001[Music] instructions sorry about that oh it's so nice good evening everyone we're going to get started in a moment we're just waiting for folks to put their masks on please right we're going ahead and as a reminder please we're on school property and the health and safety plan at this time does require masks to be worn my name is susan henderson eunice i'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order and ask that if you're able to do so to go ahead and rise at this time for the pledge of allegiance one nation under god individuals thank you very much again as a reminder we're on school property the health and safety plan at this time does require you to put your mask on or security will ask you to depart dr scott
002if you would go ahead and take attendance ken dennis hillary fletcher here jackie gusik here shelley hunt here robert kelly susan lane here kelly schaefer yeah ava finnegan here kenzie grant yeah nielsen teresa nation williams here susan henderson here madam president thank you the teacher in me says attendance i met roll call thank you very much dr scott all right first up uh we have approval of the minutes i'm going to go ahead and suggest we group a and b together in one motion is there any objection to my doing so hearing seeing none do i have a motion do i have a second second discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next up we do not at this time have any presentations and awards or educational presentations we're going to go now and
003move on to the student liaison reports hi i'm ava finney and i will be reporting about glenwood elementary school and indian lane elementary school at glenwood mr o'neill visited the kindergarten classrooms to help students make connection between a real toolbox and their reading toolbox in which each of the reading strategies represent a real tool the students enjoyed wearing their construction gear and sharpening their reading skills students participated in our own version of the winter olympics complete with opening and closing ceremonies each class represents a different country to compete in various academic competitions students in kindergarten through second grade created a maze for their ice skaters after learning the properties of magnetism the students in third through fifth grade learned about potential and kinetic energy and designed a downhill skier to raise down a wooden ski
004slope glemlin's families sent hundreds of items for the super bowl of caring ms bruno's 5th grade class organized and sorted donations then the pen crest boys lacrosse team loaded the items on a school bus to drop them off at the media food bank and to celebrate black history month the glenwood equity team and teachers shared numerous resources including costume read-alouds biography lessons and a black history month display hung in the main hallway on february 15th the company music museum musicopia west african drum and dance performed at an all school virtual assembly and over at indian lane elementary school student council organized the polar pop which is a safe at-home alternative to plunging into icy cold waters to support the special olympics participants popped a cold water balloon over their head and then challenged others to
005do the same the goal was to raise 4500 in order to provide inclusive sports health and school programs for nearly 20 000 individuals with intellectual disabilities throughout february indian lane has been celebrating black history month in music each class began with a highlighted artist such as stevie wonder bill withers and lionel richie in reading second and third graders read from jamia wilson's young gifted and black and wrote letters to their heroes in the book wilson's young bosons wait sorry fifth graders watched a video about the heroes of the civil rights movement then they created passing on billboards by researching a black individual who has made history also students created collaborative art for the hallways which feature prominent african americans then students created keynote presentations showcasing showcasing what they learned hi i'm kenzie grant and i'll
006be reading the reports from media elementary school and bursary elementary school at media elementary school to celebrate black history month and the many cultures that make up the media elementary school community the school held two important events in the month of february first a poster contest was which featured which focused on the accomplishments of african american innovators in the fields of science technology mathematics and design was held then media hosted a cultural heritage day when students grabbed their passports and traveled to places like germany ghana south korea trinidad and tobago last week media kindergarten and first grade students celebrated the first 100 days of learning by participating in a parade counting collections dressing like a 100 year old person and accessorizing their outfits intermediate students engaged in math activities related to 100 thank you to
007the ptg for making our in-person book there possible all students visited the book there and families were able to visit the fair on two different evenings miss marie costa a learning support teacher has been named a recipient of the franklin myth federal credit union's excellence in teaching award along with 19 other educators across the tri-county area she will be recognized and celebrated at a banquet on april 21st at roastery elementary fifth grade students celebrated black history month by participating in an interactive lesson about the living conditions of the of a revolutionary war soldier the role of edward ned hector a soldier in the revolutionary war was played by noah lewis rosary elementary students celebrated the 100th day of school by participating in various counting activities writing about life in 100 years doing 100 exercises and
008reading a book called 100 days worries the grocery community donated items ranging from food to cleaning supplies to the providence animal shelter which offers rescue medical care treatment protection and placement of animals thank you to mrs chris mcguire for organizing this drive students at roastery elementary collectively earned over 2 000 high-five tickets so they enjoyed a positive behavior celebration during lunch with two very energetic djs thank you mrs morris and mrs driver at springtail uh hi my name is neil sand and i'll be covering springton lake and pancreas high school at springton lake we were able to successfully continue a large scale service project that had been split over two days in celebration of the mlk day of service students packaged over 1500 breakfast bags made over 1500 sandwiches packaged about 400 snack and toiletry
009bags and prepared over 700 frozen meals for the homebound also 125 paracord bracelets were made for operation gratitude a project of this magnitude would not have been possible without the support of ptg student council and our families springton lake has been celebrating black history month in physical education students learned about individuals who have made contributions to athletics fitness health and wellness then participated in activities in which these pioneers excelled music lab students explored the contributions and legacies of black djs who helped to shape the sound of hip-hop also eighth grade language arts students focused upon the shared themes of responsibility change inclusion and hope in 2021 in the 2021 inaugural poem the hill we climb by amanda gorman and maya angelou's 1993 inaugural poem on the pulse of mooring the finals of the springton lake
010springton lake school-wide spelling bee took place on february 16th seventh grader uh student seventh grade student april kim emerged as the winner and eighth grade student nicholas assalone was runner-up they will now represent springton lake in this county-wide spelling bee hosted by dciu the winter sports season concluded earlier this month with all of our teams having very successful seasons school spirit was palpable at our games some students even coordinated a white out among the student body for a basketball game to show their support over at penn crest high school the high q team finished the regular season third in the county which allowed us to host a home playoff match we played well against wrath haven and marvel but marvel came out on top at the second at the end of the second marking period
011nearly 55 percent of all pancreas students made the honor roll including 58 of our freshmen our counselors worked with the class of 2022 to submit over 2 100 college applications this year which is 150 more than last year penn state pitt and temple were the most popular choices among the senior years class they also submitted 86 applications to two ivy league schools this year thanks to the school counselors who submitted an average of 500 applications each our chinese teacher mrs lin and her students performed line line dances during lunch periods on tuesday february 15th to bring auspicious qi to the phs additionally students decorated the building with symbols of chinese culture to celebrate the lunar new year lastly the simon youth academy and the technology department would like to highlight edwin craig a senior in
012the roastery media simon needs academy at penn crest high school he is working towards graduate graduation this spring while continuing to build his tech skills edmund participates in the delaware county technical school's computer networking and digital forensics program in addition his independent study with technology assistant kb cannon is giving him a glimpse into the professional world of informational technology because of his previous computer-related knowledge and problem-solving skills the technology department is benefiting from edwin's independent study as much as he is he repairs chromebooks works on projectors and printers and troubleshoots other tech issues wow as always i am blown away by everything that our students do and the staff and faculty especially by the last one with chromebook repairs is a valuable skill set right there thank you so very much for sharing all right
013we're going to move on to our board liaison reports i know um michelle hunt you're on virtual do you have a report for dccc you can hear me i am happy to share it um we got a lot of updates from dccc the past couple weeks including the enrollment report which is 4540 students from the supporting districts including 203 enrolled students from the sponsoring districts there is an update for the new campus as many of you know delaware county community college to purchase the former archbishop prendergast high school building and they were recently awarded a 2.5 million dollar grant from the redevelopment assistance capital program which is from the state of pennsylvania and that is the first steps for them to begin to transform the former high school into a quality educational and training center
014as well as community programs for students and residents of the local area there's also a new marketing campaign that they're coming out with and you'll be seeing it all over um digital media television direct mail public transit etc it's called change starts here it was developed with the input of students faculty and staff and reflects what the college has become which is very forward-focused and student-ready so be looking for that as you drive around the area the strategic plan extension concludes in 2022 and they've had their middle states visit they're going to use that assessment as the starting point for their next strategic plan they had a town hall for faculty and staff in january and they're going to be reaching out to many members of the community to get external input from students and
015community members as they move forward in their long-term strategic plan as for the spring of 2020 to remember that their health and safety guidelines do require masks in all indoor facilities and as a precaution they are currently still not holding any large in-person events at this time if something changes they will make sure to let the public know um i think one thing i want to spend a moment on is moonshot for equity i presented this at a previous meeting where um the moonshot for equity is a national program and westchester university and delaware county community college were two of the first local area um actually the entire east coast area they were the first to sign on for the program and in many cases um a lot of equity programs have focused on correcting
016deficits in education or experience and the moonshot for equity is very focused on removing the barriers that create a lot of those deficits they're focused on adult learners and students who have historically not have had the same access to education they have had the initial assessment of where dccc stands and westchester university and they're going to put together their implementation plan if you recall a um students in need who do well at delaware county community college in this program will automatically be able um to transfer over to westchester university to complete a four year degree and students with financial need will be given housing assistance etc so stay tuned it's a really an interesting program and uh the exhibit of the dockets for enslaved people of delaware county remains on exhibit through the end of
017the month these are very historical documents that the delaware county bar association became the custodian of and they are on display at the community college where students staff and visitors are able to reflect on the experience and what that means for us currently in the present and uh that is it for delaware county community college thank you thank you very much miss hunt for keeping a surprise with everything going on with our tremendous community partner hillary county community college much appreciated all right miss fletcher do you have a report to share for dciu and legislative council i do i have a few things i'll try to get through them quickly um so last month representative ceresi of montgomery county held a news conference on charter school accountability reform highlighting the results of an examination of
018records showing that charter schools have spent more than 35 million dollars in tax dollars just on advertising during the previous two school years with no state audits or oversight also last month of governor wolf signed into law senate bill 324 which is now act one of 2022 which is intended to help keep students experiencing homelessness or in foster care on track to graduate high school this is a great act now i believe it is another unfunded mandate both of these things cyber charter funding reform and unfunded mandates i was able to discuss with representative chris quinn with whom i met yesterday morning um governor wolf as many of us know did approve 1.25 billion dollars to be added to the basic education funding formula and a 300 million dollar investment to level up which concerns
019the 100 district districts that are most in need of help while we are not one of those districts i i like to report on that because what happens to children all over our state should matter to us there's also special education funding of 200 million dollars one of the largest increases ever for special education um there's a last piece of legislative news there's a proposal on the table that would address savings for public schools by way of charter funding one of the proposals involves a possible flat rate for cyber charter tuition in the iu um in january the uh dciu board approved a policy making vaccination a requirement for employment at the iu and this follows the federal requirement for all head start employees dciu sponsors something called project elect which is a program providing
