East Islip UFSD Board of Education Meeting - Thursday, August 26th @ 7:00 pm

001i pledge allegiance [Music] okay good evening board president to advise members of the audience that they may address the board regarding agenda items after the superintendent's report only those members whose names and addresses are listed on the sign-in sheet available prior to the start of the meeting will be recognized during new business the chairperson will limit discussions of any item by the public to three minutes in order for the board to expeditiously conduct its business mr dolan thank you very much mr zachary um ladies and gentlemen uh it's good to see everybody here it's a little bit hot we're gonna ask you to be patient because we have a um a couple of very important things to go over all right and and uh the first order of business uh the a question arose about

002abatement of asbestos in the school district so what we did was we asked our uh the construction team to come so at this at this time i'd like to ask mr um severio bella fiore and miss robert wildemoth from h2m our architects mr brendan broderick ed and tara from our air quality control company environmental control company and mr jim burke our project manager to please come to the microphone and mr bella fury and mr broderick are going to explain the process of asbestos removal in schools there's no microphone it's very it's best if you face the crowd i just want to go without you uh good evening thank you uh mr dolan face the crowd yeah appreciate that thank you mr dolan for for having us as the district is well aware over this past

003summer the school district went through an extensive amount of construction within the all five of all district-wide it was probably about 17 million dollars worth of work that was done it incorporated masonry repairs flooring replacements toilet upgrades roofing replacements exterior paving of which a good portion of all of those projects contain some type of asbestos abatement or some kind of removal of asbestos containing materials that removal process is governed by two entities mr broderick will go through what those two entities are in detail and how the district complied with them but the state education department is one of them and the new york state and the new york state department of labor is the other so in all instances where abatement procedures were performed the district was in full compliance with the policies and procedures

004that are set forth so if brenda would like he'll go through a little bit more in detail as to what policies and how the process was in was implemented i don't want to be muffled so i'm going to keep my distance here but uh uh talking about asbestos uh could take a long time so i don't want to go into every little detail but i'll be happy to answer any questions afterwards that you might have but i'll just talk specific to this project uh like savara said h2m during the initial design phase of the project went through consulted the district's asbestos management plan which they've been maintaining since and identified all building materials that would be impacted or disturbed by the proposed construction projects so those materials were then identified uh part of the h2m's

005team consists of an asbestos designer who's certified both at a licensed engineer as well as certified by the new york state department of labor prepared abatement specifications which clearly specifies all the different engineering controls that have to be implemented the extensive engineering controls that have to be implemented during asbestos abatement project decontamination chambers negative air hepa filters isolation barriers critical barriers he put that plan together that plan then gets sent up to new york state education department for their approval once they've approved it then that became part of their big contract specifications went out was bid on and then the contract the contractor who wanted the gc would subcontract a licensed abatement contractor that has to be licensed by new york state department of labor as well as the department of health so they then

006now go they start the project ten days before the project started they had to notify the united states environmental protection agency that they're doing the work they also had to notify the new york state department of labor they're doing the work as well as put building notifications out they did that work while they're doing that work uh the school district retained our services so we're separate we're not the abatement contractors where we come to monitor their progress but more importantly while they do the work collect air samples to make sure that they're being effective so it was about a approximately seven day samp a seven day abatement of work during that time we collected over 275 air samples that's includes samples that were collected before the job starts while they're building their containment and decontamination

007chambers while they're removing the asbestos and then more importantly when they're completed with the asbestos we do sampling we use two different types of methodology one's called phase contrast microscopy and another one is called transmission electron microscopy where we actually use the transmission electric skull we collect those samples send it to a yet another independent laboratory that does the analysis when at once they've achieved clearance and which means the air samples were satisfactory we compared that to again the united states environmental protection agencies regulations we compared those results to the new york state department of labor uh regulations and we also compared them to the state education department once they satisfied all that then at that and only then does that containment come down so that kind of a synopsis of what was going on

008with the abatement as far as how it was handled i do commend uh it's the school district they do have a very exhaustive asbestos management plan uh that includes everything from identifying where the asbestos is in the building training their staff to know where it is that they can take appropriate actions in addition to that every six months they retain our services to walk through the building identify and make sure all that material is in good condition and all of that is maintained maintained in their asbestos management plan so that's kind of a summary like i said if i told you everything we'd be here for three days but i'll be available to answer any questions that the board of the audience may have and also just to keep well i just want to make

009one last comment and also just keep in mind those policies and procedures are in place for both when buildings are occupied and not occupied oh i'm sorry okay um is [Music] united front oh can we can we answer some of the questions [Music] one at a time is [Music] how about we answer some of the ques how about we answer some of the questions that you're asked yes yes there was a wait could because asbestos is is is no asbestos is ubiquitous it's everywhere it's a ubiquitous material that is present in every facet of people's life so to say why are we talking about it you will continue to talk about it forever will we remove the state education department required yeah yes sir he said i got look there's i i just i don't

010even know where to start but uh i understand when you hear the word asbestos it's very scary especially what we hear on tv automatically you think okay here we are a person wearing a five-layer hazmat suit cleaning up a contaminated the world that the mankind's killing the planet the fact of the matter is is that asbestos is not a mad main a man-made chemical all right asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that's if well first of all there's three i'm trying to answer but you're not letting me is i i've got to be honest i'm a little fragile because i don't really know which direction to go in so let me start with where i just ended with the reality is that asbestos is naturally occurring mineral just like gold just like sand a silicate

011that you see on the ground it's naturally occurring was on this planet before mankind came it's going to be here after us all right so it's not a chemical that's created so now it was used when they started using it they used it over 3 000 different building products not you know asbestos products odds are your grandmother's oven mitt that you have in your kitchen has asbestos in it so it's actually i usually ask a question how many people live in a house that was built before 1990 right okay right so how many peop and then so how many people since then have had a construction project a new roof a new windows a new window you know okay so then let's let's let's jump back through that asbestos is one of the head most

012heavily regulated materials when we do an asbestos abatement we have to follow three regulations of three industries the united states environmental protection agency the new york state department of labor and the new york state education department all of them have very strict regulations so when there's an asbestos abatement to answer one of the questions i think that was in there was can we do the work when the building's occupied asbestos is like any other construction project desirably you do not have we try not to do that but when the instances pop up you can none of those regulations restricted so the new york state environmental protection agency rather has no restrictions you can do the abatements while the buildings are occupied uh new york state department of labor yes you can do abatements when they're

013occupied and the new york state education department is the only one that has a limited restrictions which says you can do it as long as you build the containment non-combustible containment area and that you're using separate entrances and separate ventilation systems which the plan on this did occur the children were actually in the new wing which was separated by ventilation systems construction walls and fire doors on the other side of the wing was where the abatements took place each abatement area each abatement area was constructed using isolation barriers that are constructed of two layers of six mil polyethylene that are doubled up on all isolation or critical barriers in addition to that and another two layers of polyethylene are covered on the walls floors and ceilings when required each of those work areas have constructed

014either an air lock or a decontamination chamber where workers would go in inside and outside then inside the work areas themselves they have engineering controls which include negative filtration units that are heparin equipped so in other words we're creating a negative pressure you have you ever seen asbestos abatement if you walk by what was happened you would see tubes coming out of those windows each one of those two tubes are attached to a negative filtration unit that are hepa equipped which means they're capturing all particles 99.9 percent inside that are 0.3 microns in size are greater which means an asbestos is about 12 to 15 times that so that's clean air being pumped out it's coming out at a volume of 3 000 cubic feet per minute so it's creating a negative pressure inside that

015classroom so all air is going from the building itself into the class from where the abatement is and then outside which is filtered so at that point there's no way that air is going to escape from the containment area back into the building in addition it is a perfect will it's an engineer all right then let me let me finish this sir and then after that and then during that abatement during that abatement while they're doing that work we're collecting air samples within three feet of all those doors and windows or anything separating that building those samples are collected sent to another and now to another laboratory for analysis and every one of those samples have come back indicating or not indicating that there's been any release from it so this is an asbestos abatement

016that like you said we've been doing this for 30 years and this methodology is done and it's not on you and it happens not in east islip you are not indigenous to this we did over at how many abatement projects we did in schools to this summer about at least 450 abatements that were all done successfully and every single one of those there is some staff there's always some administrative staff some custodial staff again if in a perfect world we would be able to separate it but there is absolutely no way that your kids were at risk and there's absolutely no way that they were exposed to asbestos at any level that would be concerned about it i i can't no i don't i don't i don't know we weren't as the monitoring firm we're

017not privy to the school communications but what we can say is that outside each entrance to the school building a posting regarding the abatement was put out 10 days prior to the start of the project that was put up by the contract and confirmed by our staff anybody inside now first of all no not like the mask i have on right now covered 19 well let's say a coven 19 virus is about 0.1 micron in size but they don't usually exist by themselves so they would usually attach itself to a respirable particle so some so to answer your question it's probably i mean i'm i'd say probably somewhere around five mike five to ten microns in size would be perfectly fine as long as they're doing the work in accordance with the regulations is [Music]

018yes that is that is something that you should obviously put into perspective too the materials that when you deal with asbestos you got to be concerned about the the release of the asbestos fibers into the air there's two different categories there's what we call friable versus non-friable a friable material would be something like a ceiling tile or pipe insulation that when you disturb the matrix or the materials the fibers actually become airborne what we were removing predominantly was the non-friable materials the nine by nine asbestos containing floor tiles which by the way still exist in just about every school building on long island all right so that material is what we call non-friable organically bound which means the fibers themselves are organically encapsulated with the rest of the matrix of the material as a matter

019of fact when we sample that the only way we can sample that material is by taking that floor tile putting it into the oven and burning it for over 12 hours essentially burning off all the organic material freeing up the asbestos fibers so we can actually read it from my understanding there's only two states the united states environmental protection agency actually doesn't even recognize the removal of floor tiles and asbestos abatement project new york state does and there's only two states that i'm aware of that actually do that the other 40 48 states don't require a containment when you do it so if there's any more solace to it that the fact that the materials being removed the floor tiles are non-friable makes it even more difficult for release of asbestos fibers it was done

020over the summer [Music] is hey okay [Applause] [Music] but it was unreasonable to think that we were going to get all of the abatement done prior to school with none of the buildings that's why there were rules of regulations i wish i wish that was the true um is [Applause] the the rules and regulations as far as code rule 56 goes is that 10 days prior to the abatement the contractor has to again uh i mean they send a notification out to new york state department of labor that they're doing it they send a notification to the epa and they also post on the doors going into the building about the abatement when it's taken place what locations everything it details about the projects it's tense statements that is put out but that is put

021on the door by the uh abatement contractor and it's inspected there is a look to see that they're present by our staff so as far as as far as all i can answer is as far as our jurisdiction goes is to make sure that they're following the law as far as communication through the district that we're not privy to that thank you now before i turn this over to mr block our attorney um you know i would ask you know let's go to maybe we should raise our hands and listen to each other please because you know we have been in a i said this last meeting it's been a very very difficult and trying 18 months and we're trying to move forward and we're doing the very best we can to reopen schools in

