July 20, 2021 Work Session Meeting of the Board

001guys now i good to see you again all right [Music] wonderful now [Music] is good evening i'd like to call to order the july 20th 2021 with acting school district board of directors work session please rise from the pledge to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which the public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting by way of attendance we have all board members present except for ms cancro mr neverett recognition of guests and scheduled speakers mr regina thank you madam president welcome everyone to our in-person board meeting to think the last time we had one of this size was 511 days ago so it's great to see everyone and we're glad you were able to come out

002and join us before we get started we're going to talk to our recognition guest and special scheduled speakers and we're going to start with bodavia uh jack ayers and shelby bonner will be talking through the arrowhead and eagleville construction update good evening presenting the update for arrowhead this past month the contractors have been completing the structural steel work at the two-story learning portion of the building that has also been decked and they've placed the first section of the slab on deck for the second story including all the piping sleeves and in-floor utilities that need to get up to that second floor we've also begun stoning the pad on the first floor to be able to start the concrete slab down there as well the plumbing underground has been completed and will be completely backfilled by

003the end of the month in addition the electrical work has been completed underground and they're continuing up with the concrete basement block and they're installing all the animal weapons before the electrical service the walls are scheduled to continue and they'll uh the drywall and steel stud walls will begin in this upcoming one so you'll start to see that a balloon of the building just taking shape in addition august we're this remainder of the month in august we'll be completing the steel framing of building steam which is the front administrative gym cafeteria building that's the building closest to the road the construction of the concrete masonry walls in that chain will also follow the steel so that we'll start to see that take shape and the gym will be enclosed by the concrete masonry walls the

004electric electrician is finishing up his uh branch circuiting and the iris said the skill stuff will be started we don't have any changes at this time and no action for me thank you any questions okay thank you sheldon jack and for the board i apologize in your packets uh information thank you good evening everyone [Music] the selected demolition is about 80 on the new edition we placed new concrete coordinates out front for the new edition as well as the concrete piers and coleslaw plates ready for steel uh the new brick installations are they're working great on all sides of the building now existing and new areas um there's a picture of the side the west end and there's a picture on the back side as well that's removed along with that all the spray foam

005insulation is just about done as well the window repairs that were necessary for a couple windows are complete and installed all the flash and the masonry empties are complete new brick installed in airplane equipment and we began washing the breakdown looks really nice in the new offices administration area the select emotion is about 70 percent complete we saw cotton excavated the flooring open open all those areas throughout the space put in the new sanitary and storm lines under under slab um foaming piping and backfilled done uh we're actually pouring populating those transistors and we're removing the existing ceramic pile and existing toroid epoxy drives are the flooring that's just found the first and second floor classrooms uh are moving along just fine we are installing uh ceiling brick in all the classrooms on the stairs

006and [Music] to look ahead for the next month um we we're going to have the structural steel bottom on the new edition uh the decking and we're going to be looking towards the concrete on the slide and the deck um we're also continuing along with um the air handling units on a new roof first they have all their structural steel done today so we'll be installing them this month as well um doors and frames uh where we can anyhow within the classroom units and uh you know moving along with necessary security firearms and data work all associated with pace so that that basically concludes for this month if there's any questions thank you chad any questions from you i don't have a question i just wanted to comment again i know i said it last

007week at the property committee meeting i just want to thank you again for your time at eagleville um for the tour because seeing the scope of the work i know i had some hesitation about that as a board member and seeing the scope of the work that is being done i just want to thank you and all every uh worker that is working there as you said it's like busy beehive and we didn't want to make any jokes about these and i also wanted to publicly thank the staff that has you know put up with some of the uh issues that needed to be taken care of and uh thanks in advance to the staff and the parents and the students for those first couple months of school as they're dealing with a new or

008a temporary entrance um so that we can have the new renovated entrance so good luck to eagleville in the coming school year and thank you to everyone in eagleville because that project i really did not realize until seeing every single room gutted and all the work that is being done so thanks again there was a discussion of the down pipe within the wall that had to be rerouted we asked to see if that was ever disclosed on the original plans that should have been used in the bid did we get a chance to pull the original docks of how it was bid and should that have been seen prior i'll answer that i actually did the research on this i'm probably in the best position to answer that uh yes it was on the original

009commands yes it should be concealing no it was not included so it is an oversight by the engineering company will that be picked up on their you know we're going to be working on that thank you thank you mr mcguinness any questions mr winters just to comment on the agenda nine now if i imagine should read eagle though that's correct yes mary already caught that yes very diligently and i talked about that beforehand so thank you any other questions from mr ayres jack thank you i think you're still at the podium for the next one correct uh yeah okay jack will be also presenting our second topic for today the second one is the capital 2022 2023 capital ban project plan authorization and for the board that is in your packet it's the 11 by

01017 sheet colored spreadsheet uh thank you very much uh we've uh reviewed the new capital plan authorization uh we are requesting the approval of the capital project plan for 2022 this will include the preparation of the documents for bidding of work to be completed we want to replace the roof on eagleville and the study also found damage during the renovation process the other item was to replace the siemens building automation system for heating and cooling at arcola sky news which connects connexus open thank you jack any questions from the board uh i don't have a question just wanted since mr magaret is not here um for those unaware mr navarrete is our committee chair for property and i just wanted to let the board know and uh people in the audience that might not have

011been here for the last six years um we had a huge facility study done because we realized the buildings were in disrepair and one of those um out of that huge facility study all the rooms were evaluated and we have gone through and replaced the f roofs bad uh bad letter there and now we're slowly working up to d's and c's and and doing the rooms um in um uh in kind of order and what makes sense to other projects in the building and i'm not gonna sit here and comment on every little thing tonight but i try to keep a peek on social media and there was some concerns that were replacing roots all the time and certainly not um certainly not it's a very expensive project and we've had to slowly go through

012the roof so that we're not in the position that we're in replacing i was just wondering how old the roof is um what is the lifespan of a roof and is it possible that the damage you detected in the room could have contributed to some of the water ingress people that were repairing that uh well [Music] area um and you want to protect yourself thank you miss purdue just a quick question in reference to savvy and arcola what is the timeline for that project i believe that with the summer project but we'll want to get the documents together thank you miss purdue any other questions from the board okay jack thank you very much you're welcome our third presentation for this evening is the 2021 2022 continuity of instruction and the health and safety plan

013i'll do my best impression of dr walsh to start things off and then dr zurby i know is a large part of the health and safety plan of course and i'll do my best impression here as well for the continuity of instruction and health and safety plan to start the continuity of instruction plan states that in fact in schools will open for in-person instruction five days a week for all students in kindergarten through grade 12 for the 2021-2022 school year we provided an asynchronous online option for families by semester provided through the acting virtual academy this plan states that we will continue to use the google classroom k-12 as a tool so that in the instance that we are required or mandated potentially to go online our students and staff will be best prepared the

014regular use of the google classroom is likely to occur more often in person in through twelve grade levels more often than it would be in the lower grade levels there will be instances in which the student instruction at all levels may utilize this program but that will be determined by the teacher in each of those classrooms this plan does not include dual mode instruction or the hybrid option the health and safety plan which i'll speak to next in just a few minutes has a layered mitigation approach that will allow our students to remain in school for in-person instruction until such time that the county or state mandates a change if that mandate should happen all district instruction will occur online through the use of the google classroom platform at all levels k-12 with four days

015a week being synchronous instruction by the math acting teachers and fridays being asynchronous instruction are there any questions from the board concerning the continuity of instruction wonderful seeing none we'll move on to the health and safety plan this is a tad longer so we'll go through it as best we can again this was an attachment on the board agenda and also in our packets in 2020 excuse me the 2021-2020 school ii health and safety plan has been formatted to meet the requirements under the essers grant and address all the important matters in order to keep our students and staff safe during this pandemic while keeping a focus on providing in-person instruction the plan was provided by the pandemic team and was reviewed with the teachers association team last week this health and safety plan also

016includes the plan for athletics and activities the five key elements of the plan are one plan the plan addresses the importance of in-person instruction two it provides a layered approach to coving mitigation strategies three it provides metric parameters for implementing layered mitigation four it provides for a mass optional environment and five it includes chop cdc montgomery county department of health and pde guidance as per the continuity of instruction plan the matthackton school district will open for in-person instruction five days a week for all students in kindergarten's grades k through 12. we provided that asynchronous instruction or an option for nearly 40 students from across the district that have chosen to participate in the first semester in online asynchronous instruction provided through the fact and virtual academy if mandated by the county or state to be

017opened at a reduced capacity or are required to be closed fully we will operate synchronously four days per week k-12 with friday being the all-virtual instruction asynchronous day students with special needs will adhere to a modified in-person model where feasible to best facilitate the free and appropriate public education also known as faith the district will monitor the community transmission rates and leverage the data dashboard in the district website we will utilize the pde community transmission level chart to guide the deployment of our layered mitigation strategies the chart is broken into low moderate and substantial levels this is the same chart that many of you recognize that we had used last year the layered mitigation strategies are outlined in question three areas one to nine if you look at the health and safety plan it's broken

018up into a number of questions and areas within each question in the low and moderate community transmission mass will be optional for students and staff in the substantial transmission the district will encourage but not require masking during substantial transmission weekly communications from the principals to parents will improve information about transmission levels and masking a lesser mask mandate for indoors is declared by pde pennsylvania department of health or the montgomery county office of public health all district buildings will continue with a mass optional environment parents will be responsible for communicating with their children on the importance of wearing a mask or not coherent in the basket with the exception of school buses or were otherwise mandated as part of the child's iep or 504 plan teachers nor the district will not be managing masculinity of students

019area 2 focuses on the physical distancing this area outlines the 3 feet distance distancing generally found in all of our classrooms under normal operation it allows for the cohort and pods of students to be situated allowing for common grouping of students within the classroom this will help structure mistakes and support in person instruction and delivery models it outlines that locker rooms for physical education and athletics are used during the low and moderate community transmission rates and are limited during the substantial transmission building principles will work with teachers during the substantial phase to address local music and other related instructional spaces and practices area 2 also addresses the cafeteria as an example in low and moderate transmission elementary students will sit diagonally with six students to a table but will only have four students to attain

020in the substantial phase also the substantial phase the cafeteria will push into other spaces and we'll use separators to help mitigate trans uh transmission during breakfast and lunch basically we will sit the students very similar to the way we did at the end of last year while you're not planning over every item in area 2 it does address transportation ordered by the cdc it requires us to mask on public transportation which it does include school buses the masking is required for adults and students on all districts provided transportation as we did last year drivers will have mass available for students when boarded if needed the plan includes a return to events assemblies and the use of volunteers as normal where in substantial transmission phase things will require a little greater scrutiny and may be a

021little bit more limited area three addresses hand washing and respiratory etiquette these strategies are carried over from last year and we will continue to ask parents and students and staff to conduct daily self-check area 4 addresses cleaning and ventilation as a reminder the district invested nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars last year into the o2 prime itemization units in the district school buildings to combat spread of we coding continue to operate our hvac systems to provide the greatest amount of fresh air in the classrooms and hallways we will continue to use bottle filling stations continue with cleaning sanitizing disinfecting and the disinfecting protocols as outlined within area 5 addresses contact tracing isolation and quarantine much of these matters are dictated by the montgomery county department of health we will continue as we did last

022year with conducting contact tracing as needed we have contracted with additional nursing support one matter that is new but not officially ready is the chop test excuse me is the chop test to stay protocol we're providing notice in the plan that the district may implement this but does not have all the details at this time and it is not guaranteed that we'll be able to implement such a protocol in the future the test to state protocol generally allows for symptomatic individuals or as a means of contact tracing to administer the parental profession a coded test which if the results are negative in lieu of quarantine will be able to an individual will be able to remain in school or participate in a sport knowing that approximately three days later they'll have to have a second

023test chop has stated that this test the state protocol is the most reasonable approach to our path forward in living with the virus limiting exposure and limiting disruption dr zurby is asking to share that will present the test to staple uh program prior to the board meeting and implementation excuse me prior to implementation we're presenting this to the board and communicating without the parents before implementation area 6 addresses testing much of what we've covered already and much of what we see last year area 7 addresses vaccines and while we have been a vaccine site we'll do so again when and when our program area 8 addresses students with disabilities and we will be supporting students based on their individual needs area 9 simply outlines how the district will stay informed and stay in contact with

