MSAD #60 School Board Meeting

001i just don't want to bring it all up we are offset we're live we're all doing what we think is best for the kids everybody's here with this and um we all just need to be civil with each other and um you know things [Music] this world [Music] so um the first public input session is a 15-minute session although we will um run longer tonight with each person having no longer than three minutes in wish to make a statement a second input statement session that may be held at the end of the meeting if allowed by the board chair each speaker will give his and her name and um we have a microphone at the podium i do not think we do so people can talk lab so if you can stand and say your

002first and last name and the town that you live in um and just speak loudly i guess and your reason for speaking public input is designated for district residents but the board chair may grant non-residents the opportunity to address the board please note that statements involving certain subject matters such as personnel cannot be made during these public input sessions um all right do we have and we're gonna we're just gonna run a timer just for ease and we'll give you a 20-second warning when you're at the end of approaching um okay so actually even though we don't have a mic do we still want people to come up over here hi my name is kathy sheedy and i'm from berwick and i'm here to read a letter from my niece who is a senior at

003the noble high school hello my name is morgan bill and i'm a senior here at noble i'm writing this letter because i'm in favor of wearing masks during the school day i would like to keep our schools open as it is my final year here i believe that we should be more strict about mass breaks as i have only gotten a mass break one time so far this entire senior year i feel that students have been following the mask very well and only a few students have worn them below the nose teachers will be able to remind them to wear their mask correctly i feel that we should continue assigned seating as they can help trace back if a student does get coded and only a small portion of students needs to be quarantined as

004opposed to all of us i would love to stay in person as much as possible as i am involved in the theater production i would love to not be required to learn mass during the show as facial expressions are a dramatic part of theater as it has already been proven masks work and are effective i am an individual who tends to have a cold over the winter for a long period of time and i did not get any form of sickness last year when i was wearing masks everywhere i went when i only got that cold when i was fully vaccinated and started taking off my mask again and was allowed in public places keeping germs contained during the school day will give us a higher chance of staying in person and having as much

005as a normal year as possible i would love to have a real graduation i have spoken to various other students in my classes in order to gain a better understanding of what other students are saying about the mass situation i have heard the majority speak about how masks are not a big deal and how it is the safest way to ensure that we can speak about it is the safest way to ensure we can stay in person as opposed to online learning personally i feel that many of us struggled while learning remotely and have certainly put a toll on the mental health of many some students have stated how they are willing to wear a mask even though they don't want to they claim that they do not mind getting coded and be because they

006are vaccinated and they do not feel that they want to wear a mask but they will do so if the school requires it the masks were first made optional on the first day of school i was shocked to see how many people did not wear them i was hoping people would at least put them on in the hallways in more crowded places i wondered how many of them were unvaccinated and how uncomfortable others were because of this i certainly was i feel as if students should be able to take off their mass if they're in a small group and is constantly together as long as they're staying sanitized and vaccinated overall i'm hoping that i can continue to get my education in person to have a fall musical in person this can only happen if

007students and teachers continue to stay safe by wearing masks and i just want to remind you that that was a student at the noble high school thank you hi my name is matthew leggett i'm a lebanon resident i have a kid in sixth grade and ninth grade my son also noticed that when kids came to school on the first day when masks weren't mandated like was spoken before nobody really wore them none of his friends want to wear them nobody in the school that he spoke to wants to wear them none of them are concerned we talk about facts i know a lot of facts like with bridal before can be changed and manipulated but what can't be is the number of students that get infected it gets counted we know how many kids get

008infected in the school if you go to dhstexas.gov texas doesn't require mass in school in fact the governor is suing any town that wants to institute a mass mandate so they're a great example to look to to see do masks work so they just reported on september 5th their student body in texas is five million three hundred forty thousand one hundred eighty of that thirteen thousand two hundred twenty two were infected that's an infection rate of two point four seven percent we can compare that to what the national average is the national average is currently as of 9 14 was 9.12 so much higher than that of texas school with no masks what about maine maine is at 5.17 as of 9 14. so our state is at a higher infection rate than those in

009school that don't even have a masculine other countries around the world notice that masks don't work places like scotland england wales ireland uk britain all have determined that masks in schools do not work and is a detriment to our children in june the delta variant went surging in britain so they had a high infection rate but still saw that the ones in school because they were in school during that time had a very low infection rate showing once again without masks even with the delta variant surgeon kids were not getting sick in school i don't know i don't have the stats in front of me as to why kids don't get sick like adults do i don't know i'm not a scientist i can only read these numbers and tell you they don't why do

010we know they don't because the numbers don't lie how many kids got sick how many kids are in the school it's not hard math i believe a gentleman in here has stats from our school we have masks on i think we're at three percent we're higher than that of texas with no masks i couldn't get george's in florida's as i couldn't find any reporting specific to school but they don't have masks either in school um but texas it's really easy to find texas.gov please go to their website you can see for yourself that way it's not just my word um i also want to speak about the mask rates you're in three minutes okay i didn't get 20 seconds can i do just a minute oh sir i agree with your mask break thank you

011they're not getting there i just asked for a point of information why the board has uh stated in their uh public comment uh policy on the uh website that public participation is five minutes not three minutes it says it was updated in february 2020 and that's the one that posted that was adopted in 1991 that's advertised we'll check into that but that's but that's what's posted we'll check we'll check into that but that's what you have advertised [Laughter] and um with all so to yesterday the american academy of pediatrics issued a statement saying that they were greatly concerned with the spike in coronavirus amongst children under 12 and a spike in deaths of children under and that they blamed it mostly on anti-mask mandates um it's a scientific american today came out and with an

012article which cited several studies which all said masks are effective and they didn't have enough room to go over all of them in a magazine format um in north carolina they looked at a million school children in their system and found that with their mass mandate the infection rates were lower in the school than in the surrounding community this notion that masks don't work you know and i know for a fact texas.gov does not collect the information from all of their schools it's it's incomplete data so this notion that masks don't work is simply contrary to all the science and today in idaho they announced that doctors are having to make a choice between who lives and who dies because their icus are filled and it's because people are not wearing masks are not getting

013we need the school board you guys did the right thing in mandating masks [Laughter] all right i'm rick pelletier i'm from lebanon i have a 13 year old in eighth grade i wanted to say i want to apologize for the lebanon people i kind of called you guys out last time and you voted for uh parent choice and my bad i i that was my first time ever so my bad thank you for voting for parents uh i see that we're getting plenty of coded emails still and you guys are saying mass work why are we still getting coded with mass work i don't understand the understanding behind it uh four from the high school two different days in a row uh and the other schools too i mean you guys you guys think these

014might work but 20 minutes maybe 20 minutes into it these things are jumping i've also seen videos and studies that people vaping they bake through the mask and it comes right through and they vape vapor is more thicker than the virus itself and it just bellows out every single different mass that they tried it just bellows out so why is that oh yeah that's right bull uh i also wanted to say i sat down with the assistant and the uh the superintendent um and asked questions and they said they were getting funding for masking the children as well i was wondering why if there's not a state emergency mass mandate you know leaving it up to the the towns or whatever the committees to to vote why are we uh masking our children uh i

