Spring-Ford Board Meeting - October 25, 2021

001audio check audio check okay we're going to get started here a few announcements we have two board members that are not in attendance this evening mrs melton and mr schaefer could not be here this evening and a few opening remarks that they make every week as a reminder masks are still required this evening and the springford area board of education believes the community has the right to bring before the board issues and concerns they may have about items on the agenda or about things in general which affect the district or their children at the beginning of each meeting the springford residents will have an opportunity to share concerns and comment about items on agenda items only each community member on zoom and in person will have up to three minutes in which to address the

002board prior to adjournment there will be an additional opportunity for the community to comment publicly again each community member on zoom and in person will have up to three minutes and wish to address the board please note as in past meetings i will do my best to balance comments from those in person and from those on zoom this meeting is being filmed to be broadcast on community cable channels and online individuals intending to speak to the board should be aware that they are being videotaped i respectfully ask that those individuals in attendance this evening are respectful courteous and civil during public comment and throughout the meeting they also just want to uh comment uh about the huge success of the homecoming day itself and a thank you to all of those that were involved in

003making it such a great day from what i've heard from students that they had a wonderful time on saturday night the parade was wonderful and the picnic was awesome so thank you very much to sfva for doing that as well and do our student reps have any uh comments this evening there are no announcements this evening okay thank you yeah is there someone here that could maybe move this divider here to the side more so that we could mr hunter thank you just want to make sure that everybody over here on this end is able to see what's what's happening here a hey everybody from over there we couldn't see you before welcome to the meeting okay that's great thank you all right so we'll start with public to be heard on agenda items only

004as i said i'll look to balance so let's start with in person are there any comments this evening in person on agenda items only please be sure to reference the agenda item that you're referring to can you pull that mic down a little bit i'm sorry we can't hear you end queen it's not on i also need you to state your name and address for this james sorry uh my name is james sharman 199 north limerick road uh the agenda i wanted to talk on was on the pcr test and the quarantining of the children can we clarify which do we know which item that is there's an agenda item talk about the testing program the um funding for the testing program it's a new other business new other business b 10b okay thank you

005sorry to can i go i'm here today to talk about this legal experiment being done on our children with these pcr tests and quarantine and the other medical devices consider the mass advice during this unprecedented time mixed messages have been handed down from the so-called science experts and government officials the school districts cannot use our children's for this experiment there are 17 other school districts in pennsylvania that are no longer participating in this illegal experiment it would be considered a war crime it violated nuremberg codes 10 standards created in response to human rights violation of world war ii from the book if you remember what a book is called doctors of infamy the story of nazi medical crimes in which number code 1947 to discuss quote amongst other requirements this document and situates the requirement

006of voluntary informed consent of the human subject this this goes over top of everything about what's doing and everything the duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of content rest upon each individual who initiates directs or engages in the experiment it is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another impunity the who recommends only asymptomatic people actually wear uh mass take the pcr test or do any of this stuff quarantine and kids goes against the nuremberg code goes against your own vaccinations can you stay focused on the specific item which is about an approval about the pcr testing the quarantine of the kids that's exactly what i'm talking about it goes against nuremberg your medical discrimination what you're talking about before where you're going to let vaccinated kids not have to

007be quarantined and not have to take the pcr test now you're and but the people who don't have the vaccine they're going to have to be quarantined this is discrimination 100 percent it's medical discrimination this is what the nuremberg code was totally made for so you can no longer do the government can no longer do middle class so you can say pcr tests aren't in the cove test learn or anything but this is all a medical experiment sir can you go back to the specific action item putting aside the policies and health and safety specific to the action item you're breaking the law what else more do i need you're teaching discrimination in schools it's it's totally about the pcr test and uh you can't make a health certificate thank you you have not stayed

008on the agenda item it's 100 on the agenda if you want to if you want to maybe save those comments for the end of the meeting but it's you're veering off it's on the agenda you guys brought it up last time on the agenda about the discrimination between the two kids and it thank you and blind conversate the comments are done thank you is there anyone else in the room yeah absolutely before you get started as i said from the beginning it is a conversation on agenda items only if you do veer off those agenda items we will ask you to save your comment for the end of the meeting when it is public common and open at that time for a more general discussion thank you good uh john yanchuk 12 edmonds drive royersford

009uh i just want to take the opportunity on agenda item 10b also to thank dr rizzo for his presentation last week uh and the discussion that the board had around the test to stay program uh as you know most of the experts in the field of epidemiology and virology suggest a layered mitigated approach of multiple tools to keep our kids in school which is really at the end of the day what we all want i think this program will be great i hope that we actually expand it and test as many kids as we can until we get to the end of this thing that will keep them all in school that will keep them all healthy and i think it will be fantastic and thank you again uh mr rizzo for recommending this to

010the board i would urge you all to support it thank you are there any other comments from anyone in the room take them with that we'll go to zoom nothing on zoom rich okay we'll move on to the rest of the meeting then for this evening okay so we'll move on to the first presentation for this evening and it is my honor and privilege to present our very own mr tom de bello with the psba 12-year honor roll certificate of appreciation during tom's tenure with the district he has been actively involved and advocate for a number of programs and initiatives in the district and i would like to just name a few even though the list could go on pretty long over 12 years you do have an opportunity to be invested and do participate

011in a number of things that help the district to grow a couple of the big highlights that i see when when i look back on tom's tenure would be the hybrid learning over at spring city and royersford he was instrumental in implementing that and rolling that out in both places he was also instrumental in restructuring the business office and hiring a cfo mr fink also rolling out the seven year budget and the forecasted the seven-year budget forecast model which i believe was also even presented at psba in harrisburg um additionally he was part a very big part of growing the facilities for physical education but also for the performing arts and has been a supporter of the performing arts and the strings program the instrument upgrades all of that over time we all know that

012he's been on the finance committee for i don't know how many years you've the whole time i've been here he's been on the finance community has worked to eliminate a huge deficit he's structured to pay off 200 million dollars of district debt he has been supportive of the expansion of programming and enrollment the growing of enrollment at the western center he has been here during the time that springford has gained ground in terms of its ranking by the state and nationally all of those things they don't happen overnight they happen with a lot of time and a lot of effort as i said the list could go on and on and on those are my highlights that i see during my time for his tenure here and with that i do have the certificate from

013psba that i hope will see framed and in your office for 12 years so i think you know where everybody's position is doesn't really matter the point is this is an individual who's given a lot of his time and talents to this district and i do applaud him for his um never-ending efforts to try and help to make the district better to move spring forward forward and for them very grateful for the 12 years you've been here and what you've accomplished so thank you very much now if i can get him ever do something on the property committee i'll be very happy then not tonight mr jackson it's all about mr davalo but thank you for that well thank you colleen it's been a long run and i uh we have accomplished a lot over

014the 12-year period i'm very excited about where springford has grown to not only being recognized in the state but actually nationally so um you know i i've like you said i was part of a great team over the years and i was really excited to be able to see spring ford grow uh and and and the accomplishments are are endless and uh i think that the you know the best way to gauge it is when you look at the housing market people are trying to get into spring for it every day i mean houses don't last long i mean people are constantly asking you know looking for homes and they want to be part of the springford school district so this is it's a great honor and and you know thank you very much okay