024major matters surrounding covet the plan then goes on to address athletics and activities and the major areas to include there is the mass optional environment layered distancing protocols on sidelines and workouts and pods as an example there may be limitations on indoor spectators and screening protocols when we are in the substantial range and will also deploy where when appropriate and test to participate protocol when it is ready to use by the district to help provide assurances and limit player and team disruptions plan shares the pandemic the plan was shared with the pandemic team and it does share at the end of the pandemic team itself along with the signature and affirmation statement at the end of the plan it should be noted that all or some of this plan can be modified at a later

025date either by the school board or by mandates from the county or state thank you for bearing with me as i read through that are there any questions from the board two um one is about the testing um [Music] we were very lucky to have testing for our staff in all buildings last year or not the whole year um and is it my understanding that that's no longer supported by child i'm actually not 100 sure that's still supported by a child okay so if we could get that just before next week absolutely and then my other question is not quite as serious under area two where it says um lockers being used i know that that also came up by parents um last year the children the secondary children 7-12 did not change the gym

026so when that decision has been made or when it does if they are going to change physical education we could let parents know as soon as possible um because i know my 7th graders for example now eighth graders don't have uniforms yet because they didn't need them yet so and i have a feeling my high school child probably grew out first so just when we know that would be awesome because i have seen that question come up too thank you thank you miss reese mrs i know that area nine talks about coordination with state and multiple health authorities for the montgomery county office of public health i know during the pandemic the work weekly maybe twice weekly meetings um what how often are they meeting right now with superintendents my understanding is they're still meeting

027once a week where i think if certainly if there's any rise they could be going back to twice a week and i think even during the height of it they were meeting even more frequently thank you any other questions so first i wanted to thank you mr regina for providing such a detailed overview and i just wanted to call attention to the fact that while you know we're talking to this document that the draft of this document is available on the board agenda online so if anyone is listening along and thinking i really wish i could have more detail about you know section one section five that you can find all of that online um and you know if you have questions after you've had a chance to review it please go ahead and email

028them and we'll do our best to address them at the next meeting thank you miss purdue along the same lines of this document i guess one will be having on the district website what we'll do we'll have it on for approval next week and once that's on the website mr winters yeah so the couple things that are significant changes is the increase for the the low and moderate for the volunteers obviously that will be well received i believe by many of the community um the testing that i know that's not we don't know yet but the testing i believe did not include students stay before it did not yet yeah so that that he did not yet again it would include that potentially um and then i assume uh doctors i saw them here somewhere

029that the athletics and activities is in line with the rest of the district and the other competing uh schools in the same the pioneer at that conference yeah i believe so mr when there's competing recommendations coming from different areas related to that so we have at least i have uh often uh reference the the committee that our health and safety committee has come back with recommendations that we've used those recommendations as a support um if there's a recommendation especially unfortunately right now there's concerns about especially the younger students that may at this point have not been given if they're under 12 years old the ability to get a vaccine if there's a change to that if that recommendation comes from one entity say montgomery county that does not come from the state what what is

030our decision process in that case it's a very loaded question and a good one so what we have been doing fortunately we've had the joy of being in montgomery county and our connection to communication with our neighboring districts has been a great asset to us i know dr zurby meets with the superintendents weekly we meet with the hr directors weekly and assistant superintendents and i think between what is being discussed across the county level also with montgomery county office of public health that's really been the guidance that we've been leaning on but i certainly don't want to fully commit ourselves to that in the future in case something would change but that has been the pack this year that we've been following most frequently so is the i i can't say you know necessarily exactly

031but if there is a recommendation that comes could it be unilaterally implemented or would it require to come through the board if there was a change in the recommendation if it was a change to health and safety clinic but after going through the board if it was something that was deemed an emergency by one of the department health agencies we may have to follow that immediately if it's an emergency situation okay any other questions it's pretty and along the lines of what um mr winters was told but i know recently the american pediatrics have new guidance or requirements and i know it tends to differ from what the cdc is currently stating for vaccinated versus some vaccinated students so it may be helpful for us when we go forward and i'm looking at this health

032and safety plan i think is very good compared to when we started with this pandemic and it's very thorough it may be good for us to try to make sure we are consistent in what guidance we're following just because i know things are going to change and if something changes all of a sudden we have to just make sure if we're following the montgomery county we should stick with that i know it may be hard but i think we have to try to do a better job of being consistent thank you any other comments or questions scene done thank you everyone and for our final presentation uh dr spuck will be speaking with us this evening on the highway sports workout pilot program dr spuak i believe dr schmuck's presentation will be behind us and

033the board does have this in their packets thank you dr stewart thank you mr regina thank you for school directors uh good evening thank you for having me here tonight uh to present on an opportunity that has come up for our school district to develop a partnership uh with the new facility on germantown called iowa sport um irish sport had relocated into the new big blue building on germantown and i'll get into some details regarding those opportunities throughout these slides much of what has brought us to this presentation tonight revolves around uh similar to evaluating our fields leading us to appeal project or evaluating bleachers or renovating the gym floor what's happening around us is important in terms of competition in terms of the opportunities and facilities that we're proud to present uh our students

034our student athletes so all of that is factored into a timely opportunity here that we believe exists with irish border to give some [Music] idea of what we're looking at with iowa as compared to our current facility in the next couple slides we'll try to paint a picture of what that looks like irish sport is 47 000 square feet and while that certainly is significantly larger than what typical high school facilities look like being that it's right down the road it provides us with a potential opportunity to deal with what we believe to be a competitive disadvantage with our current room doctor i certainly apologize i mistakenly it is not in your board packets so if i could ask the board to police it up front so they could give you the presentation thank you

035very much i appreciate your patience you were fantastic so as as the school board members are relocating again just to reiterate local school districts and i will pay a picture for this as well in the future slides have been placing uh priority into many different facilities with the weight training facilities in particular and it has caused us to evaluate our situation and now with an opportunity with iowa down the road we've been investigating that as a potential opportunity for the immediate so looking at what our weight room looks like currently is a converted uh classroom that was converted in 1999 our issue doesn't necessarily sensation our challenge as compared to others doesn't necessarily revolve around the equipment as much as it revolves around the space and the potential for enough equipment for groups teams large

036number of athletes to train at the same time so 1481 square feet and springboard is certainly uh not they're certainly above and beyond many typical high school weight rooms but just to give you an idea of what we're looking at in the school that we directly compete with their new facilities ten thousand square feet two floors opportunities you're training in a number of different capacities similar to what i really will provide the limited space uh doesn't allow us to create areas where there's multiple opportunities for students to to train in the same way at the same time and in a future slide i'll show that it causes us to take teams to 6 7 8 o'clock p.m and several teams to work out from the 6 to 7 a.m in the morning just to be

037able to get in and have enough rooms to work out i apologize this is challenging to see but to take from this slide this is a typical weight room schedule for years within our weight room where the after school slot until four o'clock which is that first category that says open off season would allow for any student or any student athlete that is not in season to come down and train there would be a supervisor but it was ultimately their training with whatever program has been approved by their coach and our athletic trainer and then if you look at the different team slots it really creates a situation where uh teams are coming in uh very late at night and we're looking at the academic day followed by practices followed by activities that they may

038be a part of all of the homework getting into the weight room at those hours is a really big ask for for our student athletes this i apologize if it's challenging to say that these are the next couple slides or just pictures of our current weight room in the middle of the 5x machine it's only a few years old the idea behind that was to try to provide as many opportunities within the small space and as you can see very similar to what a typical small classroom might look so in terms of the competitive disadvantage these are some of the square footage uh for the rooms around us marstown is in the midst of a weight room project that should be done hopefully by the end of the summer and i will be providing down

039the road some information some pictures on what that will look like in the bordering district potts grove this week is completing their projects and should be getting athletes into their weight room very soon and if you look at boyertown four thousand square feet in lagoon thirty two hundred square feet i rory as we mentioned forty seven thousand square feet it's a condition of the room the amount of equipment and space as you can see for us is limited those surrounding school districts these are some pictures of the space we'd be dealing with at iowa fitness this is the weight room area another picture of the weight room area and on top of that this is a whole three basketball court volleyball court area now for plyometric work and different types of opportunities that i'll get

040into within the next couple of slides that are going to provide opportunities while not just going in with the weights this map just shows libraries a two to three minute drive down the road from high school and i already referenced the timing of this uh as we're evaluating our current weight room and this week this lakes moon facility being finished uh just this summer uh yuri for those of you that may know him has been a lifelong supporter since he's been running highway within our in our community you can see him at our basketball games our track meets um his tracks are sinus so he's been in the area in support of the fact in athletics well before these conversations started so one of the things that i would like to note with regards to

041this potential pilot program is that yuri would be providing high level training in addition to providing his facility so it's not just showing up and doing hour workouts it would be showing up and being trained by his staff doing specific workouts for each athlete and predicting different sports in terms of the scope of the program what this might look like we would be able to have upwards of 100 students at one time so within 2 30 to 3 30 slot and a three figure 4 30 slot that will be 200 students a day there will be a monday wednesday friday program and a tuesday thursday friday program that will equal a max of 400 total student athletes part of the pilot program at one time but we sign up program and uh you know while

042we may not hit 400 total athletes or maybe we will if we hold up this time that would be the max again uh the scope of this would be the facility but also the training and in addition uh yori will be providing information and education on uh nutrition and wellness which is right in his wheelhouse in terms of the structure uh this agreement if approved would create those time slots that are referenced to five days a week that the students will be broken into two groups three days a week uh students will be able to sign up for whichever group worked best for them workout ponds will be created and organized within iroid by uri and his staff in order to create a buffer between any public users of the facility and our students and

043i'll get into the t-shirts as well uh we'll create uh green pride t-shirts for being part of the program and supply those two participating students so that we can help to supervise them and keep them in those so that we can best create the safest environment possible there'll be one-way transportation uh saliva transportation coming up uh that would be for that first group from 230 to 330 there would be transportation if they needed it from the high school to honor again transportation they would have to provide if they were in that second slot 2 30 to 4 30 they would leave their home after school and then provide their own transportation to that second time slot that the first slot would have a shuttle bus or two if um but they would need to get

044their transportation home afterwards this would only be before when we're in school so if we're not in school obviously it wouldn't make sense for them to get arrived to school and then get a ride to iowa so that would be they would have to provide their own transportation on days where we're not in school or in service or whatever in terms of the timeline um august 16th is the start of the official start of fall athletics this is a program that we hope will benefit all athletes the interactives and the spring athletes but certainly an august first start if approved would allow by the time gameplay starts closer to the september holiday it would allow for almost a full month of training for the in-season actors one of the things to note is that we

045want to be at our strongest at the end of the season and he already has made that point each time that we met with him and this would be an opportunity to continue the fall sports workouts all the way through to the end of the season so on postseason uh we're at our strongest and still able to perform at high sign level process uh for student athletes to sign up both the program and transportation if needed and the pilot program would run from august 1st through december 31st and then we would re-evaluate at that terms of the cost for the program uh we we would be charged by iboy 15 per student certainly if we were to start reaching our 400 student max there would be a capital 2 000 per month throughout the uh

046august to december 31st program uh we're looking into the transportation calls we had two attribute shuttle after school will not be significant for us in terms of staffing at this time depending on the number of students in the number of groups we plan to provide two staff members uh similar to what we've done in the past weight room that would be helping to supervise the process so while their staff members at iowa would be training our staff members will be helping with the training we're most importantly supervising our students that are off campus in terms of t-shirts i've referenced that two-fold one to create some private program and also help with the supervising of this and the total maximum higher cost so at max capacity here if you know others 400 students participating the cost

047would be 25 000 for this product i won't read all of the district responsibilities at some reason some responsibilities of note for both the school district and also for iroi would be that collecting insurance documents for their equipment facility collecting clearances on all of their employees uh attendance would be done through an account of usage uh to the taxes you know exactly who's there and when they roll card and sign in uh similar to what members do now at iroi i mentioned the transportation and the specific workouts is extremely important within this buy sport and buying individual is going to be an outstanding opportunity to get approved for those students so in terms of what my is proposing in terms of athletic goals they will be looking to try to create improvements in individuals and

