001do you think we'll have to adjourn and do this next week [Laughter] all right we're back online let's go quickly action it's getting late the system is failing us mr tate you have any comments sir or i i forgot where we were if you don't that's fine were you done mike i'm sorry i was just trying to clarify so that january 28th is a date where someone in bridges could come back to school if they're k through 6 and it's also an opportunity for someone k through 6 where they could enter bridges so the way the bridges program works is a student it's it's basically asynchronous learning with opportunities for some live sessions but primarily it is asynchronous learning so a student could enter at any time and then the bridges teachers and administrators would
002ascertain working with the school district what courses would that student need and give us a sense of where they were they'd do some initial assessments or screening to try to figure out where the student was and then they plan a course of instruction based on the time that the student enters and how long they're going to be in to to give the student and their family a sense of basically how many lessons should you be completing um to and what pace should you be at to reach uh the end of the year or the end point so that's a yes i'm just trying to provide a clear thing yes they if they could go into the program at that time if we approved to correct yeah right mr dr thorward a couple of points here
003because i think we're missing in our quest to accommodate everybody some just basic logistics here um it's not the same council rock program it doesn't go at the same pace a kid that goes in midway we don't know where that lands in bridges um so if you sign up for at the end of january it's going to take these teachers a couple of weeks to figure out right i mean days weeks days i'm not sure how many weeks but yeah it's gonna take a little time but even when they do they're on a different trajectory than every kid that's still in school there's a reason why we said we didn't want you to go in and out of it uh and and it's because it's again not educationally sound um if if if you want
004to open it up to parents because who are nervous now and want to start january 28th i i would say we we then you have to stay there for the end of the year i mean i'm i'm not doing the bouncing because it's not educationally it's not nice for the kids who are back in school because when those kids come back we have to do the same shuffle on our end um i i think we're missing just logistics this is this is not as simple as that you go here and then go here it it there's a reason why we're picking these end dates and there's a reason why we said whole marking periods i mean at this point listen you can be vaccinated whether you want to or not as dr elliot pointed out
005you're back in school now so if if there's serious concerns then i take the year take the rest of the year i'm happy to offer it but but take it as the whole take the rest of the year so that that's that i just want to make sure we're mindful of this is not as simple as the program is not the same you can't come in and out and land at the same spot in your classroom or not i was under the assumption that that if you did it you are taking the rest of the year that you're not bouncing back and forth like you sign up for this you're committed from january 28th until june 18th or whatever the last day of school is that that's what i meant i can embrace that doctor
006and he commented it or just since we're clarifying i i i would agree that you know if we decide if the board decides that they want to open this opportunity either for these students or they want to open it for other students those families and those students need to make a commitment and as the as the board you know our original direction was to allow those families at the beginning of the year to come back at any time they wanted based on how the situation changed with the pandemic that could be something we could consider if the board wished to do that however i you know i think we need to give some clear parameters of you know what what we're expecting thank you miss valley so i would like to board to offer that
007option for the families to start the bridge program and i would i wanted to hear uh dr eliot because i think the administration would be best to tell us from an educational perspective whether they would be okay to come back after say two or three months or they should stay in the program so i don't feel that um i know enough to make that that call but i believe the administration should be able to i don't know if it's going to be a case-by-case basis or it's going to be a universal rule for everything the other point i want to make that i would really appreciate if the administration could offer the one way for the people that have to stay home and if we can extend it not only to someone who is who
008tested positive but maybe include cases where someone who is exposed has to stay home or the family is under severe restrictions so and again i don't know if it's we can create a rule for everybody or it can be a case-by-case basis that demand the administration can give us like a heads up but definitely definitely one way for sure if you can make it happen thank you man anybody else mr aldago please thank you mr solomon um i guess we have rules in place and uh the deadline was january 28th uh i'm in favor of just keeping the original rules that we have that we have in place i i think that we're not changing anything i believe if we go and let people go into this program if they want to come back to
009school we're not going to shut the door on them they're going to they're going to get their attorney and they're going to be allowed back in school unless rob cox can tell me that i'm wrong i would prefer to not address that issue in public that's fine and understand that that's you can't i do think i do think that if the board wants to as this is the point that dr thorward and others were making if the board wants to set a rule that a family who enrolls in the bridges program on the 28th going forward has to remain in that program for the rest of the year it can do that there there may be from time to time a real need for an exception that the the district would have to evaluate but
