Special Board Meeting

001go okay i see that we're live now thank you so much thank you uh before we go ahead and start our meeting i'm gonna go ahead and have mr de body explain the translation options mr debody can you please let us know what the options are thank you okay okay thank you mr body now i'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order at 6 33 maribel can you help us with the roll call today is a special board meeting of march 30th 2021 at 6 30 pm members of the board in attendance president corinare president vice president andres quintero president clerk i think he's running a little late member linda chavez present member min pham president members of administration superintendent dr bauer present thank you maribel now if you can all join

002me in uh doing the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the united states of america to the republicans for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and uh before we move on to agenda item number two i just would like to open today's meeting in honor of cesar chavez who tomorrow will be honoring his holiday um many of us are blessed to have that day off but regardless i know that our uh district as a whole we used to do a big march our children would gather um and i don't know when we'll get back to that but i do want to honor um his uh day coming up tomorrow um and i want to open up in his honor now i'm going to go ahead and

003move on to item 2. um just want to inform the public that members of the public shall have the opportunity to address the board of trustees on agenda items identified below um uh yeah um i just promoted him thank you um so when we have the uh opportunity on each item we will allow the members of the public uh by law we do need to put that uh on there and i do want to read it out loud now we're gonna move on to closed session um before we break out closed session i would like to open it up for any public comments regarding any items we discussed in a closed session for today um so i think avatar was going to help us with the public comments um it's carlos i'm here carlos welcome

004i made it yes sorry i wasn't paying attention to the screen okay good to have you um here so we're going to go ahead and open it up for public comments uh regarding any items to be discussed in closed session dr bauer can you review the items we'll be discussing in closed session today sure we're going to be um discussing uh 303 uh conference with labor negotiators employee organizations csca a 304 employee organization area 305 employee organization teamsters and unrepresented employees in 306. great thank you um at this time carlos do we have anybody uh wishing to address the board on public comment yes we do at this time we have five people first person is danielle d'ambrosio welcome danielle as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hmm are they there yes

005they are um okay there we go now i can unmute hello my name is danielle d'ambrosio and i am an area member i've been a lindell teacher for 20 years and i would like the board to know that in regards to schools reopening dr bauer's words were that it was going to be volunteer and that no one would be forced to return so that has been out there for many many weeks and months so yes i understand that we are now planning on opening i am one of the teachers who volunteered to come back who also put my name on the paper i also wanted to come back to work so bad that i was willing to go to a different school i was willing to teach a different grade level i was willing to

006do all of that just for the sake of being able to come back and get to work with students well now here we are bargaining and it's in the final hours of when this is all due and now the teachers that want to come back aren't even going to be given a stipend or any prep time so in case the board is wondering what the holdup is it is that like once again the teachers aren't being heard and again dr bauer's words have always been no one will be forced to return it was going to be volunteer basis only and the teachers are not even being given a stipend thank you for your time i hope you're listening and let's move forward with this and let's get this done thank you thank you anybody else

007mr moran yes we have sherry duarte welcome sherry as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin okay hello my name is sherry duarte i am a teacher and a proud member of the area organization and i'm flabbergasted just simply flabbergasted that in in the 25 years that i've been in the school district i feel like i'm constantly having to fight for what's right for myself or my students but what's just right in general and it doesn't seem right to ask someone or excuse me tell someone that they need to go back to an environment that they don't feel safe in and as danielle just said a moment ago i don't feel safe or excuse me she said that she feels safe she wants she doesn't mind going back i mind going back and

008i was told by my superintendent that i wouldn't have to go back and i've told this to my principal um she asked me to come in and straighten up my room so it'd be ready and i said i don't understand why would i need to come and straighten up my room if i'm not coming in i have no plans to come in until it's safe for everyone that it's universal and i have students in a pod at my school site and yesterday after about an hour i couldn't figure out why my student hadn't logged back in and i heard from the um the leader of that pod that all the students were sent home because of a quota virus or possible coronavirus exposure well to me that's it right there how do we know in

009a group of 10 people that are supervised you know highly supervised that this event happened how are we going to prevent it in our large schools with populations you know up to 3 400 students i know it's only going to be a partial but anyway please don't make anyone go back to work before they want to thank you thank you mr moran next person is abby harris welcome abby as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you um my name is abby and i've been a teacher in holland rock now for um 11 years and i do have to say that i've been pretty proud on how this has all been handled so far up until about a week ago when we got the announcement that there was going to be an

010opening and there literally is no plan for the teachers there's no plan for the parents we have other school districts surrounding us who have had plans in place they've given it to their parents and teachers weeks in advance and the parents know what they're walking into at this moment we have students asking us every day oh we're starting school on the 12th and and they have no idea what that looks like and we have no answers to give them and i just think it's really irresponsible that this was kind of announced with nothing to back it up we it makes us as teacher look like we have no idea what's going on it makes our principles look like it they have no idea what's going on when they don't have answers that they can give

011to parents and students so i urge you to negotiate with aria to get a plan in place to make sure teachers are safe for that those that want to go back to not force the teachers back that don't want to go back and don't feel safe i just think we owe it to our community to keep up the good job that we had been doing up until this point and i just felt like right now it's just chaos thank you thank you mr moran next person is azra bibi welcome um as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin ezra are they there maybe they stepped away ms b uh azra please unmute yourself and if they stepped away we can always come back to them yeah let's go ahead and come back to

012them okay next person is john fits you john as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin i'm sorry i must have made a mistake i did not mean to raise my hand sorry thank you no worries thank you i think mr azra um let's try mr or miss azra again see if they're back hello we can hear you yes i'm here you welcome as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin yes can you speak those would like you to would you like to address it more okay again yeah would you like to address the board today okay yes would you like to address the board on public comment um no okay thank you so much mr moran next person is dina lopez welcome dean as soon as you begin speak speaking

013the timer will begin hi my name is dina lopes i've been teaching in the district for almost 20 years now i live in allen rock and i send my children to mccollum i have spent many years of my life defending our district and our community and i have to say that right now i'm a little bit flabbergasted i miss my classroom more than words can say i want my kids to go back to school but it's the end of march and to find out that let's say it's tuesday we have wednesday thursday and then someone thinks it's a good idea for us to be back the day after spring break i love what i do i am very passionate about teaching don't throw me back in a classroom with no days to prepare for it

014i think that that's ridiculous i think that we need to have a better plan than just throw i feel like we're being thrown to the wolves right now and we deserve more than that our kids deserve more than that so please really really really think this through thank you thank you mr mona next person is jessica welcome jessica as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello can you hear me yes oh perfect okay so i am also a alum rock uh teacher at linda vista and i also am completely floored by what's happening we need to chill out we're still in the middle of a pandemic people are still dying getting sick having long-term health effects and it is spreading in schools and if you look at europe and michigan it's still