048ultimately in our sports teams that they can visibly see the changes in the pride and performance of our athletes based on them putting their minds towards getting bigger stronger faster and better what it is that they're doing and ultimately that's there's a nutshell on top of that the wellness and nutrition opportunities are going to be lifelong skill set that they can they'll be able to utilize well beyond that so learning how to work out properly how to eat properly and how to live a healthy lifestyle are going to be a positive outcomes in addition to why we're really talking about this again with the specific goals developing individual athletes developing teamwork pride what we're doing i've already mentioned several times the sport specific plan focusing on strength speed uh mental strength these are going to

049be opportunities where you can learn how to work hard learn how to continue to push your body um beyond what you currently believe it can do they will plan i really will plan to assess the success of the program for each individual athlete and if there are uh if there's a lack of gains or individuals or groups of athletes you've already clients to alter the program in order to meet the goals he has a lot at stake with regards to this program the benefit for their group they're in the community and this has a really great outcome and certainly going to benefit any questions thank you are there any questions or comments about the borders can we give us first and foremost dr peter thank you for putting this together um i know it worked

050with you a little bit uh but i'm really impressed with how far you ran with this ball so thank you the uh cost slide the 10 500 and that's two coaches at 25 an hour to be clear we already do that correct currently we have one person on at all times during the open slot so after four o'clock if the softball team was in as a team workout there would be a requirement for a software coach to beat it same thing with football or in the other sport but that 234 box lock that was traditionally opened with this type of program we had one paid staff member there to supervise if the numbers don't present indeed two then we would be following the same correct so that's not really an incremental cost associated with this

051program you're just attributing it to this program because there may be two that is correct and it would be increased if we provided a longer period of time and we have tim i understand you're talking to the first student regarding the runs over there uh i know you mentioned just the one but let's assume success correct let's assume there's a 230 and a 3 30. can we also ask them what two runs would look like 230 drop off and then a 3 30 drop off pick up i'm planning on 100 students which would fulfill the maximum think we need to squeeze in everyone else they do not have a high score quickly added into i don't think there'll be any cost on that okay great um and this is a pilot program we're stressing that

052correct this will also open up capacity in our current weight room for non-student athletes to get better to help with their health and fitness this helps in the future to expand it to all students this also has in talking to iroi they are up for uh steeply discounted fact and family discounts so when you talk to yuri enthusiasm is his strong suit so we're we're just trying this out because right now you saw the pictures of our current weight room and when i toured it a year and a half ago i recognized some of the weights from 35 years ago that i touched so i get it it is what it is but there was a cringe worthy moment when i walked in our current weight room so hopefully this works hopefully we see a

053lot of measurable outcomes hopefully yuri is as crazy enthusiastic as he seems which i think he is everyone i talked to um i'm a strong proponent of this if you couldn't guess and once again dr b right thank you for voting for this ball thank you mr mcginnis uh miss reese drew did touch on one of mine i wanted to talk about the non-student athletes but he already touched on that i just had a question about the budget the cost so i um because last year of the pandemic i excuse my influence about how the teens use the weight room but um if we don't hit the cat like so we're we're just charged by the students that use it exactly 15 per student it's i think it's typically thirty five or forty dollars for

054impacting students to go to this program they will charge us the district for fifteen hours per student and it's just not to receive two thousand depends and then um you mentioned the documents and is that i know we all love planet high school we're all love that paperwork times three um but um so the the documents that need to be done are news done through um iroi or are they um done through are we gonna add those to planet high school or i know i'm jumping the gun but we have had conversations uh regarding that exact topic as it stands today our plan would be to require uh the symphony physical paperwork on high school the same way we would for any athlete to participate on a team prior to participation they would not complete

055those uh requirements and then uh lori will have documents on his end that he typically would utilize for members there as well and we would both be providing those documents to each other to make sure that everybody's cleared before they participate and just to be clear i think this is fantastic so thank you to yourself and mr mcginnis and everyone else involved um and just a reminder don't forget your planet high school um paperwork and your physicals because if all of us who've tried to call a pediatrician and get it get an appointment this summer we're going fast thank you mrs president thank you dr spivak um there's a couple of questions that i had um one i would want to make sure that this is accessible for all of our student athletes so the

056transportation availability for all would be a key factor for me to support this um because i know that you know for families with working parents it can be a challenge for students to get to the facility office school hours you know i want to make sure that no one's being left out because of a lack of transportation um [Music] the other question that i had i know um obviously as a gym facility there's the certifications and training and all that for their staff for um physical training um you had mentioned nutrition though is that something that they are certified to do as well so while there may be others individual involved for uh weight training and plyometric work the nutrition and wellness piece will be directly from worry who has an expertise in the field

057i don't know if he'll be utilizing other sources of that but i know that he directly will be providing the information and essentially teaching the students about how to you know be right for their specific situation so my understanding there's actually plans for a restaurant in there that will serve healthy food so that's wonderful i just want to make sure that if we are advising students on how to eat that we have people who are i guess sufficiently trained to do so that is actually something that we you know before that that portion of this is implemented to make sure that that is the case i absolutely agree that uh okay and then um one final thing i know that there was a little bit of a mix up with the presentation not being in

058a package but i would ask that we get this posted to the agenda for public review as well um so that and so the board members have a copy of it to refer back to um prior to being up for a vote thank you [Music] just on that note for the agenda i don't see an action item for us you know i'm assuming just based on what you wanted to hear from the feedback from tonight so would that just be a approve the program with the not to exceed cost is that kind of worth that and would it be on next week's agenda i'm going to have to ask doctors everybody to to weigh in on that one i would imagine there'd be another negative but i'm just not quite sure how that would be

059working any other comments ms trump i just have a few questions that came to mind as i was watching this um one is um so it's 15 a month or are students who are in this program are they then allowed to go to ireland other times or is it just only while they're in the program with their coaches our preliminary discussions have us lead us to believe that the 15 hours per month uh i do not believe that would provide them access during the other times however i would say that's open for discussion where he believes that that would allow them full access at other times that's something we can certainly talk about or maybe like would enable them to have makeup times if they're you know they could come for two other sessions if

060they missed something yes and while this is not part of this presentation on multiple occasions have shared with us that this pilot is just what we're presenting for approval there may be opportunities for them to work with individual coaches and other opportunities for students that are hard of hearing to get in at other times as we mentioned either to make up time for the biggest conflicts with practices and things of that nature so i think i think this is just scratching the surface of what he's going to be able to provide for this cause and then i'm just trying to understand that cause that 10 um with the staffing because then we said that the weight room at the school would then continue to be staffed so it's it is additional cost like like are

061we still going to continue to spend ten thousand at the high school for staffing plus or it'll be less payment towards those staff members that typically would have done our weight room that's pulling transit they've occurred total chances in the iroi and anything that would take place would be supervised by an athletic that they have coaches no additional cost at no additional cost okay thank you for clarifying that and then um i guess my last question then just to clarify then any additional programming outside of i mean part of the cost of the 15 a month includes training by various staff and does that also include any additional programming like we were saying on nutrition or health and wellness and that would all be part of that there's no additional programming costs okay um okay

062and i actually would like to see some of those programs at ottawa then maybe come into the high school especially the nutrition and health wellness um if we can work that out too okay thank you mr mrs purdue thank you dr spivak um just a few points of clarification questions when we talk about the use of the time slot um are they also able to use it if it's during the time spot on a school holiday if they can't get there with their own transportation yeah so we will certainly have to make a determination as to which days where there's no school if it's very in-service for example uh we would provide any opportunity at iowa but may not provide transportation for that day it's uh certain holidays i believe we'd be canceling for that

063day so that's something we have to evaluate um we would be uh we would be following the same protocol that we follow for athletic practices and events it's open for practices on campus and events on campus thank you and then also in reference to that um [Music] will the students be the only ones at the facility during that time slot no however the 230 the reason why the 2330 slides would be all settled on as if it is their lifetime uh at iowa so their facility is significantly less people at that time than it does after 4 30 into the 7 30 time slot where they're getting a lot more people so that is why i should have mentioned this earlier nori will be creating small pods for our athletes today and that will separate

064them from the general public and also the t-shirts will allow us to easily see between the two supervisors from the acton and the ivory employees very easy to supplies and our our main goal is to provide a safe atmosphere that will keep our student athletes focused on their workouts and away from the general public and vice versa but certainly that is a topic that we have been discussing and will be our main priority okay just because i think i have a concern with that is um because you've mentioned i guess the staff who have to provide some type of clearance but once they're missing with those other members of the gym so i don't know i i guess maybe i don't know if he's able to give you more clarification on exactly how those paths

065will be handled or exactly just because somebody on occasional students will forget their shirt right and they may not always have those shirts so if they get lost or anything else so i think that may be important information to have um my next question also is that you mentioned i think they had a really big size sport you mentioned a basketball court do we have access to all the whole facility or just a certain part we'll have access to whatever portion of the facility worried his staff need for that particular workout for that day so typically you'll be utilizing portions of the weight training facility so one day maybe the chest machines and arm sheets they might be the leg machines but depending on how many students we have there a second group at the

066same time maybe doing plyometric work or speed training in the basketball court area and then they would be blocking 30 minutes 30 minutes to fulfill their hour so his plans are utilized um a number of different aspects of their facility uh just with the students depending on what he has in store for them that day with that particular account okay and then also how do you plan on selecting the students um that will go to a higher so our initial conversations uh any student athlete that was rostered uh last school year uh he grades nine through twelve so the eighth grade students that were offshore over last year all winter and spring and any high school students that were rostered last year and then on top of the roster certainly we will space permits if

067there's an athlete that is a junior that can play last year but is participating this year certainly we will work for all of our head coaches to determine who's eligible for the program who's now and that those are conversations that would happen almost immediately on approval of this as we would be any rosters from each of our coaches and those would be eligible students initially other students can position to be part of the program for sure our goal is to get as many of our student athletes in this program as possible thank you miss purdue mr winters yeah i just have one question uh dr speedway the health and safety plan that we just discussed i imagine we've had preliminary discussions with the possibility that it will change obviously it is proposed for what we're

068going to vote on next week but it could change at some point and become much more restrictive what have your conversations been around that subject so similar to what we dealt with last spring most recently last spring within our conference our athletic directors meet often and similar to what mr gina mentioned that may necessitate what time means per week moving forward at this point we're back to our uh once per month with the avs and uh once every third month the principals and ads our big meeting is coming up in august where we will all be sharing where we stand into competition time in august and come up with an agreed upon understanding of what happens when we travel to another school and they travel to us but our goal is to know as best

069we can with the understanding that they that may not necessarily be the case as it was not the case throughout that school year but our goal is to unify as if there's a decision at some point later on that's that requires us to do full-on masking is how you're saying that they're going to be involved with those same type of decision points and would they be under the same criteria is there an agreement for them to follow our criteria of what we're doing here with that absolutely the same criteria and probably at an even higher level where some of our supports allow for distancing you know working out presents challenges with regards to the pandemic so certainly we will be uh very serious about the protocol that we that we follow just like we would

070in our weight room and just like we would um just like we would in any of our sports teams one of the bigger advantages with this is that the space exists there spacing all the way from this very very challenging so opportunities make sense for us to get quality workouts in while still spacing the needs i'm sorry i just thought of one more question in reference to um the cost right so currently it's 15 per student for the pilot have you guys discussed if the pilot works how well if there's an increase to that cost so the discussion uh ultimately revolved around both parties evaluating this pilot throughout the program and absolutely hoping that it goes really well and there'll be discussions for an extension to the program he will have to evaluate the number

071of students based on the cost and we would also have to evaluate uh the success of the program based on the cost but i can't predict how that will go but i get every indication that he's going to do whatever it takes to make to make this work and work yeah i'm thinking about i don't know whether it's considered athletics or a club but i'm thinking about programs like our unified sports um where we have the inclusive model and um just to make sure that that's open i don't know if that would fall under the purview of this program or not or if that's like absolutely i think it would necessitate more conversation about you know how that would all play out but absolutely they would be fully eligible um and there's also could be

