MAS Board of Education Live Stream

001italians and i talked to them yesterday to explain that it could be rather is going to meet them and let them into the little sitting area across her man's desk okay uh here oh i'd like to call the order of my own area schools board education workshop meeting for wednesday february 23rd 2022 would everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the pride of the united states of america and the to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty thank you for everyone attending this evening all board members are present thank you just a couple of recognitions before we start do want to recognize our school bus drivers yesterday 2 22 with school bus driver appreciation day so we appreciate all the work that they do

002and continue to do to transport our students safely to and from school and to their after school activities also [Applause] also this week is public schools week so i'd also like to recognize all of our our staff our teachers our parapros all of our support staff that continue to do all the work for the students to educate them we appreciate all their work as well [Applause] [Music] the first order of business we're going to have a recognition from set seg education the education excellence award i'm going to turn it over to mr greg gray from setsike thank you we're actually going to start with mr wingard and he'll kick it over to me thank you thank you for having masb be part of the masb set seg excellent education excellence award i'm dale wingard i'm

003the region 7 mafb rep for region 7 which you're part of i'm from clinton community schools is the board secretary there and i am on masb's board of directors and this set sag we have been part of them since they created in 1970 and in 1998 we became part of the excellent education excellence award so we've supported them with this program it's my pleasure being here tonight to help present this award to milan area schools you have an excellent program and now i'm going to turn it over to greg thanks dale my name is greg gray i'm the employee benefits sales manager at set seg insurance and we have had a about a 51-year relationship with masb they're an excellent organization and tonight it is our pleasure we get to co-host and recognize milan area

004schools and specifically kim jasper principal and holly fiedler a social worker for a program that they worked with the kids to implement the education excellence awards are hosted in partnership with setseg and masb the setseg foundation is a philanthropic arm of setseg and is fueled by its mission to enable students to pursue enrichment opportunities that advance learning leadership and civic responsibility by providing services scholarships grants and financial support directly to michigan public schools and their students milan's program to create a trauma-informed school district is one of ten extraordinary michigan public schools programs selected to receive twenty five hundred dollars by designating and training a trauma team within the district educators can help those most at risk of engaging in risky behaviors and exhibiting behavioral problems in school we hope the twenty five hundred dollar grant

005will help further the program's success and allow them to reach more students as winners they receive not only twenty five hundred dollars to grow their program we will end up bringing them a education excellence road sign we hope they proudly display as well as this trophy that it's my pleasure now to give to miss jasper and miss fiedler so thank you for your commitment to delivering an exceptional education milen area schools to your students no matter what the circumstances circumstances and congratulations again to kim jasper and holly fiedler [Applause] thank you so much and we'd like to the board would extend our congratulations as well thank you thank you for coming next on the agenda is our educational program report we have heard from mr disarbo at paddock and miss jasper for the middle school

006tonight we invited mr shin and his team from the high school to give his presentation mr shin thank you mr sislow and board it's wonderful to be back in front of all of you face to face and as a group thank you for having us and giving us an opportunity to share some of the positive exciting things going on at the high school with that tonight i have with me mrs aaron keel ela and media teacher mrs nancy gill one of our english teachers and up until just before the meeting i was supposed to have mr hall our athletic director here to present so i'm gonna do my best to go over his slide as well but we have some slides and then we're going to end with a pretty neat video that one of

007our students did that mrs kiel will tell you about um so first things first i think pictures sometimes are way better at telling a story than we are but just back in action it's really nice to have the students back in the building 100 of the time this year and just some fun things that we we had missed out on and as some of you have high school students in the building can tell you they were just overjoyed to be back together so we had some of our front projects with mr davies to get outside uh our halloween outfits here our teachers got into our english department won the award in the top right there it's great to have our marching band back in action with mrs upton as some of you live nearby got

008to hear last fall the homecoming event that we had outside had over 400 students which is about 60 percent of our population it was wonderful to see the energy and feel the energy with our students in the building both inside and out with those students our deca program was back up and running this year our door decoration at christmas and holiday time school store which we'll talk a little bit with our revamp of the mcas was back up and running a big shout out to our tennis team this past fall we've talked about that a little bit with the board but they won a regional championship in the league championship of the first time ever but the reason i put that picture there is the state champions were championships were at the university of michigan

009and we had about 75 of our students who took their own time and had their parents excuse them but went to the event and we may or may not have been told to be quiet several times we didn't quite understand the rules for cheering in tennis and i was so proud of that because we're really excited so that was fun and it just goes to show the type of kids that we have wonderful play that we had this fall our ffa chicken contest and then our homecoming assembly so just a reminder of the good kids that we have the positive attitude and those type of pieces it's it really was necessary for a lot of us to get back and and together so just some fun photos there a few things because i do want

010to let you know a little bit about the academic stuff that we are doing that not everything over the past year and a half has been negative it has allowed us to adapt and refocus some of our curriculum and instruction one of those key pieces is the integration of our learning management system schoology we were able in two short weeks to get all of our teachers on board which some of you may know is not always the easiest thing in the world but we've heard great feedback from parents with that it has reminded us what education is all about and as the state focuses on the whole child the emotional learning piece along with the academic the extracurriculars allowed us to look at some of our curriculum needs for those students it has also shown

011us and talked to us about the emphasis on what students doing outside of high school and remind us what they need how they best learn and fast forwarded some of that research and data that we've done one thing that i would like to talk to you more about in the future is a focus on our work study programming increasing our access to on-the-job training again the last year and a half has removed some of that red tape that sometimes traditionally is there with us and consortium schools to get kids working while in high school and the trades and jobs they want so that's something that we're super excited about and as we always have in milan we've continued to be innovative and we'll talk a little bit more later on about the revamping of our

012mcs program and the exciting things that we're doing down there with that one thing that each building has talked about and i want to remind you all on is we have always been and we will continue to be about the mental health and well-being of our students there's not a single new program on here but i just wanted to remind the board and our community about the trails programming that we have which is focused on just cognitive behavior learning for our students controlling your emotions understanding the house and the whys knowing where you're at we run that small units in our health class and we also have courts ellie's place for students who have losses in their life deaths and their students we have cohorts of students actually just met today we have a long-running

013relationship with the peer to peer depression center through u of m they're an outstanding program we run cohorts with that reaching higher that our counseling department runs again a different type type of emotional support for our students and then something that we've been super proud of over the past and really recommitted to is a revamp of our snap program students needing accepting peers we actually created a class out of it so fourth hour we call it leadership for our students and they're able to integrate with their buddies mr gillis and mrs wilson with our transition program have done an outstanding job with that and it's really created an opportunity for those students to work together on a daily basis as opposed to hajj podge throughout the month and we just see i'm telling you it's

014some of the most exciting heartwarming piece for all the students involved and it's great for the leadership of those students so that's just a few things that we do and i just again wanted to remind you that we do have that and i would be remiss if i didn't point out that we have three outstanding folks uh in our counseling and social studies department with mrs cough goffy miss kaiser and our social worker mrs salas with that i'm going to turn it over to mrs keel to talk a little bit about our big reds media group thank you i do want to tag on to one thing that mr shin said which was about the jobs and things like that one of the things that i've been really excited to bring back after covid has

015kind of squashed it for a little bit is internships for the last four weeks of senior year for our seniors so they're pursuing those opportunities right now and that's just one more way to get them back into the community and back out into things that are way beyond what we can teach them in the classroom so we're really excited to be pushing that with them those that want to do that and be able to get those opportunities for them so that ties with that um so mr shin mentioned about revamping the mcis and as you guys know that was i i was a part of that for a long time and so it was my baby and that was a a hard hard transition but we have embraced it and we've got some really really

016cool things going down are going on down in the space it is still the mcis we kind of look at it in terms of it's now a creative way to look at how can business and industrial arts and video and all of these different things yearbook photography fit together to really create something that is still allowing our kids 9 through 12 to be involved in in creative pieces so we've got big ideas for that we're you know how many months into the school year so we're not all the way there yet where we want to be but we've got a lot of ideas on on where we want to go with it ways that we can collab if you take a look down at the bottom of your sheets and then audience in the milan

017big reds basketball so that was a really cool thing that we did in coordinating with my yearbooks class and then mr davies industrial arts and graphics class we actually took pre-season pictures of some of the seniors and students that the the basketball team the coaches knew were going to be on the on the team we took shots in front of a green screen and then mr davies class actually went in and created posters and things like that that we would eventually like to hang as banners and and work with that being a little bit of a a program that we can make some money on to put back into supplies we were really blessed with a donation of this amazing plotter to add to our resources and we can print on vinyl now and things

018like that so instead of outsourcing those things we'd love for that to be a little bit of a student driven situation that they can work with the coaches and set up posters and things like that for their events and their fields um so that's super cool we also got a donation of a glow forge i don't know if you guys are familiar with it if you're not go look it up it's super cool brand new machine they donated it to mr davies program and the students have blown us away with the stuff that they're making out of wood and acrylic and etching glass and all sorts of things as far as my department of this um sorry i gotta slow down for a minute um i have kind of taken on this idea of really

019trying to improve communication with high school students and staff and just trying to rebuild a culture we've been separated we've been you know losing the end of that first year and then going eight a b day i wanted something to bring our group back together to be more of a community and a culture that we've been missing and so i brought back something called the red line and my english classes spend a little bit of time doing some writing for the red line and then we also have a instagram and facebook presence that we've been maintaining doesn't seem like a lot but organically we've grown to 213 followers since we started back in september and uh it's just continuing to grow you can see some of the posts on the side um i've got a

020student that actually even today posted a reel so like a little video of covering the snowball dance so she like put together some clips and put that up there just to keep keep culture going keep it building so um that's something that we're really excited about if you get a moment go on check it out um follow us give us a like whatever shameless plug but um it's just one more way to really get information out instead of just okay well i have to follow this group and this group in this group we're trying to share all the information through one big red's media group and give the students an opportunity to learn how to put a voice out there in an effective way so i'm going to turn it over now to miss nancy

021gill so um hold on first i have to advance this i am so excited to share this project with you tonight um the first thing i need to do is give a big thank you to kathy me she's our head librarian and media specialist she has spent countless hours researching award-winning books top books books that are engaging for students for me and i cannot say thank you enough so here goes my inspiration for this project american voices and i guess i should say that english 10 focuses mainly on american literature we know that for hundreds of years americans have always strived to make their voices heard native americans passing on their stories through oral traditions revolutionaries argue revolutionaries arguing their points with precise oratory skills soldiers recording their experiences in journals slaves writing the narratives

022of their daily lives womans expressing their feelings of societal oppression civil rights activists inspiring others to their cause and playwrights capturing reality on stage the last few years have reinforced my belief that people want their voice heard this is the root of literature in our diverse country those many voices sometimes ring out in beautiful harmony and other times in grading cacophony regardless each individual voice has value students in my class get the opportunity to read many great authors those authors who've created our literary canon however i also want them to have the opportunity to read diverse modern day authors who are creating our future literary canon this project allows them to choose four different young adult novels on any topic by diverse authors including latinx native american black american female american asian american lgbtq plus

023americans and americans with disability from students emailing me recommending what books to me again to outburst in class when kids are upset that their book is over or a student coming up to me and saying what's the next category i already know what book i want to read next i didn't realize those personal conversations that this project would end up giving me the opportunity to have now the assessment for this project is so simple i ask students to relate five things in the novel be that characters settings conflicts etc i never imagined the personal written responses that i've received there are many that i can't share but up on the board i put a couple that i can the thought that i can relate to this novel don't ask me where i'm from never would

024i thought it would hit home so much and i realize there are other people who can relate with me and this novel sierra has a lot of problems and issues that i can relate to i loved getting close to these characters and realizing i'm not the only one going through this being under the lbgtq umbrella is quite scary and is something i struggle with but it is great seeing representation in a book when it is so unusual to see it i relate to margo not because of a shared gender i relate to her because she thinks and processes her thoughts and views in a very similar way to the way i do she lets her losses get to her but not to weaken her but to strengthen her the farther i got into the book

025the more i realized the precious was born a regular kid just like me but growing up we had different support systems and last julia del rosario gave me a better understanding on how it feels for those who have lost a parent and how they can act fine and seem like a regular kid i'm honored that they've shared this with me thank you mrs gill i'm on our last one before this i promised him i would do it in his same monotone voice but i'm not nearly as good as mr hall at that for those of you that know know we love mr hall so i'll try my best but something he has been very excited about over the last three years when he first got in here was to start our athletic leadership program yes

026you might notice a theme about building young leaders getting people involved and it is very important that we're doing that in all of our extracurriculars co-curriculars clubs and whatnot but robert has put a specific emphasis with his athletic leadership program these are students in active seasons so we have a fall winter and spring group each one of the sports has one or two individuals from that level that meets normally twice a month and mr hall is a set discussion process if you will but that really focuses on our core values as a district as athletes the importance of educational athletics ideas to get students involved and how we can be more inclusive and his focal point is about leadership and what it takes to be a team captain one of the most visual ways if

027you haven't been to any of our games lately the tennis regionals swimming the amount of students that are attending events over the last couple years has increased significantly and a part of this leadership program is a core group of kids get together and have fun and bring themselves to other events and meets and such and that's one of the most visible ways that i've had the other piece to this as i talked to earlier about our work study program we actually have two students right now two seniors who second semester one is truly working for mr hall as a athletic director's assistant and another that's during a class period during the day and then another student is actually helping after school so it's the first time in my career that i've ever had even as

028a former athletic director students who wanted to be me and so it's neat to see with mr all working with those kids whether they go into education or not that it's something they're interested in that they're working here and being a part of that so that's just one piece of that and the reality is is that the more students we can get involved in that type of programming the better so i know he would do a better job overall but hopefully i did that justice say this is super important and it's had some really outstanding outcomes from our students and it's been neat to see grow so good job to mr hull for that and we are going to end you with a little video mrs kiel is going to tell you about it's three

029minutes all right we're almost done i promise um so i just wanted to tell you this is a quick video about um this is this is home this is the place and i hope that it resonates with everybody in this room um it's by a senior he put it together all himself and the other students actually just have resonated with it too so i hope it just brings some some joy to you guys and you get to see some of the fun that these students have in high school [Music] we on the big screen and everybody's here living out our dreams [Music] it's been a long day i know that you've been working hard but it's okay can't wait to get it started let's do it our way and we don't really care about what

030they say what they say don't be scared [Applause] [Music] jump jump this is the place [Music] put it on replay up watch now this is it right now whoa i'll turn it up right now that's what's up right now this is [Music] this is [Music] [Applause] this is it [Music] this is the place [Music] this is your dreams [Applause] [Music] so thank you thank you for letting us present today we had a wonderful time and it's always great to show what our kids do here we're very proud to be big reds that's for sure great thank you mr shannon team excellent presentation thank you very much [Applause] all right next up on the agenda is communications this is time for public comments reminder this meeting is a meeting of the board of education and public

