School Board Workshop/Meeting - February 17, 2022

001hello ready all right good evening and welcome oh good evening and welcome to the um scarborough school of education school board of education's workshop the date is thursday february 17th may i have the attendance please sure mrs giptis miss casalones here mr kelleher here miss leong here mrs lindstrom here mr peeny huff here mrs turner here miss giftus and miss bertullia all right thank you can everybody please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all um agenda agenda item 4.0 is our workshop and 4.1 is the reformation of the the reformation excuse me the dei committee um so i wanted to take a few minutes

002first and just kind of make sure that we remind each other and the public um what our dei committee makeup is so um if you wouldn't mind going to the next slide able all right so the way that our kid our committee was um formed last with last year's school board is that we have two school board members that sent on the committee two administrative members five teachers and staff teachers or staff members seven community members and six student members at the same time we can contracted with an outside agency the mid-atlantic equity consortium mac and they were the organization that provided our facilitation services they helped us train our committee members um they have additional things that they could do but that was their their purpose with us they really assisted with our meetings

003and planning the meetings facilitating the meetings and then training our committee members all right so then because where we sit right now is we've had some staff turnover if you don't mind going to the next slide we've had some staff turnover and three of our students who have graduated from this from school so we have as it stands we have six current vacancies and that is before we've spoken with everybody on the committee to be sure that they still are wanting to participate wanting to be a part of the committee so um we would have to at least fill those six vacancies at the same time our contract with maec expired so we have um a conversation there to be had as well how do we want to proceed with that so um and then

004for the application process for the committee members what would happen is the communications committee last year actually created an application for for the dei committee um so they would need to be looked at potentially by alicia and john to be sure if it's still um you know relevant if there is any additions that need to be made we could solicit applications from those vacancies that we do have and then we as a board in our next meeting would select board mem or committee members and that would happen through a random draw of names all right so the first big discussion i would like to have um well let me let me do this let me go through everything and then we'll go through our big discussion um this is the committee charge as it stood

005and was board approved last year um so one of the things i would want to talk about tonight is do we need some updates to this all right and then um can you move on one more slide before we get into our piece um of discussions tonight one of the things that the dei committee did was brought forth recommendations to the full board the board voted and approved those recommendations and so the um leadership council has been working on those recommendations that were brought forward so i do want uh to hand it over to jeff quickly to give an update on what they've been doing right so um actually at the beginning of the fall so when we started meeting his leadership council we talked about setting up within the leadership council itself professional learning

006teams to focus on kind of strategic goals of the district so right now we have three professional learning teams one focused on student supports and rti another focused on dei efforts and then the third why am i on social emotional learning as well across the district so um i'm actually part of our dei professional learning team that we set up and um we tried consciously made sure that we had representatives on our team from each phase level and then also district level leadership so one of the first things that we did was look at the charge and the mission of last year's board of education dei subcommittee and the recommendations that were made and then approved back in july of 2021. so um does the link work for the summary document so um what we

007did as a team is also put together a summary document that kind of encapsulates the work that that we've been doing since the fall so some of those things included identifying what our professional learning team vision would be so that's actually encapsulated at the top of this document and is kind of embedded first in scarborough public schools overall mission to provide a safe and inclusive learning environment where each and every student is empowered to be resilient lifelong learners and then also making sure the vision of our our plt is is really aligned with um the dei committee recommendations that were approved uh in july so the leadership council after a couple of meetings we created this professional learning team vision scarborough schools are committed to creating a welcoming and safe environment for all scarborough students

008and staff through our roles as school and district leaders and implementers of district priorities k-12 this team will promote the goal of diversity equity and inclusion for all individuals in our school district regardless of their identity i.e race gender age sexual orientation gender identity religion disability or socio-economic status um this also this summary document also outlines our membership so myself allison and kate um kelly crosby wentworth principal ann lovejoy eight corners principal jake brown high school assistant principal and dave curry or middle school assistant principal so we have representation throughout k-12 and then what we also wanted to do was kind of identify and outline some short-term actions that we're working on um as a team so define it and and i'm not gonna go through each one of these bullets here but um you

009know this this two-page document really looks at okay what are we doing right now and then also what are some things that are happening across the district that we can share and make people more aware of right so there's a lot of things that i've seen in classrooms and with teachers and in different schools um and with students that that are absolutely related to this vision and goal um and as teachers a lot of times or administrators you keep your head down and you do your jobs you're not really a marketer right you're not promoting yourself and things that are going on so one of the charges i think of of our group is you know we're we're in buildings a lot of us at every phase how can we share out too a lot

010of the work that's that's going on right now and then and then how do we celebrate those things and then how do we um align and talk about where we're going and make and make that part of it so it's tangible for people um and then also at least the short term also being able to set up equity teams at each building talking about some of the data that was collected last year and the implications of that so some of those are the next steps that we've outlined and then what are some of our longer term goals which is also including that number one recommendation which was creating a dei district-wide position administrative position looking at our hiring practices and how we can how we can diversify uh and those kind of things so that's

011the two-page document that's linked into the slides uh this evening and just some of the things that we've been working on um as a leadership council thank you jeff um before we move forward in our description does anybody have any questions for jeff lots of hard work for sure what's the status of the um dei coordinator uh well i mean that that's something that from my recollection in july would be a position that would go through the budget process um and be brought forward as as part of that which um so the status on that is is that hasn't been brought forward you know we haven't worked on or identified specifically a job description or anything like that so that's that's why we that's why we listed it as a as more of a long-term

012goal than a short-term action at least within our our group is it in for proposed funding for this for this budget cycle what's that is it in for um as a new request it's not in as a newer club okay apparently are there any other questions all right thank you for the update lots of hard work for sure um all right so if we um the first thing first piece of conversation that i want to open up the floor to have is regarding um our outside facilitation uh organization that we use like i said we had in last year used maec and that contract has expired so um what i see for c is that we can either do i think we have two options we can either um allow the board members which uh

013as a reminder is alicia and john and administration to um facilitate the committee themselves and as needed they would they could ask to bring in outside help or we can go back to the drawing board and vet organizations that would help us facilitate including m.a potentially mac again but kind of go back to the table with that so i think it's really one of one of the two so i would just open the floor for to hear thoughts yeah please um i think after seeing what jeff just presented to us i have a lot of confidence that we're on the right path and that they're capable of doing it that being said i'm not on the committee but i i think for the time being i'm okay with the administration and alicia and john sort

014of going back and seeing where we need help and bringing it in where appropriate i i'm i don't feel like i have a skill set that would match during that as the committee chair um i i just feel like it's it's a very sensitive topic and it's easy to get in over your head quickly and it's also really data focused and and i think that we could benefit from having a consultant i i wonder if we could use somebody at least for a limited purpose um to help guide those those and some at least some of the meetings can i ask a question if we're going to discuss the charge of the committee does it make more sense to do that and then discuss what kind of help need yeah um i it's funny i

015had it the opposite way because the charge um talks about mac so if we were we were to adjust um that would be a huge change but we can certainly take a look at the get the charge first absolutely i guess i'm just wondering as we think about the work that jeff and his team are doing how does that impact the charge is it going to continue to be really data focused or is that something that administration is handling and i don't know the answer isn't just right and that's something um we would have to so the first let me tell you i guess let me lay out the conversations as i see them the first is facilitation the second is um uh the the norms that the committee adopted last year included one regarding

016the public um participation so that would be a second question and then the third is this charge so when i say this charge it's looking at things like um the first uh bullet point says that we're going to review data collected from climate surveys equity audits and listening tours and those are things those are items that mac was going to do for the district right that's not work we did so we had the climate surveys completed we did not get to the equity audits or the listening tours um so uh to alicia's point about not feeling um equipped that is one area or a piece of our charge where i think we would definitely struggle yet i guess my question is are those equity audits something that jeff and his team are sort of doing

017in the listening tours is has that shifted at all where those responsibilities lie i mean we haven't done anything formal along those lines okay you know um you know a lot of our work has been identifying kind of short-term goals long-term good goals establishing a vision that would work aligned with this committee um and and you know some basic review of data that was collected that's now um getting pretty old i'm not sure when the when was the climate survey that the year already about a year ago right so so we've reviewed some of that data um as part of our meetings um but as far as you know and obviously like i said we've got administrators in every phase level but but we haven't done any formal listening tours or do you do you

018think um do you have the same concerns as alicia about feeling equipped to do i think the tricky part like like for example with like a listening tour or just how they've framed those kind of things being an administrator in the building i don't know how comfortable people would be in and really offering their opinion you know what i mean like you're it's it's it's a little more challenging it'd be good to have i don't know it could be someone from from either outside um scarborough schools or you know maybe maybe someone from a different building or you know whatever but to have an administrator in the same building be the one that's kind of guiding those listening tours probably you're probably not getting you know the most unbiased data that way yeah um being

019honest um i almost wondered with this because we the one thing i will say that we did um as we were working through this last year as a committee though the listening tours um had a budgetary impact right so that piece wasn't something again when we talked about the budget wasn't something that had been approved or built into the budget so um that when i look at that first sentence i almost wonder if we say review data and kind of stop that sentence right there because then it's open to the interpretation of the committee as to what data they they want to review and that way it kind of gets us um maybe to the same place but with a broader lens i mean my recollection of the meetings last year was that was something

020that the committee expected that would we would be working on maybe not this year with the equity audits and the listening tours so i would hate to to limit that as as we've already worked to flesh it out one of the suggestions i would make i guess to change the committee charge is to include um funding for the uh initiatives that we're proposing in the committee charge so that we can um work towards planning how we're gonna make that happen so you mean for the dei committee to come up with like a cost out of yeah i mean i don't know if [Music] so maybe it's something along the lines of like partnering with the finance committee or partnering with kate to budget accordingly yeah and that's part of the reasoning um that we had

021to have this group in leadership council too right so that you act as almost like we would act as almost like an advisory wing in concert with the board you know with this board committee you know um and kate's on it so that certainly helps so maybe that's a new bullet added to the to this i put it as the first bullet because without adequate funding the rest of this is going to be really hard to attain absolutely um i do have a question too about naec i understand that the contract was has ended or we believe it has ended is it a one-time only deal can we enter into a new contract for this year and have their services and not try to add additional costs with an outside consultant if they're available so

022we did reach out to them and we have yet to hear back um and that was probably about a week ago so you know as i said to shannon um whereas we they they helped us in um finalizing the action plan that was approved by the board in july and then at the district level we set forth on that action plan and so um my assumption would be that they have established contracts with other districts and are probably heavily immersed in those districts in the same way they were with our district last year um but you know i'm i'm still hopeful that we will um hear back from them i certainly you know will loop back around but don't want to be emailing them every single day right not knowing um you know where they're

023at yeah i i guess the way i was looking at it more i definitely don't want you to have to do that every day because right that that just hurts um but if there's an amount of money i'd rather the money go to action than to a consultant if possible [Music] i agree and i think that was the great thing about mac that facilitation work and that they did conduct the climate surveys for us they did administer those all of that was a free service right so that was really really great that we had um that available to us at no cost um the equity audits as i remember were also a free service the listening tours is where to alicia's point we would we would need to work to budget funds for that i

024think if we're going to budget funds towards doing that stuff i would like to see us open up the possibility of other partnerships too and not just feel tied to the maec we never explored other opportunities you know we were in a different place i think then i think we know a little more in community see what else is out there um yeah i think that's i don't think that's asking too much right to consider our options anyway at least right like mac is one but are there others too um just like we would bet anything yeah and and the committee might find that an equity audit the way mac defines it isn't exactly what we need but there is some other organization that that offers something different that lines up a little bit more

