CSD School Board Reorganization Meeting & Special Meeting to Address Hybrid Learning - 12/1/2020

001welcome to the annual reorganization meeting of the colonial word of school directors at this time i would ask everyone to please um join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all um presently all nine board members of the board are seated um the record will show that all board members are present they are in alphabetical order jen dao chris epstein eunice franklin becker susan moore rosemary northcutt beth petruno kathy paduzi adam shupeck and best suchland the purpose of this meeting is reorganization the pennsylvania school code stipulates that all public school boards must meet annually during the first week in december to reorganize the code requires that during this meeting the board must elect a temporary president to chair the meeting read and present certificates of election for

002new members of which we have none tonight administer the oath of office which we will not have to do and elect a permanent president and vice president to serve a one-year term at this time we'll take nominations um oh no i'm sorry at this time we'll entertain comments from the public anyone who wants to comment on anything on tonight's agenda and for folks who are participating we have about 65 participants in the webinar there are two meetings this evening the first one is the reorganization followed by a special meeting to discuss covet 19 and the potential for reopening schools so the first set of public comments should be about the reorganization if somebody would like to speak nothing on email i see no hand grade okay then we will move on um it's we now

003need to elect a temporary president all board members may participate at this time i'll ask for nominations for a temporary president nominations do not need to be seconded and i would like to nominate best settling to be the temporary president are there any other nominations okay um may i have a motion and a second to close the nominations i'll make a motion to close the nominations thank you kathy second a second thanks chris um all in favor of closing the nominations please raise your hand and that is all of us and um all in favor of best such one serving as temporary president please raise your right hand okay that's all nine as well mr sherman you've got that all right mrs suchland it's yours okay um thank you so uh with that being said

004we now need to elect a president to serve a one-year term and at this time i i would like to nominate sue moore for president uh nominations did not need to be seconded i am nominating sue moore uh because i believe at this time with everything going on uh with the whole covet situation we have a uh a new hr person coming in we have a new communications person coming in and there's end uh negotiations and i just feel like there's a lot going on and if sue were not to remain president it would be dr christian's third president in three years and i think some consistency for the administration is extremely important at the moment so i am moving for sue to be the president for this one year um are there let's see

005mr sherman do i need to ask for other nominations or do we vote on this one and then continue if there aren't enough you should ask for other nominations okay are there any other nominations for president okay uh so may i have a motion to close the nominations okay i will motion just close the nominations is there a second rosemary okay all in favor of closing the nominations please raise your right hand okay all in favor of sue more remaining as president please raise your right hand okay congratulations and i'll pass it back to you sue all right thank you everyone for your um vote of confidence and um i think given everything that um the administration has been through the least we can do is hopefully keep the board on an even keel for

006one more year and at this point we now need to elect a vice president to serve a one-year term at this time i would ask for nominations for vice president and they too do not need to be nom uh seconded and i have a moti uh uh any motion for a nomination for vice president i would like to nominate eunice franklin becker okay i would i would like to nominate beth suchland are there any other nominations for vice president all right may i have a motion and a second to close the nominations second kathy thank you uh all in dave uh now mr sherman uh do we take them in the order in which they work for decisions you need a vote to close the nominations i'm sorry yes we had a motion and a

007second all in favor of closing the nominations please raise your hand okay that's everyone um any comments anyone want to make any comments at this point i would like to comment um eunice has her master's degree in public health and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for years overseeing clinical trials this knowledge combined with her experience as a colonial school board member is of the utmost importance the health of our students and our faculty should be a number one priority in 2021 she conducts herself in a professional manner and has the ability to communicate easily and efficiently with both administration and parents alike eunice has earned the respect of not only colonial school district administration but also the administration and board of directors for central monco technical school eunice's skill set of experience and intelligence combined

008with her ability to anticipate the health needs of the district make her the best choice for vice president okay do we have any other comments i would like to comment that um best such one i'm in in favor of her because she has um a history of experience with a school board and she has an mba in human resources and um i feel that with the upcoming negotiations that we're going to be having and as well as the new hr director and your communications person i believe that with with her experience and um her background that she would um best serve the constituents in the our school district at this time are there any other comments from any board members all right seeing none um mr sherman we go in order that the nominations were

009made i think alphabetical order would be appropriate but that's up to you okay that's fine um any all in favor of um eunice franklin becker as vice president please raise your hand and say aye so that we can uh [Music] hi okay we have um jen dao rosemary northcutt eunice franklin becker and adam shupac all opposed or do we have to do a pose or can we just no you do like a balloting where everyone makes their vote and then the majority carries okay thank you um okay all of those in favor so i can just move on to the next okay all in favor of best success vice president please raise your hand and say aye aye aye aye all right so that would be sue moore chris epstein kathy paduzzi best success so

010that is four and is that we need to do mission yeah okay all right um thank you everyone and congratulations beth and um with that we are done with this part of our meeting correct anything else dr christian uh you need to authorize the continuation of the use of existing signature plates i'm sorry the signature plates yeah uh may i have a motion to authorize continued use of the signature plates so moved second any uh questions or comments all in favor all right and is that the end that's it all we have for this portion of our me this meeting correct yes i see no public comment on email okay all right seeing none this meeting is adjourned we are going to stay on this link to uh have our business meeting so we'll just

011stay here and wait a couple minutes until everyone's ready to go thank you all right dr christian are we ready to go again i need one minute i'm sorry that's okay and um quick question do we need to do the pledge again we do not okay uh drew did you make me a co-host i did okay thank you i'm good mrs moore okay i'd like to welcome everyone to this evening's special meeting of this colonial school district board of directors for tuesday december 1st and um we are going to first hear from dr christian with a superintendent's update thank you mrs moore please bear with me for one second while i share my screen so since we reopened schools uh back in october we've had 28 uh reported cases of covet a combination of of

012students and staff and we've been open in a hybrid mode with approximately 65 to 75 percent of our students participating in hybrid uh while the other remaining uh 30 to 35 percent have been participating in our virtual uh approach uh i will say that at the beginning of hybrid the percentage was probably closer to 73 74 we've had some families move to virtual as many as you all know the county uh moved all schools in montgomery county the county board of health to all virtual for two weeks and that is going to last until technically sunday december 6 but obviously that's a weekend so it really concludes on friday december 4th so what happened last week is that we had some important news from this pennsylvania department of health not the montgomery county board of

013health the pennsylvania department of health issued an update on november 23rd and that was really it was important because it was for all counties that have been in substantial community transmission and montgomery county is one of the many counties in pennsylvania that has moved to substantial community transmission of the virus and these protocols that the department of health is sharing require school district to attest to those health and safety protocols and ensure that we are implementing mitigation efforts to preclude as much as we can the spread of the virus at the same time the pennsylvania department of health also stated that it is a top priority of the commonwealth to have and maintain some form of in-person instruction in our schools so we need to attest to our mitigation efforts help prevent the spread but

014also try to maintain in-person learning uh governor wolf along with several northeastern states echoed this sentiment calling for in-person learning even in communities with high transmission rates when appropriate protections are in place so that was that came out also last week that said you'll notice in throughout the county there are districts going through a variety of decision-making processes there are districts that are staying all virtual into january there are districts numerous districts that have some form of hybrid mode whether it be am or pm or a few days a week and there are a few districts that are are full-time with some grade levels the november 23rd order requires some very specific things it requires districts attest to the implementation of mitigation efforts and it gives you two pathways that you can possibly follow since