031for the purpose of conducting the school district's business is not to be considered a public meeting there are two types for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda when addressing the board you will be asked to state your name the board determines the amount of time granted to individuals or groups to speak each person shall be allowed to speak for up to three minutes and i'll give you a 30-second warning and when you hear the beeper go off i'd ask you to please finish your thought board members may question speakers but are not obligated to answer questions or make statements or commitments in response to issues raised by the public in general such items will be referred to the superintendent for advisement investigation study and or recommendation or designated as future agenda

032items for board consideration is there anyone that would like to address the board if so you can come to the microphone my name is justin hobbs thank you for the opportunity brian last august you and i sat in your office and had a discussion one-on-one about a litany of different topics including of course covet 19 masking what's normal what's going to be normal the timetable for making those changes i thought it was a good discussion i thought it was thoughtful and productive and i remember asking if you knew anything about my background you didn't which was fine i asked you what your thoughts on masking were and their role and you responded with you weren't 100 percent sure but you thought they played a role in mitigation and i agreed i said there are definitely

033scenarios where masking can play a role in mitigation but i had some issues with the way the county health department presented their recommendations with regard to cloth masks and the specific aims of their recommendation it was at that point it was a line in the sand hey i appreciate it my hands are tied if the health department says there's a mass mandate there will be a mass mandate in milan area schools and i understood i said if there's a mass mandate i understand your hands are tied my son will come to school and he will follow the procedures that are laid forth whether or not i agree with those policies now we're two years down the road since the train really went off the tracks it's been six months since we had our discussion in

034your office the cdc has changed their stance and presentation on masks and the county health department has changed their official stance and opinion as well if somebody comes to you and says i want to mask you absolutely should encourage that but if others think that this is a personal decision and it should be left up to the families and the individual to make those decisions you should absolutely support that they don't have to be mutually [Applause] [Music] exclusive seconds brian the time is now the master mandate needs to come down [Applause] if i could i will take applause please but we'd if we just could not let her out at this time the applause will be fine thank you yes hi there jeanette halliday i am a 20-year milan resident milan mom i have a

035recent graduate who's now in college and and a senior this year and i really wanted to say thank you for doing what you could in a difficult situation in a difficult year to keep our kids as safe as possible to keep our kids in school because i know we all really wanted to get back to being in school and safe and have it as close to a normal experience as we could in a healthy way and it's been really great to see so much of that this year i i recognize that things are are going to change and i really i respect that but i just wanted to say thank you so much to everything you've done um and to all of you for standing up to some really difficult situations and i just thank

036you for for giving my sons a great experience thank you miss holiday um ashley st claire i wanted to get up here before you guys started getting like threatened with lawsuits and given many copies of the constitution um if you guys if you guys don't know me i own a tattoo shop in town so my business is solely run under the guys from the washington county health department and so as soon as the masking mandate started we started messing up with the studio we've always followed the washington county health department guidelines and i know that from the beginning that's what you guys said that you were going to do that you would also follow the county health guidelines and so i'm not that parent that's take the masks off our kids i'm going to sue

037you i'm also not the please leave the mask on our kids i'm in the group of parents that whatever choice you guys make my kid's going to decide whether or not he wants to wear a mask i think that it i personally think that it should be a choice at this point if you guys have said that you want to follow the county guidelines that's what i do that's my piece of the masks i also wanted to come because i know that we have a lot of community members here tonight and a lot of people not from the community who seem to be very interested in supporting our our community which is super cool so we have the daddy daughter dance um saturday may 14th i'm i'm on parks and rec so if anybody's interested

038with the daddy daughter dance on saturday may 14th um we have our mother sundance on friday june 10th parks and rec is also hosting our annual easter egg hunt that's at wilson park um that is on saturday april 9th the night before friday night can be for big kids coming and doing um flashlight easter icon they had a blast last year when they did it and then we are also having on tuesday the 26th a cpr and first aid training class so i really hope that a lot of the parents that came here tonight aren't in the district show the same support for our district and our community and come and help us support the marlin parks and rec thank you miss sinclair [Applause] oh my name is mackenzie i'm a 10th grader here at

039mylon high school and i'd like to start off by saying that i know that whatever i was going to i say up here is not going to change your vote and that but i come from the minority perspective i looked at the votes that were made from the community but whichever that you all decide i would like there to be more support for math students there are many students that are high risk and immunocompromised these students need to be able to also feel safe in school it is an option for kids to not wear their mat if you decide that is an option for kids to not wear their masks but kids who do wear their masks need to be able to feel safe allowing students to request a partner for close partner work that

040wears a mask to ask that a teacher put on a mask if they have to get in within the six foot bubble to let them go virtual for a couple days if coveted cases rise and also allowing teachers the chance to ask a student to put on a mask if they have to get in the six foot bubble to let teachers and students who live with immuno compromised people live with people who are in those vulnerable health groups the chance to feel safe and also there there are students even now i have had kids who've made comments to me have made rude comments to me that i wear to masks that i'm not smart that i haven't read anything but i want to be able to choose to wear my mask and not have issues

041from other kids i would like to be able just because i can stand up for myself there are other kids who can't so that there are systems and stuff in place so that kids who are getting harassed by kids for if they continue to wear their mask that there are repercussions and those kids can feel safe thank you mckenzie my name is andrea benning and i'd like my comments to be accurate accurately noted in the meeting minutes as a matter of public awareness the board has discontinued summarizing comments in the meeting minutes if you would like your comments to be included in a printed accessible public record you must explicitly request that your comments be noted in meeting minutes while board meetings are being recorded and are currently available on a digital platform as we

042saw from the essers zoom meeting technical errors do occur and there's the possibility that past recordings can be lost maintaining accurate minutes including commentary is assurance that positions and concerns held by stakeholders and board members as well as action items requested by the community can be accessed should recordings fail accuracy in recording minutes and transparency and public meetings with elected officials is extremely important second i'd like to continue prior communication between us by asking a couple of questions and stating some concerns i sent an email in regards to the language of the community survey in an email response from the board it was noted that the survey was only one measure of input that would be used the reply stated there are additional feedback mechanisms that will be considered such as public comments at the

043meeting emails to the board staff survey etc in good faith i ask how is the board processing this additional feedback objectively there's been a lot of communication from the community and i'm wondering how you keep your personal views on such a divisive matter from unintentionally influencing the weight you give each from from each form of feedback in a phone call last week mr gearbaugh gave me some insight as to how he considers decisions and the impacts they have on the district i'm looking for insight from the board on how you make your decisions explaining how you have taken into consideration all the responses you've received would help us to understand your process and would go a long way toward restoring trusted communication additionally my concerns with the survey remain in no way was an option

044given for true choice for families to use or not use a mask as a mitigation strategy the options given do not accurate accurately reflect what i or other people would choose it's concerning because this is not just about following health department guidelines milan's superintendent and board voted to put a mask mandate in place before the health department mandates were issued this initial mandate was made without accurate assessment of what stakeholders would choose as this agenda item marginally impacts our students and at recent meetings it has been said that we are neglecting to ask our students for their input and perspective i'm wondering why this survey wasn't posed to our students specifically at the middle school and high school level they are of an age where they should be learning about community participation and are looking

045to be heard by their community this would have been a perfect opportunity for a power time or team room lesson in those grade levels well i recognize that you're responsible for making policy it seems to me that this is one issue that student voices should have been sought out and heard and i'll end with this we're beginning the third year of living with covid it's no longer the mystery that it initially was it is time to move forward with upholding the right that people can choose their own choices regarding masks and mitigation strategies thank you [Applause] [Music] my name is lexie keil and i'm a junior at the high school i want to start off by saying that i am not here to yell or disrespected any of you because i have too much respect

046for myself to be doing that i was recently given two options with my cna consortium class get vaccinated or lose my cni i had to choose between having my freedom to not get vaccinated taken away or to have my dreams of working in the medical field taken away from me we all hang out after school together on the weekends without our mass on so how does it make any sense to come back to school and wear a mask to be around the same people we were just with why should teachers have to tell the students to put on their masks during school when they were all just together hanging out without the mess on the night before me not wearing my mask is not going to kill anyone if not wearing a mask was that

047life-threatening then the health department would not give you as a school the freedom to make it optional when looking at the numbers they are going to that are going to be referred and referenced tonight by multiple individuals the mass are causing more harm than good the schools with mass have a higher positive covered student population than those who have been without mass the entire school year so how does it make any sense to force your students to do something that isn't even making that big of a difference i'm not asking you to take the mass away i'm asking you to make them optional i'm asking you to think about all of the students not just the ones that want masks it being optional satisfies both parties i have said what i came here to say

048what you decide to do with my statement and the information given you is up to you i just ask that you will take some time to think about what i left you guys here with today thank you thank you [Applause] good evening everyone my name is jacob benick and i'm a junior here at milan high school recently mr gearball sent out a public survey asking about community standing on the mass mandates being a modern high school student i see how the student body feels about the mandates every day students from diverse backgrounds and viewpoints oppose wearing masks in our schools furthermore many students at mhs attend a school workout or walk out to protest the mass mandates a large part of our community is opposed to the mass mandates sending out a survey implies that

049you as board members are willing and ready to listen and consider the will of the people i hope that you will listen to the students here tonight and to the rest of the community standing up for individual choice thank you thank you i stand in front of you today as a member of the community and a mother to a five-year-old son who's involved in the elementary school i also stand in front of you today to represent the voices of some children who are afraid to speak for themselves i'm going to read a story from a senior from last year who graduated from your high school i represented the senior last year who was contract traced my test was inconclusive because of this i was forced to miss the regional championships of the sports my team

050qualified for the states but because i wasn't on the roster for regionals i had to sit out the state championships also i cheered my team from the sidelines during my quarantine i also had to miss honors night where i was awarded a scholarship in addition to the one and only choir concert during my last year in high school like almost every other student guaranteed the past two years i never had coveted my goal is to not stand in front of you and force your decision nobody likes that as past executive board member to multiple companies i understand the responsibility is that you guys sit in front of a community and base your results on that community's outcome i stand in front of you today to take a look at the additional problems that these masks

051have divided our people they're dividing our children they're causing additional mental illnesses that is being overlooked i stand in front of you today to ask you to consider the bigger picture that kovid is causing [Applause] hello my name is paul wood why here tonight i came here tonight to talk to say a couple of things i am a third grader student at from at simon's elementary from my point of view i don't think we should wear a mask because it i can't focus or believe thank you paul [Applause] hi my name is owen and i'm in fourth grade i really think we should not have to wear masks anymore i play hockey and wrestle every weekend i'm either in a in a hockey rink or a gym with lots of people and masks are not

052required i think it should be our choice thank you thank you hello my name is dylan kreiner i am a fifth grader at simon's elementary school today i wanted to share one of the many reasons i don't want to wear masks at school i jog 20 minutes a day at wrestling without any struggles we do not wear masks at wrestling every i can barely breathe and sometimes i feel like i'm going to pass out i have the right to breathe thank you for listening [Applause] hi my name is kindergarten and i when i wear a mask at school i my teacher can't hear me i have to use a microphone um i want to be heard at school thanks for listening thank you okay hi my name is lindsey kreiner i'm a mother of three

053children two of which just spoke that attend milan area schools my third couldn't be here because she has a sore throat and we're doing the right thing and keeping her home i'm also a teacher in the toddler room at simon's elementary i'm here tonight to advocate for myself my kids and the toddlers in my classroom i was ecstatic to learn that washington county decided to lift the county wide math mandate then very disappointed to learn that mylan was considering continuing with the mandate anyways any independent data that masks are effective against the spread of virus viruses is inconclusive at best and at what cost for some kids wearing a mask is not a big deal but for others including my own it is uncomfortable and distracting for the first month of kindergarten my daughter cried

054every day not only did she have to adjust to leaving me for the first time but she also had to adjust to wearing a mask all day she repeatedly came home from school and told me that she and still tells me that she hates to wear a mask one day when she came home from school i asked her what her favorite part of the day was she replied with when i got to go to the bathroom and take my mask off for a minute that literally broke my heart i feel like masks are ruining her kindergarten experience and i feel helpless because i know she needs an education but i can't help but feel like i'm failing as a parent moving on because i know my time is limited i would like to share one

055of my experiences in my toddler classroom i have a co-worker who recently pulled down her mask to scratch her face one of the toddlers looked at her teacher who she spends time with every week and asked you have a mouth it is a sad reality that we are in a classroom with kids 40 hours a week and they don't even know that we have mouths not to mention they have never seen our smiles sometimes while i'm singing to the toddlers they will attempt to pull my mask down i have to pull it back up they just want to see my mouth move they want to see my expression they want to see me smile they're at the age where they are developing language 30 seconds also when the toddlers are wearing masks it makes communication

056impossible toddlers are hard to understand in the first place but if you put a mask on them they lose their voice all i'm asking tonight is please let me smile make my kids smile by uncovering everyone's smile thank you for your time thank you my name is crystal wood and i would like my minute my uh my words to be recorded in the minutes please tonight i would like to talk about the mass mandate from a parent and medical point of view i've been a nurse for 15 years during this pandemic i've had many jobs one of my jobs is to evaluate patients for covet symptoms and measuring patients proper oxygen saturations it's been my in my experience that i've seen oxygen saturations drop while wearing masks up to five points a normal oxygen saturation

057is between 95 and 100 for a normal healthy person i am a healthy adult while i'm at work running around wearing a mask my oxygen saturation can be 92 percent and if i was in a hospital they would be putting oxygen on me for hypoxia hypoxia can lead to shortness of breath headaches confusion restlessness rapid heart rate coughing and loss of focus you are expecting children to run around like this all day in gym class throughout their day my daughter who attends simon's elementary she's reported having frequent headaches and falling asleep in school with healthy sleep patterns this is evidence best practice that proves wearing cloth mask over your face is not effect not an effective barrier against and cova-19 viruses in spite of all the evidence there are people that still believe that mass

058still are effective tonight i request that you drop the mask mandates and give our children a choice allow them to see your smile again thank you [Applause] hello my name is wood and i go to simons elementary school and i'm in fourth grade from my point of view i don't want us to have to wear masks because our friends and teachers can't see our faces and smiles second of all it makes me dizzy and i get headaches i used to go to wrestling and ran for three minutes and without a mask but now i go to gym class without a mask with a mask on for and i run for two to three minutes and i barely can breathe third of all i can't focus because it's distracting and itchy lastly they don't help it's

059like taping paper to your face i want to see my teachers and friends smile again because it's sad you can't see their face anymore thank you thank you [Applause] hello my name is jamie mcaveeney i'm a milan community member the michigan revised school code which is the law that this board must abide by has code 380.10 which says that this board is required to provide a safe and positive environment for the students covering their faces and blocking their oxygen for going on three years now is anything but a safe and positive environment school code 380.1504 states that schools are not authorized to do compulsory medical treatment or physical exams on students the definition of compulsory is required by law or rule if forced testing healthy children to make sure they're healthy enough to be around

