Corvallis School Board Meeting (October 14, 2021)

001for valis school board business meeting on October 14 2021 is called to order the first item in the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance if you're willing and aable please join me for pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all for coming and welcome um we do have a roll call of our board members who are all in attendance either by video and audio uh or uh Vice chair s mcdal and myself here in the school district office uh on that note I want to note that some of our attendees and participants might have uh their video on or off from time to time uh due to

002the challenges in technology uh and other reasons you might be listening to them by Audio Only and on that note I would say uh Oregon law allows public meeting to be held uh entirely online uh in the interest of public health and safety for all community members especially for immun compromised individuals and families uh the Coral School Board will continue to hold its Meetings online public comment is available at some of our meetings information about how to provide public comments is available on the Cal School District website Additionally the board's public meetings are live streamed on that District's YouTube channel and a recording is posted to the same channel uh typically the day after the meeting I grateful that this technology makes it possible for more community members uh to view and or participate in

003school board meetings uh given the flexibility provided by Oregon law and on that I want to welcome all the attendant who are uh watching and community members who are watching you can go to the Coral School Board page to view the pack that includes information that was shared with the public and board members before this meeting that pertains to the agenda items on the meeting and on that uh next item on the agenda is board member reports do we have any board member who would like to share our reports and as a reminder for board members please raise your hand using the virtual platform Vince and then Sarah and then Lou Vince so I just wanted to let uh board members know that there's an email in their inbox letting U with a link to

004webinar done by osba legal last week on the roles uh the role of the board um in these legal requirements for for uh masks and vaccines for staff right now and so it it was a very useful webinar and urage you to take the time to go ahead and and uh take a look I think it lasts about an hour thank you thank you vce Sarah yeah um I will um second Vince's endorsement of that webinar I watched it about a week ago it's it's worth your time to see um I had the privilege um this week and last week of participating with the Corvalis Public Schools foundation in theong talk which is a program that um to work on anti-racism and and work on skills to disrupt racism in um in our schools and

005in our community and it was a really powerful program um that it continues next week and I just want to express my gratitude to the foundation for um inviting me to participate I believe Sammy and Ryan both were there this week also so um it's important work um supported Again by our fabulous found thank you Sarah yeah wonderful program very very strong and powerful uh Luke yeah I was just gonna um say that I had the privilege of attending the um LBGTQ plus Affinity get together a couple of weeks ago with staff and wanted to recognize the Great great work that's being done there and um I was really glad to be part of community with folk thank you L any other uh updates from our board members all right see none uh I would

006like to uh hand it over to Ryan superintendent will provide the superintendent reports and introducing our student Representatives yeah so tonight um board I get the opportunity to introduce the student Representatives who will be um attending our business meetings throughout the year and give um giving us their perspective as students um in our school district um and so we had an opportunity to meet just a little while ago to talk about their role and the role of the school board um how board members are elected and the roles and responsibilities of the board and to really emphasize the fact that this is an opportunity for our board members to hear from students and if some of you are parents and have kids in our school district others don't um it gives you a chance and

007opportunity to gain that perspective um and to to learn more about um particularly what's going on in our high school so um with that I'm going to share a little bit of information about each one of our um student representatives and I'll do it by school because then that gives them an opportunity to then talk a little bit about what's going on at their individual schools and some members were able Su were able to join us tonight others weren't again these are students that have a lot going on um both academically and in terms of activities and other ways that they're interacting at school one of our students has a soccer game tonight so she's not able to join us so I'll do a little introduction U but we do have Representatives each one of

008our schools and so they'll be able to talk a little bit about what's going on um this month so the first one is maril Perez she's a senior at College Hill Mary started at College Hill in February of 2020 and has made a renewed commitment to her education while also balancing additional responsibilities at home Mary's schoolwork is full of insight and creativity she is talented and passionate about young children and would like to pursue something in Early Education so Mary Lou is one of our students who will be joining us this year from College Hill our other student from College Hill this year is Isaiah Isaiah TOA is a junior in the construction program at College Hill um this is the first year of the construction program and Isaiah is excited to be a part

009of the inaug inaugural class Isaiah is outgoing and always ready to encourage and challenge fellow students and staff to be their best academically and athletically so having introduced the two students from College Hill I'm going to turn it over to Isaiah to give us an update about what's going on at College Hill and I'm guessing around the construction program as well uh yeah just to clear things up not make it correct okay my bad so it's has been a great start to the school year for college he students are back in class engaging in learning and preparing for the future um we have a new construction program 15 students this year started corales construction program my in addition to their core academics they will be learning the basics of woodworking welding Automotive skills and drafting

010next year that they will be designing and building microshelters to donate to the unity shelter provide housing to folks in our community who are navigating homelessness Mr skillings and his students have been a great um but no basically it's been like uh we've been learning how to uh build soft horses and like um you know kind of the basics of construction really uh you know I don't know we we kind of have to get it we have to get all of our educated first you know before we build them you know um second we have started a new round of Academy courses this year this fall students are talk are taking creative writing book club taught in conjunction with Maria Lun from Western Oregon Unity see hoarder culture construction math basketball soccer history films this

011year field science digital storytelling and also walking classes um we've also had two incentive field trips for students who are caught up in their classes um we have ped to the summit of Mary's Peak and taking students to South Beach in Newport it is great to see kids work so hard they get caught up in order to have the opportunity to participate is even better to see them enjoy the incredible natural world in this place that we call home um also have almost 70 seniors in this building this year um we can maintain strong attendance if we can maintain strong attendance um we should have a large motivated preparing class of 2022 um but yeah I have not got to see a lot of College Hill I won't lie I've been in so for the

012construction program it's like only that class all time for the next two years so um that's been all that for me but hopefully next meeting she'll be to tell you more about that thanks Isaiah um and it's really exciting to have that construction program up and started um something we've talked about for a long time and to be able to do that in such a way that gives back to the community is super powerful so um it's a I think it's a great time to be Wolverine so uh again thanks for for sharing um next is Crescent Valley and so Charlotte Patel is a sophomore at CV and she's she's off doing has a soccer game right now in her first year as a school boarded up she is an active participant in the CV

013athletic Community playing soccer and basketball Charlotte has been a member of safe since middle school which is students advocating for Equity um she's also a student representative to our adta group which is our district Equity leadership Advisory Group I'm made up primarily of parents of color and uh through Delta she's worked on Rising um and supporting the um revision to the district Equity policy so it will be great to have Charlotte as a a rep to our school board and then um coming back for a second year is Calvin carlesi um that's one of the things that happens at CV as students are with us for two years and so Calvin's a junior at CV who's actively involved in the community he plays soccer as a member of student government and is in his second

014year of serving as CV School Board rep Calvin has taken leadership multiple semesters and been involved in equity work Community Food drives and mentored elementary students most recently Calin was instrumental in the success of our CB homecoming coordination is currently working on a committee to increase cultural awareness at CD in the car B community so again welcome back I'm Calvin it was nice to have Calvin in our last meeting so he could talk to students about what it's like to be a school board rep um and give his perspective and then we also tonight um as a as a surprise guest we have Kate Boltz Kate U as you know has been with us um the last two years and she's filling in tonight um for Charlotte so it's great to have Kate with us

015as well so I'm GNA turn it over to Kate and Calvin our two veteran Schoolboard representatives to share what's going on at CV um thank you this month like this past he's been exciting like start the inperson school uh we've just everyone's been diving straight back into whatever classes they have uh academic clubs uh there was wonderful Club Fair put on as far our homecoming week and the homecoming half show went well uh we were not able to have a homecoming dance due to co restrictions however and as noted by Ryan there were several there including girls for there several athletic events both tonight and tomorrow yeah um jumping off of what Calvin said within student government uh freshman class president elections just finished so those always happen in the fall because we don't have

016them with us in the spring for regular class selections and additionally in core Council we have been talking about creating a land acknowledgement for Crescent Valley High School uh for things like emails our student website that we're working on and hopefully create a committee to work on that which is of course an ongoing process and something we have to be thoughtful about additionally we have as Calvin said several athletic events and for this week those are themed pink out in honor of October being breast cancer awareness month so those are everyone's encouraged to donate to local charities like project her uh always be aware of your own medical history take care of yourself and be aware of risk factors and and stay healthy so that's some of the main news for Cresent Valley for this

017month all right thank you you two for um again for being here and um representing your school and sharing all the good things that's happening there um and the third group of student Representatives come from the caral high school CHS so Kylie Solan is our first um KY is a senior at CHS and attended Adams Elementary in line is Pauling she's a member of the high school basketball team lacrosse team and track team Kylie was also elected junior class president last year and was elected ASB president this year next year she hopes to go to college struggleing sports management and education so again it's great to have Kylie with us and then um the second student rep from CHS is Taylor young uh Taylor's a senior as well and one of the ASB presidents at

018caral high school she's been a member of the Franklin K8 Community since fifth grade she is an active member of student advocating for Equity safe and also UNICEF Club her goal for this school year is to continue the district goals of smoothing transition back to inperson school and advocating for the members of the CHS Community next year she hopes to continue her education studying political science and international relations and eventually attending a competitive law school so again some great student Representatives uh from CHS so with that um Taylor and Kylie I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you so you can give us your update all right thank you so much um so overall we've been talking to students and um most students feel okay about returning to school um but we

019know our Junior and senior classes are feeling a lot more stressed now that um we're getting into college application season um a lot of students are feeling that they missed out on their normal experience of high school um but we're uh and that are now expected to jump into their last year and so that's been a little bit of stressful transition and I'm sure that um many other students have been experiencing a similar feeling um and most of the students have done a pretty good job uh following our covid safety guidelines in the classrooms however spreading out is sometimes difficult because our classes are kind of overcrowded at the moment um but we've been doing our best and students have been do complying pretty well um there were some students however who were skipping lunch

020because they were uh our lunch lines I guess were um they didn't feel safe to the students um and so as a St as a staff and as leadership we've been trying to implement changes to um and access to launches so that everyone can feel like they have a safe space to eat um and then one thing that um students asked us to um request was uh additional undercover seating um because at the moment we're eating outside uh to prevent like the ex additional exposure to covid so um additional Undercovers seing or um other um or other uh I guess options for uh shelter have been like requested um we took a recent voluntary uh voluntary survey of uh students through our tinkle times which is a little school newspaper that we Post in the

021bathrooms um and 85.7% of students said that they supported the general idea of um like of requiring vaccines in school once the FDA has approved it for their age group and we plan to take another survey um to survey a larger group of students on a more schoolwide level um one thing that students have been um wondering about is homecoming and we would like to propose a school sponsored option that's uh because last year we were able to successfully have a official prom and that was really great for students to see one another and be able to meet in a kind of a more like typical uh High School setting um we did a pretty good job with health screenings and we set up games so that we can encourage people to distance from each

022other um and people were encouraged to arrive and remain with the Pod groups that they had signed up so like the little Co buddies um and also there were lots of options for people to St distance and we found that that worked pretty well and I don't believe we had any uh cases come out of that dance um we've heard things about a dance that's been not school approved and we were hoping that um as a district like we were able to follow the district guidelines if it was a school sponsored event and so we're hoping to be able to event like uh work with the district um to get a safe option for students because I know a lot of people have been um needing that feeling of connection that comes from um a

023school event um yeah so we just been continuing the promotion of this District guidelines as far as covid goes and thank you for listening to our report thank you Taylor and Kylie for for the update so with that I want to uh open it up for board members if they have any comments or questions to superintendent uh on the report but with that I just want to welcome you on behalf of the school board and uh thank you for uh being with us as partners and uh as stakeholders of the board serves the students and there's nothing more powerful than student voice so thank you for caring that voice being the stewards of it and uh as we talked before during our preparation meeting uh you uh May and are encouraged to participate ask questions

024and help us with the deliberation uh welcome aboard uh you are uh you are already doing really tremendous work and exciting work so welcome aboard uh and we look forward for continuing to work with you uh with that and see there's no further uh questions from or no questions or comments from board members we will move to the next agenda item uh the next agenda item pertains to covid vaccination information and discussion and with that I would like to share a few remarks as we start this agenda item I would like to provide a background where the school board passed a proclamation on September 23rd meeting and during that meeting we commit we committed our membership uh the school board members uh who are able to be vaccinated uh to the same vaccine mandates expected

025of District staff faculty and volunteers as mandated by uh State and also uh the school board committed to support the superintendent and its Proclamation uh in making every effort practic practicable to protect the students and staff of the district coordinate with the local health authority and remain compliant with State statutes rules and guidelines as the next step the school board provided the superintendent during September 23rd meeting uh with a Direction to investigate and review the possibility of implementing a co9 vaccine requirement for all medically eligible students in Coral School Districts as part of its norms and working agreements the Coral School Board actively listens to those sharing their points of view and is committed to ensuring all relevant qualitative and quantitative data and other sources of accurate information have been evaluated shared and understood before

026making a decision as such in it's meeting tonight the board will hear the superintendent's recommendations and findings on this subject and listen to a panel of Public Health experts and listen to public comments for those who have registered to provide public comments uh earlier the superintendent report is available to VI on the School Board website and the way that we will be moving in the next hour is to hear an introduction by superintendent NS and a presentation from him and then Benton County Health Department panel of experts sharing their remarks and allowing the school board members uh and our students as well if they want to ask questions and after that we will have public comment period and the board will deliberate and ask questions and then we'll deliberate on the subject so with that

027I would like to thank everybody who's joining us tonight for this agenda item and I want to hand it over to attendant TR enough right thank you um so Sammy did a nice job of describing the the steps tonight so I'll start by providing some information related to my recommendations and then you'll have a chance to um see some data shared by Benton County Health Department and then have the opportunity to hear from a panel of experts um and ask questions related to the the V the vacine and so um and then public testimony and then a time for you to deliberate so I think we have um quite a bit of information that we want to provide you um with and I wanted to start it out by sharing some slides with some information

028that's led me to my recommendation and then from there um the opportunity to hear from our camera so um again as Sammy said that it was a I was asked to look into and investigate um a requirement around the vaccine for students and so this is what I what I've done over the last several weeks next slide so as you know um our schools play an essential role in our community we um educate students we also provide food and nourishment we provide opportunities that extend their students learning we work with our community related to um having spaces in our school for early learning we work work with our community in a number of ways and as we know um the ways that we work with our community are vital and we've seen that again and

029again throughout this pandemic um when students were learning from home some of those things were um limited and we're so fortunate and so excited to have students back in school um the joy of having students with us in our buildings is um just I can't say enough that it just super powerful and we know that we want um to maintain that we want to make sure that our students are able to stay in school and continue to access all of those opportunities and resources our school district provides um and vaccination helps a safeguard back um we also are looking at how do we make sure that our schools stay open throughout this year I want to um do everything that I can do um and explore the option that's available um to make sure that

030our school stay open and so the request for me to um investigate was about what are um every consideration that we can make to make sure our schools stay open for our students and limit quantin so again this highlights some of those pieces I I've just mentioned one our priority is to keep our schools open throughout the school year and able to provide inperson instruction we um have gone through a time when that was not available to us and again um as our students talked about now coming back as Juniors and seniors and thinking about I need to start doing my college application when I was here last I was a freshman or a sophomore and I think that's true all the way through our schools and so again what I want more than we

031this will be able to keep our schools open we know that students um status um related to being vaccinated um has an impact when there is an exposure if a student is exposed at school and has been vaccinated they're able to stay in school they're able to continue to learn in person and that's not the case then there's a requirement to quarantine and again that's um having that student go back to distance learning which is again the thing that we're trying to combat and we're trying to avoid um also the other thing that we're looking at is the um considerations between um this time of year and the holidays coming up and how that will impact kids rates and how that will impact um students abilities at the end to be in person um and

032then as you all know that um vaccine is not available for our younger students and so there is an impact um when their siblings or others um in those secondary schools where there's the potential to do vaccinated um and some ways that we can work to address that another important factor in my recommendation is recognizing how Co in this pandemic has impacted disproportionately our communities of color and recognizing um that again we're looking at what are ways to limit and protect and keep our students in school recognizing that we're also looking at that through that um L of equity and race and what you'll see um as we move into some of our data is that how our data looks um as it's disaggregated by race um and that's another important consideration in terms of