025with what our committee thinks we need to do in this district it is my understanding that we have those equity audit tools because maec shared them with us whether or not that makes a difference not to put alicia on the spot but i'd actually put that back into the chair if or is there somebody on the team would you be comfortable in saying you know asking the leadership council to manage that piece of the audit and then report back to you guys i mean i don't want to say hey we've got these great free tools good luck i want to make sure you have what you need to be successful i mean i just feel like that's such a specific thing that that's something that i would want to undertake um i share jeff's concern

026or or i think his point is valid that you would want somebody sort of from the outside to conduct that because when you're looking at change right you've got it makes the most sense i think to have outside eyes um and i don't know how that comes about unless if there is a cost and we were really lucky last year to have that that free service it was really extensive and and we were very fortunate is it possible similar to how like with the building steering committee we've got incredible experts within our community that somebody might be able to offer their services to help us already in-house well not in house and district but in-house in scarborough i think it's a little bit different than the building steering committee in the um everybody comes with

027their own sort of history and expectation and so i don't know if you would have that same neutrality that you would have in because it's such a personal for many people on that committee it's such a personal journey and um you know i i don't i don't know i don't know enough about that type of work to say to to to to be offered expertise on it but i mean i just i just know that a lot of people come with their own history or experience and so how does that impact your interpretation of the information that you receive all right well so the way i'm hearing it is we make a first bullet um uh that the dei committee will work with the finance committee to ensure adequate funding or assess budgeting assess budgetary

028needs okay so that would be the first bullet and then i heard that we would leave the second one alone um what about the next three um i'll just say that this at my recollection of the second bullet was that there seemed to be um [Music] some there appeared to be a need to sort of clarify additionally what the role of the committee was um it's just such a a committee that's so different than any others that i've been on and a lot of that comes from real um personal circumstance and so but and that that's all can be very helpful and and informative but it it it can interfere also with a lot of the work that needs to be done which really needs to be data focused and and we needed to really

029be clear about separating out the role of administration to run our schools to receive complaints um to hear stories of bullying and and harassment that may occur in our schools separately from that committee and so um because we you know because the school board members can't be involved in in particular neither can the committee but the school board members can't be involved in that information if it's possibly would ever come to the school board so um i think that that was added just to um reaffirm the fact that that's um [Music] the role is just to be updated not to actually resolve those incidents as they occur in the school systems that's confidential information that's appropriately handled in the district right and i have the same the same recollection that our boundaries are very different

030from administrative boundaries right and we have that conversation a lot as board members you know what is our job with his administration's job and this was added to kind of you know put that put that boundary there right the administration is who handles um disciplinary concerns and situations as they arise do you think that still needs to be in the charge or does that go in the norms like do you think that enough work has been done [Music] to maybe slide that over no i would say i mean personally i would say enough work has been done with the current members but we're bringing new members on so in that case i would say no that you still think it belongs i still think it belongs here we spent a lot of time sort of

031having that discussion i mean because and it's natural i mean i'm not saying that that's um unreasonable for people to have that concern you have students there that are saying this is my experience in my school and we've asked them to sit on a committee to address those issues and i think it's really natural that they look to that committee to want to resolve those issues but but you know systemically that's can't happen that's not the role of that committee and so um for me i think it was fresh it was frustrating to not not have that guideline initially and so i think it just to maintain it really clearly from the beginning and then people can understand also the expectation and so when they sign up to be on this committee they can decide

032you know is this something that i want to put my time to or or do i want to you know if there are incidents that i have concerns about do i want to address them in a different way and so i think that it makes it really clear i have to agree okay are there any other comments about the other bullets i do think at the top at the paragraph level i think we should just because our contract is expired i think we should remove in collaboration with the mid-atlantic equity consortium so that the sentence would just read the diversity equity and inclusion committee will promote the goal of diversity equity and inclusion for all individuals in our school district regardless of their identity i.e race gender age sexual orientation gender identity religion disability or

033socioeconomic status all right so i think the charge is down so do we have any other questions right i do oh yeah go ahead can you explain a little bit that last bullet point seems like i don't know i'm not sure really what we were actually getting at with that like what's was the period determined by the committee so my recollection of the work of the committee was that you know that the charge was um you know the initial charge was to set forth an action plan or a recommendation of action plan steps that the board should take and that is what you voted on in july and then as it pertained to the development of that action plan right now that we have a plan in place it was that um you know that

034steering committee if you will right would monitor that approved action plan um and the progress towards that plan right and then kind of reassess you know what are the next natural places to go to as as you know as the district works through those steps i guess it all makes sense i guess maybe that sentence just reads a little funky so you thinking to reword it we don't have to i mean it makes sense i just think it reads a little funky yeah i think that piece in the middle or period to be determined by the committee was left as such because um at the time of the inception of the action plan it was hard to know like what is what should that check in time be like every how often right because our

035action plan is a sizable action plan you know as jeff outlined um you know the this leadership team that's involved in this work um you know that it's multifaceted and so you know what um would be helpful in terms of that that check-in for progress right because the dei committee is kind of supposed to serve as like an oversight body right they developed um some action plan recommendations you all um you know put those into place as you saw fit and now those things are happening and so it's really a matter of how do you establish that timing by which how often should that team be coming back together to hear what that action progress is and to make some recommendations and work through what are some next steps as we achieve some of the

036originals yeah so in terms of a charge do you think that middle chunk can just come out and the committee can just determine what that looks like because it might be different year to year right yeah well or those list of recommends those those list of recommendations that are outlined aren't set in stone either right and so that would be part of the committee's charge i would think is to um revisit those revisit the action plans and recommendations based on how it's going yeah so maybe it is just monitor action plan progress to ensure that the steps or action steps are in line with actual needs right is that seem good all right all right any other questions on the chart all right so let's um let's go back to facilitators so um what i'm

037hearing is that the comfort level based on our experience here would be to have a facilitator or an organization that helps facilitate the committee and meetings um so it would it sounds to me like unless i hear otherwise that we would potentially be looking you know kind of going back and looking to see who's you know who and what organizations are available to us to help which may or may not include mac right because we to diane's point we haven't heard so we don't know what their availability even is um what we know is that our contract expired so they may they may have moved on to others and we might we might be forced to find find another any comments or thoughts on that i guess i'm i'm wondering from alicia and john like

038do you guys think you can get through a couple of meetings with that committee so the committee can sort of see what type of help we need what type of an organization you would like to look to or is that asking no i mean i'm happy to do what i can do um i do think that some of the norms were um at times we could use help from an outside facilitator last year it was my perception i don't know if that's a perception by diane and shannon but i thought that that was something that um you know it it was tough a tough conversation yeah i mean i don't want to send you guys in feeling into a bad situation that doesn't feel like it's going to be productive to you just really hard

039because i mean i'm not a um a person impacted by personally by that work and so for me to come in and and set the norms i don't want that to feel oppressive and and i can't really understand the situation that those folks are in and so um on the other hand we need to have quarterly meetings that are focused on the goals that are consistent with the charge and some people may have an interest in things that are not necessarily consistent with that chart and so it it's difficult and i don't want to come across as somebody who's trying to um yeah being sensitive i mean i i and so i appreciate the help i mean of people who are really skilled in that and it is you know very nuanced work and so

040it feels overwhelming and and i felt like at times like you know um i don't want to say scared but but concerned to to offer suggestions because i didn't want to to you know not understand the impact of what i was suggesting and so it was helpful to have somebody who was really trained [Music] and i also like in my head when kristin was talking i started thinking about our current community members that are anxious to get back to work as well right that it really expressed a desire to get started again so i wonder if um potentially what a if you could hold a couple of meetings just maybe i think the committee could really benefit from hearing what the district has been doing so maybe that's a first meeting right and to really

041uh introdu you know get everybody back in the swing of things um so i mean is that is does that feel yeah like we could get started there and then in the meantime be looking and and i mean i'll do whatever i need to do it's just i don't want it to be counterproductive and i don't want to you know put anybody in an uncomfortable position as my real concern i want to be mindful of how we handle it yeah i think starting with the committee hearing the work that has been done is a great a great idea yeah um all right so we'll do that and then in the meantime um i guess if we diane and jeff if you have ideas as to other organizations that could facilitate and help let me start

042putting those together all right um the third piece is the um the norms that um alicia uh alluded to that were developed in the committee um one of them um and one we need to talk about as a board is the fact that meetings were not open to the public so when i say that that meant um they weren't recorded and they were not public the doors weren't publicly open so it did um run a little bit different if you will to comparative to other meetings right where we record and we have the availability for the public to attend so as we go forward with this this next year um is that something we want we want to revisit meaning do we want to allow the public to attend these meetings i feel very strongly

043that the public should have some access i don't know that i don't care if they're recorded or not i think this is work that impacts everyone in our district and our community and i i again feel very strongly that the community should have access i understand i don't want to be insensitive either i understand the challenges that why the choices were made but i think moving forward they need to be open and if we find that there's a need for a smaller space that isn't public that can be a subcommittee of a sort i just i i need to um i want to speak on behalf of the people that were members of the committee last year and that um were individuals who were impacted by this work and who shared their strong opinion and

044preference that these meetings be um not recorded and not not public because they were [Music] exposing themselves to vulnerability and very personal stories and it was very challenging and they felt that that should be respected and um and i hate speaking for them but i guess i'm in a place where i have to um but i don't and i hate it because i don't know that i can do it adequate justice i guess it's the concern and it's been a long time it's something i don't um want to speak on their behalf but because i don't want to um misrepresent their thoughts but my understanding and recollection is that this is very personal and traumatic and that it's not something that we could possibly understand and so we should respect that and honor what they

045need to um be able to share their perspectives so that the work can be done in a meaningful way and so i just think that i need to honor that request and and so that's my my preference i always believe in full transparency but if it's going to cause harm to somebody else and we can report out the results of it and on the information and the real um important points of those meetings um that's my preference because i think that we really need to respect um how we handle the um or i guess how it impacts other people would it be possible for um when there's data analysis i know that we got raw data and the importance or the value in data is the interpretation and not having had that opportunity to hear

046what the data meant put me at a disadvantage if there was an opportunity to maybe record just that section or have really good notes or whoever the consultant has came in and gave the board the detail behind the analysis of the data for me that would cover it it i don't want to put anybody in a position where they didn't feel they could talk about their talk about what they needed to or share appropriately but that the changes being made from the data does need to be shared broadly um and for me that's where i would be more comfortable in getting that feedback and i think the community would as well if they in that scenario like i understand that and we would get that information back but where where's the two-way relationship where's the

047community getting to tell the committee how they feel where did they get to share input this i think it needs to involve more than the 24 people sitting in that room and i if we can't find a solution for that i i just don't know how we justify closing this off to the public yeah i think i'm with kristen here i don't think we necessarily need to record it um because of you know what they're disclosing and i don't think that should be um accessible over and over again to kind of revisit the trauma over and over again um however i do think we need to have it transparent so open to the public to view it as it's happening and then maybe not allow any sort of public comment so that way doesn't add

048to the stress that's happening within the committee already um just so that way the public knows what what we're doing and why we're doing it yeah i um have been reflecting a lot on this um trying to think through my thoughts for this evening and i almost wonder if we could find a middle ground because like alicia i want to honor the requests and i know advocacy work often comes from when we have lived experiences and those lived experiences kind of shape our thoughts and our processes and our work moving forward and so i do want to honor that space but i also know to leanne's point we were not great at meeting minutes we were not great at making sure that data was available for everybody to see and so i can understand why

