School Board Special Meeting, May 20, 2021

001thank you good evening and welcome to the may 20th 2021 special meeting of the board of the school directors good evening ladies and gentlemen i would make a motion at this moment to nominate dr mike forward as president pro tem for this meeting second um as as the president and vice president are on the phone and unable to attend i'm going to take over but in order to do that we need to take this vote as a roll call required or can we do unanimous consent okay thank you do i have any objections to running this meeting tonight and then stepping away again quickly hearing none i guess some president pro tem for tonight motion carries thank you mr tate all right with that can we move on to the pledge of allegiance please rise

002i pledge allegiance thank you uh madam secretary can i have a roll call vote please mark feileck here ed taye here mike zoroart here niece brooks here marian mckee here joe hidalgo present kristen marcel here ed solomon i'm here thanks everyone um for the members of the board on the phone i'll try and catch you during this discussion but please speak up text me if you want mr tate i just wanted to note that mr block is traveling on business tonight thank you thank you i appreciate that with that we'll move on to the superintendent's report please all right thanks dr thorwick good evening to the board and good evening to our council rook community this evening special meeting is all about face coverings uh mass we're going to talk about mass respective to the

003rest of this school year which is quickly winding down as well as the 21-22 school year and there are really three aspects here and we'll take them here initially one by one so first is that we have heard from some of our parents asking for the mass requirement to be lifted immediately k-12 um whether you agree or whether you disagree with that particular request the reality for us for me as a superintendent and for the board of school directors is that it's really a moot point because we're not permitted to uh to take that action as i think most folks know a mass order is in place from harrisburg and no local school district has the authority to overroll that order from the pennsylvania department of health now the nuance to this and this takes

004us into the second aspect is that lifting the mask mandate for individuals who have been vaccinated is now permissible as of last week last friday i think so that's an issue that pertains to many of our staff members and really to only a fairly small portion of our students we have this topic as a discussion item on this evening's agenda i'll reiterate it at that time but i will express now that i do have significant concerns really from a logistical standpoint more than anything about making this kind of change to our health and safety plan at this late day in the school year so i will be recommending to the board that we keep all current face covering expectations in place k-12 vaccinated or or not for the remainder of this year which again is

005uh is pretty quickly winding to an end and then the third piece is the most substantive perhaps that we have this evening and that is the question as to whether we will require mass as a school district as we begin the 21 22 school year and i want to make my stance on this topic crystal clear this evening i don't want there to be any uh ambiguity to it and the assumption here and the assumption and the motion that's on the board agenda this evening the assumption is that the mask order that's currently in place will end that it will be lifted at some point before the 21 22 school year starts so where i stand as superintendent of the council rock school district is that when we recommence school in the fall on august

00630th i i really don't want to see anyone students or staff members be required to wear a mask or any other kind of face covering in the fall rather what i recommend to the board this evening is that mask wearing be optional for all students and optional for all staff when we kick off the school year on august 30th now dr damsker director of our county health department he's making this recommendation and he believes that the state's mass order will indeed be lifted prior to the start of the 21-22 school year and uh well in advance of the start of the 21-22 school year and as i stated i do support wholeheartedly his recommendation for me the bottom line is that we're in a different place with this pandemic now community transmission is lower you

007can look at our dashboard look at the state's dashboard and see that in fact our county's current transmission levels uh are at the lowest they've been since late october uh some six plus months ago uh we also know that the science is different for younger children than it is for adolescents we've talked about that a few times at this dice and that's true both in terms of transmission of the virus as well as risk for developing any kind of severe urine illness bottom line it's time in my estimation as we look ahead to august 30 at the start the first day of the 21-22 school year it is time to resume a certain sense of normalcy in our schools we provided safeguards all throughout this past year i have been a strong proponent an advocate

008for those safeguards but as i said i believe and i believe the data suggests that we're in a different place with this pandemic now i have long said that all roads lead to the classroom and because of the reasons that i just went through we need to prioritize our students classroom experience and that's true from an academic standpoint from a social standpoint and from a psychological standpoint relationships are so critically important in classrooms i want our students at this point in the pandemic to be able to see their teachers face to see their teacher smile and i want our kiddos to be able to see the same in each other as classmates we can't diminish this classroom experience when the science behind the virus now tells us that we can responsibly responsibly make this move

009when school resumes in the fall dr damsker stands behind that and as i said i am willing to do the same so that's where i am coming from um i want to assure parents who might be feeling a little bit uneasy with this that again what the the motion on the table this evening will not forbid the wearing a mass it will simply make it optional for students and staff members alike uh at the elementary level we will have a cyber option available with any luck the fda will approve the pfizer vaccination for that age group for the elementary age group at some point at or near the beginning of the school year so we have talked about having a transition point at the semester break to transition from cyber into the traditional classroom certainly

010if uh if that timeline is accelerated for us and we're able to have our younger kiddos vaccinated say in the months of september or october then we would definitely look to accelerate that transition point as well um that won't be an issue at the middle school and high school levels as the uh those age groups have already been approved for vaccinations and uh that that should be in the rearview mirror by the time we get uh to august 30th so dr thorwick thank you that's uh where i stand and uh why thank you for that dr frazier and i think it's important and positive for you to tell everybody exactly what we're expecting it really is um moving on uh mr cox slicers report please dr thor let me just report the executive session earlier

011this evening on personnel and the executive session on may 11th also on personnel that's all i have thank you all right we've reached the point uh in the agenda where we're going to do public comment uh mr frederickson can you start public comment please thank you good evening sir can you please take your name and where you're from and uh you've got three minutes sir how we're showing newtown pennsylvania official cdc coveted 19 survival rates overall 99.6 percent age 65 and over 98.7 percent 50 to 64 99.8 younger than 50 99.95 percent your policies haven't protected our kids because covet 19 without any such policies poses no life-threatening danger to the public let alone school-age children to whom it poses virtually no threat at all fact covet 19 without any safety measures in place resembles

012a strong case of the flu more than anything else and how about the granddaddy of those safety measures the beloved mask the literal permission slip you have placed between us and our lives landmark november 2020 study of almost 10 million people in china found 300 cases of coven 19 where the carriers showed no symptoms not one of 1174 people who came in contact with those 300 carriers contracted the virus not one so with it without a mask asymptomatic infected individuals don't pass the virus further mass don't work anyway in june 2020 dennis rancor phd professor of physics with the ontario civil liberties association in canada thoroughly studied masks regarding viral respiratory airborne diseases quote there is no evidence that master of any utility either preventing the aerosol particles from coming out or from going in

013you're not helping the people around you by wearing a mask you're not helping yourself preventing the disease by wearing a mask end quote a may 2020 cdc study stated quote we do not find evidence that surgical type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory confirmed influenza transmission either when worn by infected persons source control or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility end quote according to a 2 october 2020 article by jimmy and md mass caused plenty of harm on their own masks adversely affect respiratory physiology and function lower oxygen and increase carbon dioxide in the blood trap exhaled viral and other pathogens and collect and colonize viruses bacteria and mold end quote and despite all of this you still force the muzzle onto my child for months now against threats of

014school suspension for her and fines penalties and maybe even prison for me what i saw my daughter's band practice last week practically moved me to tears along full of kids and the hot sun outside forced to play their instruments through masks and straining to breathe let alone function and interact normally in other words tortured and dehumanized aside from an outbreak of bubonic plague i demand that the sad pathetic dangerous foolishness in the face of theoretical and practical science social norms and mores common sense and most importantly the god-given rights of individuals and families stop immediately thank you thank you i'm waiting to be guided the evening please state your name where you're from and uh you have three minutes as a small group of concerned parents who represent a broader community school district the use

015of masking over the faces of our general population has now been in practice for over 420 days it is a myth that cotton and paper face masks prevent viruses from spreading a myth that serves no purpose other than a superficial attempt to falsely alleviate fear that has been driven to irrational levels many medical studies have found that mask wearing quote does not reduce at conventional levels of statistical significance the incidence of stars covered to infection we are presenting a variety of topics for you tonight all to make the case that chronic mask wearing is detrimental to the health of our children with substantial to no benefits to the general public health which we are being led to believe physicians and healthcare providers around the world are expressing their alarming concern that there has been a

