001the appointed time and place to see a quorum present i will go ahead and call this meeting to order if you'd all please rise and join me in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you david smith here thank you next preview agenda do we have any changes to the agenda this evening uh they were unable to be here i do not believe we have any ffa representatives here this evening uh and we will try to get them rescheduled for next month uh to that end but otherwise i have no changes to the agenda all right this brings us to the first of two times for members of
002the public to address the board so at this time let's start with online offline tyler you want us let's do offline first okay so i'll start by recognizing people in the room if you'd like to recognize this time please raise your hand when you come forward please identify yourself and then keep your remarks brief around two minutes and appreciate it very much is there anyone you'd like to be recognized at this time i don't have anything really super formal or anything tonight i just wanted to refer um oh i'm sorry you just said that maria gracias 611 arlington um so i was looking at the resolution that you guys came up with and i really appreciate you guys coming up with the resolution um and there was only one a couple of questions that i
003had about it um that i was hoping you guys could discuss tonight so it says in the resolution that if cases the board administration will continue to track regional and local kobit 19 data and its significant increases in positive cases occur the board is prepared to call a special board meeting to revisit so is this saying that if cases go up in watertown or in our state even if they're not going up in wusd schools there may need to be a modification um you may have a reason for this but it seems we should be watching active cases in each particular school because i don't know a company of a thousand people could have a coveted outbreak and that could be very contained in that one company but it might not affect our schools at
004all so it's just something i wanted to bring up um also i'm hoping that the word significant is further defined in the fine print of the resolution because what i feel is significant is probably very different than what everybody else in this room feels is significant so i was hoping you guys could just um also discuss that as part of the resolution thank you all right thank you next and the friend i'm just going to stay here because it's hard to stand my name is lori hoffman um i i really appreciate that you guys put this put this together and then you included the community on this um i'd like to also build on what maria said uh adding a definition no matter what it is uh uh promotes transparency and trust with the parents
005in the community for our town and um i think that's a really important element do you know that watertown unified school district for the past three months has had 500 positive cases within the school district how pathetic is that and i keeps i'm keeping track of all cases did you know that waterton's on the rise obviously you guys don't really care november third 27 positive cases five cases were wsc of 19 november 10 77 positive cases 27 of that 35 percent was the youth school november 17th 28 cases of 28 november 24th uh there was 106 of 36 cases of 34 i don't see how going um quarantine optional is a very good idea um at the end of october you guys are saying oh great cases are going down no they're not they're going
006right back up within the city and town of watertown the dodge and jefferson county's transmission is still high that is dangerous there are currently 30 counties in wisconsin that are critically high including dodge county there are 42 cases that are 42 counties that are very high including jefferson county our our area is worse off than it was at the beginning of the school year and most of you guys are thinking quarantine optional that's a bad idea my proposal as i sent you guys on the email is to if you guys take this easy way out make mess a requirement again within the school district because mass are the middle round otherwise keep quarantine then keep mask optional this virus is not a hoax it is real and can be extremely dangerous for anyone who or
007may not realize it until it hits them sure there is about a 99 chance of survival in wisconsin but out of those get hospitalized is about 5.3 which is roughly 308 000 residents of wisconsin out of the population within wisconsin one percent will be effective of 60 000 who will possibly die from this virus if so if you're going to keep quarantine please put um mass back into place because that seems to be the middle ground and there really is no other way because you're basically saying who cares about the special needs students that's basically what you're doing for these families they have no option whatsoever most of these families can't do virtual learning or send their kids to another district because of other inconveniences please if you're going to make quarantine optional put math
008back as a requirement please because you know what you're giving those with special needs the worst action yet do you understand anyone else in the room please and i will get to the people online thank you very much my name is michelle stewart 1403 shoeman drive so schools overall rely on data research and best practices to guide our children's education teachers have demonstrated their ability doing this yearly not only through their interactions with students and assessing them in class but also by completing slos ppgs among many other things the schools demonstr demonstrate this also through the school report cards released every year of the public if those people that are educating my children need to rely on data actual research and best practices to effectively educate them then i expect the board to hold themselves
009to those same standards when reaching decisions about my children and their health and safety when attending school so i have quite a few unanswered questions and i did email the board it was friday because i was actually going through coleman at the time i have since been cleared so no worries about that um so i get it that you could not you know respond over thanksgiving weekend but these questions need to be answered they need to be addressed um i do not think that the board is ready to vote on this decision in an informed educated and logical fashion i believe you're succumbing to the pressures of certain groups of parents that want to get rid of any and all procedures because apparently the pandemic is over i haven't heard that but apparently um so
010my questions are have you been keeping up to date with the current medically research based studies regarding hobit is there transmission of coded within the school this year yes there is um is there a higher case of amount of cases this year well with the amount of emails that i get saying my child is a close contact i'm going to say yes there is what is the current recommendation across the board with the medical community quarantine doing masks um so then has the board looked at and asked questions to the medical community here either to the hospital or to the multiple clinics in in this area regarding their recommendations have you contact viralologist in order to get their recommendations because to me to me if my my kids teachers need to be doing this then
011you need to be doing it as well so quarantining should stay the same it is already at um it's already in place that that you can you can change the quarantining it's already been it's already a compromise you can already limit it to seven days with a with a negative test so why keep giving into the same group and ignore everybody else thank you all right sorry was there somebody before me sorry i had a chance to even look up yet so go ahead adam fillmore 621 long street time so i i sent an email and i appreciate you guys responding um i asked i asked a few questions but one of them because i like data as well one of them was how many kids have that have been placed under close contact quarantine
012contracted covet and my answer that i got today which i asked a few weeks ago and i appreciate again you guys obviously are getting a lot of questions about this so i appreciate you responding i just wanted to share this that of the people that quarantine don't get covered and actually the answer was 22 or 9 of our overall cases are school quarantines that have turned positive so 91 of these people that are quarantined are losing 100 of that education during that time so i again would like you to vote in the affirmative to remove the quarantine as a mandatory but rather give parents options to take the liability on themselves thank you tonight i uh encouraged support for resolution 1970 um i found something uh extremely fascinating these last couple weeks the dnr and
013dhs were running public service announcements to encourage hunters to wear their masks while field dressing a deer wait a minute i thought masks were intended to minimize the wearer's transmission to others not to prevent the wear from catching cobit i wonder how many hunters there were this last week in a rage about the deer refusing to wear masks i digress that is not the fascinating part i find it fascinating that the state acknowledged that animals like deer can contract and transmit covet to humans folks unless you plan on vaccinating or euthanizing every animal on this green earth covid is here to stay cobit and all its derivatives are now normal we need to start functioning as normal there has always been an implied risk of getting sick when around other people what did immune compromised
014individuals do for preventative measures prior to covet i'm not sure if it applies here but the americans with disability act requires institutions to make reasonable accommodations for those with certain disabilities i suggest that those concerned about immune compromised individuals work with the district administration on a solution on an individual basis throughout much of the past it has been encouraged by the watertown unified school district to partner with parents when it comes to educating a child well it's time for the district to reciprocate put some trust in parents to partner with the school parents know when their child is healthy and fit for class thank you anyone else in the room otherwise i'm going to switch to a few online all right then first we'll take alicantes um so first i want to just share a
015little something that one of the private schools here in town had several people test positive and get infected with covid because there were children who had been exposed but did not have symptoms that were at school this is a perfect example of what can happen without any precautions in place our kids deserve to be protected that being said i would like to share some quotes and feelings of many of your constituents that i've spoken with over the last several months all of these are parents with children in watertown school district a mom with a high-risk family member told me they just don't care about my family's situation another mom with a high-risk child my son's safety doesn't matter to them because they don't want to deal with a louder group of parents a mom with
016special needs son responds to why she has given up on even listening on school board meetings i just feel so defeated there's no point in even trying anymore they won't listen this is just a few a lot of what i've heard is they don't want to listen they don't care they only care about catering to the loudest group my personal response is a parent with a special needs child who is also high-risk and a father with leukemia i say why doesn't my family matter why is it okay in your mind to leave us with the option to either risk my son's health or have him lose the support from his special education team he needs and the quality education he deserves and has a right to listening to board members speak at the special meeting