015with that i think we're going to have some other fantastic presentations this evening it's really great that we're having all of this good news uh mr krakauer is going to recognize some students for us and their incredible achievements here um we have five students that are semi-finalists in the 2022 national merit scholarship program and 13 students that are commended students and then we have two more students for the college board national hispanic recognition program of scholars so there are a number of presentations this evening and we're excited to see these students come on up thank you mr rizzo and the school board for allowing us to share outstanding achievements from the class of 2022. the first five students that we're going to recognize are 2022 national merit scholarship semifinalist springford senior high school is pleased

016to announce that five of our senior students have been proclaimed semi-finalists in the 2022 national merit scholarship program what this means is that these five students were among the 16 000 highest performers out of more than 1.6 million students in the country who took the 2020 preliminary excuse me 2020 psats last october these high-scoring semi-finalists represent less than one percent of high school seniors to continue in the competition and be considered for monetary award these semi-finalists had to take the next steps and fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level submit a detailed scholarship application be endorsed and recommended by a high school official write an essay and earn sat scores that confirm their earlier performance on the psats they will all be notified in early february if they have advanced to the finalist

017stage monetary scholarship winners will be notified in march we are very proud of these students and at this time we would like to call them to the front and recognize each of these students so when i do call your name please come forward we do have a certificate for you and then we'd like you to stand right here in front of the school board jacob collier could not be with us tonight brayden cryer cervick raul palala and lisbeth vergies our next group of students we like to recognize are the 2022 national merit scholarship commended students springford senior high school is pleased to announce that 13 of our senior students have been commended students in the 2022 national merit scholarship program each of these 13 students has been named a commendable student for being among the

01834 000 highest performers out of 1.6 million students who took the psats last october although they will not continue in the 2022 competition for national merit scholarship awards these scholastically talented seniors have demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success springford is very proud of these students and would like to present each of them with a letter of commendation from the national merit scholarship program again when i do call you out to be recognized please come forward and stand in front of the school board please our first student jacob dougherty joshua feingold raja goyal our next student could not be with us tonight i believe she's not here is uh evelyn hergehan bobby monu kondawa sean lambert we're gonna have to turn this way for our next student allison mcveigh ryder fam justin russell rhea shah naveen

019suresh i do not believe our next student was able to make it either but peyton swanson and our last student was not able to make it tonight also and that is alexander waskow springford senior high school is pleased to announce that two of our senior students have been named college board national hispanic recognition program scholars this program is to honor and connect academically excellent students to universities across the country students are recognized for their academic achievements and outstanding performance on psats as national hispanic recognition program winners the college board highlights their achievements to more than fifteen hundred colleges and other scholarship opportunities that are available at some universities we are very proud of these two students we would like to call them to the front and recognize these two students our first student joshua feingold

020one more picture alexandra mcpeak uh thank you and i'll say thanks to all of you that's amazing the number of students that we just honored tonight and when you think about how many students took that psat just such an accomplishment thank you so much for trying hard for doing your best and for you know showing off spring fork really is making us proud absolutely all the accolades to you thank you and with that we're going to move on to boarding committee report so mr schaefer is not here tonight okay bye everybody you guys want to move over to or before we get started just to bring everybody up come on all right back to the meeting so we'll go with the um boarding committee reports mr shaffer couldn't be here tonight so he will give

021his update on extracurricular next month also psva was on for last month and he didn't have a report um but i did ask for him to maybe revisit that and was hoping to learn more about the um pennsylvania split from the national group i also look forward to hearing next month about the feedback on the presentation and the experience that's going on unless dr mary is there anything that you would want to share about that or explain put out there about what's happening with that presentation sure our department was honored by um being able to present at the the conference this year it was supposed to be in person but it was then switched to virtually so our department did a session that highlighted our instructional coaching model that we do within the district so

022we're excited that that was done virtually and it's uh taking place this week great so at some point when it's finished maybe we could hear about the experience and and i just want to say an extra special thank you for that because since i've been here you know springford is a leader as we know as i just mentioned since mr development has been here during his tenure it's rose through the rankings both statewide and nationally and i've been out to that psba conference a number of times in person along with ms vivini and with mr develo and we really wanted springford to do a presentation we talked about that quite a bit to highlight something good that we're doing here so because you have your choice right so i'm really happy that you were able

023to do that and i do look forward to hearing about the experience and some feedback from from doing it absolutely thank you for that so then we also have next legislative and i believe that dr wright has taken on that position for mrs melton so would you like to give us the report for legislative police absolutely so the montgomery county school board legislative committee met on wednesday october 20th it meant virtually to discuss the happenings in harrisburg some of the things that were discussed is house bill 1332 which is currently working its way through chambers this is a bill um about online curriculum transparency the concerns that we have is that the it is excessive when there are already mandates in place for transparency required by districts um regarding curriculum and that maintaining this much

024information on the district website would require many man hours by our our district so that's a little bit about 13 32. we also discussed the fair funding lawsuit the trial is set for november 12th there will be a rally in harrisburg set for the first day of the trial so um i have information about the rally if anyone's interested and also if anyone is interested in riding there's a bus leaving from pottstown to attend to that and then the year the proposed charter school regulations addressing many of the concerns about transparency ethic and accountability but does not address the funding so currently both representative jesse topper and representative joe cerisi have reform bills pending they're working on a compromise right now and we are encouraged to keep the message going um that charter reform is

025is needed um i have more resources for that if anyone is interested on the board and also we congratulated upper perkins school board director peggy pennypacker many of you may know her for her appointment to the pia board and she wanted to encourage ward if you have any questions about the pia to reach out to her so that was it great thank you are there any questions for dr wright okay moving on then mr develo was there an mciu meeting or not yet we're not meeting in october that's okay then we'll move on to dr mary and her report as assistant superintendent thank you i would first like to start by saying thank you to the school board springford community administration and staff for the honor of serving as assistant superintendent springford is a tremendous

026community one that i'm very proud to be part of i'm humbled by the opportunity to serve as assistant superintendent and i promise to do my best in the role to support the educational excellence that springford is known for as assistant superintendent i'm striving to be transparent and communicative with our board staff students and community and i look forward to working together to make the exceptional reputation of springford while advancing us forward as the educational world continues to evolve i'd like to take a minute to thank and recognize sfea for the community picnic after the homecoming parade sfea offered a variety of snacks hot dogs pretzels pizza etc free to the community before the game began while students alumni and families had the opportunity to connect laugh and overall just enjoy the traditions of homecoming that

027we were so desperately missing last year members of sfva hustled grilling hot dogs and serving the community with a welcoming smile i would also like to recognize our students and community for their successful homecoming weekend with an impressive 42 to 10 win over o and j our football team certainly showed up for the win i was proud to look around and see the generations of springford community members alumni students and family coming together as a community thank you to each of our sports teams and our activities springfield activities band community members that participated in the parade both our high school and middle school bands sounded incredible and our cheer cheerleaders and student spirit leaders brought the whole event together thank you to our rc tv crew and students for their leadership in covering the event

028for the weekend and finally one more recognition to coach brubaker who was presented with the game ball from the hunt for the 100th win as springboard head coach also in some of our elementary buildings last week the in residence program was in full swing artist kevin reese spent the week of october 18th at limerick elementary school where the theme was connections as we wanted students to feel connected to their peers teachers school and community limerick's media center lobby is now the permanent home to the brightly colored mobiles and in similar fashion students at royersford elementary school participated in the creation of a glass mosaic kindness tree which will be displayed in the lobby of royersford the finished product will depict a multi-seasonal tree with birds and animals the finished product oh sorry shifting gears we've