072other areas that maybe we haven't uh thought of yet that would be because there are athletic clubs absolutely there are states available and there's a justification for additional students to be a part of this uh the biggest reason for for us even limiting this in any way is because we really don't know what the scope of this is going to look like and with the max number for the pilot we just need to create some parameters but if there's only 200 student athletes that are participating out of the 400 spots we will actually investigate how we can make this available to even more students that maybe don't participate uh maybe they participate in sports these outside schools and so i think this certainly creates a conversation around other students being eligible but unified sports absolutely

073okay i mean that was really my main question because of the i mean it's a great inclusive program that we're really proud of and i just want to make sure that because i know that that you know we're hoping to expand that into different areas as well so okay thank you great question thank you any other questions or comments from the board dr spielberg thank you very much appreciate the presentation and your answers this evening board presentations for next week on july 27 2021 i will be hearing a presentation from mr mcfarland with regards to the lower providence township proposal for the audubon elementary school moving on reports we typically give at the voting session next week but for the superintendent's report i would like to take this opportunity to communicate a message from our

074superintendent doctors irving as communicated in a previous letter to our community dr zurby outlined that the methane school district fully condemns any incidents of hate bias or discrimination and remains committed to fostering an environment that appreciates our diversity and provides an exceptional effect and experience for all furthermore the mythical school board in august 2020 established an office of diversity equity and inclusion as a starting point for a larger conversation surrounding ddi the district hired a consultant to assist in the discussion that resulted in forming a district dei team comprised of students teachers administrators and members of the public the work progressed over the past several months with the first recommendation finding its way on the agenda for consideration this evening the staffing of the dei office and the assignment of the temporary duties to a

075sitting administrator to fill the gap between now and the official start of the new district position dr zurby has informed me that in an effort to increase the understanding of this work an infographic defining the work ahead will be provided next week at the board meet thank you for allowing me to make that message and i'm going to move it on to physical items with mr becker [Music] we'll have the list of bills treasury report burn of budgetary transfers for the email projects we'll have the approval of optimum performance balancing to complete the tab and the commission at a cost of 35 700 there's also four change orders please note that these changeovers are preliminary it may change in cost but not scoped by the board meeting the approved change order pc-001 in the amount

076of 35 460 dollars four cents for the relocation of the rainwater conductors up for the changing order pc-002 in the amount of three thousand one hundred forty one dollars one century cocaine and spigots approve the change order gc002 in a manner of 18 158 to remove and replace all the 3x3 windows approve the additional cost to be determined in order to rent the hvac units to provide heat employment due to delay the hvac units there's also four change orders for the high school canopy entire project change order number two in the amount of nine thousand six hundred thirty seven dollars to replace the storm height at the gym entrance change order three in the amount of nine thousand one hundred three dollars for the storm easement and footing modifications of the gym entrance change reward

077four and the amount of eight thousand seven hundred twenty seven dollars for soil exchange and retaining walls and slab backfill near the school work zone approve change order number six in the amount of eight thousand nine hundred four dollars for a dream piping time for storm under trains will have the approval of idd to complete the tab and commissioning at a cost of 20 500. we'll also have you approved hills harness for providing material construction testing and inspection service and an additional cost of twenty thousand two hundred seventy one dollars for a total contract of fifty four thousand nine hundred and nine dollars and finally uh pretty fidelia to move forward with the design phase of the roofing project and the building automation system as fabulous thank you mr burger just to the point of

078clarification nine f number one should be arrowhead and not evil though is that correct yes thank you any questions or comments from the board let's say would you like to finish the comments on this here and then we'll go back to the class because that's what this claims any other questions oh my question is we had three questions very late in the day so i don't know if you saw that but three questions via email so we can either answer those now or next week and i don't believe the gentleman is in the audience so next week is fine i i just went to the eye doctor this weekend my readers aren't in yet so i hate to admit it but i'm i don't want to look on my computer and read those questions right

079now we can make sure that the email gets sent to you yeah i just want to make sure okay i just i'm not reading them off of my phone right now because there's a question on legal fees right now our legal fees total 1.7 million dollars predominantly over comprised the next question is regarding tax refunds there was a assessment appeal settlement 2650 eisenhower so that we had to pay basis in the summer we had to refund the taxes associated with that and there's a question on the alerts buttons that is the panic buttons or are there emergency buttons at a school that you push that's that's thanks for your time thank you miseries any other questions or comments from the world fiscal years seeing that thank you mr parker mr motors thanks for bringing it

080to my attention to go back to the advisements my apologies we do have three items under advisement the first item is the transfer of dawn has from special education instructor eagle elementary school to grade three instructor at woodland elementary school second is the appointment of dr mangano the principal of arcola intermediate school to the supervisor of special education and the third is the amount of 16 185 cents from the allowances within the area construction project utilized to address the unanticipated material transportation cost coverages any questions or comments reporting just a quick clarification on [Music] thank you any other comments or questions for the board seeing none we'll move on to personalities and i believe that lost dr sergey is not with us this evening so i'll be taking personality for today we have two resignations

081one for resignation retirement of linda cyber i'd like to thank miss cyber for her years 13 years of service to the metacan school district she is a wonderful individual we wish her the best in her retirement so thank you linda for your years of service second is a resignation of classified staff with mary marianne pastino again mary ann has been a wonderful addition to our staff um and we will miss marianne in the future we wish you the best in retirement we have five items for employment for professional employees three items for employment of classified employees one item for the job description administrative and that is the approve the job description for the position of supervisor of diversity equity inclusion this job description outlines the important work necessary to support each of the critical operational

082areas of the district including curriculum people services human resources communication among others the job description was composed from the recommendations received from dr campbell via the district's dei committee if approved the district will begin advertising for this post at the end of july with the anticipation of filling the position by september early october we have a change of status professional must be approving the appointment of ms jose nietzsche to teach on assignment to the interim principal for war sister due to the uncertainty of the principal positioning of war sister we're seeking the approval of joyce nietzsche currently the dean of students of warchester to be appointed as the principal beginning august 1 2021 and to serve the students staff and war sister community until further notice a communication of such recommendations was sent to the

083worst center families and staff and there as you can see there's a monthly stipend above and beyond uh foreign we have one item for uncompensated leave administrative one item for uncompensatedly professional two items under supplemental contract with one revision that should say june 30th 2022 at the end of item one and one item for volunteers and i'll be happy to take any questions or comments um i'll go backwards volunteers um since we mentioned in the health and safety plan that we will be able to have volunteers again i saw and that's fine only one volunteer on the list so yay for her um i just wanted to i guess we're back on track with um you know the paperwork for the volunteers and i think it's every five years we are yes that's correct every

08460 months in our database active and inactive i want to say if i remember correctly there's three to four thousand volunteers on the books in the district so yeah we might see one or two we have many many volunteers [Laughter] and then going up the list here um we you know this summer is always busy for hiring and we've gotten some of the difficult foreign language positions filled and with these retirements that are on i believe the physical education has already been posted and i wasn't sure about the music just kind of fill me in where we are in the summer and i can wait for mr jamie next week as well but no that's it's a it's a great question actually um fortunately we just had music interviews so we're able to use some

085of the existing pool of candidates to console those individuals back in to interview with our staff and get a position maybe a little different so and with a different leader and a different group that they may be working with so we'd like them to have the opportunity to to interview with that specific staff but um fortunately we've run a few interviews and then it's nice to see the seventh all the special education positions and seventh grade position filled how else are we doing classroom-wise so so far pretty well and again in the recent retirements he was a little nervous it's not something that is new to us um but fortunately with some of the revisions that we just had in the last mba contract with the retirement date moving up the allowance of the increase

086to six day payout it has allowed individuals to put in their retirement a little bit earlier which has allowed us to be a little out of the game uh so that's been very beneficial to us okay and then as far as the coaches there's typically a little more vacant on the list because coaches are hard to find so that's wonderful and it's so nice to see repeat names as far as the football assistant coaches are they kind of vacant because we're just filling the head coach again so he is responsible for kind of feeling not responsible that helps spill that there are fire if i remember there's these are two vacant assistant coaching positions doctors thank you and i think those were open even under the previous head coach so we'll still be looking to

087open those up but we'll be waiting for the current head coach to come on to hire those two staff members all right the only other question i have on the coach list is um [Music] uh i know sometimes coaches sign their contract like right after their season ends like they know they want to come back so are we sure that all these names are okay i think i saw a name of maybe someone who is stuck in england maybe i don't know i can i can speak to that one and he is slated to be back in august so we're good so thankfully we got that answered any other questions or comments from the board of personnel items seeing none we'll be moving on to curriculum items i believe yes and we have no items

088on the curriculum um there is an update that i'd like to have and i apologize i wouldn't even read this off my phone i did not have an opportunity to print this off but on june 30th 2021 governor tom wolf signed in acts 66 of 2021 into law act 66 permits students that were in grade enrolled during the 2021 school year to repeat grade level in an effort to make up for any lost educational opportunities due to go good 19 pandemic even if the student met the requirements to be promoted to the next grade level parents guardians and students at or over the age of 18 had until july 15th to elect to have their child or themselves repeat a grade level for the 2021-2022 school year by completing and submitting the pde form to

089the school district in addition act 66 permits students with disabilities who are enrolled during the 2021 school year and turned age 21 during the school year or before the start of the 2021 school year in the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year so that that didn't come off my tongue properly as well as it did in my head but what happens is if you turn 21 within those summer months before the start of the school year you are still eligible with this program and i'm getting it on from dr angstadt so i know i'm doing okay with that thank you dr eggsten to attend the school interview during the 2021-2022 school year and receive services out as outlined on their most recent individualized educational program iep at present there are eight students who have elected

090to repeat or attend an additional year dr ampstead and the special education supervisors are following up with each of the families to ensure that all requests are handled on an individual basis according to six any questions with regards to x66 wonderful thank you sorry do we have a handle on how many kids signed up for right now there's eight and doctor anderson he'll be following up with those families because there are very requests that people had signed up and we certainly need to communicate with them so thank you very much any of the questions wonderful we have no items under policy we will are we do not have policy committee meetings during the months of july and august and we'll be revisiting the action items of policy in our september board meeting items under other

091for coughing resolution 21-01 is to approve the resolution of 21-0 as presented this resolution is recommended to the texas school district during a state emergency declaration and provides greater flexibility in providing online or other alternative instructional options if in fact were forced to limit capacity or close a school we passed a similar resolution last year the recommendation of our solicitor to allow us to remain in compliance with school code when under emergency declaration which is still in place as an example we have state approval to provide flexible instructional days commonly referred to the ability to provide online instruction in place of calling a snow day the state allows for five days per year and the instance that we're required to modify our instructional delivery to all online due to community transmission rates this resolution will

092allow us to do that beyond five days item 3d is the office of diversity and inclusion contemporary administrative duties assignment until we are to hire the supervisor of diversity equity inclusion we're seeking to appoint an administrator to temporarily fill the transition period when dr campbell leaves us in august and until the hiring of the person for the full-time position this is not a permanent position but a set of important tasks in which are already which are already sitting administrator with fully with full-time position workload could reasonably take on in a few months there may be a small monthly stipend recommended here and we plan to have a name on the agenda by next week for transportation we have three items [Music] and i believe that is all we have for other any questions or comments

093from the board ms um transportation um we talked about it at the property committee but mr bricker i count 86 drivers on this list which i think is close to what we need we can plan up to 94 but right now is pretty good for us at this point and i mean the enquirer big story today in the enquirer we all know there's a school bus driver shortage so thank you to all those on this list um so we're in other words first students kind of looking for about eight more yeah that list also includes the other third parties so tonight you'll be improving next week you'll be improving the third party transportation companies that we utilize as well as the employed rosters which is both first student and the other third party members the