015happening and we have no safety plan in place at allen rock there has been no planning in place teachers have not been a part of this and if you're going to tell us to come back and force us to come back it should be voluntary and that is what dr bauer promised us that teachers would have a choice in the matter and now we're hearing we won't and that is not okay and we need to have a safety plan in place and all of our kids and many of us have suffered through this pandemic and especially with these variants young kids and young adults are getting sick now and we need to plan for that and it should be lives over live lessons in person and the school year is almost done and our kids

016are doing good i mean and now they're going to suffer with distance learning if teachers have to be thrown into two different places in the classroom but also teaching on screen and you're going to take away our prep and our small group instruction after lunch and all of that um for what for what um so really think about this and think about the lives of the teachers and their families and the students what is the benefit of this um so thank you thank you next person is brenda sandejas welcome brenda as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin uh good evening board members um thank you for allowing us to comment today i do want to speak on a couple issues i do want to thank trustee main fam for having his camera

017on today that means a lot to us the public and i also want to say that as a parent i am concerned i'm concerned of this plan i haven't seen it we as parents have no idea what's going on our children have no idea how this is going to happen and i think that this district has had this issue for many years where there is no communication and we get everything last minute we need to work on that we need to do better um we have a third wave already that i'm seeing on the news this is not a joke of the safety of our children and not only that our teachers as well should be our priority i want to ask you guys to consider whatever you guys plan to do be considerate of

018the staff the teachers parents and students and give that option to um the people that we call heroes right the people that uh stand by us when we need them so i'm here to stand accelerated with our teachers our staff and as a parent i want to say thank you to all the teachers thank you to everyone for everything that you do for our kids and i will say that i am very happy with my son's teacher alinda vista who has done a great job and it just doesn't see it makes sense to come in what a month and a half or two months in the schools and i think we need to really really create a plan and make sure that all schools have all these uh fans and everything that need i've only

019seen one school in the video i wonder if all schools have all these things that are promoted in this video so thank you you guys have a good day thank you brenda mr modern anybody else yes we have beatrice prado welcome back as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening superintendent bower and board of trustees my name is beatrice i am an area member i am a teacher currently at painter before that i was at adelante and before that i was at chavez for 10 years i have dedicated nearly 25 years to this district and more than 33 years to education as a whole we teachers have sacrificed for our students and have devoted many many many hours without compensation we think of our students on weekends holidays and summer vacations

020they are part of us they are part of our families always we would do almost anything for them which has been demonstrated by teachers here and across the globe thousands of times but this is a pandemic not experienced in more than a hundred years we hear talk of a fourth surge what it means for us remains to be seen we hear of covet variants stronger than before we must ask ourselves are we safe are our children safe we know what is best for our students and our families we are devastated too that this year we cannot provide what they need we too have families and loved ones that are dependent on us to be here tomorrow i want to be here tomorrow stronger than this past year and i want to feel safe thank you

021good night thank you next speaker is adrian vane welcome adrian as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello um my name is adrian vane and i am an 8th grade school teacher at joseph george middle school one thing that i am very open about is the fact that i am immuno compromised i know several other teachers that are immunocompromised as well when i went and got the vaccine because i have had both shots i was told that the vaccine may not work on those of us that take immunocompromised medicine and so i am very concerned about coming back to school especially since i have in one of my classes 29 students how are we supposed to social distance and be safe especially if the vaccine possibly cannot work on me and the

022kids don't have a chance at the vaccine yet this is not the right time we don't have enough ventilation in our classrooms the filters that we've seen provided in our classrooms are not hospital grade how are we going to come back so it's safe for those of us that it could be a serious health risk coming back i look at this with feeder i love my kids i love my job [Music] i don't want to feel like i'm in a position where i have to risk my health for my 141 students we need a plan to make sure that we the teachers are safe and the students are safe please keep that into consideration that it's not just the healthy that are saying that this is not a good idea thank you for your time

023thank you next speaker is area member naura solis welcome lauda as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello hello hi hi welcome my name is laura solis i am 20 i have been teaching for 20 years at the wonderful school assessor chavez i usually don't speak but it makes me very sad to know that my risk my health is at risk um it it breaks my heart to know that i have to choose to either go back with the wonderful students that i have and i'm lucky enough to have someone who is related to cesar chavez at my school and to know that i have to choose to be there while i'm a single parent with my daughter who has given given the option to stay virtual and this earlier i had

024heard um trustee pham speaking to madam president and he asked if on the 12th of april would they start meeting together and she voiced that she would give people options and i'm hoping that madam president and the board of trustees you give that option that we do not have to go back if we are sick and if we have health issues and give us more time to prepare our classrooms we want to be with our students we love our job we wouldn't be here if we didn't so i'm i'm i'm begging i'm asking please to consider uh superintendent everybody on the board please you know think about if it was your family if it was your child if it was your sister mother would you want that to come back to you and have them

025bring something back to you when we are in a pandemic and we still don't have a cure thank you thank you next speaker is mr jaeger welcome mr jaeger can you hear me yes okay great thank you uh good evening um dr bauer on the board uh my name is ryan jager i've been a teacher here in allen brock for 21 years i teach at joseph george i'm also a member of the negotiating team and i find it crazy that here again olam rock is reacting to something that should have been planned a long time ago or had been in the works rather than the last minute the fourth quarter is now coming up there's 41 days left to 45 days left of school this year is a wash we need to focus on summer

026school that's what we need to be negotiating and we need to be negotiating for the next opening in the fall for everybody to worry and rush this now is just putting the cart again before the horse think about what we need to do think about the right thing summer school in the fall get a plan in place lay it out work it out instead of rushing at the last minute thank you thank you next speaker is sean swiss welcome mr sean as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin okay my question i work at dorsal elementary school been there 15 years or so in this district my question is this what are the what is the actual data per school that most kids want like at dorsa how many kids really want to

027come back to school how many classrooms will be full if you're requiring all of us to show up okay the other question is what are the custodians going to do to sanitize every day between classrooms okay how are they going to do it because the system that you have at my school the little tiny air filters that you bought us is only covers 432 square feet whoever ordered those really didn't do much of a deep dive and see what their they cover right so we need to know the data of the kids coming back to school we need to know the air filter systems is going to keep us safe also who's going to take care of the kids during recess time how are we going to work on feeding these kids all that little

028stuff that that includes part of school how many hours are going to come to school how am i going to teach the kids online versus the kids who aren't going who are in class and last but not least if mrs bowers is so keen on opening our schools so quickly here's a challenge then why don't we have the administration people in the d.o start coming to the schools during the week that we we open up and spend a week at different schools and really get down into the nitty-gritties and see what we're facing i like miss bowers i really do i've known her since she was sort of like a mentor but you know my health and the teacher's health they come first my kids help they come also so please take that into consideration