029also begun the comprehensive planning process the comprehensive plan is a district plan that focuses on continuous improvement every three years the comprehensive plan must be updated and submitted to pde we've started the process by establishing an inclusive committee with a diverse stake a diverse group of stakeholders including administrators teachers from every level parents and guardians community members and local businesses there have been three committees established the first committee is a steering committee we met for the first time on october 11th and will be directly responsible for developing the comprehensive plan in this meeting we reflected on areas such as the district mission and vision and educational values and the next step in the process is to conduct a needs assessment which will lead to action plans for improvement the feedback and review committee will be

030responsible for reviewing the drafts and providing additional input for consideration along the way and the final committee is the professional development task force has already been established in 2019 meets approximately three times a year and helps drive some of our professional development efforts with the goal with regards to comprehensive planning is to finalize the draft of the comprehensive plan in december and posted for public review in january for final board approval in february so we are moving very quickly on that and finally we're excited to share an amazing accomplishment by one of our students who graduated last year if you recall at the high school we offer ap research ap research is an interdisciplinary course where students explore an academic topic or problem of individual interest during this course students conduct a year-long research based

031investigation to address a research question from the graduating class of 2021 navia murahari's performance on the ap research exam in may 2021 was so superior that it falls into a rather select category navio's research research included an experiment to determine the impact of ambient sound when layered subliminally into low five music navian not only received the top score of five but was also one of only 375 students in the world to earn every point possible on the ap research exam receiving the maximum score on each portion of the exam so tremendous accomplishment we're extremely proud of navi and the ap research program we would also be remiss if we didn't recognize the ap research teachers who supported navi along the way in her research ms jackie ritter and julie corchowski have done a fantastic job

032of preparing students for their tasks and we're confident that this program will lead many future students to success in their next steps as well and that's my report i just want to say from personal experience um that class is is one of the best that's here and my daughter was fortunate to have both of those teachers and have that um seminar and then the research also a five on the exam but the skills that she walked away with that she has taken with her to college they've already been commented on that like she's just so much further along so if you can take that capstone encourage your children to do it because it really does prepare them for the future so thank you so much to both of them i couldn't help myself on that

033was coming oh okay any other questions or comments for dr mary's report this evening okay thank you dr mary okay and mr fitzgerald do we have a solicitor's report this evening just briefly in a bit of a good news report um doctors murray and gm batista and dr gm batista is set to begin in late november but both of them were duly sworn in today down in norristown at the court of common pleas by uh judge wendy rothstein my former uh partner at fox rothschild so with regard to our two new assistant superintendents they are official as of today because they are now officially commissioned officers as a result of that oath so good news to report well congratulations to both of you um and we will look forward to having you join us in

034the board retreat that i had mentioned previously along with our now permanent in place mr rizzo um tina valetto from the mciu um who many of all of us on the board no had suggested that we had a another board retreat after the new superintendent was named and now with two new super assistant superintendents coming on um and you know whatever happens in the month or so that will be able to hit the ground running in january with everybody in place and the team in place and have a really successful board retreat january 15th mark your calendars okay thank you any other questions or comments from mr fitzgerald all right then we'll move through the agenda minutes a and b is there a motion so moved the second second questions or comments question um i'm

035sorry regarding miss bender where are we with her replacement i mean we're in the midst of our students preparing their college apps so are we maybe miss lease can address this um we are currently in the process of the interviews and hopefully you should have a recommendation within the next few weeks all right thank you all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay the motion carries personnel a through g question or motion questions or comments on personnel a through g all in favor say aye aye any opposed those motions carry finance a through k question or is there a motion and the second second questions or comments on a through k finance all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries property a and b is there a motion in a second

036second questions or comments all in favor say aye any opposed that motion carries property and curriculum a through c i'm sorry programming and curriculum a through c so move then a second second questions or comments all in favor say aye any opposed that motion carries conferences and workshops a through f is there a motion it's removed in a second second questions or comments i will separate enf well i have a question on enf let me what am i saying there guys i have a question on enf um one of the wrong conferences and workshops that's fine enf we have two people that i believe are going to the same conference and i know mr jackson i have addressed this both of us have addressed this in the past when we were sending multiple people to

037the same conferences or workshops is there a need here for two people to go can mr hunter or mr rizzo come yes um there is a need these are requirements for their uh pesticide certification their continuing education credits once they get to the uh to the conference that goes towards their license okay thank you okay any other questions or comments on conferences and workshops a through f all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries other business there's a first reading of policy 218.3 and then there's new other business which is b and that is related well i think everybody knows what that is the administration recommends the approval of an after-school covid 19 rapid testing clinic the total cost would not exceed 65 000 funding will come from the unassigned budget funds

038mr rizzo can you elaborate on this item please since it was not on the work session last month or last week sure excuse me so as i as i mentioned last week we're working with montgomery county to establish a test to stay protocol or modified quarantine protocol with that requires some additional testing so we're doing three parts of our testing as i mentioned last week one of them is symptomatic testing students that are ill or present with symptoms not necessarily covet but they present with symptoms that could be coveted then we're also looking at a test out of quarantine which means that a parent a child would be quarantined but they can shorten their quarantine time if they remain asymptomatic excuse me and then the last one is the test to stay program which is

039the modified quarantine piece so within the school they would like school-based teams to manage the test to stay program the modified quarantine program they're there they test at a cadence of about every other day based on the data identified through that day five through seven window they're already in the school it's convenient for families it's convenient for for students and it's convenient for our staff because they're already in the building for the tests out of quarantine and for the symptomatic testing they felt it was when i say today i mean our school nurses as i worked with them on this but also montgomery county we talked about what that could look like our school nurses and chief lawyer felt like for us to do those two components the symptomatic testing which means they have symptoms

040and the test out of quarantine a after school after school central site made the most sense so this motion is to pay for the hourly rate for nurses and other staff that have been identified to work two hours a day two days for the remainder of the school year that would be six staff per six staff members per clinic for two hours on a tuesday and on a thursday and then this is not to exceed cost it's it's cost out for the rest of the school year so as testing declined and if participation declines we would not utilize all of those funds so the idea is that this would be um if we need all that staff all six for two hours for both day for the rest of the school year this would be

041the cost anything less than that and the cost would go down so we believe it aligns nice with where we are with modified quarantine and we believe that this is a way to keep our students back in school and not bring students that are sick into school to be tested this allows them to be tested curbside service they can pull up get the test they can leave they'll be notified via email and is it true that the county is still paying for the testing correct yes because we signed on with the mou with montgomery county office of public health they pay for all of the supplies that we need for the testing this is purely to to pay for the staff to do it so this purely is for staffing correct can we separate these

042two items well the first the first the other business the first read is just we're not voting on that so this is we're just gonna vote on the new other business that first policy will come back to us as a second read in november so i'm just a little not that i i just thought that this when we spent money on something like this this was something we usually had to discuss before we put it on for a vote i thought we made a sort of a decision a month or so back that we weren't going to do this anymore well that that is true you're very correct about that and when mr rizzo brought this up the other day in in a full disclosure full transparency um i did say to him i don't