094state auditors have asked that we include anytime a new employee comes on and rather it just once at the beginning of the year but as people come in we've approved the months that they come in so that the school organization so hopefully you see lots and lots of names there thank you miss reese thank you mr speaker any other questions or comments from the board seeing that turn it up to president thank you mr regina um so we have our dates for board members calendars with our regular meeting next week and then committee and board meeting in august does anyone have anything for old business this evening can i just add that the policy committee is not intending to meet in august as we noted that's still included on the internet yep we'll make sure

095that that gets officially removed from the calendar anything for old business i don't know if it's old or new but just the reading teacher in me wants to remind everybody about the one book one school selection um i actually read it and i will admit i was hesitant because i was reading fluff at the beginning of the summer after a tough school year but um i luckily it suggested that parents of high school students read it which i am but it also suggests that community members read it and it was a really really good book and like most books the movie didn't do it justice was so much better than the movie so it's called just mercy brian stevenson one book one school selection for the fact and so thank you to the staff that

096suggested that book because uh the feedback i received is it's one of the better selections we've had lately so just mercy thank you mysteries anything else for old business anything for new business all right so with that we'll move on to courtesy of the floor um i know we have a lot of new faces here so i just wanted to reiterate a couple of things about courtesy of the floor regarding our policy we've got policy number 903 regarding public participation in board meetings and the purpose of this policy is that the board recognizes the value to school governance of public comment on educational issues and the importance of involving members of the public in board meetings the board also recognizes its responsibility for proper governance of the district and the need to conduct its business

097in an orderly and efficient manner the board requires public participants be residents or taxpayers of this district anyone representing a group in the community or school district any district employee or any district student participants must be recognized by the presiding officer that's me and must practice their comments by an announcement of their name municipality of residence and group affiliation if applicable each statement made by a participant shall be limited to four minutes duration all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer no participant may address or question board members individually members of the public shall not be permitted to participate in debate regarding issues before the board nor to question school staff regarding board and administrative issues and procedures during meetings of the board unless permitted by the presiding officer so with that i will

098move on to taking members of the public who would like to participate in courtesy of the floor if you could come up to the podium and just please be mindful of your distancing um for everyone comfort as you walk up hi my name is my two kids i am a child mom and i have two kids in register um one is autistic um i want to thank the board for their support of the dpi and the whole child first education i'd like to ask the administration to work hard to hire director of dei so that we can better support all of our students a dei office is critical for the full support of all students but tonight i'm going to focus on one particular benefit of the dei lfs and that's the role dei office

099plays in supporting our children we will utilize special education services as we know from parents in the district even though ibp or applied here before helps break break down educational barriers is not the whole picture these children who require special services will grow into adults and enter the real world of equal importance the children who do not require special services will also grow into adults and enter the real world and all of these adults will live and work together in the real world well beyond their k-12 experience that's why inclusion is so crucial inclusion means that these children with different education skills and needs will learn from the first day of school the very last day of school how to work together how to cooperate how to see other seek other perspectives and how to

100think critically when they do this together in an inclusive environment every single student enters the world of adulthood better prepared for what lies ahead i'd also like to address a delicate subject which has made the rounds on social media recently our school man's faculty warrior for many students this man's path is a great source of pride even even decades after graduation our alumni look back and remember our warrior as a symbol of a wonderful time at the back but there is another perspective many native americans view native american mascot characters as defensive and as appropriation of their culture while discussions so far have been largely limited to social media there will inevitably be a time that these discussions become more formal conversations and for that reason as well it is critical to fill the role

101of tdi director is somewhat knowledgeable someone who when uncomfortable conversations such as this arrives can help us navigate these strong emotions so that we all hear each other all treat each other with respect and regardless of outcome all emerge as an even stronger community and one last thing about the ivory program i'm just saying the special needs kids might really like that so just an idea thank you hi marissa lower providence i love program while i don't disagree that health nutrition and fitness is very important important part of every word should be if everyone's like i'm i'm really struggling with the fact that this is a hot topic at the moment we've lost over 100 students this past school year when i emailed the board about this topic i was told by miss cancer that

102there should be an exit started given so that we know my students are leaving but that's not happening i'm concerned that this district continues to lose students and our ranking continues to drop and we are talking about a contract at a fitness center off campus that we're now providing transportation to when we no longer have a late bus to bring students home from practice i work my husband worked i would not be able to tell my children at five so i would have to rely on someone else to do that there used to be a late class if we're going to start doing something like this i think we need to think a bigger picture and incorporate all students and be able to provide transportation for everyone the gym fitness center while germany has said

103it was princeworthy i can think and i'm an alum as well 97 graduate and it was been part of me back then so if it's on the scene then that is i'm sure it needs some updating but there are many other cringe worthy things in this district that i feel are much higher priority than a fitness center one of the things that really struck me was on one of the slides i said over 100 people will be in there one time but think about the slide about the health and safety slides we want our kids three feet apart and my daughter sat in lunch with plenty glass at her table last year but we're going to throw 100 kids in a fitness center something doesn't add up there our priorities are screwed up back to

104last fall students were on this campus at playing sports at arcola at the high school but our kids were home learning virtually where does that show where our priorities were on sports not education another thing of that that really has me upset not one club at arcola was in person last year it was all virtual including national junior honor society they had to read to elementary school children over they couldn't do that in person but now fast forward that we're going to throw 100 kids in a gym and we have kids on campus playing sports but we couldn't have in-person clubs we are so much talking about being inclusive right now and i'm just struggling because it seems like unless you're an athlete many other things aren't actually including other kids i think we need

105to think bigger picture of all the students um miss purdue brought up the same thing that i was also thinking with over a hundred people in there and with all due respect to your agency's a great trainer and i'm sure it's a beautiful facility there will be other people there so how are we tracking covid tracing etc one last point t-shirts were listed as a cost the 25 thousand dollars for the pilot program why not increase athletic fees i don't know why this is a taxpayer thing increase athletic fees for students parents because i don't necessarily think that this should fall in taxpayers i think we need to think about our priorities and keep what's most important at hand and that's our drop in ranking and losing students [Music] [Applause] hello my name is uh

106chris chipman i graduated in 2017. um i thought there was going to be some type of topic about the native american headdress um remaining the logo sorry i just need you to state your municipality oh i am from lower provinces yeah i was just wondering if that was going to be any topic at all um i am an advocate for keeping it um and also keeping the name attacking warriors i'm not sure if that's on the table or not for you guys like is there a vote coming up we usually wait till the end but chris excuse me i think you said your name was sugarman my eyes and my ears today i tried to dispel i don't usually comment on social media but i tried to dispel that rumor um just so you know

107and thank you for bringing that up we the board has never discussed that at meetings um it was just rumors around the community so i apologize if you came expecting that there is so like i don't have to worry about that at all as far as i know and correct me if i'm wrong mr mr president or mr regina i do not know what what the dei new supervisor that we're going to hire or the group is going to suggest but that has not never been a board conversation in because all of our conversations have to be in public so um so i guess just over time like just come back that ever arises or it's i would love to you know have a good conversation with everybody about it and stuff like that so

108if you're having an opinion this evening i mean you're certainly free to speak on the topic but there's indicators to be honest it should stay it's you know you're trying to get rid of it i think it would be you're trying to erase history you gotta understand that that's what the native americans were way back when so i mean just keeping it the same and if you were to get rid of the logo you're basically trying to get rid of just any you know history of native americans at all it's almost i think in my opinion if you're given a logo you're trying to say that native americans never existed you know they never had any problems with something that i see it the logo as a learning tool not to you know pump the

109physical arm of anyone and understand it back then sometimes i guess that's just how they settle stuff so i just want everyone to understand to learn from history and not have it repeat itself so thank you [Applause] [Music] today i'd like to speak on our constitutionally protected right in the first amendment the prison of the speech i grew up in the communist country china where censorship is still the norm and the all media controlled by the government we have you have no public platform or channels to express your different opinion or or criticize the government or the communist party i didn't realize that freedom of speech is a god-given human right until it came to the u.s today having left my home country for 20 years i'm a u.s citizen now but in last month's

110regular board meeting when madam president said i called my old member please tune in to the june 22nd meeting for last three minutes to hear her original words she was consulting the solicitor on how to perform censorship in a legal way in manhattan she was trying to suppress the constitutionally given right the freedom of speech it was mind-blowing to me i thought i came to the country to enjoy to be able to enjoy the freedom of speech i didn't expect censorship to come back to me again right here in los angeles in the few in our u.s teachers students parents community members anyone should have the right to speak their mind openly and freely without fear of vengeance or punishment debate or deliberation should not be suppressed just because the ideas put forth or stopped

111by some even most community members including the school board members to be ridiculous offensive or wrong-headed here's a quote from the law from the case of the u.s supreme court 1964 case new york times versus sullivan the supreme court judges wrote this nation is founded on the profound national commitment to the principle that the debate of the public issues shall be uninhibited robust and wide open and it may well include a vehement caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials ironically our president did bring up something related to the first amendment mr president when you talked about separation state and church and state do you really understand what it means in the first amendment do you know in what situation church separation of church states should be applied to the separation church

112and state means that the government should not make laws regarding religious practice with the intention to protect religious freedom it doesn't mean an individual citizen cannot express her personal religious belief in the government setting or the government cannot talk about religions in fact the opposite is true as an individual citizen i mean i'm speaking from the public i represent myself i have the constitutionally given right to speak whatever is in my mind in whatever tone no matter if you like it or not if you don't like it don't live in america try to immigrant to where i came from and then who are you to tell us taxpayers what we can say what we cannot say you are sitting on the chair in the room we paid for i also found something ironic about this

113board that the board director was afraid to curse a community member a mother but the public are not allowed to stay her own personal religious belief which does not align with director's ideologies it seems important only a lot of people who have the same ideology to speak freely but would bully or intimidate into silence those who think otherwise is this the kind of diversity equity and inclusion you guys advocate thank you there's still a need going on [Applause] moving forward prior to this in-person meeting i know there was a special meeting i believe it was last week that was in person but prior to that everything was on the zoo before covet i never attended a school board meeting i have five children i work two full-time jobs and while i'm very invested in my

114children's education there's only so many hours in the day and i was never able to do that when covet started i was able to join on zoom and listen and learn and get educated i didn't live in the pacton until october of 2017. so i really wasn't familiar with any of the the background so to speak of anyone on the board and you know the hot topic issues such as i know we mentioned the facilities so it was really an opportunity for me to manage my job handle virtual education and also participate in the district i really appreciated it um now that we're back in person i asked and i knew during the zoo meetings we had asked during courtesy of the floor would the virtual option continue once we were back in person i

115know it a couple times i didn't get a response most recently madam president did email me and let me know the only way to participate would be to come in person well i'll be honest as i mentioned i have five children i have two jobs my husband works full-time both of us are soccer coaches i am an educator in our parish for religious education and i travel for work coming in person isn't always an option and that's my particular situation there are many people who work outside of hours of nine to five we can be here at seven o'clock it would really be limiting for us to stop the community involvement that i had the opportunity to take advantage of and many others that couldn't be here tonight i know specifically especially in the summer

116people are on vacation that really shouldn't limit us in our ability to communicate in person or virtually during covet we had the opportunity to do back-to-school night virtually i'll be honest with someone this year in high school arcola skyview intuit worcester back to school night is hard it is juggling homework child care sports transportation and all of the things and having virtual environment as an option for parents and caregivers is important so i'm hoping that ms acton does not forget the successes that were achieved with the communication zoom google me facetime etc i was able to have more conferences with our teachers this past year than i have before my husband was able to participate i'm always back to school night by myself because he's the one running the kids around i wanted him to

117come he'd never been to arcola i was the one who was back to school night sky view et cetera i've been to warchester and it's not because he doesn't want to be involved i think we need to think about families today the working world that exists second shift nurse shouldn't have to miss the opportunity to take her lunch break at dinner time and call in and comment about something i really sounds honestly like when you look at the weight room we have today high school i was completely unaware when you see the opportunity that exists that's awesome and i would love to comment on that and i know you said that we could email but there's a lot of emails that happen and not all of them get answers and that's not anyone's fault but

