse day I encourage you to sign an email to your school's health aide thanking them for the hard work they have put in this year they have worked long hours into the late evenings and on weekends to make sure we are all doing the right thing to prevent the spread of this virus they deserve your sayings and praise for trying to keep everyone as safe and as healthy as possible I'd like to thank my health aids for being my rock this year and going on this crazy Journey with me thank you I like to make two motions please but before I begin Tammy we've been on this journey for a year and a half and uh you're a rock star thank you

192so much for keeping us safe so the first motion we to make Mass squaring optional for the 2021-22 school year and all quarantine and contact tracing to be discontinued second second any discussion um Tammy real quick can you just tell us again why are you comfortable with making the decision about next masks for next year because of the unknown and you know obviously we have parents that are concerned so just help us understand completely so there's a couple different pieces to that so number one we do have a really high percentage in our district of staff that are vaccinated even though we do have some that are not and you still can still like I said get covet even with the vaccine because it is only 95 effective which we do have staff that have

193contracted it after the vaccine we also will have a higher herd immunity not only just with the vaccine but with also other people who already have antibodies from Contracting the virus themselves our numbers of students 16 and over who are getting vaccinated are rising on a daily basis we are averaging about five fully vaccinated students on a daily basis every day by the end of the school year the vaccine will be available to 12 and older for those that wish to have it we also need to make sure that we are starting to be exposed to viruses and other infectious materials moving forward it is actually a really good time at the beginning of the school year to have that whole summer where we're starting to expose ourselves summer is a really good time because

194we're going to be outside it's going to be warm weather we're not closed in because once we get closed in we need to have that immune system being built up already we need to start to expose ourselves I do have a feeling that some of our colds are going to be worse our kids are going to be out sicker longer so we need to get our body's immune system back to where it needs to be thank you and thank you and your staff for their tireless work this year it really we are very appreciative of everything thank you any other discussion yeah I believe these are good motions because I think everybody knows I like to give parents and students something to look forward to and um talking about September 2021 2022 school year if

195we don't do it then when you know everybody's getting vaccinated a lot of folks have had it already you know it's time so unless something drastically changes to force us to bring it back before September this is a good motion tonight and uh thank you for that Tim but I'm looking for clarification on your motion is it ending quarantining immediately no for the 2021 I have a second motion okay on that so this motion is for for next year yep okay any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed that motion carries I have a second motion motion to move forward with the quarantine pilot as communicated earlier for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year second second any discussion are we going to still do contact tracing but make it optional

196yes so the contact tracing would still be in place and we would give call parents and let them know that their child has identified as a close contact exact same thing as we do now but only telling them that you have the option to come pick up your child or they can remain in school it is the Parent's Choice but we definitely will ask to please monitor your child for symptoms for the next 14 days and please notify the school of any symptoms that do occur thank you any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed and Carries [Applause] all right any other motions any other comments about this topic yes I um why should we start building up our immune system and you're right and the reason I say wait to summer

197is because of that balance I have quite a few staff members who did come to me after the last four meeting and said they would quit Johnny on the spot if we got rid of masks this school year we do we do have we do need to try to find a balance and it is a process and I think and I think getting rid of the quarantining because as you can see we don't have the spread but keeping the masks will help keep that balance and help keep our staff members and some of those students or families who still want the mask and keep them feeling safe while we can all stay in school for the remainder of this school year all right Tammy Tammy thank you I'm going to get control of this meeting

198again any other discussion from the board any other discussion from the board no all right we'll move on uh Item B discussion and possible action regarding fully virtual options for 2021 2022 Mr Southland yes um yeah but it's not on the agenda today to end mass for the rest of the year I didn't write the agenda so I can't comment on why it's not on there no the superintendent and the previous poor president approves the agenda and it wasn't on the agenda for a reason that's not to say that it can't be on the agenda at a future meeting Goodness Me [Music] thod [Music] s but then some teachers make our pre-existing conditions because nobody has respect y'all have respect for this Lord you don't have any respect for each other or nobody who has

199an opposing views than you my God how do we go allocate our meals like this these two world meetings have broken my heart period and it ain't a color thing I've just learned that people just don't respect nobody's point of view if it's opposite of yours my God there's no middle here they clearly just gave you a little to the end of the year don't tell me I don't have respects [Music] I'm not I'm not gonna argue with nobody I'm gonna sit down flower thank you one one theme excuse me folks it's the mask thing for this year is not on the agenda we cannot discuss or take action tonight period I'll provide some balance because we've listened we've listened to both sides tonight I'll present the counter to what you guys have been saying

