001rctv testing one two three four one two three four okay a few announcements this evening welcome back to what i am sure we all hope will be the start of a successful school year and before i make my opening statement this evening i would like to start this meeting on a positive note by taking a moment to recognize and congratulate the upper providence little league 12 and under team um for winning the mid-atlantic regionals and we wish them the best of luck as they start on thursday in the little league world series so i hope they're out there and congratulations [Applause] i'd also like to note tonight that the board did meet an executive session prior to this meeting to discuss personnel um we did not have linda fazzini with us but we do have
002her now on the zoom is that correct yes okay thank you and now on to my opening statement the springford area board of directors believes the community has the right to bring forth 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 because of this belief and philosophy the board will open an opportunity for community members to share their concerns with the board at the beginning of each board meeting springford residents will have an opportunity to share concerns and comments about items on agenda items only i'm sorry about the agenda items only in the beginning each community member will have up to three minutes and wish to address the board at that time prior to adjournment there
003will be an additional opportunity for the community to comment publicly again each community member will have up to three minutes in which to address the board community members joining us on zoom who would like to make a comment should use the raised hand feature when prompted individuals with their hand raised will be called on during public comment and will be asked to unmute themselves before speaking in order to meet the requirements of pennsylvania's sunshine law it is necessary to record the name and address of all citizens who speak during public comment this meeting is being filmed to be broadcast to the community on cable channels and online individuals intending to speak to the board should be aware that they are being videotaped the board will do all it possibly can to assure each member of
004the community has an opportunity to speak on issues however if a large group of people wish to discuss a specific topic the board reserves for itself the right to limit participation and total time allocated to this part of the agenda i am not making that motion to do that at this time but should it go beyond an excessive period of time and we still have to get to agenda items we may at that point have to restrict public comment once the public comment on agenda items is complete only board members will have an opportunity to speak on issues on the agenda however the chair may at its discretion permit discussion on selected items as the need arises i would ask that we all conduct this meeting in an orderly fashion in order to get through
005all of what we need to tonight and i respectfully ask that those individuals in attendance this evening are respectful courteous and civil during public comment and throughout the meeting and with that do our students rep do our student reps have any announcements this evening there are no announcements this evening right thank you so we will move on to public to be heard on agenda items only and i will do my best to balance in-person comments along with those that are on the zoo and before that starts i also like to welcome alicia luke who is standing in for mark fitzgerald this evening thank you for joining us this evening thank you for having me thank you for coming all right so in-house we're going to start first with public to be heard on agenda items
006only where's the code and the premium [Music] john yanchuk 12 edmonds drive rosford i'm speaking to the uh agenda item 2a the proposed changes to the health and safety plan proposed changes to the 2122 health and safety plan use sleight of hand to claim alignment with the relevant governing authorities but are nothing more than an abdication of your duty to protect all of the students in the buildings the change states in part quote the board recommends that students and staff kindergarten through 12th grade wear appropriate face coverings while indoors during school activities this is not in alignment with expert guidelines the cdc does not tell you to recommend anything but rather states due to the circulating and highly potential delta variant cdc recommends universal indoor masking by all students age 2 and older staff teachers
007and visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination status the key difference being the term universal they are telling you as the governing authority to mask universally in all buildings they recommend you implement other mitigation as well including vaccines which you can legally require proper ventilation spacing and testing in fact the cdc in alignment with montgomery county says you should implement multiple layered strategies especially in places where children under 12 will be learning yet you choose none of these many on this board continue to talk about normal but the evidence we already have from the delta wave is that if you fail to continue with layered mitigation strategies you will once again be quarantining children and very possibly moving to virtual schooling yet again this fall the fact that this ill-conceived change to the health and
008safety plan is being amended in this way demonstrates that you do not care about the children and are only pushing a political agenda require masks require vaccines and we may have a relatively normal 21-22 school year thank you thank you 12 11 meadowview lane montclair i'm sorry stop please stop your name first please rebecca daniels this is related to mask even though it may not seem the delta variant is rapidly spreading and more dangerous than contagious strain may media daily broadcast do we know what anti-body-mediated viral enhancement is that's when a vaccine causes serious side effects and death it will help us understand why all animals in the experimental covid vaccine studies died after re-exposure to the virus after being vaccinated this is this also underlines the fact that no vaccine stops and infections why