016concerted effort to downplay their expert opinions neurologists have gone on records stating that rebreathing our exhaled air creates oxygen deprivation that leads to neuronal deficiencies metabolic changes and ultracognitive function immunologists warn of the dangers of a tax immune system that is unable to adapt as it should to this restrictive stressful environment i could go on and on with the research to back these planes psychological damage is mounting in this faceless dehumanizing world in which cognitive emotional social and interpersonal development is being delayed impaired and perhaps irreparably damaged this masking intervention along with other forced practices on our children is causing far more harm than the disease itself we can only hope that you might dare to imagine and try to avert the unforeseen damage we might be influencing on our generation when the dust settles

017and the noise quiets down and one day it will the path we chose to travel to this point will become clear as a parent what keeps me awake at night is knowing that our children will have to bear the consequences of the direction that we are choosing for them now it is our moral obligation to be open to learning reevaluating and readjusting not merely to choose the path of least resistance one among you was considerably replying to one of my emails today and fairly pointed out that none of you signed up for this i actually appreciate that statement because it made me take pause and realize that we're not intending to appear in defiance or in opposition like it or not we are all in this together you are our fellow community members and you

018are trying to do your best in this leadership position we sincerely thank you for your efforts we're in a really tough spot though no doubt but none of us signed up for this most of all our children please understand our appreciation and know we are counting on you to listen learn make the tough decisions and provide our children the tools to be resilient in spite of these difficult times thank you for your configuration thank you for coming please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes you probably know the drill thank you for having me this evening and the board and the councillors school district i appreciate it just want to take you through two legal pieces brought forth in april this past april in the uk and germany the claim was

019that schools were mandating the requirement of all students to wear face covering without ever conducting a suitable or sufficient risk assessment of this mandate this impacts the ability of the children to breathe normally and to interact with each other reports concluded there was no reliable evidence for the efficacy of the face coverings and other social distancing mandates and in fact there was substantial evidence that requiring the children to wear them or engage in those practices was actually harmful there were two two experts that supported this this claim dr simone plot a chartered health safety practitioner and i will take you through the findings of her number one children risk inhaling nanoparticle fibers deep into their lungs mass are a vector for carrying bacteria deep into the lungs with the risk of infection wearing mass the

020entire school day is a far greater burden on the students then is seen for adult workers in industries where protective equipment is required industry workers remove mass on a regular basis for breaks and only wear masks during the time of direct exposure to the toxic substance or the environment harm caused by over saturation with carbon dioxide shortness of breath sluggishness and headaches and lastly associated to chronic obstruction airway disease and the suppression of certain immune systems the second expert is dr zenua stora a child and adolescent clinical psychological or psychologist these were her findings mask mandates have the potential to cause psychological injury to children in particular interference with effective communication in lessened causing an impairment of non-verbal communication by blocking facial expressions difficulty reading emotional and cognitive states all crucial for social interaction and

021impairing the learning process and the emotional support that is often led by with the teacher interfering with children development because mass suppressed human behavior which is essential to effective communication and interaction social relationships are impeded due to the covering of the facial expressions it is plausible that these measures could be harmful for children's future capacity for normal emotional connections and intimacy in ways that we do not yet understand schools and society seem to think that when measures are removed children will just return to previous social behaviors this doctors does not think that that is true the longer these measures are in place the higher the chance the social behaviors will become permanently changed the psychological and societal outcomes of such a change for a whole generation could be devastating lastly interference with children's development sense

022of self and their attitude towards others due to fear messaging from schools can leave them feeling more fear and confusion versus adults subject to the same mandates in the wider community so i respectfully ask you to take this into consideration when making decisions for our children thank you good evening uh please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes please sabrina cruz from ridgebarrow good evening my name is sabrina and i have two daughters in first and second grade at ridge bar elementary i'm here tonight as a voice for my children who are powerless among adults who force them to needlessly cover their faces at school please make the common sense decision tonight to make mass optional many studies around the world have shown that children are not vectors for this disease

023they present mild symptoms if they do contract covin studies have also shown that most transmissions occur at home one study was conducted in hong kong throughout three weeks of koba's spread they studied a total of 397 kids with confirmed coven infections they looked at severity of symptoms and source of transmission they found that household transmission is the main source of infection with 90 of the kids contracting covid from a family member 99.2 percent of the kids in the study were asymptomatic and only three kids contracted cobra from school another study was conducted in germany where they found 150 households with at least one person with a positive cova test they looked at the spread within the household like it was spread to and how old the person was and whether or not they were hyper

024vigilant with hand washing and social distancing within the house they found that there were no cases of child to child transmission within households 26 adult to child transmissions and 56 percent had no transmission at all in their house this supports existing evidence that children are not only less likely to develop severe systems symptoms but also are less susceptible and less likely to transmit cova-19 one possible explanation for their observation might be age-dependent covalent viral loads children have a low coping viral load it's also important to note that according to the cdc children under the age of 17 accounted for 0.03 of coven i'm sorry 0.05 percent of copa deaths since the start of the pandemic to put into perspective of deaths involving flu pneumonia and cova 19 since the start of the pandemic cobin 19

025accounted for less than a third of those childhood deaths why are we still masking our children the truth of the matter is that kids are not spreading and contracting coping 19 at an exponential rate and it does not seriously affect them these are proven facts this is science and we need to accept it and move on vaccines are now available to everyone over the age of 12 who wants one if you have received the vaccine you are protected it doesn't matter if the people around you are vaccinated or not and if you are a parent and you're afraid of your child getting sick by all means mess them or keep them virtual but do not force your fear and this area onto my kids we should all have the freedom to choose what's best for

026our family let's make a common sense decision tonight and make mess optional let's give these kids back their childhood and let them breathe fresh air let's stop putting the burden of this pandemic on their little shoulders it doesn't seriously affect them and they're not spreading it enough is enough thank you thank you please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes my name is dennis galamandre i'm an attorney who was admitted to the bar in two states i have a junior in high school currently at council rock north i'm here to inform you today about some very recent changes to public school mass mandates in several states on may 11th south carolina governor mcmaster issued an executive order which empowered parents to decide whether their children should wear masks even though the

027department of education found he had no legal grounds to set aside the mandatory mass policy the south carolina superintendent decided to rescind the mandatory school mass policy on tuesday of this week governor abbott of texas issued an executive order prohibiting school districts from mandating math squaring past june 4. governor abbott stated quote texans not government should decide their best health practices which is my masks will not be mandated by public school districts or government entities he also said we can continue to mitigate povid 19 while defending texans liberty to choose whether or not they mask up on wednesday the oak ridge tennessee school board unanimously approved the superintendent's recommendation to end the school district's mandate starting may 28th students and faculty will have the option to wear them but they will not be required on

028wednesday florida education commission issued a letter telling all florida public school districts to amend their mask policies for the 2021-22 school year to make masks optional he said he had reviewed data from across the entire state and did not find a correlation between sweeping mass mandates and the presence of coven 19 in schools he also stressed the hardship that school mass mandates have placed on disabled children especially those with language-based learning disabilities he closed by saying families should have the option to decide what is best for their children and their family as a whole in closing i would like to stress the importance of council rock school district being a leader in our state we have always been nationally recognized for our academic excellence now is the time for us to lead our state in

029removing the mask mandate and giving the power back to our families to decide what is best for them thank you for your time and consideration thank you for coming hi please state your name where you're from and i'll you've got three minutes okay my name's natasha i'm from newtown my kids go to good now i'm here today to advocate for my kids and those kids whose parents could not be here but feel the same mass need to be optional and they need to be off of our kid's faces with vaccines being widely available wearing a mask will provide little value to anyone we have been told time and again the mass protect the other person and two children are at a very low risk for both contracting the virus or having a bad reaction but

030in reality mandating unvaccinated kids to continue wearing a mask is providing little to no protection to anyone as those who want to protect themselves would still have the option to wear a mask in school or choose a cyber school options and since younger kids do not have an emergency use vaccine available this mandate is discriminatory to our younger children who have not been shown to be super spreaders in school environments last august i spoke with susan elliott and asked why teachers cannot be put in a hazmat suit stand behind the glass and teach our children in person susan responded by saying we thought about it but need to consider the psychological impact on kids seeing their teachers like that and my response was i find that masks wearing alone causes psychological harm to our students

031but we aren't considering those implications whatsoever furthermore there are studies discussing the psychological and emotional impact that maths have in addition to impacting normal breathing math disturb communication and social learning this type of impact has a long-term effect that is not easily treatable unfortunately kids are too afraid to speak up and say anything because they don't want to get in trouble or or lose their in-person option and before i proceed i'm going to read a part of a letter from an eight-year-old she said mommy i'm scared i i said tell me what your fears are i'm afraid i'm gonna die i said what would make you think that that something happened did you hear a story did you read something somewhere she said no i have trouble breathing every day with a mask over my