020comprehensive support services to school-age pregnant students and parenting students throughout delaware county project elect received an increased number of program referrals at the start of 21 the 21 22 school year as students returned to in-person learning and the program to date has served 71 students and is on track to serve about 92 students um also the dciu spelling bee and reading olympics or dciu will host the spelling bee and reading olympus competitions this year um and also i'm happy to report this um uh skills usa district 2 regional competition winners i sent this to you in an email but i want to tell everybody um skillsusa is a partnership of students teachers and industry representatives working together to ensure that the united states has a skilled workforce students in various programs at the technical school
021participated in skills usa district 2 regional competitions and we pen crest have a couple of winners there was a first place award for first aid and cpr that went to lucas sampson emergency and protective services and a third place award in carpentry that went to jack gomer carp for carpentry um so congratulations to them and we also have a national technical honor society inductee for 2022 similar ola navy for medical careers and lastly news from psba the us department of education recently um released updates to the college scorecard and you can find that at collegeswordcard.ed.gov and they released enhancement that make the tools more useful for students and families weighing college options but if you're a student and continuing your education in a traditional classroom right now is not the right option for you there's
022a whole section for alternatives to a four-year degree like apprenticeships and training programs thank you very much miss fletcher and all the best all the incredible things going on with dciu and that is fabulous all right moving on then it's time for our superintendent's report the month of february rang in the lunar new year and marks the first month of the chinese calendar celebrations and festivities take place for 15 days beginning on february 1st and culminating in a lantern festival on february 15th this is the year of the tiger the tiger symbolizes strength exercising evils and bravery something i believe we can all relate to as we continue to face the challenge of the pandemics tonight the board will once again consider revision to the health and safety plan around masking requirements i understand that
023passions and opinions run deep regarding masking and that this is a very divisive topic across all communities including our own however i am troubled to hear that some of our students who spoke last month were harassed by the adults who were in attendance this is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated this is not who we are as a community our students have an equal right to express their opinions and they have done so respectfully modeling the epitome of civil discourse that is a cornerstone of our democracy i am proud of them regardless of where they stand on the issue of masking let's continue to remember that well after the end of this pandemic we need to be a community whose actions represent our shared values of kindness compassion and respect as well as well
024as to understand that our common humanity is what connects us both in times of struggle as well as in times of joy thank you very much dr d marino lennon by next up mr kelly with your solicitors report thank you madam president you have my written report and i'm pleased to say that i received no more commercial a residential tax assessment deals from property owners in the school district and so if my memory served me correctly have a total of only eight commercial tax appeals i think it's four or five residential which is amazing lowest numbers as far back as i can remember uh the other thing i'd like to report on the indian lane parking lot project last week the development security and stormwater management agreements executed by the township were delivered to middletown
025township along with the letter of credit so that project is starting in fact there's an agenda item tonight to approve the contract for that project so everything's in line for that project to move along and that concludes my report madam president thank you very much mr kelly then moving on to my president's report i wanted just to pay special recognition to a few students in our uh that have gone going on to do great things this weekend we have ruby schwellm and jonathan hull who'll be going into the district swim championships this weekend we've got our varsity wrestling team that is going into the district wrestling championships this weekend and we have both the girls and boys indoor track teams that are going to be going to the state championships this weekend incredible whatever happens
026this weekend we are also very very proud of our students on a same note i do also want to say on behalf of the board that we're as dr d marina london said um however individuals vote we are all of this community and tremendously proud of our community and the right to engage in civic discourse it's a very real and important thing and i also want to pay special tribute to our students who are here and sacrifice their evenings to come here and occasionally even to you know speak on the different issues beyond their school reports and we support you and we thank you for doing your civic duty on this and we appreciate you all very much so thank you all right we're going to be moving on to presentations i just want to
027do a couple reminders one if you are here and you would like to give an unscheduled presentation we do have some sign up sheets in the back um and you are welcome and encouraged to sign up so that we can call on you when the time is right and two we'll be doing the scheduled presentations first and i just um given that we have a couple of scheduled presentations in addition to no doubt some unscheduled ones i'm going to go ahead and just read my little disclaimer now as a reminder so district residents and taxpayers wishing to address the school board are encouraged to do so at this time written items are strongly suggested speakers should state their name and their municipality for the record before commenting comments are going to be limited to five
028minutes for scheduled presentations three minutes for unscheduled presentations the school board may suspend the public comment period after a reasonable amount of time and the use of profanity shouting or personal tax are discouraged please also note that the public comment period is intended to provide an opportunity for citizens to address the board however it is not an opportunity to participate in public debate or question and answer dialogue and that is why contact information should be provided to the administration and board so that the district can follow up with citizens concerns following this meeting so with all of that said we'll go ahead and start with our scheduled presentations we have first up miss jeanette verdur with en good evening members of the school board it's great to be here tonight the rose tree media education
029association along with our esp and secretaries unit is excited to let you know that the you and the greater school community know that we had a very successful conclusion to our supply drive held to benefit teachers teammates this all-volunteer organization runs a warehouse and fall croft where they collect and redistribute a myriad of items that are used by students and teachers every day the organization is currently serving any delaware county teacher actively working in a 65 threshold title one school for a nominal membership fee a teacher may shop twice a year via their online store the order is then pooled and processed and they just drive to the warehouse and pick it up most orders are valued in the 700 range this is a tremendous help to beginning teachers who purchase many classroom items with
030their own money and also benefits the students in under resourced schools as members of psea the pennsylvania state state educators association we hope that our state and federal elected officials would understand the everlasting value in fully funding public education but until that time rtmea is honored to support such organizations as teachers teammates on february 12th in celebration of our 100th day of school our esps delivered over a dozen large very large boxes because i had to carry them of needed school supplies and the teachers union collected over a dozen backpacks and monetary donations totaling one thousand five hundred and thirty dollars we are rtmea proud thank you thank you that is tremendous news um our next scheduled speaker is robin matthews i apologize in advance because i do have a cold i promise it's not
031covered i've been tested that doesn't sound good my name is robin matthews i'm an rtmsd parent i live in media borough trying to find where the glasses sweet spot is of that age before i begin i'd like to first express my appreciation for the work the board and administration has done over the course of the coveted pandemic in order to keep our kids and our communities safe while meeting the very real demands of teacher shortage and a very opinionated community i would also like to take this opportunity to comment that regarding masking i believe it is smartest at this time to keep the current mitigation strategy in place until we are in moderate transmission or until the cdc revises their guidance that said excuse me sorry right i mean case in point that said the
032main reason for speaking my main reason for speaking tonight in regards is uh in regards to the district's policy of restorative practice as a method of addressing racial cultural and ethnic microaggressions as well as the policies transparency and adherence over the eight years that my child has been a student in the district i've heard several stories relating to diversity race and equity that have troubled me there have been incidents where students have mistreated other students incidents where staff have been victims of microaggressions and outright racism from colleagues and most recently the incident where a student of color was called out in front of the class made to remove a cultural item of clothing frankly while all of these examples are in themselves problematic my concern is actually the follow-up and response both at the micro
033and the macro level i asked a question on via email about anti-bias training and received a thoughtful response from dr d marino lyndon so thank you for that um regarding policies and trainings excuse me um and i feel encouraged by what was outlined there among them a discussion of the restorative practice model of conflict resolution this model calls for restorative circles conflict resolution and peer mediation however for the restorative practice model to be effective it must also include transparency in policies and procedures and explicit direct sanctions as backup if the restorative process fails in dr d marino linens emailed to me the explanation of rtmsd's restorative practice policy was vague and did not include any information about where i could read about it in more detail i also did not see an explanation of direct
034sanctions as backup if the process fails i know that when the restorative practice model is fueled by a vocal parent as it has been in some of the cases mentioned above it often sees some follow-through but i don't know what happens to those students and staff who don't have vocal advocates i've heard firsthand accounts of incidents that did not receive adequate follow-through as a matter of course i'm hoping that this policy exists in writing and that i can be helpful in finding a better way to make this information more easily accessible but as it stands now i as a parent in the district do not know what for example a teacher who causes harm due to cultural ignorance is expected to do in order to repair the damage done and then if that is not
035carried out to satisfaction what the direct sanction is in fact as i understand it most teachers in the district do not know this explicit policy let alone students i believe that it is this lack of clarity that has gotten us to a place where there are few if any actual consequences for damaging behavior unless the issue is forced by a vocal parent or ally i also know that many incidents go unreported because of the lack of a clearly communicated and proven strategy of harm reduction and repair sorry my aim in addressing the board and administration publicly today is twofold one to get actual information where are these policies published how can i and other members of the district access them and two to draw attention to what i see as a critical gaping hole in
036our district's repeated response or often lack thereof to cultural and racial aggression and microaggression from faculty staff and students and i look forward to a stronger commitment to transparency and follow-through at every level of the district thank you okay we're getting ready to move on to unscheduled presentations as a reminder for anyone who would like to go ahead and speak before the board you're certainly encouraged to do so we do have another sign-up sheet in the back um so i'm going to go ahead we also you might have noticed in response to making things a little bit easier if you're able to speak before the board we have two podiums so hopefully that will make people a lot more comfortable when coming to speed and last but not least again our health and safety plan
037at this time does require mass usage while on campus so please put your mask on i do apologize in advance if i mispronounce anyone's name um that is never my intent and of course we already have three minutes per individual our first person is sydney whitman hi i'm sydney whitman um i'm here regarding something that actually our last speaker um mentioned about a student who was asked to remove her culture head covering and i would like to say that student was me um on the week of january 17th at springton lake a role was enforced sorry okay it's okay okay what was the choice the students were no longer allowed to wear um well i had coverings um they were no longer allowed to wear head coverings such as caps nuts i was told on
038january 26 to remove what i was wearing on my head this me what seems to be a bandana to many is a significant part of my west indian culture i was targeted twice by the same teacher to remove my head covering i was embarrassed i felt ashamed and i was laughed that my students walked confronted publicly in front of the teacher also in spite of me telling the assistant principal that the head country is a part of my culture i was still asked to remove it something we addressed at the beginning of the school year was that no one should be made of fun of for their religion ethnicity culture or origin without there being any consequences so why did my school principle and my own superintendent violate that rule the same people who made
039the role are the same people who broke it if a student was responsible for treating me like this they would be in a lot of trouble so why isn't this why isn't the staff in trouble as they were the ones responsible for the incident discipline should not only be for students but also for principals teachers and all other staff members i have one question for dr d marino lennon i read your email that you sent to my parents it hurt me to see how you hid part of this incident how you could cut how you could protect yourself and staff while you were in the wrong whereas my protection i am the victim me removing my head covering when told to was not a lie i did take it off despite i should not have
040informing dr leighton that hair my head covering was a part of my culture was not a lie i did it in front of other students why would i make something like this up you know how horrible that day was for me and how alone and embarrassed i felt did you know that that still hurts me to this day thinking about it makes me like this my parents sent me to school where they thought i would feel safe and understood but i most definitely didn't i felt alone uncared for and stripped from my cultural beliefs that day it felt like someone was telling me to disregard my culture you said it was for the safety of others yet i don't see how this on my head is affecting anyone in this room right now or at