015was gonna ask that if in good faith if you're saying it's for the health of our children how well you guys don't take the funding from the government and show good faith towards the parents that this isn't for the money it's for the children i'd like to see that happen also i wanted to know uh except for maybe one or two members of the board how many of you have children in the school system you guys are pretty old to know where your children are while you're basing your opinions on children when you have zero children in the school system that's all i have a right from speed so get as angry as you want if you want to yell at me later fine um also i'd like to say that um matt and some

016other speakers that are going to come up here are going to give you massive amounts of data i'd like that you guys listen to them because this data is real and i'd like to ask you where the data is for why we're having to mask coming into here there's no school in session nothing no kids no nothing so why are our rights being taken away from us from coming in here now you know so you're taking it on parents as well i mean i'm not understanding this by the way a vaccine is to to to make an amended uh immunity to a virus and this vaccine doesn't did give that to you get sick anyways so it's not a vaccine it's all a hoax you shake your head all you want yeah thank you [Laughter]

017can we just remember to keep it civil please possibly respectfully thank you could you speak up i'm gonna take my mask off so you can hear me i'm sorry um let me start by saying that i am not misinformed i am pro-parent choice for mask i am for freedom of choice for the best medical decision for each individual i i'm not opposed to mask if you want to wear them i'm not against doing my part to help keep others safe if it's within my ability i'm against mandating math because the efficacy of them is basically zero along with the fact that my daughter has not once had a mask break in any of her classes since the day was put in place i was going to stand up here and read another statement that had

018composed building information facts resources about masks and how they don't work how the gaps in the sides are in the nose area under the mask useless i wanted to present the idea of an industrial hygienist who is a professional in the field of field associated with exposure ppe and warning warnings in essence they work to help control hazards such as coping virus i wanted to point out many of the other adverse effects that happened to our children of all ages who were made to wear masks all day long such as an increase in mental health claims anxiety ticks ocd self-harm and overdoses not to mention a moist mass of the breeding ground for bacteria and fungi lastly i was going to ask the school board if you had investigated better solutions what portion of the

019cobra relief money was used for alternative solutions the best way to keep everyone safe is by dilution orders and or destruction of the virus i know windows are open for dilution purposes what else have you done besides mandate masks make the school safer have you increased the ventilation of the school by setting the dampers to maximum openings have you investigated needlepoint ionized technology that you add to the hvac intake against the kiloviruses mold and bacteria have you looked into ionized hydrogen peroxide systems conduct air purifier to disinfect air particles throughout the entire building excuse me when i realized three minutes is not nearly enough time for me to present a well articulated argument that most people pause to and really listen to what i was saying i figured many of you already turned me out

020and placed me in the misinformed category so i will close again by stating i am pro-parent choice for mass in all schools microphone work hi my name is craig i'm a lebanon resident i have a senior in high school she's sitting over there um and i have a four-year-old who's getting ready to be going to school i'm an rn and i just uh like say that we have it seems like most people come up here when they're really upset about something and nobody ever comes up and says hey you guys are doing a great job and so that's what i want you to say you guys are just doing a great job and i feel like not enough people come up here and just like say hey good job there's always something bad um as

021an rn i am only about to use evidence-based practice at work and we've got a hundred years worth of evidence that masks work they just work it's been 100 years worth of study and uh we know they work um you know the uh we hear all kinds of stuff about you know bacteria build up in the mast and everything wear a mask all day i've gone whole days 12 hour shifts never a problem and i've never seen or ever heard of another nurse that has an issue with it either that's what we do and i mean that's really all i had to say is just thank you guys doing a great job so thank you very much ashley richardson from birth maine um first of all the mask on the box it clearly states it

022doesn't spread prevent the spread of viruses it says it right on the box i wrote a six page letter last meeting no one read had statistics had everything but what was most important is what my kids had to say that i wrote sorry i'm not a good speaker um i asked them were they able to pay attention in class and maps they said no i asked them how did it affect you easily tired easily annoyed because they had to keep fidgeting with it it's uncomfortable my daughter wears glasses it was constantly fogging up i asked her if she learned anything no nothing i could have learned on my own because i couldn't pay attention i'm homeschooling my kids because i am a kindergartner he's not going to learn anything from seeing no verbal cues i

023always think i'm gonna pronounce letters hey ah how is he gonna see your face like he said there's cases each week from you guys opening back up the masks do not work i haven't worn a mask am i saying that hope is not real yes it is my family members have gotten it not my dark family my mom my dad my in-laws my great-grandmother you know they they all had it i know it's real but these masks don't work i was with them my whole family was in the phone and what it's actually about is you're not our kids doctors you're not our kids parents and if you did care about them like we did you wouldn't care how they felt and if they felt like they were getting a real education because mine did

024not and they deserve free education just like everyone else and to not have an option and punish them because they're not comfortable wearing a mask and feel they don't learn is not right [Laughter] [Applause] hello there my name is madison mutusky i am a residence of lebanon and i am a senior at noble high school i take two foreign language classes spanish five and russian two there are times when it is indeed difficult to hear when this happens all we need to do is ask our teachers to speak up and we are able to repeat exactly what they are saying i believe that we should be wearing masks in school not because it protects ourselves but because it protects the people around us i hear a lot of people saying that vaccines are ineffective and

025that is not completely true your risk of contracting the virus it is still possible to get copin 19 with the vaccine they also decrease your risk of spreading the covet virus to people around you if you have the vaccine this means that both wearing a mask and having a vaccine makes it so you are significantly less likely to spread the virus around the school i have had no issues with my learning except when we were on remote i do not want our school to have to go remote again and i would rather have everybody be in school safely thank you [Laughter] amanda turner from north berwick i just wanted to come up here and let you know things that are going on in the school are not okay parents have the right for their kids

026not the superintendent not the state i pay taxes i have a right to say what i want for my kids when my son tells me that he's pulled out of class because he pulled his mask down to breathe he gets into the superintendent's office excuse me the dean's office and the dean told him that if his name came across his desk again or if he saw him without his mask on he was going to be suspended tell me how that's right my decision not yours i first of all want to say that i have a daughter who is in first grade she started kindergarten last year when the pandemic began she needed to be masked in person but at that at that situation i thought it's so important for kindergartners and first graders to be

027in person because they're going to learn things at school with their teachers in in these educational you know rooms in in situations that they're not going to listen to their parents at home it was a it's needed kindergartners and first graders need that interaction i have a question and i'll give three seconds i don't i this is my first time ever attending a board meeting like i said i have my first daughter in first grade so if you guys can't just answer i'm genuinely curious who determines these decisions of mask is it if you guys go by the cdc can somebody answer who determines what what we do in school can anybody answer that typically during public input we're just hearing you um i think if you want to follow up with an email we