017trying to figure out how they can get out of having precautions in place how you can do this without being liable how it's not your job to deal with these things i stick to my stomach thinking about how you are elected officials put in office to represent the community entrusted to make the right decisions for what's best for the school and the students you're right about one thing it's not your job to do the research decipher the data or make plans to help prevent the spread of the virus that job belongs to the health department the cdc and countless experts and scientists dedicated their lives to it your jobs are to listen to their advice and follow their recommendations to keep kids safe and learning as best we can our community is still in a
018bad place okay the true solution that will keep kids in school with no more parents missing work and losing wages no more kids missing out on vital education and social development is staring you right in the face it's simple it has no ill effects and removes any chances of discrimination bullying or stress on the students and families the solution is universal masking when our local numbers are at a certain level no more debate no more having to spend your valuable time and resources on decision making that revolves around this virus everyone is in the same boat in the same storm no more leaving people to tread water so you can be more comfortable in your boat show that you care about making the right choices for everyone for finding the middle ground all right thank
019you chris finch all right chris finch one zero zero set hold on one zero zero seven west main street i want to thank you for just again giving us the opportunity to voice our opinions on both sides again i agree with some of the things that were said from both sides of the aisle i do agree there needs to be more definition to some of the terms that are given i mean what i agree with maria what what constitutes significant um increase i also agree with some of the things on the other side with talking about those with immunocompromised we heard someone bring up the disabilities act and that actually helps those with immunocompromised because they can work with you to require certain um things be given to them and things to help them out
020but one of the things that i want to just kind of question is when we're talking about our kids are healthy enough to go to school our kids are sick what constitutes them being sick normally it's just the fact they have a fever even with the flu they're contagious when they don't have a fever several options have been given for compromises most of them have been ignored and then we are now at a position where it's all or nothing and when we're looking at other surrounding areas for our best practices you can also look at lake mills they do not have quarantines they have it optional but they require mass for everyone so if you want to go that route with optional quarantine look at how they're doing it as well don't just look at
021the ones that you want to follow look at the ones that may do it a different way than what you might want thank you all right thank you anyone else in the room all right right there will be another opportunity near the end of the meeting for public comment thank you all next up is announcements and recognition slash communication it does appear that we have some wh our whs ffa members here to speak about the ffa national competition forward so as like a chapter we just want to thank you guys a lot for letting us go to national convention uh personally i'm a senior i've never been before um due to some other circumstances with harvest and stuff but this year i took upon myself to go and i loved it um some of the
022keynote speakers that we heard um fancy lady cowgirl probably was most inspirational to me like talking about like like looking ahead in my future and like figuring out like not like where my like intermission is and like looking forward and trying to help me um she was really inspirational um a lot of different like college and school aspects after high school uh really helped me personally to figure out kind of what i truly wanted to do plus a lot of new technology as a dairy farmer it's pretty cool to hear that mid state's coming out with a new uh like a different kind of sprayer personally i think that's pretty cool so but that's why we just want to thank you so much for letting us go because it was truly a blessing just to
023sit down there and see a blue um sitting in a puerto rican like we call it blue sea it's everyone wearing pottery jackets it's one of the coolest things you'll ever see and again i'd like to also thank you guys for going going there um i was one of the people that actually won an award there um me and ethan johnson won second nationally in our age science fair project which was uh we um we tested the effects of how feed affect meat birds and what the rate of gain isn't that we got second nationals pretty cool experience uh we got to go on stage it was on tv it was awesome um um again like marianne said we saw a lot of cool keynote speakers learned a lot saw a lot of cool businesses
024and learned about like what's their new technology what's different things we can do with and what's new in agriculture we got to meet a lot of new people very soft people from all 50 states and it's probably one of the coolest experiences i'll have my life so thank you guys yeah thank you a lot thank you and i do want to give a shout out to mr kerr who really uh advocated for this trip uh to come uh to fruition so he really was an advocate for you uh so also uh thanks to mr kerr for making sure all the uh eyes were dotted and t's were crossed to make sure that you were able to to make that trip and have that really positive experience i just want to say that's really exciting to
025hear that you guys come back with a really nice learning experience and something that you get excited about so i'm glad you went i mean personally as a person like never going to just hearing about it it's totally if you're just hearing one and actually seeing it in person like we've met some people from i want to say it was like virginia that were like the coolest people you keep going and not just if you meet people from all over the state because we went to other schools we had to meet people that remotely that would probably see a lot yet in our lifetime so it's good to make connections with local people too not along with people nationally thanks for being here thanks for inviting us thank you thank you right next up we
026have our skills usa donation we have a number of skills usa donations uh mr domer and the skills usa team have been doing their fundraising drive and as a result of that we've seen uh thousands of dollars come into uh that skills usa program so i wanted to take a minute to recognize some of our area companies and i'll pass this around to everyone so you can see the generous donations that were made uh 7-up dr pepper of watertown randall sterwald weld and fab a 100 donation hayes family auto a 100 donation richter heating and air a 500 donation cnc solutions a 1 000 donation united industrial automation a 100 donation integrity wire a 1 000 donation nicholson manufacturing a one thousand dollar donation wispak hundred dollar donation clickers 100 donation tbe equipment 100 donation
027seduct products a 250 donation pond equipment 100 donation emergency starting and towing 250 donation grindwell ford 100 donation jwr a 300 donation bulls motors a 100 donation and mass brothers construction a 1 000 donation uh we are so grateful uh to our community uh that has supported this drive so thank you for that we do also have an award the district for the second or third year in a row i think i received a spectrum award for our uh public outreach uh this is a spectrum award of merit for our video series and virtual tour videos and uh jb caudal all the legwork behind that uh in cooperation with uh kanelyn logan who shoots our videos for us here internally uh and just did an extraordinary effort i'm coordinating that if you haven't seen the
028virtual videos online i really encourage you to go out there each school has their own video uh and we will again be utilizing those for our an upcoming enrollment drive here over the next few months all right thank you [Music] all right then we'll move on to strategic discussion and nothing says the holiday season like the summer school calendar so with that we'll bring mr catherine always in that for truth just gonna share a little informational update with everybody here summer school plan uh has begun calendar is finalized for all three levels uh the dates will be june 21st through july 21st for the workday on the 20th once again the middle school will be hosting a rms experience for incoming sixth graders the high school will be hosting a whs experience for incoming ninth
029graders as well uh the dates are selected for those we're working on some dates for band camp and a few other things like that we'll be utilizing three buildings this year lincoln rms and whs and as much as anything else we'll be separating the middle school we'll have fifth grade through eighth grade there at riverside and the high school will be grades one through four and nine through 12. and lincoln will be kindergarten and pre-kindergarten so obviously it's uh you know year in and year out summer school is a pretty big thing where we have a lot of dedicated and committed staff that commit themselves to helping us through the summer year after year i certainly don't want that to go unnoticed and summer school is a planning effort that takes place in a collaborative
030manner and any questions will we be repeating or attempting to repeat the effort around bell excel that we had we're just determining the curriculum right now and it'll probably have a high a high inclusion of the academic component it may or may not include bell excel but it will certainly include some concepts that were within bell excel and we will be meeting with the greater wires on community foundation i believe next week to pursue what they might help support in terms of that any other questions or comments thank you very much sorry i'll make sure that i get dave and katie i've got my zoom open uh both of you so you need to get my attention please or just speak up and i'll try not to move too fast all right next we have
031our principal gallery walk and for those in attendance have not experienced this before uh years ago we would basically have the principles come forward one at a time in a board meeting and make a report several years ago we experimented with a new format where we said made it less of a retrospective report and more of a forward-looking here's what we're doing and made it a little more of a of a show hence the gallery aspect to this and in that previous instance literally the board members moved from table to table meeting with groups of principals now last year we did not have this but we are resuming it this year and so there are three settings there is a group over here that is the elementary we have mr kerr and team by the
032circulation desk for the high school and we have mr whitaker and team right behind over here we will also have dr vitale who will be presenting okay so four groups and i know we've made prior arrangements with the board members who are attending i virtually i can assist with uh helping to set you up into your rotation if that would be helpful but did you have any other comments you want to take first so members of public you're welcome to circulate and and listen in uh it's really the principal speaking with the board members but by all means you can circulate through the groups and and listen if you'd like how long do you want me each session will be about 15 minutes i'll be moving around to see how we're doing in terms of
033timing uh we are all long talkers uh here so we're gonna try to keep it to 15 minutes um and we want to make sure the board has an opportunity to engage informally and ask the questions that they have it's kind of nice because we have really small groups of two to three for each of these settings uh so hopefully you'll have a chance to really dig in with your uh with your principles and with dr vitamin uh so if are there any other questions before we get started uh the principals and dr vitale i think uh have done a nice job preparing trying to uh really highlight how we are working on those strategic plan initiatives looking at literacy and also looking at that social emotional learning aspect and how both of those are