032face and i'm scared to tell anyone at school because i'm going to get yelled at mommy i know that we're supposed to follow the rules but i really can't breathe i hate school i hate the rhesus aids because all they do is yell at us to pull our masks up and money i can't breathe they're supposed to let me breathe i'm afraid that i'm going to die they don't even care all they do is yellow as many of you know psychological and emotional issues are not treated by medication like viruses are they are managed long term and can turn into lifelong medical and mental conditions daniel this if the school decides to pursue mandates mass policy in the future the school owes every parent the data to explain the decision simply saying that we follow

033the cdc or governing world for the science is not definitive data and i will be looking for other methods to ensure my kids are now wearing dirty pieces of political theater on their sweet faces the board and administration has the duty to do what's right for the kids and not play politics and theatrics thank you thank you good evening please please state your name and uh where you're from and you've got three minutes please my name is jonathan siemens i live in newtown my kids go to new town middle and new town elementary mahatma gandhi said the true measure of any society can be found and how it treats its most vulnerable members how have we treated our most vulnerable by returning covet 19 positive seniors to nursing homes to infect other vulnerable seniors and

034by forcing our children to stay home for months at a time and then when our schools did reopen requiring a mass that have almost no efficacy in preventing covet 19 within a population that is the least likely to suffer severe illness or death from the disease the science has shown for many months that children are far less susceptible to this disease due to the much lower levels of ace2 enzymes in their nasal passages and the children are not likely to be carriers of cove 19 whether in school or at home the majority of this board has failed our children for the last 15 months decisions have been punted to future meetings the will of the board was completely ignored by the superintendent with no consequences and parents were prevented from addressing this board directly for

035months at a time the past 15 months for that slim majority can best be characterized by the near hair on fire histrionics of mrs brooks or the self-congratulatory superiority of mr block community spoke loud and clear on tuesday may 18th we want action from the school board to support our children it is well past time to ignore the state mass mandate and allow our children to be kids again i urge this board to eliminate the face mass requirement immediately by looking to those states that have been open this entire year with no mass requirements as an example you will find that schools are not super spreader sites we've been told for more than a year that we must follow the science above all else including the education of our children of this district and their

036collective physical and mental health here's the actual science from the cdc the infection fatality rate from covet 19 for people 17 years of age and younger is 0.002 percent that ifr for people under the age of 70 years is 0.05 which compares very closely to the seasonal flu we have never required our children to wear mass during the winter months in the united states but for some inexplicable reason we have not only required mass inside school but also outside as well thankfully two weeks ago our superintendent determined on his own with no vote of this board that our children would no longer have to wear mass outdoors when the temperature is at or above 80 degrees or when the temperature is in the upper 70s with 100 percent or near 100 humidity was he following

037the science if so could he cite the studies he utilized to determine the potential covet 19 infection is temperature dependent either mass are vital to the safety of our children or they are not and i believe the haphazard way in which this temperature dependent decision was made proves the uselessness of the mask mandates making our children wear mass in order to make people feel safer without actually making anyone safer or the virtue signal that we care is simply a vanity project masquerading as a public health initiative please do our children a tremendous service stop the now ridiculous mass mandates let the council rock school district finally act as the educational leader it purports to be in a return to normalcy for all of our kids thank you thank you good evening please state your name

038and uh where you're from and you've got three minutes okay great dana anthony from newtown my son is a senior or a junior going to be a senior at north as the suggested mandates or guidelines change or go away the school district needs to take all of these into consideration as well there is no difference from being in a classroom setting at a desk to enjoying a meal with your family seated next to other tables full of families adapting with what is happening when outside of school and in the community would make school a better setting a better learning experience for our students slash children children each child learns differently masking or making the mask wearing and separation a struggle for all levels of abilities we need to consider what is truly helping their education

039and not hindering it as parents we know that you have the best interest of our children at heart which we are just asking that you consider adapting to the times and the updates adaptation over separation thank you thank you good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes okay um hi i'm jamison ghazi and i'm from richboro um good evening school board my name is jameson guzzy and i'm here speaking on behalf of many students in the counter rock school district about the mass policy i want to start off by saying thank you for giving me this opportunity to present my case of making masks optional i'm a sophomore at council rock south and i used to really enjoy coming to school seeing all my teachers and classmates faces and

040being able to breathe freely without hearing the words can you pull your mask over your nose or come with me at the principal's office you clearly don't know how to wear a mask correctly it's hard to walk into school and sit in the hot classes with a mask on i understand people are very scared of covid we are in a very unpredictable period but you can't let fear control your life my freedoms do not begin where your fear ends that's why i think math should be optional depending on the student i'm a student that feels very safe without a mask on it's a good idea that students go to school feeling as comfortable as they can since we are stuck in a building for eight hours a day we deal with the stress of all

041the work and we have to that we have to complete plus studying and keeping up with our social life having a conversation with someone with a mask on is very challenging it is hard to hear them and you can't see their expressions while they are talking but with these feelings i have facts behind them in our classes our desks are way more than six feet apart the cdc states that you do not wear a mask if you can stay six feet apart from someone this was the whole time when kobe was at its peak now the cdc and president biden say that if you are vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask at all also humans should not be breathing in their own co2 over and over again it is simply unhealthy with having

042a coven 19 vaccine that you can get once it is your turn you have the antibodies running through you to stop the symptoms and the spread of cloven 19. every teacher was given the option to get the vaccine and sing with the students it should be your choice to get the vaccine and to wear a mask the students the student and parent should be able to decide if they need to wear a mask i know most teachers don't want to wear a mask either they want to teach us using their expressions and not just their eyes these pieces of claw strap to our faces feel like it's holding everyone back if you are scared i get it i understand where you're coming from that's why you are still giving every student and teacher the option

043to wear a mask or not students should be able to communicate freely and not have mass holding anyone back let's take a step in the right direction of going massless and going back to normal please consider making mass optional for the next school year thank you thank you good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes uh where i am maximate from newton hello accounts for our school members my name is ryan mcnamee and i'm currently an eleventh grader at councilwrap north i've been fighting the battle with masks and their affecting effectiveness for over a year now i've dealt with many issues following wearing a mask i truly enjoy coming to school connecting with fellow classmates and teachers however i have felt disconnected from my peers due to wearing a

044mask because the district has slowed us down from going back to school i would say it's awkward dealing with other students students don't really speak to each other nor get close to each other because we don't know what we can and can't do without getting known it personally i think that wearing a mask is really disconnecting us as i watch the news i see numerous states finally listing the harsh lockdown restrictions and also lifting mass mandate all i'm asking for is a student voice to be considered making the decision by students to make masks optional i understand that the district needs to follow guidelines however many people like me feel as if the masks should be optional for the 21-22 school year since teachers have all had the opportunity to get vaccinated as well as

045students i personally feel that those students and teachers who feel safe not to wear a mask shouldn't have to wear a mask i have personally dealt with the issue of puffy eyes and face rashes for many weeks due to wearing a mask in school all i'm asking that you is that you consider these deep thoughts from students to help the counselor community grow thank you thank you thank you for coming we prefer you leave them on but if you need to articulate that's fine please uh state your name where you're from hello my name is fred stuckey and i'm from newtown and uh thanks for taking the time to listen to all of us tonight appreciate it so i'm up here just to chat just for a few minutes about the mask issue um here

046and both of my children are in council rock in seventh and ninth grade um so just a couple points i want to bring up my wife and i feel strongly about is uh the districts decisions and what they're doing uh are often based on cdc information i surmise with that we did a little research and the cdc uh says that mask wares repeatedly dawn and adjust face max face masks which contaminate the hands and potentially lead to disease transmission especially when the masks are reused like they are in school this applies to our children at school and we're concerned that these contaminated masks which the children are using throughout the day are reused repeatedly and are essentially small germ factories so that's one of our major concerns with using the mask in the schools the

047other key thing for us as parents that we want to bring is that my daughter is deaf in her left ear and having the mask on the teachers and then the fellow students makes it incredibly difficult for her in school and it has been for her to hear and this is a very personal thing for us you know she comes back from school and she's frustrated so mask choice for us would be wonderful it'd be a welcome be a welcome addition to the to what the district's doing to try to get back to normal my son also is in the high school and he suffers from asperger's so his very tactile issues you know with touching and things and the mask just drives him crazy so they're both inhibiting you know their their normal experience