060other students is not considered a compulsory physical exam that i don't know what is and as far as medical treatments go if you are told to put this sling on so to help your shoulder that is a medical treatment and you are told to put this wrap on to stabilize your ankle that is a medical treatment if you are told to put this pressure sleeve on to better your circulation that is a medical treatment so if you are told to put this rag over your mouth and nose to help you not catch a virus that is a medical treatment and code 380.1504 says you are not allowed to redo required medical treatments and now at this point i had to alter my speech because just two hours ago we had a huge win in the

061state of michigan regarding school called 380.1183b which states that school boards have the responsibility of the safety and welfare of the students this is the code that all schools across the state have been hiding behind to enforce mass mandates well two hours ago in the extremely liberal kalamazoo county a judge just ruled that this code is unconstitutional and comstock school kids [Applause] comstock school kids where the lawsuit was filed must be unmasked immediately the judge ruled that if the children continue to be masked that there will be irreparable harm done to the students and since this ruling other extremely liberal schools in kalamazoo have also dropped their mass mandate so from this point forward we do not need you to protect our kids from the coveted sniffles we need you to help us protect them

062from the mental health crisis that's been nationally declared by the american academy of pediatrics the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry the children's hospital association the cdc and the u s surgeon general who states this urgent public health crisis requires all hands on deck to address the public health crisis that we are seeing in our children our kids need to go back to normal we are we all told you this was going to happen that's no surprise to us we warned you and you didn't listen suicides are up by 350 percent you can't get a child in to see a counselor for literally over a year so that is the safety and welfare that you need to be focused on if people in this room want to put mass on their children from now

063until eternity that is unfortunately their choice but you do not have the right to put your fear onto other people's children and tell them that you care about their safety more than their parents do just because you want a double or triple mask wear masks outside get vaccinated and still have your family wear masks in your house that is not our problem that insanity is your problem and that exactly what this is pure insanity we all know these masks do not work and it is time for the insanity to stop [Applause] hi my name hello my name is kj demars and i would like my minutes uh added in the uh meeting you know um from day one i have been against manchester united i'm sorry was it caden i'm sorry aj kj kj okay

064mars mars okay thank you thanks kj thank you uh from day one i have been against masks but didn't want to have another year without my friends i listened listened to how how we needed to follow washington cdc guidelines well now they are saying it's your choice and now or and now you want to take it away it's funny how now you have the power to do that once one of the last miss uh meetings you said uh covert numbers were low low in our school yet tons of my friends and teachers were out and of school but they were more masks i started to uh a petition but or for students that are done with masks but are scared to speak uh for for themselves so um these are all the names of all

065of them um brady brown noah atlan parker bovenkirk elijah cartwright tai uh newark north kanan offerman cooper kimberly eric enzyme or alec enzyme josh or joe edmonds gage happle dawson obish emma budd lauren fairbanks uh sierra moore uh emma kimball olivia henry braden gottz max jennis uh gary lindsell iii wyatt barton nick hurd jayden hartman david d dyrish risk back blake greenwood jordan vincent abby bortles kj marsmi tyler marks luke ponard mariah steins isaac cardik uh summer moore brady or bernie lopez and nathan mcgraw um uh evan rosenthal mike or mark uh corelli aubry steuben layla daniels uh cole mcilvaney carson blogger christian ballard uh q mario jackson tim staple madison paris uh haley balinsky natalie tracy uh riley marchand reagan pena uh jayden donahoe cooper scarborough [Music] my name is kurt demars i'll finish

066his petition for him [Applause] forgive me board and community i don't know all these students names by her so i may get some of them wrong or not read it well tyler bain grant sanders gabe keel kaden fairbanks austin brody zack straub lewis wired jonathan steve jordan robertson jackson warman jules meads angelina pena kyle ballard keymar i believe this is key mario jackson kennedy bruck burn paris emma gaine or garns possibly ava demand tony mccain brady brown noah el i'm sorry did you already start this one kj okay now finish and use my time i just want to say how proud i am of that young man for stand up for what he believes in and i just want to say you guys have a fabulous community i was like many folks in this room

067i was in slain last night there were very few students that spoke and from reasons that were already mentioned tonight on the contrary side of this issue there are many of your students that will not stand at this mic because they're afraid of the bullying to speak against mask wearing or just the choice i've been here before you guys know my position i spoke about it in august i emailed you my you know how my son stands for we're not about bullying people that want to wear a mask we support them to have a choice okay we want our choice okay and as others will speak tonight you guys are out of line in the decisions you've made and are considering to make by enforcing these masks by making a mandate it's inappropriate okay but

068i just want to go back to your community you've had some students that are old enough to come to this mic on their own okay and there will be some that will say all these parents brought their little kids and wrote a story for them to say but you've had some old enough to write their own come and stand to this mic and i watched your last meeting i was unable to be here and you guys drooled all over the student that was able to come here and speak their truth which i fully support by the way that young lady i talked to her prior to this meeting as well and i fully support what she did here and it's a huge issue mental mental health but there are a lot of students that are

069that are afraid to come here and stand at this mic and speak because of the bullying they receive for not wanting to wear a mask 30 seconds it has divided us in this country guys not just this community we've allowed the media and our government to divide us as people because we differ an opinion on an issue and some of it very educated opinions okay so how we're treating this issue is awful and to have people come up to this mic and be snarky and make you know pointed comments at the community members be based on the position they're trying to take that's not helpful we need to remain respectful and speak to each other cordially thank you thank you mr damaris [Applause] hi my name is cameron ackley i'd like my speech recorded in

070my minutes this is the other half of the mass competition mackenzie perez nancy height dalton hyde connor welch andrew anka ryder knox jed isaacs ricky bobby ronnie johnson taylor hawley sydney bain brady bovenkirk zach cornell shea bean chris van bursky kelsey stamper maddie ken perez olivia stevens stephen god gandy richard bird jesse brockman cameron dietrich kami heath noah elias jordan lake foster jackson polling kenny laporte luke brackman caitlyn maybeck heidi hatfield lillian rose william gaskell cameron eckley jackson marowski evan miller cam camden to mars will heard nathan napier mark crowley kami heath haley dunn hayden jo gavin cruz gunner crews get ella cummings riley lopez gwendolyn jones larry shack luke gebhardt avery powell eliza hopps thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hi my name is gunnar cruz i'm a virtual student he and a freshman here

071at milan and i was one of the lead coordinators of the walkout that happened here today we did this walkout because we wanted to stand up for the rights of the students inside school and voice our concerns it was to my understanding that the superintendent gearball approved of the student-led peaceful walkout however i do not think this was the case if you supported the walkout why did you have teachers and adults stationed in the hallways telling kids who were walking out to put their mask on another reason i think that you did not support this walkout is because you made the students sign out of the school meeting they could not come back inside once they were done with the right to express their speech is this supporting the moment of expression if kids can

072leave the school for a doctor's appointment and come back in how come the students protesting could not it is not like they were skipping school i was one of the kids inside the school who were trying to direct traffic for the kids who were walking out and i was kicked out of the school for helping with the walkout why this is not supporting the walkout you were trying to make it harder for the students to express their freedom of speech to me it appears that these actions of the teachers and administrations were bullying students into staying inside and not participating i want truth and transparency from the school administration you teach and preach to students to be honest and credible i expect the administration to practice what they preach [Applause] hi my name is ryder

073knox i'm a senior here at milan and um i feel like you guys need a point of view from a student and i've been here all three years that coven's been going on i had sports seasons taken away from me i've had dances taken away from me i couldn't go to school all the time last year and i've actually had coven myself so i feel like i've been here long enough and seen all the stuff that's gone down and i feel like i should state my opinion about that and um i've missed so much stuff and it sucks and i don't want to be sent home again because of covid or an outbreak or anything like that but i also feel like it's just not normal students wearing masks everywhere and the limitations that we

074have given that i feel like us as students and our parents should have the option of choosing whether to wear a mask or choosing to wear a mask and should be supported fully either way i also believe that with the health departments new recommendations on not having to wear a mask and that we don't have to wear masks in other public places i feel like it should be the student and their parents choice on what they do with masking and whether they do it or not thank you [Applause] hi my name is avery powell i'm a sophomore here at the high school i am reading this for a student that goes to milan i'm not sure if it's a student at paddock or simon's but this student says i am a special needs child at

075milan who is who has cerebral palsy i have a hard time walking to my so my parents usually meets me at the door to help me get to class sometimes she isn't able to be there and one time i got pushed around by all the kids coming in and the door hit me in the head which can be really hurtful for me my mom really worries about me falling as it can be very dangerous i wish my mom could have walked me into class but the school told her no so she had to take me home that day and i missed a whole day of school because of it thank you hello my name is elias hobbs and i would also like to request that my statement be recorded in the meeting minutes i am

076a sophomore here at milan high school and i am here to request that any mask policies be rescinded and no other mask policies be put into place this is my third year of education during coven and honestly my education life and my just my general life has been disrupted by covin it's time to move on after three years we understand covid we understand how it is no different from the common cold which on the surface before covid was a thing we were never sent home for if we had the sniffles or if we had a slight cough we were told to tough it out in fact i can remember once my eighth grade year that i had to tough out the entire day with a flu or not a flu sorry a fever that i

077honestly felt like i was going to pass out the entire day i was told to tough it out and i did masks nor any other measure will eradicate the virus so what is the point of continuing to force students and staff members to wear a mask it's been proven well sorry it has not been proven that masks stop any virus because a virus is much smaller than any cloth or paper particle that would cut or that would be provided from a mask and as district officials you took an oath of office to uphold constitutions that also support that sorry wrong word that support that you are supposed to defend our freedoms as a student wearing a mask or not to wear a mask is a freedom that has been taken away from me which in

078in retrospect it should be up to the parents and to the students whether they should wear a mask or not it is a medical treatment and medical treatments are not up to the school for students i'm sorry that i seem to be rambling here but it's all true i just want to get this off my chest thank you thank you [Music] my name is gavin cruz i'm a virtual student at milan high school and i'm here to support my fellow classmates in their fight against forcing students and staff to wear masks at the school i've always been a big believer in freedom however the ability to make your own decisions has been taken for granted these past couple of years i don't think people realize how important freedom is especially to kids these last couple

079years have been hard for everyone i understand but that doesn't mean my freedom and our students freedom should be snubbed because of your irrational fear that's the beauty of freedom if you want to wear a mask or not go ahead but why force someone who is not afraid to wear one just to make you feel safe why must you continue this tyranny when i have a greater chance of dying in a car accident than i do from covet i guess that's just the difference between us you think the people of this community elected you to push your political ideology however i think you were elected by the people to provide an education that fosters diversity of thought and freedom for the last year most of you have sat up there and squabbled over over what

080the one percent need but never about what the majority of students have wanted no masks and mental health support the school board has been preaching wear a mask wear a mask but what i find hard to understand is why i have to wear a mask to go into the school but not to attend indoor basketball games or volleyball games why is it when i walk into the front office to pick something up the ladies at the front desk aren't wearing masks but as soon as i come in they put them on i'm tired of the double standard do as i say not as i do as a student i want to be proud of the school that i grew up in and i want other students to be proud of it too but how can

081i be proud of my school when it takes away my voice as a student many of the other students i talked to during the work during the walkout told me they felt the same way it's time our voices as kids are heard if you can allow kids to choose their genders kids should be allowed to choose whether or not they want to wear a mask or not [Applause] [Music] my name is tommy pale why won't you want me to freeze fresh air fresh air is good for you only doctors and ninjas need a mask no more mask for me thank you uh my name is would i turn it off okay murphy pear i represent the kindergartner whose mom just found out i have hearing loss in both ears the doctor at u of m

082said it's common for kids to not be diagnosed until they are five years old or older it's a really good thing my mom fought to do school of choice so i could go to dundee where i don't wear a mask and my teacher doesn't either my mom was really sad when she found out i couldn't hear very well especially when she realized how much i have learned to rely on lip reading it would have been really hard for me to learn this year if she hadn't moved me to dundee she feels bad for any other students at milan who might have undiagnosed hearing loss [Applause] [Music] [Applause] cruz is going to be giving you guys some literature that i need you to have apparently someone knew i was going to bring it so i figured

083i'd get one of your own high school students to hand it out to you it is the constitution of the united states of america [Applause] i recommend that you read it so my name is james stewart i'm from manchester michigan and you know what our kids walked into school on september 7th 2021 unmasked hundreds of millions of people saw our video and it's not because it was bad it's not that they were bad it's because hundreds of millions of people across the us applauded them that's the truth i have proof i have fact so i'm not here to explain my intellect on covid or masks because it's not important uh i'm here to state my resolve about what you're doing you are breaking your oath to the constitution of the united states of america the

08410th amendment ask yourself if joe biden cannot force mandates can you if gretchen whitmer cannot force mandates can you what makes you think that the health department has any power when does the health department make legislation i hear the board members saying lawful mandate orders where's the law show me the legislation code take me away in cuffs i don't have a mask on where's the police officer that can arrest me for no mask you're breaking the law the constitutional law the 10th amendment to start with i have a constitutional lawsuit going i'm going to win because as other people have said before we're winning across the state you need to ask yourselves do you do you believe that you're on the right side of history right now do you what are you betting people what

085are your odds of coming through this without having to pay for what you've done because with a virus that has a hundred percent survival rate i do not yeah it's near 100 percent so don't don't interrupt me i'm making statements i don't wanna i'm talking or i'm talking i'm being interrupted so start my time over so jimena loveluck of the washtenaw county health department has not sworn an oath to the constitution of the united states of america did you know that that was through a freedom of information act that we did on her that is your health official that you're hiding behind right now do you think that she's going to protect you when these lawsuits of constitutional infringement come down no none of these people are you all sworn oath to the constitution i

086am begging you to hold it to uphold it 30 seconds you guys have a choice to be on the right side of history this is you don't have the power to unmask these kids nor do you have the power to mask them i'm telling you right now we are not standing for this anybody that's with me stand up right now let's show them who's here this isn't going anywhere i highly recommend that you rethink your stance on this garbage masking which is about power and your power is at an end thank you hi i'm erin held i'm a parent of three children in the district they too have been wearing masks since march 13th of 2020 i've heard a lot about bullying this evening a lot about constitutional rights i just want to thank you

087for following the health department's guidelines of washington county and you know something also i'm also a teacher and as a teacher something we teach children is about our core democratic values of the united states of america one of those core democratic values is called the common good and common good is doing what's best for the whole for the majority to keep everyone safe and i appreciate that you have been doing that for our children for our staff and our community thank you [Applause] hello my name is annette kennedy i would like my statements recorded in the minutes please thank you i live in chelsea i have two children who are in an early college program and they are considered students of milan although they don't attend milan high school they do swim for mylon i