022as normal fashion as possible and you know the kind of you know just yelling screaming talking out of turn look i'm sure it makes individuals feel good but it impedes the process and the most frustrating thing for me is listening to good people so dug in that they don't listen to their neighbors listen to good people who their opinion is right and the other person doesn't have a right to an opinion okay and you know if you if you if you have an opinion express it if you have a question ask it but all i ask is you tell the truth going to get your chance now no no no no no what you know what can we let him go where's your first name again mark mark you have three minutes go ahead mark

023you got you three school bag that okay 26 pounds i might do off a pound or two i don't have the numbers in front of me i waited in front of myself on facebook they're like i gotta bring my cake to the doctor to the chiropractor now you got a grown child that's the answer they gotta bring all their books home every day my daughter's 50 just got to go out two steps oh you're for the woman with the wheels just don't gotta love you down the steps so oh so if that's bothering she can't get out of red okay should i bring it to that chiropractor is that normal [Music] is a chiropractor why can't we leave their stuff in school why does she have to bring all her stuff they say less than

024ten percent of our body weight that's dietetic it's almost 30 of her body is feeling better because the teacher tried to help but she still got okay still 20 pounds one third of her weight so she couldn't even make interactions she's like what's the point of wearing these baseball while we can't even talk we they don't do nothing in gym class she's like what are you doing they're doing the same whatever it's called make up games i know you all have to get creative but come on yo you can pull the wall of my eyes almost so many times my eyes are clearly you know they got shield over their desks you're gonna keep the shields there and leave them as fun too come on all right before i um finish my uh report we

025we've invited our attorney neil block from the firm of ingerman smith and he's going to speak about where we're at right now with the in the government mandates and where we're headed yeah you want this might be better because it's loud i'm gonna i'm gonna make a shift seat here so hopefully you can see me i just uh updated the board on um the status of the reopening plans and the mask mandate which i know that a lot of people are interested in and as i'm sure many of you saw the new incoming governor you know made statement that she was directing the public um the office of um health department of health to issue a uh directive that there be univast universal mask wearing uh in the schools um inside the schools and that

026directive you know she announced i think it was on tuesday monday or tuesday so as of this point in time that directive has not been issued so we were hoping that we would have it issued by tonight so we could analyze it assess it and be able to provide you with more concrete information but we don't have it yet it may come tomorrow hopefully will come very shortly because school's about to reopen the method in which she is going about this in which she is giving a directive to the department of health is that the department of health has various powers that are vested in that department pursuant to various laws under the public health law that it can make orders pertaining to what's in the best interest of the community to deal with public

027health issues so that is what it looks like is going to happen except we don't know exactly what they're going to state in their directive and before we can make any decisions here we need to know what specifically they are going to be stating i've been getting questions from this board and many other school boards as to what if they issue a directive that says yes there has to be universal mask wearing and the school district takes issue with that what would be the potential penalties and again that may be specified in the document that's to be forthcoming but under the public health law right now there is a section on penalties for violations of public health orders and rules and they range from fines of one to two thousand dollars a day to it

028being considered to also be a misdemeanor and there's also reference in statutes to possible imprisonment again whether or not that would be applicable to a potential directive or order or rule that's going to be issued i can't speak to right now until we get that directive but that is what's currently in the statute excuse i'll let me finish and then i'll take some questions um so the so that the board will you know need to be able to have that information to be able to make an appropriate assessment there's also under the education law when each board member takes an oath of office they have to um affirm that they will follow the laws of the state of new york as well as the federal government so if there is a directive that's issued or

029an order or rule and that is not followed that makes board members subject to being potentially removed from office again whether or not that would be an action that would be taken we can't really state at this point in time so the bottom line is that we need to see this document which has not been issued and you know there may be some frustration with respect to that because i'm sure there's a number of questions as to what this school year is going to look like with respect to students in school and um and a potential mass mandate um but we're not going to have you know a number of those answers uh right now until we get that actual document issued by the department of health so that's what the board you know wanted

030me to convey to you so you're up to date you have the same information regarding the status as the board of education does they want me to speak to you specifically regarding that so you hear it directly from me again we're expecting that this will break um historically it's broken when we've gotten determinations from the state at four o'clock on a friday and then we're scrambling over the weekend to try to make sense of it um so i suspect that certainly by next week we'll have a document that we'll be able to look at analyze and then the board will be able to make informed decisions as to how to move forward with respect to this issue any questions um can i ask a future first and foremost sure all right so um either mr

031dawn or mr block um are there are there or we don't know there now because i when i wrote these questions i thought we were going to have some details but can you talk a little bit about medical exemptions at least in the past yeah we've always you know these issues have come up regarding is there any exception for students who have existing medical condition which may be contradicted by wearing a mask and we had this you know same issue with this last year when students were required to wear a mask we always have to look at those cases on an individualized basis and make an appropriate assessment and we'll continue to follow the same protocol for this school year um are there apparent waivers yeah like apparent waiver is my interpretation of that would

032be where they can issue a release to the school district that my child can come in here and not if anything happens to my child then i will release the district from any potential liability they can issue such a waiver but that will not be held up if it was challenged in a court of law if there was a an outbreak or there's some somebody claiming that they were infected at school that wave would not hold up no um has the state in the past given any details concerning the duration of mass breaks they had the most recent guidance from the state that came out from the state education department did not address mask breaks at all whether that will be addressed in the department of health document that we're waiting for remains to be

033seen but right now that is not specifically addressed from the state education department uh how does the district respond to students who refuse to wear the mask so uh you know the district and again this is all a little hypothetical right now because we don't know what the department of health is going to come out in state but if there is a universal mass mandate and the district here has to adhere to that mass mandate um that would be part of a school rule um just like other school rules we have a code of conduct students have to follow directives so you know certainly we would try to i would i would recommend uh that you know through education you know we reach out and talk about what our obligations are with respect to this

034directive that we're waiting for but if the failure to comply with the directive just like any other school rule you have would potentially you know be deemed to be insubordination and you take appropriate conduct under the student student code of conduct um are face shields or were they in the past of a substitute for mass the um the most recent guidance from the cdc is that it recommends cloth mask they don't address face shields specifically they just have a recommendation that cloth masks are more protective i know we don't know this but i i um i have another question about face to face if they're three feet apart i know last year was uh how did we deal with kids who were fa uh facing one another uh in a three-foot distance right i remember

035what we did yeah yeah so it's you know the most recent pronouncement from the state education department uh was that if students are fully masked and they're in three feet uh distance they don't have to necessarily be opposite each other they could be shoulder to shoulder within that three feet distance provided they're wearing masks and if one student ends up contracting covid the other student last year in that particular scenario would have the quarantine as being a close contact now the state is saying that as long as the students are wearing masks and they're at least three feet apart the student who is in close contact with the other student who contracted covid does not have to quarantine they should still get tested out of for safety precautions but does not have to quarantine so

036therefore what they were talking about last year in terms of face to face or opposite that is no longer being set forth in their guidance i asked that question because i'm uh for later on i'm wondering about how we're going to deal with the cafeterias the cafeteria you could talk about that currently with the cafeterias um because we understand how important they are to the kids um and their and their socialization um mr manzo's working with the secondary administrative teams dr pells is working working with the elementaries um we're going to look to maintain three feet they're obviously going to have to take their mask down to eat the elementary kids you want them to eat and get outside as quickly as possible because they want to be outside um but we you know they

037have several different options whether it's a combination of tables and desks or tables and classrooms eat in the classroom and then go outside and rotate you know as neil said we are anxiously awaiting you know the governor said we were going to get clear directors by the end of the week it will probably be four o'clock or late on friday and we'll be working all weekend but we have multiple scenarios um but the goal is you know remember last year they had shields and they were six feet apart in the cafeteria this year we're going we're cutting down to three feet and there'll be combinations of desks and tables um you know but we do want the kids to be able to see each other if they do have desks those desks can be moved

038by the end of the year kids were doing that they could see each other you know i continue to commend you know our students and staff who look this is a board that voted 5-0 to be masked optional our students are adjusting this you know one of the things you've mentioned a couple times is mass breaks and our um you know jericho school system went back today you know they were the first school on the island to go back and they they um appeared on news 12 to to have had good opening and the term they keep using is you know generous mass breaks and that's what we're looking to do and you know we stopped short of you know defining mass breaks because of the activities in the class an opening activity might everybody

039close together and we don't want to have to quarantine and then they break away and um you know that's the appropriate time for a mass break so we you know we are looking into being as generous as we can with mass breaks and when they're outside you know on a playground or in gym class put the masks down just like they do with the sports okay well i have other questions about the mass brakes but it's not legal questions so [Music] nice to see you phil yeah you want to address that i'll refer to mr dolan for that answer you know and again the music department um you know last year they started out twelve feet apart they moved them to six feet apart we're we're curious to see what the final determination is going

040to be but our music department was able to function in fact last year we had beautiful concerts outside the weather cooperated so music lessons will go on music will continue they they have different rules phil it was uh last last year was and i'm trying to unless something's changed in the last couple you know a couple of minutes i believe it was six feet last year they started at 12 feet apart which was quite a challenge we had them spread out in the auditoriums and it was it was difficult so they're they're allowed they they have some instruments they put um are those contraptions on them you know they the music department was able to function and we did have um you know the secondary level had concerts and the elementary level we had uh

041small intimate concerts last year so we anticipate the music department will be up and running excuse me cosmetology up and running no no they're wearing masks well looks like we haven't made the announcement yet so yes sir the green shirt yeah but the the issue is that um if they say they decide that want to be hypothetically masked optional and then the directive let's say hypothetically comes out tomorrow with the exact opposite um and a specific directive then the board was going to have to potentially you know pivot um in that particular case so i think you know just in terms of being prudent you always want to make them a decision with the most information that you have so you can make an informed decision at the outset rather than have to potentially reverse

042a decision the board may have very specific feelings towards a specific direction um and you know there's also maybe an emotional you know reason that you want to maybe do something but i think the most prudent like i said course of action in this particular case would be since we do still have a little bit of time before school starts and we know that this directive is imminent is to get that directive and then make that decision after we get that directive mr dolan you know i'm going to start out by saying number one i i agree with you wholeheartedly because what's had to happen is our administrative teams have had to work to come up with multiple scenarios which is not fair and and i think the board i'm going to say this again

043not only is it a 5-0 board it's a 7-0 board because the two before the two board members one who's present tonight um that'd be nice let's give mr montoya a nice round of applause we never got to send them off [Applause] [Music] anybody that wants to stay after the meeting and tell stories about phil i'll be happy to listen but um no uh we the administrative team has had to put in a tremendous amount of time to say if this happens we can do this if this happens we can do this if they tell us this will happen we'll do this so you know we're prepared to execute once they tell us what we have to do the board has also i think um shown a tremendous amount of courage and leadership because they