049uh leanne would feel at a disadvantage when we would go to discuss something moving forward so i i feel this um i'm unsure because i feel my pull is to make is to keep them as they are um closed to the public but with the understanding in the caveat that there is a lot more expensive notes that come out of the meetings and perhaps when we talk data that's when we open the meeting to the public and let them meet and let the public in um so that's that's that's where i am i don't know any other thoughts yeah i s um i think that at to alicia's point that if there's times where students are stare people are sharing things that have happened to them that the public doesn't necessarily need to hear that

050uh but there you know there may be things that would be really beneficial for the public to see and i think that that needs to be you know whether there's a subcommittee or something to share off the data that's public but to open kids up to uh some random person from the community sitting in a meeting i i just don't think it's right thank you and with that i'm thinking maybe someone that would share in a closed situation may not share in an open situation and then that's counterproductive for the whole committee all right so i think i think what i'm hearing is majority thinks to leave it as is but we extend the data and we extend the minutes i would almost i wonder even if it's helpful if there's somebody at every meeting

051that is um perhaps assigned minute duty that you know so that robust minutes are coming out of the committee so that then the public has that um ownership of it some ownership of it okay um i think that is all we had for i have one other question that wasn't part of it but the dei committee makeup yes there are six students that are on there because we had six students who had applied last year is the number will that number remain consistent is it based on who applies how is that going to be addressed moving forward well that was a huge issue last time and i thought that we were going to discuss that tonight so i'm glad you brought it up i mean the i i think i heard china say the expectation

052would be that we we would we would um pick randomly did you say that yes um so um you know the awkward position that we find ourselves in is that we heard from members of the committee that the committee should be made up of people who are impacted by the work um i'm not necessarily soliciting comments from people or or having them self-identify if they're part of a potentially discriminated class that that doesn't seem right to me um and then we wound up sort of taking every student that applied and and it was just it it just and then it was like well this is a person of a of a discriminated class so why is this person not on versus somebody who may not understand and and it just really it it just didn't

053feel good i i'll say as a person like sitting there trying to make a decision um so if we pick randomly we i think that we're good you know that that avoids that i also think it's going to make some people upset because um their strong opinions that each the committee should be comprised of the people who understand it best and and that it's the people that are impacted by it so um i think we need to weigh that and then way okay if we let one student in do we let all students in which is what we did last time um and um and how how to go about it and what the criteria are and and are we asking people if they're part of a potentially um well i have two thoughts i

054think the first is that we um never should assume that someone how someone identifies so based on appearance or whatever the whatever the circumstance is so when people apply to be on this committee they apply because they believe in the work and they want to be a part of something that's happening in scarborough um so there's that piece the student piece um we could leave it at six my um my fear is that this committee is 22 as it stands and when we start adding more positions this is going to become so large isn't manageable right so to me six feels in line with what we have with the other the teacher the teacher representatives the community representatives um between the school board and the administration i feel like it feels like it's it's in

055line with that um so i would be in favor of leaving it capping it at six i agree with cuffing it at six but can you speak a little bit about to i my understanding is you don't really have a choice to randomly select yes yes i'm sorry i didn't mean to speak to that i think that decision sort of removed yes yes well i understood that one of the other options was we could delegate that to like administration or somebody else willing i should say you know we it is either that we draw randomly out of a hat or we delegate to um i believe it would be the the two board members i'd have to verify but i think it would be the two of you it couldn't be more but well in

056that case it should definitely be random i think i think the randomness the fact that we draw out of a name seems the fairest to give equal um opportunity to everybody who wants to be on the committee who is applying to be and to serve when are we making these decisions like this is our workshop are we voting on this or what what's the plan for proceeding um i don't well what i for the next step i think for you and for john is i think that um setting up a next meeting for the committee where you hear from jeff about what the district is doing um and you also um want to verify the current committee members that they want to continue serving and once we have an accurate number of vacancies then we

057can look at the application go forth with it um i don't think that there's anything here to vote on um i guess we could vote on an updated charge at our next meeting um but the makeup if we're not changing the makeup that was already decided on by a previous board facilitator from the outside we would have to do the vetting work first and then vote on that piece i guess i don't have a set like this day we'll do this this date will do this for you yes we haven't started that betting work yet but i'm just hold the first meeting until you see new members right right like you would right yes so really the um the we need to get on to the application and getting that out and soliciting soliciting um

058applications from the areas where we have vacancies okay i think that that application can go in the trash it can just be if we're just randomly selecting that last application was a lot more detailed yeah i did ask questions like why did you want to serve on the committee um so we don't necessarily need to ask those if we're to your point if we're if we're going to do the random draw you know we we made our decisions a little bit differently last year and so i was asking just because i know that the members of the committee had strong opinions about that last time and and we had solicited um or i had sent out an email soliciting their input um after listening to the workshop tonight and so i didn't know if this

059was when we were making that decision about how we were going to pick members or if we were going to consider their input if they had any or what and then how we were going to come to an ultimate conclusion it is my understanding of the legality of how we operate as a board that we can't it's one or the other so i mean i'm happy to hear what the committee members have to say about how we select numbers but we're kind of bound we don't we don't have a lot of wiggle room there is the is the seven community members hard and fastly i mean it seems like this is about students and there are more community members i i guess i don't i don't really understand that we could change that but don't

060forget that that the younger students don't have any representation without that community oh that's true you know so there might be parents or um all right we are um coming up on seven so i guess we'll leave this as next steps if you could reach out to the committee ask who's interested make sure everybody on the current committee is still interested in in participating and then um if you and john want to review the application and we can go forward with putting that out to the community once you guys have and we can you know of course we'll share it with everybody before it goes live sounds good we have one solid minute before meeting so if anybody needs to use the restroom [Music] okay all right good evening and welcome to the regular business

061meeting of the scarborough school board of education the date is thursday february 17th 2022. may i have the attendance please yes mrs giftes yeah miss casalones here mr kelleher here miss leong here mrs lindstrom here miss trapini huff here mrs turner here miss skiftus and miss pertullia thank you um can i please have everybody join me for the pledge of allegiance thank you um agenda item 4.0 is adjustments to the agenda i do have one adjustment um the agenda item 9.4 is a motion to approve a board resolution and we're going to remove that from the agenda as the resolution has been withdrawn are there any other adjustments today no other adjustments all right um agenda item is 5.0 which is public comment on agenda items is there anybody here wishing to make public comment

062this evening what we can do um you're welcome to we can form a line over here um what i'll do is i will intersperse just um so you know we've gotten some emails and i've got some people on um zoom that are also wanting to make comment so i'll kind of intersperse between um but for everybody who is wishing to make public comment please address your comments to me as the chair um please state your full legal name and your address before you begin speaking and then please limit yourself to three minutes okay so thank you can you hear me yeah all right um hello my name is colby shumway and i'm a sophomore at the high school and i live at five memory lane on march 13 2022 it will mark two full years

063since our education has been affected due to the coronavirus i speak to you tonight in hopes that you will remove the mask mandate for our schools to start scarborough schools has a vaccination rate of over 90 percent this gives many people in the district protection from covid vaccination is important at reducing severity of disease and the vast majority of people within the school district are now protected from severe disease additionally cases have also declined greatly over the past few weeks within the district which shows there are not as many coveted positive kids in the schools scarborough has also invested in an hvac system and can easily ventilate the schools well which cuts down a great amount of not only coveted transmission but other diseases too we can also crack open windows to get fresh air

064into the school i believe personally for myself and many others that masks have had an extremely negative impact on my learning they make it hard to see facial expressions and understand people well and they are also a distraction as it's hard to focus and keep it on for eight hours a day to top all that recently the main doe suspended contact tracing regardless of mass guidelines i know a big reason to have a mask mandate was because schools with universal mask mandates did not require contact tracing now that would not be not be an issue if we went mask optional i think now would be a perfect time to remove this mandate as the school district has an extremely high vaccination rate which seems to be the main metric for removing masks and cases are

065continuing to drop week after week removing these masks would also make kids very happy and i am sure many younger kids will be happy to experience normalcy again the last year many of us students had a fully normal year was 2019 when i was in seventh grade that's three years since we had a fully normal year with high rates of vaccination and good ventilation which we have this makes the schools extremely safe on their own and these two factors also have very little downsides unlike masks also if masks are optional that would not mean people would be forced to not wear masks there is still that option for people who feel the need to protect themselves if they find it necessary just like there is an option to wear masks for people when they are

066out in the community overall i hope you remove this mandate and i thank you for all your time and hard work that you put into this issue thank you um you come ahead and then we'll after you i'll take a pause before i come to you thank you okay good evening board members my name is kaitia zenko i live at 32 oyster street and i have two children in the scarborough schools the negative health and emotional impacts on children wearing masks have been well documented also recognized by most is that children have been minimally impacted by coving yet we're making them wear a mask all day when a lot of adults when given a choice go about their lives without masks and the key word here is choice unfortunately like the common cold and the

067flu it looks like covet will be with us for the foreseeable future are we going to mask our children indefinitely mask wearing policies at school right now are in contrast with what happens outside of school we can take our children out to a restaurant we can take them to the store other activities all without a mask and sports stadiums across the country are filled with tens of thousands of people with very very few masks in sight almost all of them adults so why is it okay for adults to go without mask or not for children and from what i understand there isn't a state of maine a board of education mandate regarding mass scoring at schools and it's been left up to individual school districts and for our wonderful town of scarborough the decision regarding

068this matter has been left to you you have the choice you have the choice to give us parents the choice the choice to decide what we think is best for our own children i very respectfully ask you do you make the masking optional for us and for me and for all the parents in scarborough thank you very much for your time um for those that are participating on zoom i see some have their hands up um i'm going to promote can you please promote michelle shout out to the panel michelle shep i'm going to promote you first to speak all right michelle when you're ready okay can everyone hear me yes okay great um i was not intending to speak today so you'll have to excuse me if i'm a little scattered my name is

069michelle schupp i live on holmes road in scarborough i am a parent of three children i have a student at every level um i am a teacher and i was on the dei committee last year i am one of the very few teachers in the district who is not white um i should say i'm a little hot right now um these conversations are very emotional um they're not academic um for me because i see the pain my students are in every day um i see the pain my own children experience as non-white students every day and non-um students i am also i also identify as queer if that makes any difference um and of course i myself have never been part of the um historically dominant a couple of things that i want to point

070out first of all i want to applaud alicia for identifying that any kind of public nature of the dei committee meetings would be deeply harmful and would result in a lack of genuine disclosure i'm really i was really um thank you for voicing that alicia on behalf of the historically excluded communities uh who did in fact participate in the dei committee last year it will cause harm one of the options i can see like just off the top of my head having heard this conversation 20 minutes ago for the first time uh was we could have reporting members um i'd be happy to be a reporting member um i'm very used to having my trauma commodified so kind of used to it i'd be happy to come in and and be a reporting member i

071also want to say trauma is not a two-way relationship victims experience trauma and so i i realize also that sometimes we say things that we're not quite really meaning to say or have it taken in a certain way but the idea that um certain things relating to the people who are on this committee and things they're sharing is like a two-way conversation it's not really if the if sorry if the aim of the dei committee the board members and our central office administration and our building principles is to hear and support historically excluded communities then the listening is really the important part i totally yes print the data have us report out on things but please don't don't the meetings cannot be public finally before i go equality and equity are not the same and

072the idea that we have to have equal representation on this committee by picking randomly i don't even know how to address that i don't think i could have done it if i had given the whole three minutes to that and if the other option is that the two officers of the board do the picking the two officers of the board should do the picking that's what leadership is picking randomly will not create equity thank you michelle okay um i will good sorry my um isabel i'm gonna promote you to a panelist while she's um being promoted i will read one more and then i will it'll be your turn thank you for your patience all right isabel it's whenever you're ready hi my name is mackenzie stimson and i am a part of i'm a