015we're in that substantial community transmission we have some specific guidance and please know when i reference in the presentation if i say the word closure i don't mean closure like on a snow day i mean closure moving to one hundred percent virtual learning so in the with this tr uh with these pathways pathway one the district can provide in-person instruction if it complies with the new masking order and other recommendations related to school closures which i will get to momentarily the second pathway is fairly straightforward and it allows districts to remain completely virtual now since the county already had us closed and all school districts in montgomery county all schools in montgomery county we submitted in a test an attestation form for this week that we're in right now and the the department of health

016knew that all montgomery county schools would be submitting it so we submitted one already just for this week to say that we would be all virtual and we're complying with the county board of health's order tonight the board has a motion in front of it to return to our hybrid approach which will require a new attestation form that says that we're going to put in the mitigation efforts that we need to have in place to help mitigate the spread of the virus and that we would be providing in-person learning so the motion in front of the board which will come after public content is to consider is to ratify the document we already signed which we had to sign because we had an order from the department of health the local department of health and

017then the second portion is to return to in-person learning provided we meet those mitigation requirements in pathway one all or some of the students within the public school entity will be receiving in-person instruction and it basically we will attest that we will comply and enforce the updated order of the secretary of department of health requiring universal face coverings effective november 18th 2020 including the necessary exceptions and associated guides and it also says that we have read and agreed to the following to follow the recommendations for pre-k to 12th grade schools following the identification of covet 19 cases when they occur within the public school entity as far as our mass requirements our students our staff our employees they have been following all masking requirements and our families have been very cooperative with that employees too

018and we've really been emphasizing the importance of that when we have opportunities for breaks when the kids get outside for recess we certainly do that but the students have been fantastic about that they really understand the importance of it and the importance of keeping uh their peers safe and our staff understands the importance of keeping students and their colleagues safe so here's a here's the masking order that's in place it requires it indoors or in an enclosed space or another person or persons who are not members of the individual's household are present in the same space irrespective of the physical distance also outdoors with others who are not members of a person's household and unable to maintain sustained physical distance we've done our principles and our teachers have done a great job for our recess

019time making sure students have designated designated areas uh which they can play and and really our aides are doing a great job to make sure kids have fun are able to play but also are mindful that they have to be socially distant if they get too close they need to to wear their masks further on the masking order it requires that all people including their employees customers teachers students and visitors wear face covering and take reasonable steps to enforce the requirement mitigate or eliminate employee exposure to people who cannot wear or refuse to wear a face covering post prominent signs that are visible mr lally's done a nice job with that in all of our schools as well as our principals and provide reasonable accommodations to people including employees teachers customers and veterans who state

020they have a medical condition mental health condition or disability that makes it unreasonable for the person to maintain face cover so that's the first part of the pathway if we're going to return to some in-person learning the second part is a little more intricate it's all ask for your patience and we'll make sure that this is this is already posted on our coven 19 hub but it should look somewhat familiar because it pulls from some some grids that the state was recommending not requiring earlier this year back in august early august these were recommendations now part of this this compliance issue to try to reopen uh these are more stringent uh rules that we will need to follow but you'll see that there's an asterisk there and some small fine print at the bottom and

021i'll review all of that so if we're able to return and the board votes to return to in-person learning starting on monday december 7th we need to take a look at the size and the enrollment not the daily attendance the enrollment of each of our schools so we have schools that fit all three categories in the next three slides we have schools that are smaller so we have conshohocken and white marsh that have fewer than 500 students we have ridge park plymouth and and ces that have five to 900 students and then obviously we have large schools the middle school and the high school clinton white marsh high school so there are some nuances and some differences in what the compliance rule compliance order involves so we are in the substantial range so we're looking

022at the bottom column presently and if we have two to four students i'm in the middle middle column for small schools if we have two to four students or staff in the same school building who are not household contacts that are test positive for coven within a 14-day rolling period and we're looking at december 7th as day one then the school will be required to close you'll see for three to seven days take a look at the bullet point above where it says close it says schools should consider altering the schedule to significantly decrease the number of students on site the good news for us is we're already doing that we are in a hybrid approach so we don't have 100 of our students in every day so we're already meeting that that mitigation effort

023if you notice where it says schools will close for three day three to seven days and then it says clean areas and then we contact the office of public health to make sure we're doing our contact tracing there is an asterisk at the end of that second bullet point and at the bottom of the chart it says if case investigations contact tracing and cleaning and disinfecting can be accomplished in a faster time frame the length of closure time may be shortened so today we had a meeting with the office of public health at 1pm so all the county superintendents were there the office of public health also representatives from chop and representatives from the county commissioners and this was just montgomery county office of public health yes correct this was just montgomery county so what

024montgomery county office of public health has said as of 1 pm today that they are prioritizing uh cases contact tracing cases for children who are 18 years of age and younger they're also prioritizing health care workers school employees and then also individuals who are 65 years of age and older they feel confident that they will be able to do the contact tracing in less time than the three to seven days that's listed however there are some you know qualifiers to that uh that's dependent upon getting return phone calls uh from making those contacts uh thus far we've had 28 cases and i'd say out of 27 26 27 of those cases we've had great participation been able to get responses from parents when we've had a situation or the families have contacted us proactively and

025told us about a positive case but the office of public health has shared that they have had some difficulty throughout the county getting uh return phone calls all the time so that could delay things um if you move over to the column on the far right if we're looking at five or more students then the closure is is is longer um and so this is certainly while we're hopeful to be able i'm i'm recommending that we return to hybrid uh on december 7th i need our community to understand that these are some challenges that we're facing with the increased number of cases in our area and we will certainly need that compliance piece so that we can minimize the amount of time the number of times we would need to close schools if you're thinking

026if we need to close for three days and we find out about a case on thursday evening the friday saturday fridays are all virtual presently in our hybrid mode but friday saturday and sunday would count towards those three days it's not three school days it's three straight days and this is to allow for make sure you do at appropriate contact tracing make sure you do cleaning makes you identify any and all possibilities that you can mitigate the spread the more people that we're able to contact and i think we've done a very good job informing our families particularly those in a classroom where we may have had an employee or a student who was exposed to the virus or is a presumed positive or even a positive of contacting those families and allowing them to

027make that decision either a we've said you need to quarantine or be if you don't feel comfortable coming in even though the contact was minimal you have the option to stay virtual and i thank all of our principals and our school nurses for their hard work during that and certainly mrs burke's office as well i won't go through the these are on our website you'll you'll just notice the language is very similar but the numbers change so when you're looking at a school with 500 to 900 students you'll see it requires four to six students or staff and then over on the far right seven seven or more students but the the requirements within those boxes stay the same and then for our larger schools six to ten students or eleven plus students so these

028are these are you know very involved depending upon the board's vote tonight i'll prepare communication to our families describing the pathway that the board is board's considering taking or has chosen to take and how we will implement that if we have those cases and we get to those let's say we get to four cases in one of our moderately sized schools and we're able to contact trace very quickly it may be a matter of uh let's say it's a wednesday night maybe we're just closed thursday and we're able to you know the following monday reopen or maybe it happens on a monday evening and it's only one or two days we'll do our best to move as quickly as possible and i know this creates a burden on our families but this you know we