118i think it's important that we as taxpayers and parents should still have the opportunity to have our voice heard in real time if we are dialing in and we are going to listen and we should be able to communicate just like everyone else does um i tried to watch the special meeting last week and the sound was very very difficult i texted my husband tonight and i asked him i said how was the audio and he said it's very difficult to hear we need to correct that because when we were on zoom obviously that wasn't a challenge but i really hope for next week you reconsider the opportunity moving forward that people can call in and still participate so that we are including everyone because i want to still continue to participate and i am

119not going to always have the option to come here every week and do this and i would like that opportunity thank you [Music] i would like to thank the school board and the administration for supporting the dei committee and ask that you as quickly as you possibly can get a very good qualified candidate into that director position as a parent of children with special needs and in the lgbtq community sorry um i have seen firsthand the need for this committee and the changes that it will hopefully bring the addition of behavioral supports and training in the regularized environment will definitely benefit children who are with special needs are often disciplined for behaviors that are a manifestation of their diagnosis due to the lack of supports all students regardless of race gender identity disability or any

120other difference need to feel that they are an integral part of the impacted academics clubs sports and not outsiders looking in i'm looking forward to the dei director and committee and how they will help to make this a reality i have another comment as an effective alumnus um i actually support the change to the mascot if that happens uh my vacant pride is not dependent on an image it comes from my experiences within this district as alumnus and parent um i have seen comments that while it's such a small group it finds an offensive um even if it is only a small group that finds that offensive and i'm not sure that's true that doesn't mean that it shouldn't change um it's always been this way has never been a good mindset we should always

121be learning evolving and changing based on what we learned thank you [Applause] hi my name is shannon cheeks and i'm a president of oral problems i'd like to thank the board for their support of ddx thank you very much i appreciate it and i know a lot of our community does um as you most of you know on the board i rarely speak at least and speak at what means i am much more comfortable doing the work from behind the scenes however after a year of listening to explore meetings hearing the divisiveness and rhetoric from the public comments especially the hateful and downright ignorant comments by members of the community as i hope right now why always relax at last month's meeting i felt compelled to speak tonight i am a special ed teacher and

122above all i am a factor mother i have two wonderful children who love acting education should always be about our children the idea in 12 years 2021 we are having a conversation about acceptance inclusion and at fair minimum people tolerating all of the points of view and backgrounds and orientations of other people is insane to me the language and hateful record that has been used in previous meetings the discussion about how to educate our children coming from those who are neither educators more let alone their parents participate and we have been hearing and lies and misinformation and they must be called out as a member of our community turned out last month in last month's meeting clearing math science english and other poor curriculum are essential to teaching our children but as an educator i

123hope that a public school will be 19 or 2021 we would be committed to teaching the whole child it is not 1951 it is and any school striving for excellence should understand the importance of teaching to the whole child not just before the curriculum to to score well on a keystone test environment to the administration and dr jordan who is not here today if you are unwilling to call out hateful speech at your own board meetings and within the walls of our public school and i'm emphasizing our public school i will it is this language has no place in a public school where my children reside in 2021 period thank you [Applause] hello my name is shawn doherty i'm a resident of north providence i've been in the mathematical school district for the past four

124years i have four kids that are in the school district who have graduated who that are still coming through i support the plans to support i support the plan and set up the office of diversity and inclusion i also support the plan to hire a bi officer the reason i support these plans is because the office of diversity and inclusion will help enhance the environment that we have in our school district by getting diverse we celebrate all cultures ideas and this makes deeds that all students are treated equally across the board and also by being inclusive no one will feel left out and no one will feel left behind i want my doctor to thrive as a diverse community of loving individuals thank you almost 20 years now on three children in the district and

125i just wanted to thank the board for the the open conversations about middle class um thank you for the thoughtful logical continuity of education program the safety health and safety plans being open about the uh facilities i think that's very important something that we've had difficulty with in the past so thank you i also wanted to thank you for your discussion about the ddi office i think that's an exceptional thing our district to do many districts in pennsylvania throughout the country i work in the business sector and in the fortune of 500 companies in general 21st century 500 companies who have a dei officer many of those are in the c level executive team i think that's very important for our school district to get involved with because as somebody mentioned earlier people are going

126to grow up and leave our district and work and live in the community and i think the dei officer allows the conversations with both the school the students as well as the community to be able to understand and appreciate our diverse world that we live in i think also looking at the website of some of the local communities phoenix film in particular says there's a moral imperative to remove any roadblocks open all doors of opportunities in order to achieve equitable outcomes for all students that speaks again to that little child from the students with special needs to people from diverse backgrounds i think it's important that we all get to know that um ryan angelo said when we know better we do better when we know more we do better and i think it's wonderful

127for the fact it is knowing that all right nice call for courtesy all right sorry i'm a little closer is that okay [Music] i am a resident of lower providence township for 23 years i think i have three teachers three children in the district one graduated to currently high school students one goes to north montgomery teacher and educator and administrator of school in the area and i know many of you personally and professionally many people work here i have nothing written down to say today but i love my head i'm a passionate person and my biggest passion is students and kids and education i hear all of you talk about the ei and equity and conclusion and all of this and i think that's great but y'all have to understand that we're all individuals with

128our own unique things to bring forward okay we're all different parents we're all different people everything can't be equal all the time and i used to be proud of this district i mean i used to talk a fact about everybody i'm not proud anymore and it's sad to feel that way and i feel that way because we're an embarrassment to our community what we went through this past year i know it's hard for everybody i know there's a lot of decisions that needed to be made there are a lot of choices to make but we failed our children miserably and that's embarrassment i know a lot of parents struggle a lot of students struggled some did well at home you know we don't have inclusion for children who are middle of the road students speaking

129as an educator i understand the whole child i understand what it's about i'm not a perfect person i'm not a perfect parent nor am i a perfect administrator of school but the fact of the matter is is these kids are our future and we're failing them because of our lack of decision making our lack of bravery to take on something different this year to show them by example what intelligent caring adults should do in situations and that's sad but enough about that i've been to the ivory facility without for speedwack against you it's beautiful it's great my kids were there tonight playing basketball their workout room is not much bigger than that workout room their building if you drive past germantown pike and you take a look at it how many feet did you say

130it was forty thousand i don't know whatever square feet it is eighty percent of that is the basketball court seventy one seventy four thousand okay seventy thousand is probably the basketball i'm not i'm a visual person anyway that's not going to be inclusive sending some student athletes there on buses after school shuttling them there to be able to work out my kids have worked out the facilities at the school and they're fine think about the facilities you have i mean the wage they don't get old and break they can last for 30 years 50 years whatever and who's going to pay for that it's 75 pay to play right now for the athletes is that going to go up to 100 who's all going to be able to afford that who's paying for that who's

131going to pay for the pilot program that some small percentage of kids that's another subject i didn't even know that was on the agenda's way but i just think that we need to rethink this equity and inclusion and think how the middle of the road kids or kids who have special needs or kids who have ap you know have taken ap classes because i have three kids and they're all very different and they've all had very different experiences in the background school district i mean no disrespect to any of you i know that you all voted on to be on this board i know you all worked hard this past year but what has gone on this past year was embarrassing so i hope moving forward we can have a much more positive experience and

132be proud about it again [Applause] yes [Music] so sheila smith lower providence thank you for allowing me this time to speak i just have two topics i just want to touch upon one was a discussion um during the board working session around safety and resource goals just a couple of quick comments or questions for you guys to consider before you vote next week in school who determines who administers the test to stay protocol that was mentioned with chops what criteria will be used to determine if the protocol would be administered how will the parents be notified to provide consent and what happens if you can't notify them or if a parent declines and as a board member a board member mentioned the importance of consistency into what guidance were following so i also asked that

133in addition that consistency the board consider consider the criteria that they leverage so when choosing new sources so for instance it's critical to choose a source that doesn't utilize confirmed bodies because to follow true science one has to look at all the evidence and to allow healthy debate not just showcase evidence that supports the part of belief so that's not good science and that's not good policy making and that's speaking from someone who's been in the pharmaceutical industry for 25 years so i just encourage that consideration and especially when we can't anticipate the potential damages both physically and mentally when you think about the whole student and what our children have to endure um this past year and as we go into the new normal so to speak and i know that one board member

134can nip in on her social media page about the ability to you know the pandemics foster connection i actually have a different uh perspective i think because we've moved into this virtual environment of zoom and haven't been interacting with each other that we've become less confident and less we don't really foster open debate which then brings me to my second topic around the whole child approach that really fosters balance and facilitates the diversity of thinking so with that i really feel you know with the platform that execution of the whole child approach really requires the board administration students staff and parents to work together demonstrate active listening not listening to response but listening to understand and to really model mutual respect so i too this is my first time ever speaking at aboard me i

135have listened the whole year through and i have to tell you i think there's opportunity for every individual both in the community and on the board to really self-reflect on how have their behaviors and actions really supported the child so i think we have an opportunity to connect a retrospective and an after-action review so to really look about not only what we've done well but where are there opportunities to learn and to see what should we stop doing or start doing because i do feel it's critical to acknowledge failures or opportunities that didn't turn out the way that we thought that they would so i really challenged us to think about ways that we can facilitate two-way dialogue and open debate and this type of forum and allows me to talk happy but it doesn't

136really allow two-way dialogue and to really seek to understand each other's different perspectives so i know i've also had correspondence with dr derby about the strategic plan which i'm very excited about i'm sorry i'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up in june you know he aligned to the he had mentioned about the rankings or 74 out of 494. so i just asked us you know with that vast list of accomplishments that we really align them to the strategic tenants and really outline how it's active value-based rather than activity thank you [Music] [Applause] hi my name is timothy francis rhodes from lower providence township i'm here to talk about the dei um i like the state to thank you to the board uh just on holding the true values and ideas of

137andrew jackson and a democratic party progressives always think they know what's best and tell people when they should be offended washington post oh paul shows 90 90 percent of dave america the second time because the washington post where i called him praga sat there and said 68 of native americans are not offended but a school or teams use their culture i quote it's just to me in honor to respect their heritage and people are overly sensitive hear that sensitive just reminder to direct your comments at the board oh don't worry i will on the name on uh arrowhead arrows have been used since the fourth century bc they are used all over the world and is a symbol of common ancestry for all humans the school board has more [Music] pressing issues at hand and

138should stop colonizing and weight-washing our school district the school should honor the people who have come before us and respect that with pride to their ancestors thank you [Music] good evening john car warsaw township after much thought on what to say and who to say it too i've come to the realization that no matter what is said that the current board members it'll make no difference on the direction that they want to take why do i say this because of recent if your thought process values or morals don't align with our board member she will indirectly let me know by stating she vows to do everything in her power to have every boy or girl feel included here in both acting isn't that what we all want also i find it astonishing that the majority

139of the board members can be found on social media posting this again shows that no matter what is said it falls on deaf ears of course there are topics we can all agree to disagree on but when you have put your personal propaganda in front of our children's education network that's where the line needs to be drawn dei crt critical race theory is a hot topic can be implemented into our districts whether you agree or disagree i would like to know why nobody receives clear answers on how dei community organization and school task force are not correlated how you how you have sitting school board members teachers administrators on a community organization and there's no connection so as you can probably guess i feel that you're confusing tangled dei web is a complete overreach in

140education in our school let's take a look at a few of these who received the survey that you spoke about for the dei task force why didn't i get a survey why didn't the 10 people i speak to get a survey how did you target who the surveys went to to know if there was a true problem here at this district when will you reveal the information right before the school right before school for parents teachers and students so that we can't decide what we want to do as a parent some teachers have already taken it upon themselves to start pushing their own beliefs political opinions onto our students well this is crossing into a lane that they don't belong in it's my job as a parent not teachers to admit or administrators to teach

141and educate my children on these topics as we have all seen education take a turn over the past year i'm asking that if you allow books to be read from the teacher resource list on the dei task force site that support with acting community and hot topics like crt to be taught that us as parents we have the right to be notified ahead of time that we can have our child withdrawn from class for the period the day or whatever it may be just like we can do for parties videos sex ed class why are we not focusing our time and energy on traditional education like was stated before reading writing arithmetic technology how about spending time updating the district platform on for virtual classrooms laptops for students or district technology or educating teachers on