073senior at scarborough high school and i'm the current treasurer of civil rights club and i was also a student member of the dei committee last year um one of the only three seniors that remains on the dei committee i'm here making this speech in conjunction with isabellu who is the current president of civil rights club and also a member of the dei committee last year as a collective the civil rights club would like to extend a few thoughts regarding the dei committee we acknowledge that our administration school board central office and building and building leadership team has made strides towards towards non-racism in this speech we want to highlight the distinction between non-racism and anti-racism please note that while we are using these terms non-racism and anti-racism we are advocating for all historically excluded populations

074non-racism is the absence of is the absence of action the absence of actively engaging in the anti-racist work in the community the absence of reaching out to those marginalized the absence of communication of communication to the diversity equity and inclusion committee a committee designed to take action anti-racism is centered in action the action of communicating with members of the dei committee the action of educating students on racism and most importantly taking action to protect our students daily we the students of scarborough schools need anti-racism throughout the year the civil rights club has taken anti-racist and anti-bigotry measures such as creating and sharing inclusive book readings for young students as well as advocating for students with linguistic barriers however despite our best efforts there is a point where as students we are unable to make the

075necessary reformative and systemic changes this is where we look to administrators and community leaders and urge you to take action although the dei comm although the dei committee did not reconvene as expected in september the need for action persists we recognize and support the work that the dei committee accomplished last year during the time that they met and we believe that the list of suggestions sent to the board of education were a very good start a first step to the structural and reformative change that scarborough public schools needs to see however with the cessation of the dei meetings it has felt like the problems that we as marginalized students face every day have been pushed off to the side and ignored despite continuing to face discrimination every day at school we feel invisible to the

076school leadership and these problems need to be addressed we urge you to create a process in which new students can apply to be on the dei committee the three student representatives who are currently a part of the committee are all singers and will be graduating in a couple months fortunately there are many tenacious student advocates from various historically excluded populations who would love to move into the work in the future action cannot be taken for us without us and the voice of the student body is essential we strongly urge efficiency and speed in finding facilitators and overall reconstruction of the dei committee so that we can get to work as soon as possible and we would like to see a plan in place and a date determined as soon as possible for the committee to

077actually meet in terms of public attendance at the meetings allowing for public attendance will absolutely destroy any sense of a safe space for the members as a student of color on the committee it would restrict members of historically excluded populations from being vulnerable and open during discussions and there are many students who would simply not participate because they feel unsafe having these discussions in the public eye it would also be difficult to open any particular part of the discussion to the public because the conversations about data and personal experience often bleed together and the di committee would be losing immensely valuable resources in these students and their stories there are many safer ways of including the public and including transparency the emergency never stops for us and lastly we would like to leave you with

078this quote by bypoc writer speaker and activist idioma the beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to be you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it including in yourself and it's the only way forward end quote we hope you take our words into consideration sincerely the students of the civil rights club thank you thank you okay um i'm going to read one and then come back to the room um this is from from lee cullivan if we agree that masks mitigate against the spread of covid and that wearing them universally in schools will limit the spread of covid then removing that mitigation would cause more spread of covid thus if our goal is to limit spread when

079would we ever feel that mitigation could be removed the point being with that rationale is never and that's the problem we need to find reasons to remove the mitigation there will always be that one reason to keep it in place limiting spread but that is pre-omicron pre-booster availability mindset thank you lee okay hey guys cause shopping off uh live on pine point road in scarborough i have two kids seventh grader and a kindergartner and i'm gonna echo the first you know two that's spoken requesting that we get rid of this mass mandate um i mean between the vaccine and everything that we've learned over the last two years i mean there's very little if if any scientific evidence now that states that the mass are preventing any sort of spread you know for those that

080feel they they want to wear it you know let it be optional i think it's posed nothing but a distraction for both of my children all of my family and anyone else you speak to in the scarborough school system where you know if i ask my son what he did today in school he might tell me you know i don't know but he can certainly remember that if you know his mask is below his nose he's going to get a detention um my youngest son is in kindergarten who's never worn a mask before you know and a better part of drop off pickup is making sure that that mask is put on him it's put over their nose in the same boat as soon as our kids leave school you know you have hannaford right

081across the street with you know a thousand people in it unmasked i mean it's we have done everything we could to slow the spread of it you know the majority of people are vaccinated you know we're doing anything we can but to continue to force our kids to wear a mask eight hours a day i mean it's not only wrong in my opinion but in many others you know it should be optional and that's how i feel so thanks guys thanks for your time all right this one is from sarah mcgrain good afternoon board of education as of today 2 16 22 dr shaw and the cdc has uncoupled the masking requirement from contact tracing this frees schools up to make masks optional without needing to return to the labor-intensive contact tracing the cdc continues

082to report a decrease of cases in maine and states that school transmission risk is low scarborough community has a very high vaccination rate which the cdc reports directly correlates to low transmission in schools we have now reached our second year in the pandemic and our children are still being masked for six plus hours a day with very limited breaks as promised by our school department over the course of the pandemic we have gone from just two weeks to flatten the curve to just one half of the school year one half of the year homeschooling to slow the spread to vaccinations mask mandates pool testing and contact tracing now that everyone who is eligible can be or already is vaccinated why are we still forcing masks on our children the only breaks that are given is

083the one outside recess a day and when they eat snack or lunch wearing masks for the long periods of time and seeing others wear masks can damage people physically emotionally and psychologically children are even more vulnerable to this damage i am very concerned about the effects of these mandates on our children's mental health often the effects of such trauma are delayed the mental health crisis in this country has escalated significantly since the pandemic started our children have suffered enough and they should be able to share their smiles and breathe freely six to seven hours of masking a day five days a week is far too long for children still developing to be masked the case counts are down there is a vaccine for those who choose that route and the recovery rate for cobit 19

084remains over schools need to now be focusing on healthy lifestyle choices like getting vitamin d enough sleep movement peer connections proper nutrition and limited screen time in closing my children's grade 1 3 and 6 would like to share their plea to make masks optional my third grader who once loved school now dreads going to school he finds it hard to make connections with teachers and peers since anxiety is high in the school setting he cries at night because teachers used to love seeing kids smile and now every day they hear i don't want to see those noses imagine how it feels to be in their shoes we have seen state after state change their mandates and move away from masking in schools maine already has left the masking decision to each school district please let

085scarborough be a leader in this effort thank you sarah mcgregor okay i'm jennifer jubilis i live on haystack circle in scarborough and i'm a wentworth parent of a fifth grader and i'm also a pediatric infectious disease physician so i'm going to stick to the facts um and i want to address school mass policies the american academy of pediatrics is our national organization it represents 67 000 u.s pediatricians including general pediatricians pediatric emergency doctors pediatric infectious disease doctors pediatric psychiatrists and developmental pediatricians and they still unequivocally recommend universal school masking i understand the desire for normal and we're almost there but several things are still needed first and foremost we still need lower infection rates the omicron wave is receding but cases and hospitalizations remain high nationally over six hundred thousand children were infected in recent

086weeks and maine has a similar trend including children hospitalized from covid due to copen i just returned from the hospital some days up to half of the kids i'm caring for in the hospital are hospitalized due to covid we remain in an area the cdc classifies as high transmission risk second we need increased vaccination rates the vaccines are amazing they are 80 percent effective roughly against hospitalization and 90 effective against post-covert heart inflammation in kids but nearly half 40 percent of our primary school-aged students in cumberland county remain unvaccinated some of these kids are at risk themselves obesity is the most common risk factor only about 50 percent of adult mainers are boosted students live with grandparents they live with family members undergoing chemotherapy with their continued high prevalence of disease and our vaccine rates

087unmasking prematurely risks more outbreaks more hospitalizations more deaths and quite frankly i have seen enough third we need more available treatments for covid medications are available but they're extremely limited in supply for adults and they are not really available at all for at-risk children my colleagues and i spent hours each week assessing every request for treatment deciding whether patients qualify and then telling people i'm sorry there's just not enough to go around watch your symptoms come back and see us if you get worse fourth we need adequate affordable supplies of high quality masks for children one may masking the statement of if you're at risk you can wear a mask to protect yourself is simply not feasible n95s are the highest quality mask and they are not made for kids kn 95s are not studied

088are not fitted and are prohibitively expensive for a family with multiple children one week's supply can easily cost more than groceries we need to ensure that children will not be teased will not be ostracized and will not be singled out due to their medical risk this is a huge equity issue fifth we need high quality evidence that masks are harmful right now the preponderance of medical evidence including peer-reviewed studies from eight states and abroad demonstrate effectiveness of masks in preventing disease hospitalizations and deaths no published peer-reviewed studies show long-term harms despite masks being worn in many other countries during flu seasons for years pediatric mental health is indeed a crisis but with over 200 000 children having lost caregivers to cope with 19 i think removing masks is not the panacea we think it is

089finally we need hard metrics for when precautions can be removed and when they need to be reinstated yes hospitalization and disease rates are down but they are still higher than prior waves and the next variant is always around the corner let the experts give us these tools and then let the experts tell us when we have reached these parameters and please be prepared to reinstate masks when needed we are so close to a safe threshold for unmasking but we're not there yet schools are essential and they are they are quite frankly a right and they need to be safe for all of our students pediatric experts including the american academy of pediatrics and the pediatric infectious disease society agree that universal masking is the safest and the surest way to keep all of our students

090in school in safe and learning thank you thank you um i'm going to read a couple and i went on um one on zoom to promote okay um this one is from chris um i watched the 2-3-22 stream and i had several troubling quotes heard excuse me heard several troubling quotes the superintendent has fears about going it alone and not adhering to maine cdc guidance other districts have already done it has the board considered reaching out to them for lessons learned and best practices obviously not based on the 2 3 22 discussions that showed just how unprepared the board is for dealing with all things coven i was embarrassed for the board when the board chair said i'm not even sure how our community feels about this that's at the 138 mark if you doubt

091me are you kidding me i had to rewind the stream to make sure i heard that correctly the statement is an admission that this board is disconnected from reality and acts solely on personal preference rather than desires of the public what have you been doing for the first six months of the school year in the past 24 months your one job is to represent the community and you have no idea how your constituents feel about the board's most important topic that is pathetic here's a hint as to how the community feels we elected the lady who got up in august and spoke out against universal masking thankfully we have jenna as the voice of reason representing us on the board you can send out a survey about remote school days which is an awful idea

092for young kids but you can't do a survey about universal masking that is sad i've been telling you for months how the community feels friends and acquaintances thank me for speaking on their behalf against masking our children people forward me copies of emails that they sent to the board i'm telling you how the community feels we want an end to the universal masking immediately the narrative went from masks protect teachers to mask protect other students to mask protect those who live with vulnerable people to now mass keep kids in school and out of quarantine if they are close contact the board finally said the quiet part out loud and admitted on 2 32 the universal masking isn't for health reasons or for that protection of anyone i'm not sure you even realize that you destroyed

093your own argument about masks with that statement quit focusing on the sop and exemptions and let us parents manage risk for our children are you afraid to go it alone because it involves hard work rather than just following a state template it sure seems that one why do we even have a school board i'm serious if this if the board will just hide behind statements like the cdc guidance says or our hands are tied then by your own admission that pretty much renders the board useless for covid guidance is just that a recommendation and not a requirement it's past time for the board to show some leadership thank you for your time point of order yes um i appreciate the email being read into record however it is against our policy bedh um in two

094various points the first being we are not supposed to be um speaking at any point about specific individuals as well as we're supposed to be um observing rules of common etiquette and there was nothing kind about that message yes we are elected we should take heat um but to call out individuals when an individual cannot act on behalf of the board only the board can act as a body i'm asking respectfully that that be stricken from a record thank you i am going to look for you for guidance on the next step do we need to vote on that right now okay all right so the motion on the table is to strike from record the comments that were just made so do i first have a motion to um strike the comments from record

