001do hello oh [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] so [Applause] i pledge and to the allegiance through which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice world i'd like to thank you all for coming tonight and we'd like to thank you for having us tonight my name at bryce town is and holland elementary we have one more song for you tonight called cece boya and it means we are one in swahili [Music] with foreign languages [Music] hey [Music] hey toys [Music] is in the darkness is [Music] foreign [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] thank you so much [Applause] thank you sir awesome thank you oh wow thank you nice job guys thank you you did such a great job tonight youtube right here everybody thank you yes um degrees uh not a
002relay good evening everyone it is april 7th welcome to the public school board meeting of the school directors of the council rock school board we've already made it through the pledge of allegiance how about those kids from wrightstown what a wonderful way to start the evening [Applause] madam secretary can i have a roll call please edward tate present michael thorward here miriam mckee here joseph hidalgo here ed solomon here mike roosevelt here bob hickey here you depaly here and kristen marcel here she's online her voice she's under the weather so her voices will be a little low from there we're going to go letter d good evening mr scott lair representing council rock south and the student advisory board welcome to the school board sir thank you good evening uh mr solomon dr elliott members
003of the board uh my name is scott lair and i represent council rock south and um in place of mr al funk and i'm proud to be the assistant principal and athletic director at the high school i'm here to present members of our student active student advisory board great group of students something we can really be proud of stephen mallory katie and eric have some uh uh really fine information uh that they've gathered for you to share about what's going on in our school community so we'll start off with stephen good evening everybody i'm stephen belder i am the student advisory board representative for the class of 2025. today i'll be updating you on athletics despite the rainy weather the spring athletic season is underway and the golden hawks are off to a great start
004the boys tennis team is undefeated right now with an 8-0 match record in addition the golden hawks have two top singles players in in the district one and in the state of pennsylvania the boys are in good position to win the suburban one league patriot division the council rock south boys and girls track teams both started their season with an impressive victory over neshaminy high school athletes on both teams look forward to their competitions at the penn relays weekend invitationals suburban one championships and district and state competitions our boys and girls lacrosse teams have also been very successful in the first part of their schedules the girls lacrosse team is currently undefeated after their first five games and the boys team has a record of four to one as you can imagine both teams love
005competing on their new turf and are so thankful that they have a place to call home the council rock south baseball and softball teams are competing at a very high level and doing well both unfortunate but unfortunately the rainy weather has postponed several of their games thus far the baseball team has had two impressive victories and scrimmages over top-notch opponents malvern prep and pen charter the softball team has performed well and have defeated wissahicken and their arch rival counter rock north the council rock south boys volleyball team continues to improve on a daily basis and looks forward to competing against their strong opponents in the suburban one league national conference the boys earned their first win of the season by defeating cheltenham high school last week on friday morning of april 29th the councilwrx south
006athletic department along with our administrators will be honoring and recognizing many student athletes who have earned a scholarship or committed to playing a sport at the collegiate level at our annual student-athlete college recognition breakfast school board members and council rock administrators are all welcome to join us it will be a great morning for all that's all in athletics thanks so much good evening i'm mallory martin the junior class representative and just this past saturday the class of 2023 celebrated their junior prom it happened at the sheraton valley forge hotel and had a large attendance recently two south south students were featured in the pseas touch the future art show reed stultz won third place invest of show and emily meeder won first place in medals and jewelry we also had four students get featured in
007the national art honor society jury exhibit mia mccarthy abby writer andy weaver and bethany conover they were chosen out of almost 2 000 students and to have their work shown in an exhibit which displays less than 200 works speaking of art the district art show is approaching it will happen may 18th to the 20th and will feature pieces from all of our grades and schools in the district south will also be having our very own art show from may 11th to the 13th and will be exclusively for south students report cards will be released on the 13th for the third marking period and the fourth is already well underway spring break is approaching and will begin next thursday and will return the tuesday after south environmental action club will be having an e-waste event hosted
008by tech collect pros it will be happening in the back upper parking lot between the football and baseball fields on april 23rd we'll be collecting every kind of electronic material from computers to floppy disks and from cell phones to hard drives more information about this event is available in the canvas class of our eac and on our instagram page crs envira thank you for listening and i hope you all have a great night my name is katie burke and i'm the 12th grade representative for south student advisory board and tonight i'll be sharing some music updates from south the choir is now well on their way to italy they're preferred after performances in pompeii sorrento rome and even the vatican they'll return home on april 14th we can't wait to hear about their amazing vocal