088do have three health conditions which caused my doctor to write me a medical mask exemption my doctor is an md practicing in michigan currently in september of 2021 i was at my daughter's swim meet and some unidentified man came and tried to force me to wear a mask right here in milan high school after i told him that i had a medical mask exemption he told me i had to clear it with mr gerba i contacted mr gerbal the next day after mr gerbal got back in touch with me he insisted that i come and show him the letter on october 1st i had a friend drive me to mylon high school to meet with mr gerba i showed him the letter and he and i signed an agreement which stated that i could be

089in milan school facilities without a mask a week later the girls went to a meet down in dundee and none of the timers none of the volunteers were wearing masks and all of our girls were right beside them they needed an additional timer so i volunteered i went right up there and i timed i was beside the girls i was beside coach haika it was not a problem a week after that i signed up to volunteer at our meet here at milan high school i showed up and coach haika came over and told me i had to go up to the stands i tried to explain to the coach hey i have a i have an agreement with signed by mr gerbaugh saying i could be here and he would not even let me speak

090he became almost hostile and he said i'm going to call gerba i said good i had permission to be here go call gerba a few minutes later gerbach comes marching and told me i had to either go to the stands or he was calling the police and he was going to have me arrested or cited for trespassing so i did leave the building i went to the police i showed them the video they said that mr gerba was confrontational to me i did have an agreement i got a rather nasty email from mr gerba the next day he and i emailed each other back and forth a few times then i got in touch with the police several times i was finally directed to work with the officer who works at the school officer w

091i'll call him because i can't pronounce his name correctly he and i finally worked out an agreement with that mr gerba agreed to i could show up at the swim meets sit in an isolated station by myself before anyone else showed up i could not approach anyone else other people could approach me that was on them but i find it strange that people who preach about inclusivity and caring for people who have lesser privileges than them were so discriminated discriminatory towards me including mr shen these people have been terrible towards me i can't help that i have these medical conditions and they attacked me in various ways and threatened me multiple times including mr shin attacking me after mr gerbaugh said i could come into the building mr sent me a threatening email and then

092this is kind of your time's experience okay uh please don't arrest me this time thank you [Applause] good evening my name is chris gaffrey i'm a concerned citizen here to support these brave young men and women who have come out here today to voice their concerns and opinions to the board of education i have the privilege to work with students all over the country and i can honestly say that they raised them right in milan i work with hundreds of students in every state and out of every 100 students i meet there's one student that is as brave as these students here students able to appropriately and confidently speak their disapproval of these disgusting mandates are rare i want to commend these parents and students here today and recognize their bravery i want to emphasize

093to these young people here that most adults are afraid to step out of line and the fact that you are voicing your opinion just shows your courage know you are making a difference here and do not let any of these adults or other students here shame you for making the courageous choice to show up and speak they may try to force you to wear a mask in school but they cannot restrict your voice behind that mask for those of you on the school board that have continuously pushed to limit the voices of students know that your time on that board is limited and shorter than you may think i would like to conclude with a quote from robert frost for the students here that i'm so proud to support freedom lies and being bold freedom

094is never given it is earned and tyrants are the ones eager to restrict that freedom thank you thank you [Music] hi my name is brianna preet i'm a mother to three an aunt to three of my nephews that all six would actually be in milan schools this year and last year if it wasn't for the mandate i was actually in a position where i could stay home to teach all six of them i am an elementary teacher and i know so many friends and others that were not in the same position as i was and unfortunately with surrounding schools that were making masks optional they couldn't get into them because too many people were coming to get into those schools so i chose to stay home i am thankful for the opportunity i've had the

095last couple years to do so however i am also looking forward to sending six children to school so um with that being said i was here at the last meeting about masks where many of you a reason for making masks required was that we were following cdc that we were following what they said and to my understanding i feel like the site has said for quite some time now that masks do not work that they make people feel comfortable um i feel like any of you could pull that up on your phone right now to find that out i'm here for the many students who would like to have a choice and i'm here for the fact that i've been to so many concerts and shows standing side by side people who are not wearing

096masks yet we have children in classrooms who are still being made to wear them and i feel like this is a sad sad thing that is happening to the children in our country and i feel like many parents should be standing up to fight against this if your kid wants to wear a mask let them wear a mask if it makes them feel comfortable if you're teaching them this is safe fine my children going to school will not make fun of your child my children are also being taught and i hope and pray that everybody's children are being taught this that people should be given a choice that people should be able to come and see that you're wearing a mask because that makes you feel comfortable however this is my choice not to i'm

097sorry for the girl who stood up and said she's worried about being bullied i was worried about my daughter going to school and being impulsive as she is for being almost eight years old and being told that like she's supposed to be wearing masks or she doesn't care about people or put your mask above your nose that i wanted to read a few students in the community who have dealt with some people that were enforcing masks and some pretty sad stories so i think i have two or three here to read to you this first one i'm one of the myelin students who has been contact traced four times this year that means i had to miss almost 36 days of school and my teachers had to work hard to get my assignments to me

098and my other quarantined classmates i also had a hard time keeping up in my classes and had to miss a lot of other events as well of all four times i was contact trace i never actually got covered do you want to read the other two stories this is my husband my name is lj preet uh husband and i just want to say how proud i am of her for taking over the responsibility of teaching six kids because we didn't want to have to send them to school where they're muzzled all day every day but uh i was going to come here up in arms but i don't need to because you just had a whole 20 kids or so tell you what they thought and you're supposed to be here for them so take

099that into consideration i represent the senior last year whoever speaking up about issues in high school was then called down the principal's office was explained to me that i shouldn't have my issues with this decisions being made because covid also one of the many mylon students who lost a scholarship opportunity because mylon made the decision to make all our grades pass fail in the spring of 2020 semester which had a huge impact on a lot of our communal communitive gpas especially since we were competing against students from other districts many of which did not force their students to accept pass fail for an entire semester next one i represent the special needs child that simmons who doesn't understand why everyone has to wear a mask and ask my para and my friends to take them

100off so i can see their face and hear them better i'm also a child who hasn't received all the resources i normally would have and as a result i have really struggled this year and have lost a lot of progress i was making i really miss my mom being able to help in my classroom so all i'm saying is do the right thing and it's not mass mandate or no mask at all let them have their decision as children that's all thank you mr mrs pete [Applause] my name is annie cruz and tonight i'm going to speak on behalf of some students that aren't able to speak here in front of you as you know our students are dealing with a lot and there has been a lot of tension created by having these masks

101and quarantines enforced so i represent the student whose entire team was contract traced i am one of the few students on the team who isn't vaccinated so all my friends told me i should get vaccinated then i wouldn't have to quarantine and i could test out like them our principal told us to get vaccinated he said at least that way you wouldn't have to quarantine this person has actually lost lots of friends because of this what if she can't get vaccinated what if what if that vaccination will kill her and what right does our principal have to tell a student that they should get vaccinated brian i read um your proposal and and your your choice of of i read your proposal on what you'd like the board to vote on and i read the

102definitions of of that proposal in terms of what that meant you know choice students could ask if they wanted to or not and that that there would be no bullying about that choice but this to me is intimidation for a principal to tell a student that they should get vaccinated so that they wouldn't have to quarantine i really hope based on what you guys decide to do if it is to give us choice to give these students choice that every single adult in our school system reads what you wrote and follows it to a tee because these stories are just devastating and they're absolutely unacceptable the last story i have for you today is something that we're going to still have to continue to struggle with and i hope we can come to some sort

103of agreement on and fix and it's about the buses i represent the middle school student who dropped his mask and was yelled at by the bus driver as she slammed on the brakes and yelled no one wants to look at your face you want me to stop this bus right now [Applause] so so what happened was this kid just dropped his bus on her mask on the bus and it was probably all yucky because it's muddy out and wet and he's you know just trying to get a new one out or what whatever i don't know the whole story what i know is this kid was just beat up by the bus driver who's supposed to be watching the road and take and taking these kids safely home from school and this person is yelling

104at this kid like this would you like your kids to be treated like this by an adult who's supposed to be keeping them safe i'm happy to forward you this video so you can take this under i don't know advise me it's just horrible and these things need to stop because it is bullying it's intimidation and if you sit up there and profess that you have the best interest in mind for the students then we'd like to see that happening thank you [Music] good evening my name is megan gunderson and i wanted to read a statement i represent the mom that was watching her child play sports i have a documented medical condition that exempts me from having to wear a mask the washington county health department has told me if i have an exemption

105i'm not required to wear a mask a face shield or to socially distance but at the sporting event i was told to either wear a mask or leave i tried to explain my situation but they called the police and had me escorted from the building i am not allowed nor do i feel comfortable attending my child's sporting events at milan i want to point out to you that this is not the same situation as the other woman who spoke this came by a foia from the police department thank you [Applause] [Music] hi my name is jen scarpati i'm from celine i'm your neighbor first i want you to know i want to know where you have the data that these masks aren't doing any harm to our children who have to wear them seven plus

106hours a day while trying to learn hiding behind and colluding with the washington county health department is one thing and we know this from our foias that dexter celine chelsea milan superintendents were all on an email thread with ruth kraut at the washington health department to get help from the said health department with their mandate because alone they could not justify masking to parents when other schools in the county were giving parents a choice the four schools mentioned above celine being one we're hemorrhaging students to manchester clinton dundee to homeschooling private schools and anywhere there was a choice to mask there was other info info in these email threads that showed these same superintendents needed the health department to actually answer parents when parents wrote their schools questioning the legality of this order after the

107budget was signed and the language that made masking kids under 18 illegal the health department admits that the mass mandate will go through and the governor will line item veto the masking language well we know that didn't happen and the superintendents knew that too but continued with the illegal mass mandate even being told by ruth from the health department you can blame the health department which is what the superintendents wanted and needed i challenge you as a board to look into this since you gave sole responsibility to hold the policy to your superintendent i'm a former teacher and when i was in the classroom i relied on my partnerships with parents because i understood the parents know their children best i also understood that my partnership and my respect of a parent's place in a

108child's life helped me be a more effective educator in the lives of my former students as a parent now i ask you to ask yourselves do you know students better than their own parents do you know their favorite food their favorite color their dog's name do you know what that they love dominos or magic tricks with cards no you don't so stop being oppositional and start partnering again it will be worded in academic gains true educators not agenda followers know this which one will you be again masking should be a choice for individual families to make and whether someone chooses to mask or not their choice should be respected period when the pan when the masks come off on february 28th or tomorrow let's all be mindful of each other's choice and practice being kinder

109than necessary and to the mom who owns the tattoo place if you want to go on celine return to learn and put all the things the boys [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hi my name is zach bradlin hopefully everyone's having a good night tonight i'm a senior at milan this may be off topic from the copa stuff but i feel like it's an important topic uh the water from the drinking fountains is just not good i feel like we need to fix this problem because i love drinking water thank you for your time [Applause] [Music] hey my name is warren and i'm a sophomore here and i second what zach just said but can we have a la carte back thank you [Applause] hi my name is dave cruz it's been a while since i've had

110the desire to address the myelinator school board and the myelin community at large mainly because i don't deal well with people who have a hefty dose of cognitive dissonance or cognitive bias in their daily lives i'd like to say that this is indicative of the violent school board in general but i've come to the conclusion that in your case it's just plain outline bigotry ignorance political nepotism and abject stupidity we are now into year two in this board's covered plan and every pillar you have used to hold up your illogical response to this virus has come crashing down spectacularly in the last 30 days from masking social distancing uh isolation contract uh tracing to death rates and infection rates none of the policies that you have implemented had one iota of impact on preventing the

111spread of the covert virus none of the policies you implemented made any sense based on the fact that this virus was nowhere near as deadly as our government made it out to be now that the cdc fda and msm have begun to acknowledge what people like me have been saying for over 16 months that masks don't work social distancing was made up the death rate is actually less than six percent of the total number of counted deaths natural immunity is actually better and my favorite the jab's actually no more better than a prophylactic that doesn't prevent you from getting it giving it or possibly dying from it what do you have to say for yourselves every single one of you owes the myelinaire community its families the parents and most of all its students and

112apology for your failures related to the actions you took in responding to the covet scandemic quite a few of the parents behind me took the time to attend every board meeting where they presented you with nonpartisan non-political unbiased facts and figures that clearly contradicted the evidence as presented by the very political cdc fda the biden administration and our glorious governors hacks in the michigan health department the fact that you have been hiding behind the edicts issued by politicians instead of actually listening to the parents in this district should tell violent families everything they need to know make no mistake the science hasn't changed because this data and evidence has been available to you from the beginning other school districts around the country elected not to implement mass policies and in every single case had the

113same infection rate of less than districts like milan each and every single one of you chose to ignore this evidence and implement policies that have had a much greater negative impact than cobot actually did every drop out every poor grade every missed athletic season graduation dance and worse can be laid directly at your feet you have failed this community in ways both seen and unseen that will be felt for years to come and it's time for you to be held accountable each and every single one of you needs to immediately resign from your position as a board member in the military school district let real americans who believe in the rule of law in science individual responsibility freedom and most important of all accountability take over the responsible management of this school district it's time

114to get real adults on this board that take all of the myelinaire school families seriously and not just your supporters donors and ideological ideological clones it's time to get responsible adults on this board that take providing a real learning environment seriously one that all students can be proud of and one that attracts families to milan instead of driving away mile and area parents and students deserve better than you it's time for a change [Applause] good evening my name is mandy arnson i was here in august asking that you not mask our kids i left your district with two of my children one of my children stills here dual enrollment one through eca she's a senior this year she's never stepped foot in milan high school at all because she's done all four years at eastern

115she'll be walking across your stage this june i guess to get her high school diploma but has never actually stepped foot in your high school five and a half years ago we came here from maryland and in our i guess decision in where we were to move we chose this district for our house because of the ratings for this school your school ratings have dropped tremendously since then not because of your choices of academics but probably because of your political choices masking our kids is hurting them i said it in the summer kids need to see faces my youngest daughter right now needs help the most i asked for two years in a row the first time during covid the second time last year asking for help for speech for language i was denied where

116we're at now she's now getting help i just cannot believe that you guys still want to consider masking our children it is making an impact on the youngest ones you are actually dumbing them down and actually the speech and language that you're in inhibiting them from learning this is education you guys do not have medical degrees a registered nurse a veteran of the us navy i know what i'm talking about when it comes to splashback body fluids are the mask was meant for body fluids not viruses viruses go through these masks that you're wearing and not i just i'm sorry this is not the way i wanted it to go thank you [Applause] hi i'm renee humes and um so i've had four kids go through your district one is still here the other three

117are not but i'm just gonna um read from another child that could not be here so i represent the parent of a child with asthma she has a hard time getting through the day without taking mask breaks her doctor is uncomfortable writing a mask exemption even though he admits the mask is making it difficult for her to breathe she's been yelled at by teachers and and she's seen her friends yelled at by teachers for pulling their masks down to catch their breath so she struggles every day i thought about applying for mask exemption but without her doctor's signature i know she'll be denied so instead she sneaks in breaths when she can and we wait anxiously for the mask mandate to end and um so you all know my oldest son um everybody knows joey