048in school and they both experience iep you know they're in the iep program you know iep is pretty clear how they are they they say that you know they want to have the children in the least restrictive environment and yet you know my daughter is clearly in somewhat of a restrictive environment if her teacher and her classmates have a mask on and she have a tough time you know and my son you know he he lives with it but again he in the iep mandate that's what you guys are trying to do we're all on the same page we want the same goals for the children to be happy but they're really not getting what iep has laid out for them with students with special needs i know they're not the majority of your students

049in here but they're just as important as all the other students so we just really hope that you take all this data into consideration when you review over the summer what your plans are going to be for this fall because that would uh it would really facilitate more harmonious environment for my kids so again thank you for your time tonight and good luck with everything thank you sir thank you for coming good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes i'm christine esposito i'm from churchville i'm coming to you tonight as a concerned mother of two young children there have been no major scientific studies that show that masking in the way we are doing it today will prevent the transmission of respiratory illnesses in march of 2020 the cdc

050recommended that we do not buy mass and that we do not use math surgeon general actually tweeted on march 1st to tell everyone to stop buying math however the team changed in april 2020 when the cdc recommended that mass be used and soon many states demanded mandated their use following this change many new and illogical rules would roll out of the cdc businesses were shuttered and many people lost trust in our public health institutions in a crowded airport you must socially distance until you are on a plane where you sit shoulder to shoulder with a stranger walk into a restaurant you must mask only to get to the table and sit maskless to eat target and walmart were packed at christmas yet family gatherings larger than 10 were frowned upon anyone can clearly see the

051contradictions here our kids can see this too and it is confusing to them many unreasonable rules have been crippling their ability to learn socialize and develop in 2020 only 0.03 percent of deaths from covid were children in fact according to the pennsylvania department of health only 11 children from the state of pennsylvania have died out of a population of over 13 million at the same time there have been a 334 percent spike in intentional self-harm claims to kids between 13 and compared to the same month a year earlier the data does not support mass for children whether they're vaccinated or not being part of an institution requires following the rules and kids are looking for us as adults to lead them and to give them permission to take off the math they need to know

052that the school is allowing them to do this because they want to follow the rules all staff have had the option to be vaccinated and parents who are concerned can continue to master their child because i believe that is their right and kids need to experience life and it is a parent's choice in how we choose to raise them and protect them please give us the option to let them take the mass off now it is time thank you good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes sorry i'm talking okay thank you my name is christina i'm from newtown i'm here to bring up two points um the one why i would like to ask for the immediate removal of the mask mandate and to make it optional at

053this point for our children the mass mandate is a direct violation of the eu eua order is illegal to mandate eua approval approved investigational medical therapies without informed consent mask use for viral transmission prevention is authorized for emergency use only emergency use authorized by the fda means that it's investigational and experimental only the statute granting the fda the power to authorize a medical product of emergency use requires that that person being administered the unapproved product be advised of his or her right to refuse administration of the product the stature further recognizes the well-settled doctrine that medical experiments or clinical research may not be performed on human subjects without the express informed consent of the individual receiving treatment i know as a parent that i never gave consent to have a covering over my child's respiratory

054tract a mask covering their face at all and i know of many other parents who also never gave this consent therefore it is an eu violation as such forcing children to wear masks or similarly forcing use of any other non-fda approved medical product is without consent of the child or the parent is illegal and is also immoral another thing i would like to bring up to you is a pennsylvania state law it's called the 1955 wall you guys may and women may already know about this but there is a section in it that actually protects public and private schools to make the decision to follow their local departments and boards of health for making decisions for health concerns um so technically if you were to make a vote and vote the mass to be optional

055this could actually be legal and you are protected by this law if we go by dr damskur original guidance in june of 2020 he recommended that all masks should be optional so i'm asking you tonight with all we know with the science um the fact that all council personnel have had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated the fact that other parents that may not be comfortable and students may not be comfortable not wearing a mask can still have the option to wear a mask i'm asking to remove the mandate and to make it optional at this point thank you thank you hi please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes okay sir alex enten churchville dear members of the school board i speak in front of you today to ask for

056your support for mask choice for the rest of the school year and the next these masks that we force our kids to put on every morning are highly ineffective unless you wear an n95 mask extremely tight against your face every other mask will allow particles to come through not only do regular masks allow particles to come through but they also allow particles to seep through the sides of the masks while these masks are ineffective they also restrict the oxygen to the kids and also forces them to breathe in the toxic carbon dioxide that they had just have exhaled i worry about the kids health and their well-being in the 2009 paper called filtration performance of fda cleared surgical masks scientists tested several surgical mask brands they concluded with a warning the wide variation in penetration

057levels for room air particles which included particles in the same size range of viruses confirms that the surgical mass should not be used for respiratory protection in 2013 nurses in canada filed a grievance against the hospitals in ontario requiring them to wear surgical masks while working a neutral arbitrator in that case james hayes issued a ruling in september 2015 siding with the nurses he stated that the scientific evidence said to support the mass mandate on patient safety grounds is insufficient even the theory the masks could prevent droplet transmission was unproven the points i had just listed reinforced the need for mask choice of our children now i want to pivot for a moment to equity diversity and inclusion these three words are synonymous with the marxist studies of critical race theory i'm very familiar with

058this because i'm an immigrant from the former soviet union where marxist ideology was used to form of oppression and division and this poisonous narrative should never enter the classrooms of the counteract school district the current equity evaluation has no bearing on the preset curriculum that will be pushed into our kids classrooms it will include social justice which claims that america is systemically racist it will force our kids to acknowledge and apologize for having white privilege this is not what america is about america is about every person being equal under the constitution as the great martin luther king jr said i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in the nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character us

059parents trust you the members of the school board will make the right decision in regards to allowing for mass choice and keeping equity diversity and inclusion out of our kids classrooms thank you sir good evening please state your name where you're from and uh you've got three minutes thank you bob hickey northampton township good evening tonight as a board you get to do something that very rarely happens as a board you've been presented with an opportunity to make a decision which gives a decision where it rightly belongs in the hands of a parent by voting to allow the option of whether or not to wear a mask both for the remainder of this year and next year a parent can decide what is best for their child and either choice they make is their choice

060not a dictate from above this is exactly how it should be if you're a parent and you want your child to be free of wearing a mask great in most cases you're probably thinking finally however if you're a parent who's a little more cautious it's also just as great you can continue to have your child wear a mask which you believe will keep him safe for teachers same thing applies to you because one of three things have happened you've either had the virus you've been vaccinated or you've been given the opportunity to be vaccinated so either way great good for you that puts you at you've either been vaccinated or you are aware of the risks of teaching in that classroom non-vaccinated and you're willing to take that risk it's how it should be personal

061choice for everybody in the district it's a win-win for everybody thanks thank you sir good evening she can come in please come in come in it's okay come in stand next to daddy all right please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes sir my name is kevin gessner i'm in upper makefield i'd first like to thank all the people that exercise their right to come out and vote this week for myself or my opponents across the district that's an important right and i'm glad they all exercised that right i was always talking to my kids about exercising common sense target walmart starbucks we have the option to walk in with or without a mask but yet still in this building there's a sign on it that says you have to wear

062a mask common sense i'd like to see that deployed here and i'd like to see leadership in common sense deployed within the school district i was looking at the plaques of many of the people that went to counter rock at newtown high school and passed away in battle defending our freedoms and i do believe this is about freedom freedom for parents to choose what's right for their children not an administration and not a government parents need the choice to choose what is right for their children they have that right and it needs to be given to them because they shouldn't have it shouldn't have been taken away so i'm asking you to vote to allow children to go to school tomorrow without mass if they don't want to because their parents chose that option and

063for those that want to choose the option for their children to wear a mask allow them to choose that option to send their child if they believe that's the right thing for their child to wear a mask and that's all i'd like to say and thank you for all the time you guys work on this it's a hard job and i appreciate the work you do in the thoughtfulness thank you thank you sir good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes good evening my name is patty del pizzo from churchville the reason i'm here is i just want to play out a scenario here of children faking in the sun okay in 80 degree weather with mask on while singing and playing instruments i just witnessed that this evening