009performances and their shared cultural experiences south recently hosted the jazz of the rock music festival this past friday judges listened to performances from 12 high school jazz bands and the combined new town and holland middle school jazz bands the festival was the ultimate culmination to a successful competition season for our lab and concert jazz bands from march 17th through the 19th south also hosted the bucks county music educators association festival high school students from across bucks county auditioned to participate in either the band chorus or orchestra honor group after rehearsing for 12 hours at south we ended with an outstanding concert on saturday after a two-year hiatus due to covid making music with inspiring guest desk conductors and students who share the same passion free music was very uplifting and finally the senior trip is
010now 11 days away after attending our trip assembly today i can tell you that the seniors are super excited for orlando thank you for your time and have a great night hello my name is eric spector and i am a senior at council rock high school south and i'm also a level 300 student in the multimedia technology program at middlebucks institute of technology congratulations to the level 200 students in network operating and system security program who passed the network pro certification exam the students had to demonstrate skill essentials to the elements of the network computing environment this was a hundred percent performance based and is an important industry recognized credential our adult education department is now offering online construction courses construction experts provide high quality interactive online construction education courses to construction students who want
011to advance their career to register for these courses please visit our website and navigate to the adult education section the national technical honors society honors students achievements and leadership in career and technical education 14 of our mbit students will be inducted in a ceremony held on thursday april 28th students from our horticultural landscape and design program will be having a spring plant sale starting may 2nd tables for the plant sale will be set up on our bus platform and open for sales through 8 a.m to 10 a.m during our morning session and 12 to 2 p.m during the afternoon session they will be selling annuals hanging baskets and organic herbs and vegetable plants mbit is also hosting a summer career educational program for students entering 7th 8th 9th or 10th grade during the week of
012july 11th students are invited to register for 12 courses offered during the week-long program additional information and registration can be found at www.mbit.org we would like to remind everyone that you can learn more about the latest happenings at mbit by liking us on facebook following us on instagram and twitter and viewing our videos on youtube thank you for your time and the opportunity to keep you informed about what is happening at middlebucks institute of technology thank you folks sure mr please uh thank you students for uh your fine work and and presenting uh all of our information and the great stuff that's going on in our school community um i applaud you on your efforts and very very thorough uh report so thank you i'd be remiss if i did not mention this this evening
013a very special accomplishment occurred within our athletic department uh this past winter season uh as you know our council rock south wrestling program um is uh outstanding and it just so happens that two of our faculty members two of our coaches uh back on february 11th at the giant center in hershey at the team duel championships um which we qualified for trap mccormick and brad sillan perry earned their 300th career victory as coaches since 2002 to 2022 they have been you know outstanding individuals in our community in our school they've been you know they have represented us very well not only statewide but nationally and i i couldn't uh unfortunately they couldn't be here tonight and um that's because they're coaching because of their dedication to their kids and their wrestling community but i couldn't
014let a school board meeting go by without you know giving the accolades that they deserve because they are precisely the type of individuals we need leading our young people okay because athletics uh serves a a great role in people's lives and a lot of the lessons that they learn within our athletic programs are going to take them through uh their life and and benefit them greatly so i just like to personally uh congratulate brad and trap on this outstanding accomplishment so thank you for giving me that opportunity thank you again thank you mr laird seniors behave yourself you're representing council rock in southern florida the policies are still in place they were told that all right have a magical time say hi to everybody wish i was there substitute superintendent report dr ellie good evening
015ma'am good evening mr solomon good evening members of the board and members of our cr community first i want to thank miss staffieri and the wrights town elementary special course for the beautiful song they sang this evening it was wonderful to hear their voices to open our meeting and i also extend my congratulations to our south wrestling coaches on that career victory that's incredible for for our coaches i want to start this evening with some important dates for our cr community our spring break for students begins next week thursday april 14th through monday april the 18th i hope that our students staff and families find some time to relax and recharge during this well-deserved break we've received some questions about the last day of school when is it and we will officially announce that last