010i i do believe that that the board can set that parameter sure so exceptions are a good thing and we make them all the time i thought the rule the way we had it if you were going to say bounce back once we can't do it re re-enroll i could probably get behind that um so you could go into bridges you decide you don't like it you can come back but we're really not going to let you back in again you know so that you don't get that bounce back that we originally were talking about versus saying if you do this we're going to give you a hard time about coming back to our school if it doesn't work out for you i don't want to do that but you guys can make your own
011choices thank you joe anybody else mrs mckay thank you um first of all i want to say i was really pleased to see the initial number of i think you said dr elliot 48 49 students come down to what 14 really pleased to see those numbers coming down because i'm a firm believer that our students belong in council rock school with councilwork curriculum counselor teachers having said that i really do understand and sympathize that there are families that have genuine legitimate concerns and needs which prevent them from putting their kids in our classrooms at this time so i would be supportive of continuing the program i'm i'm a little bit mixed on the idea of whether to limit it to those students currently in the program or offer offer it up and open it up
012to others personally i i from my experience in the classroom i i think would be very disruptive for kids to be coming back between now and june disruptive for the children it would be hard for them i think to readjust it would be difficult for teachers to assess them and place them appropriately design instruction for them so i i'm really kind of torn between that but i think i would prefer to see the program extended until june certainly for those initial families and perhaps for others but with a commitment to remain in the program until june thank you everybody else dr thorward i'm sorry if we did what mrs mckee just said and said open it up to others and keep them there till june if we said we want that we can want anything
013we want can you deliver that is my next question i would need some clarification of the scope of are we talking k through six that we're doing this um you know need to circle up with uh the rest of the administrative team and um think about the how we go about making this open for people uh you know do we do another registration link we need to look at the impacts of that on how we're taking attendance and and just kind of wrap our head around some of the logistical things to figure out what would our timeline be for when we could uh theoretically um start this and and provide that opportunity for for those students and like again we can want anything we want but the sooner or later it has to happen how
014about for the kids that are currently in it that extension is just continuing right the kids that are currently in uh it would be as simple as me contacting the first letting those families know that they can remain in if they choose to and then contacting bridges to let them know we're extending and and they're welcome to stay in mr tate thank you mr solomon um i think it's a good idea to put it simply for us to continue the program for those families that are in it currently um if the original rules if you will when bridges was offered was that sign up now this is your opportunity there won't be an opportunity at mid-year i don't think we need to change that rule i would have a reservation about doing that so dr
015elliott what was the original understanding for parents please was it this is your one chance the original understanding for those uh 43 to 44 parents or students so representing not 44 families who opted to join register and attend through bridges was that no we i'll clarify we didn't know when the vaccine was going to be available so trying to set some parameters in august around what that would look like we wanted to make sure that when that vaccine was available or when those families felt comfortable coming back that they had that option to do so um obviously we're in a different place than we were in in august if i may also add uh i did reach out to these families for some feedback and the majority of of those that remain um indicated that
016uh if bridges would remain an option it would be extremely likely that they would remain through the end of the year there were a few that weren't certain that they would want to remain to the end of the year but a good number said they would most likely want to remain through the end of the year okay please mr ricky when the agreement was made with the 14 or 16 families that are currently in there if they elect to stay do they have the option or did they have the option to come back whenever they it like for you know for example if one of these families that are currently in there if in march they say hey i want to come back was that allowable by the district the way we set the parameters
017to this point was that they could come back at any time uh i would you know look to the board for some direction on that if um you know technically those uh 18 students there spot in their in-person council route classroom is still there we are holding that spot for them uh so if um if that is the the direction from the board we could for if we choose these these families we could continue that practice of if at such time you feel comfortable returning we will allow you to return we may uh depending on the time of year want to have some conversations with them about let's think about is this the best time for you to return because of you know maybe what's happening for example in april when we're administering the pssa
018you know maybe that's not the time you want to come back uh from the bridges program but again that's something that you know we could definitely have conversations about i got a question i don't know mr sancho dr elliot do we have a sense at k-6 how many families are not coming to school because none of the things in place work for them so we we know the kids who are coming to school we know the students who have left and gone to a cyber charter or private school we know the students in the bridges program that dr elliot just spoke about we do have some on occasion we do have families that have decided to keep their kids home for a couple days or a week or whatever uh because of what's going on