064as i jotted down these notes at a middle middle school school in this township and it was heartbreaking to see these children trying to sing this is abusive that these children are outside in 80 degree weather wearing masks why are we covering these beautiful faces on a beautiful summer evening it just doesn't make sense there is no proof that you can catch this virus when you're outside it is it just does not make sense why are we doing this cdc says six feet then three feet then wear mask then where to do the people in charge even know what they're doing and who are paying the price our children is really really sad and i'm asking you you've been leaders to other things in the past and i appreciate that i'm asking you to lead

065on this again and there was a song called take on me in 198 it was came out in 1985 and the band where the orchestra band that i saw tonight at the middle school middle school played take on me and i just want to ask you all of us to take on all of those who care about the children for the health and the freedom of the children of council rock take on me because i want them to be free to breathe air and not have to wear a mask thank you for your time thank you good evening please state your name and where you're from and you've got three minutes wendy king newtown pa i have triplets in goodness i've been watching i know this has been horribly tough on everybody but i don't

066know how i'm going to tell my kids that next year you would have to wear a mask or even the rest of this year i mean i don't know if you realize what everybody's saying is true my kids do not want to go to school i have one son with autism it is like pulling teeth to get him out that door i don't want to wear this mask i can't talk to my friends i can't hear my teacher everybody's hollering at me it's it's like i just want to like not even send them back the rest of the year the rest of the 14 days because i don't want to hear it anymore i'm tired of the crying my kids come home every day i have stock and tile and all because they have headaches

067every day that's not normal and i just want you to know when even though i'm not reading off a sheet we're telling you what is happening to our kids this is what they're going through day in day out now look they're not old enough yet to get vaccinated i don't know if i want to vaccinate them i have no clue but how are you going to separate the kids that are vaccinated telling them they don't have to wear a mask and say my kids that didn't get it how are you how are you going to make those kids wear a mask you're not going to be able to it's not going to happen so i'm not trusting that this is going to go even though it was said in the beginning you know we're we're

068waiting for change and there probably won't even be an issue come september i want to know there's not going to be an issue because that's going to make my decision do i go through another year of heck with these boys or do i just say charter school i'm gonna try it not that i want to but i can't do this to them again and when these parents come up and even though they're reading this is what it there is truly happening to the kids and did you look around our kid my kids were at goodknow elementary playing football with all the other kids in their class they're having sleepovers they're not wearing masks you can go to rita's now and get ice cream you don't have to have a mask on it's you know it's

069just enough we've got to like make a decision and stick to it and no more well today we're going to say this tomorrow we're going to say this uh we're going to vote on this and oh no we can't vote on that it's come on guys we got to just get it straightened out now but that's all i have to say thank you thank you good evening please state your name where you're from and you've got three minutes good evening mr law flurry newtown township president 16 years ago we moved our family to the school district we moved to newtown because we spent most of our time coming from another part of x county in newtown for the community and we moved here for the schools i have my oldest ava who graduated class of

0702020 last year and very proud graduate cameron coming up as a 2021 graduate we've had an overwhelmingly positive experience with our kids in this school district and coveted aside i am still proud and we do it all again staff teachers um committee people everything school board we've been so happy administration and i just want to say thank you publicly um none of us signed up for this and the majority of you up there already aren't even paid for what you do and i want to say thank you for being here and i thank you for being willing to vote and speak tonight on what you're saying i wanted to say a lot of things about stats and data i don't have to i believe people have said that prior to me and dr fraser i

071was going to say i know you don't have a vote tonight but i appreciate that you would speak to what you said i listened outside and i believe you did and i appreciate that you talked i'm so one thing i want to leave everybody with um as i probably make my last public comment as a parent council rock is um thanks for dr david damskur an encouragement to listen to the recommendations of dr david damskur because last june he was telling us math should be optional and he was right about the three feet six feet all along and finally he got he got what he deserved um by being proven right by the cdc and you know i i have friends all over we were talking with people in all color counties philadelphia and philadelphia

072they say you're so lucky you have dr david damskur we hear i hear that all the time so just wanted to say thank you i want to say thank you dr fraser you did say you would listen to that you had consulted with him thank you for everything each one of you have done and thank you for taking the time and the energy to be with us parents in our emotions and be patient with us and thank you for this opportunity to speak together tonight because i believe cr is leading the way with this mass choice discussion thank you thank you good evening please state your name and where you're from and you've got three minutes i'm stephen belder from holland pennsylvania hello school board members parents and classmates my name is stephen belder i'm

073an eighth grader at holland middle school and i'm here with like-minded counselrock students tell you about what has been on all of our minds for far too long masks coming from someone who has recovered from covet 19 i'm not arguing the effectiveness of face coverings but their application in our scholastic lives we have come to the point where anybody in our in secondary education or above the age of 12 has the option to be vaccinated if they want to do so according to cdc guidelines as all of you know they are not required to wear masks this has some obvious loopholes those who are not vaccinated can say they are vaccinated to not wear masks it cannot be verified nor enforced to appease to appease those who are preaching a mask for all mandate we

074as a group believe that whether you are a student a parent a teacher or administrator you should have the choice if you do not feel comfortable with wearing a mask you do not have to do so if you are in great health if you're in great health and physical condition and you're recovered or you're vaccinated you should not be required to wear a mask if you do not want to i still have not seen the bottom half of some people's faces since last year before we went into lockdown people say smile with your eyes i'm tempted to do so when we have what's called mask breaks for 15 minutes a day we all get to take our mask off at the same time breathe the very same air in the very same close proximity classroom

075but when we are walking in a hallway and our mask slips below our nose the teachers are sure to tell us what we're doing wrong also i cannot possibly imagine how great these teachers might feel when they are they have to show their authority to the students yes you did something wrong it's truly unbelievable on another point states like texas and florida have lifted their mass mandate and they've given the citizens a choice and recorded cases hospitalizations and deaths are dropping in states like these especially now people who leave to florida come back happier less stressed and are generally better off if the people who come back if the people who have a choice are happier less stressed and better off why can't our district do the same for the very students that you all

076have been elected to serve thank you very much thank you matt moving on i believe we have an item for discussion status of face coverings for remainder school year 20 20 21 dr frey do you have any opening comments before i open the floor uh i think my i i referenced this earlier in my superintendent report my recommendation in terms of those who are vaccinated it really only applies to a uh a certain portion of our high school students the 12 to 15 age population that some of our folks have spoken to this evening none of them have had a chance to be fully vaccinated plus two weeks yet in fact they wouldn't have that chance until uh just about the last week of our school year um i am very concerned about enforcement um

077in fact i don't think it is something that we could enforce and if this was a couple months ago i would be more inclined to recommend it this late in the school year and i know that we did have this conversation last week as county superintendents with dr damskur he certainly understood the logistical issues that we would have at the high school level and that's where i fall on it this late in the school year knowing that we really can't enforce it knowing that it is so few of our students overall i would recommend that we stay the course for the rest of the school year but as i've said earlier absolutely passed the motion this evening to allow mass to be optional as we begin school back up again on august 30th um i'll

078open it up for discussion um mr tate do you want to go first i have a question please thank you dr thorward um you know we've heard from a lot of parents who would love to see us make mask wearing optional for the remainder of the school year but we're under as dr fraser noted a state directive and in fact dr damskur who several of our speakers um cited as a really valued expert has has also argued that we should not take that step but i want to ask mr cox um our solicitor in terms of legally if the board were to direct the administration to make mask wearing optional for the remainder of the school year what sort of legal situation does that put us in please mr p my my view is that

079that would violate the state order and mandate that remains in effect which requires public school districts to continue to mandate that unvaccinated individuals comply with the face covering order so the recent amendment to the state's order providing for optional face coverings for those who are fully vaccinated is an option that is within the board's discretion tonight it could decide to make face coverings optional for those individuals who are fully vaccinated however the state order that applies to council rock requiring unvaccinated individuals to continue to comply with the phase covering order remains in effect and its binding on the school district thank you mr cox i'll open it up but since we got mr cox on this i just want to ask one quick question and you don't have to answer tonight but i i would

080like the board to know under which legal law i wonder what authority the state can mandate us again not not tonight but uh um you and i have spoken in the past and i i am a firm believer that this needs to end and so i want to know we all keep saying that the governor can do this to us and and i think it's time we figure out under what authority if not tonight it's fine dr thor i can answer your question generally the governor's orders have been with respect to mitigation efforts and with respect to uh base covering orders have have been upheld by the courts there's been a lot of litigation around that issue i think uh the governor would would argue that his orders are uh lawful under his emergency powers