016day at our board of directors meeting on may 5th and unless we experience some unexpected weather related closings over the next few weeks hopefully not we anticipate that the last day of school for students will be tuesday june 14th this will be a half day for all students in grades k through 11 and only the pm kindergarten students will attend on this day the anticipated last day for teachers is wednesday june 15th and of course our graduation date which is set is confirmed and will be thursday june 9th each high school will provide more details about graduation to their school communities additionally another important date that was referenced by our student advisory board i want to remind our community about an e-waste recycling event occurring on saturday april 23rd from 9 00 a.m to 12
017p.m at council rock south in the upper back parking lot and you heard some details about that this evening as well next i would like to talk about some of our amazing students and we have some here this evening that are going to share some things with us first i'm excited to have some middle school students joining us they represent team journey at newtown middle school their english teacher miss aaron demskis is also with them this evening these eighth grade students recently finished reading ellie weissel's powerful memoir night about his experiences as a teenager in the holocaust as part of their learning these students created unique meaningful and moving holocaust memorial projects that have been on display in a gallery at newtown middle school for the past few weeks these projects vary from poetry and
018creative writing to 3d models paintings slide shows movies and animated minecraft models as i toured the museum one thing that was very clear to me about every project each was created with compassion and feeling the gallery was curated by three talented students sarah blatnick haley edelman and erin lockwood their attention to detail and setting up the gallery transformed the middle school classroom into a moving experience for visitors this evening they are going to share some pieces from this museum with us miss demskin demkis thank you so much for having all of us i'm going to speak just very briefly because this is really more about our students but i want to thank all of our administrators and our board members for your incredible support it meant so much to all of us that you came
019out to view our gallery and then for the invitation to come out here tonight so that we could share it on a larger level these folks have worked so incredibly hard they're so compassionate it shows in everything that they do this is such a proud moment as a teacher i also need to make special recognition of an outstanding poet who we have with us chloe fingerman who will be capping off our presentation with one of her poems um thank you for having us tonight we really appreciate it and we're really honored to be here tonight this is a drawing online that was done by ella walsh called tear shed this is a drawing made by chloe fazio called my reflection this is a drawing by aaron leach called shattered histories this is a drawing by
020helena lentz called every dot as a life taken and on the strolling it is exactly five hundred thousand dots this is a drawing by izzy hoskins called past first present this is a little slideshow called the holocaust gallery by justin swope this is an auschwitz minecraft that declan kim made this is a drawing called hope by elaine dunchowski this is a poster made by lexi shuffler about five facts this is a 3d model called auschwitz by luke newman and dylan kiefer this is a drawing by madeline mcgettigen wings of hope and lost lives this is a painting called camp uniform by madeleine seiple this is called the star of david and it has a bunch of pictures of lives from the holocaust on it by maddie ritter these are some rocks painted by marcela alfaro
021called the resistant rocks this was a short film by merrick epperson kieran khan derechor arov audi this is a 3d model called the hand of hope by olivia this is the hand of resistance by elise wiedelich um this is a paper mache model by sarah strange called our voices is a poem by chloe fingerman called silent screams i'd like to introduce chloe fingerman to read her poetry okay so today i'll be reading for you looking glass beneath my liberation behind my renewed breath i see a corpse through the looking glass unrecognizable flesh what is this face i see it is not mine no one should see such terror especially through their own semblance i am pale ill struggling to understand this thing before me a ghost an angel forced through inferno i will forever be
022that skeleton that mournful child who saw life perish who marched miles for torment who stood silenced by fear who lived within a corpse through the looking glass i pray pray beneath him who has rested far too long whose silence has blaringly screamed i'm forever defined by this engraving the statistic on my skin i'm within the body of my number and it sulks beneath the world with this reflection i see tears cry tears i drown in tides of teardrops emotion supersedes my liberation mirrors will forever trigger agony the pain of my beatings the heat of the flames the stench of the gas the lingering helplessness my body sought day for eons now there is sunlight but i still feel that nightmare that endless fog through this weakness i see such strength a formidable giant vitality courses
023through my veins never again will i be trampled i'm a vital corpse a human who will be seen i am the reflection of fortitude [Applause] does anyone have any questions so i will say that mrs marcel and i went last week wasn't miss demskus a week before their wakes run into everything um the first one you have as soon as you walk into the museum absolutely floored me um the work you kids have done will stick with me the rest of my life it's not often something like that happens except for multiple times with my kids obviously and your families and friends um it was an honor to have you here it was brilliant um i can't speak for every board member and i hope they all comment because i think we were all there