033my recommendation next um in a few minutes you'll have an opportunity to hear from the V County Health Department I want to highlight um the relationship and the continued work and and coordination between our two um organizations the health department has been um they've been fabulous Partners in this and they've also been able to provide us with um data and information that has helped to inform decisions and recommendations um I wouldn't have been able to make the recommendations that I that I'm making with the same level of understanding had I not had the support of the health department to be able to look at our data specific to our students in our schools which is which is really vital when you're making a recommendation like this so so here are my recommendations um for the

034board to consider tonight I have four recommendations that I think are that are important and again they are driven by wanting to make sure that our students are able to stay in person in person learning also recognizing um the component of race and Equity as well as um those other factors that I've been um talking about tonight um as I bring these recommendation forward so alog together that combination of understanding leads me to these recommendations so my recommendations are first that the board directs staff to conduct Community engagement with our Equity populations with low lower expanation rates um that is both listening as well as dialogue and I think that that's a really important next step for us to take um as a school district we play a key role in the community as you

035know and we also have relationships with families and I think that it allows us to have that dialogue have the opportunity to listen to families and again provides some additional information so that's my first recommendation again I think that the relationship between the health department and the school district um is strong and I think that there are things that um a school district can bring to a partnership and there's things that a help Department can bring and I think together there's work that we can do um again to create greater confidence in the vaccine and to increase vaccination rates also recognize that we need to continue to pay attention to the data that we have and so I would like to also recommend that the board requests updated data and information on cap Co vaccination

036rates among CSD students to the board again I think that this is a um a process that we'll have to continue to um move along and I think that thing that guides that um will be the data that we have available to us then my fourth recommendation um is a continuing to update the board on the ways that we are working with the health department what are the ways that we are connecting to the community what are the ways and steps that we're taking to again try to um get the information out to the community continue to work with the community and I think those are that's an important piece that um the board stays a bre of and um is able to have some updates around so those are the four recommendations that I

037have for you tonight um again thank you for the question thank you for the direction to move forward um to gain information to gain additional insights um and based on that these are the recommendations that I that I have um I believe that I have one more slide to share with you and again I think that this is um this is a vital piece um to see an increase in vaccination rates Community engagement will need to be culturally responsive linguistically appropriate and informed by diverse perspectives from Equity populations disproportionately impacted by covid-19 so in a lot of ways this statement is is overarching those four recommendations because again we know that um the the relationship with the community comes in a number of ways and and at the same time cultural relevancy is really important

038so those are that's my recommendation that's my report um with that I'm going to um invite our panel to join us and our panel members will be introducing themselves um as as well as providing some additional data slides um and then an opportunity to ask questions hi good evening everyone my name is April Holland I'm the public health director and um we're so happy to be with you tonight um before we jump into our data presentation I want to just uh pass it down to Dr Bruce Thompson for an introduction you're muted Dr Thompson you're muted You' think I get the hang of this by now yes so hello good evening and thank you for uh having us uh come on board uh and sharing some information I'm Bruce Thompson benon County Health officer served

039in this role since around 200 and one I believe uh and I appreciate this opportunity to answer your questions I'll pass this along then to back to April oh to continue the introductions Dr Brady can you can you say hello to the group yeah hi my name is Adam Brady I'm an infector disease specialist at Services I've been in the current Samaritan for the past five years and currently medical director of infectious disease and chair our covid-19 task force so I'm happy for the invitation to to be here with my Von County colleagues thanks Dr Brady and uh Rosio Munos can you introduce yourself hi thank you April yes good evening everyone noes my name is Ros Munos I'm the Health Equity and Communications manager for the vent County Health Department I'm also a parent

040of the corval school district and it's just been a pleasure to work alongside all of you uh over this uh pandemic response and Beyond thank you wonderful and last but not least uh Peter Bano please hi everyone my name is Peter banworth my pronouns are he him I'm an ologist with Benton County Health Department and I've been working um with the school district on analyzing vaccination rates uh among School District students as well as case rates and vaccination rates countywide and um April give me a not if you want me to just jump into the presentation at this point that sounds fantastic thank you Peter yeah thank you well um thanks to the board for inviting us and having me here uh the goal of this presentation and you're welcome to advance the slide is

041to kind of start at a 20,000 foot View and zoom in for both um our covid-19 cases so that the school board has a good understanding of what the pandemic looks like in Benton County and um in the caral school district area currently so that the board knows um knows the landscape and then to do the same thing for vaccination rates to start countywide and then to zoom in uh specifically to caral school district students so um I'll be going through each of these slides uh explaining the graphs or the tables that we're we're going to look at and happy to take questions on any of the data when we move to the question and answer part of our panel go ahead and Advance the slide thank you um I I wanted to make sure

042I started by a quick review of what our population looks like so the estimated Benton County population is about 95,000 people in the whole County um the city of caralis has an estimated population of about 60,000 people and population estimates include everyone with a residential address in particular they do include OSU students whether they live on campus or live off campus so when you see um a population of 60,000 uh about 25,000 of that are undergraduate students um and they are as much a part of our community is anyone else who lives Works plays or learns here but that is a very frequent question and it it can play Havoc with our denominators sometimes so I I like to uh remind everyone of that thank you okay we'll start just at looking at the case

043rates um across the county as the as a whole so this looks at the past 12 weeks of data um and the graph you see before you shows the cases per 100,000 people across all of Benton County going back to the week of July 12th and as I look at this the first thing I noticed is July was a a difficult month case races case rates increased um more than fourfold uh and have stayed steady all through August and September um at around 180 cases per 100,000 people on average um a quick shorthand since Benton County's population is so close to 100,000 and those those rates are also very similar to our weekly numbers um which can be useful but it can also be confusing sometimes because it can it's possible to forget when you're

044looking at a rate and when you're looking at a count and I would note that the week of the 27th had the highest case rate in Bon County since the start of the pandemic higher than last December higher than last January or last February so we really are still very much in the thick of the pandemic we are not on our way out um and as opposed to what you may have been hearing in the news of Oregon having reached that Peak and starting to come down that's not something that we're seeing in Benton County we um may not still be increasing sharply but there's there's no signs that we are coming back down the other side of the curve go ahead thank you um now I want to show a little bit of a

045geographic interpretation of our data so the first thing I would say is don't compare this data to the previous Slide the previous slide had weekly case rates this is a three-month snapshot um to compare geographies to not compare over time but as you can see the map on the left um shows by color the severity of the uh of the case rates and the graph on the right is the same data but um in a in a graph form with numbers present um so when I look at this I recognize that our our more rural areas the fouth area the alce area and the Monroe Area have actually had higher case rates as a proportion of their population than Calis or north alony um blet is a bit of an outlier it's very rural but

046has had a low case rate it's also the the least populated area in Benton County um you can't see on the map the OSU zip code that's just for students living on campus it has the lowest case rate but um given that this data is from the summer and the population estimates are year round the denominator may actually be a lot smaller than what the estimate appears so I would for this particular graph I would not look carefully at the OSU campus as a comparator so before we move on I'll just um recap uh so the caralis area um has the lowest case rates in the County compared to our rural areas thank you um so now since this is a school board meeting and the school board is focused on um students age five

047to to 18 more or less um we also look at our data stratified by age so this is a graph of the case numbers it's not the same as the case rates although the the values are similar um and it's stratified by age so um first of all you notice the overall shape of the graph is the same as that first graph that's because this does show the key numbers which have increased through the summer um then what I would draw your attention to is those three bands of color at the bottom represent 0 to 5 6 to 11 and 12 to 17 and those case numbers have increased um both in terms of raw numbers and in terms of the proportion of the total cases over the course of the summer um so the

048the summary of that data is that cases among age 0 to 17 have grown more quickly and become a larger share of the cases in Benton County over the past 12 weeks and we'll have um one more slide about uh cases I don't know if you're also seeing kind of a glitch but um I think it's just loading on mine okay we'll give it a second maybe we can try popping back a slide and moving forward there we go thank you um so the previous slide showed case numbers stratified by age uh which is useful in seeing the the real impact of the cases among our pediatric population when we want to compare to the total population it's helpful to look at case rates because those underlying populations are different so this graph shows the

049case rates so cases per 100,000 people comparing all ages which is in the brown to just pediatric Cas cases which is in the blue so first I'll call your attention to the the brown um bars those are the exact same as on that very first graph um they increase up to 214 cases per 100,000 people so as a reference those brown bars are the same as the first graph the blue bars are pediatric cases for 100,000 people and what they demonstrate is that the case rate among children has consistently been higher than the case rate overall in Benton County and it has grown even more significantly larger in the past couple weeks um so uh although again we're hearing you know in some of the news media that we've reached the the peak of this

050wave in Oregon um that's not the case in Benton County and it's it's even farther from the case uh in among our our student age population um just in the week of the 27th of September uh you know about 560 cases per 100,000 children in Benton County um it's come down a little bit in the the most recent week of data but it's still up there pretty high so um there and just at the bottom uh there were 641 total pediatric cases across the full course of the pandemic as of the 3D of October so that's going all the way back to March of 2020 640 cases total among children age 0 to 17 all right thank you um so that that kind of wraps up our look specifically at case rates um to lay

051out the landscape of what our pandemic is looking like among the student population in Benton County now I'm going to walk through some slides with vaccination rates which is the focus of this discussion tonight um so in Benton County again out of a population of about 95,000 people uh about [Music] 61,62 when the first vaccine was off authorized increased at a pretty healthy speed through um throughout March April May and June um we the the kind of the stairstep nature is an effect of the um the mass vaccination clinics where a large number of people were vaccinated every couple days um we've really plateaued starting in July um there has been a steady but a slow increase in vaccine uptake since July we have now reached about 70% of um all medically eligible people who

052have been vaccinated um and if we include all ages which include 0 to 11 we not yet eligible where about 65% of our population is fully vaccinated thank you um turning now to look at vaccination rat stratified by race and ethnicity um these look at all ages in order to do a good comparison across those demographic groups I really needed to use a a table that looked at all ages not 12 and older so the purpose of this table is really to compare within racial and ethnic demographic groups it's not directly comparable to the data on the previous slide but I would call your attention to um the Pacific Islander group and the white group having the highest vaccination rates of uh 59 and 57% um whereas the uh demographic groups American Indian and Alaskan

053native Asian black or africanamerican are in the mid to upper 40s and the Hispanic or latinx um group is about 40% so there's a significant Equity Gap um between uh some of our demographic groups in particular the white demographic group and many of the communities of color in Benton County um I'll take this opportunity to point out when I present data um to the the board here with racial and ethnic stratification I'm using the group designations that come along with the data um they they aren't always the most uh culturally appropriate and I do apologize for that but in order to be able to move back to look at the raw data it helps to have that consistency thank you all right we're moving now to look specifically at caralis school district students so through

054our collaboration with um the school board uh the the school administration we are able to actually take the student body and um find out among that actual student body of the age um eligible students what percent are vaccinated and um because superintendent NS is very focused on the equity of vaccination we decided to present this from a a racial and ethnic Equity lens so these rates include um students 12 and older whose residents county is Benton County as you know some students live in other counties and attend caral school district schools um but for the purposes of this since 97% of caral school district students live in Benton County the the estimates are are pretty um reliable so um what I what what I see when I look at this is that this data is

055is pretty consistent overall with the county level data with a couple of exceptions um the racial and ethnic demographic group that has the highest vaccination rate is the Asian group that about 85% of caralis school district students um who identify as Asian have been vaccinated about um 73% of caral school district students who identify as white have been vaccinated about 68 or 69% of students who identify as multi-racial have been vaccinated the bar there for total is looking at the total vaccination rate and not stratified by race or ethnicity so overall 68% of eligible students um in caral school district have been vaccinated the other four racial and ethnic groups have lower than the total vaccination rate and the Hispanic group is one of the lowest um I will note that these population sizes wildly

056different uh and so some of the populations here are very small um because this is a public meeting and in public health we we take privacy very seriously I'm not showing you the denominators or the raw numbers I've provided that to superintendent for internal planning U but just keep that in mind and if we can move on um the final two c or the final two vaccination slides um look at high schools and middle mid schools so this one is looking at middle schools uh and I won't go through all the data as closely other than to note that the pattern is the exact same the Asian demographic group has the highest vaccination rate followed by white um and then the uh other communities of color have lower vaccination rates the native Hawaiian Pacific Islander

057and American Indian Alaskan native groups populations are so small that it wasn't appropriate to show the percentages but they are lower percentag than the Hispanic because they're sorted at the top and um again the pattern holds true among high school students as well overall the vaccination rate is higher among medically eligible high school students than it is among middle school students um and again even among middle school students it's filtered to those 12 plus so it's it's not including 11year old middle school students of which there are about so the final slide I wanted to show you um looks specifically at the effectiveness of the vaccine on preventing covid-19 infections so uh we um on the one hand it's unfortunate that we now have enough data uh for covid infections to stratify it by vaccination

058status on the other hand it it does allow us to look at uh empirically how effective has the vaccine been in preventing covid-19 cases in Benton County so this graph shows the case rates um over about a 3mon period stratified by age group the blue bars are unvaccinated individuals and the brown bars are vaccinated individuals so the set of two bars on the left Show the V the case rates um stratified by vaccination status among all ages and you can see that um face rate for vaccinated individuals is only about a quarter of the case rate for unvaccinated individuals and um that Trend holds pretty much true for each of our age groups except the 65 and older uh amazingly um that's what more than 30-fold if you look at vaccinated 65 and older versus

059unvaccinated 65 and older and I would call your attention to the 12 to 17 age group um which is about four times higher for unvaccinated 12 to 17-year-olds compared to vaccinated and so what this means is that a vaccinated middle school or high school student as only one quarter as likely to contract covid-19 as a vaccinated as an unvaccinated middle or high school students there are um of course this doesn't have to be solely attrib attributed to the effectiveness of the vaccine it's likely that people who choose to be vaccinated are also taking additional precautions which lower their risk but regardless a four-fold increase um is very significant and does point to the medical effectiveness of the vaccine among each of our different age groups thank you so I did include a slide with um

060sources for the data I believe that's the next one and so that'll be available to the board um always welcome to answer uh questions about the data on the panel or through email and they can come through superintendent NOS or through other channels are fine as well and I think at this point I will pass it back to April who I believe is going to help us moderate questions from the panel hi again everyone and thank you Peter for sharing your presentation um I'd uh I'd love for us to to start receiving questions we have a a really great panel um and and uh yeah we can just uh Jump Right In and I just want to encourage our panel members um as as uh the questions are being answered if you'd like to add

061along feel free to uh speak up um I don't usually use zoom I don't know if you can raise your hand something like that we can just uh you know uh jump in and and have a conversation with the with the board thanks thank you April I just want to take a a moment to recognize and uh thank you for uh the presentation and recognize the efforts that you have done Benton County Health Department and the collaboration with the District staff so really thank you uh if you're okay I would like to encourage the board that we will have one board member ask a question and after uh you and the panel answer it we'll ask the rest of the remaining of the board uh for any follow-up questions on that topic so we don't

062jump around if that's okay and with that uh Sarah would you like to get started with a question sure um I have a lot of questions it's hard to Nar it down to one um I'll just start with the one that's on the top of my list of questions which is um so what vaccine rates do we really need to see across our community to to to Really substantially slow spread and you ideally achieve her immunity so that we we were not spreading um Co in our schools in our community Sarah thanks for the great question um I'll jump in first and and open it up to anyone who who would like to add um so as you know herd immunity or population immunity refers to the Threshold at which transmission of a disease is

063limited due to a limited number of hosts um herd immunity really requires the whole herd and uh we're a long way from that especially if you're looking Beyond uh the borders of say a school district or a County uh or or a state um right now as as Peter mentioned about 65% of all Benton County residents are fully vaccinated and they enjoy good protection against infection and very good protection against uh severe illness and death um until around 80 90% of residents are vaccinated we don't have the magic number in our pockets but somewhere around there it's likely that the virus will um continue to be able to find footholds when introduced and continue to transmit anyone else want to add to that uh April uh could I uh comment on the OSU experience oh