019in their own household with their own independent needs but but um we really have an accounting of all of our kids and where they are i'm sorry we do is that what you said we do we even are any of those kids hitting the threshold of absences that if they have to make a decision legally to get back to school yes so you know we keep attendance every day that's required here and we also have to report that in our pims reporting to pde um so that's why i'm saying we have an accounting of all of our students so for example a student who's in the bridges program we keep attendance on them through our isds department just like a student that physically walks into one of our buildings each day students that go to
020a cyber charter school their attendance is not kept by us or somebody that is in a different private school so yeah so my concern is still those those families are just not comfortable coming to our school and i don't know if we'll ever be comfortable in a brick and mortar building anytime soon um no i i if we're going around the room i'm for whatever whatever makes the most sense and the only question i would have is at this point the kids that did come back during the beginning since or the beginning couple months did we did we evaluate them when they came back to find out how far off or in front were they than our than our kids that are already in school it's probably a very small sampling anyway but i'm kind
021of gonna try to get a sense is it that much i know it's different but how much different is it is it flexible enough i don't know as we would do with any student who is joining a classroom um whether they're move-in or in this case our students coming back from bridges our teachers would always you know gather some data do some assessments uh to get a sense of where the student is and and what their needs are i can't speak specifically to do we notice any difference in where they are as a learner relative to where our students are at this point i do not have that data but um you know we do evaluate and then um we have services and and provide them with and any support they need or the teachers
022work with them and you know try to make sure that we're helping the students be successful yeah that works yeah and the key is that they're holding those seats when they're in bridges in that classroom so bob to your point if that was something the board wants that seat's there so it's that's an important thing mr roosevelt please just coming back mr senko can you ballpark if you're not comfortable that's fine but can you ballpark the number of students that we're talking about that might be up against their 10 days that are not coming back for whatever reason no i'm i couldn't answer that question without looking um and we keep daily attendance so it could vary from day to day and we keep that k to 12. so i really don't have an answer
023for that at this point i'll get it for you thank you anybody else dr thorpe i want to make sure dr elliot and their team has direction here do you have enough i'm not exactly sure that i know what what we're doing my sense is there's generally a sense to keep it going i think mr hickey's brought up going in and out of it um i think that would be the only stick and mr rodago were you i just say steady as she goes and extend extend it out the same possibility the current people not open it so the choices are continue it let me give you well i just want to know if the current policy is someone could get into it now if they wanted to i mean let's say that's a week
024ago a month ago could someone have gotten into the bridges anytime during the year currently no okay so we would this would be different than this would be i could go along with just keeping it the way it is and extension right of what we currently do the only question that was brought up by mr hickey was in and out as they see right might be incorrect um no my my question was if you sign up for the bridges now if you're new you make a commitment to june to june the question that i asked was for the current students i didn't know if they could have the agreement that they you know what they agreed to in september could they have left at any time because you're telling new kids nope you have to
025stay till june but the kids who are currently in there no you can come back next month if you want you know we have two sets of rules correct depending upon the direction that um the board wants us to take the current students as it was presented to them back in august they could return it any time they wanted if the board decides to open it to other students and decides that we want them to commit to through june unless we change for those 18 that are currently in and say if you choose to stay in you are now committing to the end of the year um that would make it uh parallel for both of those groups rather than having one set of guidelines for one group and one set of guidelines for another
026group may i hear the the other thing is is these kids don't have have a right to be in the program as of january 28th anyway right exactly so 2.0 so and and then that leads me to my my main point though is that whatever the board decides to do going forward whether it's the 18 families that are currently in it or it's 18 plus whoever the families that that decide to enter the program in the new enrollment they that the rules should be the same yeah if this ends on january 28th as it is we're voting on a new system here that changes everything okay you sign up mrs marcel you look perplexed i just wanted to say that i'm good with basically starting this like a new program keeping the 18 but starting
027it going till june i'm good with that whatever that's going to be called that's what i'm good with just to clarify dr elliott so if somebody we had an open enrollment we had a certain amount of people 18 are left 18 families we weren't offering a second round of enrollment after that date so to repeat the process we could do another open enrollment keep the rules the same uh as they were the first half as i think that's what was that what you were saying um to keep the rules the same for a second window of enrollment or just the rules the same between the two if there's new enrollees versus once you're in you're in through the end of the year should be the same for the first cohort of 18 and then any