200and that is we have families in this District who have made the decision earlier this year to come back because of the mitigation because we've shown it hasn't spread we've shown that some of these things that we've implemented have worked they've come back if we completely eliminated everything we will have families for the final few weeks of the school year come to us come to bread come to their principles and say we're pulling our kids figure it out and okay I've listened to your side I'm just presenting the alternative side and that's the balance that we are working and trying to find that middle are everywhere and and as of this evening as of this evening you have your choice for the summer you have your choice for the fall again it's not on the

201agenda tonight we can't discuss it or take action tonight for the mandary school year all right for school S I understand but I'm not the board president anymore but we had a conversation two board meetings ago where we did have discussion and the board did take action not to move forward with the mask so the board did take action a month ago on this that's not to say that it can't be Revisited okay we heard two and a half hours of comments I can't I'm not in charge of that before you handed this it says anybody that spoke should have gotten a copy of this it says how you can get something on the agenda all right yeah any any any person or group we'd like to have an item put in any agenda shall

202submit their request to the district administrator no later than 10 days prior to the meeting I'll take the I'll I'll take the fall for that so that only one person and I will point that person out right there that has our back nobody else responded is appearance I expect more and I won't shut up and I will slow down because I do too much thank you all right Item B discussion of possible action regarding fully virtual options for 2021 2022 Mr stalson yeah I'm gonna hand it to um Mrs O'Brien in a second but with just uh Mr Heffley had a couple questions um the the idea of the virtual option is we know next year we're going to have students that have either have still have a medical condition or have a extenuating circumstance

203and they would need a virtual potentially a virtual option and for us to to create let's say it's 20 kids spread out K K-12 for us to manage those students be very difficult and so so the the Keel option which isn't Keele School District Personnel it's a conduit to a to another platform that that many districts use uh Appleton uses the same platform um I think uh McFarland uses the same platform so it's a conduit to get courses for students it to be fully virtual and they're fully staffed outside if we had to staff a K-12 type school for one year for our kids we would be hiring four or five different teachers to to meet all those needs and and it's it is something it's an option for our kids if they need to

204be fully fully virtual but we're talking it's we're talking 30 students tops we're talking um again they have to submit like an application to do it it's not going to be 200 kids or 400 kids for virtual um it's too it said it's too hard for us to try to staff the needs of of 20 people or 25 people our students so this that's why this option is is being put out there and then we should hear from our our grant if we're in a planning year for our virtual school that we're talking about and that would be our own staff and our own programming this is to again to to give us a year to to get to that point so Mrs O'Brien sure okay um so as Mr selson just said is that

205really we are looking to partner with the Keel School District just for a targeted population of students and in that population we are looking to have maybe some of our residents students who are currently attending a virtual school come back to the Germantown school district and to Mr heffley's point it does um it is uh forty seven hundred dollars a year to enroll or 2 900 per semester but I also want to point out that for students who open enroll into a virtual school we are losing over eight thousand dollars of aid for those students so we have to take that into consideration too when we are designing a program and yes we did survey those students who are open enrolled in other virtual schools and what they are looking for is an established program

206which is why we feel the Keel school district and the partnership would be that established program that we could offer those families who might be attending a virtual school outside our school district and I I would add to another factor is that so right now if we have a student that open enrolls to the Waukesha e school or McFarland or Ripon or Appleton or Merrill they are no longer our students they can't participate in anything in our district sports activities anything in this scenario there's a a legal a 6603 I think it is that then allows the student even though they're getting serviced through an outside group they're still our students they can still participate in all of our activities they can actually take two up to two classes in our in our school as

207well so it's really keeping our own students and and the money piece we're losing eight thousand dollars every time a kid leaves open enrollment you know so if we're paying four we're still retaining gaining four thousand dollars on those students if if those students come back but also it's it's really that opportunity for kids who may need that fully virtual option because of extending the circumstance or medical condition so and then for the board background I also did provide the other options that we considered as well and the budgetary impact and the implications of those decisions as well and I did meet with the continuity of learning team which is consisting of mostly teachers and they suggested that this also be our option that we would put forward for the 2021-22 school year questions from