034tied to our overall achievement and report card goals uh and so i think you'll hear a lot about that and then i think also having dr vitale here to talk about how those scores come together in the report card i will provide some really nice context as well so dr vitale is going to be there in the back and uh tony and david schrader will be beginning with dr vitale uh and then we have whs which is over here in this corner here and joining whs will be doug and tina and then we have rms which will be dave smith who is going to be on the phone with mike williamson and then we have jennifer and steve joining that group for rms and then we have katie will also be joining us on the
035phone uh via margaret and then paul will be beginning at the elementary and i will give you um 10 minute warnings and hopefully keep us moving [Music] oh we're making our way over [Music] [Laughter] [Music] okay [Laughter] um just whatever there you go hello so and later performances by jimmy allen and carrie underwood it's cnn [Music] do you know why you can't hear this kai what this zoom foreign so board members any immediate reflections you wanted to share with each other you can schedule time in a future meeting also you know i just really appreciate that um i mean everybody is very dedicated and i appreciate that um i feel like we're starting to see more um consistency more scope and sequence i really appreciate also that um you know as far as using the
036data and the different tools even as far as like what star has to offer um very excited to see the growth that is being measured and it's for all students and in all areas very informative thank you speak for myself i appreciate the obvious effort that went into organizing the presentations for all the board members thank you very much all right then we will move on to our safe schools update um and i would also just share our board members a few of additional feedback for the team in terms of was did we choose the right amount of time did you like the way this particular one was set up um did we hit on what you wanted to hear was there more or less that you wanted to hear um not only as we
037plan for next year but as we look at information sharing throughout this year that would be helpful so feel free to just send me an email on that and i will share that with the principals as well i appreciate president arnett um mentioning the amount of work that goes into this uh and the principles of dr vitale all wanted to make sure that they uh shared with you the really great things that are happening across our district they're really proud of the work that's happening um and so i definitely appreciate all of their efforts to make a strong presentation all of you this evening so thank you very much all right my uh safe schools presentation i think is going to be very brief um so i'm going to go ahead and start that it's
038going to save your way i can look at it you did that for me thank you tyler uh so first of all um i wanted to share with you that we have been able to implement our kobe 19 testing center uh we are able to have it open five days a week from nine am to three pm uh and we have given over 100 tests since we opened um it really uh has clearly been a resource that was needed for our students for our families as well as for our staff uh we are able to offer that free of cost to families and it has been really really really appreciated so uh fantastic job by the test collectors doing that um and additionally we've been able to utilize them to support some of our other
039um help needs uh with our health team and they've been fantastic to work with so so far that's been a really good success um this past few weeks we have experienced the highest number of cases that we've seen this school year uh so as you look at the trend line on our website you can see that very very clearly uh we were high and we thought we were coming down um when we were coming down and then we've seen a spike over these last two weeks uh with our highest weak being last week at 39 we are seeing that also in the community at this time uh so again we're continuing to monitor that uh and watch that data very carefully uh we saw some of our schools get hit uh pretty hard uh this
040past week uh douglas being among those hardest hit uh over the past week um as well we are hopeful that over the thanksgiving break uh we were able to clear out a lot of those cases and that we will have three positive weeks moving forward here before our winter break um when we have those increased cases we have experienced increased absences for both students and for staff and we continue to see that today with some with a lot of illness uh that we are seeing um our quarantines went down uh over the break but we are still seeing a lot of illness as we started this week to experience staffing shortages uh for substitute teachers custodial staff bus drivers crossing guards and paraprofessionals uh this is continuing and in addition to that we're seeing turnover
041uh in some of those positions as well so continuing to work on that margaret brady is doing a really nice job of working through some additional recruitment strategies in terms of how we can keep staff and encourage staff to join us and as you are aware we're seeing supply line shortages continuing to impact our food options uh and our menus across the wwsd um last uh last month i talked to you about this and we are continuing to see this i know you've heard this in some of your groups as i was walking around we are seeing some student behaviors and student learning challenges that have been exacerbated by time outside of school over those last two years uh working really hard to address those behaviors and be as proactive as we can be about
042that and again staff continuing to feel pressure uh focusing on student learning balancing that with student absences um and feeling like there's simply not enough time uh to meet some of the increased demands that they have on them as well uh how are we responding and preparing we did host a booster shot clinic in cooperation with the watertown public health department uh the friday before uh break november 19th um where over 100 booster shot vaccinations were administered again providing that on-site testing has helped our staff and our students avoid long delays for testing um and has been able to be offered at no cost and again our health assistants have been very very busy and i know our staff have really appreciated the increased time that they didn't have in our building yes what's the
043real impact for the test uh the turnaround times for the on-site testing we've been seeing 24-hour turnaround uh so we have a courier that comes and picks them up one time a day uh and then we're seeing them come back within 24 hours is there any limits on how much cost we can get tested there are no limits as long as you are a student or a staff member you can get tested every day we have not seen that but you certainly could does that get reported to the to lynn to the school or just to the person who received the test uh both the parent registers or the staff member registers into the system and then those test results come back uh they get an email the parent or the staff member who's ever
044been tested gets an email when those test results are back in and then our district nurse uh and one of our health assistants also checks that data daily good questions any other questions on that question so when we get the test back in the 24 hours when do the periods find out within that 24 hours so they're getting an email right away as soon as they um as soon as i actually went ahead and got tested so i could see how the system worked and the efficiencies of it and went through the registration process uh and my results came back i got an email immediately the registration process was very easy and they came back within less than 24 hours and that's typical what we're seeing in terms of the experience very easy to do
045uh it appears more cumbersome than it actually is but good questions any other questions on that um and we talked about last month returning the covet leave to help assist with some of that uh anxiety that staff staff has had around some of the covert related circumstances that we have been experiencing this year that we were hoping not to experience and again um we are fully committed to being face-to-face but are prepared to make transitions as necessary uh we have had to transition some classrooms in this past week um again posting program 19 data to our website and you can stay up to date on that and um sorry i'm clicking on two screens uh this past uh we do have 22 cases at this time uh that we believe uh may have been the
046result of a pulse contact exposure a quarantined depositive which is approximately nine percent of our cases um continues to be very important for families to check the symptom checker to ensure that students stay home if they're not feeling well and the watertown health department is offering regular vaccination clinics for individuals 5 and older the dates are posted on the city of watertown website in terms of the safety plan updates we did just uh update again that cova testing information but no other updates were made over this past month i apologize i have a powerpoint on my screen and then i also have the powerpoint in the presentation questions and feedback any thoughts comments questions on any of those pieces full numbers any other questions on that i'm sorry dave katie anything making sure to include
047you nope i'm good thank you um our hearts uh go out to waukesha after the great tragedy that they experienced um during their christmas parade uh as many of you uh probably attended our christmas parade this past weekend uh you saw that the gosling marching band or the waukesha south fight song as a part of their annual watertown holiday parade performance um to support those affected by the recent tragedy in waukesha and certainly we are thinking of them that have reached out to them in this time copy 19 testing i already talked about that uh honoring our veterans we had veterans day over this past month um mrs bynes music students at lincoln insurance were able to zoom with a united states veteran to share their thanks for his service uh gunnery sergeant lawrence allister
048is a retired marine veteran who served for 20 years part of his time with the marines was spent serving in the marine band in addition to sharing their thanks students were able to ask gunnery sergeant holister hollister what it is like to be a musician in the marine band uh and i just want to give mrs viney a shout out for doing this sort of outreach uh really every year she does an outstanding job of engaging uh students really meaningful activities like this one uh lincoln stem celebrated world kindness days most of our uh schools across the district did i highlight lincoln stem because they really got a lot of play out on facebook this past uh for this past post each classroom made a fleece high blanket to donate to the watertown police department
049to use as needed and each grade level also wrote a thank you card to the watertown police department watertown fire department or the watertown public library a really great opportunity to involve our students in giving back to our community and again i want to say that all of our schools in the district did some work for world kindness day a huge thanks to the watertown education foundation we are just so grateful to the foundat foundation uh who every year supports our teachers with grant dollars that go directly into their classrooms directly impact students our teachers are so grateful our students are so grateful and we are so grateful for their ongoing support and we are really glad that they will be having their 5k returning again this year if you're looking for a fun way
050to celebrate st patrick's day and uh support education of the community of watertown take advantage of that 5k run walk opportunity that will come up in february or march um and congratulations to the ffa as we already uh had the opportunity to hear from some of them here's brandon boyd and ethan johnson receiving their national award just as they shared on the big tv screen so very exciting and congratulations to our volleyball team uh the 2021 regional champions uh it just so happens we have the mother of one of our champions here with us today so uh really um extraordinary accomplishment for that volleyball team and just as a reminder we are hiring bus drivers and there's seriously incentives uh for uh considering being a bus driver please consider driving a bus ever something you