029all the things that take to run a classroom to run a school thank you next speaker is miss louie welcome miss slow as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hi i'm uh kathy lowe i've been teaching at shepherd middle school for uh 14 years my mom was actually a teacher at um in allen rock before me um and she was uh dr bauer was actually her principal um back when i was in high school and um i have a lot of concerns um i've been keeping very close a close eye on coveted cases in our county and uh our district and our state in our country and across the world and covet cases are rising in some places very dramatically especially in europe and brazil um young people are dying 20 30

030year olds are dying in brazil because of the variance there um they are rising in at least 27 states in the united states and new more contagious and deadly strains are spreading across the country and cdc is warning of another wave of cases um when we open our schools and that wave hits us what's the plan what's the plan for the kids our kids are very important to me i do not want to go back to school and put my kids my students at risk and their families and it's not okay to just open the schools and put them their lives at risk it's not all right it's it's wrong and you know it so you need to think about what happens when that wave hits us because it's coming you know everything i see

031around us shows me that no one's going to prevent it so what are you going to do thank you next speaker is alma mendoza welcome alma please unmute yourself hello sorry okay hello hello thank you my name is alma gabriela mendoza i'm a teacher at ryan school i've been there from 1986 on i'm one of your oldest teachers i am old and i am overweight and i am diabetic very high risk and i am willing to come back but i'm willing to come back when there is a plan in place i get it our kids need to be in school i see it every day i'm online with my kinders from nine o'clock until 12 30 1 o'clock in the afternoon every single day trying to help them but there's no plan i don't see

032a plan to keep us safe for all the little specifics that need to be in place we haven't seen anything if you have a plan then show it to us so we know what's going on otherwise you're risking our lives you're risking my life if i have to go back i have to go back i have a daughter to get through college who also by the way went to ryan went to renaissance me says nephews i teach every day there it's part of my family it's my community but i am not willing to risk my life to go back without a plan without something solid in place that talks about how are they going to sanitize how are we going to social distance what is going to be provided and how much time do i

033have to get my room ready it's a mess in there i haven't been in there to clean i've been in there to teach but that's it and i want to know take the teachers back take the kids back to class fine but then you board members need to be ready to go back to the board and meet also in person because if you're going to put us at risk you should be willing to put yourselves at risk that's the bottom line we're playing with lives here think about it get a plan if you have a plan show it to us negotiate it and we will all will we go back eventually i think but until you're willing to risk your life don't risk mine and don't risk my kids because i guarantee you thank you

034next speaker is nancy flores welcome nancy as soon as you begin speaking your timer will begin miss flores please and mute there hi good evening can you hear me yes good evening welcome thank you um i'm a teacher this is my tenth year in the district i'm happy with the district i don't have too many complaints other than normal little wines here and there but i went into my classroom this week there's not even soap in the soap dispenser okay i'm not even talking about alcohol wipes i'm talking about soap in the soap dispenser i'm talking about the the foamy sanitizer that thing that is on the wall has nothing in it there's no gloves there's nothing so how are you trying to invite us back burger king has more ppe than our schools right

035now i mean seriously and you're gonna throw people's lives just bam here we go because of we're getting some kind of bonus what's it worth what what are what are some what's it worth what dollar amount i've seen families on my zoom all of them having covered the little girls crying like it's ridiculous and i i'm not i'm not invited back right now this is not an invitation i i don't feel very comfortable oh like if i would have walked in and things were legit and solid and there's nose protectors and some kind of lamination throw up a shower curtain i don't care but right now i'm not walking into it and if i have to go back we're outside every day i'm not going into the classroom there's nothing there would you go into

036a restaurant right now with nothing would you go order something through a drive-through with nothing would you send your children your grandparents into somewhere with nothing so yeah i'm pretty heated but that's what it is that's what you get for nothing thank you miss flores anybody else mr moran yes the next speaker is mrs has-been welcome ms sasman as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello can you hear me yes i'm shireen hasbun i'm an area member teacher and mother of two alumrock students my kids love hubbard and they love their teachers both teachers have done an outstanding job so shout out to mr terrio and miss graciano i ask you to please keep in mind that there are teachers whose health are at risk not all teachers will be fully vaccinated

037by the april 12 school opening as of today we have two days left and it takes time to set up a classroom when will teachers have time to set them up finally i think it's important to establish clear safety procedures with teachers and families before we open thank you thank you we have one more speaker stephen lynch welcome steven as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening good evening last week's presentation that was given to the board uh telling about all the work that's been done to get ready for return to school was full of exaggerations and several lies this plan to get us back to school right now is putting the whole community at risk not just teachers but teachers and their it's also putting the community at risk these

038kids are still carriers of the virus although they may be asymptomatic they're going to bring the virus home and give it to grandma who doesn't have a health care plan and grandma will die the plan to have parents complete a survey each day saying that their child has no fever or cough is not near good enough we need real testing if you're going to have people coming to class you need weekly testing of students and staff students children tend to be asymptomatic their parents are not going to going to know if they're carrying the virus or not and having them complete a survey saying my kid doesn't have a cough is not good enough additionally they're going to get real tired of completing a survey after about a week and they're just going to check

039the boxes saying yes send my kid to school additionally what about the long-term health risks to the children there's not a lot of data on it yet but are you willing to risk long-term health problems for these kids the kids that get the virus even though they are asymptomatic they didn't even know they had it but years from now have health health problems from this the district has no good um safety protocols in place the hepa air filtration units that are that were bought are way too small i contacted the company and asked them about it they said that they are too small any return to the classroom involves a change in working conditions and that must be negotiated you cannot just say go back to school different rules don't do this it's a big

040mistake thank you mr moran yes we have four more speakers next speaker is julie arroyo welcome julie as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening um i am a teacher at ocala steam academy i've been teaching there for 12 years now i'm also a wife of someone who's immunocompromised and my my child has asthma i worry about what i'm going to be bringing home to my my husband and my child when i go back to work um because i don't know what the plan is i have no idea what we are how we are planning to open i'd also like to mention that my child will be returning to his school on april 21st i have seen the principals of his school have shown us the plans of how the desks

041are going to be set up in the classroom the entrance how students will enter and exit the class uh the school site i know the plan for my child who is going back to school be after we open april 12 where so we allegedly are opening at april 12th it's been in place for a while i know nothing about what we're going to do we need to have a plan thank you thank you next speaker is sandra rivera welcome sandra as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening board superintendent my name is sandra rivera i'm the alum rock educators association vice president and a fourth grade teacher this year at chavez elementary school while i'm also on your negotiating team i'm reaching out to you tonight to ask for a few

