School Board Meeting 9/7/21

001given to two of our outstanding iu employees cindy davis for outstanding pair educator at the clairview school and miss hawley tonkin received the annie sullivan award also at the clairville school at which time after we introduced those they told us a little about themselves and we adjourned at approximately 7 and no business could be conducted due to the lack of reform that concludes my report thank you very much mr president can i skip to dr harris right now wherever nick is okay i'm going to pass on right now to dr harris i think for our audience he has some comments to make and i'm sure the most interesting for you i just have some comments i don't have the solicitor talking scott's gonna speak about you know different um that's right i'm a lot of

002us i'm sorry um different comments about the timeline and i wanted to give my chance to kind of go over the concerns that i've been receiving from the parents as well and get a chance for the solicitor talk and mr english and then we're going to turn it over to the visitors which we have 20 signed up to speak tonight can i excuse me i have to mention at 5 15 we did have at 5 15 we did have a meeting an executive session in which the school board met at 5 15 to go over negotiations litigation and personnel so that was helpful thank you all right the most recent update for health and safety plan went into effect july 28th this plan originally was supposed to be border approved august 9th however due the

003information presented during the meeting the board decided to table the vote for a following week and to send out a survey to gather information from the parents this survey was sent out and about 70 percent of parents wanted masses optional for their students the health and safety plan was formally approved at the august 16 2021 board meeting by a vote of 8-0 the plan stated that in the absence of state mandates mass would be optional it also stated the district will follow any mandates issued regarding face coverings on august 31st the governor announced an order signed by the pennsylvania acting secretary of health requiring face coverings to be worn in all schools effective today on friday september 3rd at 408 pde sent out an update to the frequently asked questions which were supposed to be

004sent out to schools on the 2nd of september i sent out the district info on september 3rd i did contact her state representative since the 31st george dunbar with concerns addressed from parents on the board he has informed me that there was a lawsuit filed against the state and the hearing will be scheduled on the 16th of september i know that he'll be heading back to harrisburg on the 13th which brings us today today in school we had two very peaceful protests one at the high school one at sunrise it was actually combined with parents and students we did have 31 students however across the district try to come to school but left to not wanting to wear a mask which brings us the main concern that i have received from parents is about not

005so much i think the the order but the process the pt has taken to follow the order and that's what i want to turn over to christina lander school solicitor to explain [Music] good evening i'm christina lane i'm with the law firm of melo brungo melo and i regularly attend penn trafford school districts meetings and work on behalf of the board and administration so as a solicitor my role here is to give the board legal guidance not my personal opinions certainly not my political opinions but legal guidance and the purpose of that legal guidance is to make sure that the school district is in its best possible de defensive position as well as in legal compliance with the mandates i fully understand your dissatisfaction with the order itself the timing of the order was horrible

006the school districts received it and then just prior to a holiday how to get everything in order as well as sharing with the community you know what it meant what was going to occur when you came back from your holiday and back to your school environment so and i'm also aware of all of the exception requests and the opinions of those in the audience that perhaps the solicitor is not providing the correct legal guidance i'm also aware that there are a multitude of blogs and websites and social media warriors that are all telling you one thing or another that they believe to be true one thing that penn trafford can rely upon i have an ethical obligation to provide them the correct legal advice if i fail in that endeavor yes as you suggested ma'am

007they can fire me but they also can thank you they can also go after me in malpractice those of you in the audience don't have such an obligation to penn trafford so it's very easy to make some such comments while you're sitting in an audience as this but the difficulty is that the order i read it as a totality those of you in the audience like to parse words and you're holding on to one specific word uh the totality and intent of the document is for a face covering mandate certainly nothing that the board put in place and certainly not something that i put in place there are limited exceptions to the order but if you read the order as it's written it clearly states that there is a general masking requirement so first and

008foremost we start with the proposition that all staff teachers students and visitors to the building must wear a face covering that's the first proposition so if it was to really work as you suggest that there's an opt-out just because you say it's so then what is the purpose of the actual mandate excuse me ma'am ladies people we're going to respect the speakers uh we're going to respect the speakers that come up and not interrupt them so i'm going to ask for the same respect to people on this podium please let them speak five minute time limit yes but not on the board that's four visitors have a five minute time limit and with 20 people coming to speak we're going to be here for a while i do know that's not the issue we if

009we hire a legal firm we don't ask where they're from but at the same time would you please let our solicitor respond yes good i'm glad that we know that all right so i'm going to ask for the respect to the people on the podium that you would expect for us to give you when you come to speak if not then we will ask for a recess and possibly go to a virtual meeting so we want this meeting to be held in compliance but also with the respect that our district shows and uh please don't disappoint us thank you okay christina i just wanted to explain to you that the requirement to review information particularly from a student's perspective who are seeking a medical exception to the requirement the district's obligation is to meet and

010find are there reasonable accommodations can we meet those students needs with an alternative an alternative face covering that is the purpose of the 504 meeting that the district has shared with you that no the district isn't requiring more than what their policies currently state if you refer to the board policy book there are policies in the 100 series and there's a policy 103 and 104 that speak to how those whether it's an employment practice or educational practice those students that may have particular needs to access the learning environment and whether it's an allergy or a medical condition the district has an obligation to meet with the parents the student and find those reasonable accommodations and that's the same process that they are seeking to implement with the mass requirement it's the same exact process that

011was utilized last school year so there hasn't been a change other than we had that period of when the governor lifted the mass mandate and then shared with the commonwealth that he had no intention of providing yet another mass mandate and then reverse course so we all understand the angst and emotionality of this process but the the five of four requiring you know medical information from your student your child's medical providers is in order for the district to meet that recommendation to provide the reasonable accommodations the at the order clearly states that all reasonable accommodations must be exhausted to include the wearing of a face shield prior to an exception so that's where the i know there's been some dispute as to the 504 that kind of team meeting process and that's where that comes

012from certainly the district is a school district in the commonwealth has a requirement a legal requirement to enforce the order uh the as far as you know what could happen they've made it very clear that that is the state's position on things that the commissioned officers who are your superintendent assistant superintendent could face issue with their commissions for failing to follow the order as well as the the entity the school district does itself could lose very legal protections from the potential of lawsuits if they were to ignore and fail to force enforce the order thank you is there anything else christine no thank you thank you for your consideration i truly appreciate that uh dr harris um i'm sorry i'm sorry people have signed up to speak and i apologize with the quorum that there

013will be people that will be speaking that may be addressing those issues so please wait ma'am you've had several questions you've had several questions and we've been respectful can you please hold on while we can continue with our meeting thank you dr harris all right and also one of the things i sent out at the end of the letter as i just kind of remind you um this is the problem i had last year that also creeped into this school year it's the close contact it's defined as a person for he comes in contact with someone for six within six feet for 15 minutes they have to quarantine and it used to be last year started off the beginning of the year was 14 days and now it's down to 10 days the trouble with

014our buildings it's six feet to sit six feet away from someone is virtually impossible our classrooms aren't designed that way our class sizes are rather large in some areas and it doesn't make it conducive this school year when we start off the school year we already have according to the tracker there's 10 active cases and there's asked mrs um popovich and she said there's 176 students who were quarantined to be honest this is the only day's day of school it's it's that's a lot of that's a lot of kids to quarantine during the time that they're quarantined they do follow off the google classrooms and we provided online tutors so but i am saying that is an issue but now that with the mass mandate you can actually go to three feet they said for