051wanted to do this is your chance and i think that brings me to the end we did not have a policy review meeting this past month um and that brings me to the end of my superintendent update all right thank you any questions board members comments on that all right then moving on to community reports fiscal management um but uh some some big items first are our usual payment and variance reports again those of course we're looking at uh specifically your current expenditures and that's gonna be taken up at the educational services committee in february uh the variance report uh we just asked uh that i put together a little context for that variance report on a monthly basis and i look forward to doing that the two major things we discussed then were the
052esser funds uh and an overview of that this really revolved around um three the third round of federal funding that we received uh some of the stipulations around those dollars and that really how the best communicate that out uh and get an important amount of feedback on uh potential uses of those dollars and so we're gonna visit that again uh this this month uh here in december you have to submit something to the state uh in january to see what the plans are uh again these sr3 funds must be spent prior to september 30th 2024 so whatever we submit in january obviously is a living document that can change over time with response to either teams in the district or whatever second we looked at a 10-year capital improvement plan and really in this initial
053uh discussion of what this looks like as we bring it forward there was an initial list of items that can be taken up those are going to be those are going to evolve over the next two or three months as some things come off and additional things go on as further discussions happen specifically at the building levels principles instructional spaces the major focus though this particular time was really how to prioritize that list to come up with either a system or guiding principles that will move items up or down the list which you know align to our strategic plan and some additional um guiding principles and uh i think the mean at the end really was to simplify that a little more shockingly that came in with a lot of detail and we'll kind of
054back out of that a little more and make that uh easier to follow to bring projects up and up and down the timeline the need to approve this 10-year capital improvement list is so that anything on that list we can access dollars that the district has been setting aside over the last five years uh those dollars that are set aside can only be spent on items approved on this list and just because the board approves this list doesn't automatically mean the project is now a goal the expenditure would still have to be bid out and still approve on an individual basis at the board level that we're not surprised by anything there's some transparency to what's being brought forward finally uh the webster air handling unit uh you had a walk through this morning with
055different sub contractors who are interested in the work we'll bring forward the final bids to the finance committee on the 15th for hopeful um stuffs for approval whatever that monday is before that anything done no good job all right one i guess one thing is the the esser funds how weird have you determined we could do the larger overhead scenarios rather that that are with our strategic plan yeah or have you found anything out on that yeah i did i got a response to vp i'll share that with the board as well it really is up to um the district on that level of detail that's necessary to engage in that conversation with the committee that could be different from what actually has to be eventually submitted but that conversation was really meant as we
056discussed more of a larger all right any other comments or questions in that report hr hr committee did not meet this last month was felt that very little going on we will be meeting december 13th will be our next meeting unless uh director brady has some information too well to clarify there was a lot going on in hr just it was in process we were in the in the middle of a couple process of projects that are underway and we'll have a robust agenda in the summer we do have a consent agenda for you for approval for certain personnel transactions which has been included all right add services uh we met on november night at the high school all committee members were present we had four things on the agenda one was the safety plan
057which at that time was really not a lot of anything new um it was much more comprehensive tonight so um all the information you know was given tonight uh the second thing on the agenda was a preliminary uh course book editions at the high school um we heard from jesse domer regarding a cnc mill operator class and program courses that would be taught at night by at watertown high school by mr dorham uh watertown students as well as those from the surrounding districts would be eligible eligible to enroll if space was available the course would be offered in partnership with with cesa 2. and mr bartley presented details on an advanced placement ap human geography and an ap us government class the ap geography would be a gateway course for ap coursework already in place
058at the social studies department it would be typically intended for freshman or sophomores and then uh josh pure presented an ap physics course proposal of course offerings are ultimately determined by enrollments it was noted that the departments must plan for staffing and for program shifts and adjustments in order to accommodate new course offerings if they're uh follow through and then for the first time i had to i'm giving the teaching and learning report the committee had an opportunity to discuss the contents of the monthly teaching and learning report at the elementary special education staff and rms representatives participating in a prevent teach reinforced training on october 27th and november 3rd this will inform our functional behavior assessment and behavior intervention plans that are being worked on the elementary professional development plan for the october 28th
059the focus was literacy they talked about writing conferences grades three through five on the fontan pinell book clubs and grades k through 12 k through two on the fontaine panel shared reading uh 4k marketing was talked about uh their enrollment would be uh february 1st uh 2022 they're offering open houses at each 4k site uh increased facebook presence and working to create video tours of each site and rms site visits to stoughton and was mosquito took place on the 28th uh they were able to see the curriculum choices in action there was going to be a follow-up with the vendor visit on november 10th at the esc anything honda doing great we are starting tomorrow in training with one of our choices um virtual so the riverside middle school teachers are going to be training
060tuesday or thursday of this week to use one of the resources all right and at the high school there was no particular updates at that time uh the fourth thing on the agenda was just a preliminary review of the state report card uh we heard much more about that tonight when we did our rotations so uh with that we attend the meeting at 8 42 and our next meeting is december 7th at 7 30 in douglas thank you any comments or questions in that report thank you very much next is our consent agenda resolution 9069 the consent agenda includes our meeting minutes committee summaries personnel and staffing that's both resignations and appointments the approval of bills and the first and second reading of policies there are a number of second readings that are on this
061evening's christian agenda it is available its entirety upon request of the board office do i hear a motion on 9069 second move by doug seconded by david comments or questions on resolution 969 consent agenda hearing none roll call vote please yes jennifer yes tina johnson yep steve crawford yes kitten and jeremy yes yes david smith yes and the motion carries next we have only one action item for this evening that is resolution nine zero seven zero about close contact and quarantine notification practices so that we can begin discussion do i hear a motion on so by jennifer [Music] seconded by steve all right who would like to begin um i'll take a shot but uh first of all after our meeting i think two weeks ago um i think it was a general consensus of
062the group that we wanted to see a reduction or an improvement in getting our kids back in school more often so for those who drafted the resolution i appreciate that you guys were given a blank slate to kind of work with but a general direction to take it and i think you did a good job of getting it there my two questions on it which would allow me to give it more support uh would be one do we have an implementation date uh were we thinking next monday were we thinking january 1st where are we thinking you know when would it be obviously we don't have that written in there i think that based off of our experience in the past we're all aware that we need to give people lead time parents teachers staff
063students enough time to get things ready uh if there's changes in reporting changes and expectations changes in how we're going to do things so i'd like to see a date added if we can make that amendment and um on my end you know we don't we don't drive cars slamming on the gas slamming on the brakes and i don't like the fact that ninety percent of our quarantines come out negative but at the same time personally i'm not interested in going from zero to 60 or from 60 to zero i'd like to see that there was some step process that we could take whether it be we have the free testing can implement testing into the return i.e close contact great they're close contact let's get them tested it's a free clinic it takes 24
064hours we know that it's fast we know that it's convenient um can we integrate that to give some of the people who we've heard from in the past three weeks some peace of mind that we're not sending sick kids back into the school buildings i recognize that parents are the the primary leads on that but at the same time does that give every single teacher and every single other student in those classrooms the peace of mind that they need in order to feel that that everybody who's coming to school is not in fact sick in some way so whether it be tests to allow the quarantine to shorten to zero days uh we have the test it takes 24 hours so maybe it's just 24 hours um or is there something that's more in line
065with what we might hear from the city-state or whomever regarding wearing of masks until there's a negative test or a shorter period so um i know that we gave like i said uh cassandra and tony you guys a blank slate to work with um i think you did exactly what you were charged to do and my only two comments on that would be a time and then is there something that is a little bit more appropriate as opposed to zero to 60 something that we can work with for a month and then potentially revisit january depending on how this one works out and also it gives time for the staff to get used to whatever that policy might be so thank you so address the the first question which is it was left off as
066this resolution is thank you for watching in line with what the board indicated several weeks ago the thought was the implementation could be as soon as wednesday okay yeah i don't have a guy i just want to make sure we give ample time and consideration to the people who are it's going to impact and so whether that's monday wednesday i you know i just want to make sure we get that read into the resolution thank you tony all right who would like to speak next paul well i just want to make reference to those community members that spoke a little bit more clarification if you take a look at the back part of the resolution where it says significant so the board and administration will continue to track regional and local code 19 data and