043like to do the rush items he hadn't known previously that this was or what the cost would be associate would associate it with this here the alternative was to wait until november and i did have as i've expressed in the last several meetings concerns about quarantining healthy kids so i didn't want to do that if if we could reduce those numbers by doing this program but at the same time and mr rizzo can attest to this i did say that if the board felt rushed it could be tabled to this more for more discussion and to do it at another time but my concern was really about quarantining kids unnecessarily in light of the numbers that we had last year i don't want to get anywhere near that and i know the rest of us

044don't need it we want them educated we want them in school if this is a help for that i'm okay with it which i i totally agree i also do not want kids quarantining any longer than necessary but even if we don't have this budgeted item approved they could if we decide to go through with the i mean if we're doing a test out they could still get tested elsewhere even if we're not providing it is that not so or chief i actually talked about that a little bit today i believe that we can for testing out a quarantine not for the test to stay i don't believe but i need to get clarification from montgomery county on that they just in full disclosure the test the stay program which is that modified quarantine piece

045that's done in the buildings so if you weren't comfortable approving this tonight we would still move forward with the test to stay program it would be more challenging for us to do the test out of quarantine and symptomatic testing that would that would be the that would be the piece there so the um what is the program due to start by the way with the montgomery county department of health and the sure that's a fantastic question so we saw the first draft of their guidance this past friday uh which i shared with the board um we can review again this thursday they wanted superintendents to have some feedback to take a look at it they were targeting uh first week of november to be able to roll this out that's next week so we need

046to make sure and we have been working concurrently while montgomery county was creating their guidance our school nurses and chief foyer were creating our own guidance and that we met this morning and they are now aligning what their practice was what their recommendations were with montgomery counties so that they could we could have a conversation about you know how close we are how are we dealing with the consent how are we doing notifying families those pieces we're working on now if we're able to start next week fantastic if we're not we would anticipate the week after we would start but we could start as early as next week providing montgomery county give their final okay on this thank you the um so the test to stay which is um done the on like day one

047three and five in school that's in school that has no bearing on this at all this um voting on this the other two and i apologize if i i'm just because it's the first time i'm looking at this and i'm um one clarification because i was not aware of anything other than the request for 65 thousand dollars for covet 19 rapid testing the um symptomatic testing would be for students and staff that are symptomatic or just students it could be for students and staff and that are symptomatic correct okay and my understanding and lessons have changed and everything's changing all the time is that if you are symptomatic you can get the rapid test um with free of charge at other sites so that i mean that's my understanding of that you could get a

048test at other sites but i'm told it's 24 to 48 hours to get those results i'm not sure that's 100 accurate ours you get within 15 minutes right okay so the the experience that that i know of was within the 30 minutes and it was not an appointment but they said things change all the time but that would not except the symptomatic that's um we should i'm just looking at with how quickly we need to move on this so then the other one was the test out of quarantine so that is for a student who has been quarantined due to a close contact was asymptomatic or symptomatic uh asymptomatic asymptomatic and for them to to be able to return how would that be different than the test to stay so testing out of quarantine the

049student is home and they are quarantined they're not in the school testing to stay they remain in the school and essentially we would be doing away with the test out of quarantine part unless parents choose to quarantine instead of participating in the test estate program there would be little need for the test out of quarantine if they participate in the test state program test the state program that what they're submitting to what they're consenting to is their child being testing every other day up through day five through seven what their quarantine would be and as long as they test negative and they're asymptomatic they would stay in school uh testing out a quarantine they're sent home to quarantine and when they get into day five through seven window they could take a covenant test and

050if they test negative they can come back on day eight so one of them are in school one of them are home and it's going to come down to family preference okay so the the test out of quarantine is really replacing the other testing that we do not the rapid testing but what most people would go through with the if i don't have symptoms i've quarantined it's been so many days and now i can take the other so again something that people could get um outside of school so these 65 000 would be strictly to pay the hourly rate and could you again repeat like when you were talking or what you're talking about it again i apologize because i didn't have that all this in front of me and i'm concerned and i'm i'm

051a little hesitant to agree to a 65 000 until i have all the information sure not a problem so we decided again when i say we i mean the school nurse's chief boyer myself decided that two days a week seemed to be the most appropriate amount of days to do the testing after school from four to six tuesday thursday made the most sense to us and the reason for that is if a student goes home sick they have to be symptom free for a certain period of time anyway as part of our regular sick process so um being waiting a day to get a test if let's say they're they're sent home on a monday or they don't go to school on monday because they're sick they're not feeling well then they would probably wait

052a day anyway they would get their tests on tuesday and they could be back on wednesday so instead of being out for 10 days which would be the recommendation if you're symptomatic you would be out for at the most one and a half days so um we pick tuesday thursday from 4 p.m to 6 p.m it's after school the plan is to have it at limerick elementary school and we would just do a curbside service process they'd pull up they'd get the test and they could leave and then they would we'd get the results in 15 minutes and then they would be notified via email if they're positive or negative and then i just want to clarify something also vaccinated or unvaccinated correct because there have been a number of breakthroughs even for those people

053that have been vaccinated so at this point montgomery county is only recommending this for unvaccinated i think we can have that conversation as a district what we want to do but their recommendation is this is for unvaccinated because vaccinated individuals do not need foreign unless they're symptomatic but if they're symptomatic then if they're symptomatic then they're recommended to get a test yes and and so they could be part of this program at that point i would have to get clarification on how flexible we can be as spring forward whenever we're working with the mou of montgomery county i would have to check on that that doesn't make any sense if they're if they're systematic yeah systematic they're correct that's grease yeah um symptomatic right system symptomatic symptomatic if they look sick if they look sick

054what difference does it matter if they're vaccinated or not it could be a breakthrough well no no i'm not talking about breakthrough if they're if they're displaying symptoms right and we send them home and what's how's that different than another kid that's not vaccinate that's displaying symptoms and we send them all well if they're vaccinated and they're not feeling well it's recommended that they get a test but they would follow our normal i think our normal sick protocol i think we can do whatever we want i think yeah i mean it's it's not making sense because we're sending a kid home because they're not feeling well and they're displaying symptoms correct correct yeah right so her parents are keeping at home yes right so if they're vaccinated they're not feeling well and they're displaying symptoms

055we're sending them home correct so then why wouldn't they still fall into the same process well they they could probably fall under the symptomatic testing right process so then it could fall into the after-school rapid testing to test the test to come back correct well what you're saying makes perfect sense whether we can do or not i just have to get clarification markers right we need quite in terms of how much latitude we have as additional yeah i mean i'm just i'm just trying to follow the logic here and i would i would make a motion that we table this i agree until we get our arms wrapped around this okay so there's a motion table is there a second to that motion all right so we close debate we vote on the table so

056so it would be there was a motion and a second to table it any opposed no no could you please uh clarify to people that were tabling the the 65 000 not continuing to go ahead with the department of health and governmental department development clarification for the community but he did say that that was part of we're tabling we're tabling the spending of the 65 that's correct yes we're still continuing on with uh uh trying to work with montgomery county to reduce quarantining that is correct yes but you did say without that 65 that there would be is there an impact well there will be an impact on staffing if we're going to roll that program out otherwise we're going to have to we're going to have to wait to do the symptomatic testing piece

057and the test out of quarantine piece at a site but as far as testing out of testing the state that we can move forward with okay all right then we will move into word comment at this point um just a couple of reminders as i stated earlier our board retreat is january 15th we did have a president's council meeting on october 20th um during which time i did not see mrs sullivan on that zoom and i apologize for not seeing you there um i want to say thank you for being there and being part of that meeting where we did speak with a number of um also mrs melton was there and mr de bello was there and we did speak with a number of the home in school the booster club the athletics um