041my school in my classroom it is hard to believe that in your position rather than do what is right and condemn the actions of those involved and yourself you chose to point fingers at a 13 year old girl and her family on the basis of how the district handled what happened to me in your email i feel like minorities and people of culture and origin were not allowed are not allowed to be themselves and i would like to like finish and i would like to let you know that you did not just insult me and my family's culture but hundreds upon thousands of other cultures around the world i promise to be an advocate for students of all cultures and communities and i will not be allowed i will not be afraid to speak about
042this anymore i will wipe my tears and my name sydney whitman will be remembered c thank you sydney it takes a tremendous give me give me give it to me girl come here good evening everyone my name is donalyn whitman this is my daughter sydney whitman like she closed by saying you will remember her name and you will remember my name donalin whitman today i stand before you not alone but i'm here with all my ancestors on this podium who came before me who fought the battle so that today my voice will be heard today i stand before you not all alone but i stand with minorities people of different cultures backgrounds and origins today i stand before you expressing no apology for the color of my skin my traditional way or my sent lucian
043heritage we did not choose the color of our skin neither did you we did not choose our country of birth neither did you we did not choose our language or accents neither did you but what you choose but what you will choose is to provide us and our children with the same respect that is given to all other families what you will do in this school district is to respect our children regardless of their differences regardless of the color of their eyes regardless of the texture of their hair regardless of the color of their skin regardless of having two moms or two dads regardless of their social economic status you will treat them equal and with respect what this school district did to my daughter is shameful and how this incident has was handled by
044all parties involved including the school board is disheartening compromising one's soul compromising one's integrity hurting children and their families to be afforded a seat at this table or at any table to be afforded the titles the accolades the salaries the power will one day end believe it or not these little brown girls and boys and black girls and boys are our future they will grow and become adults one day and they will remember that you did not the what you did and how you made them feel and that is the price that you will have to pay when i walk out of this room i can make you a promise my heart is clean and my conscience is clear is yours yes my name is scott whitman media obviously that's my wife and my daughter
045um i am here to speak uh in reference to some of the same thoughts that robin matthews had and that is that when i look at the presentations in every one of these schools about how they honored tradition and culture and black history month and all the things that went on at all the various schools to me it seems like window dressing now i know there's some thoughtful people on this board but i also know that there's some people on this board that want to stiff-arm many of the parents through a bureaucracy or placating them or giving them canned answers like uh we know things are very frustrating with the policies or with covert or whatever it might be you know we're not stupid we're pretty smart people out here too and for the few
046people on this board that do that it's very very insulting you know we have real issues your job here is to make sure that our students are well educated and that their problems are addressed and when there's not clarity when there's not transparency and most of all when there's not honesty i've had instances over the last three years to have interactions on a couple of topics regarding this school system and there hasn't been an honest answer there there's been answers that have placated my concerns and for that that's not why we pay our school taxes i felt that your answers dr mourinho were uh dave moreno excuse me were were not very truthful in those emails that you sent to my wife i didn't think that there's things that you said in that meeting that
047you were going to follow up on were done there was not transparency there was no level of uh honesty as far as what was going to happen to the people that were involved in the situation and the reason you had these people coming up here now and telling these stories about different problems with race in our schools is because we have window dressing like there's nice pictures that were on the screen up there but then we don't have a policy that starts at the top and spreads that policy down evenly it's just done to make people feel happy about themselves geez we're doing a great job because look at this well that doesn't do anything about racism or make us come together as a community our next speaker is ubuntu is an african proverb that
048means i am because you are the theme in this statement is i cannot live this life without you we cannot live this life without each other this theme is hard to come by especially in a society that's grown to be incessantly individualistic though saddening individualism is to be expected out there in the world but here in rochester media school district until should be the central philosophy and how we operate and care for each other we are a village comprised of parents guardians students administrators alum faculty and staff if any part of that village is fractured this community cannot work if you do not know by now sydney whitman i want you to know she is my daughter she is your daughter she is the daughter of everyone in this room therefore we are all responsible
049for her well-being after sydney was a victim of cultural discrimination in january after being asked to aggressively remove her head wrap even with all that she was an advocate for trying to be an advocate for herself her spirit was squelched by a teacher the part of the village that she trusted the village failed her again when calls went unanswered kurt's emails were sent and an unproductive meeting result resulted in the status quo and here we are again stuck in the cycle of equity dysfunction as i watched students present on all they learned about black history month yeah my spirit lifted a bit but celebrating black history month and citing lunar new year facts does not make this a culturally responsive school district we need that but we need deep culture we need anti-racism and anti-bias
050focus we need to notice black students walking with their heads low because they are not truly celebrated here we need to protect the children who are being taunted because their names do not sound familiar to us or transgender children who are targeted the fact that your team is stuck in a cycle of equity dysfunction knowing students are being harmed is concerning you all know this part if you choose to shift your lens and demonstrate true commitment to this work you will sit with a large number of black families to listen to and understand their concerns listen to their solutions and then act speak with parents of black girls who are embarrassed to go swimming because their hair curls up too tightly speak with black parents whose children do not want to be black because it's
051easier to try to be white as families of color how they've been impacted when the n-word is written on the media elementary school playground and there's no space to communicate about that speak to lgbtq community members about their experiences ask them what they need to feel supported then implement those supports share with your parents your strategic vision around dei work update the website that has been vacant for over a year ask for feedback this is the proactive work which must supersede reactive work when harmful situations arise ensure there is a check and balance system can't keep having all these yes people name it own it you can shift in your chair and have all the attitude you want name it own it interrupt it and that's what we will do ensure closely responsive training is
052ongoing reassess growth to ensure people will not harm again how do you really know that what you're implementing is working i have two black boys in this district who are in your care they are smart loving hard-working i want to know that they are safe when they are in your care and i do not believe they are our next speaker rather than continuing to be offended and defensive because i'm speaking up be a diplomatic leader who understands empathy our next speaker andrews to show sydney that if she is the victim of identity harm again you will be there to stop it ma'am we will nope we will be looking forward we will be no ma'am it is over yeah we're here for an unscheduled [Music] rtmsd leaders into action i would like to close with
053a quote from the book you are reading belonging to a culture of dignity inclusion is not a strategy to help people fit into the systems and structures which exists in our societies it is about transforming those systems and structures to make it better for everyone [Applause] andrews i'm a parent of a middle schooler at springton lake my daughter is an eighth grader along with sydney whitman i've known sydney and her family for eight years they are the first family to welcome minds into media when we arrived here from philadelphia to give our daughter a chance to get a great education at the award-winning rosary media school district anyone who knows sydney knows her unique style with her signature wild curly hair often covered with stylish bandana style hair rats when i spoke to my friend
054after hearing the news of sydney being singled out by a teacher in front of the entire class to remove her bandana i was furious furious with the issue the way the issue was handled by the administrators furious with the fact that a child was humiliated for being herself and representing her west indian culture and furious that in 2022 this award-winning school district has yet again missed the mark and is still is still so far has so far to go when it comes to inclusion and diversity we can't pick and choose what and when and what we want to be inclusive about and how we choose to show diversity in our schools it has to be across the board two words do better to sydney donna scott and gabby i love you guys and i stand
055with you thank you our next speaker is tom mcfadden as a friendly reminder when people come up and speak please be sure to say your municipality for the record thank you [Music] good evening my name is thomas mcfadden i live in upper providence township and have for 30 years currently what township council for the fourth time in upper providence four times uh i live directly next to the springton lake middle school i'm an attorney in media have resided in the same location for the last nearly 30 years my law office i'm here to speak uh in favor of the proposal to light the major league all field at the springton lake middle school i do have one uh exhibit one page i'd like to pass it out and just tell me where does the school's
056work start 13 copies [Music] this is a document i received from a gis mapping in delaware county it is a a schemata or a plot plan of the entire springton lake middle school uh which totals somewhere in the vicinity of about 80 acres it's huge uh there are currently three ball fields uh on the northern end of that campus and i've marked those there as one two and three on the upper right hand side you'll see the the words or the letters slms that's the school that's the uh the school the campus uh you'll also see uh in the lower left-hand side a parcel that has made on it that's where i live i'm right next to the school so at any rate um there's been some expression of concern about neighborhood uh concerns i'm
057here to tell you that i have i know all of these people there are a total of 13 properties adjacent to that area uh there are only two of them that do not have in my opinion adequate screen planting and they are marked with little x's on that schematic what i'm prepared to do rather shortly is to go to each and every one of those 13 households on a sunday afternoon knock up they know me because i was there many times in the past most recently last october and i don't think you're going to have any headaches from that so i i've asked josh steinberg and tom furman to join me and we will do this and make sure that we are able to allay any concerns that anybody has and we'd like to get
058this through lastly uh thank you very much kyle verbitsky just signed with the oakland oaklands and he played in the spring in the media little league and he lives in three 380 steeplechase drive in my district thank you thank you very much [Applause] our next speaker is cynthia sabatini good evening cynthia sabatini upper providence township i have several questions to pose to the administration and board which i will also forward via email with respect to the proposed new school on the room to learn room to grow website the following statement appears at the time of the 2016 demographic report about 750 new housing units were planned and at some stage of construction within our district including single-family homes townhomes and apartments my questions are as follows related to this statistic how many of the approximately
0591750 units have been completed as of year end 2021. what is the completion rate by single-family homes by townhomes and by apartments of those completed what is the overall occupancy rate by single-family homes townhomes and apartments in what municipalities are the completed units located in the individual municipalities how many single-family homes townhomes and apartments have been completed and what are the associated occupancy rates the 2016 statistic should be updated on the district website so that the community knows the district is putting forth current numbers possibly the montgomery port update issued during the last quarter of addresses these questions i had requested a copy of the montgomery report update which i will once again once again ask for i did receive the following response from dr demarino lennon about the whereabouts of this update quote unquote
060the enrollment information on the district's website is developed with montgomery consultants this is completed annually in october however the whereabouts of the update was not noted the question as to where on the district website the taxpayers can find this updated report needs to be answered once again i will ask where is it located additionally the updated montgomery report should be posted in a readily accessible fashion on the district website for all taxpayers to view and analyze thank you and as noted i will follow up with an email thank you our next quick reminder those who would like to sign up we should have a sign up sheet in the back you are welcome to do so um i do want to encourage people to please remember to try to keep to the three minutes we
061have a lot of people who would like to speak and the board would like to hear everybody our next speaker is todd farrelly good evening uh i would like to thank the board for allowing me to speak tonight my name is todd forelli i am uh i live in upper providence township um i was born and raised in uh the school district in upper providence and you know i'm lived in philadelphia for a time and i'm happy to move to move back here to settle for you know to raise my family so um what i want to kind of uh submit to the board at this point is uh asking that they uh introduce or something as a responsible contracting ordinance for uh up for the uh school district and if i may i have