067if significant increases in positive cases occur the board is prepared to call a special board meeting to revisit our cobra 19 practices so i guess what does significant mean can we get an idea of what that means that will be for the board if you want to add clarification what that means i can tell you this language was far pretty much pervading from the examples that were shared at the last meeting so i'm going to move forward with this if somebody wants to make amendments have to suggest a exact definition for significance then by all means did you have anything else to say no okay steve i'm quite comfortable with the language in regards to the close contact and quarantine notifications and i would vote for the board as far as the date for implementation
068best judgment by our administration all right who else would like to speak yes i could as far as significant increases we could take that curvature and just what the board administration would continue and track regional local copa banking data the board is prepared to call you special board meeting um to revisit our if we need to modify the risk mitigation just take that word out just say we're prepared to we want to have that that's i think we're just trying to say that we're not just hey this is it and we're never going to look at this again i think we're just trying to put that out with that that we're yes please i was wondering if slinger had any verbage uh regarding that if they had some asterisks with you know percentages for what
069significant means no actually they did this language literally borrowed from their handout okay that's exactly what they have okay thank you other comments from board members tina i realize i'm in the minority i do not support this resolution um i firmly believe that we should keep the close contact quarantining the way it is um i guess i have three main points as far as if we're taking away the close contract quarantine how are we providing a safe school environment for you to compromise students and families is the leading disease cause of death for kids so where would we provide a safe school environment there was decisions to take away mass distancing and multiple contact quarantining the experts medical insurance and our attorney all advised against this this resolution securely exposes us to risk and liability
070neither of which are responsible or physically sound the second thing is that if we take a look at area school districts and not only take a look at the ones that people want to talk about that fit their personal agendas and beliefs but as a non-partisan elected official we take a look at lebanon lutheran their virtual school this week due to high cases there's also masks in oconomowoc lake mills and fort atkinson so at the beginning of the school year we tried letting healthy kids go to school because of delays in tracing and our numbers increased to crisis levels we needed to go to the current quarantine policy so i don't believe we should repeat a bad the third thing is that i do not believe that this resolution supports several policies as far as
071the 4133 5134 and 1410 as far as communicable diseases and cooperating with state and local public health officials and reporting communicable disease i guess my final comment is this resolution may change the closed contact quarantining however to be clear this does not get rid of coping all right thank you i would ask uh going back to my second point does adding a negative test at the free clinic to change the spirit of what we're attempting to accomplish we've heard from a lot of the public and we've heard compromise plenty of times i like tina think that we're kind of already in a compromised position without masks with shortened quarantines it's manageable it hasn't yielded high results it hasn't yielded low results we're tracking the general population and anytime you make a change to anything i
072don't care what it is you're doing you got to have an anticipated and predictable result and at this time i don't believe that a change to this is going to have a predictable result we don't know yet kids will come back to school until more get infected and then we will end up with more out of school and i'm not even guaranteeing that i'm saying is that that's why i'm concerned about changing the policy without having some stop gap because we could end up in a much worse situation and given that we can't predict what's going to happen when we do this i'm generally against changing just because of the sake of change however i would support it if we had some stop-gap measures and that stop gap would be two-day quarantine until a negative
073test something out there we have the means we have the resources we have the time and we have a significant portion of the population i'm not saying a majority i'm saying a significant portion that wants a compromise that's somewhere in between zero quarantine and where we are today so i just encourage us to consider an amendment to this that includes some type of testing or some type of stop gap whether it be for the peace of mind of other teachers other students other parents that doesn't cost us virtually anything a day if they're if you find out that little jimmy is sick that day you put a mask on the six closest contacts and you send them to get their test and they're back in school within 24 hours it doesn't cost us anything and
074it gets us everything so why would we not do it however if the board chooses to push this forward as is there'll be a vote he'll probably pass so i'm not saying do it or else i'm just saying is that i think that there could be a better solution than the way it's currently working dave smith did you want to say anything before i make some comments i'm good right now so for me i'm not in support of this curve and i explain why by way of an apology so during the summer we were operating on the basis of the district did not have involvement in close contact crazy the district did not have rules around quarantines and their lengths and when you could come back and when you couldn't the districts the health districts
075health departments were handling all of that come fall there was strain in that but the strain was was because of communication or lack thereof and the mistake that we as a district made was we we made that decision back in may we said nothing and we said nothing some people made assumptions about what our rule was and others were led to believe what our role was none of which was correct and therein was all the noise and clamor created around that failure in communication now my mistake was to lead you as a board to a path of resuming that responsibility for close contact tracing and for quarantines related to that that was my mistake i'm sorry that was not the right thing for us to do we're sitting here asking questions about whether to quarantine
076or not to quarantine when the question i believe we need to be asking is what is the role of the district in that process and we do not have the statutory responsibility for this it's not our job we do have a responsibility to cooperate with those who have the responsibility i.e the health districts but it's not our job and so we've spent how many hours off focus talking about this instead of what our job is which is educating so again i'll say i'm sorry i made a mistake and i shouldn't that led you down this path this fall and the reason why i'm opposed this resolution is because it still has us in the business of doing close contact tracing and quarantines and i would instead suggest that our action this evening would be to
077put it back in the hands of those who are qualified to do that work which is the health they will cooperate and provide the information for their investigations but that's what our role is i should note that when we were operating that way over the summer there were no legal concerns raised there was nobody saying hey you're creating risk and liability for the district by having it all in the hands of the people who are statutory responsible for it so it was legal it was appropriate it was incredibly badly communicated and it created a lot of noise and that's to me that's why we are where we are and i'd like to just get out of the business it's not our business it's the health department's business to identify close contacts do that tracing to
078set rules around quarantines and to implement and enforce those rules it's not our job and that's why it would not be in favor of this resolution but it would be in favor of resolution that instead says it's essentially not our business upon close contact tracing we'll provide information that will departments upon request health departments will set guidelines around and implement quarantines and enforce them and that's not our role i should note that none of that by the way applies to people who have a positive case we have a distant court board policy around communicable diseases which create a code that fits into that would say that someone who is positive does need to stay out of school and that's that's already existing policies in place for a bunch of other diseases that's not the question
079here that's not what we're talking about this is about close contact tracing and quarantines related to that and i'm saying we should stop asking the question of to quarantine or not to quarantine and we should ask the question of what's the district rule if you'd be interested i would be prepared to present some language to that effect so can i just comment on that please do so yeah i agree what you're saying we don't want to be we don't want to be in the business of the home i get that but at the same time we found out that if we left it to the health department there was it wasn't working either they weren't so as schools usually always do always try to pick up the slap slack and help out to be a
080partner that you know we were going to be allowed to contact tracy i get that that gives us the ownership of it but in reality yeah you're right we shouldn't be doing that stuff it's their their their business but again the real noise was around people feel like they were getting conflicting information because it wasn't clear gm and what i'm saying is we can communicate better we can learn from the last time and we can communicate far more clearly and far better so that everyone knows if you have questions about contact tracing or quarantines who to go to and by the way it's not the district and tony i don't personally have an issue with that i know several people have expressed that same opinion to me uh they're not the ones in the public
081here they're private conversations that say you know what why is the school district even in the business of that altogether and my answer is because we handled it better it was a chaotic situation but my question for cassandra who was um to say not at the head of that but let's say in the in the depths of it do we know how we would do it differently i mean if we're not involved at all then that means public health gets notified when there is a illness a positive test they will call your building and they will ask for a seating chart which you will provide because you are cooperating and that is the end of the school's involvement in anything covert related at that point is that how it work even though that we have
082teachers who know that doug is missing and he was sneezing and coughing yesterday and tina and i were going to be inevitably identified as close contacts and it might take the health department five days to notify our families meantime we're still in the classroom knowing that we're going to be close context at some point in the future and i don't want to propagate if that's their failing that's their failing they don't get to tina and i's family fast enough to get us out of the classroom or to notify our families because they're behind because they're backlogged because it's whatever but don't eat the issue is is that which situation are we worse off in are we worse off in a situation where tina and i are now coming to school for five straight days knowing
083that we're gonna get a call and be forced into close contact by the health department or are we better off with a proactive approach having our health officer step in and dismiss us from class and i'm not saying we can't do better i think we can can the health department do better and if that's not our concern i get it but that doesn't change the reality in the classrooms of tina i being present when doug got excused for coving and i'm not sure how that's going to play out in the way that you s the the the the utopia that i would agree with you it's not our business we're trying to make it the most cohesive for our teachers and our families and therefore we make it our business at paul as you just