042things how many of you have ever had a part-time job where your shift goes from 4 pm to 7 pm but then that one person calls in sick they ask you to stay from your 7 p.m to 10 p.m but they pay me to stay for an additional three hours you are now asking teachers who have been working diligently to create new content new material new programs on your google classrooms on your drives giving students work both in on zoom and asynchronously to please now go into the classroom and help support students for another 90 minutes two hours in the time that they should be using to work individually with students or to be planning for more asynchronous work you're taking away their planning time their grading time their small group instruction time and yet

043we're not being compensated for that that is unfair as well as the fact that has many of board people have said to this board tonight that if we are being asked to return back you should also be asked to return back you can put six feet of space in between you and the next board member in the boardroom so please take these things into consideration it is not that the teachers don't want to come back it's not that we don't want to help our students it's that we are being asked that if the district is receiving millions and millions of dollars to incorporate this to show the teachers that you worth their life thank you thank you next speaker is claudia cuello welcome claudia as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good

044afternoon my name is claudia a parent of adam rock and i feel like a good start to begin um a sense of security would be to have an example set and an example for me would be to have to see all of you guys in the same room uh holding a board meeting i mean if you guys don't feel safe doing this immediately um you guys should really really think about how we feel as parents and along the staff that is speaking up right now they don't feel safe and there's a reason for that so definitely we would like to see um you guys step up on in that sense so we can feel more secure and i do agree with what what a person said now um we should be thinking about summer school

045and our upcoming year thank you thank you uh next person is lee pruitt welcome lee soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you can you hear me yes okay i'm a school psychologist and a proud area member and i wanted to share a story from my work day just today um i participated in a zoom iep meeting the student and his entire family were all coveted positive the parent shared that her younger child and herself were experiencing challenging symptoms the student for whom the iep was taking place was also sick with covid's symptoms he is in fifth grade we're making assumptions about contagion based on science that is changing due to new variants and the inevitable variants that have not yet been identified children are impacted i had a meeting about one

046today and i just want to know how we can ensure that returning to school is safe for our students thank you there are no more one more popped up uh jesse montano welcome jesse as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin miss montano please unmute yourself yes thank you carlos um yes i'm a teacher at painter's school and i don't think that this is fair for us teachers i'm also an area and a state council rep and i don't think this is fair for any of our teachers and our students i know it is hard for them but i come from a background where alum rock has been very uh i have a several students of my own family members one graduated from pala when it was palace so you know that was

047a long time ago uh the other one was a painter student as well and now hit her son is a kindergarten ever at painter's school which is a very good school however they are not re the school is not open i've gone to visit my classroom periodically and it is not ready you are to have a student when school is so close to almost being finished to go back to school to be expected to be ready and and ready to be going to school it is very hard i have to say that my grandson is wanting to go back to school but in his mind it's like he he thinks covert he thinks of the virus the virus the virus i think it's um not safe i also believe that you should have a plan

048in place most of the districts that are having this some of them have already got the plan some of them have put them to state to progress and i thought i don't think it's over all fairness and safeness which we have to think about our kids and i have been in a classroom at the end of last year before this all started when a parent was ill and her student was in my classroom so i know it's the scary feeling and i don't think we are ready and i don't think it's fair and i just want to let you know that alan rock really really really thinks has to think about this for overall students thank you thank you um and with that um mr moran was that it yes no more speakers thank you

049so we're going to go ahead and have a recess and go to closed session dr bauer approximately how long do you think we'll need i think we would need about an hour and a half okay so that would put us at about nine o'clock that's fine okay so we'll um go ahead and break out until nine o'clock at nine o'clock we'll return back um and meet you all again and uh trustees i just want to make sure you all have the link to go into closed session i think linda you're asking for a link want to make sure that you've got that and if not linda uh feel free to give me a call and um and we'll make sure you get that um i think other than that we should all have a link

050and we'll see you in closed session and we'll see the public back here at nine o'clock thank you hello can you hear me maribel yes trustee charles este so am i on am i on the meeting or not you are in the open session okay so there wasn't going to be any trusty comments just a public comment i thought uh trustee said it's um everybody's going to close session yeah but um i'm surprised i couldn't unmute myself um when that screen is on so um i guess i'll talk about it in closed session thank you maribeth oh you're welcome trust each other okay uh okay i'm back let's see i see trustee vegeta all right um so at this point there's nothing to report uh reconvening at 9 23 uh we'll go to item now

051five uh the board will consider the plan for school reopenings in the allen rock union school district uh dr brow yeah dr bauer i believe yes um i'm trying to see i'm gonna be asking the board to consider a recommendation and i'm gonna ask maribel to share it so that the board and the public can see my recommendation the district is currently providing distance learning to students under an mou with the allen brock education association dated august 10 2020. the district appreciates areas and all teachers efforts to transition to distance learning last year at the start of the pandemic the distance learning mou states that it will expire on june 30th 2021 or at such time as the school side opening or in full in-person instruction is permitted by the state or local order on

052march 23rd 2021 the state moved santa clara county into the orange tier for the state's covid 19 website the state has announced the county's move into the orange tier and the state has announced that schools may reopen fully for in-person instruction and that local school officials will decide whether and when that will occur as you know assembly bill 86 recently signed into law by the governor provides significant financial incentives for school districts who offer and providing personal instruction to the greatest extent possible for the remainder of the regular school year at a special meeting on march 23rd the board of trustees unanimously approved that beginning the week of april 12 2021 arusd will open up grade levels pre-k through eighth on a face basis to provide in-person instruction for students who have elected to opt-in

053to return to in-person instruction in district schools all parents and families in the districts were given the option to opt-in so that their child could if they wish return to some measure of in-person instruction in district schools the district received opt-ins from parents for 1832 students to return to in-person instruction the district team has been communicating and meeting with area since march 12th to try to reach an mou so that a sufficient number of teachers to return to providing personal instruction for those 18 1832 students who have elected in-person instruction unfortunately we have not been yet been able to reach a mutually acceptable agreement and the district will be shutting down for spring break for several days beginning this friday administration believes it is important to notify families and staff of what they should expect

054when they return after spring break the administration is committed to continue communicating and working with area and all bargaining units to prepare for the reopening of schools to best ensure the safe and smooth return to the classroom for students who have opted in for in-person instruction and based on the state's determination that schools may reopen fully for in-person instruction the administration is recommending and requesting that the board direct and authorized administration to notify all staff and the opt-in families that the district will be providing in-person instruction four days per week in the afternoons at the district's school sites and to take such actions that as are necessary to mobilize staff and resources to provide for the in-person instruction for those opt-in families for the remainder of the school year and to continue to provide distance

055learning for those families that did not opt-in this authority would include if necessary declaring the current distance learning mou expired for its terms and notifying area of its expiration respectfully presented thank you dr bauer for discussion purposes uh i'll go ahead and make a motion do i have a second a second okay uh at this time i'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment and then i'll bring it back for um board trustees comments or questions uh carlos do we have anybody on for public comment on this item we have one person brenda sandejas thank you welcome back brenda as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening board members um i do have a question with this um does this mean that if this is approved the students