095so moved second do we have any discussion all right a quick comment yeah i will be asking as policy chair that we bring back policy be dh as well as bed and strengthen the wording in here to ensure that moving forward we have mechanisms in place that we're following our own policies that we're ensuring that we are keeping decorum in the meetings i'd reiterate too just you're right we act as a board um and i think public comment is is important um but i think we can do better in terms of how we relay our communication to each other yeah i agree i think that we can all do better in how we handle our communication and yes we act as a board we are not individual people with our own agendas we we come

096together we we make decisions as a board and we move forward as a board i'd just like to say you know we have this this expectation that people will identify themselves by their full name this individual we all know his full name he refuses to provide it i think that there is um that people have a little bit more inclination to act inappropriately when they're not using their full name um i think that it makes it a little bit easier so by not enforcing that role i think that it then emboldens the the comments i'm um i think that we could do better but i'm in favor of public participation and public comment so i mean i i would not support striking it from the record but um i do think we should consider the

097impact that not enforcing um the the expectation that people identify themselves by full name um how that impacts people's comments maybe to leanne's point when we bring that up but policy that's something suggestion okay so we're all here so well first is there any other comments or questions yeah i just i want to say that i i agree with alicia i'm not really comfortable striking it from the record i think it's sort of on us to maybe start enforcing our own policies a little bit more and setting expectations the motion is to strike this um coming from record so all in favor i'm sorry i do um want to bring this forward to um policy i do want this i think that's a really good idea to we look at the policies and we adjust

098and um to your point alicia hold told people to the standards we set forth sure thank you thank you liam um okay so let me i'm going to promote the one so um joanna wallace i'm going to promote you um to panelist i'll give you just a second to come on all right joanna whenever you're ready thank you my name is joanna wallace i live at 29 burnham woods circle in scarborough and i have a kindergartner and a third grader in scarborough schools i continue to be in favor of universal masking in schools using as many tools as possible to keep local communities safe is important it's important for our kids it's important for our teachers it's important for our community we i recognize that we all want covid to be over i'm glad and

099relieved that the number of coveted positive cases in scarborough schools is decreasing that's good news for everyone in our community however covet is still here and we cannot let our guard down by removing universal masking based on the covid case information available on the scarborough public schools website there were 25 cases in our school last week that number is down significantly from the numbers in january it isn't at a base where we should be considering removing universal masking my family has high risk members who could experience severe covet if they were to have covid if my children bring home covid from school there's a very real risk that members of my household could become hospitalized or die even if my family were lucky enough not to be worried about covid impacting us personally with covet

100being transmissible before symptoms begin from a community health perspective i wear my mask so i don't impact someone more vulnerable than myself as you hear differing opinions on masking i ask you to think about the most vulnerable inside our schools and by extension our community those who are vaccinated and boosted the omicron variant is mild for most people however not everyone has a strong immune system and not all cases are mild schools are supposed to be safe universal masking helps keep the school community safe truly i'm jealous of the families that are able to return to normal activities for two years my family has been very coveted cautious because we cannot take the risk of bringing coven home this means that the only indoor places my kids have been are schools and the doctor's office

101where universal masking is expected we have not seen family members indoors for years we cannot risk giving kovid to my stepfather who is undergoing cancer treatment we can't risk giving kova to my mother who works in a nursing home from my perspective to remove the universal masking covered needs to be decreasing vaccination rates need to increase and covin treatments need to be more prevalent for masks to work they need to be worn by everyone i'm a certified industrial hygienist my job is to provide guidance to keep people safe and healthy at work and 95s the gold standard for masks are not available in child sizes the reason being n95s were designed for workplace use and thankfully our children don't need to work in a place where n95s are necessary however if the met if universal

102masking were removed my children would need to wear n95s which aren't available to protect them scarborough schools rightly have rules in place to prevent those with food allergies from being exposed to those foods at school both of my children have classmates with peanut allergies and families were instructed at the beginning of the year not to bring snack or foods containing peanuts into the school for the safety of those with severe allergies families aren't given the option to choose whether or not they can bring the peanuts to school even though epipens exist for treatment it would be silly to knowingly expose a person with an allergy to that item at school at this time removing universal masking in our schools feels like the equivalent of letting families choose whether or not to bring peanuts into the

103classroom knowing that there's a child with an allergy for my family and others in our school community being exposed to covid could have an equally dramatic effect school vacations next week as everybody knows historically the number of coveted cases in schools increases significantly after breaks and lasts for a few weeks let's keep the universal masking in our schools to keep our most vulnerable populations safe thank you for your time thank you good evening everybody my name is matt pine i live at 2 woodgate road in scarborough i'm a fellow of the society of actuaries i have an advanced degree in statistics i'm also a business leader within my company one of the challenges with understanding the data that we're hearing about covet is is understanding what to make of it there's all sorts of positive

104information about low hospitalization rates you know plummeting rates in the the scarborough school district that's excellent news for teachers health care workers but what does that mean for you is you now have the decision to end the mask mandate you all have that ability now so how do you take this information and process it i know you like to rely on experts um one of the things i do is consult with companies i'm an expert i work with information produced by the society of actuaries mortality research so i tend to focus on the facts and a lot of what i hear um doesn't really give you a frame of reference to think about the real risk of covet the cdc does publish information about child deaths caused by covid and from october of 2020 until

105october of 2021 for kids between the ages of 5 and 11 there were 66 deaths caused by covid this was the eighth highest cause of death for kids in that age group um i would challenge each of you to think about the deaths you know what causes might be higher than that there are causes on here i've never heard of issues i've never seen before one issue or one cause of death higher than covid is the flu so if you think about that and put that perspective of when we were growing up we were not forced to wear masks to prevent a stomach bug or flu but essentially what we're doing now is requiring kids to wear masks to prevent us illness that is comparable to the flu for children um so i'd like you

106to think about that secondly across the country mass mandates and schools are plummeting they're coming down my brother who's in wayne county which is the detroit uh school district they just entered their mass mandate for their kids so they're concerned about the education the development of their children and the influence of masks and i don't want maine to be behind the curve um not following the science but following the fear and the irrationality and then finally i do have two children in the school district i have a seven-year-old girl at pleasant hill and i ask her just sort of candidly not to lead her on you know what she thinks of mass and what she tells me are it's difficult to breathe i think we can all sort of understand that it's difficult to hear

107shannon and i could hear you pulling your mask away when you're speaking i can see that with a lot of people it's difficult to hear and difficult to speak clearly there's no doubt that has an impact on the development of our children in the school system so i would like you to think about your charge as school board members in educating our children and also think about the risk and make the decision so you have the power and i would really appreciate it if you would make the necessary necessary changes to end the mass mandates for the monday following our winter break thank you i do not see anybody else online who is interested in making public comment but if you are please raise your little yellow hand and in the meantime i will read

108um some more that we received through the through public comment um this is from amber huxsaf says good evening today i'm writing to the board in an effort to shed light on why i as a scarborough parent and taxpayer support optional masking i also support the removal of pool testing contact tracing and unnecessarily quarantining our kids all of this has to go it's time the kids have been resilient and flexible to all of the changes that have come about since this pandemic began now that other states and town municipalities are for foregoing these measures and with uncoupled contract uncoupled contact tracing quarantining students from masking why are you not making this change right now too i personally have witnessed are my children's response to being strung along throughout this process my husband and i have

109supported them through all of the unexpected changes quarantines school closures etc through this i have had to close my consulting business return to work only having to resign due to more unexpected school closures and out of ordinary child care needs i have discussed with this with my kid with many other parents in scarborough who are worried about their kids progress at school and the portrayal that their kids are disease spreaders what are we waiting for what is the message you are trying to convey to the students students who look to the scarborough public school staff as a trusted resource and a safe place to be seen and heard let them be seen the teachers need to teach they should not be bothered by contact tracing policing masks or establishing who does or does not have

110to quarantine before the pandemic the teachers were already stretched thin now at this point the procedures you have put in place are wearing down are valued educators and it is showing it is repeatedly conveyed from the board as well as leadership that the school system is transparent proactive i see little of those qualities from where i am sitting from my viewpoint i see a group of people waiting to make things happen from the sop cdc rather than making it happen on their own reconnaissance actions speak louder than words sharing lengthy press releases via email from dhhs are ineffective and most parents delete them what would be more helpful is for scarborough public schools to take time to create their own statement based on what dhhs cdc and sops put out there how will this specifically

111affect our school system individually we as parents need to understand the whys behind these measures and how it will affect us on a personal level the institution is expected by its taxpayers to put the students first and shape our children into lifelong learners i think we need to take a moment to reflect on all of this and think about humanity why is all of this happening and how can we best return to normal this pandemic isn't going anywhere and and in the face of adversity we either crumble or stand tall i would like to see scarborough public schools stand tall and set an example and put the kids well-being first thank you amber alexa 11-minute man drive all right i have one from jason shin um to who it may concern i understand there will

112be discussion tonight regarding the universal masking indoor masking currently in scarborough schools i am a business owner here in town and a dad of a one-year-old and almost five-year-old my oldest will be starting kindergarten in this this fall i just wanted to take a moment and voice my support to move to masking optional for our town schools this pandemic is almost two years old vaccines are widely available to anybody who wishes treatment is available and our knowledge of cobit has improved tenfold from march of 2020. cumberland county also boasts one of the highest child vaccination rates per county in the entire country cities counties and states all across our country are moving to let parents choose if their child wears a mask in school or not my wish is for the children in our community

113to have their parents decide what is best for them as i mentioned my son will start kindergarten in september i want him to have a normal entry to school he is currently at a private pre-k option here in town where masks have been optional since covid started and there hasn't been any issues in closing thank you for your time and everything you do for our schools and community again it's time post february break to move to masking optional thank you jason shin all right i have um one from winnie lee uh 34 atlantic drive um dear chair our children teachers and school staff have sacrificed for 23 months as we watch normalcy settle in everywhere except within schools my children live relatively carefree most everywhere else for us health is more than the absence of

114the disease early in the pandemic universal masking was considered a minor inconvenience quoting dr allen of harvard school of public health but to think that two years of masking has no impact on socialization learning and anxiety is short-sighted kids are resilient but not endlessly resilient we now have the tools to prevent treat and care for those with covid i ask that we direct our focus on the social emotional needs of our children our children's basic need to interact socially with their peers is unhampered is not met masking encourages anonymity and inadvertently exasperates isolation our children are not all right we are all witnessing a mental health fall from our pandemic fallout from pandemic restrictions on children for those of us with young children learning to read masks affect language acquisition speech therapists are seeing a

115record high number of young children with speech delays i do not want to be on the wrong side of history by not speaking out for our children and their families although you may reason that we ought to wait for after february break since the cdc might further revise its guidelines i caution otherwise advanced planning allows our schools to communicate and prepare and some families might choose to fully vaccinate or boost family members i urge you to seize this first opportunity to bring normalc to our children in closing secretary cardona tweeted this past tuesday that the best part of teaching is to smile on a student's face i ask that you bring back smiles to our schools and the next one is from elise chiarello good afternoon i am writing regarding the topic of masking in

116schools as i know it is on the agenda for tonight my stance on this as a parent as well as someone who has taken this virus very seriously since march of 2020 is that the mass need to be off our children i understood the need at the beginning of 2020 school year we weren't anywhere near as knowledgeable as we are now though now we have vaccines and mitigation measures we can take but the biggest piece is that simply stated kids are not dying from the virus it's shown around the world it's showing in other states who have refused to master children florida and texas and it's time to take the masks off and let the personal choice happen it's extremely frustrating and agitating to be able to go to a restaurant and sit down packed