028new cohort that enrolls okay mr t please i believe i'm in agreement with what ms marcel proposed but we've talked about a lot of different options so let me just simply express what i support and see if that's where we're headed which is extending the program for the 18 currently in it with your with the agreement and the expectation that they continue to the end of the year not reopening it to additional families i'm not in favor of reopening i am in favor of extending the 18 through the end of this school year okay so the the option that mr tate just said is is extending it for the current enrollment only no additional folks in there i agree with mr tate mine my suggestion was allowing people to enroll but through the end of
029the year so we don't have switching so basically because we're like restarting this contract we're allowing the 18 to decide what they want to do opening it up to others but everyone stays through the end of the year that's sorry just to clarify mr odago i'm close but uh just we're still going to hold that spot for them so they we're not going to hold the spot anymore see i think it puts people in a really rough position that wants want to do this and may have uh second thoughts as the environment changes but that's just me i'd like to keep it you already know where i'm at and i'm oh just stay focused okay basically then we can i can agree with miss marcel um in opening it up um but there's going to
030be that same it's basically the same as the beginning of the year we're just opening up a new enrollment period for anybody that's pretty simple okay i have two on each side of this miss pali i think i think i agree with mr hidalgo so we can open it to new families for the second semester and they have one chance if they leave they cannot come back which is a similar rule that they had in the first semester remember this is k to six only just miss mickey just for clarification purposes you want me i can come back to you if you're not yeah gentlemen anybody want to jump in i this is a very important and significant educational decision whether you have your kid come to school which i is resounding that we all
031support that we want your kids in school we want to educate them if you don't support that if you're uncomfortable with that like the 18 families that are currently there i think that this should be extended for the 18 that are in it sounds like this is a new enrollment for those re-18 they're going to be the first 18 that are coming up so that's fine i think for anybody else i would not recommend that they do this it doesn't sound like it's sound educational practice but i also don't think that we're talking about a tremendous number so if mr senko can get that and those families can really evaluate that decision i'm i'm okay with opening it up to some new families to come in and then all the 18 plus the new are
032under the very clear understanding that this is not a revolving door they're not coming back um and this is just to the end of the year that's i i could get behind that um but i i i want to make this very clear that this is a very important educational decision and that i hope that everybody's taking that um very seriously as far as to to not come to council rock we i think it we had some great response we had 40 50 kids that have reduced down to 18. so that says a lot about those families that decided to come back to council rock because the education was better so i i'm hoping that we don't have too many that go but if if a couple have to go if they're up against the
033thing i that that that's fine i could get behind that but yeah we're not doing a revolving door i just want to clarify something in case any of these 18 families are are listening to the meeting we've been talking and talking about enrollment and a new enrollment period if they are currently in the program and we decide to continue it those 18 family 18 students not 18 families those 18 students do not have to do anything they are already in it will just be you know me reaching out to them and also contacting bridges to let them know they're continuing so i just want that to be clear so they're not confused and thinking they're going to have to register or redo something the difference being that if they continue they're in it till june
034is what we're talking about him yeah and i just had a conversation with mr cox can you i we need clarification i need clarification on this and dr thorward started it can we do this if this number blows up the 300 kids when we open enrollment if i want to use that term open enrollment is that something bridges can handle is that something the district can handle what is what does the lift on that look like if you could even answer it i'm not one of the things that we would need to consider is there's a cost with this um now granted it's not the same cost as the people cost for someone who goes to a cyber charter school so for a semester with bridges it's about 2 200 and some change so if
035we would have 300 students who would decide to enroll in bridges i'm i'm not going to do the napkin math at the moment obviously that's going to be an expense that we're going to incur as a district currently our um our fees that we've paid to bridges amount to about 80 000 for so far this year for well started out as 40 44 kids and has dwindled down but that's been the the fee uh so i think that if the board is asking for us to do an open enrollment and have a registration period again that's going to create some challenges if you're talking about 300 kids that creates some significant staffing implications for for our schools i um given the numbers that we have that are currently in the program and knowing uh while
036we don't have specific numbers i know that the number of our families who are not comfortable being in school is not 300 students it's a small number it's a bad number but i'm just hypothetical yes thank you i i think i would want to be able to um meet with with our cabinet team and administrators and and talk through some of the logistics of that uh implication um and i i wouldn't expect um dr sanko at this at this point to have any any idea about any staffing implications if um students would leave council rock classrooms and and go to bridges um i just don't know that we have that data readily available this evening to talk about thanks dr elliott if i could just jump in there we would not know that until we