015it used to be six feet you can now do three feet so so the three feet and i'm just telling you what the rules are it actually is going to have less kids who are able to quarantine because in all of our classrooms you can sit three feet away you just can't sit six feet away from anyone and the students who are here today could vouch for that it's just not possible but the three thief makes it more possible so there is a chance of having drastically less kids according to to quarantine so i just wanted to bring that out to everyone's attention i'm an educational doctor i am sorry we need to have order and all of this is uh is here for a reason but this is we have a lot of people

016that want to see i do want to say one thing please let dr harris this is what we have to follow this is the guidelines they give us to follow and then i'm just telling you about the the six features free fee okay okay thank you right now we're going to be moving i want to move to our speakers at this time but very simply i want to encourage you educating your children what are we showing our parents the way we react how do i handle rules i don't agree with what do you want to teach your kids challenge absolutely challenge rules you don't agree with question them absolutely protest and again in our community we had peaceful protests fantastic you're more than welcome please do but then comes a point of compliance and then

017we but then we also have to teach we also have to teach consequences of behavior there's consequences to behavior there's impact on others so there's consequences we need to be aware of so at this time scott bigler would you like to come forward and with scott's coming scott here he had signed in to speak we have a list of people that signed in and very very simply so everyone understands procedure for audience recognition you must state your name address and group affiliation if any your statement will be limited to five minutes in duration all statements shall be directed to the president and no participant may address or question a board member individually you may be interrupted if your statement is considered too lengthy personally direct abusive obscene or irrelevant so at this time uh scott

018bigler you were the first to sign in i don't think scott's not here all right the next person was anders salvid and i apologize if i mispronounced her name my name is ander selvig i live at 1174 claire jolly road there's so much divide in our country at this time it's disgusting the worst part is part is how it affects our children the children we entrust you with provided them a general education while we are to train them to be good and responsible adults it's come to my attention that kids who do not want to wear a mask in this school are being bullied not just in the school yet online as well this morning at the school i heard some very nasty remarks from some of those pro mask children one of these being

019what the f are you doing here another go the f home and get the f in getting f in school and wear a mask the exceptions listed in this unlawful issued mandate are being denied to us this mandate is from 1929 and deals with herpegonicephalitis and some other stuff like that no way is this mandate valid in this case your solicitor added to it in order to make exemptions harder in the mandate it states the school is not to deny entry to those who wish not to wear a mask and that you guys are to provide a holding yet my son and many others were pushed well not physically pushed but told to leave this school and they weren't given the option at all you denied my son today do not do that again if

020you're going to follow this illegal order then fully follow it i'm not sure if this is on something else well it anyway i'm not sure if you have installed uv light filtration systems in hold on sorry in the schools but i highly recommend you do so especially in the bathrooms it kills any airborne viruses we know the school can afford it between because between all the stimulus bills you guys receive 3.75 million dollars which is why you're scared of being penalized if you don't follow these orders which i understand i do understand that but don't add extra stuff my question is if the district wide from all of this happening has more than 1 000 students get enrolled in a charter school they will take 75 percent of that away from you and that's a

021lot of money that's too much money for you to lose and over 70 percent of parents teachers and staff want the mass to be optional as you passed we deserve our freedoms and i'm calling for those workers to rise and stand up walk out what will our great district do then when that finally happens when your teachers and your students and your faculty including your your custodians who do the nastiest job out of all of you and i didn't know last time i talked to you that they weren't under a contract i had no idea i had no idea but i know everyone here is having a hard time dealing with this so if if we're able to get along and we're able to fill out these forms if we're able to say it's religious

022purposes because wearing these masks too long as we have told you creates breathing problems it ends up making us breathe in too much carbon dioxide and my body is a temple to god and so is my child's and they are not allowed to do anything they're not allowed to smoke until they're 18 years old so if we say it's for religious purposes just give us the exemption please and please don't enter please don't interrupt anymore people please i want to get everyone through this thank you so much thank you very very much thank you at this time mindy cermats please is mindy here mindy sermons i think she's coming down oh good no i'm not tired all right um then kyle hembree hello my name is kyle hembree i live at 545 sunset drive in

023trafford i'm here tonight with my wife tony hembree on behalf of our eight-year-old son who attends level green elementary i'm here tonight to offer up a challenge a challenge to this board to stand up and be the voice for our children and the majority of the parents in this district you all did your job in voting 8-0 in favor of making masks in schools optional even with some pushback you opted to send out a survey to all parents with children in the district and an overwhelming majority still voted optional masks i'm not here today to i'm not here tonight to debate the video validity of kovid i'm here tonight to challenge this board to stand up for what is right this country was built on some very basic fundamentals that we still hold these truths

024to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that these that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness hopefully you all know the thing right we are a free country for now and we have the right to choose right or wrong we have that right if you want to wear a mask nobody is stopping you from your choice and if masks really work then you should be fully protected if my child is not wearing one masks should remain optional this mandate is not based on any scientific facts that support a pandemic for our children speaking of facts i'd like to share a few that are easily found on the internet forgive me while i got this information from a

025kooky right wing conspiracy website cdc.gov since january 4th 2020 to august 28 2021 there have been 470 children aged 0 to 18 that have died with covid while one death is tragic and earth-shattering for surviving family make no mistake 470 total deaths with kovid does not support the idea of a pandemic for our children masks should remain optional while 470 is a lot of kids the total u.s population ages 0 to 18 years old from september 2020 73 million 150. that's from datacenter.kidscount.gov another government website again this is not a pandemic for our children masks should remain optional this mandate is fake virtue signaling about health and safety when there are no facts to back up a pandemic for our children if they really cared about health they would address the fact that bacterial respiratory

026illness in children has gone up primarily due to wearing masks for eight hours a day we won't know the true physical and psychological effect these mandates will have on our children for many years from now coronavirus just like the flu is not going anywhere and as parents neither are we masks should remain optional i can go on and on about facts and data it's truly boring i assume most of you on this board have done their own research and asked their own questions because you are all affected by these decisions our government has made over the last year and a half i challenge again will you stand up for our children and the parents of this district and say enough is enough what side of history will you be on thomas jefferson one of our

027founding fathers is attributed to a great quote and i would like to end with this he said when a government fears the people there is liberty when the people fear the government there is tyranny we as parents aren't afraid anymore we stand for liberty and freedom i ask every member sitting at these deaths tonight who do you fear thank you now you see why we wanted to listen to more people it's important to give people an audience with our role here tonight is to listen for the public to voice their opinions to voice your concerns to have this open dialogue and again your respect to listen to each other is so vital and again we're learning stuff aren't we so thank you at this time vance porter is vance available thank you to the board

028thank you for the opportunity to speak with you in this setting today i would like to start off by saying thank you for all of your hard work in educating our students and two of my three children in particular during this tough time of the pandemic i do not want your jobs as they are difficult in these trying times and i respect each and every one of you for taking them i additionally want to say thank you to those who are in the schools and working at the front lines of the pandemic especially the teachers and the principals they unfortunately have to bear the brunt of parents complaints and for that i feel for them and i want to extend a solid thank you to each individually i've watched my middle son's senior year 2020

029ruined by covet with no baseball no prom no graduation in july and basic basically a drastic change to what his future plans were as well as many of his friends i additionally have watched my daughter who is now a sophomore class of 2023 go through school being closed for the end of her eighth grade year and then a good portion of her freshman year changed ruined with quarantining online hybrid in school three days a week off two days a week green days gold days and so on and now when she should be enjoying all of the activities that are not only learning activities but we're building the foundation of our of our kids as they move into adulthood she should be learning the necessary social skills that include various other student activities including cheering to