024um you guys are the reason why council rocks the best school district in bucks county you're the reason why we want kids at school board meetings you should be celebrated and you should go home tonight and you should be very thankful for what you're getting in an education and you should be impressed with what you did so i thank you for getting to me because now it's with me forever my congratulations to your team thank you so much thank you anybody else on the board dr thorward please i'll echo what mr solomon said you should be proud too you really should uh and you should be proud too mrs denton so i i really um it was a moving uh art show i know i teased you for using an empty room at new town
025middle but it it was i'm i'm glad you filled every space and you and you filled it with something that that was really quite touching and and i appreciate it and i'm glad you're here thank you thank you so much thank you mr thor mr roosevelt i'm sorry thank you once again for i'm so glad that you guys came out it really was wonderful i also attended we shared um some time talking about it and i'll sort of try to recapture what i said because i think it's important going through it was very clear that every student that participated in that really applied a lot of emotion a lot of compassion and a lot of consideration into the material that you were discussing which is very difficult to deal with so um it was an
026emotional element to go in there and i think that it reflects very well upon the students of this district especially your class and those that participated and you as a teacher to be able to connect on that level um and connect to everybody that goes in there is really really important that's some of the keys of success to life is to connect to somebody on an emotional level and you guys did it without even being in the room so thanks very much thank you so much thank you miss you always get thunder before i introduce you i'm sorry miss paulie please so congratulations and thank you so much for you and also erin for putting this together um i was so moved going through the exhibit and i saw that it was a lot of
027creativity a lot of creativity and also talent and all these hours that you spent putting this together and critical thinking um the poems i mean congratulations the poems i was reading poems for a long time and i couldn't believe how much talent and depth these students have and um how much they can offer to all of us so great great job thank you and congratulations thank you so much thank you anybody else mrikey please i was there a few weeks ago maybe one of the early visitors and uh my response to miss denticus and i'm going to say now because i really can't add what anybody else said was wow you should you know um so proud to be a part of a district where you know this kind of things can happen you should
028be proud of stems because you should be proud and your parents as well um they did a great job well thank you anybody else from the board mr tate please it was great to see the the museum and as i said at the time my daughter and i were quite moved and i've only told a couple of people about it because it's not exactly a public museum at this point but if anybody's interest is peaked after this conversation in your presentation um they should email you ms demskus if they want to see it good absolutely they can email they can call newtown middle we're going to keep it up through wednesday of next week marvelous thank you well i want to thank you all very much uh it was moving to be there and chloe
029i have to say having read that poem and then hearing you say it read it and and recite it it just the words just were so powerful so i really appreciate that you were willing to share one of your poems with us this evening so thank you and i i i hear you might be possibly entering some of those in in a contest as well so i think that's fantastic i know some of the other students are entering some of their pieces in different contests which um i hope you'll keep us updated on that uh but again thank you so much for this incredible work and as mr tate just uh asked and miss demskis just said if you would uh if community members would like to visit the gallery it will remain open through
030wednesday april 13th contact the school or reach out to mrs demskis to arrange a time to do that and we would love for others to appreciate that so thank you so much for being here this evening we really appreciate it thank you so much [Applause] next we're going to turn our focus to steam each year the bucks county intermediate unit hosts a stem design challenge for elementary and middle school teams this year 214 teams representing eight bucks county school districts participated in this event the challenge was improve our transportation system teams were challenged to think of current transportation systems like air travel vehicle travel bicycling and more in what ways can these systems be improved to create a safer healthier and cleaner world or do you have an idea for a new transportation system teams
031created a prototype showing their design to improve or recrea or create something new when those designs were judged a council rock was very well represented in this year's challenge of the 127 elementary teams for grades 4 and 5 39 were from council rock that's 31 percent of the participants of the 12 semi-finalists for the elementary level four were from council rock of the 90 middle school teams grades 6 through 8 19 were from council rock that's 21 percent of the total and of the eight middle school semi-finalists four were from council rock we have several award winners among our cr teams entered that entered in this year's stem design challenge team 118 from wrightstown earned the elementary school best teamwork award team 81 from richboro elementary school won second place in the elementary level competition
032team 51 from seoul findstone earned the middle school most creative design award team 50 from sol feinstein earned the middle school best teamwork award and team nine from good know elementary won first place in the middle school competition and our iu did something really special this year when they announced the award winners because the students were all in their home schools imagine if you will the publishers publisher's clearinghouse sweet sweepstakes showing up at your door uh the winning teams the elementary winning team and the middle school winning team did not know it but representatives from the iu showed up during a live zoom event for all of the teams at their door and presented them with balloons and an award and surprised them so i had the fortune of being there when the good note