117with no mask and that's completely fine but our kids can't do the same it's a level of hypocrisy that is hard to explain to my six-year-old but even harder to explain to my 16 year old i believe now is a time that we can truly impact these kids who have had so much rob from them it's time to take the masks off thank you elise all right the next one is from martel john um there needs to be a vote today to end the child mass mandate effective immediately we parents have been very patient but this has gotten ridiculous we need this to end and if it doesn't end we need to know at the very least who specifically on the board wishes to continue harming our children with these policies it is their duty

118as public servants not to continue to dodge ish issue of highest importance to parents no more delaying no more excuses it's time to vote period kind regards hartel all right and then this is from lisa carlista it says dear board of education i am writing you as a plea for our scarborough children for the removal of masks immediately it is in your hands now with the revised sop as of yesterday from the main cdc you have the power to be a community leader and show our children you care and give us the parents give us the parents the choice for all of our children being made to wear a mask going forward in scarborough schools it has been guidance all along a recommendation by the cdc all along let's not forget this secondly if we

119are following this sop we can no longer use the excuse of having to contact trace as a barrier for making masks optional our children have been masked for 23 months it is getting worse not better with their schools targeting certain kids when masks fall below their nose now a few high school teachers are giving out three hour detentions for mask offenders when masks fall below the nose while sitting at a table talking and study period yes talking in a study hall they fall at times these are kids where is the empathy after 23 months when does it end it saddens me how none of our local thought leaders have spoken about mental health throughout this pandemic no mention of it where is our compassion for our children we ask them to vaccinate in hopes that

120getting some normal of getting some normalcy what positive changes have we made our school administration chases kids down in the student section at sporting events if a mask falls beneath beneath their nose i witnessed this last night at a hockey game along with some with other parents we were shocked they were cheering and jumping up and down for their school team a glimpse of happiness for their winning team the masks fell and administration was immediately in their faces the whole time staring at them and telling them to pull them up took all the school spirit out of a high school celebration what are we doing to our kids let them experience normalcy at 23 months masks fall all the time what last fall at times what have we become the school and the medical professionals

121speak of keeping our kids safe they speak of the vulnerable how about the vulnerable that are experiencing mental health problems due to masking no mention how about the devastating implications feeling isolated and masking has done to our scarborough children for 23 months depression anxiety increased er visits due to suicidal ideations no mention of this from our thought leaders in the community no mention of the vast majority of this of our student population continually being harmed from grammar to high school that are dealing with this lack of normalcy the rest of our nation is moving forward with set dates and we are in a holding pattern here in scarborough and maine you the board our elected officials can change the future now for our kids and remove the mask requirement in our schools be the voice

122for them at the end that choice i am a parent of two high schoolers and an aunt to a second and fourth grader these are formidable years for friendships for my niece and nephew they are new to scarborough it is sad to see my niece say she hasn't seen any of her classmates faces and doesn't know them after six months or what they look like having a difficult time just playing in the playground with kids they don't know her she is alone this is heartbreaking to witness anyone will tell you the importance of a smile is as an icebreaker to greet someone human nature we have stripped our kids of that for 23 months a nonverbal action as simple as a smile to say hello i'm new here when does this end their need this

123needs to stop now and remove the masks and sorrow let there be new friendships and stop hiding our kids faces after 23 months what are you doing to them what are we doing to them the risk to mental health far exceeds the risk of covert omicron now at 23 years to our youth if you choose to wear a mask let that be your choice there's no denying the matter that no matter what side you are on with voluntary masking in schools there are emotional psychological and social implications that we have no idea of with long-term mental health effects but it is evident at this juncture with our scientific data that we that protecting their mental health needs to be top priority what i continue to hear what about the vulnerable we are always we will

124always live with some that are vulnerable in our society thankfully we have vaccines available we will never be at a hundred percent for all let's be realistic let's have the mass mandate removed in our school let's celebrate our vaccination at 95 percent in school in scarborough what is the off-brand for mandating everyone to wear masks in school in closing i ask you the board of education tonight that you have our children return from february break with the choice of wearing a mask you can decide let's show our scarborough kids and families that it's their choice they get vaccinate they got vaccinated and they deserve an opportunity for normalcy now our children have sacrificed a lot to protect us now it's our time to give them their childhood back allow our kids to see smiles thank

125you for your consideration sincerely lisa all right is there anybody else interested in making public comment tonight either here or on zoom okay seeing no one else i will go ahead and close public comments for the evening agenda item 6.0 is the universal indoor masking requirement so first i'll turn it over to jeff for an update thanks shannon and um and before we get into the discussion phase i guess um wanted i'd shared actually as part of the slide deck just um some some facts and then also where we are in scarborough with our fancy new bar graphs for a number of positive cases and as as as is visually represented here we've seen a significant decline uh in positive cases across all schools which is obviously great to see um and then also just

126to point out um we're not totally done with with uh reporting for this week obviously because we're at thursday um but this week 212 to 217 where we've reported 11 positive cases disreplied um so that's that's good news uh and then also wednesday yesterday um was a big day so in terms of uh announcements and and also some public publicly released comments at the main cdc level uh and dr shaw with his weekly update on wednesday so i just wanted to bullet bullet a few of those uh highlights uh because some of them had an immediate impact as far as the standard operating procedure sop at the doe and cdc resp for responding to positive cases so i'll start there so first the main doe in cdc is highlighted in the update from dhhs that

127we share district wide they made an immediate revision to the standard operating procedure sop for responding to positive cases of cova 19s and schools they officially suspended the recommendations for contact tracing regardless of local masking policies so as as has been discussed in previous meetings districts who have universal masking requirements with which currently is all school districts in cumberland county and york counties um then you could suspend what one of the one of the quarantine exemptions was you could suspend essentially suspend contact tracing provided you had that in place which obviously scarborough continues to um this update now suspends contact tracing regardless of whether there's a universal masking requirement or um there is not so that's the first bullet secondly maine has largely followed federal cdc guidelines on covet 19 mitigation in schools so at

128the main cdc in doe um they did come out and shaw said this in his comments during the press conference that regardless of um the the the federal cdc has been hinting very strongly that there's going to be new guidance on masking on guidance for schools that's coming uh they haven't said when so um he came out and said main doe in cdc will issue its own school prevention guidance which was the uh words were used in the in the in the um press release following february vacation likely in early march uh provided there are no federal cdc guidance changes made next week um maine cdc will begin main specific conversations that could establish plans for moving toward masking optional recommendations for schools so that was that quote's actually uh in a bullet that was

129shared with all superintendents from msma as well as all school boards from msba and then that that third bullet every household in maine is now eligible to order one set of five at home rapid tests through the project access so they expanded um to include all zip codes and across maine for that um there was talk at the state level about the future of pooled testing um and the the efficacy of that and um it was decided based on participation and and effectiveness for for districts that have implemented pool testing that that will program will continue um and then the last two bullets from what was discussed on wednesday at the state level is just a reminder that that masking remains a requirement for any student or staff member testing positive for covid19 and returning

130to school slash work in the five to ten day window after confirmed diagnosis or symptoms onset that part of the sop has not been changed or revised or wasn't yesterday and then the masking requirement that applies to people riding school buses or any vehicles that are transporting students in a public school setting that's a federal transportation universal masculine requirement that would still be in effect until march 18th so any changes to the timeline in terms of masking on buses any change to that timeline would need to come from the federal government and that's kind of the the latest and greatest as far as as guidance from public cdc at the state level and federal level great thank you jeff um so i want to open the floor right now for a conversation about um where

131where we want to move for how we want to move forward as a board this is not an action item on the agenda for this evening um this is an opportunity for us to have a discussion and and allay some framework if we want to we're going moving forward so that um i will i'll leave it there and we'll open up so does anybody want to share their thoughts so with the recent update from dr shaw he essentially let us know that we've been unshackled from the uh contact tracing and universal masking combination um and he pretty much reiterated that the school districts have a choice now they can actually make these decisions um i actually would like to move this to um to a vote this evening and make masks optional effective february 28th

132um as a point of order we can't uh we it's not on the agenda is new business so we actually are unable to vote on it tonight it would have to wait at the bare minimum we would have to wait to vote until our next uh board meeting which should be in two weeks well if i move it in someone's seconds it would it be able to be pushed forward then not until the two weeks um i don't have my robert's rules book with me um leanne i'm just looking to you as a roberts rules expert um uh because we're out of adjustments to the agenda and it's we haven't we don't have the time we cannot we haven't notified the public or the board about this prior to the meeting we cannot move it

133forward this evening is that am i correct so even if it's seconded to jenna's question yeah so we are um because we're governed by robert's rules we are unable to to do that this evening then i must have an unclear understanding of robert's rules because robert's rules from what i read as long as it's seconded it's to be discussed i i can look what we're discussing i do think i have a chart with me so i'm gonna can we put a pin in it for a second let me know i can wait for people to [Music] all right yeah if that is the case then what how can we ensure or assure the public that we intend to take this you know issue seriously and um have this up for discussion in two weeks well

134i think the discussion here is well first off to answer your first point i hope everybody in the community understands that we're taking this seriously right this has been our charge for two years now as we've all heard and spoken to um we are ta we i would say we all take this very seriously and i hope that's understood um we as a board up until this point we have voted um a few times now that we are going to follow the main cdc guidelines and voted unanimously so if we are looking to move away from that as a board if that's the collective board's um decision we have to first have a discussion about it we have to give jeff some time to plan for that and then we would have to bring it

135forward and vote so um it's it's their steps and i understand that's not satisfying to everybody and i understand that the um that the uh it's not as fast as we would all like to see um but we it's it's what we it's it's the process we're under so i short of saying take us at our word i mean it's we sit here we'll figure out what we want to do we'll discuss it and then we move we move forward accordingly i'm just going to say i don't know that this is a roberts rules issue per se i i think my interpretation of the procedure is that um it's not scheduled on the agenda as new business and in order for it to be new business it would need to be an adjustment to the

136agenda right um and and then for it to be put on as new business is is sort of my interpretation of the procedure right it's the um and that's what i'm reading on here it's the idea that um yeah the item wasn't on the agenda to before when we released that i gave that notice of the meeting when i asked for adjustments um we had no adjustments to the agenda so we can't then replace something onto the onto the agenda following so it puts us in that in that position that i spoke of that we have to um again decide what we want to do and how we want to go forward and then if it's that if we decide as a board that we want to do the um have the um have the

137universal masking the other option we do is that we hold a special meeting between now and the two weeks that's our that would be our other but the understanding that next week is a student break in school um that would be our other option i think before we move i think we have to i think we're playing the card a little bit before the first i think we need to have a discussion first on what we would want to do and then how we're going to do it would be secondary i would support this being an agenda item i um in the future i i think we're so close to doing this in a mindful way with the school they i know people are tired i mean i i i hear it and you know

138i'm very appreciative of the fact that people are respectful that [Music] no matter which side that you come down on these are very serious and personal issues to every family and the mental health issues and the social aspects of the developmental aspects are very serious and significant and the health concerns are are very obvious um so um my my position is just that um we're gonna get a spike after vacation that we've gotten a spike after every vacation um i would support putting it on the agenda as an action item um but i do think that we should sort of consider the timing of it with knowing that that spike's coming and also understanding that the cdc is going to be um i mean i listened to to dr sean wednesday he said that he's