030football games by the way i don't think i saw anybody here with a mask on friday night at the game additionally cheering at football games seeing their friends faces teachers faces attending dances and gaining senses of good behavior that helped lay the foundation for a solid beginning to adulthood and her future today unfortunately my 10th grade honor student was removed from school with her not being offered education unless she unwillingly put a mask on which she didn't that said i believe that we are parents and you as representatives of us as parents are being forced into decisions with no good alternatives the state and the health department are working together to continue the ridiculous rules and consequences of the pandemic as they impose mandates i believe that it is the school board's responsibility to stand

031up to those roles as our representatives and express and explain the want of the people to not be controlled i for one believe that the masks that are being given out are not the answer the masks are not personal protective equipment if we were truly interested in stopping the spread we would all be wearing the mask that i have here which is known as an n95 mask and it has to be fitted individually for every person who wears it it's secure doesn't work like the cloth it doesn't have any bling on it and it's difficult to put on and change your face and it does a lot of different things i would ask any one of you who are not in healthcare like my wife has done for the last two years to go through

032days with this particular mask on and a face shield and full dress of equipment and dealing with covet people i feel for her and i feel for the nursing and i feel for all those folks however if the board and the state really want to stop the spread versus control our children and us maybe they should hand out n95 masks instead of paper masks and absentee ballots if time if i have the time left a couple of weeks ago we voted as a school community where there were 30.4 percent for masks and 69.6 percent for choice our choice or my choice individually is not to force any of those who wanted masks to take their masks off my choice is to give everyone the option that they see best for their family and their children

033i end with just a couple of questions and those are as follows if all of the kids are masked do they no longer miss school because of quarantining and contact tracing additionally is the school district in this state willing to sign guaranteeing the safety of the mask is given that they number one stop coven number two that my child will not get covered while at school number three do not cause future respiratory problems and number four are not causatory to future mental health issues based on anxiety lack of trust speech issues and so on i want to say honestly thank you for your time i really appreciate it thank you thank you so much for your remarks at this time jamie patron is jamie here okay first i want to say that i'm not good

034at this at all so please excuse everything and i also want to say thank you for all that you do my kids have always enjoyed going to school with penn trafford since we moved to this district i live at 210 yonko gainey street excuse me jimmy tell us where you live please 210 yokogainey street penn pa thank you and um i just wanted to say thank you for everything that you guys do for my kids um they had loved going to school and now with this mask mandate they are just dreading it like they're they were up upset last night they were so worried about coming and then my daughter she's in the high school my son he goes to harrison park um my son has some very strong opinions about the masks he thinks

035they should all be thrown in a fire pit and burned and my daughter she said that there was protest but she doesn't want to speak because it turns there's a divide with the kids the kids that want to wear a mask the kids that don't want to wear mess they feel like they have no power to it just cause division between both of them and um let me see i wrote these like here so please forgive me okay so i'm also a healthcare professional and i had worked with covet so i know what goes on with the covet situation i've never received covet because my i have a strong immune system from dealing with sick individuals and i feel like when we're doing these masks we're masking their immune system um we're also masking their

036emotions they can't look at each other smile you know my son he has a hard time even with the face shield he would have the face shield on it would be blocking his vision it would get foggy he'd have to pull it down look and i mean we were at the rib fest we were at kennywood like we did all kind of stuff this past labor day weekend nobody had a mask on nobody and the people that did there maybe i might have saw two or three people that did that should be their individual choice like we still live in america we should have that freedom of choice we shouldn't be feel empowered to where our mass can cover everything up so let me see what else i have to say i'm sorry i just

037feel like it would cause a lot of like childhood trauma when you look back at your memories you want to have good memories you don't want to feel like everything was mass like you weren't allowed to have an opinion if you had an opinion you were right you were wrong people felt a certain way about you and i feel like you we all need to come together as a team as one to do what's best for these kids because they need a voice and it's been very emotional for all of us i'm sure your end in our end and um i just want my kids to be able to breathe because when you when you learn you need to learn you need to be able to breathe you can't concentrate when you're trying to concentrate

038on breathing you're not paying attention to what the teacher's saying you're not able to focus i just want you to have some kind of consideration and also i have friends in other school districts that are allowing the kids to show up with no mask but they are taught in a different room which is also like a form of segregation but at least they're giving them that option to be taught in a separate room um i just feel like what we need to do what's best for these kids well thank you very very much that's all i can think of right now i need to see if there's anything else okay and also the um the secretary has she's been sworn in yet like how is she making roles and she's not sworn in as far

039as i know the acting secretary of health secretary was she sworn in uh that's there is a court case september i believe 16 in harrisburg that that is being addressed by one of our senators as well as parents so that court case is being held in harrisburg i believe september 16th to answer that question so it is being challenged okay again my comments we have a right to challenge to protest yeah i mean i understand you guys are in a pickle but it's like we all need to come together and try to help our kids agree give them the better future yeah yeah thank you too sure don't leave anything else i don't you know what i don't think so i'm not good at this you did well thank you so much thank you have

040a good one thank you [Applause] okay at this time mr mike morocco [Applause] i'm with my people i know i'm with my people so this is whatever right good evening my name is mike morocco i live in 1088 government road i have three wonderful kids two of which are been proudly named student of the month and i was able to participate in that which was one of my wife and i's highlights um just a little little past i was a student of sunrise trafford graduated from penn trafford back in 94 i believe it was my great grandparents owned a farm on pleasant valley road until the turnpike came through and divided their property my grandmother actually attended school in harrison city in the one school room house walked every morning uphill both ways my mother

041was born in a log cabin from the 1800s off of government road attended school in painter town so when i tell you i have roots here i think i could say that and and have some confidence it was incredible though today so we came together as a group to protest and things went as as smooth as possible and then i was able to to make it less than a block up to my home and i'm praying to myself and thinking you know something's going to show itself and immediately i'm i'm confronted with all of my people by a line of cones that were neatly placed 16 inches across and i you know i had to ask well is this is this normal everyday stuff here oh no it's not okay so what are we keeping

042out then what are we rooting out here well this is all our community and there's a line of cones you know and something miraculously happened was mr harris agreed and he says you know what we do and he picked up the cones and he took him back and at that time that was a defining moment that i realized what the outlook was at that particular school run by that particular person who i won't mention names but there is a divide here from the community that's been here forever i always hear well i moved here from out of state or i moved from this city i moved from this county and and i feel like the divide is we all know each other here i can look up at that board and i have i have

043huge roots with this community i have huge pride with this community and you know our wonderful solicitor made an amazing comment to me i put you in the best defensive spot would you hire a football coach that said hey guys today i'm going to put you on the best defensive spot that's how we're going to get through this the the defense how about offense right that's a no right it's a no cause it's too whatever it is i don't think it's working ma'am to be quite honest with you no disrespect but i'm tired of hearing about how we should act and the stresses we need to put on our kids when things don't make sense 16-inch cones don't make sense and someone came up and said you know you're right it doesn't make sense let's

044change it we wear masks accuse my french half-assedly around the school so that we can attend school it's no secret i mean there's a you have everything from scarves to what are we doing here guys what are we doing what are we teaching our kids hey if you got to do it just get by until the next rule comes down and hopefully if we all pull together we'll have a season next year we're yeah once again once again where we can be in the best defensive position awesome pt pride i feel it really you know i'm here to tell you all i thank you all for serving i truly do i know you guys go through it i know you take it on the chin i've met some of the wonderful most wonderful people in