033team won won first place and got their awards it was really exciting for them so congratulations to all of our winning teams in the stem design challenge and finally continuing with our focus on steam this evening our chief science officers and their advisor ms renee devlin have joined us this evening to provide an update on their cso program and the work they have been doing this year to support steam education with council rock ms devlin thank you for having us tonight and thank you dr elliott for the introduction and the plug for the iu steam challenge here to introduce tonight are chief science officers for council rock gavin kohler is from north ali chaudhry from south sharon alex from south and sarah tyler is practicing soccer in the rain um chief science officers stand for
034um they're ambassadors for the community to promote stem and steam and i'm going to give the floor over to these guys they have to um make a mission statement they had training that was involved summer training um they have they meet panelists and engineers like um mr and they're going to share what they've been pushing in with steam in our district hello my name is ali chaudhary and i'm currently a junior at council rock high school south and one reason i particularly enjoy being part of the cso program is because of the opportunity i have to collaborate with students who will be the future in stem for our country um so to elaborate more on what the cso program is the cso program began internationally in 2015 and has since grown into an international student
035initiative to promote steam representatives work together to use csr resources to bring steam opportunities into their communities the cso program ultimately aims to help foster creativity and develop leadership leadership skills and not only the chief science officers but also those who we work with our chief science officer program is a part of the pac ecosystem cabinet and this this cabinet was this cabinet was started by government tom governor wolf and it grants increased stem throughout pennsylvania hi my name is sharon alex i'm a sophomore at council rock south high school now you might be asking what have we done so far as csos well we've attended cso council meetings and we've brought steam to elementary schools we've done this particularly through playing games called disruptus these games help foster innovative and creative thinking among second
036to sixth graders we've gone to holland elementary school richboro elementary church school churchville elementary school and many other elementary schools we've worked with the bucks county iu fab lab and we've done demonstrations at elementary schools and science fairs we've also helped mentor students for the ub the chemist challenge some upcoming events that we have is the wrights town elementary school science fair night on may 23rd and the district steam night on june 2nd there will be over 40 interactive steam rooms and events which you guys can all participate in so we hope you could join us there one of my favorite things about being a chief science officer is the ability to be a leader within this community especially in the steam region hi my name is gavin kohler i am a junior at council
037rock north high school where i volunteer as a cso as csos we've been volunteering at the fab lab in bucks county iu near warminster as at the fab lab students in elementary middle schools are presented the opportunity to challenge their engineering fabrication and creativity as they go through the design and engineering process in order to test and tackle real-life problems and challenges such as landing a rover on um different planets in the moon as a cso one of my favorite things is the connections i get to make which provide me the opportunity to help and promote them in my community i would be remiss if i didn't thank um mr tate for having us at the biotech lab you might have seen some pictures in there we started we started that partnership through the cso
038program when the students in 2019 met a panelist of stem professionals so thank you for hosting that twice we had to skip during covet um i would also be remiss if i did not acknowledge our csos that are alumni now so we have um parker homan mia downs patrick wang and emily nelson and their mission statement was a little difficult because they were csos for two years during kovid they were still involved in schools they had virtual steam nights and events that's hillcrest's picture right there they created a logo for the district so we could have common language for k to 12 when we're interacting with steam you have any questions for our students what they've done dr thort thorpe well i'll i'll just i don't have questions but i just want to comment um
039i i got a chance to participate with the csos last summer um virtually obviously um mr devlin i'm impressed i mean the questions i got were um were well thought um it was nice to give comments you know i'm a dinosaur compared to these kids but it was nice to give comments about you know career paths and what you can do in the stem steam profession um keep it up um we we we need more of you so i'm glad we have some ambassadors i'm glad you're reaching out into elementary schools i think you're going to find that's fun if if if if you haven't you will i mean young kids really are into this and and if you can pique their interest as you know an older student all the better so thanks for
040for everything so thank you very much and and i will before you um close that slide miss devlin so the logo that you see on here uh she mentioned that our previous steam alumni our cso alumni developed this so they really gave a lot of thought to how do we represent what steam means in council rock and you'll see when you look at the logo within each letter of the logo is some element that relates to some aspect of science technology engineering arts or math and then they also came up with some key words uh for each of the letters of inspire so if you if you can't see those words the i stands for innovate network solve problems persevere integrate take risks and empower and there was a lot of discussion i had the