028can get you there cause i got those right here i'm stuck my daughter's name is daisy which is in first grade and that's i apologize so that's okay you guys are obviously under a lot of pressure but just ultimately brother you hear our remarks and then you also try to follow cbc which i understand who make i'm curious who makes the ultimate decision is it superintendent the board makes the visit okay thank you very much thank you i did not know that my daughter went to first kindergarten and missed children's class on school and she had a great year under the circumstances of having to wear a mask it was so good for her we had to go we got coping in december of 2020 and we had to be home and it was really

029rough for all of us it's rough for any parent kids at a young age need to be in the classroom they're going to learn twice but they're not my daughter now is in first grade she's done so well she's doing amazing she actually did the breeding program which is the summer school at the husky school the bus came picked her up for the first time i didn't remember on the bus because of it you know you're already worried about enough bus you worry about more but so the bus can pick her up and she did not have to wear a knife oh i only have three minutes yeah nobody um so my daughter's done really well and i understand you guys are doing what you have to do and you're making the best choices for

030everybody you're trying to do what's best for everybody i understand that but today i got a virtual view of um we never had open house i've never met my daughter's teacher we had a virtual online and i saw my daughter jupiter in math and it broke my arm and i understand and i respect everyone who needs to wear a mask okay i respect that some people have autoimmune or whatever i understand that i studied microsoft i understand that but just i'm going to understand also that this is affecting people also kids we do you do have to wrap it up also my other concern is that kids are getting pulled from sports because they're close contact but still getting forced to go to school but that seems like a punishment to me i think that

031you should if you're gonna pull them from sports you should also thank you for listening to me everybody good evening mike parker from north berwick first of all i'd like to just reiterate the fact that your stated public input policy says five minutes it doesn't say that you won't answer questions and it also it just says that you won't debate i did fine i would also appreciate the attention of the board because there are a couple of board members that are just scrolling through whatever on their computers while everybody is talking i'm listening it doesn't matter would you allow the kids to do that [Laughter] you're not going to make everybody happy the board didn't know statistics whether or not the board knows statistics or not now i get where the mass mandate is coming

032from and where the policies come from you guys aren't even adhering to it yourself you're within three to six feet sitting in the room so if one of you has covered then you're close contact so you guys can't even leave from the front in that respect either there's also guidelines out there on how to wear a mask how to put a mask on how to take a mask off is that being enforced is hand washing prior to putting a mask on being in force is hand washing after taking a mask off being enforced have the kids been taught how to store the mess that's what's that's what the cdc is putting out and that's the stuff that we're following i get where it's coming from from the doa the deputy commissioner of the department of

033education agreed with me on the phone that it makes no sense what they're getting from the federal government the main cdc in the exceptions and stuff like that are very cumbersome why do we have to quarantine for some things and not quarantine for other things has anybody from the board looked at that or the superintendent or anybody and said this doesn't make sense actually i do know that one person did had a conversation with the assistant superintendent and asked the state nurse but where is the board getting together you say you want to make the best possible ways to keep school open for the kids but what pushback has has there been sometimes the tough questions need to be asked and that's your job have those questions been asked by you guys have that i

034had to do a foia request and bless her heart amy creighton the nurse was able to get the data you guys all have it now because i asked for it of how many positive cases that we've had there needs to be some solutions if we're going to live in this world too i witnessed uh high school dismissal the other day so the mask does nothing if we're only going to put it on in school in the classroom and then just let everybody run amok afterwards i'm not saying we have to mandate mass at all times or whatever and i get it that we're staff constraints and things like that but when they pile out of the school and they're hugging each other and kissing each other and standing and waiting for the bus something needs

035to be done we need to be better at it and you guys need to set the example and you're not right now you're not by scrolling on your computer when you're looking and supposed to be listening to people and typing and you're not by the way that you're even seated here today and you have students that are here so you can't enforce those rules upon them if you're not going to do it to yourselves i look forward to working with people to make it better i understand where it's coming from but the board right now is pretty inept to what needs to happen and did not get out in front of it my name is i have two children grade one and three i have definitely noticed that they are more irritable and get frustrated

036easily they are not the happy kids that they were besides that i just want to bring up the point that covet is here and it will not go away so how long are we going to keep this up for how long are we going to wear the masks it is not ever going to go away we cannot prevent it we cannot prevent it with the vaccine we cannot prevent it with mass it is here it is going to spread so i believe that parents should have a choice if they want to make their kid wear a mask and get stick or not to wear a mask and get sick that should be the parents choice not strangers choices if you want your kid to go to school and wear a mask go for it tell

037your kid to do it if you want your kid to go to school and not wear a mask that's your austin option also um i don't believe we should treat this as a pandemic anymore because we are in an endemic it is not going anywhere and we need to start coming up with solutions to the treatments not prevention we cannot prevent it it is here we need to work on treatment [Music] hi my name is jessica brooks and i am from lebanon i have four children in this district um three which are in high school one in elementary um first of all i have to say that my daughter destiny's in 10th grade she only went to school one day that was when we had a choice to wear a mask she had mental issues

038and medical issues that were that she could not wear a mask and i've already told you guys that before this she has um anxiety and asthma right now she is not going to anything she's not in school they won't let her come because she can't wear a mask they are not allowing breathing treatments because she is could spread covet she is not allowed any virtual or anything until the doctors and the school get in touch with each other which i'm trying for every day calling she is being denied medical attention her education this is she's 10th grader she is being denied everything and this is not fair not every everybody thinks that everyone can wear a mask this is not true everyone cannot wear a mask it is not that easy mental issues is real

039and we actually have a bunch of this in the school um to me uh i'll get on with that later but my other son is in high school gets no mass breaks he says every time he pulls his mask down he gets in trouble like he's in prison or something like that um he gets in trouble by students teachers janitors what do they have to do with enforcing this this is ridiculous he needs to breathe he needs to breathe um also the fourth and fifth grade at the elementary they're having to do remote learning for tuesday because the election is taking place but yeah we couldn't go to open house to see our children's teachers in our school their school how is this fair how is this fair to the parents when there there's going

040to be everybody in the community going to my children's school but i can't go to meet with the teacher meet the student or whatever this is not fair also um bullying i feel like honestly my family is being bullied because 20 seconds um i'm not from here from the south and we have different views and morals i guess apparently from you guys and also i have a question for the board if you all get back to me where does it stay in the school rules that the confederate flag is not allowed on school premises i want to know okay well this is my students drawing that was not allowed on the bulletin board she's 10 years old the bulletin board says diversity does everyone know what that means it means differences uniqueness she's only 10

041years old that was not allowed on the how does that make the 10 year old that her artwork could not be on sponsorboard i need uh answers about the confederate flag [Laughter] [Music] um all right um well first of all do you guys know 19 year old years ago that the influenza pandemic happened i bet you guys know because you guys aren't teaching history right here confederate flag civil war all that stuff why isn't that being brought up nazis that happened my far eyes but it happened i'm lindsay quigley i'm uh the mother of bluebell baron who is yes in elementary and i am an alumni here so i'm just really baffled that i'm looking at the teachers and the people in this room that i grew up with and the fact that you guys