045this township teaching my kids but not one of you have a qualification to determine what is right for my child from a healthcare perspective sorry i'm sorry i love the eye ruling by the way it's incredibly respectful ma'am but anyway i digress i don't care how many acronyms i don't care how much the schooling you've all gone through and who the people we hire to tell us the right thing to do when things don't make sense they don't make sense when are we gonna have the courage to stand up and put an offensive plan together so that our kids can be normal for a year when you know one more point they say you kill a frog not by jamming it in boiling water but you put it in cold water and you keep cranking

046the heat little by little you know someone up there has to have the courage to say listen this is another little temperature raised in the heat where is it leading to and i love what you guys do i applaud you but if you don't have the courage and you feel you're operating under fear then stand down [Applause] with respect thank you i'm sorry thank you mike okay and uh knowing michael i want to again thank you for your service and incidentally his name's up on our wall of honor if any of you have family members that are service have served in the military we have a wall of honor right by the front office turn their name maybe you're one of them and it's a beautiful wall that's there and mike know your name's on

047it thank you very much all right at this time erica kurtz oh euric i'm sorry i put my glasses back on good evening i reside in level green with my husband and children we have two students at trafford middle one and eighth and one in sixth never in my wildest dreams did i think i would be standing here pleading for the ability for my children to breathe freely regardless of their existing medical conditions all of which have been documented and treated for by you the pen trafford school district my children should be able to breathe freely while obtaining an education every single one of you sitting up there with your mouth covered know how difficult it is to breathe in a mask right now you're struggling to breathe your upper lip is wet your nose

048is sucking in the fabric of your mask and if you have glasses your hot breath is fogging them you really want to pull it down but you don't want to do it in front of us as soon as you're alone as soon as we leave this room you whip it off thankful to be able to breathe again for the fda disposable face mask such as surgical or medical masks are not respirators and do not protect the wearer from breathing in small particles gases or chemicals in the air this includes covin for the fda face masks may slow this breda covet here we are nearly two years into this and the best they can say is face masks may help stop the spread of covet do you know why because they haven't confirmed that it stops

049the spread because no studies have proven that it does none as in zero there have been zero peer-reviewed or controlled group studies that have proven mass or effective against the spread of covet what studies do show is that mass are incapable of preventing a user from inhaling covet particles which are 40 times smaller than one subsection of hair masking our healthy children serves absolutely no purpose for over 18 months and into our third year of school we have treated our children as lepers forcing mass on our children is child abuse and please don't remain complicit the decision is easy allow parents to make a decision for their children whether or not to wear a mask we've seen the same scripted message email after email stating your concerns with personal liability we understand the pressure but

050you need to stop cowering simply allowing governor wolf to circumvent we the people stripping him of power to mandate mass allow the government to take the job we elected you to do if you stop fighting it's clear that our children are not first if you're not going to fight or look out for the health of our children we are four of you are up this november and i can promise you that are there are like-minded parents who will continue to fight for the rights of our children to breathe fairly and let parents make the best decisions when it comes to their health if you fail to do so if it's a solicitor discouraging your fight i'm sure you all know how to find a new one please don't stop fighting for our children i can

051promise you there's no one better poised to make health decisions for my children i have birthed them raised them sheltered them and nurtured them i have laid on a floor next to my son with migraine so bad that he viciously vomits for hours i've seen my daughter through two eye surgeries her first at just six weeks old for severe ptosis and marcus gunja winking both disorders that you couldn't spell and probably have never heard of i have woken every two hours to give her breathing treatments as to not wake her due to severe bouts of asthma i've spent nights in the hospital because her oxygen has dropped into the 80s i've popped dislocated elbows back into place i've taught her to put medicated ointment in her eye every two hours to keep it from drying

052so severely that her cornea could be permanently damaged i have held her broken teeth in my hands as she spit them there after taking a soccer ball to the face i have fought and will continue to fight for my children but the truth is we shouldn't have to be making begging for medical exceptions the same pressure that you feel the same things to your retirement the personal liabilities the doctors hear the same thing government is cohering all of you to not do what's in the best interest of our children would any of you sitting up there be comfortable signing a form telling me that masking my child is safe i'm certain the answer is no we're done being silent we will fight and we will fight loud we demand the board hold a vote to

053follow department of order as it states that parents may simply state that their child has a medical condition or that the mass may create one nowhere within the order does it say we are required to have a 504 or an iep [Applause] we also want a policy amendment that prohibits any child not wearing a mask to be denied entry to the school or to be removed recommendations are not orders not to mention the entire department of health order is not a mandate nor is it a law this is clearly not about health and safety after all you've sent us all a message telling us that students would be refused entry to the school and forced to remain in a parking lot it's about control let's stop pretending and as our board president stated earlier in

054the meeting there are consequences and the board will reap that in november we teach our children to be leaders in time it's time pt steps up and leads they don't call us warriors for nothing thank you and at this time phillip you're it thank you for letting me speak i'm a living in a 708 service way i'm a christian father and husband i have two children in the school one has severe asthma the other one gets mad uh headaches severe headaches and mass contribute to those problems but first and foremost i'm a christian and this has everything to do with this current situation god is holy he hates sin he must punish it he demands a perfect life from us all we no one in here can meet his standard that's why he sent his

055son to live a perfect life to die a wrath absorbing death to resurrect from the grave and ascend into heaven and sit down whoever repents and believes in him gets united to him so his perfect life counts for them and they get forgiven of all their sins because he took all the punishment on the cross but this is what it has to do christ ascended into heaven at the right hand of the father he is king he rules any government that has power has derived it from him all authority in heaven on earth have been given to jesus christ and everyone will have to stand before him he rules he reigns and let me say this penn trafford belongs to him every molecule he controls and everyone will have to stand before him but listen

056that means tom wolf has to stand before him that means everyone on this stage has to stand before him and he as us as a community he put us here for a reason he he knit our kids together in their mother's womb so that we provided protect for them now if we're going to send them here and the and penn trafford's not going to protect them from these mass mandates then we will we'll take it and do it ourselves god created us in his image we we can be creative if you want to look into it new life presbyterian will help if you have to if people won't stand up and stop this tyranny then we have a place for you to take your kids to do their homeschooling on the internet just ask me

057afterwards but let me say this and i'm done it says in the bible that all things are created through christ and for christ and he sustains all things by his powerful word take a breath you borrow that from jesus every last one of us also says in him are hitting all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge so anybody teaching in here anything truth in this school comes from jesus christ the way the truth and the life so for us to deny him is it's either you have christ who created all things or you have chaos and that's what we have in this country that's what we have right now well i lied one more thing one more thing one thing i have to say this now tom wolf a man and this would be controversial

058it doesn't matter to me he started his career as an escort at an abortion clinic you telling me he cares about my kid's health when he don't care about the kids health in the womb and that's way more depth than covet that happened in pt or in pittsburgh so i don't trust a man and he mr wolf repent and believe in the gospel or you will stand before jesus christ and give an account that's all i got thank you very much at this time danielle lange good evening my name is danielle lang i'm mother of three within our district i live at 1021 gregerson road i am here tonight to voice my concerns on the recent changes that the district has made because the mandate by the doh first let me start by saying i

059feel for all of you our government is abusing you to enforce these regulations that they are refusing to enforce themselves i spoke with the doh last week and they told me there is no repercussions for our schools if they don't follow the mandate article 1 section 27 of the constitution states the people have a right to clean air forcing a child to wear a mask over their nose and mouth does not allow them to breathe clean air your mantra this whole time as a board has been we only follow mandates not recommendations what happened this time section 3 of the mandate states you need an exception not a doctor's note you have chosen to use 504 of the rehabilitation act to justify that with that you are elected officials that choose to be on the