037had the open enrollment i think the other thing that is fair to point out is that um with this enrollment if we mirror what we did in august there is an implication in the k-12 department for unenrolling students and that takes time and logistics to create the enrollment time and then pull that data withdraw students from our records so stuff that that you wouldn't see necessarily sitting in a second grade classroom or a fourth grade classroom there's a lot of lifting to do um in in the is ds department as well as with mrs ayling the secretary of the k-12 department as well as the building level um administrative assistance i'm starting to hear no it it it's it's a little more of a lift and a little more because it's the 13th and we're
03815 days away from this at this point so um i'm going to a i'm i'm going to amend what i want now and that's basically extended for the 18 kids because that's the right thing to do for them and and stop um that i i can do that um that's which is what mr tate said originally and i see mrs mckee nodding her head just we'll do right by the 18 kids that are in there if they want to stay and the rest of them i mean we want you in school i mean this is where we want to be so i i i'm i see three nods four nods oh okay i had a question before you count me anyway um so mr cox could we leave the 18 to move forward and then
039almost have like an a reverse exception policy like if there is a family that individually wants to consider bridges so don't we don't do like a large open enrollment it's more just that if there is um an attendance situation or there's something that dr senko and dr elliot somehow that there's a way so that if there is a very small number of students that need to be offered this that is that is it like can we do that without creating the administrative open enrollment but just have it as this is an option potentially to help address a student's needs i would say so ms marcel yes wouldn't that fall under chuck's bailiwick i mean at that point it might there might be there might be other reasons for it um but i think that the
040district you know a school district gen generally speaking if it is making a decision based on a specific student's needs usually it's on safe ground um and i and i and i've been thinking about this as the board has had its conversation i do think it can essentially decide to grandfather the 18 families that are currently in it so uh i think that that's an option and ms marcel i think the you know i'd say the answer to your question is yes there's a lot there are a lot of novel questions these days and that sort of is one but i think uh i think i think the board can i think that's within the board's discretion thank you mr cox i i obviously want to hear from my board colleagues but i feel comfortable
041with that it seems like perhaps a better option instead of having an open enrollment but still providing the opportunity so we don't feel like we're locking someone out and you know keeping them from exploring that mr harris what how many kids do we have in cyber charter now and what are we paying i'll stop you right have an allocation of approximately two point five million dollars in the budget for for charter school in all in total and uh by last count i believe uh miss alien provided somewhere in the neighborhood 130 students in cyber in charter total so if we if we lose more kids to cyber charter it would be prorated for the rest of the year i believe correct that's correct uh to to to dr elliot's point the the total cost uh
042for the year is for for bridges is approximately one-third of the cost correct for regular education which is why we went that route in the beginning okay and the answer to your first question was 660 thousand dollars what was my first question uh 300 times 2200. it's getting late um no that's an important thing for the new board members too is that if none of this works their opportunity is you know that's what i keep asking for what do we do for those folks so those numbers have jumped off the pages for the last two years cyber charter costs charter costs in general pali are you are you here with us on this or or i like what uh miss marcel suggested because this way we don't tax the the system and at the same
043time we have an open window for families that need a different option mr hickey mr roosevelt yeah okay um yeah i've had to change your heart with this i'm okay with uh miss marcel's suggestion you're making me keep track here so we have one two three for mrs marcel one two three specifically for mister doctor thorwards stop nothing else it's the same thing are you good with it listen i just want if if a parent needs this and they're not in it they need to go to the administration and work out a fair and appropriate education and i want out of it at this point i i want we should not be deciding what that is dr thor that that that's a good approach legally i don't i i try to stay out of the
044policy decisions that this board makes but dr thorwart's approach there from a legal perspective makes a lot of sense the administration is well suited to determine whether a family should be allowed to enroll in bridges at some point other than on january 28th okay is that good we're good yeah i think you're good just to be clear for the for the 18. i want to make sure i'm clear the so these 18 students are we going to require them to stay through the they must now commit to the end of the year we we just told you you had whatever okay you needed to do all right that's what you do whatever you need to do all right perfect thank you no i i think from what i'm hearing from the board is it's directing
045the administration to allow the 18 families currently in the bridges program to continue through the end of the year and to the extent families request exceptions to that general policy the administration has discretion to decide them on a case-by-case basis and if there's a member of the board who does not support that approach i think you should let the administration know now that's what i've that's what that's what i've tracked over the last half hour mr doggo um and also the discretion to enroll any new students is that part of this yes right leaving it just well that he just adding what he said of course he's adding to what he said all right so we're good on this trying to move it along uh deal case six correct the only other thing i want