062uh i have some copies here with some uh insight on apprenticeships and uh construction skills shortages and the challenges and solutions in this so currently in delaware county there are 11 municipalities and school districts which have what are known as responsible contracting ordinances in place uh yeah i liken them to taxpayer protection because it creates a transparency and accountability it guards against misclassification of workers which hurts construction workers and negatively affects the tax base there's even apa law against misclassification um rco and rco is what it's known as it can give a school district or a municipality uh protection currently under the commonwealth uh commonwealth law a public entity must award the lowest qualified bidder the problem is that there are zero qualifications even from the commonwealth so that this leaves a council or school
063board to always by virtue have to pick the lowest better otherwise they are left open to litigation by instituting you know these rcos you are creating qualifications that contractors must live up to when performing public works projects this also gives a public entity the ability to remove a contractor if they have been found guilty of a construction related crime after they were awarded the project and i have several examples that i could speak at a you know future time about by ensuring qualified ethical contractors are awarded public work cost overruns and scheduling issues will be mitigated considerably if any of you have ever signed a change order you know what i'm talking about some detractors oh pardon me the fact is when qualified and trained individuals work on a project because there is apprenticeship language
064within these rcos because you want to have qualified trained individuals here they work on these projects the quality safety and scheduling of the project are upheld along with the budget and finally speaking to quality and safety the children of our community are in these schools the teachers and the faculty are here it is paramount that they are protected when in class i started to think what could happen if something such as a large section of say ductwork is installed improperly this could be catastrophic and to finish up the board if they would like to contact other school boards or people that have dealt with this sort of uh these sort of situations we would be happy to connect them thank you mr perelli i'm pretty sure the last time i saw you you were about
06510. so um it's wonderful to see you as a fine young man say hello to your parents for me our next speaker is june messen good evening my name is dr june elkhart i live in upper providence and i've had four wonderful children who've come through the school district i am originally of guyanese descent so i'm west indian and i wanted to share something with you i was in high school when i came to this country and i went to i went to swansea high school and a few months after i started there i was pulled out of my classroom and my principal had to go through my my locker and my school bags because parents had reported that there was a new black girl in school who was selling drugs if my country didn't
066even have tvs or anything and my great knowledge of drugs was marijuana that's how i thought you pronounced it i was standing in that hallway terrified of what was going to happen to me it is 40 years later and i couldn't stop crying when i heard what happened to sydney these things some like little things they're huge things my four children have struggled all of them in the middle school in some way with a teacher doing something that we thought was horrendous we have come to the school and reported it multiple times my husband has a phd i have an md we have resources and sydney the best thing that you can do my dear is to be successful because in our school districts they were absolutely discouraged from being successful and that is just
067heartbreaking and this is not me being a whiner this is not me complaining i read my daughter's law school application her essay and i i said to her i failed you as a mother you have to change this you don't have to let the world know you can't write this because she had her rage her rage and i just remember i hope and pray that in our school district we are educators i know that you mean to do the right thing you don't want to be the person or to or to support someone who 40 years later even after being so successful can be brought to tears because i felt all alone all again we're better than this on the grocery media school district i brought my family here i chose this school district because
068i i didn't expect this i had had no issues with pen press no issues with media elementary every single one of my four beautiful kids had issues of racial racial in nature at springtime lake that should say something thank you our next speaker is jill burke puget hi i'm gilbert hewitt from upper providence it's a hard name i don't know how to uh follow that but that was beautiful thank you um i'm also here as a parent as well as an educator and i'm here in support of this brave young lady who had the courage to speak up only to be pushed back down i want to make sure that this doesn't happen again we live in a school district that espouses a diversity initiative that doesn't stand up to a simple idea that idea
069is to celebrate and embrace diversity instead this district decided it didn't know the difference between a fashion choice and a person's culture this district decided to denigrate cultural diversity rather than embrace and celebrate it it's not lost on me that this child was forced to remove her hair app during black history month it's shameful that this district needs to write into policy explicitly what cultural diversity looks like and that teachers may not ask a student to remove an item of clothing that represents cultural identity this should not happen again you are brave and i'm sorry that you have to have to stop for this trauma it's not right you may not know this now or want this burden but you are paving the way for students like my daughter and i thank you for that
070you make this school district a better place you are the change superintendent you opened your remarks about embracing cultural diversity the response of the teacher in the school district administration would describe was disgraceful who are we as a community if we don't understand and embrace cultural cultural diversity who are we as a community if we allow racial discrimination who are we as a community thank you our next speaker is lou stevens good evening my name is lou stevens i'm from middletown township as a taxpayer in the road street media school district for 35 years i feel it's time for me and my fellow constituents to be heard i would like to the rco language added to all publicly funded projects in the district the rco will make the process of finding good contractors who use
071tops craftsman and women a lot easier more importantly it'll make the prospect the process of weeding out the bad apples a whole lot easier also the contractors that we want working in our school district are the ones that have met all the requirements have all the license and certifications have not been disbarred haven't defaulted and have a clean safety record as educators you should definitely appreciate the language of the apprenticeship which means that all the work being done on our projects will be done by men and women who have been properly trained and up to date on all safety rules and regulations and all changes in technologies the contractors that meet all from my personal experience i've been in the business for 42 years the contractors that meet all the requirements are more likely to
072complete the work on time and on budget with a higher safety record by far which leads to less headaches for you and more bang for my buck thank you our next speaker is john carlin john carlin okay again i do apologize if i mispronounce anyone's name our next speaker is cornelius duff good evening um upper providence i support the reasonable contracting ordinance as well as a taxpayer i want the best trained individuals possible working on projects within the community to ensure that the end product is of the highest quality possible there are many horror stories out there about poor workmanship that ends up costing the community much more than the original budget has called for thank you very much thank you next speaker is todd younger thank you my name is todd younger i live
073at uh 425 willa gate lane i am a uh roadster media school district alumni i've been here my whole entire life i grew up here the whole nine yards waiting i'm sure the school board will rectify the whole thing i have confidence in this board i i know that they support our community i i feel strong about this board um the reason why i'm here is also to address the fact that you know i am an ibw member i've spent a lot of years uh learning my trade working hard i spent uh five years of an apprenticeship i spent 8 000 man hours just getting through my apprenticeship training and learning i'm supporting the cocc whatever it is whatever you name it i'm supporting that so so that the responsible contract language is put into
074play and i just hope that my school board that has supported me throughout the years will continue to support me and my endeavor with responsible contract language therefore thank you thank you our next speaker is kevin anderson you doing my name is kevin anderson i'm from middletown township i also am supporting the responsible contract ordinance this is uh to ensure that uh the public prop projects in our school districts are completed timely reliable and cost-effective manner requiring these contractors and prospective subcontractors all be required to meet pre-established and clearly defined minimum standards prior to being awarded township contracts and an exercise to do due diligence on the part of our elected officials thank you thank you good evening my name is tom luft i reside in upper providence township dr d kudos to you for
075submitting the new revision to the health and safety plan it's a step in the right direction but my argument tonight is that the plan needs a complete overhaul according to the pew research center americans trust in our government is near an all-time low earlier this month the new york times published an article detailing that the cdc isn't releasing large portions of data to the public the cdc hit statistics on booster efficacy they failed to track breakthrough infections and refused to release information on the underlying health conditions of children hospitalized with cobit 19. the american academy of pediatrics repeatedly asked the cdc for contagiousness data and the cdc stonewall bill level-headed rational people rely on data like this to make impactful decisions in their daily lives fortunately many private medical organizations and other countries like israel
076and the uk were forthcoming with their data on these subjects now there is a new division in this country those that believe the government narrative without question and those that make informed decisions based on all the data available our health and safety plan is riddled with references to the cdc the cdc is more of a political organization now than a scientific organization and we do not trust them a private organization you cite in the plan is the chop policy lab i'm more much more inclined to listen to what they have to say dr d you referenced the chop policy lab's three factors for constructing a health and safety plan during this month's work session those factors are one community case numbers two the risk of severe disease and three the competing risk of maintaining strict
077requirements the competing risk of maintaining strict requirements also known as the cost of enforcing mandates what are the nasty side effects of suppressing people's liberty here are some headlines that have been out for months now nbc news june 11 2021 use suicide attempts soared during the pandemic abc news september 16 2021 childhood obesity in u.s accelerated during the pandemic usa today november 22nd 2021 pandemic first graders are way behind in reading it wasn't the sars code v2 virus that created all these problems with our children it was the lockdowns the closures the mandates and the anxieties that parents and teachers passed on to their kids i hope those folks didn't just create the next health crisis in our country it's time to completely overhaul our health and safety plan we not only need to remove
078government sources that have lied and withheld information from us but the plan must now eliminate mandates and focus on the psychological and intellectual damage to our children that this whole fiasco has caused we are standing by to help thank you thank you our next speaker is jessica radcliffe hello i'm jessica radcliffe of middletown township i have struggled with what to comment here for d's but here's a summary of what keeps going through my mind first children and parents should be given the choice to mask or not mask second an environment of respect on others opinions needs to be reestablished throughout the district and finally the district needs to change its focus back to what matters the education of our children if after two years you truly believe that masking your child is in his or
079her best interest then i respect that and i support that however what i ask is that you also respect our choice that we are given the option to mask our children or not especially when the rules are arbitrary why are children allowed to be unmasked on the basketball court but then they have to mask up in the hallways there's no sense of consistency there's even no sense of consistency between gym teachers one gym teacher allows their children to be unmasked one gym teacher allows their children to be masked so just allow it to be a choice among families let the families choose what's best for their child secondly along the same lines we're asking that whatever choice is made by each individual family is respected no child should have to hear you will die and
080kill others if you take your mask off which was an actual quote from peers today at indian lane nor should a child be shamed for choosing to keep on his mask finally let's go back to what what really matters focusing on education of our children we cannot as a community focus on giving the children the best education they deserve we are bickering about mass choice at a time when all neighboring districts have made the decision to drop masks have you looked at your children's pssa scores lately um they came out recently i have and i was unpleasantly surprised but also not surprised um when i reached out to mr reed about the scores he confirmed my fear that lower scores were common and i quote from his email covid played a huge role in where
081students were at the end of last year and we are hopeful that throughout the end of last year at the consistency of this year our students will continue to move towards achievement levels comparable to pre-pandemic times i agree with mr reed it's time to get back to achievement levels of pre-pandemic times and we won't be able to do that if we continue to bow down to the out-of-date health and safety plan dare i say scrap it all together and by the way if we're really concerned about the health of our kids this might be a time to assess the um sugary snacks and meals of providing breakfast and lunch but that's an argument for another time um let's leave the health decisions out of the school board's hands put them back into families control and
082go back to focusing on providing that robust curriculum and experienced promised in the rtmsd mission statement thank you our next speaker is bob clements go get a box oh thank you my name is bob clements i live in media um just to recap previously i've asked for safety and efficacy data with the masking with the mandates from a number of different departments it's never been provided i know that we're supposed to be following the experts but like we talked about before uh that those goal posts are constantly changing the data is very creatively uh put together and most of the studies that we're depending on the cdc is referencing we're not peer-reviewed at all so i'm not really sure if we should be following those experts anymore uh i think a lot of the ideas