044again we are 5-0 we were 7-0 you know with mrs carney and mr montori and you know what we're going to talk about in a little bit is you know something that i believe hopefully we can all get behind and put the pressure on to get control back because right now um you know it we are ready to open school the problem is we you know it'll be pl it's almost like pushing a button now and it could happen tomorrow it could happen monday hopefully no later than tuesday in fact i recorded an opening message this year because i didn't feel we should bring everybody together this year because we want them in the buildings getting ready to go on a conference day we don't have to bring everybody together and listen to a speech

045from me and i started out with this is being recorded on thursday august 26th your principals will be going over the final plan with you during your faculty your opening faculty meetings because we know something's coming we just don't know what it is and we're but i i feel very confident and i give you know mr harrison mr manzo dr bells anthony uh gagliano's around and the principals directors you know our assistant principals i am confident that we're going to be ready and we are going we have plans in place we will implement the plan and move forward any more questions oh yes um right um there is a subjective component to that you know that's fair to say and um will that be addressed um in this document don't know it may be but

046i think that you also have to have uh some common sense and you know um and we were talking about mask breaks you know that's that's what occur when students have difficulty tolerating uh the mask and i think we're gonna have to take it on an individualized approach in each particular setting yeah well what you want to talk about mr dolan wants to speak again no no it's not i really don't but um but as i alluded to before activities in class can dictate you know mass breaks but what i'd like to say is and and this is the best way to solve problems if if you if you have a child that comes home and is uncomfortable you know conversation with the teacher or the building administrator um you know we worked through these

047things last year and i and i applaud the parents the students the kids we were able to work through this and we're very we're very cognizant of the fact that some kids are rule followers and they may be afraid to ask for a mass break some kids like to wear the masks and some kids don't and so um what we did see as the year went on yesterday last year i mean it's this is new to all of us and our teachers as the teachers got more comfortable and more adept and as you know mr carpluck brought up about the quarantining we don't want to quarantine so if you're in a situation where it could lead to a quarantine we're seeing it with our sports teams right now because our section 11 has said you

048wear the mask until it's uncomfortable now we don't have an uncomfortable officer out there the coaches are not uncomfortable officers but and these are the older kids so it is a little bit different but the elementary kids are with the same teacher all day and all i would say is if there's an issue in a classroom you reach out to the teacher reach out to the building administrator and you know we would like to personalize the instruction as best we can anyway so we you know we need to be i keep saying empathetic we need to be flexible we need to to listen to each other and work together because the hope is that this is all you know this will all be in our rearview mirror hopefully this time next year and we you

049know we're all neighbors your friends we don't want you divided um [Applause] this is [Music] [Applause] is changing the pcr test on december 31st to a different test which differentiates coping 19 from influencer it's on their website so what does that tell you common sense tells you that many of the people that have been tested positive really have to float [Music] and just keep going [Applause] [Music] are smart enough my daughter broke her arm uh six months six weeks ago okay and we knew what to do we take it to a uh to get an x-ray we go get it we listen to what they tell us to do and when it's time in six weeks we go back they take the the cast off whatever we made that decision as parents okay i don't

050need somebody in albany making the decisions for me or the cdc or the fda okay if this there's no end in sight the vaccine we went from two weeks to flat to curb [Applause] [Music] that doesn't even work we got people that aren't vaccinated that are dying what is the truth nobody knows the truth unless you want to look for the truth the truth is there if you're watching the tv and you're waiting to hear the truth you're not going to hear about [Applause] anything okay anything that yeah i don't yeah i'm not the commissioner of health so i understand i know there's a lot of frustration i understand does anybody have any questions for the attorney that's okay thank you do you have a question for the attorney [Music] um not too well can

051you come forward [Music] come on up sir what's your question guys guys please you can't hear him please yeah i can't guys please come can we can we listen rude thank you small concern as a taxpayer um so say cdc guidelines you know recommend universal mass k through 12. and we we decide as a board not to follow that guidance let's say that guidance from the state doesn't come in are we opening ourselves up for lawsuits like a negligence lawsuit or anything like that right so yes so right now the where we have been is that it's been um the district making a decision as to whether or not to go with a mask mandate or or optional mask that was the cdc came out and said our recommendation is that you all adopt a

052a policy that you have to wear a mask but that's only a recommendation and suffolk county department of health came out with the same recommendation so did the new york state education department but if this directive gets issued by the department of health that may have a binding effect on us where they're going to take that decision out of our hands and they're going to tell us this is what you have to do and if we don't comply with that which i was talking about earlier there is a fine system that's already in place in the public health law and there's also you know more severe penalties again difficult to assess without getting the particular document because that document may specifically address that but i suspect that if the governor is giving a directive to

053the department of health which reports to the executive branch for you to do this they're probably going to seek to enforce that and then that's where the potential liability would be thank you thank you one last question for the board i've had two relatives dianne povet i have two friends that were in columbus from colby how many of my relatives have to die before people take it a little more seriously do you have a let me give you an answer for that we're just taking questions yeah i'm not i'm not qualified to answer them you'll be able to speak your three minutes this does not count towards that so if you have a question for the attorney please pose it right otherwise we're going to move on danger is like this conspiracy theory nonsense like

054as far as you know enforcing laws and things all right that's that's yeah the attorney so thank you sir thank you can i just um piggyback on what was just brought up um last year there was an episode where some districts did not comply and then they were forced the very next day to comply yes can you just like what how did the state respond to their non-compliance right yeah what happened i don't know if you folks remember last year there was a commissioner of health dr zucker issued a letter to the cdc stating that the state was going to basically to allow districts to make that determination um about wearing masks and seeking the cdc input with respect to that but the way it was phrased was like we're going to listen to you

055but this is what we're going to do and that was interpreted by some school districts as the green light to be able to take off the mass most didn't because they were waiting for the actual document to be issued by the state with respect to this is what's what i've been counseling the board with respect to this thought directive some districts decided to go forward sagem school district is an example of that um they went forward then the governor announced that no you know the masked mandate is still in place um there was then communication from the governor's office to those districts basically saying that if you don't comply you risk staying open you risk funding the board members risk being removed they were indicating that they were prepared to take enforcement action which then

056required those school districts to pivot and then go back to the mask mandate okay yes yes ma'am yeah i guess you know we have to look at it from all aspects you know and um in terms of potential liability if there was a lawsuit that claimed that you know the i think that again a number your school board is very tuned into the community and has very passionate discussions um about you know i've been representing them for many years a multitude of issues and and this issue also and i can assure you that they want to do what's in the best interest of all um what you're looking at though is like almost like an avalanche and i certainly take credence in what this gentleman was saying about some other you know documents out there

057regarding the efficacy of mask and so forth but all the agencies in the state pertaining to public health and education have have come out this point recommending they're wearing a mask so you're going to look at it from potential liability where if you have a student who claims that they were infected or they got came down with an ailment because they're wearing the mask they sued the school district this yeah the school districts you know defense in that case you know would be that you know either we're following a specific order which told us that we have to do this or there's recommendations from the agencies that say that we had to do this on the converse if they don't do it they go mask optional and a student contracts covid in school a parent

058could bring a lawsuit against the district saying that because you went mask optional now you are liable um you ignored the recommendations of the cdc or you ignored a directive so therefore you're liable so it could work both both ways we have to factor that all in yes ma'am in the back [Music] right yeah i i think that those those those are points that you'd want to raise with the state department of health you know my my role with respect to the board of education is to to provide guidance as to you know what directives are being issued and what are your responsibilities with respect to that directive again right now i can't give them that advice until that directive gets issued i'm just going to go mr montori just cause he's raised his hand

059they could sue you if the school district went optional right there's a possibility that if you went optional yes yes so your grandson gets the virus and your grandson and the you as the grandparent or your the child's parent says the reason my child got the virus was because we were optional yes um i'm sorry over here i'm sorry i ignored the side of the room right so right so anybody can sue the school district and i handle many suits from people suing school districts so the school district has to make a you know has to make decisions sometimes those decisions are taken away from the school district because a law is passed or directive and they're told that they have to do this this is what was in place last year there were districts

060that were having discussions about going bask optional but were given specific directive that you cannot do that by the state so now we have our governor has said publicly that i am directing my department of health to issue a directive so you know in terms of a liability standpoint we need to see what that directive states so the board can make an informed decision as to its next course of action you know basically what's so unique about east islip is a lot of times i'm talking to the board behind closed doors and the public you know doesn't hear that because i'm the attorney i'm giving them advice i find myself in the slice of giving the same advice to the public because they want me to do that um and um so i'm not i

061told them is what i'm telling you is that you have to look at what the directive is and you have to look at what are the potential ramifications if you don't follow that directive and that's the advice that i give them yes any other questions sure are there any other questions yeah i think we should direct questions to the floor we can't have you guys arguing with one another you can go outside any other questions all right [Music] ladies gentlemen ladies okay let's continue with the meeting guys please [Music] ladies guys hold on a second mr collins he's exactly right now we are going to listen to everyone [Music] we have a nice list of people who want to speak but this is exactly what we were referring to earlier people are entitled to their

062opinion it's america and if you can't be respectful and now you know what here's the frustration too many people and i'm gonna go out on a limb here but true scientific evidence takes five five years to really come up with and hold on a second so now you have experts on both sides and if you remember at the last meeting we asked you to email and call us and i was very generous to volunteer stephanie and joanne to answer the phone okay so now the board has said repeatedly the board had said has said repeatedly that they support mask optional they have sent me out into the world to meet with the organizations and the the the groups that go and lobby i do chuckle sometimes when people call me and tell me what to

063do and when i say to them well you could write to your elected officials they'd much rather have me do that for them and i don't mind i talk to them all the time but quite frankly you know being absolutely privy it breaks my heart personally to see how bitterly divided this community is over this topic you could you know look we could go to the county we'd go to the country but i'm not worried about everybody else i'm just worried about east islip right now and the board has agonized every single email that you sent to me i forwarded to them i i did not and usually i call people yeah we don't they weren't enough minutes in a day but i thanked everybody for their opinion i thank them for taking the time

064to write and we are right now bitterly divided i see friends i see families that are divided and you know what that just allows the whatever goes on it perpetuates the inertia the spinning of the wheels now i'm going to applaud the board because i've attended numerous meetings my association president has actually been in meetings with the new governor there are signals coming out that maybe just maybe there's going to be progress but we still need to be a little patient now i'm not going to read the whole letter but we wrote a letter to the governor and i have to say this that the people on the extreme sides that i've spoken to have the same reaction to this they're not happy with me and i'm like okay so we have some common ground

065you guys be mad at me it's not necessarily my letter but this is the job you hired me for you know to be the lightning rod because we have to channel this negative energy into some sort of positivity now i'm not going to read the whole letter it'll be posted tomorrow we want to send it to the governor first and then we're going to post it our communities and this is just excerpts our communities are bitterly divided across the state over this mass issue it saddens us that neighbors turn our neighbors because over the past several months we have had no decisive action from the executive branch of our government i'll get to the sort of the modest proposal with a compromise proposal in a minute in order to conquer this disease we must learn