064please yeah so in response to that question Sarah uh we we do know we have a local clear clearly a local new example of at OSU where uh approximately 93% of the 20,000 students are fully vaccinated and approximately 95% of the faculty and staff are fully vaccinated their case rate is quite low it's not zero um and it probably never will be zero but it is quite low I I I would like to ask add also um as Peter has described what looks like a fairly uh Bleak picture for uh Benton County um I I would like to just say that uh for Hospital District 2 which includes four other counties uh Benton County has the lowest d case rate thank you uh on that uh anyone from uh any board members representative have a

065question a followup question on this topic or this theme all right see done uh I'll move to uh student representative Kate FS yeah so my question is about the increases in student vaccination rates um the slideshow had a a graph that kind of leveled off in July and I was wondering if student vaccination rates level off in that same way or if going back to school prompted any students to decide to get vaccinated going back to in-person learning or if those Trends are the same across all populations thank you Kate that's a great question I'm happy to um answer that one so um we we do have uh data that's stratified by age um our our countywide data does not identify students particularly but that that is something that I can work with with superintendent

066NOS to um look specifically at caval school district rates and and how those may have increased over time we did see a generally similar Trend um because it took longer to uh to extend eligibility to 12 to 17 the um the student age vaccination rate stayed lower for a longer time and increased very sharply um with those two student Focus Mass vaccination events it has continued to increase at a somewhat higher rate than the total um population vaccination rate U so it it has a same general shape but it's sloped up a little bit more as you look over time any followup questions uh from K or the rest of the board on this topic all right see none uh we'll move to next to shaa shaa do you have a question I'm still formulating

067my question Sammy so I'll pass for now sounds good uh let me open up for Vince so I want to thank the panel for being here and uh Dr barnworth for the presentation that you know the data really speaks for itself and so that has been really helpful the board has gotten a lot of Outreach uh from people who are very concerned about vaccinating vaccinations in general and in particular vaccinations for children can you discuss or or someone on the panel discussed uh risks to Children specifically uh you know we've had uh people claiming that there are is a high risk for myocarditis or par carditis and a number of other things as well can can the panel speak to that question and any other risks that that are bubbling up in uh public discourse

068that could uh put board members and members of The public's Minds at [Music] ease I can start to to take a stab at that and again you know right now we we only have data for for vaccines and in particular just the fiser vaccine for ages 12 to 17 uh we do have 18 plus for Mna and fiser and J&J so for for the fiser vaccine and mRNA vaccines in general mRNA being the fiser and madna vaccine there um is a rare increased risk of myocarditis which is increased inflammation of of the heart muscle or or pericarditis you know the sack around the heart now it's important too that U to realize that while the risk exists it remains very rare um some of the highest estimates of this um uh again it seems to

069be more common in adolescent males um the risk isn't really the seen to the same degree at all with um older older people or um adolescent females so again when we're talking about risk um of myocarditis the the highest estimates put that risk at 15 per 100,000 after a second dose of vaccine in that uh adolescent male cohort or age group U and again the uh number of es so far identified by the CDC remains low less than a thousand over the hundreds of millions of vaccinations that have been given so far in general so I think um it's difficult to interpret data coming out in the news sometimes showing that there there's a risk of say my carditis and it and it and it can be U hard to hard to contextualize or put

070into context sometimes and so uh like any vaccine uh you know there are potential adverse effects um the my part itis in adolescence seems to be a relatively low risk um and benefits of the vaccine at this point seem to outweigh that risk going forward I should add also that most cases of myocarditis should they happen are are mild or moderate um and and are extremely rare to be severe um again data is being collected uh for long-term effects but not anticipated to be to be long lasting thank you with that's I have a followup question on this topic and I want to it up also for any other board members uh could you put in context you mentioned 15 out of 100,000 uh is the risk of myocarditis and uh decision makers usually whether

071rationally or rationally compare benefits with risks and they compare it among two Alternatives so I'm going to give you the analogy that's I'm thinking of uh a seat belt have of uh there are some injuries related to the seat belt by itself being the cause of whatever injury by assume it's one in the millions or thousands and the risk of dying or being injured in a car acci without the seat belt is much higher so I'm trying to really WRA my mind if the myard atus is is a similar risk to the seat belt negligible 15 out of 100,000 what is the risk of not having a vaccine for a young male adult uh who uh with uh our teenager who would not have the vaccine what's the risk for them getting covid and maybe

072getting hard Hearts complications as well to compare wor can and yeah that's an excellent question and and unfortunately I don't have it broken down by age group but the CDC has published data on myocarditis following covid-19 infection um and among all ages um it's about um Let me let me get the get this right here 150 cases per hund of myocarditis per 100,000 cases of covid-19 so um much higher risk overall um again numbers are more difficult to to match up exactly those age ranges but um again this is thought to be a physiologic process um in young men as a response and again if you if you consider an infection with 19 where you have billions of Vons replicating you know in all all tissues of the body essentially um potentially um there's there's

073a higher potential risk there can we put some Minds at e that this calculation of risks and benefits has been done when authorization uh has been issued because in the report you mentioned even emergency authorization they already do this formula and the scale tips toward the vaccine whenever those risk are being investigated if there's an authorization is that correct correct CDC has um done modeling essentially you know based on risks of um myocarditis for example compared to risk of cases hospitalizations and deaths and that risk benefit calculation shifts much more into the benefit category I can pull those numbers or the or the slides from that meeting if it would be helpful it was for me to kind of put this into context as well um but basically they look at after every you know

074say I believe it was every million second doses what would you expect in case reduction hospitalization in my in myocarditis cases um and um essentially the um in young young males there there's the benefit outweighs the risk in that scenario thank you and um I I have the a table um published by the CC looking at at deaths um you know which death death rates tend to be much lower than hospitalization rates with come which come with major health complications as well so the death is really the worst case scenario so there have been um from age 0 to 17 uh in the the United States um there have been about 750 deaths among children age 0 to 17 um from covid-19 and uh and and overall there have been about 900 um confirmed cases

075of myocarditis after vaccination among all age groups which also includes the 18 to 29 which um as a higher uh higher number of vaccinations so um just looking at the numbers you know 750 pediatric deaths is um you know from an infectious disease is um pretty extreme honestly in this day and age um and then I would also I would also say you know while the the health and safety of our children is really Paramount and that's a perfectly reasonable question to have is the vaccine safe in addition to protecting from Death Or hospitalization it protects family members protects the community it keeps children in school so they can continue you know inperson learning um so there are allows parents you know to or caregivers not to have to take two weeks off for a

076quarantined child um so there are really a lot of important benefits um from vaccination Beyond just protection from the disease itself for the vaccinated individual maybe just to expand somewhat on on on the CDC data they did an analysis when they talked about authorizing this vaccine and talking about males between 18 and 24 um they looked at a million vaccinations second dose vaccinations over 120-day period theoretical 120-day period um and those vaccinations would prevent 12,000 covid-19 cases um in that age group 530 hospitalizations 127 ICU Admissions and three deaths uh while potentially 45 to 56 myocarditis cases and I I have the numbers for 12 to 17 also if anyone's interested I can I can quickly go through they say smaller age group so You' prevent less cases 5 5,700 cases prevented 15 hospitalizations prevented

07771 ICU Admissions and two deaths prevented while having somewhere between 56 and 69 M credit cases again which in a majority of cases are are mild thank you followups on this question Sarah and then teres yeah um I mean we sort of just covered that with with the data that was just presented but you know my question was a lot of the discussion that's been in the emails we've been getting is saying things like you know with healthy kids covid is less of a risk than the side effects of of vaccines and am I correct in interpreting the data you just presented as as refuting that argument um and and maybe those arguments have been you know the result of of misinterpretation of of d and the media you know I think it's important to

078keep in mind that for the vast majority of children that 19 you know is not s it doesn't end up in hospitalization ICU admission or death and you know there are concerns that you know there have been children hospitalized in Oregon and children who have died in orgon right so it's not a it's something that never happens um again the more spread that's out there the more kids will become infected and the more of these events that that will happen as well so you know I think it's it's important to keep keep that in context but there's also something called multi-stem inflammatory syndrome in children that can happen there's been you know long Co or adverse effects even if you survive Co children can have you know trouble down the line as well which we

079don't fully understand yet but again I think you know overall the risk is low but um I think the risk of the vaccine is is very low as well if I may add another consideration um so clearly uh pediatric deaths are higher in states where there are lower vaccination rates um and yeah there's been three pediatric deaths in Oregon uh and we enjoy a fairly decent Statewide vaccination rate could be better but yeah if I may um good evening I just wanted to mention that this is actually you know a lot of great information that we still are working very hard to get out into the the general public and I think that we'll continue to work hard to get it out through different means it it can be pretty complex among our latinx community

080it was a huge concern because we saw some of that information come through national news and um a lot of our community members really do trust their medical providers um and so always I think that if there's the message here for everybody is that if you do hear or if we know of people that do have questions um that we direct them back to their pediatricians to their medical providers and and make sure that they are getting information from uh trusted sources because there is a lot of information out there a lot of our communities of colors are connected to and and really in general to smartphones and are getting information that may or may not be from trusted sources and so so we we knew immediately that um that that was a concern and

081we were able to address it through some of the channels that we are working with at the county um both um in Spanish and in mom language to essentially dispel any myths that might be out there but also make making sure that fam that families have have the information to make the the the best choice for their families thank you thank you for that Rio I I would like to add one just one brief Point um whether healthy kids need required vaccination ultimately depends on the school district's goal we know that the more people vaccinated the better off we are as a community we know that vaccination will result in fewer quarantines and isolations and while it's true that covid-19 infection is mild in most youth as Dr Brady um and others have said we

082can't say for certain what the virus will do um in an individual uh from a public health perspective there's no number of acceptable pediatric covid-19 deaths and from a public health perspective it makes sense to widely vaccinate against a preventable disease that has caused the death of uh of many youth in the United States and Beyond but not to mention the hospitalizations and the long-term effects um of infection here for all th thanks Sammy I I think this was a follow-up question to this um discussion although we kind of moved away from the point so um I going back to the um percentage of cases of myio myocarditis um you I think the number was what was it 750 cases was that did I get that right about 900 confirmed cases of myocarditis through the

083CDC I'm sorry and 750 pediatric deaths that's right okay um how many pediatric deaths um have resulted from the vaccine I'm sorry in the 12 to 18 range where they can get that obviously in 0er to 11 we have none because we don't have any vaccinated kids in 12 to 18 how many how many vaccinated how many vaccine related deaths have occurred and or has anybody who is vaccinated in that age group died from covid after getting vaccinated do those questions make sense I I know of none deaths uh in that age range from vaccination okay the the overall um death rate I and Adam could probably confirm this um for for vac deaths for vaccination is one in a million I believe I don't have a number off the top of my head it's

084it's a it's a complex topic when we talk about deaths after vaccination especially when you vaccinate rapidly you know say 75% of the country there are people who die around the time of their vaccine um they're having very you know there have been a number of of cases of vaccine Adverse Events I can't tell you off the top of my head in in a certain age group or a certain location what those are however so um just that you know there have been the you know adverse reactions resulting in Death from vaccines that that that's true of probably all the vaccines that we have but I can't quantify that exactly tonight okay yeah I think um we will uh take that back and um do our best to get an answer to that and send

085it onto the board so that you have that information I I appreciate that one of the concerns that people have expressed um not surprisingly is um information or potentially misin information that vaccines are significantly more dangerous than we are inclined to believe and so um I would be curious to see what the numbers are that you that you have um what numbers you would base uh a decision to get vaccinated on what do you think are reliable members um for the safety of of the vaccine thank you yeah thanks for the really good question um you know data from the vaccine event Reporting System um is uh it's difficult to to interpret uh it's because vs uh is what it's called is is intended not not intended uh to be used as a a cause

086and effect um uh system uh reports of adverse effects uh following vaccination including deaths that are in that system don't necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem we're going to look up that that data for you but I just want to add that um we have seen information out there um where uh individuals are using this the ver system to uh to make claims that that the vaccine uh is is more dangerous uh uh there has been a review aail of available clinical information uh including death certificates uh autopsies medical Rec records um hasn't um established a causal link to covid-19 uh vaccines and and uh many of these deaths but uh we'll we'll get that information back to you thank you thank for the clarification about that database because we've seen lots

087of quotes from it and you it's it's clear that what is in that database and what those numbers mean um is being interpreted in in ways that aren't necessarily appropriate for for the data yeah I'm not sure how many Physicians actually look at the v's database I I did spend some time and energy examining it and yeah it's uh it's terrifying except when you dig down into the details and realize that well there's 10 other reasons why this person could have died or eight or six or or four you know and so any rate the the purpose of that database or that reporting system is to raise a flag when there's a potential for um a safety signal it's it's not used by the CDC to make any sort of judgment about about vaccine adverse

088effects it's used by the CDC as a flag to say it's time for us to go out and do a careful study to determine if there is in fact a a safety or an adverse effect um risk and so so it's an incredibly valuable database because you need to know what to look for without it you know the CDC wouldn't know what to look for but they don't use it as evidence of the problem they use it as the flag to indicate that they should go look to see if there is a problem um and then they release those studies through other Publications that have been you know done much more in a more rigorous manner that can actually provide some um some conclusions or some hypothesis about what may be going on so um

089as as people look to theirs keep in mind that it's it's a flag it's not um it's not evidence in and of itself thank you shaa sure I have a followup along this along this line thank you Samy and thank you to the panel for being here tonight this is so helpful to hear one of the as you've been from other board members we have been hearing from quite a few folks across the district as well as outside of the district actually who are writing in with either strong support for strong support against or a lot of folks who fall somewhere in the middle maybe with a not now or a not yet or we need more time to see the effects of the vaccine or to or to see how this plays out and

090one of the requests and questions that I've seen come up from some is an understanding of the difference between having a vaccine that's approved for emergency use versus going through the full approval process and I was wondering if you could speak to those who might be listening tonight or watching the recording about the difference or the different levels of evidence that might come out at those different time points that might help us understand more about the vaccines yeah I'd love to jump in with this one I think it's it's a really important design uh designation to to make um that that differentiation there so emergency approval I just want to emphasize emergency approval does not mean that a vaccine or treatment is experimental those receiving euas were studied rigorously before being given to the general

091population um FDA in fact has applied a higher standards for vaccines receiving eua than the other medical therapies um around covid um each vaccine manufacturer enrolled tens of thousands of participants in randomized clinical trials um which is similar if not virtually identical to what would have been done for outright license approval because these vaccines were intended to be administered to millions of individuals including healthy people to prevent disease the FDA planned to apply different standards to the authorization of vaccines than um to the authorization of treatment for patients who are already ill uh the the primary differences between what is required of companies submitting for an emergency use authorization and the full approval which is called bla or biologics license application are are basically um that the FDA wants to see longer followup of trial

092participants um particularly at least six months of safety data compared to the two months required for eua and the FDA needs more detailed chemistry manufacturing and Control Data including facility inspections and uh the full approval submission um so this is this takes months and months um overall you know creating a new vaccine can sometimes take years um how however many pharmaceutical companies were able to quickly Advance their development and distribution processes for the covid vaccines um and particularly for the MRNA vaccines these um technologies have been in development for some time so um it it um it was ripe for the for the development um and I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say about eua versus full approval I think you said it very well April you know eua it's emergency use

093authorization it's something that needs to be done in an emergency situation to um you know sort of clear a lot of the red tape again when I you know as a clinician when I look at clinical trial data the clinical trial data for an eua that leads to an eua is no different than something that in normal times leads to an FDA authorization so all the you know All Phases of clinical trials are completed you know all of these steps were were done in in very quick amount of time and a lot of the um the regulatory steps were um um truncated to get the vaccine out once it's shown to be safe and efficacious and just one comment on um the two-month time period of followup for an eua the reason that is required