208the board um if you don't mind I have a few questions um we have the information that says this is Florida virtual learning platform right did we actually sit in on classes for all levels Elementary Middle High School to make sure that they meet our expectations do we have what their expectations are do they match ours they uh I did take a look at the course syllabus or the course offerings and we talked about how they would match kind of our core sequence there is some ability to um like change uh the the sequence of when units are taught but again that would be controlled by Keel so we're still working out how much control we could have over that core sequence I think you mentioned it's also in the background about limiting it to

20930 students is that our limit or is that keel's limit that they would impose on us that would be our limit that we were looking for for that targeted population of students if we don't meet that limit then we don't need two kids two kids okay right correct it's up to 30 students okay okay so I understand the uh trying to get folks back into the district because we do gain that money back or at least a portion of that money back with our current virtual community what about them because obviously the goal is to bring peop bring the kids back into the district totally understand that fine with it but there there's obviously still a population currently and probably most likely and some of them may have medical issues and those type of things

210where do you think we stand with those folks because by they're already in our district but by enrolling with the Keel program that's actually a net cost to us so while we've capped it at 30 we probably have some expectation or hope and we'd like to obviously we'd like to get 30. but what if we only get five but the other 25 are populated with current students that are virtual that now want to participate in that program the overall package at that point and I'm not going to do math real quick right now but at that point it's actually net cost for us so help me understand kind of the balance uh what we're doing to draw those people in are we going to Market things yeah and that's part of this I just brought

211this slide back up at the the if you go to the third column over all the way down the districts that are looking at that families would apply to what they call the homebound type application so families would have to submit an application and their reasons for for that and and we think that will help us um figure it out now well so we're going to survey families like we did last August and their intent to come back and as a board we'll have to make a decision are we going to provide a hybrid option like we did this for this school year or the school year is the school year like it was two years ago there wasn't virtual options um two years ago so that would that would come back in front of

212the board um if we if we approve this tonight though why would we offer a hybrid no I'm saying it it's still like well who knows what conditions I don't think they're going to get worse or like they were last year but let's say they did and all of a sudden 30 percent of our kids or families are asking for virtual then we'd have to refigure I don't think that's the case but that's just um the scenario I would hate to use the word pivot but we might have to do that if we come up upon a scenario like that okay well I'd like to make a motion okay yeah I moved to partner with the ski the Keel School District to offer a virtual option to a targeted population of students for the 2021-2022

213school year I'll second any discussion all right sorry actually maybe a couple more questions um we've defined it as 21 22 school year worst case scenarios we don't get the Grant in June we'll have to revisit since this motion is only for the next school year what if for the 22-23 school year we don't have the appetite to continue the program that's when I I think we have to revisit it either way and I think we need to continue to monitor those students who to choose this option and we will have to take a look and monitor those students and monitor this program before we would make a decision for the 22-23 school year I've got a question Tracy's comment about the upcoming year and for our own population of kids that are in Virtual

214right now and we don't know what we don't know in terms of where we're going to be at in September this coming year so Brett is there a probability that we will have a hybrid version we'll be doing virtual I I don't think so I think I think we're already we have um 85 percent of our students are in person um and I think that will get I think that number will go even smaller so I don't think so but it's something that we've we revisit as a whole whole board no I know but but Mike I guess I guess why are we doing both if we think we may even be doing hybrid in the fall why would we be doing this yeah I don't think really we've matured a lot yeah I don't

215think we're going to win a hybrid I think this this helps us with the again the kids with extending circumstances that they would would really need to read the virtual thank you I mean most of it Medical in when was the last time we surveyed the students who we did lose those families as far as yeah I surveyed them in November October November Paul we did again oh was it that much earlier sorry I I mean I can't remember anymore but we we did survey them and got their feedback and you know one of the questions was if we had our own program would you consider it and they um about 85 percent of them said they would if it was an established program so and there were obviously the maybes on there too so

216you also have to add a benefit for those families to try to draw them back that they could attend a couple classes in our school they can can participate in our activities yep any other discussion that's the it's the ticket students um so they may take this virtual option through Keel but they could uh come back to a school to take a shop class is my understanding yes that's correct and we actually a lot of the platforms just do the nature of Technology education there aren't a lot of online technology education course offerings so that would be something that would be I think appealing to students that and something like the art classes and music classes would also be appealing for those students to take up to two classes here in the Germantown School District