029do have to recognize the ever-evolving guidance with cobin the ever the amount the importance of having students in in-person learning we know there's value to that and we're weighing that against the risk of spreading the virus these are not easy decisions but i think that our principles and our teachers and our support staff have done a great job with our kids thus far as they've been in i visit the lunchrooms obviously mast i visit each of the schools it's great to see the kids several principals have said to me they can't wait to see the kids again and they've really you know lauded the work of their employees our employees our faculty and our support staff and i've heard from several parents who'd like to remain open the option for parents to stay virtual is

030will still be there without a doubt um so we're looking at returning to what we were doing for from october until uh the local board of board of health put us all virtual and we will maintain that as best we can for as long as we can but we obviously safety is of paramount importance the second pathway if the board were to reject the motion tonight the pathway that we would follow and the the form that i would uh need to fill out and mrs moore would need to sign uh requires that we will transition to fully remote uh and we would need to be move out of substantial transmission of covid to move into another type of learning whether it be hybrid or or increased number of days you know clearly we've all seen

031the news the next six to eight weeks are critical times with winter upon us and there obviously has been a spike in cases i'm happy to not happy to report i'm relieved to report that of our 28 cases the office of public health has determined that they don't they haven't been transmitted in school that they've originated outside of school for a variety of reasons um you know this virus doesn't know borders it doesn't know county lines and so for whatever reason it happens it does it has happened uh our parents have communicated with us um and we've been i admittedly i have been conservative i'm sure there are many parents out there saying thinking that i've been too conservative and and i certainly understand the weight of those decisions so i still think this maintains

032a conservative approach it allows for students to attend school we've reduced ridership on our buses we have limited numbers of students in class at times on any given day and we're requiring mass and really trying to utilize as much of the technology as we can while still offering that opportunity for some in-person learning before i take before we move the public comment mrs moore are there any questions from board members of me um i do have just one dr kristin uh parents still have the option if the board were to go with your recommendation here tonight to go back to hybrid parents still have the option to change into all virtual they do and have people been doing that we've had some we started when we went hybrid we were around depending upon the school

033around 71 to 73 74 virtual some of the schools have dipped into the 60 65 percent range some uh some have done it just maybe a few parents have done it for a little while um but some have decided to do it uh moving forward um but we're still the majority of our uh our students are participating in hybrid but there has been an increase in virginia i just have one question um the numbers that uh we've had we've had 28 cases have we in our previous cases at one time met the criteria in the the new um list that you just showed where we would have had to shut a building down have we had enough like in one building at one time so uh about three weeks ago the county had its first

034uh move into substantial the county average it was uh in the transmission rate uh chris and it was about 106.9 106.8 uh our specific geographic rates still had us for our school district at 99 and so we were very close to substantial but we were still moderate our geographic data the latest geographic data that i received was right before the last week's uh three and three day week and we were in substantial transmission rate but at that point on friday the county had already decided the county had voted to move to two weeks of virtual uh and i didn't that friday to monday tuesday uh wednesday i didn't want to um or excuse me that the previous week i'm sorry i had my weeks off um the previous week that friday i didn't want to

035suddenly tell families we were going all virtual for a third week prior to the two-week break that the county had already worked so sorry i had my dates off but yes we did geographically we did get there one week before the county shuts down okay um dr christian i know i asked you about this before but i just want to say and maybe um miss young will know the answer there was the new guidelines from the governor's office do these pertain to both public and private schools or these public school only requirements my understanding is there for public school that's correct okay so i would just like anybody who's watching i that you know the the continued focus on public versus private and the disparity in what kids are being given access to uh from

036the governor and the department of health and whoever is making these decisions i it just drives me nuts and blows my mind that kids in public school are being in my opinion treated differently than kids in public school and for any parents that are watching this i would encourage you and i'm speaking for myself i would encourage you to reach out to your legislator with legislatures and find out why kids in public school are getting a different focus you know i don't i don't get it and it's very it's very upsetting to me as a parent and it's upsetting to me as a school board member the public school kids seem to be having different treatment than people they can pay uh and the kids that need it most are the kids in public school

037and that's all i'm going to say about that i will uh back your comments do remind me of one more point um that i need to share with our community uh as we move into this phase pending pending board of the board vote however it goes but if we're able to return to some in person with these new regs we will be faced with challenges undoubtedly where we potentially i mentioned this at the october board meeting we could be faced with a functional challenge a functional closure let's say three of our neighboring districts all have to close and that forces a daycare issue for our employees that's a reality that we have to face that is not the fault of our employees that is the reality that they are thrust in and something that many

038of our families have entrusted so uh it's not a it's not a prediction i'm making it's just that it's a potential reality nope that's valid and that's a really good point to remind everybody that you know we have to take that all and that's just the way it is right right so like oh sorry go ahead go go for it just i'm just curious you know with assuming that we're following pathway one and and this guidance how operationally different is it going to be for the district and beyond the fact that you know we'll have to hit these different requirements or is it really going to seem terribly different for parents than it did three weeks ago i think that's a great question i i'm i'm hoping it does not seem any different to parents

039other than the fact that we could be you know a closure could occur um for a day or two or potentially three days um but i think because we already have students six feet apart which is something i feel very strongly about we have students masked we have teachers mass we have strong cleaning protocols in place strong protocols on our buses i think that's been a helped us mitigate any potential spread it's certainly not perfect and there's still risk but i'm hoping it's as close to return to normal probably however the units the biggest challenges just the the reality is that there is an an increased number of cases that that's that's the that's the math you know if the incident rate is 200 and some per 100 000 people versus when it was 80

040it's that many more cases and so i do think i am worried and concerned probably a better word about the amount of contact tracing and we work with the office of public health we initiate it and they follow through and then we compare our results and then make our decisions so that that's probably the biggest difference right and the district has already had to hire additional staff to to assist with this even before the numbers began to increase because of the burden on the district just so people know that's correct i have a few questions mike um i could just indulge you for a second um one is uh is it your intention to continue um the practice that you had in place um prior to the the closure um where if we had a

041confirmed case we were quarantining um the entire you know the entire sort of classroom um on the you know who attended on the given hybrid days um i know there was some discussion about the uh with the office of public health about whether that was necessary or not um but i was just wondering if if the new guidelines um impact your practice in any way in that regard it's an excellent question adam and i was very conservative at the start and so i was quarantining rooms uh and i heard from a lot of people saying you're doing too you're doing it too much and uh but their every case has nuances too you know a case a high school student who potentially was exposed to the virus uh might go to three or four different

042classes an elementary student might be in the same class for the majority of the day the time of day that we find out matters whether the student took the bus or not so not every case requires that everybody quarantine and the office of public health and i sat down and sat down with several several schools um and i was amazed because i had schools that you know colleagues of mine said well we haven't had any cases well what they really meant was they didn't have any cases that required a quarantine so when we're able to discern the exact details if students were further than six feet apart they were masked and we feel that the exposure was limited and not a close contact we still call those families we let those families know but we

043don't require them all and they asked me not to use the term quarantine i have the title doctor but i'm not a doctor so they asked me to use the term isolated so we give families that option so the key piece that i think we're still doing very well is communicating and was there concern brought up um at you know at the meeting you had earlier today or any other point about the timing of the reopening being potentially when people might start showing symptoms from you know the the post thanksgiving surge that we've heard um predicted and you know that goes for our students it also goes for our you know our our employees our teachers as well it was raised okay so that's a concern and has any thought been given to sort of