094is because in you know say if you look at history of vaccine Adverse Events over time uh almost all of them very very um almost all of them occur within the one um the two months following vac vaccination it's extremely rare to see a vaccine adverse event years down the line there's a lot of people concerned about what's going to happen to me in 10 years for example you know for the MRNA is not expected to stick around in your body for for more than 10 or 20 days after vaccination right right after vaccination when the body ramps up and that's when we've seen you know we've seen myocarditis in that time period we've seen um J&J has been associated in some people with blood clots for example and that happens right around the dose

095of vaccine that's extremely rare to find something later down the line so again I always tell folks that are hesitant to be vaccinated that you know we've been we've been almost at this now for a year you know 10 months or so or 10 yeah 10 months or so um and these vaccines have been scrutinized more than probably any other vaccine that that we uh routinely give um and everything that we learn is reassuring up to the stage yeah I I fully if if I could just add a couple more uh Concepts here uh I fully understand that people were you know just amazed at how quickly the vaccines came to be available um and and the the safety of it is um enhanced by the fact that I there has never been a vac

096a vaccine a number of vaccinations given in such a short period of time as as there has been in the last year so the the data is uh volumes volumes more than we've had for any other vaccine uh in in such a short period of time which um just a test to the um the the validity of the the decision to go within eua uh when even I was what no you're kidding thank you uh I know we're like five minutes out of time I was wondering if you're okay to stick around uh and I really want to be mindful of your time uh for uh quick questions main questions from at least four of the remaining board members who didn't ask a main question is that okay thank you thank you so much and

097with that uh let's move next to Loui uh and uh you have a question yeah thanks Sammy and thanks you all for um all the info you presented um I wanted to say thank you to Peter for acknowledging the flaws and demographic data um I think that was really important for folk to hear and um I what I was looking at was be I I'm a little bit confused with the numbers of the case counts in the county versus the district numbers that are reported on the dashboard on the District page are much lower than the County case um case count since school started it has like 189 cases in the county um but in the district there's been 66 cases in the schools which is significantly less which also is not super surprising considering

098the V ination rate is about 10% higher in the district compared to the um to the countywide data can you help us make sense of how the numbers have grown so quickly in the county but not as quickly in what's what's presented in the school district can you help us make a little bit more sense about with those numbers thank you Louie um I definitely can try to do that I think what I in order to do a good job of it I'd like to take some time looking at at The District page and comparing it to our data so that any explanation I provide is is accurate and useful so I will put that on my to-do list for tomorrow and try to send it to um to superintendent Ms to forward to you

099tomorrow okay thank you that'd be awesome because I think it's important for folk to understand what's working and um the numbers being reflective of the vaccination rate being higher I think will be helpful for the community to understand that um through the numbers and what that means great definitely so U just to chime in on that um I was just trying to pull that um information up but there's a qualifier at the at the bottom of it and I can't yet get to the page that explains where how that data is collected so that's will be an important piece for us to talk to tomorrow yeah just just quickly um every week I give a report report on pediatric cases um to to the Three Counties and um it's uh uh I've I've learned to

100uh appreciate uh and uh Peter's uh reports because the OHA data is uh especially with pediatric cases um is about two weeks behind time um and I I think that that that pediatric dashboard is based on that OHA uh data um so maybe Peter will be able to verify that but uh that that's what I found at least thank you is there any board member who Haven to ask a m question who would uh feel uh that they want to ask a question see n s real quick uh you'll have the last question thank you so just sort of changing tracks a little bit um one of the the main focus of superintendent Nas's recommendations was a real concerted culturally re relevant Outreach and appropriate languages to the populations that have not been well served

101in our efforts to um get people vaccinated I was just wondering what what the effectiveness of that kind of Outreach is and what if we if if we know what kind of community response we can expect from you really reaching out with good information um from Community leaders I'll take that um question Sarah thank you so much for your concerns and really your energy to get behind a additional Outreach and engagement that we know we we we need and that we're going to continue to work on um collaboratively as as a as a community as a village um you know there are it's really hard to understand um where or what What proportion of those who are unvaccinated where they lie as far as their confidence and uh we don't know yet uh what part

102of that is barriers to access to the vaccine um and then what what part of that is um maybe low confidence rates and so um you know I think that by strategically working together with our school districts uh and going to the community from an equity perspective being in a place that's going to be more comfortable seeing their U uh Community leaders family Liaisons um amplifying the voice of the of the vaccine uh confidence I will be an effective strategy uh or has been an effective strategy but I also feel like just you know as partners we want to keep on amplifying the voice of of overall health and wellbeing and and I know that as a as a public health we we are True Believers of of that but I know that our community

103organizations our school districts and and other partners um also believe and want the best for our communities and so I think the next step for us is to continue to work together and exhaust the current infrastructures that we have to get to communities um we we in public health will continue to do this work but it our voice is a lot higher and stronger when we have um amplification of that and so um you know I'm speaking also here with my U um hat with as a Coralis School District Parent um I know that I get communication from um my my local school district and uh you know we want to make sure that we are continuing to amplify that voice uh coming from my teacher versus coming perhaps from our Public Health Department uh

104will be received very differently and so I I do believe that we have a lot of work to do but I I do I do also believe that we that we're going to be very effective um if we just continue to explore those options the text messaging options options that some you know some of our communities of color prefer over email um you know different ways of getting in into you know maybe backpacks uh things that get sent home and it's really more of that voice that amplification um it carries very differently than you know if I if I as a parent say it or if I as a as a a professional will say it so um I think that we need to work collaboratively on that on that thank you all right uh

105I know sh you had a question but U I want to the time up there uh panel so if that's okay we send it uh offline and um with that I just want to say really thank you uh for the panel for your time uh your care for our community you are uh parents grandparents brothers sisters and neighbors of our community who have spent their lifetime uh studying this work and sharing their expertise with the school district and really appreciate you for your partnership for your care and for truly saving lives and helping us protect our children so with that I want to uh thank you and uh uh on behalf of the board and uh um really appreciate the extra time that you gave us as well I know if you want to provide

106any extra remarks or comments I I would just as a statistician I always remember P I notice patterns um and I really respect that the board brings the voices of their parents forward and and asks questions from them um and the pattern I notice is that almost all of the questions were about um vaccine safety vaccine adverse effects um and not about uh the you know really what superintendent NOS highlighted except we got to Sarah's question at the end which is the equity impacts of our different vaccination rates and so um I would just I encourage the board to be aware of that pattern and the communications you're getting from your parents not to say that there's any communication that isn't important but what does that mean about the voices that you're hearing and the

107voices that you're not hearing from your um from families in your school district yeah and I would just really quickly add that there is a lot of work already happening within the proval school district and so um you know I think that there could be definitely just continued support to uh the existing efforts and concentrate more and more on uh the the current data that we have available start to strategize further what we can do with the current with our current environment and so you know have making sure that we have concentrated efforts and strategies uh that come out of the existing work groups that that you are uh currently working on and what I'd like to um say or share is just again um I recognize the partnership earlier but again um earlier last

108winter you came and provided us with information and guidance that was um informed by data and you've done the same thing for us this evening and we really do appreciate that partnership um to make better in one decisions um around the health and wellness of our kids and so again um tons of appreciation for the Bon County Health Department and and what you um continue to do to support our community so thanks so much for being here tonight thank you so much likewise we appreciate you very much thank you have a good night and uh again I appreciate it your work with that we're gonna move uh like board I have a good night uh I would like to ask the board that we will be moving to public comment uh and after public comment

109we will deliberate and discuss any uh potential direction or or action for direction or discussion with the school uh or School District staff and superintendent so with that we would move to public comments we are now opening without public comments period um and with that I will share some remarks uh with uh those who registered in advance copies of the complete guidelines for public comments were emailed to you prior to the meeting and are on the board's website however I will share a few important points now uh when you begin please state your name and whether you live in the School District boundary and direct your comments to the board uh speakers may offer objective criticism of District Operations and programs but the board will not hear complaints concerning individual District Personnel complaints shall be

110handled following the steps outlined in policy KL copies of which are available online complaints regarding budgets programs or other District issues also shall be handled through policy KL undo interruptions or other interference with orderly conduct of the board cannot be allowed defamatory or abusive remarks are always out of order the board chair May terminate the speaker's privilege of address if after being called to order the speaker persists in improper conduct over remarks the board is under no obligation to hear public comments in its meetings now or at any time the board chair reserves the right to suspend the public comment period you will have three minutes to make your comments the light well I have a a yellow light indicating that you have 30 seconds remaining however instead of the yellow light you will be

111hearing the CH as such for the 30 seconds remain and when your tongue is up you will hear another CH in deference to others who may wish to speak tonight please end your comments promptly if other if others have testified before you about the same issue please take the fact and either decline to provide comment or limit your comments to points or not already stated so additional comments if a group wishes to speak please designate one speaker spokesperson for the group following each speaker the board will have three minutes total to ask clarifying questions I usually will call on the board members uh if they have raised uh they raised their hand virtually and if not I will thank you for your comments and wish you a good night uh and with that I would

112like to say uh after your uh public comment is over you may hang up the phone and continue watching through the live stream um now I would like to um as a reminder I would like to ask you to state your name after I call on you and whether you live in the district or not and you may begin immediately after you state your name and whether you live in the district or not with that our first commenter is Hillary Lindsay thank you um hello chair person Al ABD I I was practicing it all day I'm so sorry um uh thank you chairperson and members of the school board I really appreciate your time my name is Hillary Lindsay and I live within the school district boundaries um in Northeast corval um I want to

113thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you this evening first I would like to thank all the members of the school board for their considerable time commitment and service to our community I have been extremely impressed with the school board's commitment to improving Equity within the district and development of policies that challenge structural and institutional barriers for students from historically marginalized groups and improve students uh success as a teacher and a parent I am proud of and hopeful for the work that the dist is doing to improve diversity racial Equity Justice within our community um I have a first grader who accesses the life skills program at Katherine Jones Harrison Elementary uh Willow was born with a rare genetic condition called prer willly syndrome which impacts her hypothalamus and hormone production because

114of uh hormones effect and effect change and control functions and regulations of systems throughout her body uh condition her condition impacts her globally and impacts many aspects of her daily life and learning her condition is so rare that most people have never heard of it including many people that are responsible for helping Willow in medical and educational Fields since her birth we have been responsible for educating people about her challenges needs and safety measures and planning monitoring and coordinating her medical educational and Therapy Services with access to and support from the life skills program at Katherine Jones Harrison Elementary Willow is thriving she's happy loved welcomed included and has friends at school the amazing team that supports Willow understands her medical educational and mental health needs and is able to work with Dynamic uh Dynamic

115work dynamically and collaboratively to keep her safe and making progress towards her goals I know that this level of support and inclusion is not possible at all neighborhood schools I I am here this evening to share my family's happiness and praise for the life skills program at Katherine Jones Harrison Katherine Jones Harrison Elementary the last time I spoke with the school board I shared some concerns and my hopes for change to the life skills program including decreasing case size management class sizes for life skills teachers improving training for educational assistance and working with students uh who work with students accessing special education services and improved communication about the programs and District level special education planning since that time many of my concerns have been addressed and improved or eliminated we have been very impressed with

116best Martin's communication problem solving and follow through relating to our daughter's access to education and school programs I'm compelled to share the value of the life skills program today because of my immense concern that there is a covert plan that there is covert planning taking place for ending the life skills program and placing all students students back at their neighborhood schools whenever I ask this question directly uh as a parent I'm told that the life skills program is not being dismantled or ended however for the past three years District representa representatives from the teaching and learning and mental health departments as well as District Representatives H I apologize for interrupting but your time is up uh could you conclude if we can conclude in a sentence or two um well I will email you the

117rest of I'm sorry um I will email you the rest of my remarks um but uh I hoping that um that the life skills program is not going to be dismantled um and that it will be continued um I guess I will sign up again to share all of the positive benefits um that the life skills program has to offer to um a variety of students throughout our district to experience profound disability thank you Hillary theres has a question theres what's your question yes uh right as your time ran out you were sharing that you had some concerns about the possibility that the program may be intended to be dismantled I was wondering if you might share your reason for having that concern have you heard uh information or help us to understand um where

118your concern comes from sure I had um people from District trainings who have um have said that the the trainers in those programs or District representatives in meetings uh other friends who have been in meetings with District Representatives who have said that um let me find it life skills as a group program is going away and kids will be in their neighborhood schools okay I want to be a diligence here we're getting into the boundary of uh uh operational uh uh operational decisions or situations which the board can't really adhere to so I just want to be mindful of that that really I I'm sorry I didn't have time to get to Main the main content of my um of my uh which I was hoping to which was to express you know the immense

119value that the life skills has uh the program has for iety of reasons I'm sorry I should have started with that and not not as much background it's okay so um I I typically don't respond to public comment but in this case I want to um well there's other times I want to and I still not able to but in this case I'm just going to um so there's not a plan to dismantle the life skills programs at Cather Jones Harrison um that's not um my personal intention um or the the intention of our school district and I um Hillary did a great job of explaining all the positive aspects and attributes of it and so that's that's where I am thank you Ryan thank you Ryan yeah I really appreciate you with that clarification

120any further questions none Hillary thank you very much for your time and for your testimony and I wish you a wonderful evening uh ree read thank you uh next up is Dr Ian R Downey Dr n r Downey uh you may start with stating your name and whether you live in the district I believe you are muted now so Dr and Danny we cannot we're still muted and I believe uh if you're calling from a phone there might be an option that you need to dial to unmute yourself over the zoom platform or over the zoom technology so I'm not sure what's that um I believe to Tuggle mute unmute you need to if you hear me D star six star six now I can hear you hello can you hear me yes excellent so

121I'll try and keep it brief um basically it seems that the summary of your policy is that the minority just aren't getting they need to be vaccinated and what they need to do is be forced into it by having their children pushed out of the school but since you have to educate everyone how are you going to afford the second virtual schooling on the budget you have you're going to have to touch something also I don't think that people intended for minorities to be treated this way surely they should be included in the school surely they should be able to sit in the class of everyone else it seems well that you might be creating an environment that isn't really as inclusive as you intend um something else to consider as one of the first

122schools to go ahead and implement this sort of policy we're going and get attention do we have a plan for dealing with that attention when it arrives I will see the rest of my time because I think I've already brought up enough topics but I would be very interested in the budgeting and the attention parts thank you very much goodbye thank you do you mind for a minute if you could your name for the record and whether you live in the district or not uh you are muted we cannot hear it all right let the record show that's the individual the client to State their name on the record um next up is Peter hereo uh welcome uh you may uh begin after stating your name and whether you live in the district or not

123and then you can start with your testimony you are also muted hello yes now we can hear you okay are there yes please your and then we may start uh my name is Peter Ringo live on the south side of Corvalis you may begin when I'm sorry I'm Could you um I got to turn up my volume you want this again yes Peter I may begin my my talk yes okay okay thank you all right well first of all thanks for hearing my comments um I'd like to start with clarifying the covid vaccine that's been approved by the FDA is not a fiser product as widely claimed in the Press I just want to say this uh the approval letter from the FDA is addressed to bonch not to fiser the letter to fiser just

124renews its uh emergency use authorization so the FDA also States in its letter to fiser that its vaccine has the same formulation as B's approved vaccine and can be used interchangeably with it quote without presenting any safety or Effectiveness concerns however in its letter to bonch approval is conditional upon the completion of 13 more studies indicating that the safety of this vaccine has not been fully investigated six of those studies are on myocarditis and pericarditis which is been noted to occur especially in adolescent boys and young men these Studies have submission dates between 2022 and 2027 it's very concerning to me that these vaccines are being administered to adolescence while the studies on serious adverse offense that affect them are ongoing what's also concerning is that clinical trials have shown that there's approximately one in

1251,000 chance of paralysis in kids receiving the injection a fiser biodistribution study documents the spike protein itself as a toxin with the possibility of causing cardiovascular damage and infertility a University of California study found that boys aged 12 to 15 with no underlying medical conditions are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine related myocarditis than ending up in the hospital with covid all this seems to run contrary to fda's assurance that fizer's formulation should not present any safety concerns yet scho boards including ours are considering requiring students to get vaccinated for covid an illness that's almost always mild in young people I'd like to end with suggesting three ways I think the board could help with increase incre to increase unvaccinated students trust in people who want them to get vaccinated