046to make a quick comment on is the one-way one-way learning dr elliott dude one-way temporary viewing temporary temporary remote learning um what what do you think time frame i mean i mean it's is it might be heavy lift i mean we do have technology in the building um woody what are you thinking what do you need just a little more clarification for me i would ask uh since you know we've started exploring this and looking at what some of the neighboring districts are doing if we can have some time and bring some details to the board at the january 27th education committee meeting and that way that gives us a little bit more time to put some things together think about logistics communication plan how we're going to handle uh you know the just all
047of the issues around that and then that way we can look to start it uh with the start of the second semester which the second semester starts on january 31st um which is after the um education committee meeting if if that that seems like a reasonable timeline okay i don't know if that was mentioned during your presentation mr hickey i just want to thank you for bringing it to the attention of all of us um something i wholeheartedly agree with like you said the sooner the better if we can get this done um you know we want to educate the kids but we also had to discuss at different meetings if you're sick stay home please don't come to school and this is just another way to encourage you know students to do that and
048especially those on either end of the spectrum um you know i hear a lot of talk about you know you have your students that are taking your ap courses that you know they're afraid to miss any class and at least this gives them an opportunity to view the class and take notes and you know maybe try to do something about it and if they're too sick to do it they're not going to be able to do it anyway but like i said i think it's a a great option for you know to at least explore and if we can do this and pull this off in a timely manner you know i'd be all for it anybody else mr hilda go please we're going to move on to the next item which is what is
049it 5 20 points yeah i'm actually i'm going to ask the board if they would consider tabling oh then i'll then i'll speak now because i've been waiting since august 16th to have this conversation august 16th yes here we go all right so so so back then i had a lot of conversation when we were talking about not live streaming and i've been trying to understand live streaming or come up with something that works for for people for for many different reasons uh that one way communication was a way to address that and that was spoken about in the summer uh that we among some of us that there was a way to address to keep that going to to use the technology that we had paid all that money for um and have those
050cameras ready at a moment's notice so in in that april i'm sorry this august meeting which is interesting because i'm looking at uh the minutes and the last thing i had asked on that date is that we look at uh we review the 520.1 policy at the august 26th education meeting which was canceled and september october november december here we are in january and we're going to table it again um my point is and it's the same point i made in joe we're not going to tell you what i said i'm going to suggest that it doesn't mean we're going to table it just be clear so you want to talk about it i'm talking yeah let's go i appreciate that because it's as i said it's been five months um the cameras are there
051the technology is there i understand the arguments or the concerns of the teachers and the administration and and board uh members about how live streaming distracts how those cameras are are a concern to some some people joe can i just interject for a second just for clarification 520.1 has nothing to do about what you're talking about understand because i have twice i understand that flexible days right right but that's i wanted to bring it back to the agenda to be so that at a time we could have the conversation all right live streaming it was the segway into getting into the understanding that the live streaming uh is is there and it could be open at any time with the mo technologically speaking i matt fredrickson spoke to that on that night so the reason
052why i wanted to bring it back to committee so that we could start talking about it in maybe a different way too which we're trying to get to and i'm glad to see the administration is finally making some some way here but i don't see why we didn't uh have this ready to go as i said back then have these arrows in our quiver another tool to to help when we needed it and we needed it we needed for the people that were saying you can't come to school so how do we make that work and i'm happy to have that conversation the reason why it's not another table just as close as i can get to having that conversation in public about it but for some reason i'm wondering why uh if i asked
053for a new business to be added shame on me for not remembering but it doesn't seem like it's anything anybody wanted to address till now but as i said i'm advocating for that one-way streaming like tomorrow if you're sick if you're out of school it's an absence but especially at the secondary level it's very important i said also give the teachers the discretion uh give the teachers discretion to turn that camera on for for people if they want to and let them decide if it's maybe the bare minimum one way so there's no expectation there but a teacher should be able to check in and have the ability to work their classroom how they want and use that technology i think that's the avenue i wanted to make sure i gave my two cents that
054i want to give the teachers the discretion to run their classrooms the way they see fit and again maybe there's some fair and appropriate education guardrails or rules and policies to put in place so they were not treating one such uh set of students different than another but i want to explore it and it will be the end of the school year before we actually get it done so i'm a little sad that we haven't done it a lot sooner and that's my point okay thank you sir so now i'm going to go to b which is a discussion and possible action on the 520.1 plan um the board would like to have it quickly i i don't have a problem with it i'm also not against tabling it quartered at 11 and we have