058music um snap there were a number of people that were on there and sharing with us some really good news i think one of the themes that i heard during the meeting mr rizzo you were on there mrs bickert was on there and this crew was on there one of the themes that i heard is that volunteerism appears to be up in a number of places there's still struggles and some but um it's up and there is a just a flow of creativity there are a lot of new people that want to get involved because they've maybe felt detached or not really part of springford yet so they're coming in and they're they're just the home and schools are tapping them as a great resource with lots of new ideas and um really that the

059home and schools are flourishing in our different schools so really grateful for that opportunity to have that conversation with all of them the next meeting there's a save the date that went out for potentially january 19th they do prefer to do it on the zoom platform it is easier to get a number of people together that way so um the only other question i have was about the meeting schedule i do think we have to have a little discussion about that next week is really tight and curriculum and technology and community relations are both scheduled for the second which is a difficult for some members to be there um the first doesn't work either because there is an important meeting at jose which would again pull people away so i was looking to move community

060relations if possible to the third and i know mrs fazzini was trying to find a something to do i think we'll move uh curriculum and technology to the third album you can do that yeah okay great so um we would like to make that adjustment and get that advertised then that both of those meetings will be on the third same times but on the third to avoid those conflicts thank you mrs fazzini for working that out i know that was a conflict in the schedule that's all i have for board comment are there any other word comments this year yeah i just wanted to do a little fact check here um one of the public comments earlier no one no student um is being forced to take any cova test and uh all testing is

061voluntary voluntarily voluntary and requires parental consent so that is correct mrs fizzini thank you for sharing that quick question mr rizzo any update on the parent advisory council uh yes i believe uh katie smith last week she reached out to a couple of parents to work with getting that group started i'm getting it set up last week they also had their first zoom session where they talked about iep in the mbe process and i believe they had um they had my showing went really well and then i believe that there's been some communication between the parents and ms smith i don't know to what extent but it is up and moving and we're moving forward great thanks i got one or two items i'll make it two um i received a lot of emails and

062phone calls from last week's meeting regarding my comments regarding edi i just want to clarify a couple of things i support the initiative of edi and associate committees i do a lot i do ask a lot of questions because i want to advance the tasks and i look forward to the findings that come about in january of 2022. the first item second item is do we have an update on whatever happened on friday i mean it's it's been talked about and written about and asked in smoke signals is there any update to sorry any update from the district we did send out a communication so i think we should provide the community something as an update sure absolutely so referring to last thursday correct um which is part of our spirit week in the usa

063day that we were referring to yes i was traveling so yesterday yeah sure um so yeah we did um we did have usa day as part of our spirit day last week we did send out a notification on friday i sent out a notification on friday about the events of the day and about how again and what i said my communication was spirit week is about promoting unity and generating excitement and positive culture and usa day became something and some in some cases became something a little bit a little bit different than that and we my goal was to talk about what our goals were and we had a few students that stepped outside of the expectations that were set forth by dr wadenbaugh dr collier when we announced what the spirit week looked like

064was supposed to look like they did they did illustrate these are the expectations and some of the expectations were not met um when it comes to student attire there is a dress code and some of those codes were violated when it comes to the props and banners and flags and things that were used they really should not have been in the school and we didn't we didn't necessarily do what we needed to do to remove them from the environment so that's something we need to work on we need to increase uh we need to increase our vigilance um in in terms of keeping our our schools safe and we need to be very consistent with following the guidelines we set forth so as we move forward those are the steps we have to take because

065again it's about again it's about promoting unity and togetherness and a positive culture and some of our students walked away on thursday and our parents without without that feeling so it kind of worked counter to what our goals were thank you any other board comment this evening okay with that then we'll move to public to be heard i think we're going to start on the zoom just because i started in person last time and i want to balance pretty well so rich do we have anybody okay go ahead naya you may now make public comment please state your first and last name as well as your full address please answer yourself um hi um my name is naya rollins um i live at 430 elm street um in royersford so my comment was about um

066the whole spirit week thing as well and i just found it interesting that in the last um school board meeting and i think it was june last june um there was an issue with a blm sticker being in the sixth grade building and parents were complaining that politics should have no place in schools and um you guys agree um mr debello has said blm was like a new flavor of the month like all those types of comments were made and then they were trump apparel which is political but an email is being sent and all saying is we should um talk about these type of questions for our children there was never in that email saying that should be prohibited and it shouldn't be allowed i just find it like interesting how when issues with

067black people are involved it's always political it shouldn't be allowed but trump apparel is allowed because when i was a freshman trump got elected president so trump apparel has been worn for many years and nobody has done anything about it so i'm just wondering why now is it an issue because it was never talked about before and that's political attire so i just wanted to see the feedback about that liz before you before you go any further i just i do want to make a comment before this we don't want to go down the wrong road here the board needs to make sure that whatever is out there is consistent across across the board consistency the administrative guidelines or what happens there that is is where the school is and as mr rizzo has just

068said there needs to be a little bit more attention maybe the belt needs to be tightened a little bit maybe some stricter guidelines and and that's what needs to happen so that's where i understand you're going with that and as far as the board is concerned we'll listen to what's being said but the general the idea here is that that we are a board and we don't want to get go down that wrong path right we want to make sure that whatever is done is done consistently and that we agree with what's being done consistently but that really is the extent of where the board falls in that um we've dipped our toes many times as many of you know into a lot of of different waters in the last year and a half what

069have you so as mr rizzo said the administration needs to to do this i i just wanted to add because i think it's important for the discussion and i can understand what the the commenter had concern about an issue that occurred last week vis-a-vis what may have occurred in the past surrounding a blm sticker i think what's important to inform the discussion on that is the fact when you look at the inquiry the administration has to take with regard to what is protected speech what a student may wear is different than what are the rights or expectations for employees that matter as i recall was an employee-based issue which is a different first amendment issue so i i don't know if you can i understand where there's the desire to compare and apples to apples

070but it was a different issue i just think it's important for the the board to understand the the differences in those those protection issues yeah well i think she's looking i think her reference really is fairness she's looking for fairness that's what she's looking for and i don't think that needs to be done by the board that needs to be done by the administration needs to be done by the high school that's where it needs to happen they manage the high school you manage your students you manage the issues but i think she's making reference to being fair i agree we need consistency across the board but i just want to be clear i never said blm was flavor of the month so i know but i mean but i agree that there's we have

071we have policies in place they need to be followed across the board and that's up to administration to make sure it's enforced and taken care of i have one comment i have been sorry i've been made aware that because of that issue some of the students want to leave springford they do not want to continue going to school here because of that and that's all i'll say because if we lose students because of such actions or not enough restriction that's going to hurt the district so i think we need to keep a real tight lid on this and take care of it so that we don't have any incidents like this again that definitely is the goal and um as i said administration needs to be sure that if there are stricter guidelines if they

072have to spell it out even if they think it's understood if it needs to be spelled out then that's what needs to happen we don't want to lose any students we don't want students to feel that it's unfair we don't want anyone to feel slighted in any way anyone across the board so okay rich do we have others liz you may now make public comment please unmute yourself state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is liz kepner 19 leatherwood drive collegeville in full transparency i need to include a firsthand covet account in springford school district my son was coveted case number five in the same fourth grade classroom in oaks elementary within 10 days after my discussion with the nurse it was discovered that the students were