139waiting for that spike and then he's going to be releasing guidance as well so i think that it would make sense to try to time it but that's my personal opinion i understand that jenna and maybe others might have a different preference in that case i request a special meeting okay well once again i think we still have to determine what the board wants to do um and what i just heard alicia say is that she's in um favor of waiting if i i'm just going to summarize what i think i heard you say if i say this and correct let me know um so she was in favor of waiting until um the cdc comes with forward with the new plan waiting until after the february break when we support when we are i

140mean i guess i interpreted his remarks that he left them i think intentionally vague but what i heard on dr shaw he being dr shaw what i heard him say is he would expect the following week to be a spike and i interpreted that maybe the week after he would be addressing that spike in sort of a set reassessing at that time and so you're i guess i just want to be clear you're in favor of waiting until he readdresses it at that time for us to move forward i would be in favor of waiting until at least the second week after vacation just to see that spike and see where we land which i think is our next sport meeting yeah that is our next board meeting okay so um is there any other

141does anybody have yeah go ahead um if we wait on this i think it needs to solidly go on as an action item at our next meeting at the very least i i hate to say i'm losing patience with the cdc but i am because they're doing damage to the relationship that we have with our community and i think i'm ready to be done with it i'm ready to let this be a scarborough choice and i think if we're waiting until march 3rd it needs to definitively be a vote on what we are doing and i'm not opposed to a special meeting [Music] um and i am i my and my mine shannon lindstrom's concern has always been from the very beginning that we have as many kids in school as possible in person learning

142i know um we've heard um about the last two years from many constituents and my um my response to many people has been that this the concern has always been that the cdc were guidelines yes are guidelines but they're also tied to quarantine exemptions they're tied to contract tracing they're tied to other things and now that those requirements are gone so i too am at a place where i think we can make this um we can make this a parent choice um i just want to be sure we're doing it in a thoughtful way um uh so that's well that's my thoughts let me leave it there where what else are we yes go ahead john i you know i think that we are going to need to utilize mass again in the future um

143when there are you know whenever probably flu covered season or whatever i'm just worried that if we if we're not really addressing this in in the manner that the community is asking us to then they're not going to trust us to have a short period of time or you know that only the top period of time necessary when mass are eventually re-implemented i that goes to kristen's concern about the damage with the um respect of the community yeah and that's a good um a good point to bring up is that if we look at the metrics um or potential metrics uh for unmasking if they are tied to transmission rates and we're still in a high transmission period you know what is that going to look like either right we're going to have to put

144them right back on so um we have to kind of think through and talk through that piece too like what is this really going to look like is it just flat choice not tied to any metrics is it tied to transmission rate is it tied to vaccine rate what are we i mean we gotta we have to kind of flush that out as well and with the understanding too um we talk about our community we talk about our students we also have to think about our staff too so that that's a piece in the back of my mind as well what they think and how they would react yeah please um i have a question about like religious it's the discussion you've been trying to figure out like what's the world trying to when to

145implement if say we did go wrong so i'm just trying to figure it out i think part of the vote can be picking a date i mean i don't i'm not but something like i just we have to do this is i don't know it's getting to be a lot for everyone yeah at this point we have high vaccination in our town um even our teenagers are have been boosted even and um you know we're seeing that mental health is is something that we really need to focus on and you know my experience alone we just admitted an eight-year-old into our unit and that hurts me i have a eight-year-old myself and that's not even the youngest that we've had it's it's genuinely a huge concern and we need to act on this way sooner

146and we really shouldn't have to wait for what we know is coming anyway i mean i think that's everything worth noting too when you listen to the cbc speak the one thing they'd never talk about is mental health and they don't have to and i they have a different charge than we have i think we do have to factor in mental health it's it is getting a little heartbreaking to hear some of this stuff yeah and i think mental health as a as a whole and social social emotional learning have been goals of this board for this year so i certainly think that that is something we all find to be incredibly important in this town and this conversation is is a huge piece of that absolutely it's just we know that there's going to

147be a spike after february vacation and our you know our primary goal is to keep kids in school and so you know if we go back to that chart where we were right after christmas vacation and we know that we're going to be back there i just don't want to rush it based on um emotion and being tired and we know you know that that spike's coming i just think that we need to be really mindful of that and and responsible in our reaction and um not not act out of haste and so i i understand why people that feel the way they do um my preference would be to wait to see what happens um when the kids come back from from february they break and um historically we've had a spike after every

148vacation and so we know i think it's fair to say we know that's coming and um i i'm not i'm just not convinced that that week is the week to be taking action i get that and i think that's a little bit different than waiting for cdc guidance you know there's a distinction between those two things and in regard to a special meeting obviously that doesn't make sense for next week as as gabby brought up um but is that something that we could flesh out exactly what metrics we want for this community to remove mass and or add them back which maybe includes just transmission rates in the school which obviously means that we would continue pool testing but i i mean can we set a time to flush that out well i'm thinking i'm

149thinking through i think i think we have to be careful we're not dipping into jeff's and diane's territory too i think we kind of say you know this discussion is going to give them an idea of what we're hoping to see they come forward with a plan that's our opportunity to to vote and to adjust if you will um not that i'm not sure that you're if we're giving you clear what we want i mean i think we're clear on what majority of us want um so let's talk this through if we go forward with having jeff come up with a plan that we vote for i mean i i guess what i'm thinking in the way i'm back to gabby's point about the special meeting we're really looking at the week of our meeting

150anyway so if we waited until thursday the third that would at least give one two three three days post break to kind of see what's going on right so if we hold this if we have a plan and play or a plan that we're going to vote on to me the the it makes sense to wait until the third but i'm open to discussion on that i would like to distinguish between voting on a plan and voting to make masks optional yeah i guess that's the point that i would okay okay so i'll change my wording if we're going to vote on making masks optional to me it makes most sense to do it at our march 3rd which is our next video which would be the week following february break but i'm open to

151hearing if there's other ideas well we in order for a special meeting to occur it needs to be requested by the chair the superintendent of my three board members so i don't think we have that request at this time so i think that the only thing that is really before us is whether we're going to put it on the agenda for for the next board meeting or not yeah and and just to give a little perspective on on the discussions that have been happening at a regional level with other superintendents and then the discussions that are happening with superintendents and the doe and maine cdc part of part of this is um there have been no and part of the frustrations that have that have been expressed by superintendents and communicated to maine cdc and

152doe is that there hasn't been any date or specific metrics when your vaccination rates hit x or when the community transmission is has hit a certain amount then it's okay to go from universal masking and considering okay now it's okay to make mass optional so that those two distinctions are very important there's the vote to make masks optional and then there's the vote for coming up with those metrics when it's okay to then do so um and that's the the that's the you know they're alluding to that's coming we don't have a specific date if anyone who really tuned into that they said if i were to guess it's going to be very soon after break when those either those metrics will be presented or that that recommendation is universal you know there have been

153and are right now uh superintendents and communities that are that have explored what those metrics would be to make masks optional in other cumberland counties as i mentioned before there are no districts right now cumberland across cumberland county that that have mass optional right now as i say this at least not to my knowledge um but there have been discussions if you know 80 percent or above are vaccinated and you know according to the federal cdc the county is in moderate transmission instead of high transmission right and so a couple of those things i shared at the last meeting um so if if the board were to direct me tonight to come up with a plan for the next meeting as to what that would look like a lot of those plans that have been

154discussed um are tied to cdc um metrics are tied to transmission rates that are collected um by federal and maine cdc so um so that's i just want to put that out there that there's a you know there's a difference between obviously uh voting to make masks optional as a board and then voting to come up with a plan that still has to be tied to something right it has to be tied to some metric when it's okay and that's that's been the frustration at least from the superintendent side of things is okay it's a local decision but there hasn't been that clarity around what it could look like so that's the challenge for school boards well right i mean because we we know that these spikes are going to happen and what if there's

155a new variant right i mean we may need to have masking in our schools again when those types of things happen and so i mean you know i've been chastised for saying that i'm going to rely on the experts but i mean we have to rely on the experts to some extent i mean we're not we're not doctors we're focusing on what we think is in the best interest of our children but we all there's also this strong you know health component of it that we need those metrics to be determined by um either policy officials or or health officials and and so april vacation what we're back up at that spike or a new variant we're back up at that spike i mean we need to have some determination built into that vote of

156what you know when the school's going to implement masking again right and how that's going to happen i think my struggle with that a little bit is that when those spikes happen is the understanding that everyone adults and everyone outside of schools is also going to be mandated back into masks like i think the problem right now is this is schools right and so if it's just us there has to be more in that conversation than just transmission and vaccination rights we have other concerns we have behavioral issues we have learning laws we have a lot of mental health issues so i struggle a little bit with using these metrics and applying them to schools they're not applied to anyone else and the kids are the least affected by it you know like i just

157i don't know i'm frustrated but we but we can't keep them in school if we don't have some sort of a metric right i mean if it's running rampant through our schools and we're we're not going to be able to keep them in the schools and that's obviously the primary concern so we need to have some guideposts about what happens if we get back to critical mass and and when are we going to be applying a masking policy again not that i'm advocating for that but because we need to keep kids in school and so if we we get to this huge transmission rate again i mean what does it look like you know i just don't want to be um going into this blindly and not and not planning for it so is when

158we speak transmission rate are we talking transmission just within schools like is that more appropriate i don't know i don't i don't know either that's sort of the guidance that i wish we have yeah yep right and we don't we don't have those answers and we're really you know um if we're doing this if we're stepping out on a limb and we're doing this we are doing it alone and i again like to your point we we have been chastised for using those words but we would be doing it alone without the guidance so whatever we're determining that's going to look like it's going to be this isn't something that's necessarily happening and maybe it is that it's what is it maybe our chart looks like transmission rates in the schools and once they're at

159a certain level we bring masking back that way it's it i don't know i struggle with the community piece as well because we're not you know we're not we can go do things outside of school and not wear masks but yet we say come to school and put on a mask and it seems counterintuitive to me um but i also have this feel this urge to keep as many kids in school as possible i hate especially as we're coming to the end of the year and we have seniors who are relying on their grades and relying on their assignments to get into college to move on to uh trade school to to move on to what they want to do next in life i want to be sure we're keeping as many in school as

160we can um so to me as i'm just thinking right now out loud the tying it to transmission rates at schools does seem to make sense which gives us some guard rails i mean just kind of wrenching something i said but the masks didn't stop the transmission the last time so i mean i guess we're assuming then that if we didn't have the masks and our transmission would have been even worse it's hard i mean it was bad and i don't know i'm just putting it out i mean it's also been said by ouchie and shaw that masks haven't been working and even with contact race that's why they eliminated contact tracing they said it was in order to we did it to get ahead of it but clearly we were not ahead of it

161and part of the problem is we're the only people that are getting tested regularly are our kids and that's what's driving up our statistics and we also know that they're not really suffering severe symptoms from it but yet here we are testing them and we're just looking for them to have covid so my issue here is we are constantly testing them we know that masks aren't working it's been said by the cdc themselves and we're still implementing this policy for what it was never about the kids never about the kids i just want to be clear when we say we've been testing our kids the testing is voluntary right so parents that don't want to participate um or don't want their kids tested choose to not so that's like a decision made at a family

162level right not right that was that was the decision that needed to be made in the beginning in august when we were talking about well when the board prior was talking about this issue and it was hardly voluntary it was we you pool tests so that way your kid can stay in school or you don't full test and then you end up getting quarantined if the pool pops positive well no that's not exactly accurate i'm sorry i have to push back on you that's not accurate the way that this was decided by the previous board was looking at a chart that was sent to us that was provided to us by the cdc that jeff showed and it was if you meet this criteria you don't have to quarantine and it was that whole chart