042are trying to take my parents rights away i should try very hard to get pregnant let me tell you i have two miracles and with those miracles i have the responsibility to teach my morals a lot of you remember when my mom died this school helped me out this school backed me up the school made sure i had some food they made sure i had to couch the land under wraps but you guys are just taking everything away from me right now and it's really burning a hole through my heart and the educational part on math let me tell you something those two blue masks this who's a nurse in here there's a nurse who's medical what are the what's the time limit on those do you know two hours okay and that's the barrier

043breaks i worked in the er for 10 plus years and we after when we take those massive drop from life they're not good but you guys are having to wear them all day and you know what last thing i'm just going to wrap it right up because 23 positive cases as far as i was aware of today six at noble high five positive and noble middle five positive at hussey and one mary is a mary heard four positive a noble athletics and to northbrook elementary how good are these masks working out be there okay but another thing is miss moore who's mrs moore her to tell a 14 15 year old girl she has to take a vaccination you know what the vaccination is doing uh there has been seizure cases stroke cases uh paralyzation

044uh imfertilization do you know what psychology you're going to do to that kid give her ptsd all this stuff you're going to get a trauma because she could have babies that you guys were to take a vaccine miss moore in fact told her hey i am [Applause] doesn't matter one where don't you don't why are the kids being pushed aside or discriminated against whether they vaccinate or cut backs it's happening every day i got a 13 year old i got an eight-year-old uh my 13 year old is being told he can go to school but he can't play football a kid goes to school so he can play football that kid goes to school so he can wrestle now he's being told not given facts to make a decision decision but choice vaccinate you can

045play in our house accident don't why is it these kids are exposed they're exposed whether they're at school exposed whether they're at walmart so if they have a close contact at school you don't think that they haven't had a post contact outside of school i've worked from the time that started every day we do what we need to do or we do what we feel as though as far as bombing and all of that when this whole thing started why are you getting people but there's close contacts whether it's me coming home to him him having a close contact at school if they're not showing any symptoms or any issues or any problems why are they not being able to apply if mass works so good at school he's out of contact come to school

046wear a mask why can't he go to football practice wear a at what's the difference with the same kids same group just hanging out with them after school hanging out with them in school what's the difference if they're at football this choice is being made for them they're not getting to make it for themselves a lot of these kids are getting to the ages into the points now in their life but they need to start learning to make some of these choices make some of these decisions and learn on their own that's all i got kyle um i'm not coming up here with a bunch of facts i'm coming up here just as a mother of kids that are struggling they've been struggling for nearly two years um and i think we were hoping and

047praying that this year would look different as someone excuse most of them um my son came home the first day from school when he didn't have to wear a mask um and he came in the house and he said mom um today was so good we connected we talked we saw each other smiling we interacted we got to talk with our friends and our teachers and it felt so good for him he was excited about school and learning again and isn't that what we want for our children like i mean my kids have always wanted those things um you guys mandated the math the next day i'm not making this up that same kid he comes in and he says school sucked school sucked i don't want to go there's no reason i even feel

048happy about going like he felt nothing from coming here that is not what we want for our kids we want our kids to be excited to learn we want them to feel connected to teachers to their friends to build a community we want all of that um that brings me now to yesterday i've been dealing with that for the last you know a couple weeks yesterday we get informed that one of my sons who's on the jv football team was currently put on a 10-day quarantine because of being in close contact along with 20 plus jv football players all on a quarantine and he walks in the house we tell him he starts crying mom i just want a normal life again i want a normal life like what are we doing to our kids

049i mean this is a 15 year old boy do you think he's crying often no that that's not okay that we're doing this to these kids um he says i just i hate my life no this kid has no reason to hate his life i realize that but the reality is is as a 15 year old that is what he is feeling he wants to have the normal things that he's always had in his life um he says i just want to go back to school i want to go back to sports so this brings up some questions in my mind and i've been dealing with us so much that i'm like my mind is going every minute and one of the things is they're bringing things like 20 seconds it's been three minutes already

050no okay there are things that certainly don't make any sense if you're a close contact of school you can return to school if it's on the football field or on the bus or through a sport you have to quarantine from everything none of this adds up i do believe it's your job to ask the questions on a state level you have been put in this role to advocate for our kids that is what you've been elected here to do we are all here because we don't believe that you guys are doing that anymore also i don't see any excitement in that we should every single person here that's what we should be wanting so whatever it takes to get that back um you should want that let them go come on guys that's kids so

051i am ariana odion and i go to from lebanon and i go to noble middle school i'm in sixth grade and i've been told multiple times how i can and cannot drink water how i have to pull my mask up like this instead of pulling it down to drink water and i just don't think that's right because i shouldn't be able to be i just i think i should be able to drink water how i should be able to because and i come from running up the stairs from getting stuff on my walker and i'm drinking water and the science teacher goes you have to put your mask up and drink water from this and i go i'm drinking water i just came from downstairs i'm on the bottom floor and i go all the

052way to the second floor uh two flights of stairs and um i'm like out of breath because i have to go up to slight stairs with a mask on and running because i'm late for class because i couldn't get my walk open and i just don't think that i should be told how i can and cannot drink water and just stuff like that and i just don't think that's right and i think that that should change [Laughter] yeah my name is jasmine rowan from lebanon and i come to noble high school i am in 10th grade i have just dropped out of school because of school you guys have pushed me to the breaking point from last year when we have to be home all day you guys forget about kids who have depression and

053anxiety already i suffer from depression and then you guys quarantined every single kid to no longer be able to see a single person and they had to be on a screen and then when it was to one day a week you know what they were doing to the kids who could not make it to school they were putting us on those little things up there in the corner of the classroom i was on that screen i would raise my hand to ask questions wouldn't get my questions answered because they were not seeing our faces we were up on the screen up there what is that where is my education what am i learning from that then on top of that if we couldn't see the board we couldn't tell them anything so we were no

054longer able to see the board sometimes for days at a time then now we're coming back first day of school i remember coming to school i was so happy because i dropped out halfway last year and i was like okay they're not band-aiding masks i'm going to try it again so i came back and i tried it when great first day of school so everyone smiled saw everyone's faces so much i could hear my teachers talk then it was when i say done i didn't even go to school the second day i didn't come to school i said nope i told my mom no i'm not going to school you guys put the mask back on i can't hear my teachers then because of my last name i'm put in the back of the classroom

055because now there's a seating chart which is ridiculous because we are meeting new friends so we can't even talk to new people to make friends because we are home seven feet away we don't have breaks they i think they stop at like fifth grade for breaks no none of the classes above that get breaks we have no breaks at all for us at all what is that doing for us and then we have warnings if we want to drink or breathe breathe we have warnings of how many times we can breathe and then we're suspended so at that point it's not about our education it's about the power of who can wear a mask and who can't [Laughter] i'm going to be super brave because i wish that some other people on this side of