066to adjust and live with it it's here and it is probably a flu-like thing but we have to learn how to live with it divided communities are wasting because i see it here we are wasting valuable time arguing with each other in a fruitless quest to be right this is not about being right this is about learning how to live with something this is about learning how to move forward i told the administrators today i've never been more excited for a school year because we have a chance to teach kids that hey when evil knocks on your door you knock it right out of the park the kids are setting a wonderful example for me our proposal will probably not be liked or accepted by the extremists on both sides of this issue but we

067we feel we have a safe healthy compromise that will begin to pull us back together creating competition competition is healthy and we're asking for target numbers that will create healthy competition and they end it with governor hockle we implore you to tear down that wall of secrecy and uncertainty that has clouded the executive branch for too long you can't tell people to wear masks and then tell them you got to wear them but we can't tell you when you're going to take them off that's like saying you're going to jail and i'll let you know when you're going to get out governor hockle tear down that wall that is dividing our communities governor hackl tear down that wall of secrecy and ambi duty and give us concrete numbers and concrete goals based on now you

068can base it on a number of things but take the state positivity rate long island is always lower so it is always higher so that helps us we believe people in new york will rise up and meet the challenge what we're saying is if you tell us at four percent we have to wear a mask can we take it off when it goes below four can we go to a restaurant style where they wear it on the bus they wear it on the hall and they take it off in a class and then if it goes below two or one i'm not a medical expert but if if we know that this that we can get this disease under control and take our masks off it teaches a wonderful lesson to kids it it forces

069us to pull together it doesn't force us to to sit in a meeting and yell and see who can yell the loudest and lord knows i have gotten and i appreciate it all but i've heard from a large portion of this community and i will say this i love you guys it's a great town it's a hard working town but right now we are bitterly divided and i do want to stay here as superintendent but what mr block has failed to to say is and one of my colleagues got the phone call from albany he forgot to add that he'll they'll take the board out and then they'll say hey mr dolan give us your license you're not going to be the superintendent anymore and as much as as much as well i don't know

070i could go do something else i'm not worried about that i don't want to so we know no matter what we say people are not going to be happy we know no matter what we say people are not going to be happy but just because you yell doesn't mean we hear you better and just because someone has a different opinion in you doesn't make them stupid now mr block has been very good he's answered the questions i i'm not complaining because ask mr montoya one of one of the things i miss the most about mr montoya not being on the board is he doesn't call me three times a day anymore only calls me twice a day and i've never called anybody 30 times i just want to be clear about that but it's time

071to move forward what we said in this letter is we said to the governor hey congratulations good luck god bless you we pray for all our elected officials and we said we will comply if given a directive we will comply if given a directive but simply madam governor if we're willing to put aside maybe our personal beliefs personal feelings will you please give us the key to unlock the mystery and you know something everybody went to sleep myself included july was nice nobody called i was in meetings all the time with superintendents because we were doing a what if game now i i can't address what we read on the internet tv but i know this to be a fact i put my hand up and took an oath and said i will uphold the

072laws and the directives and whatever i'm not even sure what i took an oath to do but the attorneys assured me that i can lose my license if i don't follow a directive and i could be a martyr and i could get a round of applause and i could walk out the door and then if you guys all went at each other i would be sad but i wouldn't look back i've grown to love this place but i'm not gonna sit here and watch people tear into each other and i'm going to tell you right now the emails are split if the emails were 90 10 okay but they're not the emails are split there's fear there's anger there are a lot of things but we've got to turn that into hope so our hope

073and i'm hoping that other organizations around the state will join us we had a governor who was ruling like an emperor and no one questioned him or no one could question him we have a new governor maybe that governor will listen and you know something is a good lesson for kids here when kids are given things when kids inherit money when kids are just given things it usually turns into a bad situation but when you say to someone if you work and you earn it you appreciate it and unfortunately none of us wanted to be here look i'm in the twilight the board was very generous they allowed me they said if you want to stay and graduate with the kindergarteners you started with which i never thought you know i never thought this is

074the twilight of my career and i want it to be the best light of my career i like that guy so all i'm going to say to you is if the governor gives us a directive we are going to follow it but we are going to push hard and as hard as we can and everyone everyone in this state it's reasonable to demand on both sides of this argument whether you're a mass square or you're not when when can we take these masks off because if we have a goal and we tell kids this all the time we've got ei pride ei pride and some people are foolish and think ei pride is about winning a championship you can be a champion and never win a game ei pride is about working hard ei pride

075is about coming to work every day every single day and doing the best you can to improve you know ei pride is about being able to look at yourself at the end of the day and say did i get better i treat people with respect i'm empathetic i'm caring i'm kind i work hard i have a championship mentality what we want for our kids how are we going to beat this disease and how are we going to get our politicians to realize you can't just tell us something and not tell us how we can undo it now we're going to listen to you we're going to sit here you can say your peace but please all i ask because what really does hurt me are there people that will not come to certain meetings or

076will not go to the podium because they don't want to hear the yelling and disagreement that's why the votes you know that's why you have a secret ballot but how about this i think in one second i want you to give mr block a nice round of applause because he had somewhere to be today with his family and he didn't go he came here to be with us and then mr zachary is going to finish the business portion of the meeting and then the podium is yours and we're here to listen but we're going to listen to everybody and we're going to do it in a polite respectful fashion otherwise no reason to stick around how about a nice round of applause for mr block [Music] are there any public comments on agenda items agenda

077items only okay you had a snow agenda be resolved that upon the recommendation superintendent of schools the board of education approves the resignations terminations leaves of absence position abolition's employment appointments tenure appointments and salary changes in accordance with applicable provisions of education law and civil service law as cited in the non-certified personnel attachments can i get a motion motion second discussion all in favor we resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education approves the resignations terminations leaves of absence position abolitions employment appointments tenure appointments and salary changes in accordance with the applicable provisions of education law and civil service law as cited in the certified personnel attachments okay get a motion wow second discussion um i just want to know how many positions we still have available before the

078school year begins we don't have any teaching positions no not teaching we have probably about seven positions to fill um that have been filled but we're waiting for their paperwork you know they've we've gone through the interview process and so on and so forth and they range in paraprofessionals and prem subs okay so there's no openings really we just haven't correct okay [Music] all in favor aye consent agenda items nine point 9.1 through 9.7 does anybody want anything removed from the consent agenda all in favor of the consent agenda hi hi it's consented too old business mr montoya left that's the mr montori portion i'm gonna i'm gonna do this as old business i guess all right you ready to rock let me get out of the way you just you just slept oh wait

079wait wait wait look who's here another round of applause for mr montoya old business a series of questions all right so as everyone knows um we've been doing this since august of last year so it's a year now here we go ready can you explain exactly what you mean by the restaurant style that you've been uh discussing when and i'm not even you know it's so hard now because and i one one of the ladies was talking about the different rules and that is a problem you know different agencies have different rules and the government agencies are trying to line up so at least we have one set of rules but the restaurant style was you when you would wear your mask into the restaurant and once you're seated at your table you can take

080it down and what we you know one of the ideas we were talking about was kids you know would wear it on a bus they would walk to their class and once they're seated at their seat take it down so um can you i guess we answered the cafeteria questions we're working on getting that as best as we can as close to september 2019 as possible yes we want it to be as normal as possible and not infringe on you know into the quarantining okay um still no masking outside or for pe outside pa yeah almost don't want to talk about it because they don't seem to be saying anything about it so we're we we feel that in the absence of a directive we're gonna go with what we went with last spring and

081that is you know outside recess and you know recess is not going to be uh segregated um and no masks all right the other thing um [Music] you know are there still signs in the buildings dots on the floors arrows on the you know any of the mitigation propaganda that has been up in the past is that still up there is there is some signage the the floor stuff is there you know we we did have a discussion the other day and you know the worry is if if they go the other way to take it up and try to put it back down again i mean we do i don't want to say nobody seems to notice it but it doesn't seem to be upsetting anybody and it is so at the very least

082i understand the arrows and the dopey dots on the floor but um can we at least take the the signs down i mean a paper science which signs you know wear a mask any of that wash your hands any of that i just don't want a constant reminder um that you know what what does that do but promote fear kids know exactly what they're supposed to be doing at this point we'll speak to you we'll speak to mr mr gagliano you know i don't want to walk around the building and just see that stuff i mean everyone knows what to do we've been doing it for 531 days now the only thing i will say is we we do want them to wash their hands yeah i know but they you know and we don't

083think a sign you know to kind of get out of front something else we put we're putting all new bathrooms in the elementary schools and we were out of compliance for the ada and you know in my message today i thanked the teachers for their patients because you know we had bathrooms that didn't have sinks for years and um you know the department of health and would have had a field day with us um and if we didn't fix it now and we did all the bond work and did other things and they came in and saw it they'd make us rip it out and do it anyway so there are going to be some changes to the bathrooms and especially at the elementary as they pertain to having a sink in the bathroom to

084wash your hands so you don't have to touch the doorknobs and go out so okay what about the there's no mass signs out there there's no announcements in the buildings about wearing a mask and all right as long as that's not happening i'm good with that no i mean look anything is possible but there's been there is never a directive to make announcements we haven't we're not school districts do that but we're not doing that i don't want to be we have taken a very low key approach okay um you know one of the concerns of the parents in the k2 buildings is the fact that we're covering these little kids faces and you know they don't get to see the emotions and um the inflections of the teacher and the way in which the

085um you know how to learn to speak the words correctly and and all that so have we um can we order transparent mass i know those creepy masks like the one you wore that time you know the transparent mask for the kids and for the teachers at least in the k2 buildings you know we have supply lists of uh pencils and crayons and things like that but a suggestion for a transparent mask so that a kid can see his teachers smile and they can see the kids smile you know like i've been saying since the beginning teaching is not giving information it's receiving information and one of the reasons why i've been against it from the beginning is it's very hard as a teacher to receive any information from a kid with a mask on

086you know that's an excellent idea we you know we could certainly look into it um [Music] you know as i just said we're you know we've been pretty low-key um you know and notice we went from six foot to three foot which to me unless told otherwise it should allow us more mass breaks the only cautionary tale there is um some children don't like the clear mask because they feel like no i'm not saying required but i'm just okay supposedly just giving them out some sort of medical grade mask let's try to up our game a little bit i think we could ask mr g to order some clear masks what's that we could ask mr g to order some clear masks all right this came up the other night and we had a meeting

087and um i had no idea about it i don't know if anybody looked at it yet the labeling on the mass box have we looked at that yet you know it did i looked at it uh today the question said that essentially and i'm going to paraphrase i'm not trying to be flip but we had a meeting uh the other night um that it was a great meeting it went on for a while and uh there was one concern that the maskbox said this mass doesn't prevent anything i i think i'm summarizing it i i got a i have a mass box i looked at it the mass box absolutely does not say that um there was uh you know it wasn't there not the master box was given to me by the um uh

088you know our uh buildings and grounds facilities okay and lastly you know the mass break thing um how are we wording our objective with the mass break like what are we going to say so that everyone's clear that we're encouraging this goes back to the gentleman in the green shirt over there and i was i happened to be in the room with the four elementary principals today and i tried to run out as fast as possible because you know in the way way things run dr bells is going to work with them and mr manzo's working with the secondary because they have different needs and they started to ask me questions and and you know i do i do like to you know be supportive and helpful but in the absence of the directive or