126one openly and solidly support students right to consent or withhold consent to vaccination which is probably especially important to students of color two assure unvaccinated students you will do do everything in your power to signal to the student body that it's unacceptable to bully or exclude students who aren't vaccinated and back up your words with action three assure un unvaccinated students that will not mandate these vaccines until the research on the Adverse Events that would most affect them is complete and commit to this as a board thanks very much for [Music] listening thank you Peter and since seeing there's no questions from the board uh I would like to wish you a good rest of your evening thank you can I just make a point yes please um I just want to clarify that the

127fiser vaccine and the bio inch vaccine is a partnership between those two companies and that those two vaccines are biologically and chemically the same thing and I would like to point out to the speaker that we just had a discussion largely about the safety of these vaccines so I would encourage you to to carefully watch the beginning of the discussion with their Public Health office and um continue to follow the research thank you point of information well taken may I respond to that no unfortunately uh uh I I I would love to but unfortunately theor very brief I I did say they have the same formulation in my in I talk I'm sorry I understand but unfortunately we don't do uh deliberation uh board members may ask qualifying question and uh Vice chair s McDonald

128State the points of information so really thank you feel free to reach out to us individually or over email and I'm sure board members will be willing to have a conversation U uh if you reach out so thank you for your time and next up is mat Matt m uh Matt welcome uh you may unmute and state your name and whether you live in the district or not and then you may start with h your comment right after and matth you are still muted now you are all right I think I'm unmuted this uh my name is the um Reverend Matt Goff I live in the district uh area um I I'll try to be very brief because I know you have a lot of commenters but I thought it was I felt it important

129to speak to you today as I knew you were likely to get a large turnout of uh dissenting voices um that might not be too proportional to actual public sentiment so I want to assure you that I speak for many in the community that I lead in saying we are supportive of requiring vaccines in our schools I along with my community urge you not to be swayed by a vocal minority and to know that we support you in taking the measures necessary to make our community as safe as possible for our students our teachers our school staff administrators and the entire Community I could tell you a personal story about how we have teachers who may be going to uh things like chemo or wrestling with other imuno compromis compromised Health ISS isues if I

130could do so without losing it but please know there are stories you don't see of those who bravely go to school each day to learn or to work at Great risk to their own or someone in their household's health so please think of them um because many requiring uh against requiring vaccinations invoke their faith in doing so so let me assure you that there are many people of Faith who Revere science and Trust our ability to use science to combat disease and to support requiring them we find absolutely no justification for exemptions on a religious basis and actually believe we are called to put the whole our neighbors and Community above our own needs however in this case we hold that getting a vaccine is an act of loving our neighbor and also ourselves I

131do urge you to wrestle with uh how to close the gaps where we see the equity and lack of equity represented in the data and I know and trust that you will do so finally I just thank superintendent Nos and the board for your tireless work during this very difficult time in history and the leadership that you have shown and if I also may add I'm very happy to see the steps you are considering in affirming our lgbtq uh i2s plus community and you can count myself and the first bester inter to Corvalis as our allies in that effort thank you very much and that's all I have thank you Matt uh do we have any questions from board or students Representatives see there's no questions uh Reverend Matt goth thank you for your comments

132and have a wonderful rest of your evening uh next up is uh jce pouncy B P's number not does not seem to be here so I'd like to ask first step to let me know but before the end of the public comment that they show up later uh next up is Lori Marshall Lori Marshall Lor Marshall uh you may unmute state your name and whether you live in the district or not and then you may start your comments right after hello this is Lori Marshall I live within the Corvalis School District welcome we may begin can you yes can you hear me yes we can hear you loud and clear uh you may begin thank you am I I am unmuted correct yes that's correct thank you thank you so much for um taking my

133call my comment I appreciate that and of course I am very nervous I admit it okay um I am commenting today in opposition of the Coralis School District mandating this covid-19 for children um children have a 99.998 73% chance of surviving it um and and honestly we have to talk about and we're grateful for that I'm very grateful for that we have to talk about people who have died with covid what are their comorbidities that's not something I've heard tonight so and I haven't heard about deaths yes cases are rising and I'm sorry I don't I don't want people to be sick you know I want people to be healthy um but we haven't talked about well so we have cases but do we have deaths that's that's a question we have had so many

134people have covid what about natural immunity can we acknowledge that natural immunity is still a thing it's always been a thing throughout research can one of the other concerns in terms of the equity piece I think we need to respect people there's been a lot of messaging out and and maybe it hasn't been presented in a way that people can hear it it still has been presented My Hope Is they can hear it but maybe we need to acknowledge that their answer is no and that's okay maybe they've had covid and they said hey you know I know I've got that natural immunity because throughout all history natural immunity has been a plus and we're glad about that um so that's something I think we need to consider I think we need to also consider

135some long-term effects I think we need to acknowledge other states in our our United States of America are not forcing mandates on children or adults to take this vaccine I think we need to acknowledge that there are other countries that have said hey we're not going to do these shots for younger people because we see the potential for side effects so so those are my thoughts I would just like you to the board to consider that we continue to gather information and take a year or two maybe we pause we pause and we say hey are we going to reach her immunity those who've gotten vaccinated it's very high in Benton County and those who've already had it and maybe that combination is that all hered immunity that the um person mentioned earlier tonight so

136I just wanted to bring those up again I do admit I'm very nervous I do appreciate you letting me talk thank you thank you laori if you may stick around we have two questions uh from Kate students representative Kate bz and then Isaiah uh Kate yeah so I would just like to ask if you believe that the pause in Waiting for a vaccine is worth the kind of pause and in-person learning that will eventually have to happen if vaccination numbers don't go up enough to prevent cases within our K12 schools because that's what happened that's why we had to stay virtual last year and we've seen that not only does that have a greater greatly significant impact on our education but it also has an even greater impact on our Equity communities and I'm wondering

137if in your opinion it's worth it to wait for students to get sick or bring that virus home to their parents and potentially have to go back to Virtual learning rather than a vaccine that's been proven to be safe well I I wonder so oh I'm sorry I see your lips M on the YouTube but I think you're done um Okay so I think we have to acknowledge that many people have been out and working in a variety of jobs that got have probably exposed themselves to this virus and so they've they've they've brought home and I'm sorry but they likely might have had it already maybe not gotten tested because they don't want to be stigmatized right um so I think that's a factor it might be a her immun they might have already

138had it I 100% believe children need to be in school in person absolutely I see the Gap and it's heartbreaking and I know I can look and I can search I can research I know I'm not a PhD but I can still search and I can look at other states who've had their children in school without mandates without masks and I want them to be in school I do I really do and it is possible to do it without a mandated vaccine and without masks as well we have a question from Isaiah and then Calvin since representative is yeah um I just wanted to ask if what do you mean by pause and also if you're stopping vaccines how much are you gonna wait until death slow down because um right like somebody I forgot

139earlier somebody mentioned that there was like a 99% survival rate if they do catch covid or how you going to really risk two years of not being vaccinated for people to die like worldwide and for the countes also themselves that didn't choose to force shots how many deaths do you think that caused well I certainly wouldn't be able to speculate on the answers to your question I do think we have to acknowledge that vaccinated people are spreading this virus when I get an email Emil that says a vaccinated child has exposed someone else it doesn't say their child is vaccinated but it says they only have to quarantine for 10 days if you're unvaccinated you have to quarantine for 14 so the vaccinated are spreading it so we need to realize that too as well

140yeah but no matter what if you if you catch it then you have to qu but the time for question and answers are are expired by uh uh Vice chair s govern Donald is seeking recognition my bad had a a point of information yes there is especially in the last few weeks um there has been lots of research that has come out that the time in which vaccinated people who are infected are spreading the virus is shorter than non-vaccinating people and that the the likelihood of somebody Contracting the virus from a vaccinated person is significantly lower than it is for a vaccinated person um that there's in in evidence in Labs that the infection with virus shed by a vaccinated person who's infected versus a unvaccinated person who's infected that those those viruses from a

141vaccinated person are much less likely to infect cells so the reason for those differences in quarantining is research and it's a significant difference in spre thank you uh points of information will take in Lori if you make stick around we have uh Vin for what reason you're seeking recognition I'm seeking a point of order the public comment is a time for the board to hear from the public um I'm I'm afraid that the if we continue in this manner that this will turn into debate that's what's happening right now is debate um there will be time for that in the next agenda item to discuss these matters but I'd like to hear from the public and I want to do it in a timely manner so folks can go home uh thank you uh Vince

142point of for will Taken uh board members will uh focus on asking questions and hearing from the public uh L are you seeking recognition it's okay it was a point of information and Clarity for the community about people who die but it's fine I could wait if um information isn't isn't in place if you would like to say it it's just a point of order or a point of information that people have died from the um here in Oregon I personally have lost two very close people in the last couple months to co and that's not counting all the people since the p pandemic started here in the state and maybe not in Coralis but within very close range and I think it's important for the public to know that people are still dying of

143covid um so as we hear comments and um things if people can try to be respectful to each other who are listening um with that information of information well takeen ly uh thank you and I W to uh thank Isaiah and also Calvin who is for your patience and I apologize for not being able to ask questions since uh the Q&A period has terminated and uh I want to thank Lori Marshall for the public comments and next up is Alex G Alex uh please uh state your name and whether you live in the district and then you may begin immediately after with your comment um hi I'm Alex off uh I live in the district um I wanted to say thank you to the board and to superintendent uh Ryan NOS um for holding this

144discussion um I'm a freshman at Crescent Valley high school and I'm speaking in favor of mandatory vaccines uh for medically eligible uh corval School District students age 12 and older um in the past year and a half uh covid-19 has caused uh many children to suffer especially in our state and in general as taken the lives of about 750 uh uh under 18y olds um and if a vaccine mandate can help us put a stop to that I'm all for it as a student we're already required to be immunized against many um uh diseases and viruses and yet the covid vaccine is the most disputed so far even though all these vaccines have potential side effects too um and the covid vaccine for 12 to 18 year olds went through extensive testing and trials to

145make sure it's safe for youth um unless you are medically exempt there's no harm this vaccine will cause um and so personally I think that there is a good reason to mandating this vaccine for our students um I think it is more about other people than ourselves if Co was not contagious and you chose to not get the vaccine that would be your right but when it threatens the safety of others it becomes a problem for everyone in my opinion I think it is selfish and unsafe to not get vaccinated if medically eligible and not just for the safety of yourself but the safety for others as well um students like myself have been waiting eagerly for school to return to normaly and this can help achieve that without this mandate I feel co could

146get out of hand and send us back in online school and I hope the school board will support mandating student vaccinations uh thank you for your time and I also wanted to say uh thank you to superintendent Ryan NOS for being such an advocate for Equity issues and uh rates surrounding and involving the vaccine and thank you for the board uh for hearing all of our comments thank you Alex uh is there any questions uh for Alex see none Alex thank you for your comments and I wish you a wonderful rest of your evening up next is Dave Evelyn Dave uh please St your name and whether you live in the district and then you may begin with your comments right after Dave we cannot hear you Dave you appear to be unmuted on the

147platform uh but we cannot hear you [Music] okay we can hear you now uh please uh uh turn down the volume from uh the Youtube and you may start by stating your name and whether you live in the district and begin with your comments all right my name is Dave Eveland I do live in the district and I want to thank hang on I'm still getting feedback give me one more anyway I want to thank the board member for putting on this discussion tonight and I appreciate you trying to keep the schools open can you hear me okay yes okay the Mandate under consideration uh was proposed and has been defended as a way to keep keep schools open and keep our kids in the classroom it seems to be the most obvious convenient and

148easy way to do this because the vaccines really are amazing science unfortunately to me it's neither obvious nor convenient nor easy uh Mandate of any of the available SARS K2 vaccines would violate human rights that we've his historically treasured in Oregon and in the United States the vaccine mandate would violate and form consent which at any other time would be staunchly defended in Corvalis and in Oregon and this mandate would segregate divide and create unequal opportunity for those students who choose not to take the vaccine all of these effects violate the principles of this community and the school district these vaccines are proven as effective in minimizing illness from ID 19 disease but that's a narrow lens for evaluating uh their success or their safety these vaccines are not proven nor approved for this age

149group the manufacturers and the approving bodies acknowledge that there are known and unknown risks and these pharmaceutical manufacturers still have years of testing and Reporting before the vaccines are fully authorized for distribution the this uh FDA process of full authorization exists to better understand safety while I think most would agree that short-term safety is proving while they're proving to be uh safe in the short term long-term safety is unknown at this time at this time manufacturers and public health officials don't even fully understand appropriate dosing in different age groups and for those who have been previously infected and this would seem relatively easy to know moreover Keens do not need these vaccines at least not currently there is no disease data for teams that screams the need to justifies any and I emphasize any unknown

150short or long-term risks that could result from the vacc the vaccine in fact the data shows most teams easily recover from the infection and their immunity from the infection protects from future infection and from your time is up uh thank you uh and see there's no questions uh from uh the board I would like to uh thank you for your comments and wish you a good rest of your evening thank you next Trevor and Melissa Norland Trevor and Melissa Norland uh feel free to unmute and uh take your name or names and whether you live in the district and then you may begin uh with your comments right after I believe you are muted by the platform so dial a star six you're still muted Trevor Norland can you hear me yes now we can

151hear you hello good evening thank you so much for taking my comment so my name is Melissa Norland and yes I do live in this District as a parent of a corval School District student I'm deeply concerned by the efforts and intentions of this corval school board to require the covid-19 vaccine for the students of the corval school district you the board have voiced and acted upon a commitment of inclusion and for most much of the past year the current quarantine policies in place which overwhelmingly impact the unvaccinated students are both punitive and discriminatory rather than address the obvious inequities and shortfalls of the current policies you seem quick to mandate the covid-19 vaccine unless I've missed something has there been any dialogue with the Department of Education or the Oregon Health Authority about how

152our current quarantine policies unfairly Target get those students who are unvaccinated especially since we know that both the vaccinated and unvaccinated can each become infected and transmit the virus Oregon currently has the most stringent quarantine policies in the nation even Washington and California figured out how to keep these kids in school while in the midst of covid-19 have you looked into adopting the test to stay program which is proving to be successful in many of the other school districts across the country this program would serve to benefit our student population by minimizing their quarantine times and also would provide real-time information of active infections for the school district the co 199 vaccines have never been said to prevent infection nor prevent transmission within the corbella school district we have documented cases in which fully vaccinated

153students and staff members have tested positive for covid-19 and then inadvertently exposed others our Co School Community has seen our policies play out and the discriminatory and punitive nature of them cannot be denied our students are witnessing these unfair policies and in my opinion are learning how to segregate and discriminate in real time vaccinated does not mean immune to infection just as unvaccinated does not mean infected we are demonstrating to our students how to identify a minority group stigmatize them shame and Bully them and then discriminate them and eventually segregate them from the greater Corvalis School District Community I Ask Of You the corval school board to consider whether this is the Legacy that you want to leave why does the corval Schoolboard feel it necessary to lead the charge on this mandate especially when

154we have such a high vaccine uptake in both our community members and students within the 12 to 17year old age groups with between 60 and 70% of the student population already vaccinated why the push for the other 30% barring children from in-person education for their medical choices is not healthare thank you your time is up I would like to thank you for your testimony and I do have two one question from C representative so we'll start the Q&A period uh Calvin what's your question um hi yeah I was wondering when you're saying about uh how is discriminatory and how we learning how to discriminate in real time what do you mean by that if uh if as pointed to um the CHS Representatives noted at the beginning that incomplete data study about 87% people were

155in FA of the vaccine and if we're pushing for the other 30% 87 would then like that 87% would mean that some people in that 30% are for the mandate and I was wondering how that affects your view on if we're learning to discriminate if some haven't been vaccinated [Music] are well Calvin so the school district is is proposing for those students that don't choose to take the vaccine that they will then be um be barred from in-person school so they would be then sent home and separated from their peers uh for in-person school um so while there is definitely a majority of people people may be favoring these mandates there there is a segment of of the school population um that is not and so for even there are plenty of vac fully vaccinated