084pointed out because we're probably better at it or we can do it with more efficiency uh i shouldn't say better and i'd love to be out of the business and not have a responsibility i'm just not sure so sure if wishing that to be true makes it true i i think it's a great discussion um especially you know many of my thoughts you know were articulated at first by what you were saying dave i mean i've down in my notes you know a date when do we implement it we've got all kinds of access to monitor and create gateways what's that new midpoint and you know i appreciate hearing from you tony because i know all along that the discussion has been about what is our role and our role is about education our role
085is about supporting the community and the ways that that happens in education but my understanding and and i appreciate you saying i'm sorry i moved us in that direction but i remember your intent and our intent was to keep our kids in the classroom to give our parents information for decision making to try to eliminate the communication chaos that was going on so in that sense we were providing a variety of services that i agree are not in the normal realm of what a school district would do because one of the things that i've been not enough the word is struggling with is trying to talk my head into the idea of covet is not going away so what is the best way to manage covet and am i comfortable that we just start treating
086it as any other communicable disease and we have nothing to do with managing communicable diseases other than the reporting and the supporting that goes on to it but um i i i applaud the discussion um i know that the answer isn't what was proposed because there's pieces to it but i would be uncomfortable to wash our hands of support for our family our students our faculty because unfortunately it doesn't appear that our community health department is staffed or funded or efficient to do what they need to do and allow us and our students and our parents to do what we need to do which is to learn and be educated i mean there's a real breakdown in in process that's what we saw in the fall we're thinking right now jennifer i agree with that
087and the thing is about the 10 day versus 14 day versus seven days if you look at the graphs on the cdc sites it's not some magic bullet that suddenly you're not infected after seven days or you're not infected after three or ten or fourteen it's a it's a declining slope it diminishes over time your the chances of likelihood i mean if we all agreed as a board that the number one goal is keeping healthy kids in school which i'm not saying that we're all in agreement but let's just say that that's our top priority is keeping healthy kids in school we can't ignore that almost 10 percent of the ones that we quarantine are in fact not healthy it's two percent was it nine percent of the quarantine 22 is nine percent of the
088total coveted positive cases it's two percent two percent of quarantine so say two percent what's the ninety percent positive it's nine percent of our cases our positive cases are positive so that happened have been a result of a positive a quarantined deposit for 2.2 of our overall cases that so you're saying if we 14 100 kids chances are 2.2 are going to come back positive which is pretty much consistent with what it was last spring is that correct no the last thing it was 0.34 percent so it was less less spring than it is now but it's still absolutely 22 22 so far this month okay so let's go back to still the premise which is get healthy kids in school right right does the negative test at any point during or after in close
089contact get us closer to that faster and i'm still not prepared to disregard what tony had said i mean we could just throw everything out and go back to them but we know what the health department's going to say they're going to say follow cdc and keep everybody out of school for x number of days and they're going to potentially do a poor job and then that means our kids will not our healthy kids will not be in school more often and then all we might have to insert ourselves back in the business of getting healthy kids in school which is what i think we're all in agreement on and that's why i still stick with my hopefully friendly amendment to add a negative test within 48 hours before you return or 24 or 36
090i i don't care what it is i just want a negative test for peace of mind for every single person who spoke tonight as well as the ones who did not speak but uh like tony i would vote against the current resolution as it stands i think i would support his uh alternate resolution of we're out of the business or if we put a test in there but i think the way to get healthy kids in school faster is you got to test them and we have the resources to do it hence we do need to collaborate what is the partnership during unprecedented time i'm not saying we're all in agreement with what i just said no i know but but it's we did use the term of 0 to 60 to to vote that
091we're not doing it at all right it just it doesn't solve the problem as i look back on the fall you know it was with all the cajoling and meetings and everything that went on between the administration and this and the city health department was a nightmare and we had public outcry because they had no recourse so they come to us and say we are being financially disadvantaged our children are being educationally disadvantaged and now tony i'm speechless we're throwing the baby out with bath water and so what is the recourse of our our community when we have an unresponsive health department or one that can't meet the needs that we so desperately need i steve i do would you support a 24-hour test or a 48-hour test if it got negative kids back in
09298 should come back 98 out of 100 welcome back you know the whole thing with this whole narrative yeah the antibodies test right you know for those who have antibodies and where's the science there you have a robust immune system if you have the antibodies and they don't even recognize that and so our children if you haven't been given the jab are being unfortunately you're no you're i agree with you you know i'm i'm just speechless i really am right so i'm the number two bullet point um you could just can't we eliminate everything down to where it just says wusd will recommend recommends but does not require uh recommended guidelines before and just eliminate all the verb reach before that can you say that again i didn't catch up okay so bullet number two
093you just go down to where it starts saying wsd will recommend but not require the recommended guidelines for quarantine that's it so we're taking a letter like this that the slayer and hartford send out their letters say earlier today lincoln was notified that an individual in your child's class tested positive for code 19 we are not requiring quarantine of your child at this time so that's what the letter says but the problem is if you're turning it over to or at least well i understand we're out of the business i know but i get that letter five days later and i'm a teacher and old friend that's just the day that we know there was a positive in the class right and we know that that might be five days later if we're out of
094the business there's there's nothing that tells us that ahead of time that get a positive that's when we first know in the first place we don't know it any faster than that so as soon as we know there's a positive in the classroom we send this letter out that's it in the meantime 20 kids are sitting there at home no there's it says close contact no you say you can't it's recommended but not required to quarantine so now we have testing if i was a parent i'll take my kid and get it tested okay maybe i'll quarantine for one day but i'll go get tested and i take my kid back to school yeah so we keep testing we keep being involved well i mean but we're not closed contact chase that's what pauline's talking
095about no we're not quarantined [Music] your child was in a classroom with a positive just like it says on number one all families of students in classrooms with a positive coven 19 case will be notified by the watertown unified school district that's what we're doing number two watertown school district recommends but not required the recommended guidelines for quarantine so we recommend but not required number three the wusd will continue to require quarantine for household with closed contacts that's it you send out these letters the parents get them oh boy i had a positive in the classroom today well i have free testing my kid got vaccinated i don't need quarantine i'll go get tested if i'm concerned about it it comes back negative in 24 hours i'll take my kid to school if i don't
096even want to do that that's up to the parents so just questions from factual so we're left with three bullets all families are stupid in the classroom the positive coven 19 casements and you'll be notified by the district the district will recommend but not require cdc dhs recommended guidelines for quarantine and the district will continue to quarantine for household close contacts so just from factual perspective are the second and third bullets because one says that will recommend but not require recommended guidelines and the next one says that we will require quarantine for households i'm just i'm just trying to get clarification the second bullet point needs to have some sort of qualifier as to who it applies to right because i also assume it's not applying to people who actually tested possibly we've got next
097okay so then and number one if you just follow their letters what it says is that you were notified that your child class tested positive child in your classes and tested for over 19. we are not requiring your child to quarantine at this time we're not we are not quarantine your child at this time or we can put it over here what they say your child will not be required to quarantine at this time and just have pull up one and pull it two or three no bullet two so in other words we send this letter out and the letter states your options you your child will not be required to quarantine at this time and you need to monitor for symptoms if you so choose your child made porn team that's what this letter
098all states so we'll just so now we're not in the close contact tracing business we're sending this letter out with the issue doug and i'm not disagreeing the letter i'm saying is that when we insert ourselves into the statement that you can choose quarantine optional people will read that as being we're either higher power than the health department or vice versa they're not going to know which one to follow because the health department calls two days later and forces them to say you have to quarantine you're going to say yeah but the school district told me it was optional but we're not in the business of that statement so if we make a statement on it that sort of puts ourselves in as judge and jury i'm not saying that we can't be there i'm
099just saying is that i don't think that the health department's going to support our position and if they're not going to support our position then you're going to have conflicting information going back out to the families again we're going to say quarantine optional and the families are going to get a notice from the health department that says you're in quarantine i don't care what the school district told you and i think that i feel like that's going to happen i don't know if everybody else read same emails i read this week i'm just thinking that the city and this county health department doesn't support this position and every one of our families that we send a letter to is going to get a separate letter with contradictory information so either we're out of the business