118and my daughter elena and myself all of us we have asthma and um so it's not that it's special for just people with asthma but um like when you can't breathe there's that panic thing i can't imagine being a young child going to school and and having a mask on there's like that panic and if it's not really going to help anything i think it's awful that we're subjecting our youngest kids to like they need to breathe everybody needs to breathe so that's all i have thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you good evening my name is rachel hobbs to board policy i request that a summary of my comments be included in the in the minutes mr gearbaugh i request that you your rec you make a recommendation to the board that the mask

119policy of august 12 2021 be rescinded and that no mass policy boy put in place rather than you present your two options options provided in the agenda no mass policy none got it guys this is a parent's decision if parents want to mask their child the district should support and honor that choice if a parent decides that a child that they that decides not to mass their child the district should support and honor that choice at times you are all capable of giving bad recommendations this was the case on the august 12 2021 board meeting when you mr gerba recommended that the board of education mask our kids based on a recommendation from the washington county health department no order just a recommendation mr gerba you did this just two weeks after you told me

120that at a prior board meeting that as long as there was no re mass requirement by the health department mylon would only recommend masks however through foia requests it was discovered that you and other superintendents in the area just days after our discussion were colluding to develop a policy to mask our kids on august 12 2021 i said stood in this very spot and requested that you allow parents to make a choice i also informed you that health was a priority to our family but being healthy did not include masks mr gerbal you make a you made a recommendation to the board and the board supported the policies to map supported the policy to mask our children at this time this was the recommendation a cloth mask this cloth mask which you claimed would protect

121my child and other children had already harmed my child the prior year and now this cloth is no longer recommended by the cdc as a family we complied with the mass policy but we continued to advocate for our sent my school son to school on the first day with a mess that was conducive to alleviate issues from past medical issues he was quickly stopped by mr gill and told his mask was not acceptable and gave him a paper mask after school that day my son told us that a mask was not in compliant that his mask was not in compliance with the school policy and that the policy was changed the night before and that came from mr gill the next morning my husband called you mr gerba and requested an in-person meeting to discuss

122masks you returned the call and stated that an in-person meeting was not necessary thank you i raised this current concern two days later interestingly enough my husband received a call from you this is hobbs your time has expired no yes it has please everybody else has had three rachel do you minutes me to finish it for you sure thank you [Applause] the following day you met with my husband ironically after you made a mass policy recommendation to the board and lobbied the health department to issue a mask order because you were getting raked over the coals by parents you also proclaimed to my husband that you did not understand the science of how mass worked in the end we were required to provide the district with medical exemption that was signed by a doctor once

123again we complied and we provided a signed medical exemption for a mass accommodation but were required to disclose private medical information the district was not entitled to receive the mass policies have never provided a statistically significant benefit in the school setting per the cdc's own studies you are not medical personnel and you do not have any lawful or constitutional authority to make any medical decisions for my child board members until you know all the medical situations of each student in the district and have rock solid data and evidence the only vote you should make with regards to mask is to rescind the august 12th 2021 mass policy masks are optional and parents have the choice in closing mr gerbach and some board members i would like for you both to recall your past statements that

124you do not believe that you are in the medical profession and you should not be making medical decisions it's time let's take the focus off of healthcare we as parents will fight that battle with the health department and let's focus on bettering the education for our students we spent way too much time discussing health issues not education thank you for your time thank you holly blade and this is one of dundee's newest vikings he would have been a big red but we didn't want him to have to be masked all day so he wanted to stand here with me and while i talk we all actually have a civic duty to be involved in local government and to hold you accountable we have a civic duty to do that regardless if people in our community

125think that we should stay home or not for those here tonight that feel like we are the minority in surprised by how many people have been speaking up um maybe it's because people that are around you know where you stand and how you talk about those who disagree with you many of us have seen it ourselves we've endured it we've seen it on social media so maybe it would help for you to hear some of the stories that we've been hearing maybe if you knew what we knew you would understand us better maybe then you wouldn't be so quick to put us down for wanting to fight for the kids being harmed by some of these decisions a lot of the parents whose kids have been harmed are worried about their kids being targeted for

126for good reason their kids have been targeted by teachers and administrators so we did have volunteers tonight who agreed to share some of the stories with you of the struggles that decisions made by this board and this administration have caused the community and the kids of this district i personally understand that the danger of covid for some people our family has actually experienced loss at the result of covid we understand what it's like to have someone in your home who's immunocompromised i understand the stress of that i can only imagine the stress of that during kovid but i also understand the need for balance um decision makers need to be taking all factors into consideration and how all of these different strategies that people have been implementing over the last two years we need to

127be re assessing how they're impacting the community as a whole and not just from one side of it last night at celine's board meeting there was a member who said she doesn't approve of unmasking those kids and by saying that she claims she will not be responsible for any child who develops a condition or is lost to covid as a result of making masks optional so using her logic does she take responsibility for all the harm done to kids the last two years as a result of forced masking or excessive quarantines and unrelenting pressure for kids to get vaccinated i actually agree with her it's probably the only thing her and i agree on she shouldn't be responsible for managing a pandemic or for the health of her an entire population of a school district

128and none of you should be shouldering the weight of these decisions either the only requirement to be a school board member is to be 18 years old and a resident of milan not quite the credentials of someone who should be managing a pandemic no offense thankfully as jamie mcilvaney mentioned the lawsuits are progressing and hopefully we'll never need to debate this with the school board or superintendent again because none of you will have the power and never should have to mandate such measures ever again to our children so here's my olive branch what if we all decide right now to stop debating stop playing tug of war and start having real constructive respectful conversations let's acknowledge a lot of mistakes have been made on all sides from all levels of government but that we can

129all learn from these experiences and we can all do better all of us in this room let's come out of this nightmare smarter and stronger as a community the silver lining is look at this room there has never been anything that has made more parents and students engaged than this whole nightmare that we've all lived through for two years so let's use this as an opportunity to make things better for our kids our district and milan as a whole thank you mr hello my name is denise lopez i'm the mother of three kids here in milan schools this being one of mine so i recently watched the candidate forum that was held on october 20th 2020 and i'd like to share some comments from a board member referencing the position it's a lot of doing

130things that need to be done to make sure we have a school district that families want to be a part of whether they live in milan or come to us as a school of choice student if a board is functioning well it's likely many people won't ever notice their work because things are as they should be and people are happy with them it's only when major challenges arise or things break that the board's role becomes a point of discussion i'd like to say things are broken like that's why you see these people here things are broken and that's why people are coming to talk and i also like to mention another comment by the board member it said the january 12th meeting that you keep hearing from the same people over and over and that

131there are many people who stand at the microphone and challenge board members and complain at every meeting those comments along with recent actions of the board members such as limiting time to speak and shutting off the microphone give the impression that you don't want to hear what parents have to say your demeanor shutting off the mic limiting people it shows you don't want to hear anything that anyone has gotten up here to say but i'd also like to add in my opinions about the mask which we clearly are against because we spoke in the beginning about it but my son has complied so that he could be in school in person because that's how he learns best so that he could do his electives and he could play football like that's a major thing football

132is his passion so he decided to wear a mask so he could play football he was given a school school mask to wear which i'd like to share a story about something he gave up because of masks so um i received a text one day that my son was going to be going down to the office my son who has not had any issues with any teachers any administration but he was going to be sent to the office because he wouldn't change his mask a school provided mask that a teacher was deciding wasn't good enough for her because she was choosing to wear two masks so she wanted my son to wear a different mask to make her feel better with a student stand here today who's worried about being bullied because she chooses to

133wear a mask or other kids their shoes which is their choice let them wear a mask if it makes them feel more comfortable my son who is comfortable not wearing matt shouldn't have to in the first place but he complied and was wearing a school provided mask and was put on the spot and i'm going to let him finish the story of what happened to him and what he decided to do hello my name is brody lopez um so this year i just i i got an email that i was allowed to be in the chamber choir which felt like a great accomplishment to me it was something that i had wanted since i moved here in seventh grade uh well during my first choir concert i saw them i thought it was cool and

134now i had made it well the thing is while wearing my school provided mask i was told by this teacher that it was not good enough in her words she said it didn't work it was a cloth mask so she wanted me to take my cloth mask off every day and put a paper mask on which i did for about a month and then i got tired of it because if i didn't put on the paper mask she would point me out in front of everybody in the class she would make it well known that i hadn't changed my mask and she would not carry on class until i had changed my mask which immediately i brought this up to mr shin because that is not something a teacher should be able to say to

135me she should not be able to put me out in the front of class like she did which shin agreed with and he said he would talk to her and he didn't he did not talk to her about it a few more weeks go by i go back to shin and this time i don't leave until we make an agreement and unfortunately that agreement was me leaving chamber choir something i had worked for something i had been working for my entire life i had to give up because of a mask that was provided to me by the school and it was not good enough for her if she wants to wear her multiple masks that's fine it was not okay for her to tell me what mask i had to wear especially when it was

136a cloth mask that fit inside school rules there was nothing inappropriate with it all it said was milan football it had our logo it had my last name and it had my football number no other teacher had a problem with this why does this one teacher get to decide what mask i wear or to wear a mask at all that is not her choice i would like to have my choice back thank you mr lopez [Applause] hi my name is shelby i am an ex-para for mylon schools i ended up quitting because i did not agree with a lot of the things that were being enforced my youngest son is autistic and i we have also had bus issues the transportation i don't remember her name tried to tell me that it was my eight-year-old's

137fault for his toy getting taken by another student that helps him stay calm because he's on the bus for about an hour and a half which is a long ways um and she told me that if i wanted to do anything about it i would have to go to the parents house myself which is kind of scary because you don't know how they're going to react and whether that's the actual kid or not also my oldest had to be kept home today because he was sick all because he had an upset stomach after lunch but yet they kept him i did not have to go pick him up um but she told me that he could not come home or go back to school for 24 hours and but yeah about a month ago i

138had to go pick him up because his heart rate was over 160 and he had an upper respiratory infection after we took him to the doctors but she didn't call me for three hours and i thought that was kind of weird because if his heart rate was that high and she told me that she was worried about him passing out because of how pale his face was and how he was talking but she waited three hours to call me i did not appreciate that thank you hello my name is donna koviak i am a parent or actually a grandparent in the school district i have with my combination my blended family i have raised i'm raising eight kids i've seen a lot of school districts we've lived in madison heights we've lived in hamtramck we've

139lived in detroit i've seen bad and i've seen good all i know is everything's a challenge you guys to sit up here week after week and everybody hit you with everything all the time looking for answers for you to make decisions and for you to keep doing this i applaud you you have the toughest job you have to make the decisions you have to make the decisions stick and i appreciate everything that you do [Music] hi my name is lisa cook i have had kids in milan school since 2009 had nothing but great experiences appreciate you all so much so much just want to have a couple positives a couple of mile and kids athletes that one of them i know well ellie molina she's usually sitting up here not here tonight but um she

140was nominated for athlete of the week through m live so if anybody wants to vote please go ahead and do that girls basketball she's a multi-sport athlete she does well in school super great kid known her forever peter panna i think is how you pronounce his last name i apologize if it's incorrect he was nominated for wrestling same thing please go and vote milan is a smaller school so when we have athletes that are nominated i think we should all band together and get these kids recognized i also want to give a shout out to mr d for receiving the excellence in education award he is a shining star i cannot i even express how wonderful my kids experience that paddock were because of him just a great great experience all around i just can't

141appreciate you guys enough i'm a frontline healthcare worker i was in the trenches since february of 2020. i was going into covid rooms i didn't know if i was going to come out not a soul on this earth asked to be a part of a global pandemic and we are all doing the best we can and i just you guys are awesome thank you [Music] i'm too short for this okay um first i want to say thank you everybody that's here because this is probably one of the biggest numbers we've had in a very long time um well probably since we were here asking you guys again not to mask our kids it's probably the last time it was this many people um first i wanted to say how proud i am of my son

142um and all of these students that have spoken up i know i'm not supposed to talk to them but i'll kind of do it anyway um it takes a lot to speak it takes a lot as an adult woman to speak let along a student to be able to stand up and say what they feel especially when it's against what a lot of people are saying it's a big deal for any of them i was going to end it on a good note but then someone else came up behind me but i was gonna say i don't know if you're gonna say anything good i didn't mean it like that but anyway i was gonna say first i was uh i wanted to say thank you to uh ricky bobby for signing the uh petition

143i thought that was pretty cool in case you guys didn't catch that name you know um thought that was pretty funny and i know that i was very proud of all them how they tried to keep it in and not laugh when that name was said um also celine celine we met where they met last night i graduated from saline so i still kind of affiliate with them they met last night uh one of the things they did that i thought was kind of cool that i was kind of hoping maybe we could try to do they let all of the students i mean they do forms we don't have to do that they let the students go first so that if kids need to go home to go to bed if there's little ones

144things like that so they usually have all their students go first so that they you know can get where they need to get and then the adults come out and speak and do whatever else you know so i just think that's kind of a good idea you know for kids because they all still have school tomorrow and need to be up um anyway but i just hope you guys listen i know you guys are probably going to go along with celine because you usually do whenever anything happens you know you guys kind of follow suit so i know we'll probably go with not having masks either and i hope you guys keep it thank you hey mr mars [Applause] hi i'm christy swix higgins i went to milan high school and i moved back to

145this community because i wanted to raise my children here mylon is a great community that has so many wonderful people that contribute to the growth of the town i love to see when someone thanks their neighbor for shoveling their sidewalk or when our phono wall is found and turned into kroger there are just so many good people in this town and this community has so much to offer to our children including soccer music baseball football wrestling theater as well as having good schools i appreciate all that the myelin teachers administrators and school board have done during this pandemic to keep our children safe and in school as much as possible i trust this school district has the best interest of students at their heart and i voted for all of you sitting up there on

146the board and if you choose to run again i would vote for you again in regards to masking i believe that the health department and cdc have offered guidelines that should be followed i believe that everyone does have a choice i hope and pray that those students and teachers that make their own choice and decide for them it is best to wear a mask that they are respected and not bullied there seems to be a lot of concern over people being bullied for their choices and i hope that as adults we can demonstrate to our children how to be respectful of individual choices not only in regards to masks but also in regards to their religious beliefs gender identity and sexual orientation thank you for hearing my thoughts and for your dedication to our students

147teachers and school districts [Applause] are there any others all right thank you for your comments this evening the next order of business is the consent agenda i need a motion to approve the consent agenda that includes the minutes of the regular meeting of february 9 2022 moved by pharaoh support by landing him it's been moved by pharaoh supported by laningham discussion mr president mr sisson if i may yeah um good evening everyone i am kirsten freit and i formally request my comments regarding the drastic change in the format within our meeting minutes be reflected in these minutes i'd like to start by thanking everyone for their patience and understanding as we've had a lot on our agenda tonight as i've previously stated i have serious concerns about the sudden change in our meeting minutes concerning