083that have been said so far in here tonight are more in line with what we should be doing uh quote there is no there's currently no evidence that wearing a mask whether medical or other types by healthy persons in the wider community setting including universal community masking can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses including covet 19. that was from the world health organization so again there's an expert quote but somehow that got left out in in a lot of the guidelines um i have a number of other quotes here that but but i won't go into those um again and and beyond just the science we get into the authority and this is what my point was the last time we all met you know again pa supreme court ruled the department of health
084cannot act on a whim or fiat in all matters concerning disease without specific laws or regulations that empower such regulations so there's a big big big question of authority here and it really comes down to just family choice we cannot we can't overrule that if you want to wear a mask that's great everyone here will support that no one's going to argue that but you shouldn't be forced to wear a mask and we shouldn't be forcing that we don't have the authority to force that no one in this room does um there's also a pending lawsuit right now that that actually the entire argument is that no school district has been granted any specific legal authority to require students to wear face masks and it's looking like it's heading in the direction of the person
085uh the group that that brought that case so again it really just comes down to authority we've worked with this it's been years now the kids are fed up with it a lot of people are scared they're going to be bullied singled out discriminated against if they stand up against these mandates so that's that's why this you know the number of us is is growing to be that voice uh for for people that do want to speak up against it and you know don't want to keep kids in mass there's a lot of negative effects and we're ignoring all of those and we're just going along with uh you know this this out-of-date science that came from three non-peer-reviewed studies that's ignoring three to four decades worth of established science that says these mandates really
086don't make a big difference and they have it and they won't so it should be up to everyone's choice i agree with previous comments that the health and safety plan should potentially be scrapped if not reevaluated pretty aggressively and pretty quickly so with optional masking coming on monday that's great i would just propose that the optional component of that remains a permanent fixture against all mandates whether or not the health and safety plan is evaluated our next speaker is lori mazzullo hello laurie mazzullo i live in edgemont um when i was putting my thoughts together tonight to think about what i was going to say had no idea of some of these horrible stories i heard tonight and kind of what i'm going to say goes hand in hand with that a little bit about
087myself because i want you to know where i'm coming from i spent 15 years teaching at academy park high school in darby township if you're not familiar with it it's uh one of the lowest economic socioeconomic disadvantage areas in delaware county um i also currently mentor some lovely ladies and young high school girls in chester i've seen firsthand the disparity between underprivileged and the privileged in the educational system today i know what these kids are up against i know they don't get the same advantages starting from a very young age where it matters the most i'm imagining that you know according to u.s news and world report that media elementary school enrolls 27 minority students one in 10 of the students that attend the school are economic economically disadvantaged and yet rose tree media school
088district wants to build their brand new school state-of-the-art fancy elementary school in the wealthiest part of the district where the students that will attend this school are likely the most economically privileged kids in the district in fact many kids in the area of the district are so privileged they go to private schools that cost upwards of twenty thousand dollars how do you justify building a school like this for the kids that already have a great start in life and leaving the most vulnerable students stuck in the dilapidated unair-conditioned non-refurbished schools why aren't we working at putting our tax dollars into making the current schools state of the art expanding them air conditioning them making them a place where you can say all students are equally important what does building this new school and edgemont say
089about this district um i'm not happy with what it says and i feel like and it looks like and it will look like when that school is built that there's a culture of white privilege here it's not right and there's going to be a lot to say when that school is built thank you our next speaker is mike rizzer hi my name is mike brister i live in edgemont the privileged statute excuse me sir you guys speak to the i'm here to speak to the board you need to speak to the book okay well i want everybody to hear this you guys have said you know i i think it's important everybody hears what i have to say excuse me certainly you'll hear it with the microphone but this is to address the board during
090a legislative meeting okay i feel so sorry for what you went through at our school in our middle school and i live i am like ukraine they want to build this school around my house on three sides and like i did some studies some homework i went into the census statistics for the last census and i googled edgemont township i googled they showed age breakdown range and we have just under 4 200 residents in edgemont they're saying the growth is there of which over 500 of them live in the white horse retirement village the last time i checked retirement village they're not having kids there i don't know is any retirement people have the kids i don't think so um i also looked at middletown where they have around 14 000 residents those people are
091less privileged the same people in media why would you build an elite school to compete with what the private schools so the kids will go back to the private school to public schools that's wrong i'm just blown away the lack of transparency of the school district i was never notified that that was chosen so one of my neighbors got it for the room to grow from their from their kids that went to the school because only if it just blew me away that summer and i'm doing my own homework and i'm talking to people in my township and i'm like why put it up here there's only going to be a hundred kids maybe that'll go to this school from majma township you're gonna bus 200 to 300 kids up to edgemont and give them
092a nice half hour 40 minute bus ride up to edgemont to go to a school in an area where probably more than half the kids go to private brokerage schools there is no integrity or transparency in this school board or the school superintendent there's none just seeing this example of this poor child here i didn't expect to hear this i'm shocked we're supposed to be better than that this is a direct reflection of the board the superintendent and the way they they set the standards and the way they follow up and live what they preach hypocrisy is great we don't want our taxes to go out the window go off through this roof but we really don't need it let's renovate the schools we have put additions on them let's give every parity in the
093facilities let's pay our teachers more cut upper-level people that aren't even in the classrooms teaching our children our priorities are screwed up education has changed drastically since pandemic we've got to we've got to adapt towards you know i'm fed up i've had enough for you guys i think you should resign thank you very much my name is alicia windsor and i live in middletown township safety is a word that has seemed to lose its true meaning since the onset of covid at these meetings we observe discussions and procedures put in place by all of you for the health and safety of our children but it appears especially from this meeting that this is just out of convenience for when it correlates with other agendas if the health of our children was a true concern why
094haven't you stopped serving fried sugary foods in our school's cafeteria if the safety of our children was a true concern why are we allowing the segregation of children who choose to not wear a mask versus those who do where is your inclusion if the safety of our children is a true concern why is bullying condoned throughout the district if the safety of our children was a true concern dr d why did you let a satanic doco group infiltrate our school when with just a look on their website they promote the freedom to offend and necessary pursuit should prevail over laws and institutions if the health of our children is a true concern why have you not addressed that last year the second leading cause of death between the ages of 10 and 18 is suicide
095you preach health and well-being of our students yet is paramount yet with the mental health issues related to covenant and mass on the rise you continue to ignore the request of students in your district who have bravely been here where we stand today to plead for a return to normalcy so they can flourish learn and grow the cdc just lowered the standards for children to be able to have word development now they just need to know 50 words by 30 months instead of 24 setting the bar much lower and being identified later in life this highlights the negative effects of masking and it's just setting our children up for failure i want to believe that we're better than this and i want to believe that our district is better than this so we need to
096stop pushing our adult fears onto our children it is not our children's responsibility to protect anyone that is our job children should not have the responsibilities that adults cannot handle and it appears that you cannot handle the responsibility of the health and safety of our children with sku statistics and outdated health and safety plans please make masking optional now our next speaker is gina hello thank you all for your work um everyone for being here my name is gina pisa and i'm from media borough and i am here to stand in support of the incredible sidney whitman i'm like a little bit shaky right now so i can't imagine your bravery right now um and your family as well thank you i am the mother of a first and third grader at media elementary and
097on the leadership team of media elementary's fair parent group in my professional life i'm the director of equity and organizational culture at the mccarter theatre center which is part of princeton university my first time speaking to this body was in support of mr harrison and the new position administrator for safe and inclusive schools i know enough about the recent events of overt racism at springton lakes middle school and the handling of the situation so now i feel a little foolish about voicing my complete support or to name it more specifically i feel so sad that the district's critical consciousness and analysis of racial and a racial inequity revealed by correspondences by superintendent dean marino linen and also the board is so much less informed and evolved than i have thought especially with all of the
098investment and work with dciu and as equity and wellness are named as the two of four core values in the 2018 to 24 strategic plan as well as the promise of the to work to create a safe quote a safe environment that celebrates diversity we are here to keep you accountable to your own stated values and goals in the case of the whitman family you have failed and revealed massive gaps in your understanding of systemic racism you heard demands tonight for vital action to be taken but what keeps echoing in my head as i learn more and more pieces about this story is that the district only talked about this event as if this was a problem to be solved but this event was the problem racist events are symptoms of a deeper malady it
099is fitting that we're also talking about masking tonight there is a virus among us that has killed 3024 people just today and we have changed systems to keep our community healthy masking remote teaching thank you teachers hybrid learning social distancing limited uh physical interaction testing uh vaccination policy changes et cetera we have changed systems we have not treated cova 19 with over-the-counter cold medicine to adjust racism you cannot just solve one symptom you have to listen and learn and understand how it got here how it spreads so ubiquitously fine i'm pausing can i reclaim that time okay i'm gonna take that as a sound of support so you have to listen and learn and understand how it got here how it spread so ubiquitously even among those who studied up and how it's everywhere and
100then get to work to counter it [Laughter] you can have half a minute back sure so we get to work to counter it to prevent giving it to our kids and to involve parents caretakers in the larger community yes please listen and address this family's needs within your aim of creating a sense of belonging but know that that is not anti-racism work anti-anti-racism work is where entire systems get questioned and changed question policies question if you feel good about lifting pieces of our history in february that should have been lifted as a part of our history all along question who was who has power and how it does not want to admit gaps failures and wrongdoing we all fail you did it here just do better next time because there will be a next time
101please don't make me feel foolish for hoping that you can thank you our next speaker is jennifer hannibal good evening my name is jennifer i am also here in support of sydney whitman in fact that i am a version of sydney whitman um i am a black african-american who often use hair scarves hair rats bandanas to protect my hair or to just celebrate my culture at any time as i sit here and i look at the panel of you guys on the board most of you don't have to worry about that most of you don't share that with sydney that teacher who singled her out on that day decided that today is the day that i am going to put and reflect on someone's choices to embrace their culture this is not something that sydney
102just decided oh well today i'm going to pick up and i'm going to put on my hair spark this is something that she has been doing routinely something that i've noticed her to do um probably in the last six seven months her mother does it i do it it's a part of us it's who we are as i sit here and i listen to everyone come up and speak to you guys about the discrimination on the microaggression for racism and i look at your face i'm wondering whether or not if i could be a person that's confident that you will address this because this is a situation that has been brought to you but what about this is situations before sydney are those that will come after sydney um as an example as the lady
103before me spoke about we have to start somewhere it's 2022. there is no way that a person of afro west indian caribbean descent should have to be singled out by the way she chooses to style her hair or protect her hair you all have cell phones computers access to internet there's something called the care act um here care i'm trying to think of the name of it crown act i do apologize it's the crown act google it make yourself familiar with that bill it prohibits discrimination against a woman of afro-descent to be denied the way she choose to wear her hair whether it's natural whether it's covered based off of their religion their culture familiarize yourself with those different things is very important because there's no way that a child should have to feel humiliated