056will be returning for four days without an mou agreement from um all bargaining units or what does this mean because i'm a bit confused because i know that you guys went into closed session and nothing was given but what does this do does this um go above bargaining units and just tell everybody to return or i just don't know how this works thank you mr moran yes we have adrian vane welcome adrian as soon as you begin speaking the time i will begin hello thank you um i spoke before um once again i am concerned about my safety i understand what dr bauer has put forth but what are the safety plans nothing in that thing said anything about the safety of our students of our staff we have i have currently 141 students that

057i teach daily and how am i supposed to do distance learning how am i supposed to teach them if they're coming back with no plan and i've seen the filters that are being provided in our classrooms those are not hospital grade those do not take away from the they do not protect us from copic 19. my classroom doesn't have any ventilation what are we doing to protect not only us as teachers but our students and frankly we're seeing different variants of kovid that are affecting kids at this point this is not the right time to do this you should not be going ahead and not talking to area talking to your teachers talking to everybody you're you're we we're we're doing this way too far ahead of schedule we need to make sure things are

058safe before we make any rash decisions and i feel that once again you guys are making rash decisions without thinking about everybody involved and it's really upsetting thank you very much thank you mr monad yes next speaker is veronica welcome veronica as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin great thank you and good afternoon um i also i have a lot of questions and i hope what was just read it gets a little bit more amplified on and explained a little bit further um i also have a concern on the reopening plan because just i believe this past no last week there was a meeting with some of the parent leaders um side council parent teacher council site council in schools were not invited it was sparked in other committees and i heard

059it through other parents and i was invited to it and it was about the reopening plan and i would have loved to hear that to the whole parents right and i only knew about it because other parents told me but it wasn't because i was in one of those groups and so i was a little bit disappointed for that i hope to hear something more and i hope to be also involved and not just those parent leaders but as a whole stakeholders because it doesn't by just hearing also the comments of the teachers it doesn't seem like stakeholders are really being involved in this reopening plan and the impacts that that includes right it's this and it again it trickles down to our students our teachers our families not really much you know administration such

060as dr bauer and the board but really the most impacted our students teachers and families so i do hope that there is something as soon as possible where we can see that reopening plan um the video was great i saw that video that was just published but it only shows one school but i would definitely love to see for each school what is that plan look like because my school it's not shepherd my school is san antonio and i want to know what that is going to look like for my students if they do return back to school and even for my teachers i want to know that to make sure that they their safety is a priority as well thank you thank you ex speaker is abby harris welcome abby as soon as you

061begin speaking the timer will come thank you um i did speak earlier and again i just wanted to address that i think this is chaotic to give us basically two more days this week we're on spring break next week and then we're expected to show up on monday we haven't been able to set up our classrooms we have no idea what the plan is middle school teachers are still teaching in the afternoons we have block schedules we're seeing our kids after lunch we have different periods and there is nothing in place that's telling us how to do this there's no plan for our parents that have been sent out there's no guidelines for the staff members there's no guidelines for the principals to be able to share with their families and with their staff members

062and you're putting everyone into a frenzy with nothing to give us to help us and guide us this is ridiculous we're all professionals i don't understand why you're not giving us more time to prepare for this i understand we're under you know pressure from the state to reopen and we have families that want to come back but give us the proper time to plan let us set up at this moment you're telling us we're teaching in in the afternoons but again we are still teaching the afternoon so what does that look like for us middle school teachers we're teaching all day to our normal kids on zoom and then all of a sudden we're having to provide instruction in the afternoons it's not making sense to us and this is why we're frustrated so again

063we're just asking to give us some time to plan and figure this out thank you thank you next speaker is dilsa gonzalez welcome lisa as soon as you begin speaking the timer will be good evening members of the board my name is telsa gonzalez i am a parent of two students in the umbra school area and i am here as a parent and representing my children i i do have questions like brenda have previously mentioned there having been a a a rich agreement between unions and between the bargaining deals that you guys are trying to do what this means for our children and when you guys are opening second i haven't been invited or haven't seen any kind of community town hall to let the parents know what is the plan when that reopening is

064going to happen we're going in a break everybody's going on a break we're kind of we're coming back but yet we're not guaranteed the safety of our children our staff and mainly our teachers identities has been mentioned multiple times that we are in a present time and i understand parents want to go parents want their children to go back to some kind of normality our kids are suffering from social emotional and mental health issues but reality is that we cannot open schools if we're not ready for it and if not every single parent it knows exactly what to expect when their kids go back to school once again last two community town halls led them by parents led them by stakeholders let's invite teachers and let's together work with this i don't think nobody is

065against reopening but we are against reopening without knowing to what we're opening our doors to um thank you and have a really good evening thank you next speaker is lee pruitt welcome lee since you begin speaking the time movie thank you um i have a brief comment i just want to speak as a working parent being told tonight that we're going back to work in the afternoon four days a week potentially gives us less than two weeks to arrange child care for our biological children if we'd known a date with more advanced notice then we would have had more time to prepare as it is we're sort of left in the lurch here thank you next speaker is erica grant welcome eric as soon as you begin speaking your timer hi um i also just

066have a brief comment um i really i'm a teacher um and i wanted to note the fact that we have already exposed our student other people have spoken more eloquently eloquently than i can about the dangers that we're exposing community members to and the family members of our students too if we're opening without a plan that is safe and that we can stick to reliably um but i also want to point to the emotional danger for our students they have already been exposed to so much uncertainty in the past year since we closed down last march they've had to hear a series of you know maybe we'll come back maybe we will or maybe we will maybe we won't the all of the factors that have um gone into trying to make some kind of

067reopening plan and what that might look like have been out of our control for the entirety of this year we have not been able to control the coveted spread in santa clara county we've not been able to control the cbc guidelines or any of that this is something that we can control for our students we can make a solid plan that makes sense that everybody's aware of and they can give consistency because when i'm in the classroom and my students are asking me questions i'm not going to be able to answer them based on this i'm not going to be able to provide that structure and that's something that feels really patently unfair as an educator i want to be back with my students i think that that's important but i also want to be

068able to have rules and expectations that are clear for them so they don't have yet another thing they have to be worrying about in the middle of a global pandemic we owe it to them and we owe it to our families to have a clear cohesive comprehensive plan before we start thinking about reopening and coming back week after spring break is none of that it's creating an environment for chaos and uncertainty that's going to harm them more than they already have been thank you next speaker is miss louie welcome miss lois since you begin speaking the timer will begin hi i spoke earlier i'm kathy lilly i teach at shepherd middle school as i said earlier cases are rising across the country and if you think that it's not going to reach here you were