217any other discussion uh as you maybe can tell I'm I'm hedging a little bit because uh we last surveyed those students that we lost in basically the early winter of the previous year that doesn't tell me we have a high level of confidence that we'll be able to draw them back so and that's the key piece to making this work so and I think that's why we set our number at 30 because 66 kids are we know we're not going to get them all we also know we have I mean I can I know six kids off top of my head that are out right now for medical reasons so in that combination that's kind of how we came up with that with with that number any other discussion all those in favor say aye

218aye opposed hey that motion carries all right item C discussion and action to approve donations yes I'd ask that the board approves an anonymous 800 donation to the high school softball program I'll entertain a motion oh I'd like to uh thank the donor for their generosity and approve the donation as listed and thank you Anonymous donor we appreciate it second discussion all those in favor say aye aye that carries all right item D discussion and action to approve 2021 2022 teacher contracts Mr Southland yes I'll hand that to Mr Norwalk thank you as you may recall at our last meeting we brought forward a staffing plan and consideration of the approval of that Staffing plan for the 2122 school year we wish to bring forward 270 teacher full-time contracts this doesn't take into account retirements

219or leaves of absence that we're aware of at this point in time as usual practice will bring forward additional contract requests in the months ahead and leading into the start of those school years the remainder of the school year and obviously throughout the summer additionally additionally we're recommending issuance of letters of intent for 17 part-time teachers the specific FTE for part-time employee will be solidified and the teacher will receive a teaching contract for the 21-22 school year a list of full-time and part-time teacher contracts recommended for 2122 school year has been furnished to the board confidential means we ask that you give approval for contracts at this time any questions for Mr Nowak otherwise I will entertain a motion I move to approve the issuance of 270 full-time teacher contracts and letters of intent for

22014 part-time teachers 17 part-time 17 part-time thank you I will second long night any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed that motion carries all right item e discussion and action to approve resignations thank you Christopher shruby recently submitted his letter of resignation effective Tuesday May 4th 2021. Christopher was hired in September of 2020 on a limited term contract as a business teacher at Germantown High School um we're asking for approval of his resignation I do want to point out at the bottom the language around liquidated damages that's different than the language that you'll usually see usually it's language that relates specifically to regular contracts because this is a limited term contract it calls for a 500 liquidated damage fee that can be assessed simply for breaking the contract under the regular teacher

221contract the empty teacher needs to seek employment elsewhere for liquidated damages to who in fact so at this time we ask that you approve the resignation I'll entertain a motion move to approve the resignation of Christopher shrube and thank him for his service to Germantown School District yeah second second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed and motion carries all right item F uh discussion and action to approve final teacher layoff notices Mr Southland yep and it's back to Mr Norwalk thank you on Thursday April 29 2021 Jeffrey Sager was issued a preliminary notice of consideration of non-renewal of his teaching contract accordingly a final notice of non-renewal of a teaching contract must be provided prior to May 15 2021 at this time we were requesting approval to issue a final

222notice of non-renewal I'll entertain a motion I will move to approve to a final notice of non-renewal to contract for Jeffrey Sager I'll second all right any discussion and this requires a roll call vote uh loath aye Borden yes myself yes reinemann yes Pollock yes Saturday yes yes that motion carries I would just like to add to that that this is a layoff notice because of reduction in force not a performance issue is purely just a reduction in in staff so thank you Mr stelson all right item G discussion and action to approve cesa one contract for 2021 2022. Mr thousand yep I'll start um with this this is our annual cesa one contract you can see the um the value is at 197 000 500 sorry 197. 573 thousand dollars just a little um

223history going back in 2016-17 the contract was 226 000 2017-18 it was 132 300 but we also didn't did include the deaf and hard hard of hearing teacher which is about a ninety thousand dollar cost so that would put it in the 222 000 range um 2018 19 it was 289 000 contract um 1920 was roughly when you add in the deaf and hard of hearing teacher and and part-time nurse it was 223 000. 2020 2021 was um roughly 250 000 so this is a somewhat of a decrease for this next for this upcoming year and with these contracts these are estimated services so if if we don't use them all we don't pay the estimated amount of pay for the pay for the hourly um and the services that we get but I also

224have um the season 1 contract is mainly made up of special education um fees and funds and and some teaching and learning so if there's any specific questions we have Todd and Brenda here too all right any comments or questions from the board I will entertain a motion a move to approve the season one contract for the 21 the 2021-2022 school year second I'll second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed that motion carries and I will entertain one final motion move to adjourn second Ary say aye aye all right we are adjourned at 10 30. thank you everyone for coming and drive home safe