073not sitting in their assigned seats at lunch according to the seating chart multiple students switched seats to be closer to their friends during the first few days of school the school was quarantining the wrong students from case number one healthy students were forced to quarantine and exposed still children were left in the classroom to spread kovad to more kids like mine the montgomery county office of public health got involved and because they could not correctly identify who had been exposed they quarantined the remaining students in the classroom if this is not in school transmission i don't know what possibly could be this is an example of what happens when covet is present in the classroom and lunchroom and closed contacts are not removed it's spread like wildfire last week mr debello and mr rizzo commented

074the kids of lives outside of school this is not what happened in this specific classroom the students were not on same sports teams buses or neighborhood playmates this is what happens when covid is in a lunchroom without masks so this is exactly what will happen in a classroom without masks this virus then ravaged my family after my fourth grader got it a few days later my second grader got it a few days later i was a breakthrough case and i have never been this sick in my entire life then my first grader got it my first grader has been out of school from september 30th and finally went back to school on friday this has been a terrible experience for my family as i had to go back to teaching three kids at home again

075during this covet time i would really like all of you to please understand what this does to families this is not a two or three day quarantine period this ravages an entire family i just want to get the word out that the only way to keep these kids safe is by having six feet of distance when they are not wearing masks we have to do better at lunch if we can do better at lunch we can get these kids staying in school thank you steve you may now make public comment please unmute yourself state your first and last name as well as your full address steve steve fry 1711 brook drive royersford there are several potential issues i would like to speak about tonight but time is limited i'll start with one of the most

076significant impediments to progress on the issues at least from my perspective is a better form to do it while the people who have a vested interest in the school are restricted to speaking a few minutes a month in these meetings organizations who have no responsibility or accountability to the community get to have enormous influence on the school and they do it with limited transparency these meetings are not providing the amount of information nor the difficult discussions the community needs let's take one moderate example based on media reporting about four months ago at least one of the large teachers unions indicated they will provide tools and resources to defend teaching of what the union believes should be taught in schools like things involving critical race theory it has also been reported the union will do investigations

077into at least some of those who oppose their agenda once negative attention came to these issues the materials became unavailable on the union website so first a powerful well-funded teachers union providing tools to potentially be used on community members who voice opposition to controversial programs is a problem for the relationship between the school and the community second to the best of my knowledge teachers unions have no particular responsibility or accountability to this community why should they have a significant influence on what is taught at the school is that the role of a supposed labor union there is something of a general social contract between the school and the community which i think is comes into play here and when the school well representatives of the school or involved with the school you know may take

078actions that threaten members of the community there's kind of a break in the social contract that exists between the community and school and i think that's a problem that needs to be addressed and since there's a large i find it likely that there's a large number of staff belonging to the teachers union in the school it seems like something we should be discussing but we're really not so you know my three minutes are probably coming to a close so i would hope the board will give some serious consideration for better form for transparency and the exchange of ideas and information thanks kristen you may now make public comment please unmute yourself state your first and last name as well as your full address good evening christian kanger 301 mulberry drive landmark pennsylvania i just wanted

079to chime in and essentially agree with what uh mr fitzgerald said um and responding to mr rizzo's communication on friday there is a huge difference between what a teacher or a faculty member is promoting versus what students are promoting i think these kids all need to learn to tolerate and respect one another unity is a very big goal that obviously we don't see at all across the country so it is a very divided country so we should expect the same in our classrooms and the students who if one's wearing something obama or blm and another is wearing something trump hey these kids need to learn to tolerate that and respect that and get along with each other we all have friends that are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum that's expected that we

080not only have those friendships but in work relationships that we foster those relationships and get along despite our differences so thank you for hearing me out have a good night teresa you may now make public comment please state your first and last name as well as your full address teresa dropped out anne-marie you may now make public comment hi my name is anne marie holstein i live at 221 in mandalay phoenixville pa 19460. uh just to follow up to the comment that mr fitzgerald made while students do have first amendment rights uh the constitution has allowed courts at all levels to regulate this which is why we tell students what they can and cannot wear within dress codes so again just to reiterate that i understand and appreciate that the administration needs to work through

081this with with children it is not a constitutional right of theirs to wear build the wall flags to school which can be seen as intimidating their fellow students um and so i appreciate the swift and you know attention that is going to be brought to this within the administration because of course we all want equity and fairness and we all want our students within the community to feel safe in their school building thank you teresa you may now make public comment please state your first and last name as well as your full address you hear me yes okay great uh teresa westwood 70 plymouth drive royersford pa um i wanted to speak on two things one um the case that just brought up i think her name was liz talking about the lunch situation was

082awful to hear i feel like we've talked about lunch multiple times and the fact that there really is no great solution to spread kids out and the story that she shared with people not being in their signed seats and covid going all through her family really was um i felt i felt for her and i still not really clear like what our solution is but we're a couple months into the school year entering a season where we've other respiratory and other infections coming in and i really do hope that other solutions will be considered so something like that doesn't happen to another family the second issue i know a couple other people spoke about was the issue with high school last week i don't have children that are high school age but i saw multiple

083pictures um circulating and was horrified by them and i agree with what one of the women said earlier around black lives matter stickers it's like we do need to be consistent but i i have to ask myself like how are those children even able to walk through the doors dressed in such a way like what is the accountability going to be for the staff that was overseeing those students and why was that allowed um i did i didn't see mr rizzo's email i heard of what what basically was in it i appreciate him sending it but i think something like that needs to not happen again and really clear accountability not just nice messaging saying hey like you know we're promoting unity which is wonderful i think in a really great aspirational goal but having

084something like that happen in our school district one that's well respected um is embarrassing quite frankly and i i hope that we don't ever say something like that again thank you at this time there are no further public comments to be heard on zoom thank you rich in person john yanchuk 12 edmonds drive royersford uh i want to start by thanking you mr jackson i appreciate you bringing us up tonight uh it appeared we were going to go the whole meeting without addressing this until you brought it up and i know the whole community's thinking about it so i just want to give you kudos for being willing to bring this uh situation up tonight uh for the better part of the summer though this board has spent quite a bit of time and energy

085debating the usefulness of the edi committee that you all voted to create just last june by a policy 128. now though as confirmed in the public comments on august 16th you did have a staff member remove the black lives matter sticker at a white constituent's request and then you did little when one of your students of color was told to go back where they came from in this very room this port is consistently over the summer signaled with this debate and its actions that it does not value all of its springford constituents these actions blew up as mr jackson noted last week during usa today usa day when multiple students in violation per mr rizzo's email and comments tonight of the rules and guidelines that he circulated not only brought a racist flag into the

086school that denigr denigrates immigrants but then we're permitted to parade it in front of a classroom several students posted horrifying messages on social media as they were forced to endure this gross display situation was only made worse when the administration sent out a letter that in part blamed the victims for how they felt it was clear that there would be no consequences for violating these rules which has been par for the course for this board for some time it's now clear racism is alive and well here in springford and the board has signaled that there is little they will do to counteract it fueling the fire the last two months by just asking questions i remind you that you represent all students and constituents i also remind you that has been pointed out several times