100as tony said or we take a strong stance that we are we use the health departments and we can set a different rule for our students than they can otherwise every family's going to get two pieces of information right or wrong we can't stop the city from sending those notes or the township or the county we could be out of business and i'm not saying i'm not even saying that half of that note is it right right now if it's head lice yeah we send a note that at home with every kid in the email that says there was head lice in yours and correct me on that cassandra but it doesn't tell you what to do prices don't share combs and hats and watch your kid for headlines but it doesn't say anything else
101about quarantine or close contact trace that's something entirely brought on by this current situation we could treat it like any other communicable disease in a classroom which is strictly notification only and that's what we do with every single thing else but we know what's going to happen and for the people in the audience that are listening online what's going to happen is the city and the county and the state are that they're going to get involved and they're going to be much tougher on those families and those students than we would be normally and then those healthy kids are not going to be in school i don't know okay that's my yeah i'll bet you on that one [Laughter] i mean that's going to be the byproduct but that's where we were i went on
102the city well there could be but it doesn't say hey you know what is the normal folk out in the city what happens with that what they find out there they were next to a person in church what happens to them i don't know if they could call if they don't then doug doesn't get a note right but it's self-reported i'm just going to say again sure it'd be really easy to wash our hands but to say we're not going to be involved but i i think that that's where i mean we're in the business of education but we know where that's going to go we know that we do that that we're going to have again healthy kids at home 98 of them that aren't going to contract covet without getting an education for
103two weeks that's what's going to happen we know that i mean we know that that's what's going to happen so i mean as much as it would be awesome just say okay we're going to wash our hands with that because that's not our business we can't do that and i don't disagree with you on that ball but this goes back to tina's point is we're already at a compromise when we got rid of the mass we already had a compromise when we got rid of the six foot spaces we already hit a compromise that i'm not feeling like one side is asking for more than we can give i'm saying is that we've already decreased a lot of what otherwise they'd expect us to do we'd still be wearing masks distances would be six foot
104apart we'd still have cohorts we'd still be sitting on buses far apart from each other with open windows et cetera et cetera et cetera we've already pared it down about as much as we possibly can i shouldn't say possibly can reasonably should and we are where we are and i'm not happy with the 98 of the kids being at home but i'm also not happy with sick out by teachers or our numbers going up or having our insurance drop us or getting in constant fights or having cassandra and entire staff being overwhelmed with you know which master you're serving today in which case we've hit an equilibrium and that equilibrium doesn't feel good but tell me how anybody's going to come out of this feeling good because i can tell you if we make 60
105of the people happy the other 40 are going to be mad as hell so i don't have a lot of energy to change this from what it is right now except for the one thing which is we still don't have enough healthy kids in school and that still bothers me because whoever came up with the definition of close contact wasn't a scientist but i don't get to rewrite the definition of closed contact we can't implement testing and i think that if we implement testing as painful as it may be for people who want coping to go away and disappear and just pretend that it doesn't exist that it gets healthy kids back in the school and it gets the health department in a new equilibrium where they're not breathing down our neck saying you're not
106following cdc guidelines and so the new compromises and it's not perfect kids still may be out for a day or two we have the testing can we try it so is anybody else interested in going along with it changing that resolution so that involves a testing requirement that's what i'm asking i mean that essentially what i'm asking but i i think that we all have seven or nine different opinions here in which case i don't okay if if in fact we want to go along with the testing i say there has to be an antibodies test also or antibodies test i i think you're right paul uh thank you i just wanted to say that i am in favor of the resolution as it is and as much as i would love to wash my
107hands with this whole resolution and be out of the business i don't have much faith in the health department so i am in favor of the resolution as is thank you katie i you know i i think we're just going into the weeds here um i go along with katie that i would support this resolution as stands using david's vernacular i don't have a whole lot of energy for you know continuing with this debate and i would just like to see the question called chase man um so i david i appreciate your [Music] efforts in trying to find a compromising i i don't see you know as a as much as i don't necessarily agree with the guidelines and and the logic and the science that's always biasly applied to it i don't see the
108logic in like when a testing take pla takes place the timing of it and everything else that it's just this magic well then you can go in and get your test and you're out um you know so i think that just opens up a hornet's nest of you know water what are we following we're kind of making our own our own rules and our own process behind that that doesn't have any backing of anybody um whether it's i i appreciate it but i don't i don't get all the way there um i just made some notes here that i want to look at so our goal here is to get to not have healthy kids out of school last year we were at we took we had 99.5 of the kids that we quarantined were
109healthy never contracted the virus while they were on quarantine this year we're at 98 i i see that the breakthrough vaccination rate that we're seeing is much higher than either of those numbers so here we are we're taking healthy kids that aren't vaccinated and saying they can't be there but we're allowing vaccinated kids to show up and and be there there's just that logic just blows up in to me um so now we have our health department so we made a motion at the very end of the school year last year that said this is your responsibility health department they had the entire summer to staff up plan up organize around it know what to do and they didn't instead we come as a nimble great organization that we are we staff up around it
110we put dollars behind it not only the direct staff that we had but the administration and the board level and the even the teacher level of the amount of focus that we have taken off of education and put on to this is absurd it's absolutely absurd the amount that we have then stepped up and done that now we've added testing as probably the only testing site in the city instead of having the health department facilitate having that testing exist or somebody else i mean why is it us we had a special meeting two weeks ago and then we get an email from our health department that i spent an hour watching the video that was recommended that we watch that says our role is to be positive over vaccinations that was what the help the
111assistance our health department gave us was watch this video that says vaccinate vaccinate vaccinate vaccinate from a extremely biased perspective i i don't know where i don't know where where we even begin to go with this i mean i i firmly believe it should not be if the health department believes this is something that they we should be doing then the health department should step up and say what it is and do it or extremely hold our hand on it and give us lots of resources and support in doing it as they partner with us in doing it instead they're saying just do it but do what just do it so i i don't know the right answer i i i believe it should be the direction that tony has had where it should be
112not our responsibility as the health departments pony up to it don't come and try to say we're here we're helping you know you tell us exactly what to do and we'll do it health department if not we're treading this middle ground of a total and utter mess again that's all so where do we stand are there proposals to amend this language what if we um just it says upon request of a parent or guardian we will perform close contact tracing for that student could couldn't they reach out to the health department and have them asked to do that just the same well we couldn't put that in there it still comes back to us i know somebody's got a parent or guardian yeah we're going to have to give them the seating arrangement or whatever
113it is anyway right or not i don't know but go and ask your health department we have we did and they failed i i agree they we have they have not given us any clear guidance any clear direction and it makes us look horrible and that makes us look horrible in delivering quality education which is our mission cassandra assuming that this gets voted on as written and let's just say for assumptions initially that it fails what can do you think that you and your staff can implement we didn't want to do virtual plus again i know that going into the break i don't care if you say after i don't know the trimester's fall i don't know in christmas falls or or christmas i go but i don't know when kids are gone and come
114back to do something that better augments if if we don't end up passing this we're where we are which is to say that we still end up with at any given time 30 to 80 kids in quarantine regardless of the validity of those quarantines that's just where they are because we can't come to a we're at an impasse with the health department and our responsibility to enforce rules that we may not agree with which means if we're not going to be in the business of health and we still have to be in the business of delivering quality education and that may mean to kids who are not present and so if we don't want to put all of our resources into quarantines and to tracking into et cetera et cetera and we just stick with
115exactly where we are knowing that if we kick it back to the health department we may end up with even more work or if we implement the amendment that i previously suggested we could end up with more work because now we're tracking test results or antibody results which i agree with steve um and you're even getting it more crossways with other entities so i know i'm getting around with the question what can we do to be better at administering quality education for kids who aren't in school we cannot get around this impasse and i don't know if that i'm looking for an answer as much as i am looking for this is what we're going to do to be better and this is how we're going to get there we're going to put a plan
116in place so we're better at administering quality education because i don't know if we're going to get around this impasse so i'm going to answer a slightly different question um we spent this morning meeting with our central office team around this resolution and what would how we would implement this and how we would uh plan for this and part of our thinking around that is we don't know exactly how the health department is going to respond we don't know what their close contact tracing is going to look like or what that is going to require of us so that's an unknown piece for us right now however we have ed services on december 7th um we were thinking if we implemented this as of december 1 we would at least have some initial idea about
117what that would look like and be able to come back on december 7th and have an initial follow-up conversation on what is this looking like where are we at in terms of our relationship with the city and the health department um and what modifications potentially do we need to make um do i think of that you know this resolution is perfect as it is currently worded i do not do i think there's potentially going to be pitfalls uh i do uh do i think that we can implement this and then see what we maybe need to modify and not modify based on what the response is going to be um yes i i do i mean and i would say that about most things you know when we come to the board meeting we are