104embarrassed alone under the watch of adults educators at that it's your job to be there for these children they show up to school they should feel confident that if something was to happen that it won't be the adult that i have to worry about that's going to make me feel small that day that i'm going to be able to turn to another adult and say hey this is my religion this is my culture can you support and back me on this i feel alone i'm sad i'm in tears to have her family email um the superintendent and just get a very generalized exception to the rule for sydney whitman but there's others sydney whitman's at that school i am a sydney whitman my niece is a middle schooler at franklin lake middle she's a sydney
105with me and there's others thank you very much man our next speaker is one more thing because this is my problem here as i sit here we have other speakers the next speaker are you tuning in please find it in your heart to educate yourself on others the way they have to show up we wake up daily learn about how do we style our hair how do we protect our how do we come presentable to be the person that's not singled out for our culture okay it's not something that we choose we all can't relate to everyone's culture but we can educate ourselves on it thank you good evening um so first of all i just want to thank the board and administration for all of your efforts over the last two years now around
106the kobe pandemic um i think our schools have been open more than a lot of other schools and i've been very grateful for that because having the kids home on virtual is not a good option for us for most people um and also very grateful to all the parents who have spoken up about their um you know passionate beliefs on this issue on both sides i think um i think we all agree we just want what's best for our children's health for their physical health for their mental health um so i think we all have that common um and maybe just disagree on what is the best thing for their physical and mental health i think we all also want covet to be over it's been two years we're exhausted um and i'll go out
107on a limb and say i think we all want to get to the point where our kids are not wearing masks um i know that i want to get to the point where we get back to what feels like normal i am concerned that we're not there yet um we have been talking about the health and safety plan for a long time we have a health and safety plan that says we will go to mass optional and moderate transmission we're very likely to be in moderate transmission in maybe one week maybe two weeks but as of today we're still at like 89 per 100 000 which is considered high substantial um i do believe that the cdc and the aap the american academy of pediatrics have our best public health interest in mind which is
108different than personal health it's different than what's best for my individual child um it's a public health perspective it's about what's best for the community and what is going to get us out of this mess and that's what i want i want to get out of this mess i want to get to the point where we're at low transmission where we don't have to worry about this anymore and at each stage when we have hold back mitigation strategies too soon we wind up just having more cases and having to go back back again and again it's like groundhog day so while i understand the difficulty of masking and the desire to not do it i don't like doing it i just want to urge the board to stay the course we maybe have like another
109week or two until we are at the level where we can safely go to a mass optional and i also want to acknowledge that there are more than 20 parents here in the audience tonight community members that are not wearing masks that are just blatantly flouting the rule despite the fact that they're here tonight because they want you to vote to change all the safety plan i don't really understand that coming here to ask you to do that and then blatantly just flat people at home can't see that but a third of the room is not wearing masks and it's not been enforced so that's a little bit offensive and interrupting me when i'm speaking is also offensive so i will just finish by saying public health guidance is just that it's for the public
110it's about the community it's not about the individual and what we need to get out of this is to think as a community and how we take care of the most vulnerable in the community is important and continues to be important um everyone says omicron is mild but it's also had the highest death rate more so than than delta which is not out of this yet i want to encourage the board to just stay the course so that we can get out of this and i respect whatever decision you make and i thank you for your service i would ask that the audience show every speaker the respect we have a number of speakers everyone with varied opinions and it is important that we allow them to have their turn to speak our next speaker
111is i do apologize i mispronounce your name casey coburn girardi my name is casey coburn gerardi i'm a resident of media borough i'm a parent of two daughters in kindergarten and third grade at media elementary school and i'm here to speak regarding the masking policy and the health and safety plan i'm asking this board to continue to protect the health and safety of our community and our children and stay the course the health and safety plan as it stands now does lift the mask mandate when we get to moderate or low transmission that is not very far away but we are not there yet we are at a still substantial level of transmission and as a health and safety plan provides masks must be required at the elementary school level the children are not nearly
112as vaccinated at the high school and middle school level for 12 for children under 12 we are at maybe a third to 50 percent back seated status my daughter has asthma every time she gets sick she has to go on a flirt plan she has a significant cough she struggles every single time she wears a mask diligently she's one of the few that wears a mask on the playground she wears it at all of her activities she doesn't complain about it she's used to it because she would rather be in school because she wasn't in school last year she was at home to protect her health and safety the children that she plays with on the playground often don't have their mouths on and that's fine that's that's allowed but it has caused my daughter
113to get sick and every time she gets sick we follow the rules she gets a runny nose i contact the nurse i keep her home i get her tested and i can see in this room that many family members do not follow the rules of the health and safety plan so if you lose if you lift the mass mandate more children are going to get sick whether it be covet or the cold or a flu and they're going to come to school with those illnesses and people are going to get sick because these people do not follow rules the rules provide that if you have a runny dose you have to stay home and get tested that's our current health and safety plan and that's not going to change when you lift the mass spending
114so then we're going to have more children at home not going to school not learning in person because they have to follow that plan so if we can reduce and wait until the transmission is lower we encourage the ability of children to stay in school as much as possible the children of the elementary school level again the vaccination rate is still pretty low so the the risk of transmission is is higher i looked at the health and safety plans of neighboring districts that have moved to mass capital and they have stronger mitigation efforts in place they report daily numbers if you want to give parents the option to choose you have to give them the information to make that choice and by reporting numbers one day a week and then deciding on friday whether we
115will pivot to a mask required option does not take into consideration the previous five dates so if we have an outbreak like was that indian lane in november and december on a monday where six kids in one class get coveted 19 we have to wait till the following monday to enforce the mass spending under the proposed got changes to the health and safety pay and that does not protect the health and safety of our children or our community so i'm just asking to stay the course until the transmission rates are in a lower level which will not be that long if we keep it up and veto the changes thank you very much thank you [Applause] i apologize i'm having trouble reading the name i think our next speaker is john thomas hi my name
116is john thomas i live in the borough my wife and i both went through a roastery media school district my two daughters my five grandchildren went through grocery media i support the responsible contracting ordinance because i want the construction projects happening in our community to be the safest possible for the workers on site and for the general public around that work site thank you as a reminder folks we are supposed to be voting later on in the health and safety plan as of right now masks are required while you're on school campus please put your masks on or we'll ask security to come find you thank you all right our next speaker is sean kemper hi my name is sean keaney my apologies for this pronunciation that's okay my name is sean keaney i'm a
117resident and uh taxpayer of rosary this is my son sean sean please stand up over here this is my son sean the lady said talking about the most vulnerable people he's standing right here benjamin franklin once said that if you want to give up your freedoms for safety and security you deserve neither i'm a union operating engineer i've worked hard to get to where i was and where i came from to move to this district to give my children better often where i was as a parent and this taxpayer of this district i'm finished with these draconian measurements that do not work the omicron the the mass don't work the cdc said it they said it doesn't work has anybody been fitted for a mass cure before to wear n95s i have and if you
118don't have the n95 completely over your face it's not doing anything and if somebody has something to refute me on that i'll be more than happy to dispute that with you i've lived in fear for too long now when i first uh heard about the coronavirus i was the only one who left my house because my my immune copper my son and my immune compromised wife was reynolds i went to the shopping centers i did all the shopping for the food i came home i wiped down made sure i changed my clothes obviously being uh having down syndrome you're immune compromised some people may not know that but um so i lived in the fear of what i didn't know and uh that time of ignorance is over we have um homeopathic remedies and the
119vaccine the vaccine has been going on now for how long over a year i think all the people who've wanted to get the vaccine have got it i'm not inclined or um i'm not against vaccines because i think they do help um but it's time to bring back common sense people uh if we keep on following the science and if you have your vaccine you should have nothing to fear you have your vaccine you have nothing to fear anymore guys this has been going on for too long and if you didn't if you didn't get the vaccine that's your prerogative we live in america all these people i've heard this woman come here my family came over here my 14 year old great grandmother from ukraine where it's getting bombed right now she came over
120here by herself to the simple fact that they you could do whatever you want as long as you put in the force the effort and you work hard and this is a great place to live stop taking away what you guys have taken away from us thank you our next speaker is good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is sean kender i'm a media borough resident and i'm here in uh i'm sorry mr kender and we must get to sean keeners and sean kender my apology sir miss joanne will call on you in just one second there my watch all right please go ahead sir no problem you had something to say so i respected that um i just uh i'm here for the responsible contracting ordinance um with all the talk tonight of health
121and safety i want to make sure that when we're building schools that we have highly skilled workers building the schools that my children and the children of my neighbors uh attend this ensures the work is performed correctly without any possible danger to students teachers and staff of that school and as i can see tonight that is important to all of us is everyone's safety and this is a matter that should be looked into thank you very much thank you now our next speaker is joanne torillo joanne trillo at john township good evening i'm speaking tonight to share my real life experiences in this district to give you some insight on how your health and safety plan is potentially impacting our students we as a community have been very patient and actually very compliant but honestly
122enough is enough two weeks to flatten the curve check once vaccines are available check 170 percent of the community is vaccinated check once vaccines are available to the five 12 year olds check no federal or state mandate for masking check check we've never reacted in such a manner in this district before and we've lived through h1n1 the flu strap and noroviruses masks were never on the table our community has allowed fear to take over our common sense my kids have been in this district from k through 12 and there are some very important issues that concerned the education of our students that we've tackled over the years together things like class size retention of music and arts programs when algebra 1 was skipped for a whole track of students and expanding science and math track
123offerings at the high school these things directly impact the immediate and future education of our students there are so many areas that still need your attention that relate to education such as the math curriculum and learning loss that was created based on decisions to shut down our schools even though our rankings have been dropping even before the pandemic my direct experience regarding consequences of masking start with my son who is currently a senior he was under the services of the iu from the age of two for hearing and and required extensive speech therapy when we went for an audiology test prior to entering kindergarten instead of sounds it was the first time they used words as the audiologist covered her mouth while my son and i sat on the other side of the glass the
124initial sheer panic in my son's face because he could not see her mouth for the first time was gut-wrenching it was then that i realized that he had depended on reading lips to learn his words it was devastating to watch how many of our learners k through two are struggling with phonetics because they can't see the formation of the sounds decisions have consequences secondly when sitting in the most recent sap meeting and hearing concerns of our elementary school parents the concern that their second graders are behind in their reading these kids haven't owned anything but masks and it is making a negative impact on learning that we will have ripples effect through the district for years to come our kids have to mask all day and they leave the school grounds and literally don't have
125to miss anywhere else do you think they're going home in isolation surrounding districts including marvel springfield haverford ridley wallingford swathmore penn delta garnet valley radnor and great valley have all voted to go mask optional i think it's time rtmsd does as well we also need to stop testing kids with no symptoms even the child policy lab recommends this practice currently vaccines are available to all students and families teachers and staff that want or need them this was the original benchmark to eliminate the need for mask wearing which was a lie everyone needs to take responsibility to manage their own risk and make decisions for their own families accordingly we cannot continue to create and enable a society based on fear and yes some teachers are still telling the kids that if they don't wear their