089the direction we've made a decision that and and look i have all due respect for the other for some other districts but when you say we're going to do this this and this and then a directive comes and changes that you know when you have several hundred employees it muddy it's hard enough when you say it once it's hard enough when you put it in a memo or an email or even a video to get everybody rolling in the same direction but you know and we're coming down to the wire and i i do applaud the administrative team because they're being extremely patient and how we're going we're going to craft our mask break around whatever the directive is so that we can give our teachers and students as much leeway as possible so they'll

090tell us what you know the directive will come we'll get mr block and then um you know suffice it to say i mean we'll have it it could be as late as next tuesday but the teachers are back next wednesday so we really need something by tuesday to get to the administration and get out to the public but again and i think i applaud jericho school district because they you know they made it part of they were the first one to go back so they made they made that part the news is they knew the news was coming the uh you know channel 12 always goes to the first district that opens and uh you know the superintendent there i think he's been superintendent almost i think about almost 30 years and and hank is

091a very um you know skilled skilled and well um you know administrator and you know the message was clear to everybody you got to make sure you got mass breaks you got to make sure you have mass breaks and you know i don't know him personally i've been in a room with him i've sat with him i actually coached his nephew in little league and i've listened to the way he you know he operates and he he knew he was in a position where he had to lead us and so just the fact that on news 12 you keep hearing about mass breaks you keep earning our mass breaks it's going to allow parents you know if they're not getting mass breaks they'll let us know and we'll work on it but also and this

092again came up the other night is it allows the kids to know right um a lot of these kids are rule followers they want to do the right thing by adults um so adults who say hey you know if you're not feeling comfortable it's okay like i hope that that becomes our um a way of discussing mass breaks that it becomes part of our like ei pride is part of our culture the kids not to be afraid to take a mass break um should be part of our culture we don't wanna you know again kids are rule followers and um i just don't you know we're talking about how adults are gonna react i wanna make sure that the kids know if you need a mass break you take a mass break and um and

093again if if that's not working for an individual student or because of teachers i get it teachers are nervous then like you said talk to the teacher talk to the principal let's work something out but but uh kids should have the option i mean we're trying to as best we can um get through every little crack and every little edge to give the kids as much normalcy as we had in 2019 that's all i'm saying and i just want to make sure that we're not only just thinking about i know there's a lot of things that go into it you know i i've said that before but anything we can do to make it a little less restrictive i think and here's here's a good analogy we're always on the lookout for a child that

094sits by himself in the cafeteria or is out on the playground and not interacting and you know we've said this to the administrators and we're going to continue to say it and i you know i had the privilege of sitting with every teacher in the district last year and you know it was it was really a great experience and i i feel they were honest and they expressed their opinions and their feelings and you know the gamut of emotions you know it ran the whole gamut but you know i was very proud overwhelmingly the faculty said you know never thought we were going to have to do and then i'm talking using you know zoom and um you know distance learning and we you know everybody has a computer and they said you know you

095know i'm at an age where i didn't think that was going to happen in my career but now that it's here they were excited to try new things which i i thought was excellent but when it comes to this disease i can tell you the faculty mirrors the community and you have some people who are very worried and some people who are not you know and i'm not saying that in a bad way and one of the things we've said to the administrative team is we have to be very aware of our faculty and support them because they're the ones in the room with the kids and by extension then you know look to the children and if there's a child sitting there who's you know not ever removing their mask we get you know

096how are you going to approach them and this is we have social workers psychologists we have guidance counselors in the elementary school um you know and and again treat them as individually as possible and try to open as normally as possible and and we have we i i trust and i believe that the faculty and staff not just our teachers but our aides our cafeteria workers you know people see kids all the time so i i i i'm very confident mr carpluck that we will encourage kids to take appropriate mass breaks all right i'm done let's let everybody speak any other old business any new business got to do something about the weight in the backpacks but we'll get to that next week by the way yeah i know the messenger might not have been

097there but my daughter the backpack it was amazing how heavy the backpacks were they made them take them home every day every book are we doing computers um it was very heavy no this was in third grade she um get it off the bus no no so hopefully she told us i could remember at this time last year we were being told you can't use the lockers you can't do this you can't do that and i i remember our teachers saying to us john you told us to take everything out of the room strip it bare we don't want to so we kept things in the classroom that technically we weren't supposed to and and we were okay because the teachers said look if they're not supposed to share this stuff and use it you

098know we'll just put a little something there so and but at least the kids will see books and they'll see color and they'll see things so you know sometimes you wanna sometimes we get caught up in a negative this year knock on wood we keep saying as close to normal as possible but at this time last year if and i choose not to really go back and remember it but we weren't allowed to leave stuff and we we told kids yes they had to take everything back and forth we're hoping this year is going to be much more normal thank you sir okay no other new business okay public comments and you know we started accepting uh questions by email when the board meetings were closed but as you can see tonight now the board

099meetings are open they're well attended um so if you want to email us any questions you have we're more than happy to answer your questions you want to email us with statements your formats you're against mass whatever argument you want to make we'd love to hear from you hear your comments but as far as the emails i want this read at board meetings and i i feel like the grinch should stole christmas here going through the phone book mary smith is for mass mary lou who is against mass and that's really that's not productive in any way so from now on again please email us your questions your statements uh we would love to hear from you but if you want something right at a board meeting please come down we'd love to see you

100and you guys can read it out loud yourself um we're going to take the public comments a lot of people signed up all right like mr dolan has been talking about i know a lot of you feel very strongly about both sides please be respectful of the three minutes we we do have it going uh the last meeting we did not there were only a few people there um but but this is a different story so uh please be respectful whatever you you're saying you want to wrap it up please finish your thoughts but please be mindful of the three minutes and like mr dolan said please be respectful of those who maybe don't agree with your position um just let's keep the meeting civil and and going well all right stephanie thank you good

101evening i'd like to take this opportunity to thank the board of education mr dolan the staff and teachers of east islip school district and my fellow neighbors here in the east islip community the opportunity for me to speak and to be heard i've been an east islip resident since 2004. and i have three children in the district i'm a public school teacher entering my 18th year teaching right here in suffolk county at one of the largest high schools on long island we are here tonight to show our continued support to you the board of education and mr dolan as well as the teachers and staff in the east islip school district in instituting the new york state mandated universal mass policy for the upcoming school year we know our children learn best when they are

102in school full time the best way to ensure that quality education in the safest environment possible is with the universal mask mandate it is what got us to this point today in this very minute at this meeting together we know it works already the alternative is not what is educationally sound for our children our governing institutions the cdc the american academy of pediatrics the new york state department of education the suffolk county department of health and the new york state department of health unanimously agreed if a child tests positive in the classroom as long as the other children are wearing a mask they do not have to quarantine you've all said it multiple times tonight and i'm not reading off my paper right now i'm a teacher in the classroom the quarantining process was horrendous

103the contact tracing on your end is nobody understands it how bad it is and i see you laughing because it's the truth this is one thing we can all agree on it does not matter which side you are on in regards to your children wearing a mask or not wearing a mask universal mask mandates is the only way it'll allow our children to remain in person learning where we all know they learn best if we had mask optional if you allowed the parent choice as the attorney already explained the minute somebody tests positive in the room you have to quarantine kids are missing more school than they are present nobody likes this trust me i don't i'm wearing two and i'm vaccinated but i'm very ill i know it doesn't appear that way but i

104am i don't even know if the vaccine worked for me that's how sick i am okay but i teach i'm a public teacher i love children i love what i do and i continue to what is best for our children is to be in person learning as much as possible and unfortunately this is the only solution right now to allow that to happen because of the if you just want to agree on one thing the quarantine process i don't think this is forever i don't think it is i really don't but i think for now until we're ready for it to be safe it's what we have to do my friend works in a texas school district on the fifth day of school 228 students tested positive and 78 staff members they did not reach

105200 positive cases till november 30th last year they're closing schools down right now because mass were optional that's my fear as an educator that's my fear as a parent in the district thank you all for all you have done and will continue to do to provide a quality education in the safest learning environment possible thank you ma'am i hope you feel better stephanie uh good evening mr dolan and good evening to the board my name is chris i'm a parent of a child at timber point elementary school i've lived in this town on and off for about 35 years and consistently for the past 10 years i know today's a somber day so i'm trying to cut down on the drama some of which we've already heard i want to thank you mr dolan i

106want to thank the board overall for your handling of managing our school district over the past year and a half this is my first time in a board meeting i see it's obviously very contentious and people throw around a lot of things but i have watched you from afar i i respect the integrity with which you carry out your duties and i appreciate it and i want you to know that there are many of us in the district that appreciate it um i also want to thank you for having enforced the mask mandate over the prior year i think that it's been a major factor in preventing our school district from becoming a vector for spreading covid uh that said i want to register my support for a mass mandate universally over our school district

107for the coming year now obviously we're a little bit in flux right now we're waiting for it to come down from the governor but we pretty much know that it's going to happen and we know that that's going to impose a ministerial obligation upon this district to respect it and to do that and you know i you kind of and mr block earlier kind of leveled a bit but i think it needs to be made more clear that if we don't follow those duties we open up our district to a ton of liability and i mean in my office i've seen millions of dollars lost from schools and government actors who don't follow those duties now despite what many non-experts will say the experts have reached a consensus that masks work we know that they

108work to reduce spread we know that they work to reduce the transmission of covid we also know that right now covet is spreading to children in this country more than ever and we also know that unmasking policy has been a failure we see it in states like florida texas mississippi you know basically the southern states where they instituted unmasking they opened their schools a few weeks ago and vast amounts of kids have come down with covid and filled up their hospitals we don't want that around here now i respect that in the future we're going to defeat covid it's going to be by wearing masks and instituting vaccines i want to reiterate to you that that we are here the parents and the residents of this town who support what you are doing in instituting

109the universal mask mandy and i thank you for hearing us all tonight thank you [Applause] [Music] hi superintendent dolan and the board uh thank you for having us here tonight and taking comments from the public um i am a parent of two in the district i also graduated from east islip and i have to say that bathroom has not changed since 1991. i could verify this i'm also an attorney and i work in the new york city public schools so i have a you know i've heard a lot of these arguments i've seen it all i've heard it all not new i want to say that echoing some of the previous comments tonight i support the science and i hope you do too you know you know everyone's going to tell you what they i

110think i'm distance enough to take this off everyone's going to tell you what some youtube video that they found that supports some you know conspiracy theory about why masks are vaccines are causing crazy things we know this isn't true i think we all have to have a foundational level of scientific belief that's not me is it no um so i i just i emailed you all and i don't want to take up too much time i just want to say i reiterate that i please i respect your positions and i hope you follow the science wherever it leads my kids were in brooklyn up through may of last year when we moved out here and i have to say all i want as a parent is for my kids to be in school full-time that's