148the recording of any and all comments the myelin board has previously recorded a brief summary regarding comments within our meetings as the minutes our official record it seems very drastic to change that procedure now while we are currently recording the meetings there are no guarantees how long that practice will continue we run our meetings with a certain governance roberts rules of order and we do our best to follow best practices and masb guidance that governance our policies and laws help set the foundation of the board of education it is critical we maintain a solid foundation and build and prove upon we have made errors and mistakes and we need to be up front and clear about that moving forward we will do all that we can to correct those and appreciate the faith our community

149has had in understanding our flaws and allowing for improvements meeting minutes may seem incredibly insignificant yet they are bound and kept as a formal record of history of the board of education in the central office while the open meetings act does have certain requirements for the meeting minutes it also states that the open meetings act does not prohibit a public body from preparing a detailed a more detailed set of minutes of its public meetings if it chooses to do so for decades the milan board of education has in fact chosen to do just that during the past year we had four issues concerning board of education minutes while we held 26 minutes or meetings in addressing those meaning minutes issues addressing those meeting minute issues mistakes were made and corrected and it is imperative that

150we be transparent to our community with our goals and aspirations and mistakes and corrections moving forward we must do all that we can to keep building trust between one another removing a brief summary for any kind of comment does not accomplish this therefore i respectfully make a secondary motion to approve the consent agenda that includes the amended minutes of the regular meeting of february 9th of 2022 reflecting the amendments of trustee freight's comments from she commented on the meeting minutes two she commented on the change in format regarding comments and the meeting minutes motion by freight is there a second very none any other further discussion i'd like to recommend that we ask the communication committee to take up this topic it came up a couple of times in our first meeting earlier this week

151and because it does fall under the purview of communication i would like to solicit some input from the community and allow that information to form our process going forward other questions or concerns being moved by fair and supported by landingham to approve the consent agenda that includes the minutes of the regular meeting of february 9th 2022. miss haika heika yes kyger yes landing ham yes macchio yes cislow yes pharaoh yes freight no motion carries six to one next order of business is the mesb southern board of directors representative as included in attachment a i need a motion to direct the superintendent or designee to cast the district's vote for the masb region 7 board of directors position for whom we will determine in discussion by pharaoh support by haika been moved by pharaoh supported by

152haika uh discussion i'd like to uh nominate uh michael mcveigh from saline area schools to be the masb region 7 representative i i would also support that mr mcday was my first choice as well i support that as well for those of you that don't know he's also the president of the wasb board that i work with on the exec board and he's very actively involved in a lot of the um topics and things that and changes that i've sent you some emails about trying to get those going for us with the isd so i would also support michael mcveigh as a candidate and i know i've had numerous classes through masb with him and he always articulates well and he asks very productive questions so what i'm hearing is that we'll we'd like to

153nominate michael mcgay for the mesb region southern board of directors is that correct yeah yes right so it's been moved by pharaoh supported by haika to direct the superintendent or designee to cast the direct district's vote for masb region seven board of directors position for michael mcveigh miss haika tiger yes landing ham yes macchio yes sislow yes pharaoh yes freight yes haika yes motion carries 7-0 next up is the covet health guidelines uh mr gearball has prepared two attachments for b1 and b2 he will walk us through those attachments at this time good evening everyone at the request of the board i did prepare two different attachments um the first attachment b1 is my recommendation regarding masks that would begin on february 28th and the second attachment is the original chart that the board approved

154for mask wearing and we will walk through that quickly so first attachment b1 is my recommendation for those that don't know we did conduct a community survey and a staff survey this recommendation was posted on the website as one of the attachments to the agenda on friday you're going to notice that some other districts use similar language when they put their communications out to their communities they actually thanked me for the wording of this and and for those that think maybe we do what other districts do they actually used my wording when they did what their district did so our community survey we had the raw data original counts 761 people supporting following the washout county health department's guidelines 291 people that asked for requiring universal masking that's about 72.3 percent to 27.7 percent as

155you know people entered their email address as part of the survey so i did go through the survey data and any votes that were duplicate email addresses were removed after removing that data we had 737 supporting the washington county health department guidance and 282 supporting the requiring of universal masks what happened which happens to be the exact same percentages before the duplicates were removed and after so 72.3 percent recommend following the washington county health department's guidance and 27.7 percent would request that we require universal masking i also gave a similar survey to the staff our original accounts were 83 staff members asking to follow the health department's guidance and 54 staff members asking for requiring universal masking that's about 60.6 percent to 39.4 percent after you remove those duplicates we had 83 supporting the health

156department's guidance and 52 supporting requiring universal masking which is about 61.5 percent supporting the health department's guidance and 38.5 percent supporting universal masking in a press release issued by the washington county health department on february 11th the department stated that they would be lifting their remaining coveted health orders effective february 28th this included two orders one requiring masks and another for isolation and quarantine the press release went on to say that universal masking remains strongly recommended in k-12 educational settings on february 16th the michigan department of health and human services mdhhs updated their masking guidance for michiganders their update states based on current conditions mdhhs is expiring the public health advisory on masks in public settings including school settings mdhhs also supports adjusting mask recommendations as the state cycles through periods of response recovery and

157readiness and following local health department decisions based on local conditions based on the expiration of the mdhhs's public health advisory the rescission of the washington county health department's covid health orders and other local factors including community and staff surveys it is my recommendation that starting monday february 28th the myelin area schools transitions to masks being highly recommended but not required please note that the cdc continues to require that all persons wear masks on planes trains buses and other forms of public transportation as well as at airports and stations and through a cdc question and answer document this does include school buses it is my understanding that that's being reviewed but at the time we are still required to have students wear masks on school buses i wanted to put a couple of statements out to

158help clarify what it means when we say masks are highly recommended but not required it truly means that masks are optional and personal choice for all staff students guests and visitors that option holds true within all school district buildings and facilities again with the note not on school buses they are required on school buses it's important to note that no one has the right to require influence encourage pressure harass or bully anyone to wear or not wear a mask immunocompromised staff and student situations will be handled on a case-by-case basis in order support and respect the personal choice of each staff member students guests and visitors incidents of students and or staff engaging in the act of requiring influencing encouraging pressuring harassing or bullying anyone to wear or not wear a mask will be addressed

159according to board policies codes of conduct and employment contracts during the times of elevated communicable disease community spread as determined by the board in consultation with the health professionals at the cdc mdhhs and the washington county health department the board does reserve the right to require masks in accordance with board policies if this recommendation is followed information will be provided to families and students detailing some of the comments that i made in my recommendation today i participated in a washington county health department update providing some more information on their recommendations while they are removing both the orders for masking and for quarantining and isolating there are still book laws on the books from the washington county health department that deal with potential isolation and quarantine for pandemics so i wanted to make a couple of

160things very clear this evening if the board supports this recommendation if the district transitions to masks not required then classrooms lunchrooms buses and most extracurricular activities will be considered low risk therefore contact tracing and quarantining will not be required in these situations our current communications to families and the dashboard will continue the positive individual will be required to follow the current guidance for people who have tested positive for covid high risk environments will include household contacts classroom outbreaks which they define as three cases within 10 days in a classroom school event carpooling and a few extracurricular events a couple of the very close contact sports these situations will require contact tracing and quarantining that allow test to stay for non-vaccinated individuals this is the same as it is currently handled vaccinated individuals would not be

161required to quarantine or test to stay if we transition to masks optional masks will be required in two situations by the health department first a person who tests positive and returns on day six through ten will be required to mask for days six through ten two a non-vaccinated high risk close contact who is testing to stay will be required to mask through day 10 or quarantine at home again neither of these options require anyone to wear a mask it's just stating if they want to return sooner they would have to wear a mask to do so again masks will still be required for everyone on school buses in accordance with the cdc requirements under executive order one three nine nine eight so that's my recommendation that's attachment b1 attachment b2 is included in the board

162pack that was on the website on friday is the mas mask requirements that you put in place at the beginning of the school year the reason i provided this for the board was this was what you had stated we would default to if the order was ever removed so i felt that you needed to at least review that but it is not my recommendation that we would return to those requirements thank you mr yerba at this time i'll entertain a motion mr cislow i move second by pharaoh there we go i move to approve the superintendent's recommendation is included in attachment b1 moved by haika second second by pharaoh it's been moved by a haika supported by pharaoh to approve the superintendent's recommendation as included in attachment b-1 discussion well i'll start first i want

163to thank annie cruz for sending us information i think it was last night i didn't have a chance to email you today but i did look at it um just like i have always said that i would and just as i have over the last three years actually for the my entire tenure on the board when parents and community members send me information i do review it so thank you for that thank you for a copy of the constitution but as a lawyer and someone who has sworn to uphold and protect the constitution on three separate occasions i actually have a personal copy because i don't believe you can take an oath to sign or pull the document if you actually haven't read it i've read it several times thanks for that shout out please

164no comments as a lawyer i've taken several constitutional law classes i understand it i assure you um i've never made a decision as a school board member out of fear i've made it clear that what i do is i collect the information that's provided to me by community members i collect information from experts out in the community and i said back in august and i've said since this pandemic started that i will follow the recommendations of the experts i agree i'm not a medical doctor i don't even pretend to be one so in this instance i will support the recommendations that are made by the washington county health department and that's why i'm supporting attachment b1 which follows those recommendations mr sisso yes mr farrell um i i want to acknowledge obviously that there's a

165lot of people here and obviously a lot of students that came to speak and so thank you for that i too support the recommendation that mr gearboy has put forth again the recommendation has been on the website i think since last week and i think some speakers got up and and talked about just how difficult this pandemic has put school districts in you know we were placed in a very tough spot i recall when the initial decision was made unmasking that we had indicated that it would not be forever that mandating would not be forever i also believe that it was with the best of intentions at trying to keep students and staff safe we obviously know a lot more about the virus now the detroit news reported today that hospital hospitalization rates and case

166counts have been on the decline for the last five weeks the state reported an average of 1186 cases per day for the last five days yesterday the state reported 1516 adults as being in the hospital with confirmed cases of covid this represents a dramatic and steep decline from records that were set on january 10th when 4 580 adults were hospitalized and the state was experiencing more than 20 000 confirmed cases of covet per day so now testing and vaccines are widely accessible and effective about 65 percent of our residents have received their first dose of the vaccine as of tuesday and 59 percent of adults are fully vaccinated so as a result what we see across the state and with districts around us is the loosening of the mass restrictions so i too support as

167i said earlier i do support personal choice at this point i want to also say that i've read every single email lots of pros and cons some emails as nasty as can be and some emails as friendly and as polite and as respectful as possible my own two kids will probably continue to wear masks and that is their choice so and i want to acknowledge you know brian indicated earlier what the teacher survey was and and i'm mindful uh that there are some teachers that have concerns about you know kids not wearing masks and and having a potential impact with regard to covid i think that it is time to move forward and um and i hope that this is the last time that we'll have to visit this thank you mr pharaoh others i

168i did just want to caution that yes looking at washington monroe county data that things are trending down except i did notice over the last week that in monroe county the icu has trended up again i could support attachment b but what i would like the district to consider because with a greater population unmasked and the transmission rates are still at a high level in both counties it does put more risk puts more risk for our staff more risk for our students and if the district could provide enhanced mass the k n 95s for our staff and for those students that families request provide one mask a day and then if staff notices that the students that are requesting these masks are not wearing them then we can inform the parents that we will not

169the myelin area schools will not be providing that anymore wait did you say we're not going to be providing math if if our staff notice that students that are families that are requesting masks for their students the students are not wearing them then we would then inform the families that we would not be providing for them those students anymore fine that that's an important question though are we still going to provide masks like we do did i miss that in the recommendation i apologize if i did yes we would continue to provide masks we have provided kn 95 and n95 masks to staff we have the surgical masks for students sheerly because of the numbers that they go through sometimes multiple in a day also everyone should know that masks n95 masks are available at

170several establishments in milan for free now under a government program i know that you can get them at kroger and cvs there are probably other places as well so families that choose to remain mask and want to wear a higher quality n95 mask and also get those for free at a lot of local establishments under a government program there was a table of them at cvs earlier this week other comments i did just kind of want to chime in on one part of this that brian read about because we have heard from families and from some from some staff members who are immunocompromised and and are concerned and i was glad to see that brian put that those will be handled on a case-by-case basis so that we can meet the needs of everybody in

171that situation you know as somebody who works in very close proximity with small groups as an educator i can understand where some of those those teachers and staff are coming from so so i wanted to thank brian for for mentioning that because i think that's really important because you know i come at this decision as a board member but also as an educator because i i don't separate um what i do for a job from this because they come hand in hand and i've been in a situation where i've been teaching full time in a mask every single day since we went back to school last school year and um and you know although we've we're accused of a lot of things um and one of them is is taking our personal um background away

172from it which i also don't believe in because i'm not looking at it as a political view i'm looking that as also somebody who's the mother to uh from my worker who um two weeks out of nursing school at graduating from u of m volunteered in the um i see you at u of m for covid patients and um and nobody can speak for that person because until you've done that job you have no idea and even as a mother i have no idea because so anyway i i the thing that bothers me about that is that i do not want to um take away the value of our health care workers and some of them did speak tonight um but that is important to me as an individual and as a human being and

173i will not allow somebody to take that right away from me to come at it this decision that way um but like i said as an educator it's it's i can't separate myself from that either so brian again thank you for pointing that out because because i know that we will have some teachers who will want to adjust their routines and how they may do things and i don't want repercussions to come back on them because of that but i will support this as well thank you miss macchio feathers so i too support um making the mask optional i have concern about the buses um bus drivers have a tough job and when we allow the kids to not mask all day and then ask them to put mask on i think that that could

174be incredibly distracting and potentially dangerous so i think we need to brainstorm or come up with ways that we're going to support the bus drivers because we're putting them in a very difficult position and i was not able to vote in august and i think i made my position very clear so i'm sure it's not a surprise i was very much for recommendation and joyce then i am very excited that we are looking to be moving towards choice now i think it's recommend and we choice and it's about time that we go forward and be responsible with the choices that we make and appreciate the choices that one another make and as was pointed out earlier unite under those choices and be respectful and go forth with the choice of each and every individual thank

175you um i appreciate ms bennett's invitation to explain some thinking and what how i consider my decisions so i'm going to walk through those the board has received several emails in regards to this 85 percent were in support of optional masking 15 were in support of masking we received emails from community members we received emails from staff and so those were considered and responded to uh as you know there was a survey performed we used that as a data point we also heard back from that some that there was some concerns about the inconsistencies even on both sides of the issue so i although we may think the the survey may not be useful both sides had the same concern that others were going to overfill the survey so i think that's why i just