00975 of the fully vaccinated caused a recent outbreak in unstable massachusetts in the summertime when respiratory viruses are dormant it's just one example this also underlines the fact that the vaccinated shed diseases proven in the 2014 national hockey league why those who have recovered from covet symptoms before vaccination then suffered three to four times the rate of side effects of this experimental covet jab these are all studies and reports ignored by the cdc nih department of health and also ignored ignored are the reports from doctors on the effectiveness of ivormectin hcq for treating copious symptoms the fact that coping virus has never been isolated so there is no basis for saying there is a corporate variant the fact that corporate cases are fabricated lumping all deaths as copy cases if there were tested for code
010before yes just the mere act of testing put one in the kobe death category the fact that probably death from unboxing it rose because cdc deceitfully changed recently their reporting method to test for covet if only one is unvaccinated the fact that cdc last week had to change back their code with numbers from 19k to 29k to 19k for florida when challenged for those whose family members were told that their loved ones died from kobe they might want to dig deeper continuing on the ignored r the studies of the effects of 5g wifi being deployed all over the world that causes the same symptoms as kovit some people are aware of the scary health effects of 5g but even so much more detrimental so that it is not even comparable to 5g it's smart meter
011in majority homes except for the homes of the executives in the electric companies i can go on and on from any other ignore the facts by the main media but above facts alone should make one wonder why these facts are ignored this opposition to kobe measure is back checked labeled as misinformation and those are quick conspiracy theorists and now categorized as potential terror threats by u.s homeland security by the way if you dig deeper after several layers you will find the major funding source of these independent fact checkers are the big pharma and big tech themselves i understand this is an emotional topic for everyone here and for all of us here as well but i will ask going forward that we remember to keep ourselves in check and not to scream into the microphone
012or cause or behave unorderly in any way thank you hello members of the board my name is rebecca roberts i am a professor of biology at ursinus college i have three i need your address oh 43 sunset road limerick i have three kids in this district i taught a course over the spring semester in which we discussed a lot of this data and this information i'm trained as a scientist and i can tell you that i stand here in a mask and my daughter who's sitting over there is in a mask because we are in a public space and there is a virus going around that i can tell you i have read the data and i'm not scared but i'm being prudent and logical and i'm being a caring parent i had kids in
013virtual i had a kid go from virtual to a different virtual class thinking maybe that would work better to a cyber class to finally in person last year i'd love my kids to be back in person they're all going to do better that way but if they're coming into a building and this delta variant which does exist i have a paper published on coded people i know what i'm talking about is you can laugh but you're laughing at science we're not going we're not going to tolerate as i said from the beginning these are to be orderly meetings or i'll adjourn the meeting so we need to go forward and keep our comments to ourselves this is her time right now and we will honor that thank you thank you very much i wasn't sure
014i was going to speak today i was coming to just show my support for a good decision of requiring masks of everyone in this building in all of our school buildings there are little kids here my daughters are here my son is going to be here we don't know yet what long-term effects of covid could happen are all my kids vaccinated you bet they are but can all kids be vaccinated no not yet and some may never be able to because of other things going on in their worlds and so the last the least thing that we can do is put on a mask okay there might be kids or people in this building who have a valid reason not to wear a mask and we dealt with that successfully last year didn't we we
015got everyone what they needed while trying to maintain safety for all okay thank you for your time you have a few again i just urge you to to use logic use your logic here people and be kind to our children thanks thank you teresa westwood 70 plymouth thrive reuters from va good evening i'm speaking on agenda item 2a as a parent of two k through 6 age children i urge the board to follow cdc aap and montgomery county health guidance and mandate not recommend universal masking for students and staff in k-12 this request is in addition to other proposed safety immigration practices like social distancing and hand washing many other local school districts such as phoenixville pottstown pv westchester and great valley already following these agencies guidelines at the end of last year or earlier