081which has recently been the subject of referenda questions and so the dust is not settled and there are also ostensibly authority under the infectious disease statutes i'm not here to say that i agree or disagree with any of those policy initiatives i'm just trying to advise the board on on what i interpret the law to be right now right now i believe the governor's orders uh still requiring or the state's orders still requiring face coverage for those who are unvaccinated remain legally binding on this um other questions in the room and then i'll hit the folks on the phone okay i've got none in here um anybody on the phone mrs brooks we'll start with you um thank you so i appreciate the clarification mr cox so i heard you say that the state order

082is binding on school districts and in cases where districts have gone against the order the order has been upheld in court so the um neither the cdc the american academy of pediatrics the pennsylvania department of health or the pennsylvania department of education have changed their recommendations um about mask wearing yes so the and the guidelines that have changed that allow for masculine removal applies to vaccinated people so while the teachers have had that opportunity as adults the majority of students i mean it's not even approved for our youngest students but even for our secondary students for most many of them the opportunity to get their first vaccine didn't begin until um the second half of april so the majority are in the process of that the state has said that they would revise the nas

083the mass rules once the state had reached a 70 percent vaccination rate i saw on now today's rate is 49 so we're still 21 away from the vaccine rate that could help all of us in the state um and so i i hate math i don't like the math i wear it when i when i have to and um if there are situations where i'm uncomfortable i can choose to not go to places and be in spaces where i'm uncomfortable right so like i have choices in my life but i don't think the choices that i make on whether i should dine at a restaurant or shop in a store necessarily correlate what we're talking about tonight and while it's because when individual parents can make choices um the an individual person's mass choice can

084impact people who could be compromised by another person's choice so there are people who have you know her immuno-compromised have health conditions or situations that could be impacted by another person's choice and so um my position is that um i want to get us as quickly as we can to know mass wearing and for me that will be by following the guidelines of the state and uh the department of health the department of health the department of education for when that will be allowed so um for now uh that's not an option so i i force the uh administration recommendation to continue with the mass wearing um through the end of the school year and when we get to it later i will wholeheartedly support promotion that will pave the way for us to stop

085the mass wearing for next year moving on mr bilic anything from you um listen i'd like to remove this um this requirement today our solicitors made it clear that it's uh it's something we can't do it's a violation of the state law even though i don't agree with the state law i'm hoping that we can pivot quickly um when we get some word whether the mandate has left it we have a few weeks left i know a few weeks for kids struggling every day with uh having to wear the mask is a long time but with some of the strong wording that came from our solicitor i it's just something i can't support for the rest of the year now i'm in support of it in the beginning of the year i do i think

086it's overdue it's time to give people a choice um i believe people should have always had the choice but this is where we are right now that's all i have thank you thank you um mrs marcel do you have any comments uh thank you dr forward uh i think you know similar to what mr bilox just said you know i have concerns obviously with the fact that we still have the state order and also as dr frazier mentioned you know there are some difficulties with kind of how to implement it in such a short amount of time since we're looking at the end of the school year approaching very quickly and so um i you know i appreciate everyone coming to you know talk to us through public comment and all the emails today um

087and just the community you know kind of talking to us because as things are changing and we're seeing that in some places people aren't required to wear masks and others you know they are i it's it's we're kind of in this difficult position but we do have to follow the state order and so at this time i think that i feel comfortable with just staying with our current circumstance for the end of this year for next year i agree with dr frazier and others that you know it's by then it's going to be it's going to be very different obviously we still may have something changing throughout the summer but you know all indications are pointing towards the fact that in the fall we will not you know need to have the mask and face

088covering mandates and so i know that that's a separate motion but that's where i am on both of them thank you mr marcel mr salomon any comments from you yeah good evening dr forward again uh just a clarification from doctor i'm sorry from mr cox did you expand maybe you have i'm in between youtube and the phone uh what if this board did go ahead and vote to remove the mask right now what what type of litigation what type of lawsuit what type of fines did you cover that sir is there any mr salomon you were you were hard to hear there for a bit but i think i got the gist of your question which is what would be the legal implications if the board voted to ignore the governor's mandate continuing to require

089masks for unvaccinated individuals i guess you know my not non-legal view my non-legal opinion is that nothing good would would come from that um it it would be a direct and willful violation of a state authority that has jurisdiction over the school district my view would be an unlawful exercise of discretion by the school district as i said the school district is bound by that mass mandate for unvaccinated individuals may agree i may disagree with that policy my job here is to tell this board what the law is right now as i interpret it and although the state has not enforced the mass mandate the best of my knowledge with great vigor there are potential fines and even the possibility of jail time particularly for willful violations of that base covering order so all of

090those reasons my my recommendation to the board is that it can certainly contemplate whether it should eliminate the mass mandate for fully vaccinated individuals but for those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated it is not a lawful option for this board at this time and mr cox i i really appreciate that i think that needs to be driven home you know for 25 years as a law enforcement officer it was my job to to enforce the laws of some of which i didn't agree many of which i probably didn't agree over the years you know this is this once again the state has put us in a position where i think it's safe to say especially from my standpoint at the elementary level i want those mass off the kids tomorrow i'd actually help

091collect them and remove them from the school and i think we would be you know well received in the community based on a lot of the comments we heard tonight in public comment over over the hundreds of emails we received in the last two weeks but i struggle in breaking the law because i don't say that doesn't send a message to my kids that i want to do they need to be off they need to be off efficiently and as soon as possible i have i fully support the the fall without a doubt if something breaks in the next 13 days i'd be happy to have a special meeting to to address that change the only requests i would have of dr fraser in the administration let's get these kids outside where the masks are

092off uh let's give these kids uh you know more time to get the mass off as we finish the school year and then i've seen pictures of what happened to holland middle school this evening with the instruments i hope that can be adjusted throughout the uh throughout the rest what's what's left in the school year um but yeah i think our hands are tied right now and it doesn't make me happy to say that because i think this sport and you know quite a few members of the board has been working together to get these kids not only back to school safely but to give them a year that they can remember whether good or bad and gilbert is has blanketed a lot of bad things this year so i was hoping to go out

093this year and then with some relief but anything we can do on a daily basis i asked the staff please let's give these kids a break as much as we can get them outside whatever it needs to take but that's where i'll stand with that i'll support the administration for now and i look forward to the fall to get these mass off the kids thank you dr thunwood for filling in i do appreciate it thank you no problem um before i talk any more comments up here mr hildago sir before we were asked questions i didn't have a question for mr cox but i'm glad to listen to everybody i have a lot to say probably and no notes just going off the cuff as usual but i'll remember one thing i said way back

094uh in the early fall talking about personal responsibility and that's where i still feel today that everybody needs to practice uh their own you know their own personal responsibility and and exercise their rights i'm very very very concerned about the latest guidance where we we separate our our population into two categories and i thought you know it's almost you can call it discrimination this is going in backwards when you start creating separate classes of people vaccinated versus unvaccinated and this is just the beginning if we allow this to go down this slippery slope next it will be are you on psychotropic drugs or are you not on psychotropic drugs because most of the school shootings and mass shootings are are done by people who are in mass who are on psychotropic drugs so we're going

095to start categorizing people for that that's a health issue so what i'm getting at is this whole vaccinated versus unvaccinated you don't have to wear a mask if you're vaccinated and you do have to wear one if you're vaccinated is extremely uh dangerous and very un-american this is uh not the america that i grew up with and it's not where i want to be right now so i'm going to stand up and state what i believe and i feel is rightfully my freedom of speech to do so i'm gonna back up for a second just to state that that's that's very as i said um look you are free and you're free to get a vaccination and and you're free not to get a vaccination you're free to wear a mask and you're free not

096to wear a mask we as a government can't sit here and dictate people what to do what not to do for the rest of our lives there was a pandemic that came out there was basically a biological outbreak of a virus we didn't know what to do and we and we did the best we could some states handle it different than others and the numbers are in and you can kind of you said go take a look at it and make your own determinations as a caveat i just want to say you know we can't predict what's going to happen in the future i'm not anti-mask i'm not pro-mask i'm pro-uh freedom pro-choice and that people need to make their own decisions as as most appropriate and i'll tell you i was told by somebody

097that uh you know i'm gonna kill kids by by saying that we all have to practice our own responsibility you know and make that a choice but i i think the numbers show that that's that's not what happened um so i'm just getting through some of these these general ideas and i'll give you my sense of for the public who's asking to take the masks off right now you know it came up a couple uh you know a few days ago or whatever where uh it was communicated that dr damsker had uh you know basically met with the superintendents of bucks county and some of montgomery county maybe i don't know um and he suggests that you know because it's so so close to the end of the year as dr fraser had said it