176use that as a data point it gives us some information that we can go from i do take a look at the the teacher and the educator the the staff survey because though that was required um they were mr gilbert was able to verify those email addresses um so i i take that uh i take that survey um as a data point as well um i uh i attend events at schools i see people that wear masks that people that don't wear masks i take that as a data point um as i as i look at things as i attend things i can see people that wear masks and don't wear masks i shop in milan i see i go to various stores and i can see people wear masks and not wear masks and

177i take that as a data point i have conversations with people i have neighbors i involved with the soccer club i talk with people that are part of that soccer club and i take their viewpoints into consideration i have a son in the school district and he has friends and i i look at how how he interacts and how they attend things and that i take that as a data point into my consideration i have a relative that works in the district and i take her viewpoint as a data point and i have another relative that attends school and i take his viewpoint as a data point as well so there are many things that this board considers i know i consider it myself we just don't make decisions right here at the we don't

178live at this table um we live in milan we interact with people in milan so those are all things that we can take into consideration when we have those conversations i also look at data i looked at the data just today for washington county there's currently 649 cases uh the positivity rate right now is four point nine three percent which is a decrease of one point three percent from last from from two weeks ago i look at the percent of population that's greater than five years old it's five but that's fully vaccinated that's 73.7 percent i also look at the monroe county data they had 159 cases their case rate per thousand per hundred thousands a hundred thousand is 105.65 and they had a positivity rate of 8.83 which is a decrease of 5.94 then

179their percent of population that's vaccinated is 58.8 percent so i look at that decision that we made back in august because at that time there was a certain population of our students from 5 to 12 that were not able to be vaccinated and the board wanted to consider that and we did and the vaccine became available for that group and those that wanted that that vaccine took that vaccine um so that's a difference from our decision in august obviously we know a lot more about the virus since august there are a lot of medicines available there's a lot of treatments available for the virus i am not a medical expert i will continue to say it i i have no problem saying i'm not a medical expert i wish i was paid like in the

180medical expert but i'm not a medical expert um but i trust that the people at the washington county health department are medical experts that's what they went to school for that's what we're here as educators we're educating people in certain things that lead to their careers and that's what we want our students to aspire to so if we want our students to aspire to a job with the washington county health department and we want to trust them when they work for the washington county health department i think it's our duty as a community to trust the washington community health department when they make these recommendations to us this board has been consistent in saying that we will follow the guidelines of the washington county health department has issued new guidance mr gearball has considered that

181guidance he is in contact with superintendents in washington county which i think is appropriate because we live next to these people we shop with these people we attend vents with these people they are our neighbors too it's appropriate for him to have those conversations so again this board has been consistent in saying that we're going to follow the washington county health department and they have come out with this new guidance and i will support this new guidance but i appreciate a lot of the people that came up and said we need to start over we need to have respect we need to move forward this is a new recommendation we're listening to the guidance from the washington county health department let's have respect for it and move forward any other comment all right it's been

182moved by haika supported by pharaoh to approve the superintendent's recommendation as in included in attachment b1 miss heikel uh landing him yes macchio yes cislow yes pharaoh yes freight yes haika yes tiger yes motion carries seven zero next on the agenda is back to public comment reminder that this meeting is a meeting of the board of education and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public meeting there are two times for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda when addressing the board you will be asked to state your name the board determines the amount of time granted to individuals or groups to speak each person shall be allowed to speak for up to three minutes i'll give you a thirty second warning

183and when the timer beeps i ask you to finish your thought board members may question speakers but are not obligated to answer questions or make statements or commitments in response to issues raised by the public in general such items will be referred to the superintendent for advisement investigation study and or recommendation or designated as future agenda items for board consideration and i also want to know i did the one thing i forgot to say is that the board also does consider public comment and i did keep track that we had 91 that spoke um for optional masking and nine percent that spoke for uh keeping the requirement as is if there's anybody like to address the board please come to the microphone thank you all not for taking away the mess but just thank you

184for everything you guys do thank you thank you mr albania andrea benning and thank you mr sislow for breaking down your decision-making process i appreciate the insight into your line of thought and what you consider when making decisions that affect the entire community so thank you for that i find it incredibly disheartening when uh trustee freight brings up a concern uh and several members of the community have brought up a concern about the recording of minutes uh and the the way that they are kept so that they are accessible to the public and there was not one note of support with the exception of mrs landingham who said that she advises the communication committee to look into that transparency is important we are living in a time where trust in elected officials is really really

185low and a way to bolster that trust is to maintain record keeping and allowing those records to be available easily to the public and to see a board completely isolate another member of that board is quite frankly dysfunctional and disgusting nobody would want to be put in that situation where they are standing alone trying to make a point and completely unsupported by their cohorts i really really implore the board to reconsider miss freight's request and many members of the community's request to summarize public comment to summarize board member comments it is a record it is a record of elected officials concerns it is a record of community concerns it is a record of support for different initiatives it is a record of what action items we are requesting as a community it is necessary please

186reconsider your positions on this thank you thank you hello my name is carrie carvin gutierrez i'm a mother of two milan area school students i have a spouse who works for the district and i'm a professor of epidemiology at the university of michigan school of public health i've reached out to you early in the pandemic about some of my concerns with the transmission rates and the need for mitigation strategies within the school and i'm so grateful for the work that your board has done to be extremely thoughtful and diligent in following the data obviously i'm a public health practitioner i am admittedly not an infectious disease epidemiologist my expertise is in women's health and midlife aging which has become increasingly important to me and relevant as i get older but i have trained many of

187the workers at the washington county health department i have students who are now working at the cdc and i am an epidemiologist at heart and one who follows data therefore i'm extremely grateful and i agree with the recommendation from the washington county health department to lift the mask mandate and i understand the board's rationale in doing so we're in a different place right now with this pandemic than we were early on early on we had never had an epidemiologist or other medical practitioner who had ever seen or worked with the virus we know as sars kovi too this was a brand new virus we had not had an epidemiologist or medical practitioner who had worked with a pandemic on this scale we haven't had a pandemic like this since 1918 and so we are training

188a generation of public health practitioners to learn how to deal with these pandemics and be agile so in the beginning we were offering cloth masks as a way to mitigate those cloth masks were not protecting the individual they were protecting those who that individual may have interacted with we are now at a different phase of the pandemic we understand the virus we understand the transmission much more than we did before and we now have masks that can protect ourselves we have kn 95s we have kf 94s we have choices and so because of that i do respect the board's decision and the health department's decision i'm grateful for the comments made by uh superintendent gerba and mr sislow however that we need to keep an eye on the data we think we're in a great

189place right now in this pandemic our rates have come down our cases have come down our deaths have come down but if you actually look at the data from where we are today compared to a year ago we are in the exact same place this virus continues to ab and flow and surge and i hope that we will continue to watch this data and continue to be agile in our recommendations as we learn more about this virus thank you [Applause] hello my name is luis barnett um i'm glad you guys decided to follow the guidelines uh it's shocking that you had to take a poll and have the community divided and on pins and needles to see how it went when you could have just avoided all this turmoil and just let everybody be at

190ease knowing that hey you know what we're in a different phase like the lady before stated things have changed instead boards across this country just they're dividing people they'd like you to know that parents are fed up with that i mean why can't you guys just focus on education instead of just dividing people thank you mandy erinson i just wanted to say i'm an or nurse i wear masks all day long changing them after every patient n95s are the best masks to wear if you're trying to use them for viral protection and 95s also need to be changed probably every two hours because when you're wet they're not protecting you from anything these that you're having at the door they actually said store in a cool dry place and avoid high temperatures humidity and direct

191sun for extended periods of time our children are in these extended periods of time breathing humidity it doesn't do anything for them i'm just saying when you're talking about putting the kids in masks and putting them in n95s think about the reason and why and do your research for the masks that you're putting them in thank you ashley saint claire um i want everybody to just like take a deep breath and think about when the pandemic and lockdown first happened and how we as a community came together and we were leaving meals on each other's porches we had an entire facebook group of grown women adored like ding dong doorbell ditching bottles of wine and snacks on each other's porches like the divide that has happened in this community and those two years it breaks

192my heart and i really truly hope that now that the masking issue is is done for for now you know um for forever um i really hope that we can get back to the point where we want to leave meals on neighbors porches and drop bottles of wine off at people's houses and just respect each other as being people in this community who are doing the best we can for our kids and for ourselves and for this world around us and to stop just being so divided and angry and accusatory and finger-pointing and that's all i have to say [Music] [Applause] hi rachel hobbs i'm going to piggyback off of andrea bennex comments it's something that i have approached the board about many many times about the minutes and having that transparency having it as

193a means of communication i know that we had a communication meeting monday but there's been no report on that and we don't see the communications getting better we see them getting worse and i do support what miss freight said that you know these board minutes they don't need to be verbatim but summary is fine and when the issue was first raised about the board minutes it wasn't about public comments it was three and a half pages of brian's comments not the public not the board so there's a real issue here when you cut out the public comments and when you cut out board comments why are you doing that are you doing it to be transparent because that doesn't seem like that's the case so it's you're hiding something we don't understand and you could

194explain all that you want that is the msab that you're following the requirements i will say the bare minimum requirements but i think that you owe it to the community to do just a little bit more we've asked for it please consider making a change thank you massage and there's been a lot of nice words today um i mean obviously every video here to support you guys a lot of people here don't support you guys um respect is a two-way street and there's been very little respect if any from this board to the parents that have come out here week after week month after month year after year trying to get you guys to see data that you're not looking at it's clear to me that the data you guys looked at was only data

195that supported your positions your political positions okay the date has been available from day one proving masks don't work there's no there's no debate on this issue since the 1800s they've had debates on mass and the proof that masks don't work in pandemics because they have to be changed regularly they have to made up a special material you have to be specially trained okay ignorance is bliss people ignorance is bliss and you guys are clearly ignorant okay you don't deserve to be running the school board you don't deserve to be in charge of the students in this district okay you have to listen to me it's my first amendment right you signed on to this you got elected you have to listen to me i can call you whatever i want ignorant is just basically

196meaning unaware okay you can take it as a negative or not your choice okay you guys are clearly unaware using data that supports your position instead of the data these parents went over bent over backwards did all the research gave you alternative points of view with data from not unbiased uh sources and you chose to ignore it okay you guys are responsible for the school district is right now you guys are responsible for the failure of the school district to address this situation none of your mitigation efforts worked i don't care what any of these parents said not one mitigation effort worth why because you can't mitigate a virus okay it can't be mitigated the mass don't work no matter what how you wore it no matter what you did social distancing doesn't work they

197prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt okay you guys aren't medical experts you just admitted it start following the law start following what people are asking you to do give parents choice instead of going oh we're going to elect okay we're going to go ahead and allow you to have choice you never should have instituted a mass policy in the first place that's just ignorance on your part you're not deserving of the positions you hold and you should resign [Applause] my name is annette kennedy i would just like to continue what i wasn't able to to continue earlier or finish rather and i would like my comments noted in the minutes please i find it interesting that the board continually says how they were following the guidelines of the washington county health department right

198on the washanah county health department's website when i was being continuously um pursued and threatened by mr gerba and mr shin it said right on the washington county website at that time it is further ordered that this order meaning the mask recommendation shall not apply to the following persons he was persons who have a medical reason for non-compliance with this order confirmed in writing from a medical doctor md or doctor of osteopathic medicine do currently licensed in sorry i'm having trouble licensed in practice medicine in the state of michigan and again i showed my letter to you mr gerba and you chose to ignore the washington county website's recommendation you continue to threaten me with a no trespassing order you continue to threaten to have me arrested you finally did let me come to my

199daughter's senior night when she was going to be the only one out there without a parent because my husband has a late lab that night mr shin sent me threatening email when he saw me at and meet after you had given me permission to go isolate in an area in the stands not go near other people he sent me a threatening email when i responded to him you jumped right to his defense and said oh he wasn't aware that we came to an agreement but i never heard from mr shin again i never got an apology i just find it really really disappointing disconcerting that you four big men came after this little woman with disabilities repeatedly came after me said you were following the washtenaw county website the health department website when you clearly

200were not when i pointed that out to mr shin that i you had let me you had given me the uh you were gracious enough i am being sarcastic to let me show up i never heard another word from him no apology nothing i think you and mr shin minimum owe me an apology for the way you treated me during this i missed my daughter's swim season and my son's swim season it was my daughter's senior year the few times when i was there i was up there i was constantly waiting for someone to come after me because of your treatment of me because i have disabilities that's wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself are the others so i'm glad that you guys made the decision that you did and um i didn't

201even prepare this statement um it was brought to my attention i'm really proud of a lot of people that stood up that never stood up and spoke before i'm really proud especially of all these kids that got involved regardless of what even side that they that they took just the fact that they were willing to stand up here which there are a lot of adults who can't even do that it was brought to my attention though that there are people that are sitting right here in this front row there that were making snide comments about students the word that was used was vile comments about the students that were coming up here to speak the adults were saying that about the children these are the same people that are on social media saying that people

202that agree with my stance on things are the ones who are hateful let that sink in for a second by the way one of those adults i believe is one of our newer city council members as well so is that what's going to be said if if if milan community members attend city council meetings and have a concern or have an important thing to say to their local government officials which they have a civic duty responsibility and right to do by the way so the fact i mean i don't care about the people that came up here and said things that disagree with me i still respect them for being able to come here and say it and they have every right to do so they had every right to do so and if they

203are concerned about covet and they want a mask and they want their children masked i support their right to do that and i would never allow my child to be able to make their child feel badly about that decision that is how i feel i feel that way about my side of things and the people that agree with me and i feel that about yours and your children and i am so disappointed that you can't say the same i think you're a bunch of hypocrites thank you miss blade kirk demars i'd like to request my comments are stated in the minutes as well uh some positives i i was like i said earlier i was able to watch you guys meeting from the last time i wasn't able to be here but there was some

204great things that have been going on in the meetings lately tonight's i missed as well because i was late coming from church but uh it is really nice that's one of the things that i will agree with the board on lately is that you guys are having the schools in you're able to have the schools back in and given their um statuses of things that have been going on so that's been really nice i mean it's for somebody that's kind of a rookie for board meetings you know that's a interesting thing for me to experience to see what's going on in different schools the positives that they have going on i will say my sister who has a child and i believe it's simon's that mr is it desarbo am i saying his name right

205she has a lot of great things to say about him and from just her experience the things that she says i wish my kids could have been in the district at the time that he was there [Music] so those are some things that are going great i'm glad that some people have got up and spoke about the students and their academic achievements like we all say here whether it's true or not from all of us our reasoning is to be here for the students for our children you know and to really lift them up in their accomplishments whether it's athletics academics so i mean that's really cool the things that are going on and i'll reiterate what i said earlier about your students that were here tonight um i kind of said it sarcastically in