044um differentiating it all between elementary grades and secondary grades like i know some districts have done i know we sort of um when we launched hybrid we did you know we sort of rolled it out with elementary first and then secondary has any thought been given to sort of maybe delaying secondary uh another week just to you know just to sort of let thanksgiving pass uh i had not only because i think we have the other uh mitigation efforts in place i think as we get through winter i still if if this passes and we and we go back to hybrid uh i would think that if we can get through winter uh hopefully everybody remains as healthy as possible as we get to the spring i would look to do something with the elementary

045by possibly increasing their time uh but we are in my opinion we're we're a ways off from that um and i would i would take a look it's trying to phase and increase time instructional in person time but like i said that's that's down the road in my opinion great and and my last question is just what um what's the feedback been from from our teachers to the you know to the hybrid um model uh first off they're working their tails off uh number one and a lot of respect for for everything they're doing i talked to a few folks so this is anecdotal um a few few and principals have shared with me switching back and forth once they got into the to the mode of doing hybrid plus virtual and they got into

046a rhythm uh and then switching all back to virtual presented a challenge and switching back and forth is a challenge um mrs grigis and i uh have talked and putting together uh a survey that we will share with our staff and also with our um with our families so we uh more of an attitudinal survey on how things are going uh so we'd like to do that later this month and i'll share it with the board it's almost ready to go but we'll get feedback from staff um and from our families great thank you thank you i just have one one question about wonderspring so if ces for example is shut down for three or four days and that would affect the wonder spring kids that are in that building as well correct right okay

047and then we have wonder spring kids at the high school too right like i think yes okay okay great thanks i have a question um there were special education students in five days a week is that still true and will that stay that way right now no one is in uh but if pending the board vote this evening we would return to the uh instructional model that we were using since october uh prior to the mandated shutdown by the county department um dr christian i just have one clarification so this is a different mandate in terms of what we had before because i believe the chart looked very similar so that was a recommendation and now these closures if we reach two cases is required or is there still wiggle room for the district to

048like if we reach in conscious elementary cases next week is it required that we then close the building for x number of days if we cannot great question and that was a a big part of our county meeting today and we did submit questions to this date but as i pointed out with that asterisk that was in each of the boxes if we can't do the contact tracing or the cleaning efforts if we have three cases in your examples then yes we would need to close for those days if we can do the satisfactory contact tracing have our cleaning efforts in place i'm not the cleaning efforts joe and his team will take care of that if we're able to do the contact racing we determine where was the uh how was the virus contracted

049what was the exposure and if the office of public health can clear us then we'll try to do that as quickly as possible and if that precludes us from closing for three days maybe we're closed for one day maybe we're not closed at all the key is for the office of public health and you know we have two contact tracers that we deal with specifically and they're very good at getting back getting back to us right away whether they think in school spread uh or community spread um and if they feel uh that was school spread then they will obviously emphasize the need to close down okay and then just what would you ask of our parents at this point with um sending you know kids into school on a daily basis things that are

050going on in the community um i know we never you know some organizations have you know parents have to fill something out every morning we don't have our families doing that what type of guidance can we we put in place just to make sure that you know everybody really is checking the boxes to make sure that kids are coming into school um when they should be and staying home you know when they should be it's certainly a challenge you know we continue to send reminders we can send our checklists again but we are relying on uh we are relying on families to communicate with us and to keep children home when they are sick and when they're not when they're not feeling well um you know we could be you know you could be chasing

051a lot of forms for a lot of hours uh in the morning um trying to see who completed their form uh versus making you know uh actually teaching and getting instruction done um so we'll continue to remind our families um i've said it in my last several communications um i've heard of instances in other districts or unfortunately even somebody was tested and the family was tested and they were confident that the test was going to be negative so they continued going to school and that required that school to shut down for a week not our district but certainly a very concerning case so if you're exhibiting symptoms any of those symptoms you need to keep your child home and if you've been tested or somebody in your household has been tested that is a close

052contact to one of our students then you need to notify us and you need to keep the child home and i and i assume the traveling um you know i know we said we sent something out of people traveled over thanksgiving but any travel to any out of state requires what are the requirements for that so they it requires a quarantine but there was updated on updated guidance on that over the break over the thanksgiving break so uh depending upon the age of the student so mrs burke and i are working on a new communication related to that but right present the original guidance was if you traveled out of state that you would need to quarantine for 14 days or or get a we had employees if an employee traveled they had to get

053a test and be cleared but now there's new guidance that came out a child's 11 years of age or younger and that requirement is not astringent so karen and i will work on that get something for the principals to share with our families depending upon the outcome of the next month okay thank you sure for one clarification going back to something that beth was just asking about so if if you're able to do the contact tracing in fewer days you may be able to keep the building or reopen a building but a an individual classroom could still be affected for the full length of time yes thank you for clarifying that news yes yes i just don't want people to be confused if it happens no that's that's an excellent point yep now we'll still

054be very cautious with that class we even for our busing we have a whole checklist that we go through and we check to see if the student is driven to school or the student rides the bus and then we use our gps on our buses to see how long the student is on the bus we also take a look at seating charts at lunch take the look at seating charts on the bus principals have done an excellent job with that you know another reminder and i am not chastising the public but another reminder that if this does pass and we can return to in-person learning for families that are carpooling it's really important that uh your children even though they're your neighbors and i know you may be with me with your neighbors on the

055weekends and outside students need to wear masks and so as you're carpooling i've heard stories in the county in the height at the high school level where students have come to school and they're not wearing masks they're carpooling and i get i get the kids new ride and we certainly appreciate families who are willing to drive to help us spread out our kids on the buses but mass wearing is important and you should consider the car ride or the bus ride in part of being in school okay i have a question it's not really about the pathways but um is are there discussions about covid in the classrooms are the teachers explaining things telling the kids what they should and shouldn't be doing and and you know age-appropriate discussions of how they should be handling

056it i think that's probably more i i won't say it's not happening mrs dow i think i think our principals are and guidance counselors and nurses are doing a lot of that uh but i'm sure we have our teachers doing it you know as i walk around upstairs uh you know with the elementary level in each of our schools the students use their airplane arms to make sure that they are social distancing so there are some very common phrases that teachers are using with their children as they head down to the lunchroom as they head to head to recess and our elementary folks secondary folks are doing a great job too but our elementary folks they're accompanying the kids down to uh down to the lunchroom they accompany them out to the recess yard where

057our aides are waiting for them they make sure kids are washing and sanitizing as they come back in so i believe there is a lot of discussion about hygiene and social distancing but when they're in class they're focusing on content okay is everybody anybody else want to comment dr christian you have anything else to say before we move on to public comments uh no just after after the first vote there's one other agenda item related to the winter sports update and we can talk about that after the first agenda item and after apollo conference okay tom sorry mr bugley i see no public comment at this time mr sherman there are two emailed questions um the first is from donna sturm of plymouth township she asked what if a child or staff member is known

058to reside in a positive coveted 19 household or have been in prolonged close contact with a positive case such as in a community event but is asymptomatic and has not been tested but attend school hybrid this child or staff member is most likely a carrier is there a way that we can assure that persons in these cases are tested for the safety of those attending in-school learning with them thank you for your time and all that you have done for the health safety and well-being of our community dave could you repeat the just the first portion the scenario that's presented yeah if someone lives in a household where someone has tested positive but they are asymptomatic or um if they have been in close prolonged contact with somebody uh and have not been tested themselves