041opportunity to sit with those four csos and really listen to their thinking about this this logo and this is something that we hope we can utilize as we continue to work to build access for steam for all of our kids uh in council rock so thank you very much and and csos thank you for your continued work uh i i have the great fortune of serving on the executive board for the pac ecosystem so i get to hear on a regular basis what's happening with all the csos across the entire four county region of bucks chester delaware and montgomery county so it's it's so great that we have four among that group of of esteemed uh young leaders so thank you for being here [Applause] and that ends my report mr solomon thank you dr
042elliott from there we'll move to the solicitor report good evening mr cox mr salomon the board held executive sessions on the 22nd and the 30th of march and the 6th of april on personnel and collective bargaining that's all i have thank you sir from there we're going to move the public comment the first 30 minutes of public comment will be for agenda items only public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to address this board we would ask that you limit your comments in no longer than three minutes which will be kept by mr cox please consider that the fact the fact that there may be young children in the audience are watching this broadcast live on cr tv when speaking it is our goal to maintain a respectful environment so the members
043of our community have equal opportunity to address the board without interruption while the board welcomes your ideas we'll consider them in deliberating an issue we may not respond to your comments or questions so i'm going to go down the list based on the checks for a general item first first one up is ezra from newtown good evening [Applause] good evening my name is ezra brisken i'm a senior at council rock north and i'm here to to voice support for the changes to policy nine exactly and only how it is written personally books have helped me learn about the world and my role in it and it's been instrumental to my growth as a student person and leader i'm extremely fortunate to come from a family that allows and encourages me to explore challenging social themes
044and topics but i understand that not all students are as lucky as me this is where my concern regarding the implementation of policy 109 stems from i do believe that the evaluation process for challenged books needs more consistency across the district however i am worried that this policy will lead to more restrictive media resource guidelines in the future and i'm concerned about how that could affect minority students specifically the lgbtq plus and black communities i recognize that policy 109 does not explicitly target any group of people nor does it expressly set forth any recommendations regarding library policies however many of the comments made by board members during the policy committee policy committee meeting on march 14th make me uneasy about the execution of this policy and to where it could lead for instance an idea
045that was supported by a handful of board members was an opt-in checkout system in our libraries in which a parent would need to approve every book that their child checks out not only does this policy place an unnecessary strain of librarians but it completely defeats the purpose of our libraries in the first place our libraries are designed to give students unlimited access to a wide variety of books that help them develop a love for reading our libraries also serve as a way for students to see themselves in books it is with this in mind that i hope you can recognize my concern when a board member publicly states quote i don't want my sixth grade student having access to homosexual situations it is of course valid to have a personal view on this topic but
046allowing your parenting preferences to influence your decision making as a board member is beyond disappointing the american library association considers sixth graders to be young adults and as far as i'm concerned we should be doing more to introduce young adults to topics such as lgbt lgbtq plus rights even if you or their parent do not agree with it it is well overdue to empower students to think beyond the heteronormative box in which we have been stuck in for quite some time if a queer student is not supported at home they should find comfort in knowing that they will be accepted at school regardless of gender sexuality race or religion and specifically for younger students it starts and ends with representation in and access to books our libraries exist for students not parents if a parent
047has an objection to a particular book in a library that's okay but the complaints of one family should not apply to the entire district as board members it is your duty to ensure that no student feels unwelcome in school and the easiest way to accomplish that is by ensuring that our libraries remain a bastion of knowledge and representation free from intrusive oversight by parents as a school board and administration moves forward with implementing policy 109 and the administrative regulations that accompany it i urge you to listen to the concerns of the community and consider what my peers and i will speak about tonight thank you thank you [Applause] next up is ainsley [Applause] next up is ainsley from newtown [Applause] good evening my name is ainslie jordan and i attend council rock high school north
048and i reside in newtown before i go into my speech i would like to preface siam and support the current policy that we have regarding whether or not students can check out certain books although making changes to the policy is only being briefly discussed it's worrisome to me i am a person of color in a predominant predominantly white community at a young age i struggle with my appearance being a minority and a majority caused me to resent myself the only way i had seen people who looked like me portrayed was in the way that my community saw them and it wasn't always in the best way it wasn't until i read a story about a young black girl in the fourth grade who ran for class president personally i feel connection to her it was