056her might get a chance to talk about it and i i would like to thank you all for doing the hard job i'm sad to be here i was sad last week because wearing masks isn't about me it's about protecting somebody else and that is inevitably getting lost in this whole conversation i'm vaccinated i not to protect me but so i protect somebody else i'm also frustrated that i'm hearing people use as a defense that students are in here wearing masks but then they go home and they do all these other things that expose them that's a parent's choice that's not happening in my family i bring my son home and he says protected at home we wear masks everywhere we go that's your choice it's my choice to want to protect the other students

057in this school and i hope it continues to be the choice of the board to do that as well i also want to say i heard that there is a call which i have now heard voiced a confederate flag to be allowed in the classroom that's offensive to me there's going to be a conversation about that i'd like to know so that my black son and his friends can have a voice in that process [Music] [Laughter] yeah if you really want to um get more input we can have another public section at the end of the meeting [Music] they're not listening that's ridiculous 100. um is family and you can't use the argument that something makes you feel uncomfortable because it's a basket that's because no mask makes you feel uncomfortable right then you don't

058have an argument it's a slippery slope it is did you not vaccinate all right it's not going to change is [Music] keep showing up every meeting um [Music] me same is [Music] um [Laughter] um break over um that would be super helpful is it good are there any corrections to them [Music] is oh just the insert other information here [Music] oh the minutes of august 19 2021 [Music] did we did we make a change to that one to accept um minutes of september 2nd all in favor mr accepted next item on the financial side okay so i i am teaching from denise i just passed that finance summary for the dental fund and i just you can take approval of it um in terms of this is the revenue categories it talks about our expenses

059um currently we're about through the year which is about what we've actually spent with the remaining balance funding wise of 83 so we're still we're right where we're supposed to be you want to take a peek at the different categories um and give you an example so for under expenses regular instruction it says that we have um that we only got 10 remaining but that's because we encumber all of our funds um for the whole entire year so ninety percent have been in comfort because we pay our you know we send out our teacher salaries et cetera things are looking um any other questions um educational programming so for tonight we're turning our building administrators in just to give a summary of how the beginning of the school year has gone we'll start at the

060elementary and work up if you could just say your name please um as a k5 team we are really happy to have all of our students staff and administrators back in our home school building um last year was an epic adventure and uh really happy to be home this summer for the second year in a row a huge number of our teachers district wide packed up their classrooms and were moved by our amazing custodial staff teachers then spent countless hours creating thoughtful engaging learning spaces that our students were excited to share in our virtual open house tonight i am patty billy the principal in lebanon our arrival and dismissal routines continue to improve each day pick my kid has helped streamline dismissal and we appreciate the support we receive from parents and using the app

061our entire transportation department has worked tirelessly with each school to problem-solve the start of school glitches during this month all of our k-5 students will participate in the best safety presentation from our dedicated drivers for all working together to ensure that students have a safe trip to and from school well the principal good evening everyone um so our students and staff have also been working on building stamina both physically and academically this is a big reminder to our staff this is our first five day full day academic programming since march 2020 so we're all working to build that stamina up and continue to keep hitting all those standards so it's our first building so we're working towards that we're practicing for authentically we our teachers are master masterproof planning activities to make things engaging it

062keeps going inside and outside all making sure we're maximizing growth and safety i'm michael from the principal northern elementary school and just once again i'd really like to shout out to our custodial staff they just work a ton over the summer they're still working their short staff um and our schools are schools are clean and ready to open because they just put in that time so shout out to them just to recap what everyone said but if you walk through the schools right now the hallways the games are buzzing there's laughter there's a ton of joy at school uh we really appreciate the important support and also the community support uh ongoing well what we've been going through um so thank you all very much and things are going uh really well in the k5

063land so thank you [Laughter] middle school quick top 10 here for comments what i've seen at the middle school inside engage the students with mass on with a variety of questions and a variety of opinions outside students smiling and playing together without their masks also a variety of opinions and a variety of questions positive routines and relationships being established reminders and redirects from all of us uh as needed students now know their bus number which is nice uh families have been great with our parking lot pickup and drop-offs we've been averaging about 100 to 170 vehicles in the morning in the afternoon families that are not hanging up on me so i appreciate the messengers that are going out and the last four things students working hard staff working on our positive intentions and we're

064all tired [Laughter] we are as big as mobile high school has been in a long time i didn't have a chance to look today but we were at 266 students um grade 8 through 12 yesterday so that is up pretty significantly from where we've been in the recent past students are appreciative and i would add they were extra appreciative for our late start wednesday even though students were coming through the door you know close to 9 30 in the morning they were still driving like this is hard getting up and going five days a week many of you know our grades 10 11 and 12th graders for one day a week last year so building that stamina back like a wednesday is like a perfect time you can sort of get through those two days

065then you go to sleep in then we get through two more days we've really kind of been talking about students about that and it's really needed our staff was doing a great job helping students to re-engage it was hard you know being online really really hard for kids so helping them get back into that routine establishing those relationships our folks have done a really really good job with those relationships the part for me i'm out front every day every morning reading students that they're coming in it's great to see them interacting with each other that's something we really didn't have even on a limited basis last year we've seen them talking to each other being able to interact and even going a step further very excited that our students are able to participate and that's

066great that we've been able to participate in sports is huge that is so necessary for so many of our kids and just another plug at the high school next week is our homecoming week so we have events going on monday through friday at the high school next week and culminating friday night we will again be able to bring back to the fireworks friday night [Laughter] so um please go home principals get ready for tomorrow thank you very much yes thank you just a quick update on athletics i think aj spoke a little bit about homecoming but uh i can just kind of go through an update from aaron moore our athletic director football's off to the 2-0 start let's see the fall cheer is a pleasure to watch because coach davis and the cheerleaders have

067put in a ton of time to their routines field hockey was recently on the news as a team to watch they're one and two so far and they've kept the game up close and they're always exciting to watch boys and girls cross countries off to an amazing start both teams took home the win the first meet and have it stopped producing successful meetings since that time golf is two and two girls soccer's two and two the boys soccer is one two and one the noble stanford volleyball team is three in one noble currently has more than a dozen uh female students representing noble the volleyball team plays all have home games at sanford high school let's see we've got some esports going through um and you know so we have two coaches for that and

068uh then again homecoming is next week so we've got a lot of athletics happening that um that week with the culminating football game false year against massabesic for next friday at 6 00 pm and that is when the fireworks are going to happen at the halftime so that's those are our updates girls vastly soccer team won nine nothing tonight all right beat westbrook football's had a bunch of wins and they're playing tomorrow night at portland if anyone wants to come six uh this will be a staff presentation um so thank you all um first off we just wanted to say thank you very much for the work you've been doing and continuing to do um i don't want to thank you for enjoying endorsing the joint statement from the doe last year the mandated schools