059so in that case they actually are changing some of the vocabulary around this the old vocabulary would be that that individual assuming it's the child is a presumed positive they're now calling it a probable positive in the county and that child should be quarantined because they've had close contact and if they come to school and this is where we really are relying on that communication piece which i think many of our families have done a good job with when they have a positive case in their household and so the office of public health has been very clear if it's a close contact in school then that and that child will be out and really could be out up to 24 days because right now in that scenario you presented the child's asymptomatic so it might

060take seven to ten days for symptoms to develop and then the child would need to quarantine another 14 days after that we've we've had cases where families have informed us of that and they did it proactively and the child moved to all virtual the other question is from linda severson no location given don't you take temperatures for students upon arrival most places require it for entrance into a building it's a great question when when you have uh you know hundreds of students coming in to line them up to take temperatures our students arrive in about a 15 to 20 minute window and so having whether students would be that one they could potentially be congregating uh two if they were outside that poses a safety risk so there are certainly just challenges to doing that

061which is why we're asking families to do it individually at their homes i do have a we had an email comment from a student who asked to be shared hi my name is andrew walters i'm a member of the freshman class of 2024 at plymouth white marsh i live in lafayette hill i just wanted to write an email to thank you all for what is an amazing job colonial's been doing to adapt to these fluid conditions all of the teachers have worked tirelessly and effortlessly to adapt uh what they have taught in person pre-pandemic to how they can teach it in virtual or a hybrid environment i've also been amazed to develop in-person relationships with my teachers even virtually here are some of the more special shout outs i'd like to thank the tech department

062for getting the grant to provide every single freshman with a chromebook the chromebook has an amazing amazing features big keyboard and touchscreen equity is a big goal for this district that i support and it's amazing every ninth grader has the same device and same access to the device i'd also want to thank the board for hiring mr gerald james as the new diversity equity and inclusion officer when he spoke on our webinar one day to the freshman class during bonus block i thought he was outstanding and he's exactly what this district needs right now i will definitely support whatever he does thank you for the board and the music department for figuring out how to teach music virtually and for giving us mass free free mass with slits as well as bell covers it feels

063so much better playing in person also thank you for letting the marching band still have practices and to play two football games this fall in summary thank you so much for continuing to support the music program finally thank you so much to the board for voting with your hearts and with the safety of students in mind whenever you vote next week either hybrid or virtual we colonial school district will make the best out of the situation thank you again andrew walters i wish i wrote that well as a ninth grader i wish i wrote that well as a that was really really well done this is more i think we're ready to move to the motion okay uh dr christian any uh problem if i take this in two separate motions one for the first

064one and then the second for going forward uh you mean the ratification yeah uh i'll defer to mr sultanak on that you may uh break it up into two motions yeah just in case there's any obviously might be some questions with one part of it okay thank you um i'm making a motion to approve the ratification of the board president and superintendent's signature on the attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts form required by the pennsylvania department of health and the pennsylvania department of education reflecting option two which is virtual instruction through december 6 2020. so uh that's a motion if i could have a second eunice uh any questions or comments all in favor post i think that's every that's every month okay thank you and then part two is a motion for the approval

065for the board president and superintendent to execute and sign the revised attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts form required by the pa department of health and the pennsylvania department of education reflecting option number one which is all or some of the students within the public school entity are currently receiving in-person instruction to take effect on december 7 2020 per documents is there a second for that motion rosemary thank you any questions or comments on that part all in favor any opposed okay and i would just like to say that i you know i think we all know that it would be super safe if everyone everyone stayed in their house and just locked themselves in their houses but we also know the kids need to be educated and some of our students need to be

066in school so we will do the best we can i know our administration our superintendent and our teachers have been doing everything in their power to make sure that our kids are educated to the best of their abilities whether they're home or whether they're in school virtually so we really appreciate everyone's efforts um and that's it for that part of the meeting and now we move on to winter sports health and safety plan dr christian do you want to comment on it uh i can uh so we've provided the board with this update um and we were able in the fall to have one of our indoor sports volleyball um state uh work work out indoors and hold their matches um and so the suburban one league uh and most many schools in the piaa

067have delayed the start of winter sports presently practices are supposed to begin on december 7th competitions on december 23rd uh many of the schools are focusing on reduced schedules focusing on league games only as we did in the fall we are certainly limiting our indoor capacity that's outlined in this plan uh we have measures in place uh for pre-screening for each of our sports uh and there are sport specific guidelines posted uh in the document uh that's been presented to the board and is available to our community to see but the pre-screening will take place similar to what took place in all of our fall sports the biggest difference is is that the winter sports if approved will have to follow the plan that the board just approved meaning we need to attest uh that

068the school is safe and we have the mitigation efforts in place so if we have and this is for high school only we're still focusing just on high school sports we did intramurals at the middle school this past fall we will do our best to try to continue intramural efforts with our middle school but we're really we certainly understand there's increased risk by having athletics so we're trying to limit the number of participants limit the number of teams and therefore reduce risk and i know i know kids want to participate but we're focusing on the high school right now we're focusing particularly on those varsity programs we have kids that are looking potentially to get into college perhaps play in college whatever whatever sport that it may be and also kids to have their final

069season are seniors additionally we are presently not going to be permitting any away fans to come to our competitions pending board approval and we will be limiting significantly limiting fan participation at our home competitions indoors we really want to keep the numbers lower um we will certainly uh and r.j and dr bakani and mr brett's are working on a plan to make sure that our senior parents have an opportunity uh pending board approval of this to have senior night so that they can see their students and we will do plan on live streaming uh our events so that people can watch uh watch their children play the hardest part we're trying uh some work needs to be done on live streaming in the pool but we'll we'll get that done uh we'll figure out the

070technology on that technology and water and humidity don't don't always uh don't always mix too well um but we're stressing we do have to submit to the county uh our plan after the board approval particularly they want to know how many people will be in the building at any given time for for athletics there's reduced locker room usage there's requirement for students to wear all athletes have to wear masks during their competitions uh including wrestling and so rj's put together very detailed approach uh that he has shared with all the suburban one uh athletic directors and they're sharing ideas with one another um so we're hopeful that that will be able to continue um and this would we obviously want to continue our clubs as best we can to our virtual and our hybrid clubs

071because our extracurricular programs are an extension of the school day and and they're what kids many kids really look forward to as they continue through high school so we'd like that to continue can i um just throw ask some questions i mean are we um i'm a little concerned because we had so many discussions in the fall about whether to allow fall sports and the concerns and you know back and forth and that decision was a little bit easier to swallow because the students were outside so having a plan for winter sports without first having a discussion amongst the board members about even the concept of winter sports being happening indoors just it's just really disappointing to me and i'm not saying that i'm against the winter sports happening i just i have so many

072questions and we haven't been given an avenue to really talk about this until tonight and you have this lovely document that i know rj worked really hard on but i still have some basic basic concerns um and um here are my concerns and these are concerns and i'm totally open to you know the discussion and really having a better understanding just so i feel comfortable but at this point i don't know that i feel comfortable having a gym full of not full but many people in the gym with bass watching the basketball game or having a basketball game when we know that the indoor stuff is a much higher risk and so i looked at you know i i watched the webinar with the montgomery county department of health and the uh chop policy lab

073uh quite a few weeks ago when we were you know and they talked specifically about winter sports and their concerns were that winter sports to right in the middle of the worst time of the spread of this pandemic and what they recommended is to um to move this winter sports to the spring that will be the easiest thing to do is move it to a time when it's not not as widespread numbers that we have right now um they talked about like for basketball train over the winter no team games do smaller cohorts and similar with wrestling and they also mentioned that fall sports they did better because you know the kids were outside the students were outside the participants um they also said they recommended um regular testing so you could create a bubble