069wrong my students tell me on a weekly basis they're traveling all over the bay area the state and even out of the state and back and having parties and all this other things and i understand the the fatigue of being in this pandemic for this long but when you decide that you're going to also open schools while this is going on right after a break where families are getting together non-families are getting together the weather's warmer it's a recipe for disaster um we have had hundreds of thousands of people die and a lot of them in our district and i don't think it's right for us to just open with a blind plan with no structure um while we see cases rising all across the country and the cdc is warning about another wave um

070this is killing children and some of our children might be those children who die if we do this and i don't think that's right i don't think that's okay our priority is a safety of our children not money from the state or but our the safety and health of our children and their families that's number one thank you thank you mr mona next speaker is diana albert welcome diana as soon as you begin speaking the time will begin thank you can you hear me okay yes thank you my name is diana albert and i'm a teacher at hubbard media arts academy and i'm actually a second generation teacher and a third generation employee of the alan rock union school district so um i take working in the school district very seriously this is my community

071this is where i live and i love hubbard and i love the community as i said i went to linda vista and palace so i have a lot of vested in this community and i want to say as a teacher anybody who knows me and works with me knows that i plan my everything is planned i'm a lesson plan lesson plan lesson plan and i feel like with this plan that's been presented that what we do as teachers is somewhat overlooked and it may be an unintended consequence but that's how i'm feeling because to plan to teach on zoom all day and then have to go and teach in the afternoon as well is a lot of work that that's a lot of work and you're talking about students that may not be your students

072that sit in front of you in the morning so you have to build a rapport all those things are very important to students the communication the human connection and those of us are going to do it we do it right and to not have the time to prepare for that is very very disheartening and i just wanted to make sure that that piece is understood and that that um how important it is for the students isn't lost in this and that if this is something that we're going to go forward with that that plan has to include time for the teachers to be prepared thank you thank you next speaker is sherry dworthy welcome sherry as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you so much this is my second time speaking

073as well um i am a teacher at russell mcentee i've taught in this district for almost 25 years i too am a product of this school district i i love this district i i love my job i love what i do but being forced to do something that you were promised wasn't going to be this way i just don't understand dr bauer how you can tell us that a contract that was not going to expire until june is just going to be no longer valid expiring sooner that just doesn't make sense to me and if if we can't hold those kinds of promises what's it going to be like when we get into the classroom and the promises that we're told and how we're going to be safe are they really going to happen at

074my school um the custodial staff definitely empties the garbage every day but we don't get vacuumed every day it's a once or twice a week thing depending on your classroom and how are they going to come in and sanitize every day it just doesn't make sense we don't even know how many students we're going to have in our class um are do we are we going to have ppe for all of them are they going to be screened having their temperature taken you know what what plans are in place for the safety we understand that you want to open the school but you've not told us how you're going to keep us our students and our community safe and i really hope that those are things that are considered before a decision is finalized and

075put in jeopardy and um and that's that's really all i have to say thank you so much thank you uh next speaker is jessica and devotee hi can you hear me yes we can hear you oh yes um i just i'm floored i'm panicking because i just feel that you guys are are bargaining over money over our lives and the trauma this could bring the mass exodus of teachers it could bring you're making decisions about our lives and not just our profession here for some money and we're gonna get money in the summer anyway why for a couple million dollars you're causing such chaos and like what sherry just said before like where's the sanitation where's the cleaning where's the planning and this is your our lives and our lives of our students and their

076families and my family like i have teachers saying i haven't even gotten my second shot yet um my family's not vaccinated and the same goes for our community in in alim roth the vaccine hesitancy these families aren't vaccinated yet these kids aren't vaccinated and now we know that young kids are the number one and number two percentage of of cases right now i just feel keep keep everybody home and safe and we can come up with a really great great plan for fall i just can't believe you are bargaining our lives here and the lives of our students for some money and it's heartbreaking because i love teaching and i don't want to think about having to leave my job to save my life and the life of my husband and my family um because

077our district wants some money um it's really heartbreaking um to think that so please save our lives save the lives of our kids um thank you thank you mr monad next speaker is stephanie lopez welcome stephanie as soon as you begin speaking the timer will be maybe we should go on to the next person not sure if she stepped away maybe miss lopez please and mew i saw the yeah maybe we'll come back at the end maybe they stepped away okay next uh person and i apologize if i don't say this name correctly miss pisachi art teacher welcome as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hi um i'm going to apologize in advance i'm having a literal anxiety response over here so if my voice is a bit discombobulated that's why i'm

078a teacher at george um there is nothing i care more about in the world than my students and my families and i've split it i've put in so many hours this year extra hours um to take care of them as best i can through technology training and having zoom meetings over winter break so they don't feel lonely and i keep a list on my desk of students who have been personally affected by kovid and i stopped counting at 20 students who have had deaths of family members because it i can't even i can't even speak it's really heartbreaking and these are students who have been losing family members with these parameters in place with campuses closed with masks being widely used more than 20 of my students and this weekend i got comments on google

079classroom about an 11 year old student i have who's been diagnosed with covid we were all really grateful in december when the rest of his family members had it and he didn't like i was so relieved i started to maybe believe that the science pointing to kids not getting it isn't true um but no now he has it um and i would like to i guess just leave with a comment on what we are supposed to tell our students who've lost loved ones due to this because i know literally no details of the plan from the district to protect these children and their family thank you thank you mr moran uh let's go ahead and try the other person i'm not sure what the name was are they still there no they're not uh there

080are no more speakers okay thank you so much so before we go back um to the trustees questions and comments um dr bauer if you i know there was a lot of questions and comments about the same things over and over so if you can i know we're not allowed to respond or have a conversation with the public um directly but if you can address some of those concerns and thoughts before we open it up for the trustees i just want to remind the board the last week we presented the plan that included all the safety measures and the video that we produce and that is an example because we cannot make a video of every site of how we're going to handle distance learning i'm sorry social distancing the masks the washing of the

081hands all of those kinds of things we have already placed um the the necessary sanitizers they are waiting to be distributed so all of the schools have enough sanitizer ppe masks um all the necessary requirements we have also purchased sneeze guards to be installed in the different classrooms um the recommendation as you heard is for eight 1832 students we are um planning to send another letter to the parents to double check if the schedule that we are preparing for them works so we are within those confines but in terms of safety measures we are following all the guidelines we have filed our safety plan our cpp with the county and everything is ready to go that plan has been in works for about 12 months already and all the union presidents were part of the

082planning thank you thank you i'll go ahead and open up for comments and questions from the board if there are any i see you waving at mr trusty but then i know okay well i guess i'll start it off um so thank you everyone tonight for i mean it seems like one thing after another for many years now every every month is a difficult decision or or a very important impactful life and death decision in many of these cases and so and i just want to appreciate everyone you know just being on this team teacher staff parents students all of us um and i want to thank you dr bauer for providing that clarification that you just gave because you know i i want i it's important for everyone to know as many facts as