069work for inclusion for our students and we also want to thank you for carving out time for our staff our district board uh for pd this time this year of inclusion um we are going to be sharing two things before we get started um some pieces that highlight why this diversity equity inclusion works so vital for our staff and for our students we have a lot of responses from community members alumni former students current students um but we have to choose two how long does that experiences which are painful we're going to share some painful experience we share them these stories highlight discrimination that has been an ongoing struggle within this district but not just within this district this is not a restricted msav60 struggle which is a struggle that many of us across the

070nation are struggling with that discrimination happens against students from various races genders sexualities abilities beliefs financial backgrounds name we want to acknowledge that the work that has been done and is currently being done by the board the administration and the faculty of msad60 is pushing us forward in the right direction the idea is expressed in these statements by the community members represents their own experiences and how they impacted them it is however difficult to divulge we do not highlight these stories to point blame shame or call anyone out for their actions we share these stories because they are experiences of this community in order for us to grow as in a community we need to know as a community often students and families will choose not to speak [Music] about experiences that they have for

071fear of reprisals elizabeth will begin by sharing those specific concerns from with that hello everyone i'm a single mom on one income i can't afford to relocate no matter how much i want my kids safe how do you hide from racism i can't put my kids on target even more than they are at noble if i tried to fight what's happened to them that's what would happen it would definitely be made worse for them putting these incidents on blast would only hurt my kids more i can't do that to them i taught them to always know to educate ignorance but to be quick enough to see and know they can't fix ignorance i've taught them to persevere at all costs i've taught them that although i can't get them out of school this out of

072the school system to protect each other at all costs i want to pause real quick just to acknowledge that some of the language that we're going to hear tonight will be triggering i apologize for that language but that language is the language that was used and it's essential that we hear it for what it is respectfully if you are concerned about someone hearing something that they might find offensive it might be proper for them so i'm john holland i've been part of this community forever and i went to high school with a lot of people that were out here and this is chris jones sorry about that sylvia i i teach at normal middle school um and i've been teaching for about 18 years now so what i'm going to share with you is a

073story from a 2010 graduate as a black man at noble high school as long as you were good at sports people were going to leave you alone i still heard the racist joking jobs constantly growing up i had to learn to navigate the ignorance of my friends families you want to invite me over to dinner but you have a confederate flag hanging up in your garage this they just didn't have a clue they think of some cowboy that it's some cowboy rebel symbol hello most of these parents went to noble themselves so issues of racism were clearly not covered overall i felt like my white teachers at noble at the time all white by the way were afraid to really go there or maybe they didn't even possess the knowledge to teach such things the

074time has come to step up as a black man i would never return to that community or allow one of my children to receive an education in that district here i apologize my name is chris jones special ed teacher here at noble high school this is from a mother from the community my child grabbed his chair along with the other kids and placed it in a circle when another boy came up from behind him and pulled his chair back causing my son to fall on the ground as he was about to sit my son fell the other child looked at him and said negroes come not a on said by a student or really any other adult in the group later that night my son asked me what a negro was and why did kids

075have to be so mean it took me about an hour to get him to explain what had really happened i called the school the principal at the time said that it was wasn't really anything they could do because it was an active school program so there wasn't really any way for them to proceed forward and perhaps it was some sort of misunderstanding um i'm sophie larson and i was just going to read out a statement from a graduate of 2020 just to highlight that some of our current or very recent students still feel the effects of this discrimination their statement goes like this i'm biracial and my boyfriend finally got a truck and couldn't wait to put a confederate flag sticker on it because that's what the cool rebel boys in lebanon do it took

076me forever to get him to understand that that just isn't okay he loves a half black woman and had no clue that it represents complete hate and racism against black people i had to walk past confederate flags in the parking lot every damn day of high school i had to sit in classes with kids with it on their shirts belt buckles foams you name it a kid i know got into huge trouble for writing a nazi symbol but these people get nothing how's this okay so i'm going to go back to 1989 and my next one um and this one really um is highlighting issues around sexuality noble like many schools have always had these issues and i've personally never seen progress from administration from seventh grade through my freshman year i had a single

077person focus on me and tell everyone i was gay imagine that in the 80s it didn't stop until i confronted him finally at the end of ninth grade when i beat him to a pulp after school in the hallway i got suspended he walked this was all after i shared it with teachers and coaches the repercussions for the next three years were awful school sucked not sure how i made it out definitely has fed an adulthood of anxiety and depression it's systemic and i feel so awful for these kids i don't know if there's some buried history that stops action but change is needed these kids of the 80s have kids now and they've handed their hate down so again i want to recognize that the language of longitude is difficult this is difficult for

078me to read it has been difficult that i've to read it since i first received it my son was at the middle school in seventh grade when he first was confronted by a student who was well known for expressing racist ideas one day after recess the kids were coming in and my son went to his locker another child along with two of his friends decided to try and surround my son while he was at his locker the other kids started saying his to his friends why would noble let into our school guess noble was as stupid as this year my son stood up to defend himself and responded the other kids pulled out a swiss army and told his friends to hold my son so they could see if he bled red or if he

079bled some disgusting black blood at his skin um again this has difficult language in it my son played football and one of his teammates sent him a snapchat message with the kkk burning crosses image with a free text added at the bottom your next on the image he not only sent it to my son but he also copied several other white kids i told my son not to start a fight and asked if it was some type of joke in poor taste maybe bad judgment my son said he would find out the next day at school my son has many friends and by the next morning they were ready to fight for him he asked his friends to back away so he could talk to the kid my son asked why he sent it and

080was it a bad joke the boy replied stating he deserved it and that was his only warning that's when my son walked away luckily another friend went to the office and that's when all the details unfolded i was called and the berwick police were called and because i wanted to press charges the main state police were called the school suspended the boy until after his court date 30 days later the kid returned to noble high school where my son had to see him in the halls five days a week i had to gather my son's friends to ask that they not seek retribution and i'll present the final narrative from the ninth from 2019 and just i just again to reiterate that this is a selection of many that we received i want to take

081this opportunity to sell tell some parts of my story noble was always welcoming but it's the certain individuals that you wouldn't really think would carry racist ideals that did the damage when i was a junior a group of girls decided to write on a chemistry desk blankety blank is a stupid one of my friends took a picture of it and let me know and i immediately took it to the principal nothing was ever done but it was disappointing to me that not even an assembly or some sort of presentation was held on racism discrimination stereotypes i felt it was a problem that i wasn't the only that i wasn't the only one experiencing being an asian american in a predominantly white community was always difficult trying to find my identity and appreciate my background thank

082you for wanting individuals to reach out it really does mean a lot for me to tell a caring faculty member we have a brief slide show i want to thank you all um for for taking the time and again i just want to acknowledge the amount of pain that is expressed there and the difficulty to share those stories is never an easy thing maybe while you get the slideshow going i'll just be clear that um our collective is different than the noble for all that was just seated i believe the district is just seeing a um uh deity we are separate than them just wanted to like clarify there's some crossover membership but um we're sort of ad hoc formed yes racism collective uh the group of educators from within the district i came together