074um they talked about ice hockey and they said that at the time it during that for that meeting that ice hockey was significant to community spread that they felt that training was okay the kids were happy to be on the ice but the largest transmission at that time was in ice hockey okay so they said train over the winter and compete in the spring they also recommended 25 people indoors and 250 people out outdoors that was at that time and you know i understand that now i guess the guidance is for the for the gym we can have 25 capacity well how many is that i don't really even know how many 25 capacity is in the gyms that we're using so i would like to know that but i just i just want to

075have this discussion because you know listening to the doctors and the experts it totally you know it asks a lot of questions and here we are just putting out this document and saying okay let's approve this i need i just really need to talk about it so um and you know and i'd love to hear you know anything anybody else has to say rj you know everybody i understand the kids need need their outlets you know the sports i understand how important sports are to the kids i just really have concerns with it being indoors and all of the transmission that's going on around these kids and then if we're trying to do um to not have the kids be virtual all the time this is one of those instances where it can jeopardize our

076numbers of you know and our transmissions in the community amongst our teenagers so i really want to have some discussions tonight if that's if that's agreeable to other people i don't know if anybody else has any comments about that chris i think you asked some great questions um and i heard many of those questions and the same webinar or another ones that i've participated in over the past few months few weeks number one the pia is not interested in not moving any of the winter sports to the spring um so there was no option there and i i would like to know why did any of the districts even ask about moving into the spring i mean or was it just hey this is what we're gonna do you know um there have been lengthy

077discussions from the from the 500 participating school districts and then uh however however many dozens of leagues uh i'm just telling you what the outcome from p.i.a was that they were not moving the winter sports to the spring um we we it's been asked several times and piaa is not changing our plan is to limit uh the big gym to 78 spectators um so that would really be that's not 25 of the capacity we're just trying to we're trying to uh provide an opportunity uh you know not obviously not withstanding the seriousness of copen 19 we're trying to provide at least in some capacity of the parent to see their child play which could be for many of our student athletes this could be their last season or two participating uh in that scenario i

078understand that so let me ask you let me try and ask you answer your questions right no so let me ask you this question too because what is the capacity of the number of kids we put in the cafeteria at lunchtime on a regular day at the high school mm-hmm like and while we're keeping them six feet apart i'd have to sit with dr bakani i know i went we walked through the whole whole cafeteria i think it's 148 i'm sorry chris and mike is um rj on the call mr brett's on the claw on the zoom he can be maybe he could answer some of these questions a little more specifically to the gyms etc you know for the amount of people the other the other piece there he is okay the other piece

079to this too is that um you know the board whatever the board vote is if the board approves this this can be modified without another board approval if we need to modify the document reduce spectators reduce that so if there's more questions we could do a more detailed conversation in finance next week or facilities next week as well well i i think it's important to have this conversation and i was just you know if dr christian if you can answer them fine but i see that that mr bretts is on the call so maybe if we need thank you if we need more specific numbers etc i think it would be good to have the activities director on you know to be able to answer those questions so agree thank you rj rj 25 what

080does that mean for the gym for example for a basketball game how many kids is how many people is is that just the parents is that incl what's the amount of people and what does that look like so a normal gym if we had a normal day in normal nights for a game we can hold a max of 1100 students in there or people in the stands that does not include the referees the cheerleaders you know the benches in the score table um so we currently have about it goes to about 87 people for table workers benches cheerleaders coaches there's about 87 on the sidelines um and then we would say that there's 78 um seats available socially distance on opposite side of the score table no one would sit behind the benches because you

081need to have six feet or more behind the bench socially distance and with the benches being separated they'd have to be in two rows um like if you saw the nba games at all that were in the bubble they had two rows three rows of benches that they were socially distant um so we would not pull the bleachers out on that side except for maybe three rolls rows for team personnel to sit on like the jv team um or vice versa the varsity when they're waiting since we're not going to be using the locker rooms um we have to kind of use the hallway and down by the science wing for the visiting team and the auxiliary gym for our team to to congregate in to have pre-game and that type of stuff but we've

082also talked about the visiting team leaving when the jv game's over so we can limit the jv team leaving on a separate bus just like we would when we go to an away game and then the varsity team kind of arriving like the third quarter to kind of limit the amount of exposure as well for a basketball game okay all right wrestling wise we would stay with the same amount of fans just at one side being open because that way the scores table and everyone that's working the scores table is safe um and social distance away from everyone um a couple of the ideas that we've been throwing around is having two mats bringing over the middle school one i'm in our mat that we can have the first wrestling match and then the second

083wrestling match on the other one why the first match being cleaned in between matches so we're trying to mitigate as much as possible and i know dr christian said something about the mass for wrestlers so there is a nuance to that um that just came out today and we are listening to that um play out right now because of the state championship football game this past weekend with the mouthpiece and the head football gear on they did not have to have a mask on because they had a mouthpiece in and they said it was detrimental to the health and well-being of the student-athletes participating um so right now the the option that the wrestlers would have is to wear a face mask or wear a mouthpiece um that would kind of limit um because of

084the breathing problems that would cause of having a mouthpiece and a face mask on and the headgear um the problem becomes of if they rip off the mask that type of stuff and injuries can occur but we're still talking the same amount of fans that would be in there 78 total um for the fans are there additional measures that can be taken to keep in particular wrestlers it seems to be the closest of contact sports um you know access to testing i saw in the the plan it talked about you know kids needing to shower in between matches i assume they'll have access and then how you know and additionally then how do you assure that the teams they're competing against are following all of the same rules that we are so that's the the

085big play with the suburban one league we've all kind of agreed to make sure that we're following the same protocols and that's one of the main reasons that we're not looking to go outside of the suburban one to participate against any other school for one two when it comes to wrestling uh we we have a couple ideas out there that we've been talking with the wrestling coach in regards to um going in small pods of just maybe it's a partner um or a group of three and then there are only about maybe 12 kids in the room and we stagger practice time for 12 kids for fit an hour and 15 minutes a 90-minute thing and then the other group comes in that group goes in and gets a shower um and then they leave

086um you know so those types of things that we've have in place that we're hoping um to help mitigate this the best we can um you know uh mr zablowski and dr christian and dr pakhani have been very supportive of the measures that we're trying to take i've bought every student athlete for the winner a mass since the the mandate has been put in it's numbered it's labeled the boys are blue the girls are red it's color-coded uh the swimmer's all got bags that are numbered wrestlers got bags that are numbered um that we can kind of mitigate that they're holding all of their own equipment in a specific area um that they're not that they're not congregating with anybody or getting close enough um to have any you know close contact as much as

087possible um and and tracking the participants that are in wrestling particularly in their pods making sure that we we track where everybody is and what time they practice and all those types of things they'll have body wipes hand sanitizer whatever else that they need in order to feel safe won and i would never ever put a student athlete coach teacher anyone in position that i don't feel is safe for them and i think we've gone above and beyond to try to make sure everyone feels safe to be able to do the winter sports is there any talk of getting at access to rapid testing for our student athletes i'm just i i just i'm so concerned especially about the kids who are playing these very close contact sports um you know i want everybody to