016when we had different strains of coded it wasn't as communicable as the delta variant and we didn't have a hundred percent of students and staff in school the delta variant is far more contagious than others before it the unvaccinated are getting it a number of minutes and it's more communicable than the common cold without appropriate safety measures will be quarantining and have more children out of school i want to minimize this type of disruption keep schools open and keep our children in school i'm particularly concerned with our children 12 and under who can't yet get vaccinated we're putting them and any other unvaccinated students and staff at risk without appropriate safety measures i know there have been arguments that kids aren't getting covered and aren't getting very sick with this new variant that's changing reuters
017yesterday reported children are being hospitalized at record numbers almost 2 000 to be specific further we've already seen how the start of the school year isn't going in states like texas florida mississippi and georgia georgia for example on friday 440 students in palm beach county had to quarantine two days into the school year in dallas as of yesterday there are zero pediatric icu beds without appropriate proactive mitigation strategies data from ko sim estimates 80 percent of elementary students could become infected with covid in the first two months of the school year with most cases in 30 days we're also seeing an earlier than normal surge of rsv this year which is scary for our young children in combination with the stealth variant i urge the board to please set any personal feelings or beliefs aside
018to please not just listen to the loudest voices of the room rather listen to actual medical experts like my pediatrician whose letter i sent all of you which urge you to adopt universal mandatory masking for students k-12 and staff thank you thank you michael lovaginski 2005 will overdrive worship i'm not going to scare you this evening with more boy who cried wolf predictions that won't come true yet again nor will i attempt to frighten you with semantically overloaded and meaningless lawn sign platitudes and i won't quote any studies rather i will provide you with the dry boring data that unequivocally supports a vote for mass choice at the june board meeting you made a good decision that was well supported by local data according mrs earl i think we've gone beyond absurd at this point
019wear a mask don't wear a mask if you think a mask protects you wear one if you don't think it protects you don't the wisdom of your choice was confirmed by the continued low cases throughout the summer and not only in our district but in also in the 10 other pennsylvania school districts which voted for mask optional also experienced very low cases across the entire commonwealth thanks to mrs earle who objectively looked at the data made a practical risk calculation and voted to give our students a breath of fresh air for the last few days of school thank you so here's the data as of august 10th from montgomery county public data incidentally the county moved to weekly updates because there wasn't enough data to produce daily since june 14th 2021 there have been a
020total of 41 cases in upper providence 39 in limerick 12 in royerson and 4 in spring city it's a total of 96 cases in 63 days 1.5 case per day in a district of 52 000 residents during a time period of low mass usage and significant community mobility and interaction check google's mobility site you'll see and remember these cases are result of a pcr test notoriously inaccurate so inaccurate that the fda announced earlier this month that it would be revoking the emergency use authorization granted to the pcr test effective 12 31-21 citing that not only is the test and effective and differentiating source code too from other viruses now you understand why there were so few flu cases everything has been covered for the last 18 months why because medicare doesn't pay for flu cases
021but they do pay for hospital cases with covet the inaccuracy of the pcr test should come as no surprise president of tanzania famously sent fruit and pawpaw i'd looked it up to see what that meant samples for pcr testing and they came back positive too even if you assume that the test is accurate 1.5 cases per day is exceedingly low across 52 000 residents and certainly not a reason to mass young children who are not predisposed to severe outcomes of covet in the first place you're going to hear things about more transvestibility it's all old history we know how respiratory viruses evolve and mutate they get more transmissible less very limited time not difficult hospitalizations the county vets up slightly to 79 as of today across entire county almost a million residents fewer than two
022code patients in every county hospital thank you i think we have two other people in line over there yes scott ziegler 47 clover place where's ford pennsylvania 19468. i'm a proud spring springford resident i've coached in the school district for eight years uh linda fazzini i touched both of your kids your son and your daughter i coached soccer in middle school for years i'm friends with some of the teachers and i'm friends with mickey mcdaniel and i love springfort my son is 14 he goes to school and he loves springford my daughter is 21 she goes to scat she went to kutztown and she loves spring fork i'm here because i care about the decisions that we're making when i coached i used to tell my students this at springford we always lead we set
023the standard do things the right way even if it was the hard way we adapted to whatever came at us we stuck together during adversity the one team i got to coach we won the pack 10 it was a 12 act 12 and we lost in states we were never settled for satisfaction and we never settled to be status quo if any of you guys know being a part of springford that's one thing we do not settle for status quo that is not what springford is we set a new standard so i'm coming to you tonight to ask you guys to understand this those of you that want the mask love your children and you care about their safety and i appreciate that those that don't want to wear the mask and don't want your