083in 2020 intentionally to try to improve our practice we were hearing the need from our staff from our students from our community and we wanted to do what we could to get work started and that is reflected um in a few ways no in order to expire to ensure that our staff is trained in ways to engage with conversations they're challenging we want to teach curriculum that is supportive of all diverse ideas we want to actively promote anti-racist school policies that are working to support an inclusive model locate resources and collaborate with members of the community we believe that our staff and students can be best supported through a proactive initiative rather than reactionary responses to additional incidents within our district so our hope is that we can help to train each other and help

084each other that's what we've been doing we're trying to give each other some tips and tricks to kind of help ourselves move forward so things that we've been doing so far um we've been meeting bi-monthly since last september we meet after school hours on our own time and uh so this is all volunteer time that we're putting in we've helped to organize a high school training for the staff of the high school last october through leaders for just school we've been holding book clubs we've read several books we've got another book uh scheduled to start up next hopefully by the end of the month it's been a busy start to the fall so we're taking time to kind of take that off and we also partnered with the noble adult education program for with the

085equity series with the sultanacon consulting that was last i think winter in springfield um so we kind of have structured ourselves in a way so that we have four specific things that we're kind of working on um this is to kind of lighten the load in terms of how much time people are putting into this so we're looking at what we're teaching how we're engaging with our community what we can do to improve our knowledge and how we can promote policies that are going to be more restorative in their processes so trying to work towards something that would be more of a restorative justice sort of model um each of these pillars have subcommittees we're you know we're reading we're learning doing research um and we would definitely welcome and would love to have um

086ford members join us in the conversation it could be fantastic just guys there's about 40 of us that are part of this collective um that are staff members within the district so this is the four of us are representing the collective but there is a large number of staff that feel very passionately and want to have this conversation with your community as well as um so things going forward um i think encouraging like things like we are putting ourselves out there as a resource i think that's the number one thing i want to make sure like clearly we don't know everything we don't at all we're doing our best to learn more um as we encourage our students to um but we've we've done some work and we'd like to offer our results as a

087resource a tool and a mechanism for the board um as as your employees um we would really appreciate some support and encouraging teachers to have these hard conversations with students in class and we definitely need training to do so i think that's that's important um actionable steps toward building relationships within the district between teachers the board and the community so we can have more productive dialogue um conversate continue the conversation uh that started last year with the significance of the confederate flat there was a couple of students presentations last year that were very powerful we would love to continue to engage in educating ourselves and engaging in a meaningful this meaningful discussion on whether or not the appropriate place for the school we really more than anything want to thank you for carving out this

088time for us we want to thank the district administration for carving out the time for us we really appreciate it a bunch a ton you're doing a lot right now you're doing a whole lot right now and we recognize the things that you're needing to juggle so thank you for that um and if there was a time and date where we could continue a conversation we'd love to have to chat anything outside yeah i think we just wanna um i i think we kind of said it we would like to offer ourselves as a resource to collaborate with folks with the district maybe that is being seated also with the board and also with you know the district at large so you know we're ready and willing to help um or sort of collaborate where

089possible just i i'd like to personally express my thanks to the board um you know you guys are serving our community probably in one of the most fine times of our really lives decisions um and i really appreciate that and the last piece really is i sat there very quiet later in public comment earlier civics you learn not just about rights but responsibilities and i i heard a lot of people kind of demanding rights earlier but i didn't hear a lot about the responsibility side of being a citizen of our nation um and i think we really need to think about what are our responsibilities um what is it that we are responsible for doing in our communities to make them the best possible place they can be um and civility and those responsibilities are

090equally as important as their rights um that were raised quite a bit earlier tonight i just wanted to kind of throw that out there and that's my own personal piece i mean nothing to do with these guys but i just hope that we can really come together and civil with each other you know like you guys are my neighbors um i graduated with you there's lots of people in this room that i spent a lot of time with you know i played football with people like um i've been giving back to my community because i love this community i really love it and i want to see it become the best community i can become and right now i don't feel like we're in a very good place so i hope that we can do

091better um as a community as lebanon as a borough as north grove there's one large [Applause] the um audra have kept us up to date through i guess i don't know the last year whatever i can't i'm losing track of time but and i know that it's been a long time coming for you guys to present to us um so i just want to say thank you and thank you for your patience um it's you know the the board and we've had a lot of turnover on the board but we we have been being kept you know sort of posted on what your efforts were what you guys were doing and so um i just want to say i think on behalf of the board that we appreciate your patience because i know it's taken

092a while to get here but thank you can i ask you let me ask you guys a question um i didn't want to say that you should not yeah well if i know what his his stance is and your stance and your stance and your stance on the confederate flag what is your stance [Applause] perkins [Applause] [Music] so we do need a motion to accept that resolution um [Music] someone who has not had a chance is hi i'm jocelyn i'm from lebanon maine and i just want to start with the uh critical race theory that we just started i don't know if y'all have seen facebook how they show kids when they're little little teenagers toddlers hollers just around they don't know they're between color they don't know the difference between what what's the color

093to them they're friends and now all of a sudden you don't think that putting this in their faces is not going to start a war we already have enough of a war going on here as for masks let me tell you something my 10 year old who came up here and spoke she tells me she gets one mask break if she's lucky everyone can't breathe up here everyone can't talk okay this is what our kids are dealing with on a daily basis okay i understand we're never gonna see eye to eye we're never gonna see it we're gonna constantly fight you guys you guys are gonna fight us but you know what your positions they're there to for a point and it's the end is coming and what we all need to do guys we

094need to replace every government every school court everything needs to be replaced you want to know why because they don't care about our kids if this is this is what people millions of people died for of our freedoms and our rights and we tell you something about rights okay responsibilities i've got responsibilities i got plenty of those you guys are more comfortable the mask you keep your masks on your bet comfortable being vaccinated great you have no right to tell my kids that they have to be sitting in a claustrophobic mask all day i do it because i work and i have to do it but these poor kids they can't breathe and it's like it's nothing oh oh protect the masses and now we're dealing with critical race theory good luck with that these

095kids don't know the difference between black and white and yeah there probably have been problems but they're all kids they're gonna have problems they're gonna say you have you seen half the that's on tick tock and all these other social media sites that these kids are watching what's they're going to hear about the n-word who's they're going to see kids friggin being racist it's not going to stop if you're going to teach it i mean seriously people teach them i'm sorry i'm done i just wanted you all to know how i felt but we all need to replace that [Music] hello my name is lisa powers and i live in burke i have two students um two children who are students at the high school i want to start by saying that i support the