142how to actually use the programs rather than educating them on something that's not their responsibility to teach our children as our rankings continue to drop it shows that we're not directing our attention in the proper place the real belief that some of you on the board see this has gotten out of control and has went too far but are afraid to stand up against it and so school board members i hope that you see it for what it is our kids don't need this nor do we although a small group may think otherwise and i respect them for thinking that and i have to ask you to wrap it up now i will wrap it up so my final statement is that i i believe that dei is a parenting thing i think that parents

143can teach that stuff to our to our kids [Music] [Applause] hello my name is jeanette o'keefe forecaster township um i was happy to hear from the health and safety plan that mass will be optional i guess in the lower um percentages um the number one statement in the health and safety plan was the importance of in-person introduction which i'm so happy to hear about the five days i just wanted to ask tonight if an emergency happens and we do have to go to virtual why friday asynchronous [Music] every student in this district has had a different experience with async some kids are done in 20 minutes somebody on that board tell me how that is a good education you can't because it isn't teachers can teach we've been doing this now for a year i

144am an educator we've got this under our belt so teachers can teach all five days in a virtual setting if that is needed thank you [Music] [Applause] anyone else for courtesy of the floor caracolas lower providence i've been watching this unfold over the past few years or actually since january 6. i've heard a lot of conversation that would have you believe that [Music] racism ended in 1960 that colorblind education is working for our students i haven't heard solutions to explain why [Music] black students in lower providence score significantly lower than white students in this district i do believe that this school board is looking to address that and that it's an important opportunity for us to continue their white students according to great schools perform at 90 of the standard black students perform at 73

145percent that is what diversity equity and inclusion is looking to address those who don't appreciate history are doomed to repeat it we know what works we i believe in supporting children and ensuring that all of our children have access to the education that they deserve regarding the pandemic this is an unprecedented event to act like it is anything other than an unprecedented event is disingenuous my parents were born in 1934 in the dust bowl of texas they grow up in the depression they know adversity and they learn from adversity we can teach our children to be resilient as we talked about parent responsibility or we can teach them to be victims and i don't believe that that's what we need to be teaching our children we need to teach them that these things happen bad

146things happen it's never going to be perfect i support diversity equity and inclusion in our schools i support history i work for lockheed martin and as an employer we are looking for students that understand and convert critically to do the jobs for the 21st century and moving on and if we hide and pretend and not teach our children to think critically and look at a variety of different opportunities we are doing them a huge disservice so i appreciate the work you do and i wanted to make sure that i took a strong stand to tell you that i am supportive of the opportunities and the efforts they're going in it is an unprecedented time and i appreciate you thank you hello uh i wanted to first thank the district and the board for bringing us

147back to in person uh i think that even the slightest bit of normalcy is awesome uh the simple fact is that i think that like we said earlier being a part has driven us apart i think that the first step to getting this district back on track is being face to face talking debating and building the district together um so hopefully moving forward we continue that path of being in person we continue a path of bringing people together and to do that we have to move forward backwards and i wanted to lay out a few things that have happened um that we've learned through the pandemic that we could do going forward that might be super helpful one is we know zoom works we know people can call in we know people can lead um

148messages we can set up a message you guys can filter through the messages to make sure there's no hateful you know bigoted questions that are just going to show up but people outside who work at home who have parents and kids that they have to take care of they don't get a chance to come here but they would love their questions answered um since the pandemic began there's been over 700 questions posed to the board uh only 20 of them have gone answered in the meetings i don't know about the back what you know how many answers uh are given via email or anything like that but only 20 of 700 questions were answered um we have a really like uh really good opportunity here to build a new way to do the board meetings

149and talking to people so i understand that we are within this we're within the law when it comes to committee meetings not being recorded but the fact of the matter is we can be even more into the spirit of the law by recording the communities making them accessible to the public so people know that this is not the only time they can get information about this or they can get month long as it's happening um the real participation i talked about uh i've spoken to numerous teachers and staff who are terrified to stand here and paul because they worry about persecution i know that somebody had came to the board signed up on the zoo meeting within minutes three members of the board looked at their linkedin profile why how they what was the necessary

150thing to figure out who this person was so the ability for teachers accessing staff to anonymously pose questions to the board without fear of retribution is vital i also want to talk about the quality of the recording the committee meeting was difficult to hear right now it's very very difficult to get people to pay attention so we have the technology to do this we can do it a better job and then uh one of the other things on the website on the same page where it says the district meetings uh very frankly there's three different dates on the same the same page you click and it says last year it says the date for another location that was today i checked it while sitting here so that information is not up to date and finally

151in the last minute i just want to talk about the dei i know uh one of the other issues i had with the way we've done things is timing uh the position for the dei director was posted as far as i know today um i checked it last night it wasn't there the whole job description wasn't there um i had a phenomenal conversation with members of board and the administration about the efforts in ddr and i i realized that this is a train that's not coming off its tracks it's going but we have to put guard rails onto this otherwise people will lose faith in what you what the attempting board is trying to do um do we have the results of this survey before we even know if this position is needed um there's

152a wonderful article in time that came out this weekend i just wanted to point it out by patrick newark basically they are a diversity equity and inclusion officer and they wrote about why they're getting no results after 20 years of working from 1985 they spent 1.4 uh 147 million dollars at google they increased diversity they increased it from 0.3 uh 3 3.2 are we making a position and we setting up ourselves for a problem that we are creating we need you to wrap it up please i very very simply i just think that there we know where this is going um we have the ability to work together as a community as a board we don't have to always agree we don't have to but if we don't trust where this is going it's going

153this is just going to continue to continue to escalate and we need to turn the temperature down thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening sorry guys i'm really sure good evening my name is aaron ranieri i am a lower providence resident with two children in the district i have been an educator in this district for 19 years my husband for 17. together we have been living here for 14 years and he is an alumni we along with our children are invested in this community and in the school district we know that many we know many wonderful families through sports and activities and i have taught thousands of awesome students i stand here tonight for the parents that are afraid to speak in fear of being cancelled i have bit my tongue for a year and

154a half and i just can't do it anymore you see i'm concerned people are leaving i have spoken recently to many families awesome people who are pulling their kids out of our schools this year or they did last year they're reaching out to me in concern some people i don't even know that well but they know of me believe me when i say that these are people we want to keep here in many places they move in many cases they move here because of the school district but they don't trust you and your decisions right now these are families that would help us make macbeth special and strong and we need to fight to keep them here there are people that i would want my children to go to school with you see they're placing

155their kids into schools that are much less likely to shut down again schools that are going to give parents the right to choose if their child gets vaccinated or not to wear a mask or not and schools that do not have divisive painful resources attached to their website these people have facilities [Music] [Applause] these people have the ability to leave but some people don't i have thought about taking my own kids out many times over the past year [Music] and for the first time in 20 years i have thought about changing my profession but i want to stay here and fight for this district i believe this place can be a place that i used to be very proud of someone else mentioned that earlier thank you the only place that i ever wanted to

156send my children a place that i bragged about teaching all the time let me say this over the past year and a half i've disagreed with many board decisions as have many others in this room with me tonight but that's in the past let's look at the future let's keep these families in fact let's keep this place a place that all families and all teachers want to be here to study we want to have a choice whether or not to mask our children teachers should have that choice too by the way we want to be able to assess our own risk with this virus we should be celebrating the fact that children k-12 children 18 and under with no underlying conditions are not being badly affected by this disease kids are resilient they say follow

157the science they say what do the statistics say don't they say that my kids would have a 99 chance of not even going to the hospital from this disease even the high school kids even me as a healthy 41 year old is proven that children are not the ones dying from this and are not even spreading into adults necessarily let's let us make our own informed decisions as parents let us read the facts and the statistics for ourselves and decide whether our students are high risk or not let us decide if we want them breathing in carbon dioxide all day as a recent study has shown let us decide if we think mass could cause social emotional problems in children the last thing i would like to say is this the resources that you had

158posted or had posted or have posted on the manufacturing website from dei that include race white privilege anti-police statements black oppression and so on i was blown away with how horrible these are you can call it d i seo whatever you want but we all know what it really is i need you to wrap it up please for those of you that don't know my family is mixed my husband went to school here he had an amazing experience and fought for us to stay living in this district so our children had a fantastic place to come i need you to run that i will continue to fight for my children and my students [Applause] uh good evening i'm mark jackson and i am from lower providence so first i want to thank you for your

159support of dei alt stands for um i know that my own children i'm not fit into any one boss it's important that who they are as they grow will be supported and nurtured at all levels um but the real reason i'm here tonight is that uh you know i'd say my son will be starting kindergarten this fall and um based on the health and safety measures that were in place last year in the factory i felt that the fact is everything possible the best safest environment for our children especially as they start their factory careers but before the vaccines were available mass were the best defense in these classrooms uh and they were crucial to have us allow us to return to the classroom um and that was a great thing with roll out the

160vaccinations for ages 12 and up i know that many trump had the opportunity to get the vaccine right away that was one can move to be lousy but for students that are in kindergarten through sixth grade that are not yet twelve nothing has changed for them going to this next school year they do not have the opportunity for the vaccine we're saying you know kick off the mass and things are fine despite the fact that kindergarten is still going on it's varying it's still here it's a real issue the viral load from that is significant and for children my son age 5 he can't get the vaccine he doesn't have that protection yet so i asked you for the safety of our youngest defective students please consider the recommendations of the american academy of pediatrics

161it's one thing to make that choice for yourself when you've had vaccine when you're older when vaccine is available for those students it's not yet available i encourage you to please reconsider that mathematic for those younger children who have not had those opportunities yet thank you also to the board this whole last year more than last year started march 2020 has been a lot for everybody from the parents the teachers the students the staff and certainly for you guys so i want to thank you for everything you've been doing and uh you know i know you're under a lot of pressure but i really do appreciate it as a parent uh as president and as a teacher in the faculty thank you i've lived in lower providence for approximately 11 years and i have two

162kids currently attending school in the district i'm here tonight specifically to express my appreciation and i'm sorry i'm only needing glasses for here so i can't see you when i look up so i apologize for the up and down um but i'm here tonight specifically to express my appreciation to dr zurby and to the board for listening to the community's request to incorporate district excuse me diversity equity and inclusion discussions in the district by creating the office of diversity equity and inclusion the district has demonstrated its commitment to identifying deficiencies that may exist within district policy procedure and or curriculum such flaws may have a negative impact on minority students including people of color and the lgbtq community as well as differently abled staff and students no person or group is without flaws none of

163us here are without flaws and it takes a brave person and a great a great group to perform introspective studies and research and self-examination to identify the flaws that may exist within ourselves thank you for trying to improve thank you for your commitment to people who may feel that they are less than or that they are excluded from the district in any way thank you for starting the internal discussion and thank you for seeking input from the school community to identify areas that may require attention and improvement thank you i along with the many members of the school community community including members of the alumni and those of us who are new to the community thank you for looking into these issues i look forward to hearing the results of the equity audit to you

164hiring a director for the office of equity and inclusion and i look forward to seeing how the results will be turned into action thank you [Music] all right so at this time jessica bradbury lower providence township nearly one year ago on july 28 2020 a board meeting was unexpectedly recessed mr navrat commented publicly stating and i quote we adjourned the meeting because as board members we value the input of everyone on such a critical decision and did not want to continue in a forum where everyone wouldn't be able to have their turn at the microphone end quote so why are you continuing to suppress and censor members of the public by preventing comments from remote participants other districts like haverford do allow comments from zoom participants all committee meetings this month were cancelled except the

165property committee needed do you prioritize construction over our children the district faces well over a quarter of a million dollars this month much unplanned due to construction expenses for projects that you approved during a pandemic with regards to the health and safety plan there's absolutely no difference between reduced capacity and closed as members of the board you must do whatever possible to avoid returning our students especially our youngest learners to a full-time virtual learning environment given the low transmission rates within schools last year returning to fully virtual should not be an option nor should asynchronous fridays even be considered asynchronous days in the elementary level do not work for most learners regarding the dei job description which went up just a few hours ago what is the justification for needing to add yet another administrative