206my first statements tonight but i really do mean it last time you guys really felt strongly about that student coming here and speaking what's passionate to her you had students show up tonight and i mean whether that weighed in or not you know i guess i'll just say that you know i feel as strongly as some folks on both sides of this issue on some things but i don't see this decision tonight as a victory for those of us that really don't want to be in masks and what i mean by that is i i don't really support you guys decision to fully support the washington county health department all the time because all that means is as soon as we have a spike we come back from spring break you can require masks to

207be back on if that's what the county health department suggests again so i look at this as a positive tonight for someone in my shoes but not a victory 30 seconds this issue is terribly divisive in our culture and i just i hope like a lot of people said tonight that we can learn how to disagree but do it without being disagreeable be able to have conversations civilly as human beings and disagree with one another respectively or respectfully thank you [Applause] hi there my name is tricia parker back when the students ages 5 and 12 were starting to get vaccinated my daughter was confronted by a few of her friends saying you need to get vaccinated you need to talk to your parents about getting you vaccinated i don't believe that five to 12 year

208olds should be vaccinated and for other kids her age her peers to be telling them to talk to their parents to get vaccinated with that being said she was getting bullied by some of the other kids in her grade amongst being bullied for various other reasons i'm just hoping that yes now that you've you're going with the cdc rules and washable county health department i'm really hoping that the peers that are you know that are not going to wear their masks are not going to get bullied by other kids their age that are insisting that yes they need to be wearing their masks and i'm just wanting to see if even the teachers would be willing to talk to their students and not pushing that by other kids their age and really i think that's

209something that does need to be brought up thank you thank you mr debbie allen i just wanted to and ashley brought up about respect and i'd like to reiterate the fact of people do need to be respectful not everybody knows what personal choices people have to make throughout this whole pandemic until you've walked in somebody's shoes you should never judge somebody else for those decisions that they have to make i know i've see i've watched a lot of stuff on on social media people cutting people off because they can't just agree to disagree and respect other people's choices and i think it's wrong it's sad to see the divide that's come out where i live ashley i don't live in town i live out of town we've we still have the whole neighborly thing we

210drop stuff off on people's porches we have people who are at different comfort levels in fact we have some friends who are still on lockdown as if it was the early stage of the pandemic and we do whatever we can to help them because we respect their choice because that's what they're comfortable with as they respect everyone else in our neighborhood who has different levels of comfort and i really think that's what it should be and people need to stop disrespecting one another over this whole thing and stop befriend you know stop just stop being mean it's really you know how we expect our kids to be respectful if they see people being dis you know others being disrespectful to one another and we really need to step it up a notch on the respect

211thank you miss allen [Applause] hello shannon daryl wayne i didn't plan on speaking tonight because i wanted to give other people space here people that felt very passionate about the topic especially around masks and what i do feel bad about is the way this board the board that we all all elected have been treated we sit and watch see people flipping you off during comments i mean i agree i won't call out names i agree with those that came up and talked about respect we all need to respect each other completely agree i also want to acknowledge that there are city elected officials here today not only to support our community but because we are parents we are parents of kids in these schools and it's important to us we have a vested interest i

212want to end by saying again thank you for another reason to the board i do have three kids here two of them receive support services and the kids have never been better educationally at least in my experience and those that i speak to despite coven despite all the challenges you did still put education first so again thank you thank you dr wayne [Applause] are there others thank you for those comments uh next on the agenda the superintendent comments mr garbo thank you just a few brief things to share we want to remind all of our families that throughout this school year full meal equivalent breakfasts and lunches will be free to all students on scheduled school days the distributive educational clubs of america better known to you as deca is an association of marketing students

213that encourages the development of business and leadership skills through academic conferences and competitions milan's high school has a deca chapter run by mrs schlack our club had several students perform very well at their district competition in january evan morlock was a finalist and an rp medal winner elaine varney was a finalist and an rp medal winner [Music] zachary haika and ella brissette reset thank you were finalists and rp medal winners aubry bukowski and josie rumsey well alternates and rp medal winners maya ross and rachel taylor were alternates chloe federoth was a finalist and rp medal winner and an exam medal winner sophie saturino was a finalist and rp medal winner and an exam medal winner and delaney higgins and hannah siegrist were finalists and rp medal winners so we had a tremendous number of students

214for a district our size that did phenomenal things at the district competition for deca and we congratulate all of those students i do want to inform the board that we did have a student walkout today a student did share some of the information with me and i responded that we would not be disciplining students who chose to stand up and walk out but i did let that student know that all school rules would be followed those school rules include signing out when you leave the building and wearing masks while in the building so those were two school rules that we asked them to follow i was told that unlike previous walkouts that this walkout would start at 1 30 and last the remainder of the day in order to prevent disruption from students coming in

215and out of the building we did let the students know that if they chose to be a part of the walkout that they would be leaving the building for the remainder of the day we were told by the organizers that the event would last for the remainder of the day that's why those rules were implemented mr disarbo our paddock principal was nominated and selected as an excellence in education award winner by the michigan lottery the michigan lottery established this weekly award in 2014 to recognize outstanding michigan pupil school pub michigan public school educators it is my understanding from the people at the lottery department that i spoke with that mr disarbo was actually the first principal ever nominated to receive this award we are very proud of mr disarbo and if you just google the

216excellence in education award you will be able to see both a short and a long video of mr disarbo explaining why he does what he does and why he is so passionate about education some other staff announcements amy creeton a milan high school teacher consultant resigned effective march 7th andrea kaplan a middle school teacher consultant refined resigned effective march 4th we're sad to share with you that todd federer a milan high school teacher lost his stepfather recently i want to let everyone know that the bi-annual review of the district's emergency operations plan or eop has been performed in conjunction with the milan police department as required and that that update has been reported to mde i want everyone to know that a reminder that milan cova data can be viewed by visiting milan area schools

217and clicking on the covid case data link those requirements will remain in effect for the remainder of the school year and that dashboard will be kept updated with 24-hour notifications and a weekly summary thank you thank you assistant superintendent comments mr mcmahon thank you um student board member comments mrs bukowski thank you for staying with us do you have any updates for us um i have like a little bit to touch on what mr gearbox said about like the deck of students so today and tomorrow they're taking their exams for the state competition and it's coming up and it's in detroit from march 10th through 12th um next saturday the varsity boys and girls are uh playing at little caesar's arena and tickets are still on sale so next to this friday if you want

218to purchase them and then like ms kill mentioned earlier students are given the opportunity to participate in internships again and last time seniors were able to participate in internships was in 2019 thank you so much next up is board member comments mr sislow yes mr pharaoh um i too want to congratulate sean desarbo on receiving an excellence in educator award from the michigan lottery i'm a former student nominated mr mr disarbo the nomination cited how mr disarbo went above and beyond to help a family through difficult circumstances mr disarbo has been an educator for 26 years and my understanding is that the last 17 have been with my own area schools so congratulations to mr desarvo a few other things mylon high school parent teacher conferences are march 3rd 4 30 to 8 pm also

219a quick thank you to kim jasper the principal of our middle school for providing me the powerpoint and related information used at the middle school's recent parent advisory meeting also the washington county sheriff's office and the wisd are providing a virtual professional development session on comprehensive comprehensive school threat assessments on february 24th at 7 pm also just a reminder that the esser presentation that mr gerbaugh shared with stakeholders on january 27th is available on our website i did want to um i did want to make a few comments in response to some of what was said earlier i have done some self-reflection and i do want to acknowledge that my tone my demeanor in the past with specifically mr demars and miss valade could have been better and i wanted you to know that and

220i apologize uh if i was less than professional in the past with regard to the meeting minutes this should not come as a surprise you know i was the one that encouraged the board to go the route that they're currently that we are currently going in terms of the minutes we are following the msb recommendations um detailed public comments is recommended that they not be included in the minutes it's sufficient to say that public comment was given a verbal i'm sorry a verbatim transcript summary of who said what at our meetings is available to those interested by going to previous zoom recordings and now links to youtube recordings which are available on our website as i stated previously the msb recommends establishing other channels to connect with the public such as community forums personal discussions

221coffee chats meetings with the superintendent forms on the website surveys etc i also relayed that the communications committee could consider and address some of the concerns that were highlighted during the public comments so that is um oh and then finally the the masb winter institute takes place february 25th to the 27th and i have signed up for a few of those sessions thank you mr pharaoh lovers i'm happy to go next i want to con congratulate sean desarvo on winning such an amazing award um sean came to paddock when my oldest was still at paddock so all three of my children have got to experience the wonder that is mr disarbo and he is a great gem in this community and in our schools and i'm so happy that he came and i'm happy that

222he continually chooses to stay here i also want to congratulate kim jasper in the middle school on the amazing award that they also won these are bright shining examples of the amazing work that our staff is doing in our buildings every day to educate our children to keep them safe and you know prepare them for the world that we're going to send them out into so i want to thank both of them and their staffs for all the hard work that they do because i think sean and kim would be the first ones to say that while their names are attached to these awards that there's amazing staff underneath them that make it all possible so thank you to all of them i want to thank all the students that came and spoke tonight i

223agree with all the parents that spoke up in in support of you it's hard for adults to do this it's even harder for kids to do it so i'm very proud of all of them for participating uh tonight and that they learned an important lesson that this is how democracy works it's fickle it's messy um and we don't like it a lot sometimes on both sides right but i'm happy that they spoke up and that they participated and you know got a first hand view of how government works um as to the meeting minutes i appreciate the concerns that have been expressed by both by miss freight and others in the community i think that what we need to do is find a way for the those types of comments public comments public concerns to

224be conveyed to the community and the board members concerns and supports and things that they say to be conveyed to the community unfortunately from my perspective meeting minutes are not a platform to do that they are merely a way of communicating to the public the actions that the commute that the board took and that is why we have you know taken the steps that we have with the meeting minutes i'm completely open to discussion about that and i look forward to hearing what the communications committee comes back with um i do want to say and i haven't said much about this next issue very publicly um but after tonight i feel like i i should because i think that people need to know the types of things that [Music] disrespectful discourse can lead to i

225except in december had to file a police report because i was the victim of online threats because of things have been said at school board meetings because of information from my personal facebook page that was given to other people i've been a victim of online threats i was told that i should be shot there were comments that said things like she has two black daughters and that should tell you everything you need to know about her i also received other comments that said i should tread lightly because people are watching now i will candidly say to all of you none of those comments came from anyone in our community but there were members of our community who also commented that said there was a lot more information out there so i completely agree with all

226of you that this we need to get back to how we speak to one another in a respectful way because this was very stressful not only to me but my children my husband my children have also been you know things have been said to them in schools right after we passed the mask mandate in office my son's car had milk dropped all over it so there are very little issues that happen from the kind of discourse that's been going on for the last several months in this room and uh you know i'm i i pledge to all of you to do my part to get us back to a spot where we are more respectful of one another but i think you know and i said this at a couple meetings ago that i'm hesitant

227and now i hope all of you understand why i'm even more hesitant and have been since december these are very real issues and it's not just happening to me it's happening to school board members across the state and in nearby communities and so i just hope that everyone keeps that in mind as we are you know communicating with one another and communicating with our own counterparts when we debrief after this meeting thank you others i can go next um so i just want to add my voice to what michelle said that acknowledging the students that came and spoke i love when the kids come to speak i i think for me it um they just carry more weight they're they're living the experience i love hearing what they have to say and what their experience

228has been in school it does take an incredible amount of courage to stand at that microphone and so i commend them and i come in their parents who i assume supported and encouraged them to be a part of this process it's it was really great to have them all here um [Music] mylon is a really special place i believe that really strongly and i i heard what was said tonight and several people articulated it really well we've let this issue become really divisive and i said at my comments last time i'm gonna say it tonight and i'm probably gonna say it the next time and until we start to see some healing across this divide we really need to come back to focusing on the kids it's a it's about education and about the students

229and i think we all have allowed and i mean all have allowed this these issues to divide us in a way that's really unhealthy and i think that it's not irreparable but i think there's some work that needs to be done um on a separate topic the communications committee did meet had our first meeting this week i did not ask permission to share this from my fellow committee members so i apologize if i'm overstepping so we spent most of the meeting or not most we spent some of the meeting introducing ourselves because most of the people don't necessarily know each other so we did introductions for a while and then we discussed with them we really wanted to find out what is their perception of how our decisions get made right so andrew kind of

230ran down his process tonight but we really wanted to know from the committee what's your perception of what's going on up here because i think that there's a lot of power in the perception and so we got really i've got pages of notes and really good suggestions and things that we're really excited to get working on so thank you again to that committee for being willing to spend well over an hour there's supposed to be an hour it was two but i'm i'm really excited about that committee i think that the really great perspectives lots of diverse backgrounds and expertise and so i'm excited to get this to dig into some of that work and that's all for me tonight others um i just a couple things um with transparency i i mean these meetings

231are they're broadcast live and they are recorded so you can get the tone and the tenor of these meetings which i think is more valuable than anything that's written i think there's a lot lost in written communication as far as email and text i've i've witnessed it myself where there's a lot of things that are misinterpreted so i'd see the value in the broadcast you can get the entire the entire story um in the broadcast and there's nothing to hide in the broadcast i mean they're it's all there for for those to see um the communications committee did meet monday and this would be the first time that would be able to provide any update um so um it was a great meeting um i appreciate those members that that came and gave their feedback

232there is there's a lot of excitement and there's a lot of great ideas um that i think we can work towards in that effort and i do i do appreciate all the kids coming this evening to tell us their views and their perspectives on this issue on both sides we heard we heard on both sides so it is it is difficult for those kids it's difficult for some adults i recognize that but i do appreciate the kids because that's who we are that's why we're here who that's they're they are here for us to serve so um with that is there any other comment if i may mr system sure that's right i just want to reiterate that honesty integrity following our policies are incredibly important to me and i am incredibly proud of all

233of the individuals our students from kindergarten up they came and instilled all of that type of character by witnessing in front of us and showing us and telling us their opinions and their thoughts it takes an awful lot to do that and i'm exceptionally proud of each and every one nameless freight any others all right at this time we are going to go into closed session to consider student discipline when we come back that'll be the only item for action you're welcome to stay for that but that will be the only item for action when we return from closed session so at this time i need a motion to enter into closed session pursuant to section 8b of the michigan open meetings act and upon request of the student's parent guardian for the purpose of

234conducting a hearing to consider the discipline of a student whose identity is known to the board as student 2021-2022-2 moved by pharaoh support by haika it's been moved and supported by haika uh miss macchio yes mr sislow yes mr pharaoh yes miss freight yes haika yes miss kyger yes miss landing hand yes motion carries 7-0 going on a closed session at 10 32. thank you for attending this evening drive home safely i'm so tired okay so oh um shut up [Music] so [Music] check uh all right return an open session at 1108. i need a motion to expel student 2021-2022-2 in accordance with the attached resolution so moved support by landing him the move by macchio supported by landing hand to expel student 2021-2022-2 in accordance with the attached resolution miss haika [Music] meeting is

235adjourned at 1109. [Music]