083possible i know there are some things that we can't necessarily share just because of the process but i think a lot of what was shared last week the the plan that was shared and the things that we've you know have as you mentioned have been discussed over the past 12 months if people are able to get some of that information i think that would help and so that's available and i'm hoping that people take advantage of that um you know in terms of safety that's some a few people have said it if not everybody that's number one priority is safety it's not the money it's not anything but the safety of of the children that's that's the priority for sure and and we can all speculate as to what we think is gonna happen in

084the next three weeks three months three years but all as the board member all i have to go on right now is the guidance of of those professionals who know more than me the cdc the public health department you know maybe some of the people that have been doing the work at county office of ed and so all those things point to if administered in the way that is outlined in our plan they speak to the safety and the ability to to reopen in the capacity that we're um that's being proposed tonight so i you know i i want to say that is that the guidance that we have from the professionals says that in spite of what any of us may think this is going none of us have known from day one where

085this was was going and we still don't know um and the other thing you know i am very empathetic to these feelings that people have the anxiety the worry the you know the concern you know i didn't share it i might have mentioned it and passed me a few times but i didn't share this publicly but in in december i i got coveted and and members in my direct household had coveted and were very sick and you know i obviously kind of obviously you know i have comorbidities that to worry about and so i understand the seriousness but in our district we have a lot of you know we have foster children that are part of a lot of the work that we do and my day job is approving the homes of those foster

086children and so you know that work requires going into homes working with families working with children and i understood the risk that i was exposed to as an essential worker a social worker at the time um but you know i that was the work that i chose and i the same as everyone like we all have decisions that we make you know whether it's job related or personal or family and and you know i i was in a position where i had to choose to continue working and serving the families that i've dedicated my career to serving and you know obviously we don't know exactly where covet is contracted but you know i know that when you work to serve children and families sometimes you know there are risks that come along with that and

087everyone's decision is different i respect and honor that um mine was with what it was and i got covered and luckily everything you know turned out as far as we know you know fine we don't know the long term stuff and all that but um i just all that being said i want to you know just say that i'm empathetic about the this the the feelings that people have i've lived it i've suffered it and and i've you know if i had to make the choice again me personally i would do it again because it's important in my role to to you know make sure these foster families are there to provide homes for children but i also recognize that each individual's decision family everything is very individual so i'm just empathetic about it so

088so um you know i think it's there's a lot of information that's available it's obviously a very difficult decision i'm empathetic to people's positions but at the end of the day a decision will need to be made tonight and so i'm eager to hear the rest of my colleagues and and and you know see where we stand on this thank you trustee without noise see travis and bam trustee chavez go ahead so my concern i guess overall is the safety of the children and the families and everybody all the staff um is what's most concerning that these people are saying that um as far as the spark or the parent committees uh only certain ones that were invited and i believe that we could probably do better in opening it up to the public and

089lay out that plan for them one more time and maybe in a public forum so that they can be more at ease with the plan that's going to be laid down out down the road if they haven't gotten that information already i know that the district says that they you can look it up on the website and everything but it's for many parents maybe it's better to um have another public meeting and let them know that i i know that it's extra time but i i believe it's extra time well spent to give them a little bit more comfort uh to the families and the parents who are going to bring their children to school that's it thank you thank you trustee charles trusty pam um well i want to thank the you know dr

090bauer administration you know school principals uh for their work uh you know i also you know uh you know a lot of work has been put in and i i do want to ensure that that you know everyone in this district knows that i appreciate you know that work uh at the same time i also hear you know the concerns out there and you know this is a weighty decision of you know i get you know fraught with uh or lack of a better term variables that you know uh i you know that are beyond the scope of my own education you know and my life experience yeah you know and believe me when i say you know and i want to thank my colleagues on the board you know we we were you know

091up up to the last minute in closed session and you know i won't want to appreciate them for you know uh you know uh supporting me in in in you know doing what we can in order to you know try to find an agreement that we can all live with but although you know uh you know what is it but it looks like the you know the situation is as it is and you know i certainly hope that you know what it you know what whatever the outcome of you know tonight's meeting you know i hope that we we can all count come together and you know hopefully return to the negotiating table and find some agreement you know but uh in the meantime you know uh you know each of my colleagues will find

092you know will come to their you know based upon their understanding of situation will come to their own view with it as for me uh you know kovit is the river that i is the gushing river that i feared across at this time so you know uh i certainly hope that it's you know at some later time you know what you know we've there is room for negotiation but uh you know but uh you know i am re you know uh politics i know something about uh counseling i know something about but kobit you know that's no that's not that's something that uh that you know um beyond my imagination you know and you know i i certainly know that you know it you know it is a serious and you know ailment that has

093you know brought no you know a major measure of devastation in our region so that you know on that note you know uh that's not the gushing river that i am ready to cross yet at this time thank you thank you mr from dr bauer uh i'm i guess if if this does pass today what are the next steps um in regards to um i know that you know there's been a plan that we've been talking about you also refer to the dates on there and if we were to go into different tiers and what the plan was then and we're following through what would be the next steps i need to inform we need to collect some more uh firm information from the parents who signed in so for those parents who already opted

094out and they prefer distance learning they're gonna stay in distance learning but is that eight 1832 students whose parents said yes we want this it's it's a significant number so we have to go back we have to offer them that the schedule as we as i presented it to you and to see how many of them still want to to come back and depending on that number we will continue to find out how we're going to staff those classrooms that's why we need the the ability because kids don't come in perfect little packets right so we need to there's a lot of things and there will be planning time for the teachers who happen to that will be coming so training for them that is the reason remember one of the things um that we

095need to be very mindful is the resources attached to this and that what we lose every day we don't have students in the classroom it's about 30 000 a day which will not be going to some of the kinds of things that we need to make sure that the staff and the kids have what they need this is very important for us um we are committed to safety that's number one i have uh my the mot team is wait is just waiting to figure out who's coming where do we we put the sneeze guards how we're putting up put the sanitizers all of that they're just waiting for us to to make a decision that's the next step is asking those families for a firm commitment that they're sending their kids now that they they

096have a sense of the schedule okay which could also change or make it even less and then communicating with the teachers um okay and then the sneeze guards we have enough for those students to come back just uh waiting to see which classes we're gonna put those in or start putting those in um okay uh before i come up with any other thoughts or questions board vice president quintero actually before we go there uh trustee berganano yeah i just want to also um to the extent to the extent that it's possible i guess reassure those people that had questions about you know specific safety measures or or parts of the plan part of the reason why we were in closed session for the amount of time that we were is because we really were asking

097a lot of questions kind of like what if questions well what if this what if that what's the plan if this happens what's you know so we were doing our best in the time that we had to also flesh out that plan and some of the hypotheticals um even beyond what stated and so you know having done that and and as i mentioned last week you know you i don't think you should ever let the perfect get in the way of the good or whatever that saying is but i like i said to the extent possible i'm you know i'm i'm confident in in the robust nature of the plan and the responses that that are being proposed by staff i i know there's still things we'll learn along the way as it rolls out