156people that also do not agree with these mandates um that do feel it is important for people to make their own medical decisions and also for children to be able to have access to to inperson school at any time so it is a that was a very good question thank you Calvin could I follow up on that FY do we have time yes yes I you have one minute and a half okay you noted that it's important for people to follow up on their own like to make their own medical choices is it the medical Choice like for high school students is it the choices that they want or is the medical choic that the parents want We are following up on and I'm curious which demographic is actually being represented in pro and con

157in the vaccine mandate and if the those two demographics are oppos to each other what route should the school board take well I think Oregon is definitely a unique um in a unique situation where um 15 years and older can actually is actually um able to make the medical decisions for themselves um and oftentimes against their parents um knowledge I'm not sure that that many parents are aware of that um but we do have some some laws currently in place where it there is that um that available for for children um I think it is important to both recognize the medical choices of both children and parents um but while the you know in relation to the covid-19 vaccine I think that um it is a family decision thank you for very much for your

158answer and the time period for the Q&A has terminated for that I want to thank you and I wish you a wonderful rest of your evening and next up is Brian Moore uh Brian you may begin with your name and whether you live in the district and then with your comments Brian welcome you may begin with your name and whether you live in the district and then with your uh public comments and you areed to by the platform so if you're on the phone at dial star six you're still muted uh Brian we cannot hear you dial star six or unmute your phone Brian we cannot hear you so Brian appear here on Zoom that you are muted please dial star six now as a reminder for uh uh the rest of public comment uh

159folks please please uh make sure you're listen can you hear me now yes now we can hear you uh you may begin uh with sitting your name and what you live in the district and then begin with your comments yeah my name is Brian Moore and I am in the school district boundaries I'm a concerned parent of a Crescent Valley High School student about the decisions of the school district as they relate to mandating a new covid-19 vaccination for all students chiefly every parent in this district is owed an explanation why vaccination is even necessary to mandate children uh and teenagers are at the very lowest risk of for fatality or Serious injury from Contracting this viral agent to my knowledge not one student has expired from covid-19 in the Cal School District according to

160USA Today six days ago on October 8th they reported out of the 73 million children in the United States less than 700 children have perished from covid-19 that number yields a 99.999 4% survival rate for people under 18 and that is among a largely unvaccinated group according to Dr Martin mccary's research team at John Hopkins they are not even aware of a single case of a healthy child expiring from covid-19 in possibly all circumstances there has been the presence of a comorbidity among the deceased as Dr mcer notes in Med page today given the that the risk of a healthy child dying is between zero and infan isly rare it is understandable that many parents are appropriately asking why vaccinate healthy kids at all if you go back and look at the vs uh data

161which is freely accessible to the public there are over 14,926 December 2020 in addition there are over 60,000 reported hospitalizations 15,000 life-threatening events 19,000 permanent disabilities and over 700,000 adverse reactions from covid-19 vaccinations many estimates put the total volume of VAR reports at around 10% of the actual volume of Adverse Events which means there are possibly as many as 150,000 deaths from the covid-19 vaccine and millions of unreported adverse reactions in the us alone if the district wishes to engage in mandating experimental vaccinations then the onus is on them to provide data and answers that support their decision first of all what are the ingredients inside the vaccine certainly if you're going to mandate an injection on the entire student body you should be able to tell us what's inside them and then what the

162short and long-term side effects might be have these vaccines passed adequate animal testing in human trials you must provide data to the parents and the district so we can make uh educated decisions coercion is not an acceptable means of persuading families and parents to accept experimental vaccinations that did not exist two years ago these are not thoroughly tested or understood by anyone so please tell us why we should trust this decision without these basic answers there can be no confidence in this body and I would urge other parents to do their research before hastily letting the state or the district tell you what they're going to shoot in your child's arm secondly why are there no medical exemptions allowed our daughter suffers from epilepsy we have to work every day to help control her seizures

163just a few weeks ago I rushed her to the emergency room because she collapsed from a seizure in the restroom if you have a child with an ailment or a medical condition you may feel similar to my wife and me and you're skeptical and cautious about injecting new drugs into their body you are muted now so we cannot hear you until I share something important with you uh your time is up but while your time is up we have three questions uh our three folks want to ask you questions and I want to acknowledge in three minutes especially as you're sharing information that's really important and dear to you I want to acknowledge uh three minutes is not always trauma for so I want to thank you for sharing uh this information and as you

164start talking uh I don't want to intend to cut to you while you're sharing such important information but your time is up so with that if you're hear me now let unmute him and if you hear us we have three questions from Kate and then Sarah and lvo uh Brian can you hear us oh you you need to unmute yourself right now so could you unmute yourself uh with star hell yes uh so with thator I'm sorry you're your I'm sorry excuse me your mask is making it so hard to understand anything you're saying I I could barely comprehend anything that you just said it's all right so uh what I was saying and I appreciate you sharing and your time is up and I want to be really mindful that you were sharing important

165information uh so I want to just make sure you recognize that we have questions next up is casate casate yeah so I don't know if you were um watching the live stream earlier with the Benton County Health experts but they had some really good input into the um the the actual statistical significance and importance scientifically of the vars data I thought that was really insightful of them and considering that information um yes there are going to be for some people who do have you know medical conditions that may mean that they shouldn't get the vaccine and if those people exist should we not all take it upon ourselves to get vaccinated to protect those people from the spread of co9 because we can and we can help reach her immunity without risk them getting sick

166and dying no no no child has even died in the district this this you're talking about you're talking about a virus that has a 99.999 4% survival rate for children isn't it interesting that the cold the seasonal flu pneumonia seems to have all just magically vanished and we're told by the way on a regular basis that it's because of the uh effectiveness efficacy of masks so so what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to believe that all these other illnesses are no longer transmissible those things have all been protected by just wearing masks but covid-19 boy it's a really smart virus and smarter than all the other viruses ran we have a question from L it's okay and you have one minute 10 15 seconds so if it's okay we can allow L to

167ask that question it's actually it's a point of information and said some of it was that there's vars data in the beginning of this presentation that I encourage community members to watch and also um to acknowledge that um available to the public anyone can go look at it to let finish point of information you can not a question it's a it's but you want to whitewash theirs your board wants to sit here this is this is please the public comment is terminated what's your point of information um the point of information thank you Sammy because it wasn't actually a question um thank you for that um the is that and also um that there's been discussion and pass board meetings about the exemption um information for organ um has been mentioned in past meetings if

168community's interested in looking at that so for a point of information for the Community thank you points of information well taken uh as a reminder uh the public should engage in orderly conduct and we should speak one person at a time so with that I would like to invite next it's going to be right all right so uh we don't we do not have Kathy Lane or KF on the line so next up is Brent palasi uh Brent you may start uh with stating your name whether you live in the district and then your we can't hear you you may begin hi I am Brent palowski I'm a caralis native and attended caralis schools for my K12 education I've had two children go through Cal schools and two children currently in high school I'm here

169the voice my opposition to the intentions of the school board to mandate Co shots for students in Cal schools uh the school board members are not MediCal medical professionals medical decisions are between parents and their doctor to decide what is medically best for their children um the school board should not be mandating I give my young daughter an adult dosage of a covid vaccine data shows kids are a very low risk factor tragically a small population of kids mostly with core morbid ities have died State and National Data show that kids are more likely to die from suicide pneumonia drowning or car crashes and die from covid some argue that mandating covid vaccine is the same as requiring other childhood vaccinations to attend school it isn't the same I agree that vaccines have been positive

170life-changing events however covid vaccine as it is called is not a traditional vaccine all those other life-changing vaccines have prevented the recipient from getting the disease polio small box small poox Etc the co vac vaccine does not do that does not keep recipients from getting the virus now reports have St that covid vaccinated people can still get and spread the virus the covid shot reduces the likelihood of severe or lifethreatening symptoms that is why the shot was first offered to the high-risk groups the co shot has been out for at least 10 months now and is said to be safe and effective those who are at high risk have had ample opportunity to get the shot the data does not support mandating a covid vaccine for schoolage kids if the school board proposals to put

171the unvaccinated and remote learning studies varies state to state but suggest that this would dispro disproportionately affect non-whites and lower income brackets such a policy would not be equitable to summarize children 0 to 17 are not the risk group nor are they dying from the disease and vaccinated kids are not putting the vaccinated at risk a school vaccine mandate would diso disproportionately disproportionately affect the non-white and lower inome households parents should decide what is best for their kids not not a non-medical members of a school board thank you thank you very much Brent and see there no questions I want to thank you for your time and wishing you a wonderful rest of your evening next up is Andrea Kowski uh Andrea Andrea uh you're on the line and you may begin with stating your

172name whether you're living the district and then with your comments Andrea we cannot hear you Andrea palaski you appear to be unmuted on the platform but we cannot hear you maybe you need to unmute something can you hear me yes now we can hear you okay um thank you my name is Andrea palowski and I'm also a native Oregonian and the mother of four children two of them are still in high school here in Corvalis I'm sorry I do live within the School District boundary um I'm requesting that you do not impose a mandate on the children attending school in this District your job as elected Schoolboard members is to work on providing the best quality education and access that is appropriate for all of the district's children your job is not to take any

173freedoms away from students or their families and deciding whether or not to get the C covid vaccine shot it really is a personal and private decision which should be made by students with their families and their medical providers again you are not medical professionals you are elected to work on quality education Equitable education fairness for all students in our district as we've already heard heard here tonight orgon's children are healthy they're not dying from this virus we've had three children under the age of 17 who died from covid in Oregon all three of them had comorbidities and well you know I I'm a mom I have to admit the death of any child is tragic data shows in this state vastly more children have died of suicide in 2019 the number was young adults under

174the age of 24 it's expected to be even higher in 20 and 21 due to lockdown and covid stressors Oregon is leading the country we're number nine I think in suicide rates our state we're not a real populated state in comparison to some of the others that number is almost 4,000% higher than the students who died of covid and you want to lock our children away if they've decided with their doctor or another Medical Professional for whatever reason this is not right for them and finally this mandate isn't right for Oregon I am an Oregonian I was born here I've lived here all my life I've lived in Corvalis 35 years oregonians have a long tradition of Val valuing their freedoms one of their freedoms is the right to Medical choices in fact Oregon has

175been the national leader in this voters clearly voted in 97 to legalize physician assisted suicide they voted again in 98 to legalize marijuana medical marijuana in 2020 they voted to legalize magic mushrooms this state is all about my body my choice and whether you agree with those things or not you do get the idea Oregon wants to make their own informed medical choice choices oregonians want to decide for themselves whether to give their children a shot or not so I'm asking you don't mandate don't segregate and don't discriminate thank you Andrea your time is up I would like to open up for a question from be that's just a um point of information that um suicide is a very significant issue um among Youth and um it's a very close topic to many people um

176including myself with the death of my nephew who died of suicide actually coming up next week um and I know that comments about suicide can be very triggering to folk that have lost relatives and loved ones and I encourage folk to reach out to the um to the National Suicide Hotline if this conversation was triggering to you and to um remind the public to respect people's experiences once again as I did earlier thank you uh point of information we takeen and uh the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 8255 help is always there and with that I would like to thank you Melissa for your uh comments and wishing you a wonderful Andrea I'm sorry Andrea I apologize Andrea I want to thank you for your comments and wish you a wonderful rest of your evening

177and with that do we have any other public thank you uh seen uh we don't have further public comments for those who registered on uh the public comment period now is closed uh and I would like to encourage uh community members to continue to connect with the board by email or registering to a public comment period in the future with that the chair would like to note a few uh things before we uh recess and after the recess the board will be deliberating and providing Direction on this agenda item uh a couple things to note first of all gratitude to our student Representatives who uh usually uh excuse themselves at a but they are still marching on uh I want to give you the opportunity whether you want to march on and continue feel free

178to do so or if you want to excuse yourself that's also an option so don't feel obligated but we really value your valuable question and deliberation uh with that also I want to the chair would like to add and state there are some as board members identified uh some information that was false or inaccurate uh and also there were comments that we're not trauma informed and we uh traumatizing uh the chair acknowledges that and would like to state that public comments are provided by the public not sanctioned by the board and the board encourages community members to refer to information that's medically uh uh accurate uh whether it is from earlier tonight where we heard from U experts or by Consulting their pediatrician or doctor uh with that uh does any board member have an

179objection to a 10 minutes uh re us or would you like to atttend it more I think 10 minutes is reasonable all right see there's no except objection uh we are recessing for 10 minutes we will be uh joining back at 9:28 D School Board is returning from recess and uh we have right now the co vaccination board discussion and direction to the superintendent uh board members would anyone like to seek to be recognized and with that student Representatives as well uh Vince uh thank you um let me get my notes in front of me here um oh goodness where to begin I think I want to I want to uh begin uh first by expressing appreciation for the superintendent bringing that uh expert panel to uh uh present for the board and answer our

180questions that was immensely useful and very helpful um you know Dr barnworth um you know raised uh admonished us a little bit that we were focused on on the vaccine and not on community engagement efforts and um I think I can't speak for all of my colleagues but I my sense is that I have deep confidence in the ability of the district to partner with uh with a county and to do community engagement um the superintendent has uh time and again demonstrated his ability to U engage um our hard-to-reach communities to uh bring that voice to the work that we do and so I think while we didn't focus on that I suspect that I was asking questions about the vaccines because I really wanted to clear the air on those issues that the board

181uh surfaced during that discussion and I'm happy to Pivot to that topic now um I really appreciate it I really appreciate the recommendation of the superintendent um I really appreciate that it is aligned to our our goal number six and in particular our our revision to goal number six where uh the work that we're going to do around covid is uh done in collaboration with with our local public health authority and and Community Partners um one of the things that I'm and I I appreciated the question I forget who asked it it was about hurting me and maybe it was U um Sarah that asked it was what was the backx rate what's the V what's the the goal backx rate um and so the thing that that is what I'm not hearing or what

182I haven't seen is what's the goal uh what are the what is the what are those key metrics that we're going to track I mean clearly case rates is one of them vaccination rate is another but um what are those goal numbers and maybe we don't have goal numbers solid goal numbers to go for but having some clarity around that would be helpful for me um and helpful in man monitoring uh progress um perhaps what I appreciate most about this proposal is that it is focused on creating a culturally responsive effort to reach parity and our vaccination rate before we consider uh deployment of a vaccine requirement so that ensures um equal equal access to um Health preserving measures um currently we're not we're not where we want to be and so I really appreciated

183um that approach that we're first going to try and reach parody in in our vaccination rate through Outreach and engagement and then we're going to consider U additional measures um let's see I think that's all I have in my notes here and that that the other piece is that we're going to exhaust our our Outreach and engagement efforts before considering a vaccine requirement so uh those are my comments um I really appreciate uh I app appreciate the work of the superintendent over the last couple weeks and all that you've done to bring this information to the board and to uh prepare the district and I appreciate my colleagues in asking all including our student Representatives all the insightful questions that were asked in this conversation leading up to now and I yield back thanks uh

184just for the board we're gonna designate 11 minutes uh remaining for this topic you're in control if you want to extend the time but you know the implications of how long that was mean meeting will go so with that uh Sarah and then Lou and then sh Sarah yeah I think um one of the things that needs to be clear as we talk about vaccines is that the goal really here is to keep our schools open and to keep kids in school and and that there's scientifically based reasons why there's a difference in things like quarantine times um and we know that spread happens differently in a highly vaccinated population with in a population with low vaccine rates um and I clearly do not want to create um an equity issue by imposing a mandate

185on a population that has not been well served by Outreach me Outreach efforts and not been well served by the medical community and it is really our role as Educators to you play you play a piece in that Outreach so that those families who who are still hesitant about vaccines get the information they need who have not had access to vaccines have the access that they need um before we require them to get those vaccines so I do agree with Vince that we need to exhaust our Outreach effort my discomfort with that is that I don't want others in the community to look at that effort and say and and feel like they're off the hook we need vaccine rates to increase across our school population we cannot rely on an underserved group to vaccinate