118prepared to make whatever the resolution is going to be we are prepared as a team to make it work that's what i feel like administratively is our task so we have talked through this we have figured out what we're going to do to make it work we figured out what we're going to do tomorrow uh to execute on this we didn't implement any quarantines today in anticipation of this potentially passing today and so we sort of held on all of that planning to communicate out to families tomorrow um i i think that it is important for us to have a strong partnership with our city partners um i also understand the frustration around you know the data that we currently have i also hear completely this 0 to 60 what's you know what's in the
119middle what's the compromise look like um but i feel like people came here tonight with a basic understanding of what could possibly happen tomorrow um and making significant changes to this might make it more difficult to figure out what that change looks like in implementation so i don't know if that answers your question i certainly can work with the principals if we are going to keep our existing policy in place which you know we are also able to do and execute on uh in terms of how we can better address those kids who are who are at home and help our teachers who are educating remotely and in person as well you know we can certainly continue to strive to do better there um it's a challenge it's a challenge for our staff it's a
120challenge for our families um and we are still seeing sickness and we have kids at home and staff at home so i don't know if that answered your question well if you say that if this doesn't pass you'll work on it come up with a better solution that answers my question we've got to do better at educating the ones who aren't at school if we're not going to be able to get more in school and and that may be out of our hands because we've washed our hands at quarantine and the city swoops in and quarantines everybody in which case then everybody's at home i'd like to point out a couple things here number one the city has no policing powers for enforcement number two we miss the whole another whole aspect of this not
121just the education of the kids but the mental health and well-being of our families because there are families that are being financially disadvantaged being hurt and it causes great stress within those family units so all for the wisdom of solomon you know i think i think as a community we have to take ownership of this um pandemic in as much as i recognize that it is an actual virus i do not doubt that but there are so many things that can be used to fight it there are prophylactics and therapies out there that have had great success around the world and we don't talk about it all they talk about is vaccination vaccination and you see where that has gotten us if if we would take ownership and utilize the therapies and everything that have
122been tested for 60 years longer some of them and implement those and have a health department that recognizes them as an interdiction for this virus i think our community would be a whole lot better off and we would be held up as a standard of somebody who's thinking outside the box rather than just following being a lemming and falling over the cliff and vaccinating everything in sight else so again trying to drive to the conclusion is there any proposal to amend the current language investigation i would just amend to take off the significant increases portion four you need a second on that tony and by that you mean and if significant increases in positive cases occur that full just take the report so any comments or questions on that proposed amendment again that it's just
123removing the clause and if significant increases in positive cases occur all we're dressing at the moment please doug well yes tony internet yes yes tina johnson yes david smith yes and the motion carries are there any other proposed amendments otherwise i'm going to call the question do we want to have a board include an implementation date an implementation date yes is definitely part of the resolution it should be okay i propose december first i second that to add an implementation dates of wednesday december 1st comments or questions on that amendment why why not i mean why not immediately i'm i'm missing that we've already held back the quarantines from yesterday or from today now we're talking about doing it on wednesday that this i think it'd be i think it'd be cleaner to have it
124be effective immediately but because it where all we're doing is rolling back we're not adding anything so for me again i want to draw from previous experience i think just waiting a day in order or in order to properly organize communication will just make things a lot better it will give us the opportunity dave to update all of the letters to communicate out with our staff to communicate out with our families to communicate out with the students and families that are currently out on quarantine having i don't think we should extend it much beyond that because again we have to make decisions around you know new cases as they come in so i would like it to be quick but i would also really think that it would be very helpful to the effective administration
125of this to have a day to make that transition so what are you doing with a case from today we would not send those cases out on quarantine but we would tomorrow send out communication families explaining to them the new processes that we are going to put in place we would send out communications to staff so we're not sending based on our conversation this morning with all of our health staff and our central office team we would not send any new quarantines out uh but this would give us an opportunity to speak to those who are currently out on quarantine and again all of our staff and all of our families so i i hear the communication part and i greatly appreciate it but it sounds like really it's stamping effectively it already happened today
126we've already held it back and it will hold it back tomorrow so it is already happened it's just the communication pieces and rewriting letters will be different so i mean correct we would have i'm fine but it's it seems a little pokey all right any other comments on the proposed amendment adding the december 1st roll call vote please dougla yes tony arnold yes jennifer backing yes tina jackson nope steve popham yes yes yes david smith yes yes all right any other amendments i i would like to hear your proposed amendment tony you have it would be alternative language entirely dave so i don't think it would be appropriate at this moment in time okay doug was headed in the direction it's required to give it a clarification on that second bullet point from where he
127had it that would have been much to the effect of what i intended since we only have it upon request from a parent or guardian that's the only time we're going to do it i think that'll so we have we have near zero understanding of what our local health departments are going to do with this i don't know well to be clear their reaction to this language would say the scene is right the local health department will continue to complete invest case investigations and contact tracing with the information provided contact notification will be extremely limited without the coordination of contact tracing by wusd verbatim from the email that the request steps all right any other comments or questions on the amendments for myself having heard out a variety of perspectives from you all you know
128my intent hearing what you've had to say i do recognize that this motion takes us a lot closer to what i was proposing than where we are right now anything else all right i'll call the question please call the role on the now amended resolution yes tony arnold yes jennifer backing no tina johnson nope steve crawford yes keaton and durian yes no david smith yes and the motion carries we have no other action items for this evening this brings us to our second point in the meeting for public input the members of the audience would like to be recognized raise your hand here or use your raising hand feature online and we'll be sure to recognize you again please identify yourself and keep your remarks brief does anyone like to speak here i think you
129guys are making a great mistake made quarantine optional especially because parents will send their kids to school if they don't have a fever it's been like that for years past what i think you guys should do if you guys are making this optional is make mass back as a requirement because with last year that help with case is going down mass do help protect from spraying this virus it helps from spreading any virus in general so if you're really going to make it up to the parents to decide whether or not they should quarantine their kids or not then they mask a requirement until transmissions in the city of watertown the town of watertown the counties of dodge and jefferson are low right now they are high they're dangerous this virus can kill anybody if
130they have a very weak immune system or if they have an underlying health issue they can help leading their cause to a no more life so please now consider making this option because you basically have left the special need kids with who have whatever health issue underlying health issues they have or immediate compromise vulnerable and parents with no choice so please make mass that as a requirement since you are basically making quarantine as optional anyone else in the room please in the back so i know that you guys want to put it back on the health department and i totally understand that i did not get contacted from the health department about my positive test until the day after my quarantine was done so and that's with the school's handling it so my concern right
131now is that it's this is just going to blow up even more and there's going to be a lot more cases and i want to know if you guys really considered the impact that this is going to have on the staffing issues that you have because if you have the 22 kids that were quarantined in that's going to spread it even more and if the teachers and the subbing is already strained what's going to happen when there's more there's schools that have already had to close because of those issues so i want to make sure that you guys are very clear on that too that it's not just the kids it's the staff and everybody else as well that's already over strained thank you in um i really wanna just express my appreciation for the
132hard work you all did on this uh for the good discussion and for a sensible decision as i shared with you before i have asthma my two grandkids have asthma and max surprise asthma attacks for us uh causes airway remodeling seven percent of the kids in the us have asthma and so that's potentially that number of kids who are experienced here experiencing airway remodeling from forced masking so if you do in the future consider forced masking of children i would ask you to consider uh direct ramifications for the most vulnerable kids all right thank you announcer in person right we have one online this contest yes um ali contest 400 chadwick court um i can't express how disappointed i am at this point there are so many people in this school district that have loved
133ones that are high risk at much higher risk from getting infected and having long-term effects from the infection than wearing masks for anyone if and you say the health department hasn't been clear they have been clear that if everyone is wearing a mask then you won't need to worry about quarantine you won't need to worry about close contact you won't have to worry about any of it so i don't understand why you are ignoring such a simple solution mass should be required as long as our local numbers are high which they are extremely high right now our community is hurting and you have a solution right in front of you and you won't take all right it you not see anyone else online at this time and seeing none other in the room do i
134hear a motion to return so i'll move second move right david seconded by steve all those in favor signify by saying aye