163so the listing was if you had a universal masking policy in place you don't have to quarantine if you're a close contract if you've been vaccinated you don't have to quarantine if you're a close contact and if you've had covid in the last 90 days well i think that came with you have covered in the last 90 days came later you don't have to quarantine if you're a close contact and then the last one was if you're a participant in pool testing so if you meet a b or c and if you do you don't have to quarantine so we were certainly not saying to parents you must test to keep your kids in school that's a very personal decision on a parent family level to decide what works best for their families there's some

164kids and some families that wanted to do it because they wanted to know if their kids had covered right however anybody who didn't actually want their kids in pool testing ended up doing it to keep their kids in school but that was not a requirement to stay in schools but i'm telling you that's inaccurate we had a universal masking policy in place so there was no reason to pull tests to stay in school that's not something we did in scarborough it did start that way yeah yeah and then that in in previous meetings parents can change their decision about pool testing at any time so no one is bound to have their child continue to be tested if they are not feeling comfortable about doing so so in other words if the updated sops along

165the way led them to believe their child did not could not have the quarantine and they did not feel the need to test anymore they didn't they could voluntarily remove their child so it's an opt-in or not so i mean i guess i guess um you know we've gotten the update from the superintendent we it it's not on for new business today i think we've all sort of determined that it doesn't make sense to have a special meeting because um the kids will be on vacation anyways our next meeting is march 3rd i think um maybe we can discuss putting it on the agenda for march 3rd and move this discussion to that date yeah i think so it's just what are we we're going to ask um i think we need to go circle

166back to what jeff said is what are we asking him to do are we asking him to make to come up with a plan to make universal masking optional period like and stop or are we asking him to put some guideposts in there well i mean it's jenna's request for it to be put on the agenda so i think i mean i guess i would my preference would be to defer to her and if it's an inadequate request then it may be deferred or not passed but i mean i think that that's i think it's a mask option heart stop for right now and then we can discuss further if we need to um implement it again at a further date but at this point i don't think it's necessary to even toy with the

167idea i think just mask option put it to a vote all right well that's what we'll do we'll move forward and does that is there any other comments or thoughts did you want to say something what are you thinking well i do want to say something i mean we're here and i've heard people talk about you know what about the rest of the community and what people do there we're we're not here for that we're here for the kids in the school and we just need to focus on that and keep i mean i want to keep the kids in school i want to keep my kids safe i want to keep everybody safe um i can't i mean my kids wear a mask when they go to hanover where we go wherever and because

168that's what they do we talk about it and they want to do that and i'm fine with that they don't want to they don't have to but i don't want us to worry about what everybody else is doing we just have to worry about what the kids are doing while they're in school and and what we're doing to keep them in school and then every parent can do what you know if you're in south portland right now south pole you anywhere you go you have to wear a mask if you go to portland same thing but if you go to cape you don't have to here you don't have to we don't need to worry about that we just need to worry about what we're here for and we're here for the kids thank you

169john all right so i guess we'll we'll leave it there we'll put it on the agenda as an action item for march 3rd um and we'll we'll discuss it more yeah all right um all right um agenda item 7.0 is the superintendent's goals um we had a really good productive workshop last meeting or before our last meeting where we discussed the superintendent goals and we discussed the evaluation process um for the superintendent we voted on our plan our evaluation plan and the dates that went along with that um the one thing that we had left to do is to discuss or if there's give anybody an opportunity to make a comment on the goals that jeff wrote for himself um after spending some time here in scarborough so i know it was the thought that

170we would we would um fold these in but we didn't have that opportunity to have any conversation so as a reminder i've placed the three goals um up here in our slide deck um so this is the first one scarborough schools will successfully navigate the 2021-2022 school year by developing and implementing a comprehensive return to in-person instruction reopening plan this fall we will ensure students and staff return to fully in-person learning safely and that all main doe and cdc health and safety protocols related to cobia 19 are followed and consistent across all buildings we will be relentless in communicating the need to be proactive dynamic and nimble and making the organizational shifts necessary to respond to changing health conditions related to covid19 pandemic we will understand the need to identify strengths learn on the fly

171try new methods to connect and communicate with staff and families support the unique needs of all members of our community and respond to the unexpected challenges with an open mind and a creative problem-solving methodology our leadership team must be strong flexible inclusive and responsive in order to support our community effectively um number two let's do that really quick thank you the scarborough school community will continue to develop a shared vision for how we continue to continually strengthen our learning organization and impact the development of our learners k through 12. family and staff will have a clear sense of how professional development efforts curriculum alignment innovative authentic learning experiences and community connections serve to strengthen learning in all schools and classrooms this goal will be met through proactive communication and revision of scarborough's strategic plan which

172will begin with a community dialogue scheduled for the spring of 2022 and also include frequent opportunities for staff in our community to contribute their ideas perspectives and feedback and then number three the scarborough school community will develop unique upper abilities and interests of all of our students through ensuring inclusive connection among our students and families building a strong academic foundation in all phase levels meeting the individual learning needs of all students through embedding an effective network of student supports strengthening social emotional learning through all developmental stages by implementing aligned curricula meeting social emotional needs of our students in proactive ways responding to those in crisis and recognizing the importance of social emotional health to overall well-being and success in school so those will be the three goals for the year um like i said i

173really just wanted to give everybody an opportunity to offer any feedback if they wanted or if we all felt great we will add them in and so i just wanted to apologize to jeff for the the way that we handled the goals during the workshop last time i came in late and it sounds like you know he had all these great goals i was um already um drafted and and i was not not clear that we hadn't already reviewed those but i just want to thank him for drafting them i thought that they were a great um um a great vision for our district um and we're really in alignment for with what i would expect um so thank you for that and i'm sorry that we i didn't recognize that personally at the last

174meeting um i i'm just unclear is this on today so that we can do that and then are we voting on his goals at another point or or what's the um we're just going to fold these in i don't um believe it is my understanding we don't have to vote so they'll just be incorporated in with what we developed before okay so thank you for giving us the opportunity to um present those and and again um sorry jeff that that that wasn't handled well before thank you alicia all right well thank you for putting these together these are very good goals and um yes inclusive of what we're trying to do as a board and then incorporate what you've um experienced your first six months here and where you see the directions forever going thank

175you all right agenda item 8.0 snow day remote day option recommendation jeff i'll turn it over to you for an update so um i just the first slide here is just sorry about that um okay so this first side is just actually the same slide um that was presented at the last board meeting which is which was our proposal for going to um a remote learning day after three traditional snow days for this school year which would mean the last day for the 2021-2022 school year calendar would be friday june 17th um part of that discussion that we had and and and the reasoning behind um uh tabling the decision or the vote uh or a motion to vote uh for last meeting was to get some community and staff input so um it was

176actually perfectly timed because the um the survey went out on an actual snow day so we got we that was the best marketing and we probably could have done so i'm just going to share the cumulative results and the board has had the opportunity to see i mean we'd have a really long slide deck if i if i included all the comments along with this because we had a pretty pretty high response to the survey which was which was helpful um so first the first um pie chart here are the staff members that responded to the survey uh so we had a total of 312 staff members who responded 82.1 supporting um the proposal of going to remote days after the third traditional snow day um about 8.7 or a little under 10 were neutral

177with either decision and then 9.3 or slightly less than 10 percent did not support it and would um like to continue to add each snow day on to the end of the calendar year um and then with the parent response responses we had 982 parents um or 982 individual responses um and that was six was that sixty six sixty eight percent point so roughly seventy percent uh supported the proposal um ten percent was neutral and okay with either scenario and then a little over 20 percent uh did not support so uh those were the results of the proposal of the survey all right so this is um an action item for well when we move on to next to new business next but so we'll have discussion then but does anybody have these questions for

178jeff right now all right then let's move on to 9.0 is agenda item 9.0 is new business 9.1 is the remote snow day plan so first do i have a motion to approve the remote snow day plan as presented so moved second all right any discussion well teachers have i guess will teachers have time to kind of plan for for this ahead of time and um i think my my concern is just well will everyone actually be able to have access to do to do this um on a dime uh well now we've hit three so right if we were to have another uh if this were approved and we had another snow day then then it would be a remote learning day and and there's been planning at every phase level for this and

179and we also stressed low tech or no tech options you know certainly if there's a situation where um you know family had didn't have access or lost power or staff lost power that kind of thing so um that's all accounted for as part of the part of the plan can i pick you back and i saw your henry's i'm gonna do just one second i just wanna piggyback off of that is there um just uh because we've typically the last few storms called snow day the day of is their thought maybe given to um starting this starting a remote day late so that teachers can prepare or are you do that you feel like they've already prepared enough and don't need a late start well um we live in maine so making it um and

180we value in-person learning and so if there's a chance that we can that i don't have to call a snow day then i'm going to wait until it's obvious that i have to sure so that you know that's hence the 4 a.m 3 30 4 a.m wake up which you know i've gotten used to it at this point yeah and i i i think that's a sound decision i'm just wondering so if we let's let's just play out a scenario that tomorrow is a snow day and we voted on this and we're going to go remote tomorrow so is there has there been thought or do you think it's necessary to say okay this will be a snow day and it's a remote day but we're going to start the day at 8 am to

181give everybody time to prep like is that extra prep time necessary do you it's uh yeah i mean it's it's designed to be an asynchronous day um so yeah i mean the the part of part of being able to do this is is to be able to um you know do it with no notice right so um otherwise it doesn't really work so yeah i mean teachers are ready for it uh with no notice okay and that's part of the reasoning and and there's also you have to establish some way of of taking attendance or they're checking in too and that's um that's all accounted for and it's a little different depending on the obviously the you know the second greater than with a tenth grader but um yeah i know the teachers have been

182really really playful and thoughtful on how to on how to do this we've had some practice right that's true thank you all right so i have a just a comment first of all thank you for doing the survey i really appreciate it and thank you to everyone who filled it out because the feedback on it was awesome and gave me a ton to think about as we if we have this conversation somewhere down the road for future years but obviously this is overwhelmingly supported so it was so good to see that and i didn't say that at the outset um i just as a reminder to the public um and to us that we're talking about it for this year right and then as we talk about the calendar for next year and move forward

183then we have that discussion at that time did you have your handwriting it was for that question to make sure that this was a for 2022 2021 2022 oh my gosh sorry everybody trying to push us ahead um just making sure it was this school year and it was not a motion that was going to be across the board forever and ever and then yeah correct yeah that's what the proposed how the proposal reads for this year yep um i have if one other question just out of curiosity um with support staff is there a plan in place for um for them to do work uh how would this work for those those employees it's really going to be variable depending on them but you know part of it too is is making sure that

184that that we're paying people for days that we're we've contracted for them too so um and it's going to range right it's going to be different depending on on the nature of people's jobs but there are there are always things that you can do remotely as well so it's gonna be gotta be creative do you have any other comments or questions are i guess it depends on the age but are are the teachers going to be responsible for keeping track of attendance or would that be done somewhere else i don't i mean that's that's yeah i mean there's that connection between um and then in high school plays out differently they're they're gonna they they're decide the type like what time in which teachers they're gonna they're gonna report their attendance to but it's all

185organized by phase level and it's yeah i mean teachers are going to be a big part of that great is there any other discussion all right so all in favor of um approving the remote snow day plan as presented raise your hand all right passes unanimously thank you um 9.2 is the meeting minutes of the february 3rd 2022 workshop do i have an approval to present the meeting minutes as presented so moved second any discussion all right all in favor of approving the minutes all right that's unanimously thank you 9.3 is the meeting minutes of the february 3rd 2022 business meeting do i have a motion to approve them as presented second any discussion all in favor all right thank you um agenda item 10.0 is adjournment do i have a motion to adjourn so

186moved second any discussion all right all in favor all right thank you so much for those that attended and thank you and have a good evening