126masks they're going to kill their grandparents this is unacceptable thank you our next speaker is jack gallagher good evening i'm jack gallagher i'm from middletown township i spoke at the last school board meeting and i admit the first half of the speech was a joke but the next half was about how i believe the mass work while i do believe in mass and that they do actually work against cubic i would like to see the mass mandate dropped as a student in high school at the last meeting i was confronted afterwards by people trying to convince me that their experience in cement work gave them medical experience do not come up to me after this speech i don't care about your opinions and you are not medically qualified i also reported to i was also
127reported to the school by someone who worked for the district i guess my speech that talked about fast and furious and how sweaty i was seemed to be too controversial for some not the ones before me comparing vaccination cards to the holocaust but that is not the main thing i'm here to talk about i'm here to talk about the computers in the school library they're so slow it is insane i have to type something and hope that i don't press the wrong key because i have to wait about five to ten seconds for what i typed to show on the screen i printed one picture today from my environmental science class it took 15 minutes that's not like a hyperbole that's not like an exaggeration it took 15 minutes i saw the clock i think
128we need to put funding in small projects that affect us largely about 200 kids use the library every day and about a quarter of them that's 50 kids to say the uh use the computers to print please give us computers that were made before the cold war and aren't the size of small tvs it would probably make more sense to have typewriters in our library than those bricks with electricity that we have the audacity to call computers i imagine that we have a little bit of money saved up and i think that we should put a little bit of that into something that is used by almost every student in the school also come out to the senior variety show tomorrow at two o'clock and seven o'clock uh go birds look at my suit thank
129you very much again i apologize been mispronounced your name it's a little hard to read the name i think it's maxwell paul phillips good evening i'm maxwell phillips a ninth grader at pencrest and before i start i should mention a few things firstly i believe that sydney whitman had an amazing speech and that every member of the school board should think think hard and appreciate exactly what you said furthermore i'm not here with the pen crest high school tv production program or any other high school program i'm only here to provide the perspective of a student the issue i stand before you to discuss is the mass mandate in penn crest high school i absolutely believe in the effectiveness of mass in our school and worldwide however delaware county is averaging a mere 68 cases
130per day compared to almost 1500 cases per day in january according to the new york times in addition to this over the last 14 days the cases per day have gone down roughly 72 percent because of this i'm asking the school board choose to end the mass mandate at pencrest masks do negatively affect the learning environment for some students and that's why the option to wear a mask as opposed to being a requirement will be more of a positive than a negative i myself as well as many other students have troubles with masks normally i would not be opposed to uh be wearing masks and would wear them despite these troubles given the statistics i just mentioned i think it's worth it to end the mass mandate these troubles can include you know just focusing
131to the ability they're focusing to the ability to fool around with them they're really easy to mess around with and you can't hear teachers there's a lot of problems that i have noticed that masks caused and albeit small i think that in lieu of the statistics i had mentioned that we should um we should end the mass meet and i should note that i'm absolutely not here to dump on the people that may continue to wear them or believe that we should not end the mass made mass mandate in fact if it was just a few months ago and the decision to end the mask mandate was made i would have chosen to wear my mask during school hours but instead i'm here to ask you to remove it for at least a trial period
132in lieu of the situation prided i should also mention that the pancreas varsity show is saturday february 26th and there will be shows at 2 p.m and 7 p.m and tickets are set ten dollars at the door i'm in it by the way so thank you very nice suit as well all right our next sneaker is kathy buckley hi i'm kathy buckley i'm from edgemont and i got accused of harassing ace duty jack would you like to see what you said he told me that i wasn't a doctor and i don't know anything i was explaining to him that i have advanced degrees and i write the safety program for a construction company and we have to deal with the mass wake foreign said who's an operator we've been working this whole time we have
133first-hand knowledge of this virus we've been told lives to have a mass you have to go through a chaining training program the n95s work 95 of the time they don't work on viruses they're stuck to stop dust and there's a whole list of items viruses are not on that list i want to bring in my mask here want to know how we're played it says made in china here's our test that you had to buy cvs if you could get it look at the back made in china i deal with data i'm an engineer i only deal with math i went on penndot's website right here this bell curve i know you can't see it that thing see how there's nothing over here and then it goes to a big curve do you know where
134it starts i'm thinking about the snazz it doesn't work anyway okay 60 years old that's where the curve goes up if you're under 60 you are not dying of this virus cdc has come up you have to have four co-abilities to die obcd diabetes so if you want to stop this virus get to the gym get these kids outside running sydney i am so sorry what you went through the disrespect is unbelievable i've been in construction for 35 years i've felt your pain i was crying back there and when that little kid jack disrespected me that's why mama bear came out okay here are the numbers from pennsylvania deaths in pennsylvania but confirmed cases 2 million 263 and 39. if you take the one number divided by two million we're under one percent you are
135making everyone wear a mask mandates vaccines and stuff for less than one percent mostly being over 60 years old yes there are some that die that are younger i am sorry i do not mean to offend or hurt anyone at all that has issues had problems you might have a tough time with this virus you're not going to die though most likely and thank you [Applause] the next speaker is let's go 10 years old oh [Music] hi my name is mason fredricks and i'm 10 years old i'm and i'm a student at indian lane i'm just going to say that i just want i just want a normal school year with no masks you guys don't want hoods hats and etc because it covers your head you need to see our full head but a
136hood or hat and etc just covers the back of our head and the top of our head but a mask covers our face so it's so it's even harder to identify the adult or kid so i don't want you to just sit here and listen to me and everybody else i want you to really take this in and think about all of these speeches and statements for a little while good evening board uh sorry good evening board uh and ladies and gentlemen who uh join us here this evening uh i came here tonight to uh uh talk about the uh current safety and health plan and uh and uh the masking optional uh only to be uh mortified by um those who've gone before me um sydney you're fantastic fantastic woman you will be successful
137i applaud you for coming out here tonight and i'm so sorry for the disrespect that was brought upon you uh by our teachers uh folks leadership starts at the top okay uh uh you you obviously need to do uh uh better training to your principals your principals need to train these teachers better to call out a student in front of their classmates is bullying okay if another student had done that you would have probably caught called them out considered it bullying okay to to to to make to to allow other students to laugh it sounds like there's a lot bigger issues here that need to be addressed instead of you spending the amount of money you're proposing on a new school sounds like some of these kids need some new uh hardware uh it sounds
138like a media elementary needs an upgrade why don't we work internally on what we've got right here right now similar to our country right we should be focusing on ourselves before reaching out to help everybody else in this world why don't you start right here focus on what we've got in front of us focus on sydney other kids who've been bullied i hope to god you've addressed this with these teachers it's a disgrace remember leadership starts at the top i hold all of you accountable for what happened to this young girl all right um health and safety plan okay with all the people that were coughing in here tonight jesus we've we've gone over the two percent threshold just to here tonight and and we're we're going to be back in masks should you vote
139them off this thing needs to be trashed my friends amongst us this evening uh spoke about stats articles etc uh approving the this health and safety plan needs to be rewritten wiped out it it should be a choice okay there's harm in wearing a mask as you may feel there's harm if you don't wear the mask okay uh one of my children in class today uh overheard students saying that if they don't wear a mask they're going to die what you're okay with the fear that teachers parents yourselves are instilling the issues that are going to happen later on in life i mean come on this is gonna i just unbelievable unbelievable i want to thank dr messim uh for getting up here and speaking tonight it's it's it's astonishing that that happened to her
14040 years ago whatever it was in this district and it's still going on here right just just just astonishing thank you our next speaker is i apologize i think it's tamara graham or it could be samara graham tamara graham let's see hold on i think uh yeah i think i got it all but i'm just gonna double check um no i got it hey thank you my name is tamara graham and i'm a media borough resident and marks over a hundred years of my family living in media borough so before there was penn crest in springdale lake where media high school and all those things i've also four boys through all this media elementary springton lake pancreas springton lake is a problem uh my niece is there now she is in the 11th grade along
141a clan of her friends um the bottom line is that because adults are not comfortable following rules they don't know the rules like the spring the lake handbook i probably know by hand i had a kid who had an afro and they were throwing gum in his afro and the suggestion was that son you cut his hair not address what had actually happened to sanyu and how to mitigate all of that so i've seen all kinds of things and what i come or kids asking for pass from my niece and all kinds of stuff like that this is the issue because the staff mr saladino and the crew they do not know the handbook there are level offenses and one of the reasons why all the bully and foolishness go on in school i'm an
142educator is because the adults are responsible and they are also bullies that's just the bottom line wherever you have adults who do not keep people safe or are uncomfortable pressing the issue of following the rules that have been set in place it is not easy when you have a faction of adults parents who are also bullies who will come in berate tear down mess up cause all kinds of drama just to hold other people accountable or not be accountable when their kid is being jerky that's really the issue so and then there are some things that culturally are none of your business that would be one of them that's not your business it's not something to discuss and it's something that you need to consider because everybody at our schools doesn't look like everybody else
143at our schools i mean even if we look and i say di moreno and saladino i would assume that you guys are italian i could be incorrect but i know in the 19th century italians were at least sicilians southern italians were considered the blackest of battalions no jobs no homes for you no place to be safe so here we are again at some foolishness you are not following your own rules it's embarrassing over a hundred years and it's still going on and i'm not sure why you can't it's trite and actually it's kind of lazy when you make policy and procedure you must research this is what i did for the school district of philadelphia baltimore city as a real estate agent as a non-profit owner you must do better because when she gets older
144it's going to be a problem you're getting ready to have such a bigger problem thank you very much so please work it out follow your own rules do your own due diligence and hold your folks accountable she should not have been accosted by a teacher that is the bully and therefore there we go our next speaker is i know june moore spoke before i don't know if she signed up again but june morris okay i believe that concludes all of our unscheduled presentations i'm just checking to make sure there's nothing else gentlemen from the back okay thank you very much that concludes our unscheduled presentations for the evening all right moving on first we're moving on to old business this is going to be a second reading vote excuse me a second read and vote
145and that's policy zero zero five organization do i have a motion so move do i have a second second discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next up i have um i would like to do number one they accept the retirement of a classified employee do i have a motion do i have a second so i didn't catch it do i have a second okay discussion i did want to extend some special thank yous and congratulations he was an employee of us for 17 years a very very valued employee and bus driver and we do want to thank him for all of his years of service and dedication i wish him nothing but the best with his retirement any other discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next i'm going to suggest we
146put um a2 through 17 in one vote is there any objection to my doing so hearing none and seeing them do i have a motion so moved do i have a second second discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries next would be our overnight trip the penn crest high school students to ricketts glenn state park which sounds fabulous um do i have a motion do i have a second second discussion other than i have my discussion too soon but it does sound like a fabulous trip and i am truly envious all in favor any opposed motion carries next is a no vote that is the 2022 through 2023 draft of the calendar it's our first read and review so again we're not voting on this tonight it's our first read and review next
147up we have um letter g the health and safety plan revision do i have a motion do i have a second second discussion please go ahead ms schaefer thank you um so i am i think it's just important to acknowledge the work of the administration over the course of this pandemic um thank you for continuing to be responsive as we learn more not only about the pandemic but about the students needs as a result and i think thanks as well to the community members of all varying opinions on the matter for coming forward um it's really important piece of um our work and your engagement and um this is very important so thank you i think you know for a very long time we've had pretty strict adherence to cdc um guidelines and for good