087you are the ultimate authority in the district not the administration and this shameful behavior is another example of a failure of your board leadership thank you mary jo mcnamara 187 abbey drive royersford pa i want to talk about thursday too i want to talk about it from the perspective of the administration am i can you hear me you can't hear me can you hear me now okay um i i'm sorry um so thursday needs to be addressed really relative to edi right so eei isn't only race related a trump flag doesn't equal racism that's a leap in people's minds for their opinions i'm not stating what my opinion is but we have to be really careful right so people have feelings people want to talk about things it's great that you want to implement a

088dress code but a dress code doesn't get rid of it because what if i when i was growing up it was converse sneakers versus adidas and kids were getting beat up so we got to be really really careful right this is a space where we have to institute standards that need to be addressed by our whole student body and there needs to be a grievance process related to it people are uncomfortable if somebody brings a flag in if flags were a laugh they need to take it up with the grievance process not put i want to kill myself on social media it's nonsense the underlying keyboard bullying that went on related to this picture is horrendous the whole episode was horrific we didn't do our due diligence for um following protocols for the whole week

089kids are bringing in props all week long kids have blm shirts on on on usa day it was wonderful to see the kids don't only equate red white and blue to usa anymore that's the way it should be that's the way our world is we have to address this from a diversity and inclusivity perspective it's not only related to your constitutional right of what you're allowed to wear what if i wear a t-shirt that says phillies versus his ny whatever shirt that's on right what happens then so we have to really address this really it's not accountability kids shouldn't be in trouble we have to address this with the kids feelings and we have to lay out a list of standards and protocols that we are able to follow in addition to the fact that

090we as parents should teach our children better those parents that have kids that are making those horrific responses are they should be ashamed of themselves thank you i like that shirtless though you got to be a dotted daughters to appreciate it yeah roland olson 7-eleven sourwood lane had a bunch of other stuff to talk about but i'm gonna switch gears here uh you know i think uh you know last year i i stood here and i i wondered why would anybody oppose a plan that we were working on that fit the needs of everyone and excluded no one you know plan which ultimately to their tremendous credit uh our administration and our teachers delivered on making springford the leader at a time where leadership was sorely needed they delivered most importantly on behalf of our

091children i just i just still i couldn't get i couldn't get my arms around my head around why people would always be opposing a solution for everybody and you know i i'm starting to see it i i think i got it i said we have people in our school district that will always look to bring springford down to their level they think small they hide behind aliases on social media to personally attack our board members they send anonymous emails they take pictures of our kids and use them as weapons to destroy the great programs we have here in springford currently sprint spirit week and youth sports are on their hit list they promote negativity and divisiveness but they have no solutions they haven't gotten a single thing right in the last 20 months and you

092know i think you just should keep that in mind as you listen to their comments and every time you get an email from them or a nasty gram and every time they step to this podium to pronounce their hate of spring ford you should you consider do the opposite mr rizzo you proposed this uh this testing program that if i heard the guy you know come out today and say i'm full for it let's test everybody man i'm rethinking that program right away and i know ms fazzini you said that you know right now you know the program is not to test everybody for the other gentleman's objection but there's people here that want to test everybody all the time whether they're sick or not and i think that's something that we have to consider

093not doing for the simple reasons that you don't test kids that aren't sick so um in closing yeah we've got problems in our district and we've got people that are causing them and it's not the people sitting at this table and it's not the good people of springford you know we've we've got some people that are they want to create problems instead of solve them thank you stick it all right we're not we're not gonna go there tonight we're not gonna we're not gonna do that please do pull up your mask mr olson while we're in the room please thank you okay we have any other comments in the room this evening how's it going james troutman 199 will from mcroot again i see dividing the community is going 100 great for you guys good

094job you're doing a great job with that the entire state of pennsylvania 17 other schools passing this illegal order on the last day of the school mortar before the school even started this is an organized attack on our freedoms and its fascism at its finest giving you the facts and laws are over i don't want to be your enemy but your compliance to this is cowardness plain and simple if you read the bible john 3 18 my children let us not love with the words or with our lips but with our truth and in our deeds love with the actions romans 13 10 love does no wrong to a neighbor therefore love is fulfilling the law all this bickering arguing over t-shirts is beyond ridiculous and it's just a distraction matthew 7 12 so whatever

095you wish that others would do to you do also to them for this is the law of the prophets leviticus 19 13 through 8 talks about you should not oppose your neighbors or rob him you should not do injustice in court you should not be partial to the poor defer to the rich but in righteousness you should judge your neighbor you should not go around and slander your neighbor you should not stand up against the life of your neighbor matthew 5 43 you have heard that this is said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy tom wolf is the enemy the parents are your neighbors department of health has zero power here because there's no pandemic going on in pennsylvania teachers coaches staff are not pharmaceutical propaganda soldiers stick to the common core

096this is the common core this is all you do this is it plain and simple taxpayers money should no longer go towards anything covey related as it doesn't go to anything towards h1r1 sars bird flu regular flu or diarrhea i'd rather my kid get not get diarrhea than any of the stuff you guys are talking about as a father of a warrior apprentice take cover out of the system masking women and young girls is just wrong seeing it firsthand overseas masking women is used for a form of obedience and suppression of freedom this is not what americans do for us men we're on this planet due to the women so the mass them is totally unacceptable for not standing up for the kids totally unacceptable and don't want my daughter to be discriminated like this

097if you want to wear a mask go with god but to tell someone to wear a mask and take a medical test quarantine a healthy kid but not a healthy kid who has vaccines is totally medical discrimination you do not do what you want it is called or to the doctor you do not do what you want it's called checks and balances you know you got to go through the right manners and for everything else black lives matter shirts trump shirts field castro shirts chinese flag shirts russian flag shirts it's american freedom i'm a veteran in the united states wear whatever you want who cares back in my day you weren't allowed to wear bart simpson shirts how ridiculous was that back in the day now that you look at it so and to the

098parents just stop doing it stop it stop arguing with these people it's america do what you want you have the merit your freedom of speech whatever they wear let them wear it who cares to the parents that are you know that are going back and forth just stop it you know focus on the mask and the covet everything else is just okay thank you hello patrick for 10 million oaks um one i like to say like um can you pull that mic down please um the cyberbullying that was going on since i'm just a taxpayer here i don't get all that information that you guys are getting and sending out and it's very irritating that i found out what had happened to even the children that wore just just because they wore red white and

099blue on thursday how they got harassed i i found that stuff online that's horrible and it goes both ways i saw pictures of people wearing the rainbow flag were they harassed did anybody come up to them and say you know you can't wear that today we see the parents sitting here saying that that wasn't allowed because they were red white and blue what happens on president's day if you guys said hey wear something in for president's day are the children allowed to wear something to cover that and these masks are ridiculous you guys did not you excuse me last meeting i was in the other room and i wasn't allowed to speak because you guys weren't told that i was over there again i'm going to talk about my grandchild mr young chuck who's been

100cyber bullying all of us women in here calling us twix does anybody see that are you guys any of you seen that or how about the candidates that are running that are inside and outside without mass going but when they're not even social distancing and the covet cases that are approaching here those children are out there in the open public some even flew across the country or out of the country and back in there should not be any children being tested that are healthy my grandson was quarantined and he wasn't even near the kid that was out that had kovic for 10 days out of the house now again he's verbally stuck oral like he cannot read and write very clearly because of his speech impediment but one of them who was it the doctor