098makes a lot of sense just to keep the the mandate in in place for this year and then for next year they don't anticipate having any uh face coverings requirement and i say we don't know what the fall is going to uh you know present us from a risk and mitigation standpoint but that is what they're believing was going to happen and that's what i believe parents need to make their decisions on uh today when they're talking about elementary student and parents choosing what their enrollment will be for next year the goal is and i believe it will pass because it is the recommendation of our superintendent that we are going to um uh start next year with no mass mandate again and i'm going to circle back to the very beginning of what what

099i was saying i don't think that we should be asking people for proof i don't believe that we should be wearing badges because you know what i believe we would have to figure out and work on the honor system on this otherwise we better create a bunch of different schools for for different categorized people if they're going to be uh basically isolated or or what have you again so if you are vaccinated you're you're it's a good vaccine you're protected if you're unvaccinated and you don't want to wear a mask you're taking that risk on to yourself and one question i had for dr damsker and i hope he doesn't mind that i that i asked this but this is basically this do unvaccinated people cause a threat to vaccinated people and his answer was

100no so unvaccinated people do not pose a risk to vaccinated people if you're vaccinated the vaccination works he suggests everybody get vaccinated and then you'll be covered but the people who don't maybe they're just in in some people's minds uh silly and taking a risk on their own as far as the children are concerned that can't be vaccinated right now or the parents choose not to then those parents have the right to dictate or to ask their children to to wear those masks because they're responsible for those children and i think i covered basically everything that i'm thinking right now as much as i would like to end this mask mandate today along with every single person that came and spoke publicly today there was nobody that said keep the masks on i'm sure we

101got plenty of email to cover that but i'd like to see them come out and and and speak publicly if they wish to do so but as far as mr cox said i'm basically just repeating everybody else we have a attestation that we also signed and i was of the idea that this proclamation or or order ends may 31st and everything but maybe the masks but i'm wondering if the attestation also is expired at that point could we consider in preparation for next year trying to figure out if we can actually lift the order after may 31st memorial day and end the year with no we're trying to show what we can do for next year and that's kind of an idea that that i was uh wanted to bring up that maybe maybe there's

102a way to do this and split the split the hair or whatever you want to call it thanks i'm gonna i'm sorry i formed my question in a real crazy way yeah is there a possibility that we can maybe uh do something the last basic week and a half of school uh in relation to the order uh being expired or what what have you the attestation is my understanding i don't know the attestation form will expire at the end of may in accordance with the governor's prior announcement with respect to that which means that come june 1st the district council rock and and other public school districts will no longer be bound by the school closure aspects that were embedded in that attestation document so you're correct mr hidalgo that that will expire at the

103end of may that does not relate to the face covering mandate which is a separate order your question about whether the district could revisit this issue i know the end of the school year is close upon us whether the district could revisit the face covering issue later in this school year it could do so if the governor further if the governor the secretary of health further relaxes that face covering order if it doesn't then i would uh i would advise that the current approach which is that fully vaccinated individuals can forego masks would remain the policy through the end of the school year with respect to the start of next school year this board now and throughout the summer can contemplate and discuss how it intends to reopen its schools and i know for instance

104that there is a motion on tonight's agenda that would provide that the school would make masks optional for all individuals at the start of the 21 22 school year subject to any countervailing law that is in effect at that time and that is a lawful consideration for for this board tonight and throughout the summer i hope that answers your question yeah that we went into motion two on the at the end there and i appreciate that but this discussion item is pretty much as i said just an idea that i thought maybe would it would have some traction but again i don't want to go against well i could protest but i'm a public uh i'm i'm basically representing everybody and it wouldn't be unanimous to protest maybe people are free to do what they

105want you know but i'll leave it there thank you i just wanted to acknowledge the many many parents that we heard from both tonight and through email and i want to say to them directly you've been heard your concerns have been heard it's a very emotional understandably emotional topic when you're conveying to us the difficulties your children are experiencing every day and i want those families to know that you are listened to that we understand i know that my board colleagues are very sympathetic to this situation i have to say though as has been explained we would violate a state order if we were to remove the requirement for face coverings at this time so that i am very much in support of what dr frazier has recommended to us and i would ask our

106community members who feel so passionately about this issue to please understand as school board members we take an oath when we assume this office we take an oath and as mr salman referenced during his years in law enforcement that oath is taken very seriously by us we've been well advised by our council about the legal ramifications of what it would mean to remove the mask requirement at this time so again i just want to acknowledge to our community that you've been heard and i hope that you can understand the position that we are in as elected officials at least for the remainder of this year the motion that is coming up i will most gladly support voting favorably thank you dr poole um i guess that leaves me i'll start where mrs mckee left off

107i feel a little differently i feel an immoral law is an unjust law it just isn't we had a lot of people talk tonight about mass and the fact that they don't work the scientists i try and follow the data just the science the data and the data tell me that this thing on my face is a symbol it's a symbol of scientific illiteracy um it's not scientific metal that method because these don't work and there's no data to prove they work um it's a symbol of innumeracy because as someone pointed out the risk to these children is minuscule the risk when they get in their car every day is higher the risk when they play soccer every day is higher than the risk from covert and frankly the risk of the vaccine to them

108is going to be higher than the risk of coping for these young children so what these are is a symbol of irrational fear period that's all it is at this point we have a group in harrisburg desperately clinging to power now and won't relax there's no other reason for these now um i understand and it's very obvious that even if i throw a motion to try and take the mass off tomorrow which i had planned on doing i don't have the support um so instead of throwing that motion i i'll throw something out to the parents who came here tonight and spoke to us and asked us to please do something i'm not standing behind i can't do this i'd thumb my nose at it and do it anyway if it was up to me

109but i'll point out that as someone else said dr damser's been right since the day one he's had nasty emails from teachers he's had nasty emails from superintendents he's had nasty emails from curriculum coordinators and it turns out he was right so thank you dr dansker the bucks county commissioners stood behind him all this while and they look purely golden and i thank our commissioners i don't care if they're democrats or republicans they did the right thing they stood behind the guy and they they look great um as we move up the food chain though we have state representatives we have state senators that we vote for here and their silence on the plight of children has been deafening um they've said nothing so to the parents out there when you go out to vote

110the next time remember these people said nothing about your children and still say nothing about your children they don't care um they've left us on our laps they put us in an untenable situation now where we have to enforce who's vaccinated and who isn't but we also have to enforce privacy laws that prevent us from doing the first one um so uh i don't have the i it's obvious i don't have the votes i i'd thumb my nose at this in a minute um what i'd like to propose and what i'd like to offer i threw a motion at mr cox who advised against even the motion i gave you in writing unless you've come up with a better method that basically mr hidalgo brought it up i'm done with vaccine who's vaccinated who's not

111vaccine passports i'd like to take this away from the administration and make their lives easier we've talked about this i'm reactivating the policy committee and we're going to write policies that says no council rock employee can ask about vaccination status of anyone i want that off i want that gone i don't want it ever coming up in a classroom i don't want ever coming up in a hallway it's over so i'm going to reactivate the policy committee and write a policy hopefully mr cox you will help with that review it i will reach out to mr frederickson right after this meeting we'll schedule a day we'll draft something we'll find a day for a zoom meeting and we're going to write some policies now to end this i i really firmly believe that we should

112mr cox if you want me to formally motion this tonight but no dr thorward i i am happy to help writing policy um and uh that would be my pleasure i just want to clarify one thing i i don't want anyone on this board to perceive me as mixing emotion tonight i'm sorry no i i just i wanted to advise me it was probably not a good idea i i just all i said was that i could envision a lot of unknown consequences from emotion that you and i had discussed and that that kind of thing made on the fly could have could have unintended consequences oh i want to be really clear that's good that that that there are that the law is as i as i advise the board and then there there

113are areas where the board does have discretion and within those areas of discretion it is not for me to say how the district should enact policy or or exercise that discretion those are firmly bored uh decisions that i do not want to put my thumb on the scale with respect to so so i i just want to be clear on that i don't have a horse in this race i may agree or i may not agree with the current mass order i just want to be clear with this board as to what as to how as to what i interpret it to mean right now that's fair and and so um i'm advising the board anyone that wants to help certainly can we'll reactivate the policy committee we'll have a first read and a second