060board if you do not have the courage to stand up and fight for our children then you need to step aside so that those that that have the courage can do it [Applause] and with the 8-0 board vote for optional mask we know where you all stand this isn't the time to put yourselves first this is the time that you put your community first and we come together and we fight together for what is right for our children and from your survey your community clearly spoke out for optional masking i have four important points that i would like to make you have stated in your email that you are afraid to lose the protection of sovereign immunity and may personally face lawsuits for that those that ignore the order i understand that why are you

061not afraid of being sued because a child that wears a mask all day comes down with one of the following health issues i'm not going to read them all but if you would like them i can provide them all to you i will name a few rsv depression anxiety cardiovascular disease a higher predis predisposition for viral and infection illnesses headaches accelerated aging and health deterioration my second point we received 2.3 million dollars in coveted relief funds what improvements to our schools have been made as related to the kovac pandemic i don't see classroom air purifiers with the ionizing technology or the uv lights installed in the ductwork what has been spent on to make our schools better for all viruses as we move forward this isn't the last virus or the last variant my third

062point why did we take away the virtual learning option or hybrid option you have now left us with the option of school with mask homeschooling with us those that work can't do that or the pa cyber program why shouldn't we be offered virtual alerting our hybrid why not spend some of the 2.3 million and put cameras in the classroom so they can be live streamed and our kids can get the same education as if they were in the classroom there would be no additional work for the teacher it's one class live streaming and our children can learn the same as if they were in the building my fourth point in this in 1975 the pennsylvania child protective services law or cpls was enacted and it really kind of goes against where we are today with

063the pandemic the goal of the cpsl was protect children from abuse and to allow the opportunity for healthy growth and development child abuse is intentionally knowing or recklessly doing any of the following the law lists about a dozen or so acts but for this purpose i will only address the relevant ones causing or substantially contributing to serious mental injury law defines mental injury as something that renders a child chronically anxious agitated or socially withdrawn also seriously interfering with the child's ability to accomplish age-appropriate development or social task and the next point is interfering with the breathing of a child i don't think i need to explain that in the state of pa under the cpsl there are mandated reporters i'm sure that you know what a mandated reporter is but it's someone in the law

064defines as a person required to report suspected abuse who was considered a mandated reporter in this instance our teachers are they are now liable for allowing this abuse to our children in closing i am asking that you change your stance of requiring the doctor signed exemption form and accept a parent email like many other local districts if you cannot change your stance and have the courage to do so we will all gladly accept your resignation and those of us that want to fight will thank you [Applause] thank you very very much but this time sarah bottlebow i hope i pronounced that correctly close okay sarah that got it that was easy my name is sarah bartleby i live at 116 stoney creek lane in harrison city i would just like to reiterate this i am

065not fighting to ban masks i am fighting for parents to resume control of the decisions related to their children's health right where it belongs my child's health decisions do not belong in the hands of the government at the end of may the cdc published a large-scale study of kova transmission in american schools one very important finding was absent from the summary and not widely reported distancing hybrid models classroom barriers and most notably required student masking were found not to have a statistically significant benefit florida provided a real world of observational study over the course of the school year last year with 40 districts with mass required policies and 27 without the result was no statistical difference in school cases per enrolled students in person on friday the cdc released a report which included new data

066on the rarity of pediatric deaths from covet 19. the report examines trends in covet 19 cases hospitalizations and emergency department visits among children between august 1 2020 and august 21st of this year it found that the rate of pediatric hospitalizations for covin 19 that resulted in deaths was just 0.4 percent masks can also be damaging to the social and emotional well-being of children as we've heard it is important for children to see facial expressions of their peers and the adults around them in order to learn social cues and understand how to read emotions my daughter has speech iep she needs to see the process of how words form not just for 25 minutes one day a week but all day long you yourselves and myself take down our masks to communicate but my doctors my

067daughter is expected to learn speech development and advance her progress with a mask on all day i've shared with you some important data that makes optional masking the only solution and now i want to speak from the heart i have always been proud of the penn trafford school district you kind of have gone against the grain a little bit when it was in the best interest of our children last year you did everything in your power to ensure our children received in-person instruction when many other schools did not as a parent i really appreciated that and i sang your praises to anyone who would listen dr harris i have to give you credit you have responded in every to every email i have sent in a kind and professional manner i appreciate that especially as

068my emails are not filled with sunshine and roses all the time but i have to say i'm sure the last email as we know now to all parents generated a lot of criticism and rightly so not anywhere was there any mention of the school district working around the mandate whether it be with our local representatives etc in an effort to institute optional masking you said that you had talked to representative dunbar here but why not include that in the email to all parents and not only that if a student does not comply they will be forced to be removed from school by their parents after reading the email my sense was that you the school board are just going to sit down and take it universal masking for all handed down by the governor and

069the doh and that we the parents and our children were also going to be forced to take it i'm well aware that the school district needs money from the state to operate but now you are putting monetary needs over the best interest of each of our students other school districts are working around the mandate 30 in fact are working around the mandate in the state i.e not sending students home who do not comply now we need you to do the same we need you to fight we are depending on you we need you to have the courage to stand up and put our students best interests above all else when will you say enough is enough and take the power away from the government and put it back into the hands of the parents thank

070you thank you very much at this time shannon coakley please thank you diana allen [Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen i am diana allen i reside at 24 pheasant run drive in export pa i requested that the solicitor be here this evening i am glad to see that miss lane could join us i want everyone to know that we the taxpayers according to mr brett lagos emailed to me today we pay that firm we have paid year-to-date 67 108. hundred and seventy five dollars monthly on retainer and one hundred and fifteen dollars per hour i believe it is imperative that you miss lane are at all of these meetings being that our children's health is dependent excuse me man we're we're not allowed to make okay i'll i'll redirect i'll say mr harris has mr

071mr harris has referenced miss lane in his correspondence to me i'm glad to see she's here today i'm going to move on thank you three weeks ago i presented data studies and peer-reviewed medical information about the inadequacy of face coverings and the zero .0004 percent fatality rate of a person who contracts covet 19. at that time the board unanimous unanimously voted eight to zero in favor of optional masks prior to that you sent out surveys to every family within this district and they also overwhelmingly voted masks to be optional you prepared the appropriate health plan you submitted it to the state and it was approved now i stand before you as the government continues to overreach its power i hold in my hand additional nih studies that support the facts that masks are not effective

072in the spread of aerosol containing pathogens i said it a week two weeks ago i will say it again what you have done for the last 19 months to our children is nothing short of abuse the mental physical and psychological damage in some cases will be irreparable i am standing here speaking for those children who cannot fight for themselves i am standing here speaking for the parents who lost a child to suicide because of mandatory lockdowns isolation quarantines and governmental policies the state of pennsylvania continues to use our children's as pawns in this political warfare governor wolf knew he no longer held executive power for more than 21 days so he circumvented the office and he put it through the department of health to push his agenda however the department of health does not require

073a physician signature for exceptions that was put into place by dr harris and this administration the department of heart order states reasonable accommodations must be made for those who state they have an exception penn trafford is choosing forced medical documentation i am here to tell you this students are not patients they are healthy they are not infected children stop treating school as if it's a hospital we the people do not co-parent with the government we do not co-parent with the department of health we do not co-parent with a cdc and we do not co-parent with this administration we are no longer asking permission we are telling you this is the end of mass mandates for children who choose not to wear one according to the first and fourteenth amendments all humans were given equal educational