049my first time ever seeing a person of color portrayed in the way she was i felt less alone i don't think i would love myself the way i do if i had not read that book it had some strong content and discussed hard topics but it was relatable i fear that someone who does look like me doesn't get the opportunity i did because it makes people uncomfortable and this goes for people who are considered outsiders in their communities reading and seeing people that have gone through similar through struggles that you have or look similar or look similar to the way you do is conf comforting it teaches people to love themselves and their uniqueness taking the opportunity away from everyone because one person's uncomfortable is not fair thank you for listening thank you [Applause] next
050up is claire [Music] from newtown [Applause] hi my name is claire fansteil and i currently attend council rock north i wanted to start off by saying that i fully support policy 109 however i am concerned about the effects that this policy could have if not used correctly since there is currently a search for a new superintendent i believe it is important to our community that that we ensure that there is not too much change especially to policy 109 policy 109 allows the superintendent to respond to objections about certain resource materials as is currently written this policy is logical and beneficial policy 109 also gives parents the option to up their children out of reading certain books parents already have the authority to act in the best interest of their family however after the last policy
051meeting many members of the school board expressed interest in creating an opt-in program to access certain books and databases this is not necessary as parents already have the power to limit books they are concerned about if the school board changes to an opt-in program it creates confusion and chaos to teachers administration and parents this also concerns me because opting in means many students will miss out on reading books if their parents are unaware of the policy change or the impact it has the council rock community has maintained a promise to diversity since i was in elementary school i have always appreciated the emphasis on being accepting of others within the council rock community reading is a crucial way to learn about different ways of life especially at the elementary school level creating an opt-in program
052to access books would prevent kids from reading materials that would allow them to learn about racism or lgbtq issues these topics are a part of society which includes the council rock community and families within our community therefore if used incorrectly or changed policy 109 has the potential to destroy the years of diversity and acceptance that council rock has been working toward in addition at the middle and high school level library resources would be impacted which encompasses gale and other approved and funded library databases by preventing kids without permission from accessing this data not only does it prevent kids from doing research for school work but it forces them to use unreliable sources to educate themselves the internet is open to everyone and by creating an opt-in program to our databases council rock is encouraging kids
053who are unable to opt in to use biased and unreliable resources for learning and research policy 109 has the potential to inhibit students growth as they become members of society school is meant to be a place where students are able to see different viewpoints and understand that our opinions are not always the same as others overall council rock overall education is so much greater than just going to school and receiving good test scores council rock has always recognized this and worked to create not just a school not just school educated kids but also well-rounded and worldly kids who will go into life accepting of all people but policy 109 30 seconds directly or changed has the potential to jeopardize this work and bring diversity and important conversations to a halt thank you [Applause] next up
054is is it mishni good evening can you just state your name for the record please hello my name is mishti mishra and i'm a junior at council rock high school north for starters i would like to thank the school board for all they do and their efforts within our district before i begin my points i would like to recognize some issues we're currently living in a society where there is little to no compromise with issues and unity should be at the utmost level of importance a community is not a community without unity thus to address policy 109 i stand in support of it but warns school board members of the issues that may arise policy 109 pertain to the issue of books and parental rights to prohibit your child from reading certain books as it
055is up to their discretion the current policy is set to be going well and as an individual i support the right for the parent to choose what their child should or should not read however with the search of a new superintendent and the polarization of political opinions within our community this policy has a possibility of being misused from then on there there could be an unprecedented political backlash from any end causing more division between everyone we must stand in unison and understand and respect all perspectives in addition the school board members are the role models for many within this community therefore misusing this policy sets a bad precedent students will have a disturbed view of how society works and will not be properly prepared for the future not only from the authority figures in their
056lives but also the inability to deal with complex issues the new superintendent search has been an ongoing discussion around my school for quite some time now and is causing some tension in addition many of the new library policy discussions set forth by the school board special