098and implements if we go that direction but i you know a lot of the questions that were asked i just want to let you know the public know that i'm very confident that um that staff is prepared to address those types of situations thank you board vice president quintero exactly tough decisions that um your sound is weird i don't know if you could get closer or speak louder can you hear me that's better yeah all right thank you so this is these are the precise uh things that people are elected to school boards for that's what we're here for to deal with the uncertainty that arises with just everyday life um if that weren't the case then we would be able to just have automatons that can make a decision a when faced with you

099know situation b and stuff of that sort and so those decisions that we make or at least that i make are based on information that i receive and the information that i receive from appropriate sources it's not i some people say what do you know about kobe well i lived i wound up getting it and as a result of of that i have a you know irreparable harm to my lungs that really damage my lungs quite a bit um and so thank god that i didn't go any any further than that but i'm not going to base decisions on my personal experience i have to you know that's part of it but uh i have to go off of what the the experts say uh a short while ago we were under a lot of

100pressure by a certain individual here big name in san jose who decided to come after us for not opening when he when he wanted to and what i said is we're not going to open until the appropriate authorities are telling us that it's appropriate and it's right to open and at that time i was glad to push back and not be bullied into opening just because somebody wanted it however at this point in time council can go ahead and attest to this we've been told that under the orange tier the state has declared that we can go ahead and reopen our schools and so based upon the information i'm receiving is what i'm making decisions on i know that there's a serious amount of concern and there should be and that's exactly why before there's

101any sort of movement i wanted to make sure that there's appropriate levels of resources and ppe's so that folks can come in and be safe our children and our staff students everyone who enters our schools should be safe and so um you know these are very very difficult decisions but at some point in time as we're moving forward um i think i think we are an ideal situation where it's a small enough group of students that we can maintain safety and we can go ahead and start uh moving forward if and in fact uh the authorities do inform us that uh we're in a situation where there's an uptick and there is concern that that while before that we should be taking steps to to um to keep our students and staff safe and and

102uh and take the appropriate measures as we did as as we did before and so with that being said i i am you know it's not an easy decision to come to it'd be ideal to in an ideal world uh we would have some sort of way of snapping our fingers and having this go away unfortunately we don't see that coming very soon and so what we do see is what we're being told by the authorities and that's uh precisely what i'm going to be basing my decision off of i can't go off of other other information so um thank you for the time thank you and um as my colleague mentioned you know i've also been very public as far as supporting our teachers um supporting our children ensuring that we're all safe ensuring

103that we don't get pressured into making the decision to open our schools um and you know we're here most of our teachers um you know i've heard good reports that the vaccine has been made available for those that you know want it um a lot of progress since uh those conversations back then unfortunately i'm in agreement we're not in a safe place you know i um our numbers here on the east side are still higher than other areas in our community which is part of the reason why we're one of the last schools to have a date to even reopen or to consider that um and i'm okay with you know being one of the last schools to present a date to you know reopen um [Music] and it's not easy you know it's not

104easy um as my colleagues mentioned we were in closed session turning over every leaf you know every rock um and that's what we're here to do right and make sure that when we make the decisions that we make that we make them and at the end of the day go to sleep with a clear conscience and know that we did our best and that we looked at every detail ensuring that our children whose parents choose to have them back in school are safe and that hopefully you know that our our teachers also feel good um and safe enough to be there and teach our children just the way they signed up to be a teacher uh you know when they envision themselves going to college i want that i want that for everybody um also

105as mr vegarano mentioned you know being a probation officer myself right now and also serving the county at the emergency operations center you know there's i wish i could stay home with my daughter and my you know husband um that we also you know have um specific health issues that we got to consider but i can't and um and it you know it's different for everybody and we all get to make decisions um and as board members you know we signed up for this there's a lot of times that are good and great and you know we get to make um you know decisions that are easier but this is one of those um hopefully few decisions that are the hardest um and you know as uh it's been mentioned that if there's any safety

106concern know that we'll be the first ones to stand up you know and ensure that our children our teachers and our staff are safe um you know and and at the end of the day we get to uh reopen right whether it's april 12th who knows things might change from here to then um or whenever that is and so that when we do it though that we make sure that we have um enough ppe enough hand sanitizers sneeze guards um space for our children to um be in so that so that we're doing it in a way that is um healthy um and that we're able to keep our children in school and not have to close because they got you know um covet or any one of those things so um yeah it's it's

107it's not the easiest um but we get to you know do that and i know there's five of us and we all have our reasons for why we will vote the way we will vote um but know that you know we're we're here turning every rock and every leaf ensuring that you know we're covering everything dotting every eye and crossing every t so with that if nobody else has anybody any questions or comments president um board vice president quintero uh can the general counsel just re-uh go over the the the orange tier you had to write some language in the past and so i just want to make sure that we're all aware of what this the current status is um and uh because that's what i'm basing my decision off of if it's changed

108and obviously i don't want to be basing it off of wrong information but that's what what i was informed of the last time and i'm assuming that it's still the same so if general counsel can look it up and provide that to us the santa clara county remains in the orange tier as of now and the language on the state website announcing the move into the orange tier is that schools may reopen fully for in-person instruction and local school officials will decide whether and when that will occur i know it was low but were you able to hear that yeah okay any other questions comments okay we'll go ahead uh go ahead trustee pam okay one last question to uh uh to district general counsel in the event that santa clara county does uh regress

109in tears then um you know uh does that mean that you know we will pivot back to to distance learning or you know how does that work so that would not necessarily mean that the district has to pivot back to distance learning across the board i believe what will happen is it will depend on the circumstances as they arise but the board will be free to consider all of those issues and circumstances if and when that occurs and the supplemental question would be uh you know if if that occurs does the dis you know if you know if there is a regression in tears and you know we we you know circumstances change are you know is this district liable for having to return uh ab-86 money so the ab-86 money the condition of that

110is the district has to provide in-person instruction uh to those students who opt in to the greatest extent possible so if there is a change in health and safety circumstances that causes the district to have to regress to distance learning at some or all of its schools then the district's position will be that it still met the standard of offering in-person instruction to the greatest extent possible it just couldn't under the circle the prevailing circumstances at that time okay thank you very much thank you any other questions or comments okay so with that we're gonna go ahead and uh go to voting and i'll just call your name as i see you on my screen start with trustee with herrano hi trustee femme no trustee chavez oh sheesh i've traveled again trusty travis we can

111hear you okay no can you see this no oh yes your response is no you're you're voting no no correct thank you uh board vice president quintero my word is yes and myself yes passes and with that we'll go ahead and close our meeting at 10 20 p.m thank you have a good night