088have their season but i also don't want them at risk of something awful that would affect you know not just this season but you know many of their future seasons there's a discussion in the county partnering with chop and getting rapid testing for employees and students so that is hopefully their look at looking for districts to be pilot participants um i put in you could go in phase one two or three i requested us as part of phase two uh which hopefully would be later uh this month and into january so it's a possibility but i don't have anything definitive on that presently jay do the coaches take the kids temperatures before they walk in the door or have we considered that for indoor sports you know just a little you know one of the

089ones that goes across the forehead before they walk in for practice yeah every single kid gets temperature checked as soon as they come in for practice so they have a google form that they fill out on their way either before they get there or when they get there no one can uh come in the practice or a workout until they have done the the google form and temperature check i mean it's time stamps so we have uh tenancy records of who was there and what time they checked in and everything um to kind of help with the contact tracing if we have to okay so the coaches are taking the who's taking the temperature the coaches okay thank you and if there is an issue or it reads high uh we call the athletic trainer

090to come over and take a second one um and then at that point we will make the phone call home if it stays high and they'll be sent home okay thank you yep so if it's okay i'm just gonna because i i think i'm looking around i think i'm the i don't know if your son played a fall sport beth sweden but um my daughter's a freshman at the high school and so she played volleyball so i have parental experience um having a student athlete and i just think it was really really well done um the coach um mr stewart he did a really good job of communicating making sure he was taking the temperatures they were always wearing masks they followed all the protocols by towards the end of the season we started being

091allowed to have some spectators in the gym it started on senior night and it was there's x's on so we know how far apart to sit inside the building it was very limited it's volleyball i love volleyball but it wasn't a pack gym um so uh i just think it was really well done so chris i know you're you know the fall you don't think of indoor sports so we did do an indoor sport it was like a perfect sort of dry run because it is a smaller sport um so i it does lend me to being more confident in the execution of basketball of a larger more um so anyway i just want to say kudos to rj and to dr christian and our facilities team obviously but i just think it was it

092was really well done and the season was short um but the girls got to play you know and so i thought it was it was a really great experience so um i know basketball i've read through the entire plan you know very limited in um a lot of the scope um but still enough to follow the parameters that the cdc i guess whoever all these smart people are giving us these restrictions i feel like we're following them plus some like we're a little extra safe you know i'm not just loving you chris i'm just talking in general i i agree so it only takes 11 cases in according to the chart 11 cases of positive cases um at the high school to shut it down for two weeks on that chart in a substantial spread

093which is kind of where we are so if you think about just the possibility and i do recognize all of the efforts everyone is taking to make sure the kids stay safe i i really do admire all of that but my concern is if you have how many kids on how many i know how many kids went around the basketball court at one time but if you have a team of kids rj on average how many kids are actually playing in a game i mean between you know substituting in and rotating out how many how many kids is that on an average game it depends it depends on the game um if it's a blowout uh then all 15 kids will probably get in if it's uh a clue depends on who's playing well that

094day i would say uh maybe seven or eight kids that's what i would say seven i'm i'm gonna say seven kathy yeah seven eight but the students athletes will be wearing a mask the entire time they're competing they're not allowed to take their mask off i i understand that but we had that with soccer and we had cases on on and it wasn't happening during the games it was happening i understand that but here's here's my concern you have 15 kids playing if it's like the domino effect right even if they don't have temperatures right they can still be asymptomatic and be positive so and then i'm just concerned that having the sporting events even with all of the mitigation and all of the steps that we take these are teenagers they don't just you

095know it's not just all about what's in the in the room at that time it's what they do outside of it but there's 15 of them if if if a case spreads through the team that shuts down pw for two weeks potentially so that that's my other concern so or if it's three kids on the on the um basketball team and then five kids on the wrestling team like i'm just saying like it it doesn't take much to have 11 positive cases can can we go back to soccer for a second sure um when they played they did not have to wear masks um any fall sport did not have to wear a mask that included volleyball indoors and that was not the mandate at the time um so that was the recommendation and the

096league itself decided that we weren't going to do that right now the league is saying that when you go to a home or away event you will be masked um for the for the event so it's a little bit different i'm not saying it's it's it's perfect but at the same time i completely understand your your you know hesitant of it i i get it i'm not going to disagree with you i probably have the same thing as a parent myself it's just that in the fall we were in the green right we didn't have the transmission rates that we have now they weren't even close to where they are now this is the worst time right now is the worst time and that's adding to the concern that i have that it only takes

09711 cases with our positivity rate and our rate per 100 000 people being as high as it is it's not going to get much lower between now and the end of this of of the calendar year so these are my concerns and i do really do appreciate all the all of the planning and the and the mitigating and everything i really do these are just my concerns that the high school is going to have to be potentially shut down because of this you know of the sporting events well um chris i hear you and if the rest of suburban won this was my issue in the fall with football and if suburban if the rest of the the schools felt that way i know i would feel differently but if we if if i vote

098no tonight right every senior and i am i know i am coming out and saying i'm thinking of the seniors right now every senior loses the opportunity i'm i am struggling with wrestling i am really struggling with wrestling but the bottom line is if we vote no then every other school around us is still continuing right and pw on its own is saying that our kids don't get to participate that like that's it we're done i know no i know you're just taking everybody everybody to think about and we all have to vote the way we feel and i acknowledge that and i i understand that but i'm just i i i am struggling myself specifically with wrestling but i i don't know how i take that away and i feel like it's it's got

099to be the parent's decision as to whether i feel comfortable and i i i hear what everyone's saying and that's just the way i'm voting is because of that and and i hear everyone's concern can i ask a quick question the um document that was attached not the one that we did um as a district but from p-i-a was that written and put out before the mask mandate because reading through it it says like bowling it sounded like was very clear you needed a mask um cheerleading it said during stunts they for safety didn't want them wearing a mask so was that all written prior to the mask mandate and absolutely every single person participating in a sport will be masked the entire time except for you said maybe the exception of wrestling with the

100mouth guard can you just so the the piano blas came out probably about two or three weeks before the mass mandate came out um as far as everyone wearing masks yes except for the following swimming when they jump in the pool to swim um they they will not have a mask on to get in the pool and swim underwater um i know there's been talk uh they've talked about putting snorkels and everything else and people are like losing their mind um there's talk about doing virtual virtual meets which means we would do the meet at our place and the other team would do it at their place and we would you know somehow sync it up um so that's that's in talks as well um there's talks of you know the boys swimming at one

101place the girls going to another place to limit the amount of people that are in the pool area um so the only time that anyone not would have a mask on would be wrestlers if they have a mouth guard on and swimmers when they're in the pool anytime they're on the deck or anywhere else they would have a mask on okay thank you my second question um either for you or dr christian and i know the fall we were in you know we weren't in the severe range but were there multiple cases of student athletes on the same team exposed at the same time i think you know to chris's point that yes there could be an outbreak on a team but did we have that at all in the fall no we did we

102had one case you know that would that would put everybody down because like boys soccer i know that came up um that came up to the fact that we could not figure out where everybody was sitting on the bus so then we changed the rules of how we were gonna you know mandate and put a seating chart out and that type of thing so that we can contact trace a little bit easier um so that was the the issue with when we did that okay but there was okay so i think that's reassuring that there was no spread amongst our any of our fall sports teams all right thank you um excuse me didn't you say that basketball players who wore a mouth guard that a a mask would also be a health concern yes

103it would be but as of right now there's they're still saying that basketball will wear um a face mask now again that there are still some interpretations being worked out between the pia and and some lawyers right now um for for the suburban one to make sure that we have the correct rulings for everything on that and i i think um to rj's point i think the coaches can make a huge impact on their players that if their players want to play they need to control their behavior outside of school and playing and because i think in the fall we found that's where a lot of our issues were not they're not coming from school they were coming from outside of school so um if we pass this today and our our athletes have the