096board 100 schools make lots of decisions on our behalf and like requiring like what we what the kids are taught in school what they vaccines school boards make decisions for us that's why they're here to that's their job and they're doing what they are directed to do by the state and most normal most most organizations that are out there most scientific organizations do you really believe that the board wants to have mandatory masking do you think i like wearing them and nobody likes wearing a mask nobody i'm not passing out i don't see anyone else here passing out we can breathe we are breathing um do you think that they're really not our kids are not the priority that there's some big conspiracy i said there there is okay yeah being conspiracy well if that's

097fine that's fine um the school is being generous with their time and they've made their decision and they will revisit it when it's appropriate um if you want kids in school all year long then we have to follow these precautions otherwise our kids won't be in class and we'll be back to remote again and nobody wants that nobody wants that masks work i don't know what to tell you i mean the scientific evidence is outfit they work if you don't believe that i there's no helping um are they 100 absolutely not are they all the same no there is something called and you can do your research viral load if you the more the part more particles that come the more likely you want to get a worse case of covet so if you're just

098you know if a little bit it's not going to be 100 nothing is 100 but masks do reduce the transmission and help keep our kids safe um you can look it up i don't know you know they work um vaccines also work they're very effective in reducing the spirit of illness and cases of death um it also helps reduce the variance that cause the mutations in the virus to make new ones that are even worse and so yeah the vaccine doesn't work for um some of these newer variants as well as it did in the first one and that's going to keep happening and they're going to have to keep boosting but if everyone just got vaccinated and followed the rules and wore their masks then you're on about 3 minutes yeah um i just

099don't know i i and and i guess the other thing i can say is confederate flags really really [Applause] [Music] oh i i'm six feet away so pretty good um i was debating whether i was gonna get up here and speak or not until that just happened so you can speak for yourself whether you can breathe all day i don't can't tell you how many times i have stepped out in the hallway to get a drink now a couple of times i'm pulling my mask on because guess what i can't breathe i almost was ready to pass out which is why i'm probably not going to be 100 on that note speak for yourself i am pro-choice um i choose to keep my daughter home we have the whole issue where the remote learning model

100for last year not the school year model just a remote learning module should be available i'm not done with that as far as the other stuff with learning masks i could bring it up but i think somewhere on policy the first policy y'all are representing us and i can read it if you want but it basically says you guys represent us and we have input so you get the other thing you said you're going to talk about a survey don't just do do you want mask all the time and not want math all the time how about some people might be okay with wearing a mask when you travel but when sitting down maybe not you know there there are in betweens and then i gave another suggestion put that three feet that the cdc

101says but the people with no mass go in their group than the ones with mass there are other options and then i'd have to go back to what somebody else said is it really about the funding is it because we're picking and choosing and it seems like we're just doing enough to get that funding so that's what i get to say about that pro-choice [Applause] [Music] my name is rachel matuski i'm from lebanon my oldest daughter is a senior at noble and i just want to say i know that there's nothing i say that's going to change anybody's mind on either side of the debate as far as this mass thing i do think that the board is trying to do their best to make the decisions for a large number of people their job

102is obviously to try to look into the best interests of the largest number of people versus necessarily focusing entirely on one individual person or their opinions i do think it's unfortunate that we have so many parents who are choosing this is their hill to die on rather than using it as an opportunity to kind of use you know to teach your your children about maybe following rules that sometimes they don't like you know personally it is inconvenient for me to have to slow down or stop at a crosswalk when i'm running late to work but i'm sure that anybody who's ever walked anywhere or had a child that crosses to go to school appreciates when cars stop and try not to hit them generally speaking i'm going slow enough that they're probably not going to

103die but they might and it's the same thing with the masks it's a small inconvenience we're going to get through this and i would love to see after this we can get the pandemic hopefully under control that the amount of energy that people are putting into this mass debate is put into something a little more positive in our schools because i don't think i've ever seen this many people involved in anything with the schools so it's shocking to me um so i just want to say that i also want to say i think the fellow that came up and said something about responsibility is right you know just because i have the choice to get the vaccine you know chances are if i got covenant i probably wouldn't get that sick i got the vaccine

104i didn't really have anything probably not gonna get particularly ill if i get it my family tends to be healthy however i do have a four-year-old who we don't have the choice to get their vaccine yet you know plenty of health care workers take care of patients who are being compromised and also can't choose to get the vaccine or who might have uh problems if they were to get it so i would hope that all of you may be trying to get involved in your community in other ways to improve it since there's so much energy about the mass space and the uh confederate flag for some reason that came out of nowhere i will say my whole family is from the south stretching from tennessee to north carolina i think 90 of them were

105probably in the confederate war uh on the barrett side and from the time i was low i will tell you that it has never been looked at confederate flag is anything other than a more divisive symbol people understand that over time if a symbol is used for something if it's used for that enough it's going to have a negative connotation much like the nazi swastika it wasn't always a negative symbol it once was a something to do with hindu mythology and over time people took it on they turned it into a heat suspect [Applause] [Music] i want to speak on a is topic i just want to say one thing i don't care about flag i only care about one flag and it's over there it's the american flag and i didn't have enough time

106i did come up here for sports games on 9 11 and there was not one flag on this campus that was lowered to half staff by 9 11. not one and that was a presidential order standing every year so that needs to be looked into [Music] [Applause] [Music] we just wanted to share the full testing information so we sent out that survey saturday night between tuesday and we received 407 responses so there were just two questions one about where your student was attending and then he would be interested in having a student participate so we had 53 percent of those respondents said no and 46 said yes and have it broken into high school if you would like that information it's a voluntary participation uh i know the survey was just get a sense of

107work but if it's a voluntary participation is there an unknown like we used to it used to be 30 of a particular school and they loosened that up so um there isn't a minimum at this point in time and how long are you going to be waiting for important if that's helpful i think um this is about the same amount of responses that we've had the last time yes why was it coming out again when you didn't get ourselves in first place people wanted just a wider like if there would be more responses there isn't it's so basically if we did it if you would participation is completely voluntary correct so we can certainly explore that i do know that school districts in this area are having a little bit of trouble getting it started

108up working with the company and getting support for that we can certainly move ahead that's right i would like that it's one of the tools that um correct i think what we will do is actually just sort of look at what the process looks like so that we can turn that information to be able to support it before we go like this does that just want you to see what it entails is it through the same agency throughout the state or the different agencies in that same currency okay we are still in the process of hiring a couple of drivers so that's doing well we have had to be very creative getting our students athletes to events we've had to take some of the vans we've had to charter some buses to get students there

109because we just don't have the drivers um we are looking at um wednesdays this was our second wednesday of late start early release and so we are just kind of tweaking the schedule a little bit to have students arriving at the elementary a little earlier so that they can get to the high school a little bit on time um but we did a big push out last friday for our buyers and we do have some interests and more days to come forward so in addition to the two that we're working on um getting in place we've had some more inquiries where are we at what's the opt-out process you have to remove your name from the app and it's slow going but they're getting them i think they've had what okay massachusetts called up the

110national guard to drive yeah because they were so their driver their driver shortages um anyone like to make a motion to the junior meeting oh [Music] you