111all that matters to me right now it was horrible remote learning in an apartment was a disaster for everybody including me please just know that as a well-intentioned member of this town of the school district all i want is for my kids to be in school full-time no matter how that plays out that's that's my desire that's my goal and i trust that your leadership in this you're going forward i respect what mr dolan what you said before i really appreciate it appreciated what you said i was going to come up here with statistics about you know the new cases in suffolk county and that's not important anymore it's just not what's important is what you said that we're working together we all want the same thing we might go about it in different ways

112we might believe different you know different evidence that we've seen but i i trust leadership to follow what the uh respected institutions scientists medical community what they're recommending and uh that's my position tonight so thank you thank you and welcome welcome to east islip [Music] good evening can everyone hear me yes first let me thank you the faculty uh the staff the board from my vantage point you have done a commendable job at handling a very tough situation um i'm here today to urge you up to uphold to enforce and to stay vigilant on the mass mandate the universal mass mandate that i believe will be coming down as a directive as a teacher in a neighboring school district i have a clear perspective on how implementation of masks looks inside a school and from

113my vantage point it is clear that when students teachers and the community work together to stay safe with the use of mass we all win i need my daughter who attends at timber point elementary school to be safe um i trust her with the school district she is my only child she is my life and the science and our elect officials have made it clear that masks and vaccines are the way to go um i agree i agree that students must be able to advocate for themselves with regard to feeling comfortable in school and while mass breaks are needed at times it is imperative that this does not turn into massless kids if that is not the directive and if that is not the universal mandate or adults indoors um and finally i'd like to

114have this address this concern addressed as we await the directive my concern is that this bitterness over this issue will affect our children this is very troubling the possibility of that is very troubling to me um what is being done within the school to ensure that our children will not be caught in the middle of this bitter and divisive debate now as we mentioned before um with the some of the federal money we got we added um you know some literacy support because when kids learn how to read they can learn to make their own decisions um we have guidance counselors in the elementary school now um you know we are we are you know vigilant in terms of like i said before we've always we always look for the child that's being affected by

115whatever could be things at home things and you know but i'm going to say something right now two things i appreciate your kind words and they're nice when you're angry you can direct it at me but you know dr bell's mr manzo mr harrison mrs parker and really especially mrs mann because she's the one that sits closest to me during the day um you know they deserve more thanks because you know and you can ask mr montoya when i you know when i when i lose my uh my bearings a little bit they're the ones that they're really they're really driving the day-to-day operation and one of the things that really warms my heart is i'm sitting here watching you folks come up here and express your opinions and i'm watching people politely clap at

116the end and i know for a fact that some of the people that are clapping don't necessarily agree with you but they know you're from east islip and this is what we want our kids to see this is what we want to foster and if we can disagree and then shake hands and move on um that's the best thing for the kids to see so it's a combination we want to make sure they can read we add a little bit of mental health support you've got an excellent team to my left you've got very receptive people to my right and you know what i could not be prouder right now than to watch how this audience is simply listening to each other clapping you don't have to agree and you know we're gonna we're gonna

117pull this together and like i said once we get the directive we're gonna work to make it all work so that the best example for the kids is what i'm seeing right now thank you i appreciate it thank you [Applause] you hear me okay yes all right good evening uh i was initially planning to speak tonight about some of our issues or my issues with clubs and activities but a friend of mine told me to table that because it's going to get lost in all of our mass discussions last year was a roller coaster ride flip-flopping poor communications and bad planning which we've all had enough of as for masks we've known for a few weeks that the new governor planned on instituting a mask wearing mandate for schools it's a done deal it doesn't

118benefit students to have a board in any way add to the confusion about not following this mandate no matter how much yelling and screaming you're hearing mr dolan you said if there's a direct will follow it i thank you for saying that in addition to concerns for the health and safety of our children the ramifications as we heard from our attorney to the district for going against the mandate would be disastrous i'd like to thank mr dolan the board the administration and committees and our east islip faculty and staff for soldiering through last year there were a lot of bumps in the road and we came out the other side i want to thank my fellow families in east islip we don't all agree on a lot nobody does and that's fine but we care

119about our kids and our community we have a sign in our house that says east islip where everybody knows your name we're a unique town and a tight community and we'll push through another year of this pandemic together and we'll see the other side covid's been beyond challenging to say the least and if we want it to end following the safety protocols and vaccines will ultimately end this nightmare so this is what we're going to do to make it to the end you do the work that's what east islip does we do the work we're a hard working town with hardworking people and people know us for it the sooner we do the work the sooner we can throw out the masks and move on to more important things i know i've heard from mr

120carpluck about a future innovation lab at the high school and mr dolan has assured me that things are great things are on the horizon but we need to talk more we we have to more we have more to talk about than just masks we have to talk about academics we have to talk about music stem and art we need to talk about extracurricular activities we need to talk about opportunities for our students and none of that is going to happen if we keep circling covid and masks mr dolan for what you said about the directive i thank you for making the right decision please let's do the work to put covet behind us and finally move forward together thank you thank you josh [Applause] and josh just just know that while the mass might dominate

121the conversation out here we're still very much focused on the academics and doing the best for the kids educationally and and discussing that so um it's the safety and health obviously are number one but education by no means is taking a back seat but thank you hello mr dolan board of education i appreciate the fact that i know you want mask optional so understand this information that i'm about to give you i'm not directing at you but more i'm sharing with you based upon research i have done and people i have spoken with i'll get right to the point informed consent is required for investigational medical therapies regardless of the lack of safety and efficacy behind the decision to require a child to wear a mask it is illegal to mandate eua approved investigational medical

122therapies without informed consent mask used for viral transmission prevention is authorized for emergency use only emergency use authorization by the fda means the products are investigational and experimental only the statute granting the fda the power to authorize a medical product of emergency use requires that the person being administered the unapproved product be advised of his or her right to refuse administration of the product the statute further recognizes well-settled doctrine that the medical experts or clinical research may not be performed on human subjects without the informed consent of the individual receiving treatment the right to avoid the imposition of human experimentation is fundamental rooted in the nuremberg code of 1947 has been ratified by the 1964 declaration of helsinki and further codified in the united states code of federal regulations the law is very clear it

123is unlawful to conduct medical research even in the case of an emergency unless steps are taken to secure informed consent of all participants furthermore by requiring children to wear a mask you are promoting the idea that the mask can prevent or treat a disease which is an illegal deceptive practice it is unlawful to advertise that a product product or service can prevent disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence substantiating that the claims are true something that has not been provided to any of us from the school district the cdc the fda the health department the gov nobody and we know because of francis collins director of the nih who like i said before just came out about a week ago saying they're not basing these recommendations on anything scientific it's anecdotal it's anecdotal

124it's basically scientific opinion the difference between masking a child and not asking a child is that the parents who do not want their child mass can step up and provide 50 or more clinical research trials and mr dolan i know you keep saying that these research trials take five to ten years but that's if we want to know the long-term effects if you take a mask off a child like they did in florida and brought it directly to the lab you don't need five or ten years to figure out all the bacteria and pathogens and everything they're being exposed to on that mask there's a lot of evidence and like i said there is no scientific evidence in favor of mask wearing we also know that this virus has a 99.99 survival rate if you

125were to catch it i don't know how that is not an acceptable rate at this point why we need to keep putting children through this everybody i understand has a different opinion and i am all for respecting everybody's opinion but based upon the scientific evidence that we have in our favor we should have the choice whether it's coming from the health department or the school board or the governor to decide whether or not to mask our children my child's freedom does not end where the fear of somebody else begins and you would not go to the public pool and put a life jacket on every child there because one child can't swim you put a life jacket on the child who can't swim and basically you know at this point if children are being subjected

126to these masks we all know they're unhealthy it's being done intentionally it's been and this is a violation of the nuremberg code there are legal aspects here that should be ms siminetti thank you thank you [Applause] normally good evening thank you for giving me this opportunity uh my name is troy salaki and i'm here representing uh my two daughters alexa and ella who attend the east islip school district as we know our new governor has mandated mass in all public schools in the state of new york where does this end why is some woman that doesn't know me or my children making decisions on what she thinks is best for my children i have very close friends with children and i would never tell them what i think is best for them the overreach from

127our government needs to stop and it needs to stop right now i can't even believe i'm having this conversation the cdc has reported that the pcr tests which will be changed as of december 31st change to a new test that will be able to differentiate between covet and influenza so all along the tests were unable to differentiate between covert and the flu we also know that many people that have died during this past year and a half of other means car accidents etc that tested positive for covert were listed as died from coven so we don't know the real numbers we had a governor who put sick people in nursing homes with them with the most vulnerable people of all while a hospital ship stood empty in new york harbor if this is truly a

128pandemic as and is as deadly as we are being told why are people pouring across our southern border untested and unvaccinated [Applause] common sense tells you that you can't have it both ways either there's a pandemic or there's not and if there is anybody with common sense would know to close the southern border as far as i'm concerned as long as that border is open there is no pandemic we have nancy pelosi hosting a fundraiser in napa not one person with a mask except for the food service none of this is adding up nothing makes sense we the people are being played over a year and a half has gone by and still no science has been presented on the if the activist the efficacy of masks that's a simple experiment to conduct why don't

129they do it we the people are asking you to stand up stand up to the government overreach this is the united states of america and the stuff i've been seeing since this mess started does not depict the free country that i have grown up in if it continues to go in this direction and i'm not just referring to the topic of mass or vaccines it will be unrecognizable in a very short time nothing i have seen since november 3rd 2020 has been normal or has made any sense we as adults need to stand up for our children if you want to send your child with a mask well that is solely your decision as it should be solely your decision as it should be i don't have a problem with that at all and if

130i decide not to with a 99.998 survival rate then that should be my decision as well not the pot not not the decision of a politician in albany this i see on the uh that it says the next board meeting is uh september 23rd i hope we're not discussing mandatory vaccines at that meeting one more thought there is not one person on the face of this earth that knows the long-term effects of those vaccines there will never be a vaccine put in me or my children and for those for those that have taken the vaccine i hope it doesn't go south on you in five to ten years thank you sir [Applause] hi i just wanted to thank you you guys have been very supportive and very patient and very kind i just wanted to

131touch on a couple of questions everybody really covered a lot of ground and i appreciate it it's not easy to say your thoughts on something that's so serious as our children's safety for me the end game is the experimental shot that they're going to try to mandate i think a lot of politics are being played somebody some other people may disagree i just have one huge question if the masks work then why can't i have mask optional for my child and you have masks for your child secondly some people said you know let's get back to the more important things like academics to me my child and what goes into their body and what goes on their face and their experience socially and emotionally is the most important um also a lot of science and

132experts are being thrown around so i just have a couple of questions do you know who is the largest supporter financially for the who bill gates do you know who the largest supporter financially for the american academy of pediatrics is pfizer and thirdly do you know who is making the contributions to the decisions of the c the fda it's the n i h and who is the i'm sorry i don't have my note right here um the head of that committee that makes that bio ethics decisions is dr fauci's wife so about experts i'm not necessarily sure i know who to trust and i don't know if anybody here knows who to trust but i think at some point we're going to have to make a stand but i do appreciate all of you who