055seven people would like to speak to the board so i would open it up to the board for their comments on that i'm i'm happy to table it me too i just have a question i believe it needs to be submitted what's the timeline for that dr elliot our 520.1 plan has already been submitted and approved by the state so we're we're good to table the discussion okay anybody else any anybody against it okay all right let's move the public comment uh first one up good evening vanessa smith you have three minutes to talk kids still may be up you know the whole i i've read it before i'd be happy to read it again but you've been here not most kids all right good evening good evening i'm vanessa smith a few months ago
056i found a book long boy in norse library berry longboy has an explicit sexual encounter between two fourth grade boys i wrote the board and was directed to speak to dr elliott about my concerns i was basically told that this book won an alex award for being appealing to young adults and that it would not be removed from the library i think the first thing wrong with that statement is the fact that we think children are young adults adults are 18 and older young adults would be 18 to 20 somethings not children we need to stop treating children as they are adults who can handle adult situations in the book michael the main character is explaining us the counter to his friend nick nick was frantic and uncomfortable and telling his friend to stop sharing
057the author used an adult character who couldn't even handle his friend telling him about this encounter yet we think children should be able to handle reading about it a group of parents are coming to you tonight because we believe that we need policies in our libraries there are many inappropriate books in our libraries if a movie with a certain rating or a certain content is to be shown to our children it needs to have parental consent for them to watch it yet they can take out these books that have very explicit sexual encounters drugs alcohol rape child abuse molestation physical abuse and much more we think there should be a committee of staff and parents who decide which books are inappropriate we are not asking you to ban these books we are asking that you
058have parental consent for these books to be taken out by children we asked a simple email goes out explaining why the book is on the consent list and that parents can decide if their children can read it or not the good thing about this is if they choose to allow their children to read this they will know what the book is about and they can talk to their children about these adult situations here's an example of one of 50 in perks of being a wall flower that is at north south holland middle on pages 30 30 and 31 when charlie's brother was 16 he threw a party because his parents were out of town he told charlie that he had to stay in the room a drunk boy and girl came in the room and
059asked if they could use it he said to them that he that he needed to stay in the room they closed the door and started kissing kissing very hard after a few minutes a boy's hand went up the girl's shirt and start she started protesting come on dave what the kid is in the room it's okay the boy kept working up the girl's shirt and as much as she said no he kept working it after a few minutes she stopped protesting and he pulled off her shirt and she had a white brown with lace i honestly don't know what to do at this point pretty soon he took off her bra and started kissing her breast and then he put her his hand down her pants and she started moaning i think they were 30
060seconds he reached out he reached off to take off her pants but she cried really hard and asked him and and he pulled down his own instead please dave no the boy just talks off to her about how good she looked and he and she grabbed his penis and worked and with her hands and started moving it i wish i could describe using nicer words but that's why it was after a few minutes a boy pushed the girl's head down and she started to kiss his penis she was still crying finally she stopped that's three minutes man okay this was basically a rape scene that i just read to you that is in holland middle school book i'm just asking for parental consent thank you man next up is is it eggel eg okay next
061up is dawn d d luigi good evening you have three minutes please all right my name is dawn de luigi i'm from northampton township and i am talking about the same kinds of things that vanessa just spoke about i sent all of you a letter prior to this meeting i'm not going to read the explicit sexual content of the book that i am referring to out of darkness however our schools are excusing and purchasing these books with our tax dollars many of these books and there's a list of over in our school right now inappropriate sexually explicit in our libraries in the district of course that's part of the curriculum and i know that i believe after reading several and many of these books they attempt to normalize underage sex promote deviant behavior and desensitize
062children to a sexual lifestyle some including very blatant pornography what i sent to you describes over 60 issues and it is quite disturbing and i am no prude and i read those and i could not believe it it's in middle school holland middle school and in north and south it's driving a wedge literally between children their parents it's diminishing the role of family and is just the first step in my belief to pornographic addiction which may be what its intent is unfortunately when the librarians order these books i don't think that they are always aware of what's in the books they get a little blurb they get a catalog and there it is they don't read the book sometimes and when they do like me and i was a reading specialist i never saw a
063lot of it the newer books are getting worse and when i say getting worse i'm not talking about shakespeare i'm not talking about things that um you know we've all seen throughout the years i'm talking about the newer age more woke community i'm just asking that you look through these stop our schools within this district from attacking family values by allowing access to the books without guidelines and restrictions just like you do with movies i believe that these books should not be banned i don't believe in book banning but our goal is to reinstate within our schools a clear and defined age-appropriate guideline along with definitive instructions parent waivers 30 seconds and maybe the physical placement of these books i implore you bring your attention to these books ask the librarians what kinds of books