186us out of you the potential problem we have with vaccine rates in our schools so I think we need to see vaccine rates increase across all of the population in our schools not just on the ones who we have not been and I would like if we take this approach of Outreach and education and increasing excess I would like to have a clear plan for when we reassess our numbers when we look at the success of that Outreach effort and you know how how effective it's been possible issues or holes they're still remaining in that effort so that if we get to a point where we can identify that we have now reached the people we can reach through education and we still have lower vaccine rates than we need to keep our schools open

187safely and to keep our community open safely and to keep students from carrying home viruses to vulnerable family members um that we we have a time set when we're going to look at those numbers and have a clear path forward from that point thank you uhin the [Music] chair yeah um thanks everybody oh it's giving feedback again is it okay no it's not I don't know what happened maybe I was actually talking loud for once um first of all I just wanted to thank the community for engaging with conversations with us both through email and this evening um what we had tons of different responses coming in um and I just wanted to acknowledge that and say um we may not have been able to individually respond to every single email that came in but

188that does not mean we didn't read them our value the time that you put um into reaching out to us and um I'm always one who likes to see a lot of public engagement with any of the things we work on um so I do want to acknowledge that and really one the reason I asked the question earlier and thank you to Ryan for bringing that panel in it was super helpful to see the data because um as everyone really knows I like looking at data and numbers and what and the story it tells about our community and we just can't read everything and the county numbers because the count is so big and so I appreciate that the information that was brought in by the panel helped us see what's going on in the

189district and also with students in the district and so that um compressed view was really helpful and seeing where we're at um I wanted to um what I was trying to get to with that question about like seeing the um the low numbers in the district so far if they are correlating with the dis with the county numbers I think will really show that overlap of the vaccination rates being higher in the district and I'm looking forward to seeing that information coming forward too so as we continue to gather information that'll be great um I really appreciate Ryan your recommendations because they prioritize that relationship with community and it shows that we value the relationship building and the Community Partnerships um like it's already been mentioned um and also about Community Education about vaccines so

190it's not just focused on all the students exactly but it's also families and communities um more broadly um I wanted to also go back to something Sarah mentioned about it being a more CommunityWide effort um while I appreciate the focus on the equity piece and the statistics showing that there are that um the numbers are a little bit um lower U for mostly bipot communities those numbers overall in Corvalis like population wise are small so the if we we see those numbers go high it's not going to raise our overall county numbers as high as we need them so I appreciate Sarah pointing out it shouldn't be always on the backs of those who are most marginalized and um least institutionally supported it needs to be all of us working together and I just really

191wanted to reemphasize that just from the population standpoint because even in some of the data we seen some numbers couldn't even be reported because there's not enough students and um without risking um like violating their privacy and so I um really wanted to underscore that Community effort and I hope I know that the recommendations you gave Ryan really focused on really those populations but I think we need to make sure it's a larger network of um a partnership and getting the vaccination rates up that way um it's everybody involved and not just the focus I agree needs to focus on those communities but but it also needs to include everyone um and appreciate us helping stand behind our commitment to equity work in how certain communities are impacted differently um the last thing I would

192say about the conversation at this point is that I hope Community as they're continuing to engage with um the board in the work that we do um really takes the time to look at the um board packets because those are released in advance for all to have the information ahead of time and I think it it's really helpful um like I know that the the recommendations you gave tonight Ryan were in the board packet last Friday and so there's been almost a week where F could see ahead of time what you had in mind not all the details of course but the direction that this conversation was going to go which I don't think was necessarily reflected in some um some things we've heard over the last week um so I really wanted to encourage

193community to continue to educate themselves on the topics um both outside of what we present and also the information that's gathered and presented to the community um to be transparent with what our discussion is going to focus on um but thank you Ryan for all your work on this thank you Lou and we have shaa theres and Calvin and we're at the two minutes Mark so the chair would entertain a request to extend the discussion time shaa since you're on docket do you do you seek extending our discussion time and for how long I'll seek extending discussion time it looks like there's three of us so theres and Kelvin I'll just look to you for head nods maybe for an additional 10 to 12 minutes so three or four minutes each all right 12 minutes

194with that objection uh we're gonna change our time to uh 12 minutes uh plus plus yeah plus what we have so so we have 15 total and shaa go for thank you Sammy so I just wanted to thank Ryan for all of your work as well as others at the district who have helped be a part of really gathering information and starting this process of listening and engaging the community and also thank you for bringing in the expert Health panel today I learned so much from that opportunity and I hope that others were able to watch as well or we'll go back and watch the recording and I'll go back and and rewatch to really be able to reference it again and I want to also thank the community for reaching out today through public

195comment as well as through an overwhelming number of emails that I know we've received to the board as a whole as well as individually and I've been as I've gone through emails and worked on responding as well as I can noting down some of the different reasons for against and also the the nuances in that and I just wanted to take a moment and share some of the things that we're hearing because I know others may not be able don't have access to that information so we've heard some very strong yes in favor of moving forward with vaccine requirements with the underlying ideas of this will help with the goal of keeping kids healthy safe in schools included so they're able to learn with a couple of that have come up having been bring children

196back who are have special healthare challenges or who are imuno compromised who are feeling isolated segregated at home or need to be in person to learn um worry about stopping the spread or preventing additional variants getting back to a more back to normal feel additional protections for students families in the community and we've also heard folks who are opposed to a vaccine requirement with thoughts around this isn't the role of the board or maybe in some beliefs it's not the role of any government entity um fear of the vaccine and worry about the safety of the vaccine is something that we've been hearing quite a lot further inequities through a requirement an assumption that information is what's needed to boost the vaccine um uptake and one that mirrors what we hear on the yes side

197which is fear of segregation and isolation of students not being able to be in school so that was really interesting to me that that comes out as a worry and a fear on both sides students mental health well-being and seeing how challenging and even how harmful isolation has felt to so many so I really just and leaning into that folks on all sides who are really thinking about this are leaning into the importance of students mental health and then I also want to acknowledge that it's not as simple as yes and no in what we're hearing either that we're also hearing from folks who are saying wait wait for FDA approval wait for other districts to move forward first and see what happens and then a lot of questions across all of are there unintended

198consequences on either side that we or on any of these sides or Within These nuanced conversations that we may not be thinking of yet so I just wanted to acknowledge all of those different voices that we're hearing all of these different sides and express my appreciation for the board for leaning into a community process to be able to say we need more time to listen to learn to engage with folks and again just to reflect that there seems to be really a shared goal underlying all of these big feelings that are coming out in the community of keeping children safe keeping them in school and keeping their their mental health and well-being supported so that they can learn effectively so thank you everybody sh I think Calvin was before me right Calvin oh uh I

199didn't realize I was before you okay um I I want to like Express appreciation for not only board but the community and like their Outreach and their public comments like we had way more public comments than I feel like we did last year which just shows the community is engaged in this and involved and it sounds like the board is also getting a lot of emails so I want to show appreciation the community for their Outreach and I think they're bringing up some good points in the equity of it all like students mental health is important and um if we're going to move forward with this we need to make sure that it's something that can be accessible to everyone and that it's not something that is impeding the learning of some students because ultimately

200I feel that is the duty of the school board and so I was wondering what like if the school board has any ways that they're wondering like they're thinking about increasing community outreach uh planned yet or if there's anything out there already thank you Calvin um I'm gonna lean maybe on sorry I'm gonna pause our timer and have Ryan probie you want to comment on that yeah so that's a very questionin so we have um started to convene a group that includes um folks from the county folks from um OSU folks from basically around Calis to come together and primarily that group is um also folks that have a real focus on Equity um and a group of people that are really committed to seeing those um vaccination rates continue to to um improve um

201particularly amongst our communities of color and the groups made up primarily of um members of our community people of color um so that their perspectives and their um language is represented in this work and so we have been um starting to meet and just to continue to talk about how best to engage in structures that are already um in place in our community rather than creating something new um but again looking at ways to continue to enhance the other thing that I think is unique about our school district is that um we are a different system than the health department and so we have different relationships with Comm our communities and with our families um and I think it's something that will be beneficial as we continue to work together um in a way that

202we haven't necessarily done up to up to this point you know when we started um accessing vaccine it was large um event at research stadium and it was really looking at the whole community and now we are becoming more and more focused um in um making sure that there's been access for everyone um and continues to be and so I think those are the conversations that we're having right now that are so important as we continue to move forward thank you Ryan and I want to recognize I know board members also asked questions uh and I did not defer that's right so just want to that we'll have time for Ryan to respond as well or maybe summarize the questions and recommendations uh Colin do you have more comments or you feel comfortable with that

203I'm I'm comfortable with that response I was I had one more thing that I was wondering if I could say um if the if there are like two separate like this the student perspective and parent perspective disagrees and we get enough from both perspectives to formulate a general opinion perspectives which board go with in terms of how to go about this if like one perspective is agreeing one perspective is disagree Calvin are you asking you want the board members to respond to how they would handle that or are you asking us as something to consider for future consider something consider it doesn't have to be answered it's just like something to keep in mind like because it seems like the community is very involved in this so if there's that Community involvement and there's a

204divide just like something and there like how we go around managing that thank you thanks to for the clarifying question uh th you're up next thanks Samy I know we've been at this for a while so I'm going to try to um not say anything anyone has already said so um I except for I will also along with my colleagues acknowledge appreciation for the number of people in the community who have taken time to share um their perspective um their concerns or their questions uh their support whatever position they might be coming from Community participation is always appreciated even when um there isn't a clear consensus so thank you for taking time to share that um I also had this idea that I was going to respond to all of the emails that did not

205happen there were so very many emails um and I wanted to respond to the actual tone and questions of each of them and so if you emailed and I haven't replied to you yet I didn't forget you I did read it I hope I will be able to do that I fear there will be another wave and that some may just get lost in the process and so if you really wanted a response and you haven't gotten one please say please email and tell me that um but uh um we we did have there was just a lot of community engagement which was great um so a couple things that I have have I've observed that haven't been maybe talked about as much I too appreciate the plan right now and its position on focus

206on communities um Community Development Community engagement I share the concern that um if um parody becomes the focus that that will not that's not a very good measure of community progress because the numbers by percentage will not mean very much in terms of real real steps forward because we just we just don't have a lot of individual people by count so even if we were to achieve huge numbers good 100% of um participants um in particular uh communities in our um in Corvalis or in Benton County it would not nudge the needle far enough and my concern in talking about it that way is that it will become another opportunity for well frankly not communities of color to point the finger at communities of color and say see they needed targeted Outreach because they weren't

207on board with this and so um that's a that's a feeling it's a concern something I want us to be aware of I want to acknowledge here that um this vaccine hesitancy is not a new concern um I don't propose to know the reasons why any individual in our community has a concern I would not suggest that um without personal interaction and someone disclosing to me that I know their individual reasons but I do know historically that um medical procedures vaccines research on human subjects has been violent toward communities of color very violent um and um so I will say that I again I don't know that that is in the minds of anybody or at the Forefront it's on my mind that this if we now are going oh how do we engage a

208community we cannot do that I don't think without effectively saying hey we we haven't we haven't done right here historically and as a as a as a country as a community as a culture we have perpetuated a great violence against um communities of color in the area of of medical um force sterilizations uh denying treatment um for the purpose of gaining what we I guess would claim was knowledge about disease progression all these are just examples of things that have been inflicted upon individuals and so I just want to say that I'm aware of that I hope we keep in mind that there are a lot of factors that contribute to the way that communities may think about um participating in any area of collective um medicine um and in particular in this area there's

209a there's just a really not pretty history and so we need to be aware of that um to that end uh I don't think any meaningful engagement begins unless it can start with a I think can start with we we've caused a lot of distrust we colle itively we've caused a lot of distrust and community of Corvalis we white people who have largely been the people that have conducted these studies participated in these in a have been in charge we have participated in that um and so I want to just acknowledge that um and have us ask us to think about that um the other thing that I wanted to say um is that uh by and large the community engagement I think has attempted to stay focused on the topic but there were a

210couple of things that did concern me and I just want to take a moment to say to the community who is listening anyone who is still listening thank you for still listening um there were a few exchanges that made references to things like the China virus the Kung flu um that those references are are not even subtly but racist they're overtly racist it's violent language it is not discourse that I am willing to entertain or engage with um and I have to say it really makes it difficult to consider any other thing that might be part of that message when it starts with the China virus so I would ask our community to rise above and consider um it's the the language consider the choice of language consider the message that you are sending and

211how that spills over to any potentially valid point you might have when we're asked to look through it look at it through a what is so obviously racist uh framework um I very much want to be able to hear points I I don't think that any there was any obligation on the part of our community to entertain that those references are acceptable or have any place in this conversation so um I want to just point that out and I don't think I I have got a long list of things over here and other people have either already said them better or they can totally wait for a future conversation because it's almost 10 o'clock so thank you Sammy for the time and um I will I'll I will mute myself now thank you uh is

212there anyone who did not speak yet would like to be recognized if not uh Calvin I'll give you one minute maybe your hands were up from before probably that's what it is so uh with that I will say uh I would like to summarize the discussion but it's very rich and focus where it's really hard for me to summarize so I'm going I'm going to add one thing in context which is I would like to reaffirm the goal that we're about to uh ratify or accept in a future agenda item tonight uh goal number six 2021 2022 goal in response to covid-19 I think that's the objective the public health public policy and educational objective that we should seek with any uh pack package of solutions policy or actions or budgeting all of that should

213lead into that goal and I'm going to read it its relevant I would say even though we were going to talk about that goal and accepting it later on as a school district adapt to the new conditions presented by the covid-19 pandemic take all preventive measures available working with Community Partners to keep our schools open with students in our classrooms make decisions focused on health and safety students achievements and Equitable systems and there are strategies that are focused to achieve that goal uh including prioritizing communities that are disproportionately impacted by covid-19 so to to summarize What I Hear as a consensus uh the board is accepting uh the superintendent's recommendation and directing him to follow uh the recommendations that he uh shared with the board and highlighted the focus on education Equitable education Equitable access

214to vaccine Partnerships with the community uh there were some questions highlighted that we would like to hear uh including when will we hear back as a report so uh we know that our new package of policies that we're adopting are there uh what I hear from the uh board is a vaccine requirement is not off the table it's on the table but not yet uh so that's what I would think I would summarize it please raise your hand or say I object if you feel I'm way up the Mark here um so see none I would like to return it to Ryan if you have any thoughts any summarization uh of what you heard and maybe a brief responses to some questions you heard and how you will be able to carry the recommendations forward

215yeah so I think um you I think you did a nice job of summarizing what I've been taking notes on um the the things that I have down our community engagement um also um some information about what is the goal so how do we return with um data and information to the board which is something that I know I need to spend time with um Peter from the county um looking at what sorts of information he's able to pull together for us he did an incredible job last week or this past week um so I I I see that as a a piece of this again Outreach and engagement um the goal continuing to be around that goal six and keeping our schools open um and then also some information around timeline related to our

216efforts so it's a new those are the things that I heard sort of throughout that I feel would need to come back to the board um in at a future meeting just to provide here here's where here's where I think we're headed here's some of the activities and actions that are underway um so I feel like that's the direction that I've heard tonight from all of our board members um related to those initial recommendations that I made thank you Ryan appreciate it and with what shall Ryan Shar is there any objections or clarifications or do we feel uh we're all on the same page here it looks sweet uh Sarah yeah I um there one thing I would like to add you know not sure it's possible at this point but you in addition to

217having a clear timeline for when we would come back with information about how things are going I kind of I kind of want a sense of if we're not meeting our goals what what is what are steps past what we're going to propos to do immediately um that could help us get there um just so that we sort of start out with you know in an Ideal World this will work and we will get to where we need to be but as we said the your population numbers are different we'll have to see um so I would like to know you I would sort of like us to have an idea what the next step step would be just so we're not if we don't hit the goals coming back and saying now what okay