074opportunities in the united states of america if you choose otherwise we are prepared and ready to move swiftly with legal action and i can promise you one thing we will never stop fighting for the constitutional rights and health of our children you will no longer inflict mental and physical abuse upon our children the definition of child abuse and i'm sure you're aware of this as defined by the pennsylvania child protective service services law states fabricating intentionally exaggerating or inducing a medical symptom disease or treatment to a child is child abuse causing serious mental injury to a child through any act or failure to act is child abuse lastly and most importantly interfering with the breathing of a child do you know the last words that my daughter said to me as she got on the

075bus i can't breathe those words have consequences i am requesting that you change the medical documentation policy immediately our children will no longer succumb to your abuse thank you very much [Applause] this time joseph matthews please come up good evening my name is joseph matthews i am the father of three little girls who attend sunrise elementary i am here tonight to speak against the policy of compulsory masking of our students as we began preparing for this school year we received the news that you the school board had voted unanimously unanimously to make mass optional this was the correct decision as it reflected on the will of those who elected you your stewardship was tested as a number of individuals stampeded a board meeting demanding that you change this policy once again you acted in manner

076that would befit a representative body you asked us to vote on the issue district-wide the vote was overwhelmingly support of optional mass policy it is at this point that all representative government has been thrown out our authoritarian governor and his administration have now by themselves decided maths are required in all schools his decision flies in the face of the statewide referendum in which the voters of our community and our state stripped them of his authority in fact he had to go back into 70 and 90 year old statues in order to enact his latest authoritarian measures immediately following our king's decree our superintendent a person you picked to lead our district immediately bent the knee school should be run at the local level that's why school boards exist but if our school board is going

077to bow before these petty tyrants at harrisburg then why do they even exist as an entity as for the mass themselves the data is clear in the school setting they are ineffective at best and in general a terrible impotent to the social and psychological development of our children unless you're going to provide n95 grade mass and form fit them to our children daily then the entire concept of wearing cloths math is a joke my final questions are simple one will you stand up for us your constituents two will you act like the representative body that you were elected to be and three will you stand in the face of tyranny and fight for the emotional and psychological health of our children thank you for my time thank you thank you very much at this time

078i believe it's nika kendall hello i feel like i'm pretty memorable i don't know though maybe not all right hello again what in the world is going on here why would you put out a survey asking for parents to weigh in on the mass requirement if you were just going to defy us anyway the parents spoke you were even impressed with the response rate didn't you say it was around 2000 responses that's incredible so i recall that the survey concluded that not even a close to comparable majority ruled for an optional mass school year in every single building why did you even ask for our opinions do you know how you have made the majority of parents in your district feel by turning your backs on them in this way i'll tell you we feel

079sick betrayed ignored silenced and honestly a little embarrassed to make us feel like we actually had a say on what goes on in an institution that houses our babies for the better hours of every day five days a week and then blatantly choose to do the opposite just days after attesting that you agreed with us in the midst of this ridiculous clown show we were all being forced to play a part and every single day for the last 17 months we'd finally felt like we could remove the red noses and maybe just take a front seat for a while we felt like we were finally about to take our power back i'm not here to discuss exemptions with you i'm not here to remind you that putting a peach or dish on a child's face

080for a sickness they are not affected by and do not categorically transmit is child abuse i'm not even here to tell you that there are several districts whose superintendents have publicly stated that they will not enforce this mandate i won't even shame and embarrass and silence you the way you have to the majority of people who pay your bills i don't want to try to convince you that prevaricating is a pathetic way to make parents feel as though their children are in the right hands for seven hours a day five days a week i'm only here to let the majority know i stand with them that there are so many of us who know that we can no longer trust the people we elected to be in charge nor those who've been put in positions

081to basically raise our babies we cannot trust that they will protect our children care for them always do what's in their best interest or respect their health and bodily autonomy you know what else i worry about i worry that if our children become so used to just obeying authoritative figures who clearly don't have their best interest in mind how will they ever defend themselves from worst kinds of predators how will my child who knows he is not sick but is told by his teacher to put a cloth over his mouth that wouldn't do a single thing to protect him or anyone else anyway reconcile in his mind when another person in a position of power does something more nefarious and tells him to keep it a secret or else i just think it is so

082ironic that we are normalizing covering a child's mouth silencing them honestly our compliance is what got us here two weeks to flatten the curve yeah i know the leading scientists who were all just finding out are actually the ones who funded the lab this creepy virus created was created and couldn't figure out whether we should wear masks or not weather substantiated therapeutics were safe who literally told us that it was safe to protest racial inequality by the hundreds because it posed a bigger risk to public health and covet 19 are the ones we trust with the safety measures for our babies the same people whose guidelines instructed one of my clients to keep her veteran father's body in a freezer for months until it was safe to bury him with an attendance cap while they

083attended three separate memorial services for george floyd with thousands in attendance i mean come on why are we still listening to these lunatics they not care about you not me not our babies if they cared they'd mandate jumping jacks and meditation there wouldn't be a commercial every six minutes telling you that if you've taken and suffered from a medication they approved of six years ago you could be eligible for compensation there wouldn't be carcinogenic dyes in the food they sell in our grocery stores stop believing people who hurt us stop trusting people who tax you to death and then again after you die stop thinking that anyone knows better than you what's best for your babies they've got us all so dependent on their bought and paid for research and brainwashed by their propaganda i'm

084old enough to remember the got milk campaign do you know there are 50 million past cells in one cup of milk but i'm sure nobody knew that before they plastered the school hallways with pictures of milk mustaches and made them a staple on my lunch tray every day where someone would have told me dairy was a main cause of my bronchial flare-ups that landed me in the hospital for the majority of my childhood don't worry about it though they made their money in the hospitals made theirs these people are evil evil stop listening to them do not comply with baseless mandates do not allow yourselves to be gaslit on a daily basis by the ever-changing facts of the nefarious few do not make your children believe they have to listen to a mandate that not

085only makes no sense but makes them uncomfortable do not teach them at all non-compliance is dangerous defiance do not send them to a building that follows an order where a spit and booger-filled cloth is needed to be placed on their breathing holes to protect them from a virus that doesn't even affect them change the way we are programmed to think because this is where it's gotten us and because i believe you're actually a reasonable group i ask you when and how do you think this ends what's the next mandate when does it become your job to protect these kids face it if the tv didn't tell you nobody would know covet 19 was a thing our children are entitled to an education and that does not change whether they have a dirty rag on their

086beautiful little faces or not that's it [Applause] thank you very much thank you very much at this time corey gross is corey here corey gross don't see her liz salvador hi my name is liz salvador and i have a child at uh trafford middle and eighth grader and i live at uh 10 33 what's your address please 1033 painter town road thank you parents have already completed the survey and a majority of the parents voted to have masks optional and the school board follow suit and i commend the board on their decision i want to discuss and respectfully request that the board looks to the constitution and state law and realize that your rights as an elected official are being taken away governor wolf is walking a fine line legally he's trying to exercise his

087powers that have been limited by the constitutional amendment that we voted on and passed in may and was implemented in june the governor is trying to issue a mandate without an emergency order and he was trying to use the cover of a 1955 disease act which was created for an outbreak of an std this act that he is employing is for sick people it doesn't apply for people who are not sick at the end of his announcement i don't know if anybody else seen this but a reporter asked him if there was if he was going to enforce the order he responded no that tells me that the legality of it is is in question right the governor wants to corros the masks in school without using the emergency order constitutionally the only way this

088can be forced is through an emergency order which can exceed three weeks this is not how the united states work nor is it how pennsylvania works pennsylvania has always been about individual rights in local governing bodies the pennsylvania constitution of 1968 makes that point in several ways the department of health has based its authority on section 5 of the disease prevention and control law relating to disease control measures for viral outbreaks the laws do give the department of health the authority to issue control measures for viral outbreaks however all the language in that law indicated that these laws are intended to be done at a local level the doh only has authorities over schools where there has been an outbreak that control measure must be limited and for an appropriately short duration this current order