064are in their shelves and do it before it's too late and if you like challenges i dare you to read them it was appalling to me and not much surprises me these days thank you very much thank you man next up is wendy king hi good evening i'm looking at a little differently i think if somebody wants to buy a smart book they can go to amazon they can go to barnes and nobles that's their responsibility not our schools i read some of these i don't want my kids reading these books god forbid if they get a hold of them that's one that's on the library's head but it there's no reason i don't care what who won what doesn't matter to me but some of them and some of them for for the younger
065kids like the sex ed books i don't want them teaching my sixth grader to masturbate i don't want it it's not going to happen they want to buy the book they want to educate their kids go to barnes noble's amazon i think they should be out of the school so i i look at a different one thank you next up is jennifer gessner hi everyone good evening jennifer gestner from holland um i got into this looking into the book stuff after a book was presented into a seventh grade reading class at holland middle school and i had a conversation with one of the principals there and having a teaching background i understand where he's coming from he quoted he gave me the philosophy of what one of the librarians had shared that um um and
066i went and researched it further because i wanted to gain an understanding a further understanding of it and um so back in 1990 there is a um i don't forget our title but her name was oh gosh um rudin sims bishops and um her philosophy of books is like comparing it to a mirror window and a sliding glass door so back in 2008 a parent stood here and asked for permission for movies for parental permission to be seen in the classroom we are asking that for the books if a teacher can go into the library in any of our libraries in in the school district and they can pull a book and the book can be on on the unapproved list but still bring it into the classroom that's still a teachable moment anything that
067you bring into the classroom is teachable and if a teacher doesn't have control of what the conversation is that conversation can go in a direction that loses that teachable moment that maybe that was the original thought so i like vanessa like dawn and wendy we just need more like we need stakeholders from the community to kind of evaluate what's going on with the books so today i spent my entire day and i read this book it's called monday's not coming and it's it's in holland middle school and it's rated young adult um and this book was on the in virginia the uh loudon their list and the parents were really upset about it they read they came to the board meeting and they read different um you know things from the book i read the
068book and i actually fell in love with it and i don't think i would let my seventh grader read the book but i would allow my high schoolers 30 seconds to read it so if we had more parental controls especially with a young adult book i don't think this should be in holland middle school especially with um i loved it for so many different reasons um from a learning um difference from what goes on in the inner cities um i fell in love with the characters i wanted to help the characters and it prepares it's like life changing so i would just allow parents to kind of have a view and if you're going to put guidelines for movies they should also be in books because books are more it's um oh my gosh sorry
069um you know with books your mind is going further there's so many ways to interpret the books and if you have it for movies we need it for books so thank you very much thank you ma'am and last up is alex you signed it actually twice sir didn't you i guess i wanted to feel special so i put my name twice good evening good evening good evening members of the school board i would like to turn your attention to the books that you had approved last year i had brought it up to your attention multiple times yet never once saw you listing them up on the agenda for discussion after some dedicated parents got involved in figuring out what other books are in our kids schools the books i've been referring to pale in comparison
070to the ones that have been brought to light and what's worse is that assistant superintendent elliot was made aware of these books and not only did she turn a blind eye on all of it she also stated that she had no intention of removing these kinds of books so now i'll read you a part of one of the books that should have never entered our schools it is currently available in the libraries of both cr south and holland middle this book has strong sexually explicit content and pedophilia the book is called beyond magenta transgender teen speaks out here's a quick excerpt from six up i used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood make out with them and perform oral sex on them i liked it i used to love oral and they touched their
071you-know-whats we were really young but that's what we did end quote after hearing this all of you should feel as speechless as i was when i first read this excerpt if any of you think that this is appropriate to be available in our school libraries then i don't think you belong on this board this is inappropriate and unacceptable what's worse is that these types of books are considered suitable by assistant superintendent elliot how can someone in that role think that these books are great reading material for our kids this is so insidious it's almost criminal this board has an obligation to the community to get the bottom of what types of books are being circulated in our schools and those responsible for bringing in these inappropriate books into our children's schools should be immediately terminated
072period i hope the board will take this matter very seriously and will act quickly to eradicate this filth from our school district also at the last meeting i asked for clarification regarding what is social emotional learning especially as it pertains to emotional and social well-being 30 seconds additionally strategy 3 in the strategic plan states forming a district diversity and inclusion team is one of those things which to me sounds like crt i would love to provide to have the public provide be provided the details of what it actually entails thank you sir is there anybody else in the audience i i know the sheets are removed if not any further comment from the board this evening seeing none good evening go home i'll get your kids good night you