101over there last time said how they're not reading by third grade then they're already behind why don't you check that out i don't know which doctor you guys were over there because i couldn't see your name i'm blind too but it's upsetting that you guys can't even make a decision on the mask and i don't want any of this um covet testing for healthy children if they have a cold and colds do go around and you misses uh now and you were out there in in utah did you have a mask when the whole time you were out there you showed up this isn't a question and answer i know i know we finished with you i'm just making statements you guys don't go away and you like you come back here were you all

102tested mr rizzo i heard that you had kevin is that true this is becoming bad we're done this is becoming a badger okay i'm just saying this is stuff right here as a team please please take a seat chief lawyer i will we don't talk from the audience either is there anybody else that wants to go up good evening um my name is preston lutweiler to woodmont court and uh i think the gentleman who came up with a couple of pages of prepared biblical quotations was about loving your neighbor it was very interesting because i didn't hear any sense of compassion toward the woman who called with the story about her family getting covered probably from the school from the cafeteria i think you have to take this virus seriously and your responsibility seriously the

103other subject that has been discussed a lot this evening is what happened on thursday and thank you mr jackson for bringing it up during the board meeting i can't think of a more cogent um example of why this school district needs to be embarking on an edi program i understand there's been a lot of discussion about there is no racism in springford there are no problems in spring for it you can't say that after what happened on thursday i'm sorry i heard as ms sullivan mentioned that there were some people some kids who felt so i guess put upon or threatened or discussed it i don't know what it was that they were thinking about leaving springford because of what happened on thursday and i heard from the audience some of the same people who

104were clapping for the preacher say let him go the audience watching didn't hear that i was in the room i heard it and i want you to to be sure that you heard it thank you just want to comment also on some of that that no one's ever said that there are no problems we've asked repeatedly what are the problems and we have all supported the edi movement moving forward so we have that we're embracing that and we're looking forward to hearing more and more of the results and addressing the needs that we have so are there any other comments from the room is there i was just going to say i i agree i have to agree with mr jackson that you know we get accused of a lot of things and yeah i

105ask a lot of questions uh because i too are looking for the advancement of the programs we did approve you know the money we approved the policy we proved the consultants i approved all that as well and i asked a lot of questions and i will continue to ask questions as long as i'm sitting here because i want to know where this where his programs are advancing i want to know what's going on and i want to know when things are going to happen i want deliverables i want to know you know and you're right colleen we've asked numerous times no one sat at this table and said we don't have issues in the district we sat at this table and said we want to know what the issues are we hear that there's issues

106and we keep asking what are the issues we want to know what's going on we're trying to get the information we're trying to get the data we're trying to get all of that that's what mr rizzo and the committee referred to last week with that that this is what they're starting to work on and what mr jackson uh pointed out many times uh you know we have a lot of people involved and this has been going on for multiple years and we're trying to get some steps forward to get you know to show progress and say what's going on what could we address what do we need to address that's what the is that's the biggest issue right and that's what we hope to have continue we all agree that we want to continue we

107all want to see it you know be flourished within the district but i also want to ask mr rizzo what i mean i hear a lot about but what were the students wearing on thursday i would say there were a lot of things just primarily the bulk of our students were i think dr collier gave a percentage that we had a high 80 percent of our students participating in that day at the 10 through 12 or 9 through 12. excuse me um so primarily they're wearing red white and blue uh patriotic type attire there were some that were wearing uh trump banners as there were some wearing the american flag as a cape there were some that were dressed in all black there were some that were dressed there's a variety of people dressed in

108different ways there were certainly trump shirts there were biden shirts there were obama shirts there was a lot of different things on display that's for going on so what you need i just wanna we're hearing and i just wanna make sure i wanna make understand what was you know what was i tire and and i agree that moving forward that um this was probably something that was unforeseen that was going to happen because i don't remember happening previous years but um i i i agree with um that you know we need to have these proceed whatever you want to call address spirit week dress code policy we want to make sure that they're here too but we also need to probably look at things and make uh stating that there are no flags there are

109no banners there's a you know and it's it's across the board so that uh we don't run into this again um but we also have to have some lead ways allowing students to express their you know their you know their feelings their beliefs their thoughts i mean i think one of the most defensive ones was the one i get that i'm not saying what i'm saying is that it's something that i believe wasn't wasn't expected and you know moving forward i we have to make sure that that's continued that's banned across the board i mean that that's what i'm saying i'm not i'm not going to say what's offensive and not offensive i'm not going to do that that's i don't want to get into that debate i'm saying that moving forward that we have

110to establish and say no flags no banners unless there's some type of approval process in place well i think dr collier needs to get his arms around the high school or we need to put somebody there who will simple as that adida and i would like to add a little bit to this since it is such a student focused issue and speaking as someone who was there i i can say that it did cause a disruption to the educational environment and i think that that is more important than the actual messaging that was on the garment or item and i think that that is important as we move forward that it doesn't need to be a completely universal decision that is made and that the disruption that it poses to the students who are trying

111to learn in school is something that needs to be considered as these incidents are evaluated on a case-by-case basis yeah i also wanted to add to that like in in the matter that uh i believe the springboard policy is uh to prevent like uh pieces of clothing that inhibit the education process but also like i know some people in the public commented upon um the right as a freedom of speech and expression um i guess even though that does go against but i think the main thing here is that when people wear uh clothes that are representing their diverse political beliefs that also invites some i guess negativity within the students like uh bullying and hostility among students so that's another reason why we need to i guess stay away from these kinds of things

112so thank you so much for everything you're doing thank you both for weighing in on that because i think it's important that we do hear the student perspective typically my understanding mr rizzo is that spirit week and and the days that take place are couldn't say creative but they're guided by the students and their choice of what they want to do um at no point did i do i think that the administration ever thought that it would go down that road but in some ways i think it was a mirror image of the divisiveness of our country and here at springford we're not going to do that we're going to unify we're going to unite and we're going to pull together so we're not going to pull anything in whether it's it's trump biden obama

113whatever i we don't need the political overtones is what i what i think but again we're bored and i'd like to see the administration i'd like to see dr collier really tighten that belt and say okay we're not going to take anything for a grant we're not going to assume anything here are the specific guidelines for how the events go going forward but mr rizzo do you want to comment on that about the student driven uh sure so my understanding is the spirit week is a student selected week of activities they have a list to choose from let's say 20 or 30 activities something along those lines and they pick the days that that they want to use for that week so this was a student selected process based on a lot of a lot

114of options available to them but as as we've all commented we'll we'll look to see that the parameters are set so that everyone enjoys the day and pulls together rather than pulls apart thank you and i just like to say one final thing as far as dr collier and his role in spirit week there were several announcements made on before and after spirit week about the expectations and exactly what could and could not be worn what couldn't could not be brought into the school so those precautions were taken prior to the incident and that that's just something that i like wanted to add i really appreciate you guys speaking up and really appreciate also what you said i do think it should be the district's primary role and responsibility to educate and create a inclusive

115sort of supportive environment to do that and we want to have fun and have really great spirit week opportunities but at the same time if we can't do that without disrupting our primary role we really have to uh should follow through with consequences okay thank you everyone and with that are there any other comments in the room we already did zoom so i'm not going to revisit that but there are there any other public comments in the room oh okay or mr jackson okay and then there is we close public comment then we are closing public comment is there a motion to adjourn okay meeting adjourned