089theoretically could last forever both united states and pennsylvania constitution require that individual rights be narrowly restricted by the government the current mass mandate likely is likely beyond the scope of what would be lawful the department of health cannot tell school boards what to do the pennsylvania school code gives the school board very broad authority to determines what happens in their respective districts there is nothing in pennsylvania laws that states the department of health can overroll a specific decision of a school district based on specific local conditions a lot of people have asked me today why i do this even friends and family questioned my antics but nobody questioned me when i signed up for the military at 18 to fight for our country's rights or going to iraq to fight for another country's freedoms nobody

090questions my current job to advocate for our nation's veterans on capitol hill i spend time away from my family every month to ensure our states and federal lawmakers pass certain bills for our veterans and their families so i refuse to stand here in my town and have my child's rights taken away from her because people on the board are afraid to stand up well we the people are not afraid with that i am respectfully requesting that the board upholds its prior decision to have masks optional and continue to push back against unlawful mandates current and future [Applause] thank you very much thank you this time mr ryan cinceri [Applause] [Music] good evening my name is ryan cinceri i'm at 2023 austin court irwin pa15642 i'm affiliated with the parents of penn trafford who are for

091optional masking members of the school board first and foremost i appreciate your efforts over the last few days as i'm sure they've been as trying for you as they have been for me and my family you may have heard we held a peaceful protest today some of you were there contrary to what have been what has been told on certain social media accounts i believe that all of you in attendance can admit that it was a peaceful protest in fact i appreciate dr harris stating that putting the rumors and lies to bed i'm proud of all these people that were willing to stand up today for the others who won't [Music] tom wolf is a coward [Music] tom wolf is a liar tom wolf is a tyrant this is not an opinion this is a

092fact substantiated by his actions over the last few months in fact in mid-may tom wolf was stripped via vote of his emergency orders he could only make an emergency order that would last three weeks maximum before it ended after that vote outcome tom wolf was silent we thought we had silenced him for good on tuesday the 27th of july he came out of hibernation announcing there would be no mass mandate he made us comfortable we thought our democracy had prevailed in the meantime he's sinisterly plotted while finding an obscure loophole from 1929 just as school started he pulled a fast one rpa legislators didn't even see it coming he had his minister at the department of health declare a mandate as the law reads to protect the health of the people of this commonwealth and

093to determine and employ the most efficient and practical means for the prevention and suppression of disease i reiterate pa voted against this in may we won and yet we are still doing this what they were supposed to be legally stripped of doing we also voted against this here in our district approximately 70 percent we've heard that a lot tonight of the schools of the school surveyed said the mass should be optional you voted eight to nothing just few weeks ago eight to nothing what happened we are not forcing people to take off their mass we never have we just want our children to have the constitutional right to choose not to wear a mask i've had conversations with some of you you looked me in my eyes and stated we will only do what's mandated

094in section three of the order it mentions exceptions exceptions do not need a doctor's note the order plainly states it is recommended to follow 504 recommended not mandated 504 state states you need an existing condition and a doctor's note again 504 is recommended not mandated you have an out it's not on the government [Applause] it's not on the government it's on you you can simply ask parents for an exception note as many other districts are there are plenty of studies to back health deficiencies wearing a mask can cause instead you went back on your word and moved the goal post the excuse being the solicitor is advising us to do so we didn't vote for the solicitor we voted for you in closing the history books write about brave men and women who stand up

095in the face of tyranny i implore you to be those people until you do you've lost the trust of many more than those who you see before hear you tonight the time has come to stand up why won't you stand up with us thank you thank you very much at this time ellen morocco please come up [Applause] my name is ella morocco and i'm a junior at penn trafford high school and i'm also the only one that's going to be speaking here from my greater from my school excuse me could you speak more into the mic i don't know if everybody can hear her yeah please speak into the mic a little bit my name is ella morocco and i'm in 11th grade and kovitz started when i was a freshman and i have not

096had one year of normalcy i'm coming to you today not with anger but with kindness because i know that this is hard for everyone and i also know that anger is just a byproduct of being hurt and i have been hurt and i know all of you have been hurt too but i want to be the bigger person here and i know that coming to you with anger in my heart will not let you listen to me it will only make you hurt and it will make you angry i didn't know what i was going to talk about when i got up here but now i do because i know i need to talk about what happened here so i'm going to talk about my day that i had today my first day back from

097my holiday weekend i took two speech and debate classes i know exactly how to stand at a podium i know to look you in the eye and not to use filler words and i know that if i look up to my right i will be looking at you and trying to deceive you but i'm looking directly at you and i'm looking into your eyes and i'm asking you to help us this morning at 6 30 i boarded my bus with my brother he is 14. we got to the school we got off our bus and we stood in front of our school and we peacefully protested not a word came out of my mouth i just stood there as i stood there pen trafford's no bullying policy went to crap people were screaming fu go

098home why are you here you don't matter i had bus drivers giving me booze and thumbs down and flipping me off grown adults and i know that's not what you want but that is what it's come to i i got off my bus with my brother he's 14. both of us have been student of the month my dad served in the military he spoke mike morocco he went to school here after we got off our bus my brother went and was denied an education because he couldn't put on a mask we knew that was going to happen we expected it i walked into my school as soon as i walked into my school there were teachers lined up and down the hallway you know what the first words that came out of their mouth was

099wasn't good morning it wasn't how was your weekend it wasn't nice to see you mrs morocco i missed you in class today it was put your mask up or you're going to get kicked out of the school and i walked down the hallway and the only thing keeping me in this school was the fear that if i didn't put my mask on i wouldn't be able to play in my field hockey game that i've been on varsity for four years for three years in a row now i wasn't going to be able to start and you know my dad mentioned having the bare minimum i did the bare minimum today i showed up for the least amount i had to just so that i could start in my game and i went home i have

100never been in trouble with the law i've never been reprimanded by a teacher i have been a high honor role student my entire life and today when i walked into penn trafford high school with all of my friends who faces i couldn't see whose teachers faces i couldn't see who i couldn't hear i felt like a prisoner there was nothing stated in the mandate that i had to sit every other seat and yet when i went to lunch and i sat with my friends there was a man i don't know who he is i couldn't see his face and he rolled his eyes and he said it is not that hard you must move over you are not allowed to sit here i wonder what freedom is taken from me then and where in the

101mandate that you guys are enforcing by force it says that i was purposely told to move my father last year took fire in the fetal position under his bed fighting for other people's rights in other countries because we thought we had them here when i walked into that school you wouldn't have known we were penn trafford you wouldn't even have known the faculty walking down the hallway you couldn't see them it was brought up at our class sizes our classroom sizes i should say they're not able to to hold the maximum six feet or three feet distance which is why we can't quarantine that's because we're not meant to live like this i am 16 years old my brother was 14 years old and he was turned away from the school and i am not

102angry at you i love you guys and i feel for you and i know that when i go home i have parents who back me up my dad who spoke up here and my mom they are constantly backing me up they are backing my brother they are providing rides to kids who don't have them back home because they were denied an education today the center of my life is jesus christ i have gone through depression i have gone through bullying and it will continue to happen and i'm okay with it because the the road is narrow and few will follow it and that is something that i knew when i was a christian that i signed up for and i know that some of you think the same way and i'm asking you today to