104opportunity to compete in their sports i think the coaches just need to make it super super clear on almost a daily basis that you know you just need to stay on the straight and narrow when you're not in this gym or in this pool area so that you can continue your sport so i have a couple questions uh we're in substantial transmission you know when we talked about this in the fall it was pretty clear when we were being if we were in the red zone as we talked about it then we would not have sports so i'm just curious what has changed um in the the guidance and you know and and and what has changed that now somehow magically it's fine um i'm i'm just struggling with that because i feel like i

105look at the the case numbers and the positivity rate and it is much higher than it was in the fall and yet now we're talking about approving sports that are being played inside which we know um leads to greater transmission of of the virus and so i'm i'm just a little confused about what's you know what sort of changed with with the guidance about sports that now that we're in substantial i mean i i just you know i i want kids to play um you know i i think it's you know i don't want to deprive kids of their season but i also recognize that i don't want our schools to shut down and i don't want people to get sick it's an excellent question and the guidance did evolve and for example football was

106not was moved and uh the measuring the standards that were required to play changed and became more of a moderate uh if not low risk sport as the fall progressed so standard did change um i think the reality is adam it's that there's still you're right there's risk there's absolutely risk i think us um and rj and his team controlling it controlling the numbers certainly helps us but yes there's risk because it's indoors i can say though just from talking with my colleagues and talking with a variety of folks in the community types of events have been going on all fall go out to some of these converted warehouses there's one called spooky nook that are hosting massive basketball tournaments every weekend i'm hoping that by us having the sports uh in our high school

107we can control some of that we can control the number of students participating we can control the uh and i'm not i'm not uh you know getting an opinion of those those types of places parents make the decision they want to make i respect that um but i know without the atmosphere that we're trying to create uh i think we have uh good controls in but there is but there is risk and then my other question is has has there been any thought to delaying the start of the season at least until a couple weeks after um you know after winter break so that we get through the period of of you know family gatherings etc um i really don't like the idea of starting the season on december 23rd um just in time for

108holiday gatherings and then you're bringing teams together it just sort of seems like if we could push it back and at least allow the holiday season to kind of happen and i mean you know people are going to gather we know that's going to happen that would seem to be sort of a prudent risk mitigation measure but i don't know if that's been talked about at all it has been there there are probably uh almost a dozen schools in the area that are considering that uh and we've we've uh said that we'd like to be part of that conversation so approving this uh this plan tonight does not mean that it cannot be modified it certainly is subject to any modification which rj and i and dr bakani have the authority to do and we

109could make it a weekly update over the next two weeks at our committee meetings um you know i think facilities would be a perfect place to discuss it uh and we could also discuss it with policy i think the key is to have the public discussion um but i think you raised a good point there and i know rj and i were talking today and there are 10 to 12 schools that have proffered that idea as well so um i just have two questions one is so if we approve this tonight it really just means that the kids can start practicing um next week correct like they need to start practicing by december 7th that that is correct okay the issue that comes into play is they have to have 15 practices okay so they

110can have a game so you know as we delay it it becomes more and more so now the delay is for the suburban one first league contest to be january 12th i would be able to have a competition if we choose to starting december 23rd if we chose to okay so and the other question i have is if we find ourselves having to close pw because of 11 cases or more does that mean the sports stops as well during that time frame yes okay i just have a question about the document um coaching staff and other adult personnel should wear face coverings at all times who are the other adult personnel so if that's like a volunteer coach um that does their clearances and everything and is part of the their coaching staff um so

111that is the other personnel that might be there and the facial direct acceptable that's because you were talking about the microphones and is that right microphone um the mouthpiece uh the mouthpiece yes that would be if they had a mouthpiece no coat should have a mouthpiece in because they're not participating in anything they're on the sideline right okay and they have to wear a face cover and that was written before the well mandate should say shall not show that's what confused me yeah we'll amend that okay it's it's it's the it's the order right now all right thanks so there is a motion to approve the health and safety plan for winter sports as presented and subject to the pennsylvania department of education attestation ensuring implementation of mitigation efforts is there a second second second

112um does anyone have any comments that they haven't already expressed or any questions other than just thank you for having this discussion i really appreciate it chris it was necessary i think we all needed to have some questions answered so thank you for starting that up so no other questions all in favor and everybody knows that this can be modified at any time um please raise your hand if you for i may okay and thank you everyone now's the time for any public comments uh anybody in the queue mr bogley i do not see any hands raised at this time and um mr sherman anybody any emails for afterwards nothing on email no okay any other comments or questions from the board or the administration thank you to everyone for you so it's really important

113you know before now that we've approved this plan you know along with the plans to return to this the the hybrid option whenever it's possible it just it doubly puts the burden on families to really cooperate with all these mitigation measures um you know if we don't do this as parents you know we're not going to have the educational delivery opportunities for our kids if if we're not participating in making sure that we're really trying to mitigate as much as possible and what our kids are doing outside the school buildings and um you know it's you know schools are the community and so we we can't mess around with this in these next few months if we want our kids in school if we want kids playing sports everybody has to you know play by

114by the rules and and follow the processes or or we're not going to be able to deliver what everybody wants for their kids and are keeping our staff and our faculty safe well said and i just want to thank our teachers and administrators for all their hard work um i know it probably wasn't a fairly restful thanksgiving um for folks just with everything going on and uh i know how hard uh our administrators have worked to try to you know make these plans workable and our teachers have continued to go above and beyond as they've had to shift from fully remote to hybrid to fully remote now back to hybrid and as dr christian mentioned earlier and uh you know that's not an easy shift to continue to do so i really just appreciate the

115hard work from our administration our our teachers and all of our employees and i just have one thing dr christian my friend can you please i know people are probably logging off of the call now that the meeting's over but as we reassess going forward right we have to continue to keep an eye on things and the rolling numbers and this that and the other what kind of changes officially or unofficially can and should families make so my daughter is hybrid she wants to be all virtual and i'm fine with that so she just hasn't gone to school she's sort of been virtual does does she and do other students should they be reaching out to their building principles saying we'd like to be officially virtual that's the first question and then the second question

116is would there ever be a need to resurvey and find out if our numbers might change with regard to number of people committing to 100 virtual two good questions one yes definitely contact your child's uh principal if there's a change or requested change uh principals review that with mrs burke and then myself families that are moving to all virtual it's pretty easy families requesting to come in in the hybrid it depends upon how many students we have in the class already six foot distancing et cetera so con starts with contacting the principal uh either way um second perform dr christian is there a form if you're going to go virtual or you just call the principal no we just phone conversation it starts with an email or phone conversation okay right thank you and then

117the second question we'd like to first do the survey of how things are going but i do think as we you know we did ask families that were all virtual to commit uh through the even of the elementary's on trimesters we asked them to commit through the first half of the year which is approximately the third to fourth week of january so depending upon the trajectory of the virus and how the attestation process is moving forward we may need to survey families again about the spring semester we are all hopeful that the vaccine that is being touted is uh successful uh and can be uh distributed in a wide spread fashion but that remains to be seen if that's that's possible so yeah we will potentially need to do that again for the spring okay

118thank you anybody else okay seeing nothing else we will adjourn tonight's meeting thank you everyone for your time thanks good night