166role that seemingly only supports the other administrators equity or providing one student with more than another is already achieved for our students with ieps and 504 plans they need additional services and interventions they receive them and we have at least three supervisors of special education there has been absolutely no data presented this year to suggest that methactin has an equity problem but our school board all of you authorized the district to spend 30 000 taxpayer money to find us some problems this board wants to expand the concept of equity to now apply to things like race sexual orientation gender identity which only serves to divide our students without any proven benefit or means to measure whether this program would even be successful the school board's responsibility is to ensure our children learn how to work

167hard and master concepts in core subjects like math english science every time sorry if this position can be justified with data it should be called the supervisor of diversity and inclusion every time the board reaffirms a commitment to equity you reduce our children to various identity labels that you have applied to them you are saying that it is okay to make a child feel worthless because of something they cannot control like the color of their skin and the psychological damage from this is catastrophic thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] if you can just focus up here [Music] good evening my name is dr jeanine darby and i'm the resident of global providence township i'd like to thank the board for the support of dei and i'd like to ask the administration to work harder to hire

168director of di so that we can better support all of our students just want to give you a little story about me and my family for those that have not heard i moved here with my family 20 plus years ago to attend medical school here i'm from the maryland dc area our real estate agent directed us to this area due to reputable schools and community this is why we're here this is our home and school district we love our neighborhood and our our neighbors they have been very welcoming since we got here like ryan leggett who is here today and greg pelton these are my neighbors i have four children who have already graduated from the high school and have received a great education many teachers were instrumental to their successes such as mrs eunens

169miss eisen mr alzamoro and so many more my oldest child is on her way to receive her phd from cornell university so i think the fact is however it has not been an easy role for my kids in our schools and community they face adversity but they still excelled and i know that they are not alone for example my oldest was questioned about her being eligible for ap classes another one of my kids was refused to be a part of challenge the gifted program here in the school district because he did not look like a gifted student also he was called the n-word on a regular basis while in high school which led to a mental breakdown my son wanted to kill himself another child of mine was refused evaluation for a learning disability multiple

170times i share these examples so you know what our experiences have been and so others that have not dealt with anything close to this can hear and hopefully empathize we have dealt with discrimination in ebony and inclusion issues this is our community in schools and i'm here to help make it better for all when you know the issues then you can take action to change and improve it this is why i believe in the work of diversity equity inclusion in our school district we have two more children coming through and i want them to have the support they need to thrive academically socially and mentally ddi or diversity equity inclusion is not a bad word di is not a diverse diverse um sorry that to bring us together we all want our children to thrive

171and be productive citizens is that not right i would hope that the superintendent not deserving and the school board of directors agree and want to ensure that students of all backgrounds identities and capabilities are respected and affirmed by the school district teaching environment and policy it's about awareness respect care and acceptance our children should be proud to be who they are and not feel otherwise kids deserve to have an education that encouraged them to dig deeper and to explore who they and others are where they are from and what we are as americans are capable of being our teachers should have the freedom i have to ask you to wrap it up i'm sorry all right so our teachers should have the freedom to teach the correct history and empower our students our community we

172are a diverse nation we have more people moving here from other areas and because of the reputation of our district i'll wrap up i have more to say but anyways i just want to end with lastly be careful with your words and actions our children are listening and watching us adults the time is always right to do what is right so let's do it thank you providence the ei could be a good thing but we got to be careful with it putting down one batch of students because you're not going to hurt your parents at this point but put them down a batch of kids especially white kids who rings up others is not the way to do it everybody is a people in america equity is a scary thing if you work hard if

173two students one works harder than the other they shouldn't get an equal if you work hard then the next one you should get a better we should be putting the students first at all times i didn't feel like that was the case we worried about the teachers more than we worried about the students last year they pushed the teachers unions pushed for the virtual learning and it was not successful my kids struggled in high school and it was not this was the worst learning year of my three kids we have diverse students within within our families i have one daughter that's in college that went took all ap courses she's in college i have now a student that's in the middle of the road yet we're pushing this student who isn't going to go to

174college probably take trigonometry take this what about the math the practical math we should be uh teaching our kids how to balance a checkbook things like that things that he will use if he's not going to college why is he taking trigger knowledge and he really has no other we're out there too and there's no other options for him it's frustrating when you talk about all soon there seems to be this push for ap and then there's a lot of resources for special ed students but there's nothing for the middle of the roadster we need to think about them too long [Applause] [Music] hi amy smith moore sister i want to take a minute to say thank you to the board for the return to in-person meetings i think it's great to all be in

175the same room and to be able to to address you in this way and not on zoom and not worried about if my kids are behaving in the background when i'm trying to talk i just wanted to thank you for the work that you're doing around diversity equity and inclusion i think um the previous speaker was was talking about educational differences and how there's some students who aren't going to take the college track and i think that when we talk about diversity equity inclusion we're talking about how we make sure that there's opportunities for every student it's not just about the social aspect of school right it's also about academics it's about career paths and really making sure that we're looking at a whole child approach like i know that the district supports and when

176we're talking about equity we're talking about making sure that every single one of the every single student is receiving the education that they need not always about making sure that we're bringing kids up it's not it's not about bringing kids down right it's about bringing kids up to so that everyone has those opportunities and whether you have an iep or a giep or a 504 or you're an average student or you excel you know some kids love to take ap courses and they feel great some kids want to take the ap courses because they feel that they have to right and there's some anxiety around that maybe they don't realize it until they're in the midst but we certainly want to make sure that those students that take on a big workload have the support

177that they need to be able to manage it right because it's about learning it's about growing you know we all have points in our lives where we learned a hard lesson right and for our kids we want to make sure that we have the supports in place that as they're learning those lessons whether it be socially academically emotionally that they have the support that they need so i think that uh when we're looking at dei we are looking at academics right i mean i'm hoping this is this is the path forward anyway that we're looking at academics how we can support kids academically but also socially also emotionally and for the students whether they have an iup five or four giud or if they're they are considered an average student or a bug wherever they

178fall on the spectrum this is about making sure that the whole child is supported so i thank you for taking on this initiative for looking forward being forward thinking and making sure that you're listening to to the opinions of everyone here thank you [Applause] all right is there any uh closing comments from the board here before we adjourn history i'll be quick i picked things that i could be quick about but i'm the talker of the group so i'm gonna go i'm gonna work backwards um i'm gonna work from last month's meeting i was unable to make the meeting um but i believe one of the last speakers mentioned that it's important to come in person so if you could see i got a movement etc and that you know be prepared and you know

179many of us sitting up here started sitting up here because we went to meetings just like yourselves in this very room because they had to be moved to this room because the lgi wasn't big enough because back then they were talking about closing arrowhead and uh autobahn so that's how many of us got involved all parents who sat just where you are and spoke to the board so and we sat here during difficult things and it's not well with us we sat here and you know we're we hear difficult things not everybody likes what we say or what we do and we've heard it so i think we all welcome that opportunity to hear different voices i've had many conversations with people with different different voices and different opinions so we do welcome that the

180only other thing i wanted to mention from last month was also brought up today was concerns about board president wanting censorship and i watched the meeting twice i watched it once when i was on vacation and then once when i was at home so i'd be in a little more of a serious head space and i took it as she was concerned i believe because somebody was questioning a board member's religion or personal beliefs i believe i can't speak for her but i don't think um this board or the board president has ever asked about censorship i just think she was trying to protect those of us um so i apologize being a board member if anybody felt that any of us believe in censorship i have read all of your emails whether they were

181positive or negative whether they called me names or whether they thanked me and i've responded and i believe many of us have to any of those things um okay uh backwards and i'm i'm only picking up lightly quick things because it's late that can be easily answered it's not that i'm trying to answer 20 of what was brought up it was brought up that july committee meetings were cancelled what used to happen is there never used to be july committee meetings and what we did was we added them back just in case there was anything that was very very crucial um and then you know that needed to be discussed right at that moment for a voting meeting because that's how the committee meetings work you know we discuss it in committee bring it to

182the work session discuss it some more and then bring it to the voting so that's why some meetings were cancelled in july they had been added in the last few years to add transparency and add that opportunity so i apologize if that messed anybody up in their planning or when they were coming to meetings and when they were not coming to meetings the only other thing that's a little heavier is what's happened in the last year plus is exactly what happened this evening sorry i know i'm the crier of the group it's ridiculous i know sorry i am i'm a passionate educator who's sitting up here for all children um what happened today tonight was exactly what has happened this entire pandemic we had one of our staff members and wonderful parents speak against certain

183things and that's fine you know no masks those kinds of things then we've had another staff member and community member speak for masks we did make mistakes we made the mistake of trying to make everybody happy that was wrong for every email that was sent that said do this there was another email that said do that is it a screwed up system heck yes it is so again for an example in montgomery county i can give these two examples saturn said open they did a great job i know many of those board members and that superintendent they opened they said we're going to work through the quarantining and the close contacting and that's what we're going to do when they work through it it wasn't perfect they did it and then you head up for

184marion who said right away we are closed till january closed excuse me i don't want that word we are virtual till january poof that was great too because there was none of this in between so those are two extreme examples of montgomery county and pretty much every other public district in montgomery county found in the middle i apologize to anyone who is unhappy with the way we handle the pandemic hopefully we never have to deal with it again but hopefully we've learned from our mistakes last thing i we're gonna give three things circle quick things people have brought up the survey and that they didn't get it and i'm sure there was some glitches but it's my understanding that it was to people in the district who had children in the district is that correct

185and was it k-12 or was it i think we can follow up with doctors okay so i would like to clarify that because i just think it's some people are confused or maybe there was some glitches um [Music] people have brought up that in person is hard and we've all seen it's kind of been nice to be in zoom right you know you know i've been wearing makeup for a very long time um i don't know if we're gonna be able to bring that back um this is how board meetings have always been done maybe that's something we can adjust i apologize for the technical issues um [Music] uh miss kelly was here all morning it worked beautifully and she was like freaking out because at 5 30 when they came back something was not

186working so we're working on that um and then the last thing i have circled and it's it's minor but i know um someone brought up a late bus and i remember when that was taken away years and years and years ago and i think most districts and i don't want to speak miss incorrectly but most districts took away late buses because it was just such an expense and they go to all over i know i understand the point of why can we have a late bus to iroid i'm not arguing the point but i do remember years ago when a lot of districts did use that as a cost cutting so i just wanted to address that and there's a lot of other things to address i know it's late and i appreciate anyone being

187here whether you have positive or negative things to say because that's how this works and that's how it's worked for all of us who've stopped here for years good or bad and feel free as always to communicate with us i think we've all said that whether you feel comfortable here or email and i've spoken to many people i'm willing to have a phone conversation as well thank you sorry to take up more time [Applause] um just to make it abundantly clear it is not currently in discussion by this board to make any changes to the mascot for this district i can't say what's going to happen in the future because i don't have a crystal ball but um there were definitely some rumors that were started they were false and um i apologize for the

188misinformation i'm not sure how it got out there that that's something that this board was discussing but it was definitely not true um as far as the allegations that i was somehow censoring um again that's a huge mischaracterization i think of what actually happened i did have a conversation with the solicitor after our last meeting regarding board policy 903 which i read to you earlier this evening part of the policy that i did not read states that the presiding officer may interrupt or terminate a participant's statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant the part that i was concerned with was personally directed part of my job sitting here is to be able to speak on behalf of this board when possible and to protect my board members when we're

189sitting up here and if there are personally directed comments i will stop it it's part of my job here and it's something that i take very seriously it's not an attempt at censorship it is an attempt to achieve our primary purpose here which is to do the business of the board um i apologize for the poor audio quality as mrs reese did speak to we are aware it is something that we are working on technology is not perfect and it is not 100 reliable it is something we will continue to work through as we continue these in-person meetings um the cancellation of committee meetings again we don't typically have committee meetings in the summer anyway so as ms reese said they were on the calendar as a placeholder and not no longer needed so they

190were removed um there were statements made that the district should be sticking to reading writing and arithmetic and um i will again state that our objective here is to educate the whole child and it's really hard to teach a kid trigonometry if they show up and they feel like their life isn't worth living because of the color of their skin or because i will continue to advocate for the education of the whole child because the whole child is what comes in those doors and that's who we are responsible for [Applause] all thank you everyone