218so so what I hear you saying is more of a shortterm and a longterm approach yeah yeah is that yeah and if the shortterm approach works great we'll stop there but yeah and I want to underscore what sorry you mentioned is that the need for uh strategy shortterm and long-term goals it's our actions and policies are very important the numbers we saw are chilling uh the discrepancy and the inequity in terms of uh racial uh access to vaccine and uh of course in terms of the cases our children uh need to be protected need the support so they can stay in school and stay safe and protect themselves and their friends colleagues and families so we really need to make sure that we're thinking both shortterm and long term uh and have a clear strategy

219so we stay on top of this pandemic it's not over and locally here there is much more work to do especially on the Pediatric level um with that's Ryan any concluding marks or I don't believe so all right uh with that please get vaccinated have a conversation with someone who's hesitant uh show them this video let them watch uh that presentation by the public health experts uh and by the superintendent it's really important to have this conversation uh everywhere with everybody with our friends and uh everybody who can be convinced so with that we will be moving on to the resolution number 21 I lgbtqi 2s Plus history month does anyone wish to make motion to approve this item the motion wording is in your packet Vince I move to adopt resolution number 2-101 acknowledgement

220of lgbtq2s plus History Month as submitted is there a second second there's a second is there a discussion on this item second all right Le my internet's being weird can you all hear me okay yes okay good um I just wanted to let the community know that um we know that it's halfway through the month but that doesn't mean that um we didn't recognize and celebrate everybody um for the whole month and just the way that meetings sometimes play out out that um we don't get to have the conversation right when we wanted to for these sorts of recognitions and I wanted to make sure Community is that's listening and that is also a member of the LBGTQ on to us plus um Community know that we didn't forget and um thank you for your

221grace and patience as we um got this resolution prepared and ready for tonight's meeting oh one more thing too I would say like um also as a member of the queer Community I wanted to like really let Community know that this is really an important resolution for um recognizing not just our students but our staff and our families too um and parents that identify as part of the community and so um I just wanted to say that too because a lot of times especially for um folk that are part of what's known as The Cue po population are um not recognized as um being part of community sometimes yes I just wanted to express appreciation for the sponsors of this resolution bringing it forward and continuing the work of of raising these uh recognition months

222and getting them on this board's calendar where they belong and so thank you for that any further discussion see none uh the board will move on a vote on resolution to adopt on a motion to adopt resolution number 21 hyen 10001 acknowledgement of lgbtq I2 S Plus History Month as submitted uh on the motion uh director hi Dr Jes I director Tom I VI sh finger McDonald hi director Baker hi director Adams I chair whats I the motion passes unanimously and for the significance of this resolution the chair would uh ask uh the uh sponsor co-sponsors of the resolution to read it aloud for the record uh so I would like to invite coice chair L White Bear director Tina Baker and director sha to read the language of the resolution thanks Sammy We're gonna

223take turns reading this so um acknowledgement of LGBT Q i2s Plus History Month whereas the corval school District recognizes and pays tribute to the significant contributions made in our community by lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer interex and two spirit people as well as people from the multitude of other gender and sexual identities with acronym lgbtq i2s plus and whereas the corval school district affirms that lgbtqi 2s plus students families staff and community members should be valued for all aspects of their identities and whereas sorry last and whereas lgbtq i2s plus History Month grew out of the establishment of what was then called Gay and Lesbian History Month by Missouri high school teacher Rodney Wilson in 1994 and whereas National Coming Out day occurs each October 11th and where at as lgbtq2s history month was first

224celebrated in school districts within the United States in 2012 and whereas lgbtq2s plus history month has yet to be proclaimed nationally and whereas lgbtqi US history is not a part of standard educational and whereas lgbtq2 History Month provides an opportunity to continue the district's growth in learning about the many contributions of lgbtq2s plus people to the nation world and local community and whereas the state of Oregon has documented history of anti- lgbtq2 Q i2s plus and whereas education is a necessary component creating a more Equitable and anti-racist Community nation and world and whereas the Corvalis school district has made a commitment to equity and anti-racism and whereas the Corvalis school district has a responsibility to honor and respect the diverse histories of our community and whereas the Corvalis School District believes each and every student

225must be celebrated and appreciated for the distinct and vibrant contributions made by sharing cultures language ideas beliefs and values within a school Community therefore let it be resolved that the Board of Education of the Corvalis School District does hereby Proclaim October 2021 as well as each o October annually as lgbtqi 2s plus History Month in the district and strongly encourages students families staff and community members to join in existing local celebrations and encourages all schools in the district to help highlight this month in great appropriate ways as well as highlight the contributions lgbtq i2s plus peoples to the local community nation and Beyond both historically and in current times adopted by the board of directors of school district number 509 J Corvalis of Bon Benton Inland County's Oregon at its regular meeting this 14th day

226of October 2021 thank you and uh really deep appreciation for the author and co-sponsors uh so hereby we have lgbtqi TOS plus uh history month is going to be celebrated this month and uh October every year it's just great great opportunity thank you and thanks for the board for the unanimous vote uh with that next item is resolution number 21 hyen 10002 building renaming uh next steps does anyone wish to make motion to approve this item the motion wording is available in your packet for what reason do you seek to be recommended I See You Vince um I move to adopt resolution 21-12 building renaming next steps as submitted is there a second I second the motion move and second is there H now we will entertain a discussion go I'm just really excited that

227we're at this point of the conversation with this um with these efforts and to continue honoring the work of community and students that went into getting us to this point Thank you any further discussion see there's no further discussion it's been moved to adopt resolution number 21 hyen 10002 building renaming next steps as submitted on the motion the board will be taking now a roll call vote director Adams hi director Baker hi last MD I director tomin I director Jones I second white there hi care voice I the motion passes 70 unanimously right next item of the agenda is approving revisions to board goal six does anyone wish to make a motion to approve this item the motion boarding is in your packet director let me see who was um I move to approve the

228revisions to the board goal number six as submitted do want hear a second I'll second that motion as well all right move second Is there further discussion Sarah oh no I just didn't take my hand down all right well I'll I'll provide a very brief discussion as stated this is an important beauty of the school board uh I can't restate that's enough is to keep schools open and for students to uh be healthy and safe and succeed academically we need to have a good goal thanks for the board and for the superintendent for this revision that makes it clear we're not doing a requirements for the sake of requirements or education or Outreach without really a mindful uh attention of the goal the bottom line of keeping kids in school as much as possible as

229much as possible in person and and uh to keep them healthy and the the way to do that is by adopting goal six so I'm excited to vote in favor of that and if there's no further discussion the board mooved to uh approve the revisions to board goal number six as submitted and on that the board is taking a roll call though on on the motion uh director Tommy I Dr John I second Vice chair white May hi director Adams hi Dr Baker I I sh finger McDonald hi shair what's I the motion passes 7 Z unanimous all right adopt 20 21 2022 board Norms does anyone wish to make a motion to approve this item the motion Waring is in your packet uh Vince I move to adopt the 2021 20222 board Norms I

230second moved and seconded is there a discussion on the agenda item Tina moved by Vince second by see there's no discussion on uh this item forther Rec for anyone watching listen to our discussion last meeting we had really thorough discussion on this and also a plan moving forward so uh really thank you for your board for having that discussion on that uh it's been moved to adopt 2021 22 board Norms on the motion uh the board is taking a roll call vote uh that director H Jones what's your vote I VI chair White Bear hi director Adams I director Baker i f MD hi Dr Tom I votes I the motion passes 70 unanimous adopting 2021 2022 board and superintendent working agreement does anyone wish to make a motion to approve this item the motion

231wording is on your packet and I think L got it for for what reason it's a it's a hand raising B right now I moveed to adopt the 20222 board and superintendent working agreements as submitted I second been moved at second to adopt so any any discussion on the motion all right uh see there's no further disc no discussion on the item the motion is to adopt the 2021 22 board and superintendent working agreements as submitted on the motion the board is taking a roll call vote uh second Vice chair White Bear hi director JN hi director tomin hi Vice M hi director Baker hi director Adams hi the chair vot I the motion passes unanimously weing we've had lots of we've had lots of conversations on each one of those topics in some ways

232this feels like it's good to finalize and have these pieces in place so thank you yes you know it's the same feeling when you have a checklist and you spend lots of time and now you're checking them that's what we're exactly doing it feels very gratifying and satisfying so with that now we have Consolidated action as a reminder the items under this portion the agenda are for Action does anyone have a question about anything in cons the action so please identify what would you like to pull out pull out of the consolid action for discussion all right see none does anyone wish to make a motion this move to approve Consolidated action second second right7 all right uh under motion Is there further discussion right been moved second to approve Consolidated action under motion the

233board will be taking a roll call vote uh director Baker what's your vote I Vice chair singer McDonald hi director tomin hi director Jones hi second here Whitebear hi director Adams I and chair votes I and the motion passes unanimously can information as a reminder the items under this portion of the agenda are for discussion would anyone like to discuss an item in consolidated information see none um the board will be moving to a board member comments uh is there any board member or C would like to provide a comment uh director theres Jones and then Vince uh then Abu and then I'll recognize myself uh theres thanks Sammy I just wanted to say that um I was particularly proud to be on our board on Saturday when I was at the grocery store and

234uh one of the staff members in our district came up with her children and thanked me for my participation thanked a board for their support um for our staff in this District so I just that was a really great moment um her kids were there with her my child was there with me watching adults uh be grateful for the contributions of each other to their community and their efforts to to make it a a vibrant and healthy place for for all of us to live so that was very special and in particular uh it happened to be that um this person works at the newly named Katherine Jones Harrison Elementary School and I asked her how does your school feel about this name and she said we love it and so isn't it great that

235tonight we got to vote on that um but how cool just wonderful to be out in the community and to have people come up and say not just thanks for the hard work but for them to say a particular action renaming the school has meaning for them so um to all of you that thank you is not mine alone I just happen to be the lucky one standing in the aisle it's for all of us but um yeah so thank you on behalf of other community members and on behalf of myself and um yeah I just it was just a really nice moment in the midst of a lot of hard conversations we need to have uh to get to focus on something that feels very uplifting for our community like these great names we

236have for our schools and the realization that the board and the staff in our district are working hard thank you Vince so director Jones your your comments are very apt because um I wanted to express appreciation as well and just really acknowledge all the the immense stress and strain that our staff are going through uh all the way from our superintendent who is with us right now all the way down to our EAS and even our janitors I mean the reality it is that the kids in our community they have a whole bunch of Unfinished learning from a whole year in CDL they have a bunch of Developmental delays because of that as well and it's just it is immensely hard and I just want to acknowledge that we still have this pandemic looming and

237I I just want to acknowledge that how tough it is right now and I just want to urge our staff and our team here tonight and and parents too to take care of yourself and to have real expect realistic expectations about what is possible right now um we just need to really take care and be diligent and just keep working doing the best we can every day and taking care of each other so thanks a lot um I just wanted to just say thank you the community again for engaging with us on um this this last conversation um about covid vaccines and would invite Community to continue to engage with us on other topics as well it really helps us understand how the community feels what they support where their concerns lie um whatever the

238topic may be so I just really want to emphasize reaching out to us and um I wanted to also I'm tired so sorry I'm like talking a little slow I'm at that stage um it's according to our agenda it's 8:50 PM but it's fine we're here um but I did want to say that as we continue to pass these resolutions for um history and Heritage months um and all of those that folks look at them as more than symbolic um gestures and as a commitment to what's written in them and so if you have ideas on what that can look like encourage you to reach out um if you feel like we're not holding up our in um please let us know and if we are let us know as well because sometimes it helps

239to know we're on the right track um and I want to recognize that we may be passing these but there is a lot of work to do in the district um just in conversations even with my own children and um and with other parents there's still a lot going on that has to do with bullying um with a lot of and a lot of comments being made especially with everybody back in school together it's um increasing again and I really wanted to recognize that and say like we may be passing these but that doesn't mean we don't have work to do um and we really need to continue that good work to make sure that we're making everybody feel like they have a place beyond the resolutions that we're passing um and I hope you

240help help us hold ourselves accountable as a community to the commitments we're making that's pretty much and thanks to my colleagues on the board for like um working together so much to um with the community too and to the staff and the district and Ryan and your team too um it's really a group effort thank you L I have a quick comment I want to really Echo all the sentiments of appreciation of community engagement and staff it's really important but I have a comment actually regarding uh it's caucus related so as you know uh I serve on the caucus of color along with shaa andou which is a cusub school board members and as a president of the cockus I'm privileged to be sitting on osba board and in that capacity I was involved in

241choosing uh among a really great list of uh board members uh the board member of the year for 2021 and as you might know if you saw in the email the shair of 509 J uh is the board member of the year and just to be clear it's not pral there's another 509 J called Jefferson County uh board or the je County School District so uh we need to clarify why there's two 509 days but with that I want to say Lori danuka is the board member of the year the chair of 509j Jefferson County School Board uh she's a native leader and Community member and a for uh who served her community for decades uh they're dealing there in a rural community uh with about a third Caucasian a third Native American almost a

242third Native American and third Hispanic Latino Community lots of challenges and her service dedication uh has been phenomenal and I'm really excited to share to first uh with you that uh she accepted to be a keynote speaker in November fth annual meeting for the caucus of color uh so uh friends of the caucus are welcome to join in and listen to her uh speaking we will be honored that her board and superintendent will be joining uh together from the same location while we have a meeting uh remotely and she'll be sharing her speech so really excited uh inspired by uh your service of my colleagues and our colleagues across the state uh school board members are putting lots of time lots of efforts it's emotionally tiring and uh I want to acknowledge that and with

243that uh I see in you and and my colleagues across the state including uh Lori uh an inspiring example of dedicated service and really focusing on what's best for the kids and making sure we do what's best for them uh with that next is Calvin and then sh Calvin um I don't know where to again because like there's so many people that I want to appreciate like uh I want to appreciate this Mee again like the Outreach for today's meeting and over this whole Topic in general and how in a general and how generally there are some exceptions but how generally it's been civil which is always appreciated I want to appreciate that also want to appreciate the teachers and staff and parents in the district for helping to keep our lives on track like

244they put in so much work and it's crazy how much it is behind the scenes I appreciate the board not only for the efficiency with which you guys got through the second part of the meeting it to struggle to keep up typing my notes which thanks for all being unanimous because that made it way easier um but also I have a new kind respect for like how much work you guys put in and how late you guys are staying here for us as students and um I made it my goal like trying to stay through a whole one of these meetings and it just respect for just how much effort you guys put in and how late you guys stay up because you guys have already been working the whole day for us guys are

245working until like 10:30 almost so there's just a whole new appreciation for that and I want to appreciate the board staff parents in the community in general just everyone involved for making this really a good community in general to be in the school system for thank you cvin appreciate back at you you've been phenomenal with your input and your discussion thanks for being part of the team sh I actually wanted to start with my gratitude for Calvin and his fellow student members of the board because having you here tonight and your peers who I know some some have left and that's completely understandable it is late just brings such an important set of voices to the board and to the community and I'm so excited to to look forward to having your voices here and

246represented throughout the school year and on that note just continuing to make sure that we're carrying on that conversation as a board around how we continue to be accessible the student voices Beyond those who are on the board with us here as well as through you our student board members may have ideas for how we can engage more deeply with students there are so many complications right now in terms of the pandemic accessibility or not being able to just walk into schools and and stop in and have lunch there or to have conversations in a way that we might have in in other times um but to help us think creatively about how can we reach out to students and and stay connected and hear more voices and the same thing being true for family

247members as well as for staff we know that this is a year like no other and as students are back in families are back engaged with the district and staff and educators are doing amazing things every single day they're learning something new every single day they're tackling challenges every single day and if there are things that we can help e in terms of you know I expect we're going to see higher rates of stress higher rates of burnout higher rates of of challenges and we really want folks to be able to take care of themselves but we also know that policy has to be in place for that to happen and procedures as well as supports and resources for that to happen so as those things come up as staff are identifying things where they

248might need support or help to please please reach out to us we'd love to be a part of the problem solving thank you is there any other comments see there's no further comments and no further business in front of the board at 7:35 the school board meeting is now adjourned C