133mostly are volunteers and you didn't sign up for this i'm sure but i just wanted you to hear my say i'm not trying to be a pain in the neck my kids are the most important thing and i'm not just going to be injecting them with something that isn't proven to be safe for something that can be cured or not gotten my husband and i both had covid we were literally sleeping in the same beds with our children not knowing because the test was inaccurate at first they were fine so everybody's different everybody's child is different and i understand everybody's fear level is different but we can't make a one-size-fits-all and we need to be back in the america the united states where we do have freedom of choice thank you very much thank you

134[Applause] good evening thomas bloor been a long time resident of the district i have four children started very young one has already graduated east islip my three daughters are in the high school rck as well as kindergarten you know look i think even the asbestos guy admitted these masks aren't preventing small particles the other point i have with the mass is i think it's a very difficult learning environment for these kids to wear mass almost like their muzzle even some of the adults standing here today it's just very difficult to hear what you're saying we can't see the facial expressions and when you're talking about kindergartners first graders and second graders i think it's the most detrimental to them i appreciate the board taking you know the time to listen to all of us unfortunately

135it seems like very scary times i feel like our constitutional rights our freedoms are being pulled from us we're listening to the mass media and people are just pushing laws left and right on us i'll keep it short everyone else has very nice written notes i'm kind of shooting from the hip but i appreciate the time everyone thank you [Applause] good evening tamara bloor spouse of thomas floor uh we have four kids in the district uh i've been a part of this district since we were allowed to bring in homemade cupcakes and touch our kids on field day and make goodie bags for our children and i am very sensitive and in tune to my children's emotional needs maybe a little extra sensitive i want to thank you all first of all for doing as

136much as you can as soon as you could as we know science is always changing so in the beginning we couldn't have backpacks you know we had to have backpacks full of stuff we couldn't leave stuff in the classrooms we had barriers and as science evolves we realize now that some of those measures were over the top we didn't have to have the barriers as a matter of fact they're saying now they might even spread it more i'm not here to convince you to make a decision i think the fact that you can see my face means you know what my decision would be and the beautiful thing about this room here is that everybody had a choice to be masked or not masked [Applause] and i respect what you said about asking the governor

137at what point we can pull the masks off the unfortunate thing is that what's going to be comfortable for me may not be comfortable for the next person a four percent positivity rate might be fine for me to take my mask off but someone else may not feel that comfortable so the only way to get this country back is for freedom of choice okay we're arguing in this room because we're trying to prove a point but if everybody just kept their own beliefs and did what was best for them and their family we wouldn't even have to be arguing and my my biggest concern next is that we need your support to fight freedom of choice because when the vaccine comes down the line and it's coming really quickly what's going to happen then that's

138what i want to know where do we go from here and when does it stop thank you thank you [Applause] i promise not to yell today so i just want to thank the board you guys are really great you listen to all our comments you're completely understanding so we want to just thank you for all the time that you know you were put in for this um first of all i want to say i have compassion for those who have lost loved ones from coven um as we have also loved lost people and friends as well i also have compassion for the people who are living their lives in fear with so much fear of dying that they can't even live i wouldn't want to be in their shoes my son last year would rip

139off his mask as soon as he left the school and he would go thank god i could breathe again and i would ask him well you know did you ask your teacher for a mask break and you know he was so afraid no i can't do that i'm going to get sent to the principal's office and it's just a shame that our children have to feel that way and i know his teacher would allow him to take his mask he was just afraid to ask you know so what is this doing to our children psychologically the cdc data shows that 99 plus survival rate and those under the age of 69 years old and over 70 it's over 95 uh with our children it's a 99.9 chance survival rate so our children have more of

140a chance of dying from the flu drowning suicides than they do of coven 19. the true science shows that children are natural buffers if teachers are getting infected with the virus they're getting it from an outside source they're not getting it from school we already had covid in our in our house so we're all actually naturally immune and if we are speaking about science then why does the science ignore natural immunity it just doesn't make sense why does my child need a mask if they're immune to the virus there's a lack of common sense when it comes to this governmental overreach plain and simple cloth masks are ineffective unless you're wearing a fitted n95 mask the guidance makes no sense and i have respect for the people in the back who are at least wearing

141the n95 mask because at least they do understand that's the only mass that can stop a virus a virus particle is ten thousand times smaller than the holes in your cloth or surgical mask and if teachers are able to get vaccinated and that's what they choose to do then why do the children need masks and then also there's so many other problems with these masks for instance osha carbon dioxide limits for air quality are exceeded by mass squaring by two to three times i believe breathing is a basic right and thank you [Applause] speak to your dentist our children's teeth are decaying this is affecting their mouths tremendously um all the bacteria and everything else that's on these masks it's disgusting mascara only approved under emergency use authorization there's no scientific evidence to show that

142they help and so much evidence in scientific studies to show that they actually do harm mass also have the huge psychological effects and we're teaching and allowing our children to obey unjust and unconstitutional orders so that they can go about their lives and not question anything why is every health agency mandating mask and vaccines instead they should be promoting health teach people how to live healthy eat organic foods take supplements get out in the sun soak up that vitamin d and we shouldn't even be talking here we shouldn't be here at all there is no pandemic and i say this only because there's treatments okay there's suppressing treatments in hospitals and firing doctors who are using them we shouldn't be here at all there's hydroxychloroquine there's budesinide ivermectin they all have a 99 survival rate

143when they're using it on their patients so there's just a lack of science and a lack of transparency when it's coming to the government lastly i want to say the biggest threat to our democracy is a government that ignores our constitution and uh just one last question for the board um something that we were thinking about i just don't know the board's take on it but um as far as critical race theory is that something that you will promote in the school is that something you agree with or just something i wanted to know about that was one of our emailed questions so we could cross that off the email question um mr zone would you like to address that or mr manzo uh we do not we do not follow a critical theory uh

144curriculum no nor nor is it a state mandate okay thank you [Music] okay [Music] hello everyone um even if you are not um open-minded something in your soul has to be screaming that something isn't right with all of this um in the beginning i can understand the concern and the caution but now the proof is out there that the masks do not work the proof is out there that children are not spreading covet in schools covid is not spreading in school the proof is out there that this virus is equivalent to the flu and we all know the survival rate people died of covid yes i had a cousin who passed away last year but he died with covid and lack of proper treatment treatment that was banned in hospitals we know covet is real

145but we need to learn to live with it stay healthy move on and bring normalcy back for our children we need to stop this all and focus on what's really important here our kids and their social and emotional well-being kids get sick but suicide and mental health issues have skyrocketed as well as drug abuse and depression and anxiety since this pandemic for the people who don't agree with what i'm saying please try to see this in a different light put yourself in your kids shoes never sharing a smile in school with friends or teachers is dehumanizing the cdc recently put out that schools with mask mandates didn't see statistically significant different rates of covert transmission from schools with optional policies the science is clearly stating the masks do not work the fact that we have

146to fight for our children to breathe 100 oxygen without having a germ-infested facial cloth covering their nose and mouth is beyond disturbing and it is beyond american i also want to make something else clear for those of you who are taking what i'm saying as selfish or foolish if the masks worked we wouldn't be up here wasting time we would want our children to be safe and if this was a real pandemic things would be very different different um if covett was such a threat right now nurses wouldn't be fired for not receiving the vaccine when they were subjected to it firsthand all of last year and probably have natural immunity as amanda mentioned no one is talking about natural immunity another red flag the cdc changed their definition of natural immunity and of course

147added the word vaccine to it and like you mentioned if this was a real pandemic our borders would be closed um at the last board of ed meeting oh my god um can i just say one more thing my main focus tonight was really to bring up the vaccine i just hope that when this comes because we all know that it's coming that you guys have our back because we do not need to add another vaccine to the already growing schedule of vaccines for our children [Applause] thank you [Applause] good evening i'm erin this is jason um i grew up here and went to east islip schools my entire life we moved back here over 10 years ago and our oldest is 10 years old going into fifth grade at jfk our youngest is in

148timber point for her very first year um after everything that's been said the only collective thing is that everybody is here for the same thing if they're here to keep their children as healthy and as safe as possible while they're learning we happen to be two people who agree with the governor's mandate for masking in the schools i understand the position of everybody else who does not agree but that's the decision that we've been making based on the information that we've been able to take a look at that being said i do also agree that it has to have some sort of end point and sometimes maybe if we are compromising there are parents in here who don't want to get their child vaccine if and when it does become available but when that happens

149there's a possibility that other parents like us after having our kids vaccinated may feel better and more comfortable with a mask optional so that being said i'm hoping that we can get to a point where we can compromise where we can get back to the point where we understand that there is fear on both sides there's fear that our children are being detrimentally affected by the mask wearing and there's also fear of what might happen to them health-wise if we do not so with that respect intact i wanted to thank the board the staff please for answering all the phone calls all the emails every day day in and day out our teachers the school staff and the administrators and our kids for putting up with the stress that comes with all this because i'm

150sure not only do they feel it from the situation that they have to deal with in school because it is different for them but they have to deal with it at home with the stress that the parents are under at the same time no matter where you fall on the issue i'm sure that that's something that we can all understand and identify with so thank you again for hearing us and i'm thanking you in advance for enforcing the mandate should the governor decide to do so thank you [Applause] good evening sir if you could just use the mics this way we could hear you but but the people in the audience cannot i don't even know if that helped did it help uh maybe a little closer well you know as you see i'm a

151majority so there you i'm for go i'm for the kids they you know football i do anything anything for the kids that's what it's about i hear all these things that i don't haven't seen the songs but i just know when you hear about their right to being taken away they don't have a voice we are their voice you are their voice i don't care um yeah i understand people being afraid they have a right to wear a mess but when they tell other kids they have to wear a mask and it's hurting them now i know there's a lot of suicide you don't hear about a lot of stuff that's going on they don't tell you about a lot of this stuff if you're watching the abc news you know you're only getting one

152side of the story i know i'm very very involved in a lot of this uh mandates many things are not war i know there's a boy a lot of people that ask a lot of questions you know all these fancy words we didn't vote this new governor nobody knew who she was up until like a month ago but everybody's willing to take her word for it and you're not listening to us listening to the governor she is paid by us we are the people we are the people that we deal with every day our kids and again i appreciate everything that he's built i know i know it's a lot of work i know there's not enough people that take it i know from the coaching staff there's nobody everybody drops that kid over once

153the teacher wants to quote hop up and nobody wants to get involved well i just can't stay silent i gotta voice my independence i think the kids have a right and uh it's a freedom of choice they're the science i haven't seen the science and i keep hearing about it i think there are a lot of lies just listening i don't have to get into power just listen to the loops you'll hear all the lies you want but i just gotta be here i gotta say i can't stay silent with my kids so whatever happens happens i pray for them all while he's in his pajamas you know what 16 year old wasn't like that he's not getting an education i'm sorry my 19 year old she's up in the university of rhode island thanks