148reason um you know they were the sort of first ones out of the gate we didn't have much else to follow um like the pandemic has evolved evolved so has the guidance um and i think um chop policy lab coming forward with some guidance that gives us a more nuanced approach to masking that not only allows us to continue to focus on the health and safety of students but meet their educational needs in a way that we maybe have not been able to over the course of the last two years um gives us another tool to hang our head on so i do support the changes that have been put forward i do have one question which is related to how the district will handle a potential return to high community transmission my understanding is
149that cdc and chop policy lab are in agreement about the importance of masking when rates are high and so my question is um how we might handle that in the hopefully unlikely event that we return to that level of community transmission yeah we've had some ongoing discussion about this uh we meet every week uh together along with chop and pen to kind of look at lots of different data including international national and local data and we do feel like everything is trending downward that's what we're hopeful for um i think in the event that for some reason we return to high that's going to be part of that ongoing discussion as well we do um we do are and are really appreciative i think of the input of chop in particular in penn and so
150i think at that point those discussions would be about what's driving the high transmission and what's an appropriate way to respond and so um you can leave that decision up to me i'm happy to uh i say that now but in the event that we return to high i think out of my conversation with all those local health experts we can make a decision about what that means in terms of masking thank you dr mourinho and in the shaper i did want to go ahead and just make sure i know we all have obviously read it discussed it but for the record i would like to go ahead and read the resolution that is being proposed for today um security could somebody please shut the door it's just a little bit hard for us all
151to hear and i'm suspecting as well for the people in the audience um okay so like i said i just want to go ahead and read this for the record so that everyone is clear on it so this is what is being proposed resolve that the board approve a revision to section a of the health and safety plan to reflect the following section a is masking of course and that is beginning february 28 2022 masking while indoors for all students staff and visitors will be optional and dependent on building level incidence rates remaining below two percent for that week if the five-day incidence rate for a building reaches or exceeds the two percent threshold students staff and visitors will be required to mass for the following week the district will monitor building level incidence rates
152each friday to determine if or when to move from mask optional to mandatory masking indoors for all students staff and visitors for the following week and masking will be required on school buses because there is a federal order in effect so it will be in effect while that federal order remains in effect so i did want to read that for the record that is what is being proposed today i also do want to clarify too because i know there has been some confusion that all other that is the only revision before the board today um everything else in the health and safety plan is um not there are no other revisions being proposed when it comes to contract tracing and whatnot so that should be clarified so that said any other discussion um i agree
153with yeah um miss schaefer spoke eloquently all of my thoughts as always i appreciate that um and dr dean reynolds i support what you said about um you're being the one to decide masking if we go to high transmission and i would like us to consider including that in the resolution making an amendment so that we can include language to that effect yeah i can try to pull that let me try to read something [Music] that makes that make sense um if the community transmission level returns to high uh superintendent in consultation with our local health experts and the school board i would want to have a conversation with the board i don't think it has to be a formal vote but i think certainly a conversation about what we're hearing from our health experts
154will determine if the district needs to return to universal masking so i think that language uh is transparent in terms of how you would respond to returning to high can i make an amendment to include that language then in the resolution so for that to continue do you want to make a motion to amend so i make a motion to amend the resolution as stated by documenting renovation exactly now do we have a second second any discussion on that or all right all in favor of incorporating that into the resolution pardon me oh no we'll certainly go on we will then go on to actually vote on the resolution this is just to incorporate that language so just to be clear oh we've had a motion to incorporate that language we've had a second to
155work with that language opportunity for discussion to incorporate that language and yes dr henry allen you have that written down yeah if the community transmission level returns to high the superintendent in consultation with our local health experts and the school board will determine if the district needs to return to universal masking okay any other discussion about that language being incorporated into the resolution before us all right all in favor for incorporating that language into the resolution before us i anyone opposed does that discussion happen amongst a meeting like this or just amongst yourselves so um are you referring to the um the discussion about whether we need to return to universal masking yeah so if you decide that we need to return to it do you just have that in closed doors amongst yourself or
156is that going to happen in in a community meeting like this that this language indicates that i'm going to make that decision as a superintendent but i thought you said i thought it said you're making a decision with a discussion amongst the board and health and safety professionals right so that decision would be out of our discussion really with the health experts that meet with us every week and then i would be informing the board basically of saying what i'm hearing from our local health experts is that they're suggesting or recommending that we remove we've moved back to universal masking because of whatever is going on that would be creating that spike okay so so the community gets no set gets no i'm not sure if it's that you don't get hurt i think we
157have to we have to make some decisions about how to respond as we continue to work through this i absolutely understand i agree somebody has to make that decision but why would it happen okay so so we're going all right we're gonna have to continue with our legislative meeting again for this particular meeting it's not time for question and answer dialogue so i just want to make sure that we're clear for the record mr kelly just so i you you voted no correct sir okay all right okay uh motion carries so we now have that language incorporated now for the resolution as a whole before us which i've read incorporating the language that we just voted on for dr d marino bennett so first we've already had our motion we've already had our second so
158we're now on to discussion and i do believe ms hunt is ready to discuss can you hear me okay so as a school board member i'm required to consider the impact of our policies on every student we have an obligation to provide an education to all students we provide special services to our most vulnerable learners and i believe we need to provide a safe environment during a pandemic to our medically vulnerable learners whether it is them personally or a family member i don't believe we can leave them behind or leave them out we have a health and safety plan that is based on the advice of leading medical professionals epidemiologists infectious disease specialists pediatricians and neurologists people who trained for years and spend every day of their lives devoted to this field the cdc recommends
159universal indoor masking physical distancing to the extent possible and additional prevention strategies to prevent prevent to protect students teachers and staff schools should not exclude students from in-person learning to keep a minimum distance requirement layering multiple production strategies is essential when physical distancing of at least three feet is not possible at all times we have followed that guidance and relaxed distancing chop has been considered one of the top pediatric medical facilities for decades continue their recommendation is to continue indoor masking requirements within buildings and at school activities regardless of vaccination status await reductions in case incidents and hospitalizations before introducing mass optional approaches and we have followed that guidance and while lately there has been some nuanced guidance from chop there's that man that recommendation still stands very publicly on their website our policy is
160that once delaware county is below a seven-day average of 50 we will be masked optional we are at 68 and are likely a week away from being at 50. this change to the health policy changes the definition of high transmission to a definition that is not universally accepted among leading health experts and as such has seen a reason to change a medically based policy that protects every one of our students thank you miss hunt any other discussion ms fletcher um i just i appreciate what you said shelley um uh i think that uh like you all of us take the health and welfare of our students i it's all we thought about for two years um that there has been learning loss and other consequences over the past two years can't can't be denied and
161i think we were one of the more conservative districts all along um you know at every step of the way i think we acted incredibly cautiously um we had to listen to medical experts and we did that but dr d is our education expert and and i know at times i deferred to um the medical community more often um because i felt that burden for the community just what you were talking about but but i do believe that we're still aligning ourselves very well with chop while allowing us to move into a more favorable model for learning and development that our kids need right now thank you mr dennis thank you i want to thank um everybody on the board for the thoughtfulness of our conversation here um and the thoughtfulness of consideration over a
162couple of different board meetings and everyone in the public whose thoughtfulness and passion is very clear and uh important for us to hear i believe very strongly that the science is a moving target viruses are moving targets and we do have to learn from our experience uh and i believe that everyone in the school district is capable of learning and has demonstrated that i think there's a vaccine is available omicron is not as risky as some of the other variants [Music] as we've heard from some of our speakers children can learn how to wear an n95 mask properly to protect themselves if that's the need for the community for that family um and i was astounded to see the learning deficits that uh our younger children have demonstrated in uh the past couple of years
163and i think it's time for that to end and for us to make up for that i would urge uh the board and the administration to continue to monitor the uh virus level any other variants of omicron of covid and to recognize that this is not the end this is just the next chapter whatever this vote is and everybody in the district should should take that to heart as well so uh thank you dr demer allen for your thoughtfulness on all this and i would support the motion thank you mr dennis other discussion yes thank you i was very concerned about this proposal i've been a real staunch advocate of following the guidance of the cbc really everything that shelley outlined and pointed out but i also do hear the need for uh the students
164to get back to some normalcy and and that there is a real challenge in education and social wellness i um i do support this change with the caveat that as i'm sure there will be a tremendous amount of diligence and vigilance and keeping an eye on what comes next i'm very heartened by the fact that so many districts around us went to this step a month or more ago and have not seen major problems have not seen major spikes so i'm very very hopeful that this will work and thank you very much for everything you've done in this direction thank you other discussion the only thing i would note is that we thank everyone in the audience as we rightfully should for coming and speaking i also do want to let people know that we've
165received a number of emails and public comments submitted online and obviously um the board and administration we've read all of them and they were varied um people are dedicated passionate all kinds of opinions but we do sincerely appreciate everyone taking the time out to express their thoughts you didn't want to be remiss and not acknowledging the online presence as well it looks like we are out of discussion so i'm going to go ahead and request that we do a roll call vote chen demitz i hillary fletcher yes jackie gucciff yes shelley hunt no robert kelly yes susan lane yes kelly schaefer yes theresa nation williams yes susan henderson you just yes motion passes okay [Applause] now moving on to purchasing so we have um for number one a bid awards indian land elementary school parking
166project do i have a motion do i have a second sorry second second discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next up i'm going to suggest we group b 1 through 11 together in one motion is there any objection to my doing so hearing and seeing none do i have emotion so move do i have a second ready mr dennis all right discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next step i'm going to suggest we group c one and two together in one motion is there any objection to my doing so all right hearing and seeing none do i have emotion so do i have a second second discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next i'm going to suggest we group letters d and e together in one motion is there
167any objection to my doing so hearing and seeing none do i have emotion so moved do i have a second can we try that again discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries next up is the addendum we have for human resources um i'm going to suggest a group one through three together in one motion is there any objection to my doing so hearing and seeing none do i have a motion do i have a second second discussion all in favor aye any opposed sorry shelly any opposed motion carries and next we have finance on the addendum do i have a motion do i have a second second discussion any opposed motion carries all right um i did want to make just two quick announcements um of course our next board gathering if you will
168it will be our work session and that will be on march 10 and that will be um live in person as well a stream uh live streamed and that's going to be at springton lake middle school as always and our next legislative meeting is going to be march 24th and that of course will be back here oh sorry there's another event going on that will march 24th the next legislative will not be here it will be at springton but it will be live and also live streamed thank you dr d so last but not least we have adjournment do i have a motion to do i have a motion to adjourn so we have one move from ms fletcher okay do we have a second second discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries we're
169adjourned thank you all very much oh [Music] is okay are you done