114read and i'll hopefully do them in an accelerated pace because urpa is real and and we need to um take care of that so i i will be heading in that direction um and moving in that direction i value your opinion mr cox that's why um and and lastly and we can move on again because i don't have the votes um i asked at the beginning and i'll just state mr cox i don't need an answer i don't think the government governor has this authority once the emergency declaration is passed or removed from him to tell us what to do i think this lands in our local health department to enforce health rules and so i i want this to end forever and so i will be asking for advice on injunctions if we if

115the governor tries to force us on us um we'll have to vote on it i will certainly make the motions but uh it is my opinion and i hope i have five people on this board either in november or september or if i have to wait till december to to fight back because this is not good for kids we heard it from lots of people today and it can't keep happening and i fear it will so with that if there's no more comments we can move on to the actual board motions dr thorward have a comment mike mike i have a comment if i could all right let's start with mr pilot i'm sorry thank you uh dr thor thank you for all your comments i i agree with almost i most of them if

116not all of them but i just wanted to i had wrote myself a note and i didn't say them during my last comments but i really want i appreciate all the public comment but i really want to thank our students and children who came out and gave their thoughts you know it's not easy there's there's a lot of pressure around uh masks and uh with just that around mass and how you're handling yourself and for these kids to stand up and uh put themselves out there i really appreciate it uh whether you agree with them or not you have to respect them coming up and and speaking to us it's it's difficult for adults often to get in front of a board and let their thoughts be known so i really applaud our students thank

117you that's all i have thank you uh mr solomon i heard you yeah thanks mike uh mark you stole my thunder yeah my my congratulations to those kids and students uh and parents would like to stood there tonight and talk to the school board it's very important if their message gets heard but i think we're teaching our kids that it's good to stand up for yourself too dr frazier i did get a text during the meeting extend the school year and masks it's not it's not being mentioned tonight i don't want it off anyone's radar i'm not even going to ask you to speak about it tonight but it is a topic that i just received a text right thanks mr solomon i think we can uh perhaps take that up at the june 3rd

118board meeting if that's acceptable that's time of me sir i just want to make sure that it doesn't get lost on anyone's radar that's all absolutely i don't think anyone's asking you to do it now so um mr dogwood you're waving your hand go ahead yeah i wanted to comment on your your second uh point about not vacs and not asking for uh vaccination proof i think that was sparked from an email that we were looking at a legal status of whether or not um vaccines we can ask for a vaccine vaccination proof and i believe from a legal standpoint that's something that was advised that we could do but of course we had the ferpa you know you have to be careful how you do it so that brought me go ahead i'm going

119to let you clarify and then i have to continue mr hidalgo i think that a school district could inquire with respect to both its employees and its students if they requested to forgo masks because they were fully vaccinated the school district could ask those individuals with limitations and with great sensitivity with to the information that it received in response to those inquiries could inquire as to the status of their as to their vaccination status and could ask for proof of it if it wanted this any employer and any school district with respect to students would have to be very very careful with respect to how it handled that information under the americans with disabilities act and ferpa and but it is also an option for a school district that wants to allow uh only fully

120vaccinated individuals to go masculine just do so on the honor system so both of those approaches more an approach where the district requires us to status or an approach where the district takes the honor system are within uh aboard's discretion thank you mr cox for clarifying that this brings me kind of back to the same position where i was when we talked about um notes were for people who i guess pretty much was that also a mask exception for people who right so that in that point i was against uh that form because anybody could could write that you know form and just basically making them jump through a hoop and then of course that exception went through the window when when the mandate just became universal but it's the same thing with vaccines it's

121a it's a real dangerous thing i believe to get into on many levels and i don't think that the school district should be asking for proof so i'd be happy to make that motion to just you know because you talked about doing up doing a policy meeting to basically show how we're going to enforce this basic uh rule but the rule we could take a vote whenever and i would like it sooner than later so people understand where we stand and i might not be in the majority but i'm happy to vote for that immediately to say that school districts will not be asking for written proof of vaccination i just don't think that uh it does not sit well with me and i hope people understand how dangerous this is i already have two

122and i'm sure we'll find at least three more to state that we don't want to do that um dr frazier you have no intentions of asking for this and our staff had better not have any intentions do you need more clarity right now or would a policy be better for you i mean if you want us to vote on something i will but if a policy would be better i mean if you want me to pull the board i will but i think you are on the same page we are in that this just isn't worth hipping our toes absolutely and i appreciate you saying that because i want to make sure that anyone out there listening knows that administratively frankly i don't think it's any of my business i don't think it's any of

123our business who is who isn't why you are why you aren't um that's that's very personal um and that should remain very personal so uh yeah i think i think the policy is probably the way to go um you know we're not in the business of asking we're not going to get into the business of asking so a policy probably uh dots a few eyes and crosses a couple tees that maybe we need just from a broader standpoint but uh i think this board as a whole in this administration is very very much on the same page when it comes to this for the record i plan to make a motion to do just that um and i ran that one by mr cox and while i am perfectly able to do it there are

124or could potentially be unpretending consequences and that's why i want the eyes and tees dotted across before sure they're look you did say that it's good i'm a loose cannon i would have loved to do it but um i also don't want to cause any kind of collateral damage well i think anything we voted on could be reversed if we do so down the road but to understand the points are made and and and we have the backing of dr fraser is very much uh you know warming and and take some comforting thank you comfort warm is comfort right all right i'm gonna move on unless anyone speaks now going once all right um we're gonna leave board discussion and go for the one item for approval now that it's nine o'clock uh mr tate

125could you read this for us please i'd be delighted thank you dr forward i move that effective upon the start of the 2021-2022 school year face coverings shall be optional for all crsd k-12 students and staff subject however to any contrary state order or mandate that may be in effect at that time second second okay um dr free we we've kind of talked mass to death uh um i don't know if i have anything more to add than what i had in the superintendent's report and that's fair fully uh fully recommend the passage of this motion anybody in the room have anything to say anybody on the phone have anything to say um i'm not going around to just shout out i don't i don't know that we've got much more we can do here

126in silence the only comment i'm making it's brief is we've had parents who need certainty this is all you're getting i mean i i i it sounds contrite but this this this is a this is the clearest vision we've got we intend to open schools with no mass if you want to wear one go ahead and wear one if that makes you uncomfortable we've we've got a cyber option if you're in secondary you can get a vaccine or you can come to school master optional and secondary too this is as good as it gets so um you have a registration coming out and and this is as good as it gets um roll call yes uh madam secretary can we have a roll call for this one please kristen marcel yes yes it's almonds mary

127mckee yes joe hidalgo yes uh motion passes eight to zero um we've got another meeting after this um and next i've got an adjournment but any last-minute thoughts from anyone on the board um or from mr cox or dr frazier i'll just quickly point out piggybacking dr thorwert we will be sending out the k-6 21-22 registration information tomorrow in the am that's the one that we had planned to release this past monday but uh knew that some of our parents many of our parents in fact were looking for the answer that was just provided by this board via this last motion so you will receive this information a bit revised from what was sent out last week in accordance with this action this evening and the deadline for completion of that registration process will be

128midnight on tuesday june 1st so that allows 11 uh full days 11 plus days uh inclusive of two weekends so uh we certainly hope that's plenty of time any questions that you have about the survey itself we'll provide contact information tomorrow morning and any questions that you have about what next school year will look like your best starting place would be your elementary school principal thanks i'm afraid we'll have to yes i mean we we have got to have yeah we have to wrap this up on june 1st is the same deadline that we use to guarantee placement at the home school uh that's the important piece uh so we have that same registration deadline for any new registrants to the school district and and that date's really important uh because two days later we

129pass our budget and that budget is passed on a certain number of elementary teachers and support staff that we need so yeah we don't have any margin for area thanks we're going to put the ones who don't register are they going to be registered virtual or virtually in person or i'll be honest with you i haven't even contemplated that because um i guess i have the expectation that people are going to register their their child or their children maybe we'll communicate that as soon as we have an idea as soon as you have a filter yeah i mean the the only definitive statement i could make now i guess is consistent with how we handle new registrants if somebody does not complete that registration process by midnight on tuesday june 1st we will not be

130able to guarantee a spot at their home school and uh we'll we'll continue to work the problem you know a couple layers deeper than that in the coming days hopefully won't be needed right thank you all right with that this meeting's adjourned we need about five minutes and then we'll kick start the facilities meeting thanks everyone thank you dr word ed you want to switch places or you just go no this is fine you