154to east island school district i think they did a great job but now what i see them doing is it's failing and they're just holding and when they come out with this back seat and everybody's gonna say well that's what they mandated mandated it is what it is it's not war he never voted on it we are a free nation we are america we have rights constitution i didn't bring that up too much uh thank you good evening um i have three three um daughters in the district one is going into twelfth grade the other tenth and my youngest who just turned eight is going into third third grade my older two don't care about the mask because they said that the teachers don't implement it in high school they're willing to push the envelope

155at that age so it's not consistent with them so they're like why even bother coming here i'm here to advocate for my youngest i'm glad that stephanie brought up mental health i don't know why mental health is not being considered it's mental health my daughter is diagnosed with anxiety okay since his pandemic she's gotten a she's in therapy she went to school every single day last year crying okay the mornings were filled with stomachaches not eating breakfast coming home from school with headaches how am i supposed to send my kid to school with peace of mind putting a mask on her face knowing that this kid is just is fearful of going into school the comfort that she finds is seeing smiles on her teachers faces her classmates smiling being able to socialize that's all

156being taken away i can't tell you like how many nights of sleep that i've lost for my child because i don't know how i can get through another year with getting her to school and having a peace of mind um [Music] right now she's texting me non-stop she's she doesn't want to leave my side she won't go to play dates anymore she won't stay with family members it's it's a nightmare nobody thinks about the mental health nobody's thinking about that which is going to go into depression substance abuse suicide that's where you see kids dying not covered okay [Applause] these kids went all summer summer camps no masks preschools no mask no outbreaks my kids lived a normal life this summer how do i expect to send them back and force a mask on my

157child that has such anxiety that it breaks my heart as a parent that i can't i can't fix it for her i need people to fight for these kids we all need you guys to fight [Music] [Applause] i couldn't even bring up school to my daughter my husband we were in target he suggested to her let's buy school supplies she said i want to go home i feel like i have to throw up this is what it's doing to my daughter i have to be the voice bar i can't comply and i cannot put my kids mental health at risk anymore for other people to have their kids feel safe if these masks are effective then then they should feel safe i should have the choice as a parent to let my kid breathe in

158oxygen okay um nobody's talking about the rsv virus that's spiking what about natural immunity these kids aren't wearing masks effectively these young kids they're touching their faces they're taking them off they're putting them on they're touching their desks that's that's not that's like a germ waiting to that's worse than hold it i mean these kids have to be exposed to germs natural immunity it's it has i'm losing my place here cause i want to get through like a lot and i know i'm past my time but just bear with me this is a respiratory virus it's not going to go away anytime soon we need to learn to live with it and we need to learn to let our kids not live in fear anymore it's been 18 months i can't do it anymore these

159kids are they deserve so much more these young kids it's just it it makes me bring tears in my eyes right now it's just so detrimental and people aren't looking into that aspect of what it's doing and people talking about liabilities what about when it's too late and there's kids committing suicide over this this this is a real thing mental health needs to be addressed okay that's i'm living it i'm telling you i'm not up here speaking statistics this is my life my kid is affected by this it's it's a nightmare um i wrote all this stuff down but i'm just speaking by emotions right now i want my child i want to have a choice my child to be able to breathe during the day i don't want her sitting at her desk all

160day wearing a mask it's not healthy it's causing staph infections fungal infections dental issues my kid comes home with a headache almost every day it's it's ridiculous it's got to stop we got to learn to live with it it's not going anywhere it's all political games i'm done i can't people need to fight for our kids it's not enough thank you [Applause] hi guys i won't stand up here and tell you all the negative side effects of mass how the cdc the department of health can't prove any studies any evidence that masks are safe or effective i know because i've called and they can't give me any information um i know you guys want mask optional but there's a lot more things with school starting kids need a normal year they need to be in

161the cafeteria with their friends tables like normal their specials need to be back to normal kids shouldn't be prisoners in their own classrooms for hours now right now the so-called solution to fix one problem is causing a bigger problem and a way more dangerous problem for our children this is the third school year that these kids have to deal with this and the long-lasting effects of our actions are so much worse they deserve they don't deserve this and i will do everything in my power to make sure this child abuse stops we all know the end game look at new jersey they just mandated the shop for kids 12 and over if you think the mass topic is heated wait until they come after our kids with that shot as our elected school board we

162need you to stand up and be the first to say no we're not doing this it's hurting our kids you know it's wrong how who cares if your name ends up in the paper we don't care anymore there's no time to sit here and wonder what other people think the time is now to stand up and stop complying there's so many people want this to end so please as representative us to us stand up to this dictatorship and let them know that east islip will not comply look at florida they said that they didn't want the governor said you can't mandate this and schools went against the governor and mandated it anyway why can't we go against the governor and demand that we want our kids without masks [Applause] you can't see we just need

163to stop complying because it's never going to end thank you uh hello again it's been a while it's been a long time and uh the fact that i'm here tonight i guess maybe indicates how strongly i feel about this and i'm really here to um to to encourage the board to continue the stand that they took originally i'm really very happy that we agree on something it may be the first time in all these years that that's true and the thought that it may not really happen as it should it's really bothering me very much i'm hoping that you can find a way around about above below to make it optional because this is what everybody needs to have happen the people who want to wear masks wear masks fine but the thing that made

164the difference as far as i'm concerned and a lot of people probably don't agree with me is is the vaccines that we all got it's the vaccines that made the difference not the mass that's what i absolutely do believe and it's the vaccines that will eventually be credited after all this nonsense and baloney and and statements and false stuff that's out there uh is over with um i'm here from tax pack and also from long islanders for educational reform and i have to tell you that everybody that i've been in contact with or spoken to or gotten an opinion from is in agreement with me um but i don't know um i just i just hope that you have the courage to maybe even take a stand and stand up and be the one that

165that makes the difference and you'll probably see other school districts fall in behind you because they're just waiting for somebody to have some common sense and do the right thing for the kids right we have a foundation for the kids well mask optional is really for the kids and if anybody i mean all right i can't help it um if if there's a teacher that won't get vaccinated or can't that that's the person in the school that should be wearing the mask not the kids okay i've been wanting to go home for the last two hours i wish you would start doing these things where they're in the front instead of at the tail end of of something because a seven o'clock meeting shouldn't be shouldn't be i shouldn't be here at ten o'clock and

166one more little thing uh when you film these things you should film them from back there more uh on on the when it when it's shown you never see a person um move back so you see who's the audience you never see the audience all you do is hear the voice and that would be helpful i think it would give people a different impression maybe bring more people here to meet the actual meetings thank you good night vecchio thank you i guess she was the one person that was watching the board meeting next yeah sure but please by all means all right um good evening my name is frank diemen i realized that for the past 18 months the district and this board of education has had to deal with a tremendous amount of upheaval

167due to the pandemic and i for one commend your efforts and stewardship despite your stance on the mask situation that's a whole other issue but as unmessed but as we now enter our third year under the cloud of covid i came to the conclusion that life must go on and an issue that i care greatly about which is beyond that of coven must be addressed by this community's board of education back on october 22nd 2020 i stood before this board and read some prepared remarks regarding my position on the indian head mounted on our high school's facade since that time two professional sports teams the washington redskins and the cleveland indians have retired both their names and corresponding logos in recognition of the changed circumstances demographics and accepted norms of our society i believe to

168the depth of my soul that that indian is a scar on our community and this school system and it is all the more amplified by the fact that our teams play under the name redmond a school system should be promoting tolerance and acceptance instead we are propagating stereotypes through misplaced nostalgia a quick google search will show that this is not a new issue goes back at least two decades my position is very simple i do not want to see the name changed our teams wear red i think most folks can make that connection but it's time for the indian to go if you want to keep the indian then change the name of the team which is not something i want to do we can't have it both ways and i will give a prediction

169if this board refuses to take the meaningful action on this topic at some point it will not only be the indian head coming down but it will also be pressure into changing our name the indian head combined with the term red men is a nostalgic throwback to a past era that has long passed us by and it is now time to move forward without the indian ask yourselves a simple question if this school district came into existence today can you honestly say that its high school would have an indian head along with the name home of the red men gracing its facade i doubt very much that answer would be oh we sure would because i doubt very much it would there is a lot more i can say on this topic and i will

170be at board meetings throughout the year expressing my views and i hope i can find it i hope you find it the right the right thing to do and if you disagree with me on this topic well i look forward to changing your mind thank you sir thank you [Applause] that's all you got steph missed the days of elaine d'addario talking about boces spots doesn't happen anymore um there were a few like i said in the beginning uh there were a few emailed questions just a couple uh one was already addressed uh but uh but miss jennifer uh duldig uh also asked about will there be a virtual option this year mr dolan are you doing the film montori will there be a virtual option this year and this is pretty uh it's universal around

171well across most of the county uh we we're in person learning you know we're we're back in the brick and mortar school um you know there is no virtual option and that's something that's uh universal across islip now and we're moving forward okay what are we going to do with kids who get quarantined um we we can go to the traditional home instruction but they also don't fall they won't fall under the number of days needed for home instruction so work will be posted and uh you know they'll be treated as if they're out sick okay she then follows up with some questions about staff testing uh when will the mass be worn will shields be reinstalled but these are all things that that will depend on the directive that comes down we'll say i

172mean i'll go out on limb here but there's nobody nobody's talking about putting shields back on okay uh will you be upgrading the hvac systems and air purifiers and um we did that last year we changed the filters uh you know i just missed i'll have the answer i don't remember the name of the filters steve do you remember the name i think it's the merv we'll get that from anthony gagliano for the next meeting but we did that was done last year you know we were doing all the bond work remember we were closed down and we had um you know the architects were on site so that was taken care of all right i'll try to remember to bring that up for old business next meeting uh ms laurie gould um asked about

173mass parents being or attending sixth grade orientation parents who do uh participate with the sixth orientation will be required to wear masks while in the building but allowed in the building correct okay um and lastly wendy labella asked about if a kid is mandated to quarantine by the health department will they be allowed to attend school virtually which i think will it another that you know we are going to have a virtual option right now there's no virtual option okay okay well i want to thank everybody for coming down tonight and specifically for being very respectful during the the comment section uh the way the meeting started uh what wasn't perfect um and it's very difficult to handle it when it gets out of order so i want to thank everybody for being respectful and

174civil to those even who don't agree with your position [Music] yes absolutely thank you thank you god i know we just upgraded the electrical systems in the past i mean the electrical systems was from back in the 60s and could not certainly not handle every classroom having air conditioning i know a lot of classrooms do but every year we add more air conditioners i don't know if it's feasible economically to add them all at one time for those two weeks in september and two weeks in june that that it does we get the most questions about but we continue every year to work on that and make it better we understand yeah it comes up every year we try to do as best we can but now within the better electrical systems in hopefully we

175can do a better job and get more of those air conditioners up in in the classrooms um okay the next board of education regular business meeting will be held this says thursday september 23rd at 8 pm however uh due to some scheduling conflicts we're just going to have it the day before all right so we'll change that on the website to make sure everybody knows but if anybody's is it wednesday to september 23rd i think the date's right or is the date wrong on the sheet the day of the week is wrong right um so wednesday the 22nd at 8 pm um will be the next board of education meeting can i get a motion to adjourn all in favor everybody have a good night thank you