103please find it in your hearts not for politics this isn't about politics this is about control and i'm asking you as a student as a 16 year old girl with a 14 year old brother and a 12 year old sister to please fight not for the money that the school was having not for the new football gym that may or may not be put in i'm asking you to fight for us because it's the right thing to do and because we are penn trafford and we are the warriors thank you [Applause] thank you so much and our last speaker robert clayton robert good evening my name is robert clayton i live at 1292 harrison city export road jeanette um i had some prepared marks here tonight but uh i don't know that it makes any

104sense to give these prepared mark statistics or anything like that we've heard a lot of great comments tonight ella is a prime example of what's wrong with what's going on in this public school today [Applause] [Music] me my wife have been homeschooled parents for the last six and eight years to our daughter and our son we've had our kids go to liberty online university from kindergarten sorry from first grade to eighth grade and sixth grade very very difficult decision to make to settlement public school i think the school system is broken it's flawed and it's unhelpful to our young people that being said my sixth grader and my eighth grader wanted to come to school this year when the mass mandate was voted on and it was respected i thought man i thought for a

105minute we had a fighting chance but today was the worst day of the school year for me personally because my kids have to go and put up with a nonsense that i've been protecting them from for six and eight years i ask you guys for students like ella her 14 year old and her 12 year old sister have common sense two weeks started out 17 months ago when does it end when does it make sense to say enough is enough four of the people sitting on the stage tonight every time they spoke remove their mask it's your job to enforce it mr leonard as we sit here right now practices horrible masking use by not having his nose covered as we sit here that's how ironic this is it's the sadness of what's going on

106and what's sadder is you guys are perpetrating this upon our own kids upon the kids that you're here to educate and teach morally it's wrong scientifically it's absurd and you guys are all educated i assume right am i wrong here the survival rate for kids with covid is over 99.5 my kids have a better chance of dying when i drive into mcdonald's which i wouldn't do but this is where we're at [Applause] i ask you guys to have common sense give us the option give us the option liberty university's program was excellent for our kids if i would have known seven days into this school year that i was going to force my kids who i tell every day don't put on a mask no matter where you go it's your choice it's your option

107don't put up with the nonsense of the store clerks or anyone else you don't have to wear these masks don't be a prisoner behind a mask god forbid my son's learning spanish you can't even see the lips the mouth movement of the mouth of their teacher now i mean how absurd is this and yet here we are the school board pulling off their mass to speak to us putting it back on for i don't even know what reason you guys know better than this what i'll say at the end of this is please consider what we're saying local government is best when it's done locally the only mark that i will read off paper because i don't want to screw it up is those who give up essential liberty for the purchase of little safety

108deserve neither liberty or safety and that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you very much tonight's meeting is not a a form or a debate it's an opportunity to to speak to listen for us to appreciate and appreciate each other um what a what a proud community the speakers you've done an excellent job and by respecting each other we got to hear each other and i think that's just exemplary of our community and especially one of our students to get up like that god bless you was wonderful really [Applause] as awkward as it sounds you maybe realize you're speaking to the choir in a lot of ways um but at this time i'd like to ask if any board member would like to make a comment of any way shape

109or form and again this is not a debate form please understand that we give everybody a chance to speak and i'd like to if any board member dr harris uh if you'd like to say anything otherwise we'll be a journey i still have to go through okay mr petrucci maybe we can go back to your section we missed i kind of jumped over that so we can get our speakers in mr petrucci [Music] and mrs petrucci is with the career career career center westmoreland county for the benefit of the audience my name is nick petrucci and i'm the pen trapper [Music] well that's nice to know you really want to listen good it's great thank you can you hear me now turn down [Music] my name is nick petrucci i'm a pen trap representative career

110technology center in west morning county central career tech located in new stanton va where one of uh nine school districts service the um with it really is the old name was votech and uh we have uh approximately over 100 our senior high school kids 114 i believe is now enrolled at uh careertech and uh the jobs we're receiving at queer tech the employment rate is over 90 it's uh very beneficial and it's been very nicely part of it now i'll give you my quick report here we met last thursday the second and uh my background being a special education teacher at normal senior high school for 36 years i placed many i taught three multiple i taught three areas of special edit the trainable the educable and the malta handicap and i placed them on

111jobs for 36 years and for a lot of frustration but a lot of success too and so now because of my persistence we're now starting a service occupation class for all the kids who were in the same category they're going to careertech and using the careertech as their apprenticeship so they can gain full employment and i always told them it's keep them off ssi because they're better off paying tax than they are living off taxes okay [Applause] now at the meeting we had um we had august 18th we met with uh um mr alexander novakov who we just hired and god doesn't bench from dog supreme the father of four and um we met also by way of zoom we met with uh two professors from the university of pittsburgh to implement this program at

112uh votech and it's uh it was a very very enlightening meeting and lasted for about 45 minutes and that is uh this will be developed a little further i hope to get it off the ground by the middle of this this first semester but um well we'll just see how the things work out right now it looks promising up okay another thing we did we had a um a plumbing teacher named uh cody cliffo and his salary salary is uh fifty four thousand dollars a year we had two paraprofessionals um lindsay schulte and kimberly raviard a salary of 24 000 a year let me see what else i got here okay um oh yeah instituting a driver's education program for that uh anybody that's um at the nine school districts that want to enroll in

113a driver's education program some drivers that has died out considerably that's how i got my uh drivers my driver's license back in 1960 say oh well i am but uh that that died out for economic purposes but now careertech is going to start offering a driver's ed program okay and our next meeting is uh october the 7th and um i'll have another report again at our next meeting that's all mr president thank you very much mr patricia dr harris for next week on the agenda um athletics i'm sorry items on our giant approved next week include athletics and extracurricular and flu extracurricular personnel approve a cheerleading trip under a budget of finance approve proposed activities and budgets for student organizations under buildings and grounds and safety approve a roofing project under personnel curriculum approved the

114afjr otc agreement approved personnel agenda under policy public relations legislative title ii give final approval to board policies and admin regulations and that is it thank you dr harris again just one more time if any of the board members would like to make a comment or anything of that port all right make it short you know me um just a couple quick comments for one i apologize for what people consider my poor mast etiquette i'm quite positive the fact whether i had a mask on or not had no effect on anybody here or anybody close to me [Applause] i i am a covent survivor i had it very bad and i've had my antibodies tested um i think that's the best way to get immunity i think that's probably the only protection but these are

115my personal opinions not my school board opinions but i apologize if i offend anybody because i wasn't wearing this right i don't i don't wear it enough to know how to wear it right i guess thank you so much all right and at this time i'm going to call for an adjournment we have a motion to adjourn i have a question is that possible um if no one has a just one more question please we'll come down to the audience and talk to y'all i know franklin regional has kind of extended things out until friday for the mass optional and i think that's the only great thing to do for everyone in this room so we can get our affairs in order because we've had no time to do so because everyone who tried to

116get in contact over the labor day weekend for whatever food we'd want to do next we were unavailable to do so but no one's open during the labor day weekend so with that being said i ask that you vote tonight to have the math optional at least until friday i'm going to pass on [Applause] i'm sorry christine do you want to respond say we can't do that i'm i have no sorry [Music] i have no opinion on the motion the board there's a new law that went into effect that requires their motions to be on the agenda they don't have such emotion on the agenda and that's the reason i'm sorry that's that's also what caused the trouble if you recall it uh was butler i believe had a problem where they had a school

117board controversy on option on option and it was a legal technicality it wasn't on the agenda so the vote was not legal and that caused a chance i'm sorry to say that that's interpretation [Music] and things change for our children so have at it all night thank you okay at this time do i have a motion to adjourn okay it's been moved do i have a second and a question all those in favor please say hi oppose okay good night meeting adjourned