024child to you care about your child their mental health their safety and i appreciate that what i don't appreciate is how we are divided and how we just walk around with swagger and talk about things that we think we know something about we've got to start to work at being better my suggestions on the last minute so you know i am osha certified and i have worked at a food production plant as a covid safety supervisor it sucked i don't do it any longer okay it's not easy but my suggestion is this social distancing we spread out we make sure we're three feet apart trying to give answers here and some suggestions guys instead of just yelling second of all when the kids are at their desks and their social distancing they can remove the
025mask so that they can breathe and have breaks because last year my son asked him again today the kids did not get breaks like we all were promised they did not get them okay so when the kids are seated they can take when they stand up they immediately have to put the mask on okay that's my suggestion and i suggest also that we also look into making every kid have to have the same mask the homemade masks are not certified by cdc and we must if we're going to have mass they must be certified to protect completely thank you for your time thank you hi i'm dianna kirsch 265 old state road royersford um to echo a little bit of what the gentleman just said first i'd just like to run through some information from
026an article that i read that was written by a pediatric doctor as well as a surgeon there uh there had not been any retrospective studies um that were conclusive about the efficacy of masks first of all and they talked a little bit about the side effects on children long term from making them wear masks those who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the masks fog their glasses this has long been a problem for medical students in the operating room as well mass can cause severe acne and other skin problems the discomfort of a mask distracts many children from learning by increasing airway resistance during exhalation mass can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood mass can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long and
027we know that that happens with young children it also may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development it is well documented that children who mouth breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face not to mention the psychological harm of widespread masking that's the greater worry facial expressions are integral to human connection particularly for young children who are only learning how to signal fear confusion and happiness covering a child's face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions anxiety and depression and i can personally attest to the anxiety depression from my children that had to wear the masks all day at school
028last year when they when they reopened it is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment the adverse developmental effects of requirements for a few weeks are probably minor but we cannot say with any confidence when when this practice stretches on for months or years what that means i just wanted to say that god forbid if if we have to put the kids in masks like the gentleman said we really have to have a better plan for breaks last year my kids were not given any breaks they were given one 10-minute break and an eight-hour day that is abusive and it cannot happen so if we ask we have to do it then we have to have a plan a real plan that the parents can understand so they know what to expect
029for their kids thank you thank you i am going to lower this for a medical condition so i apologize erica herman's 204 abby drive in royersford i want to talk about agenda item 2a and what i want to first say about agenda item 2a is that it is extremely poorly worded there are folks on both sides of this discussion that cannot make sense of the board stance on masking if you can't make heads or tails of it so i am asking are we following montgomery county and the cdc and are we following the recommendation and thus amending our health and safety policy to require mass given that they are saying that in areas of high and substantial transmission that regardless of vaccination you should be masked indoors or are we aligning to the fact that
030it is the recommendation is just a recommendation in these pivotal moments where families require clarity and strong leadership i am once again up here saying that we just need to do better we are creating unnecessary swirl with these convoluted agenda items in indirect messaging so tonight i urge you to take a stand either follow suit with our neighboring school districts and require mass indoors again of course there are going to be accommodations necessary for one reason or another but are we following suit with our neighboring school districts or don't make a recommendation at all because by springforth saying that we recommend masks yet we aren't going to take the extra step to enforce it only further divides this community and creates confusion especially for our elementary school students it is not fair to have a
031kindergartener self-regulate their mask and so i ask that you take a stand because an unenforced recommendation is absolutely worthless it shows a lack of leadership a lack of courage so please be clear are you going to follow suit and make the recommendation and enforce the recommendation to protect our kids especially those that are not able to get the vaccination to the greatest extent possible please do or if not just be on record saying you won't thank you matt smith 11 hillside drive royersford speaking in agenda item 2a in mississippi hundreds of k-12 students tested positive two weeks ago resulting in more than four thousand students quarantining due to possible exposure the district found self-forced virtual in san antonio there were no ambulances available for 26 minutes due to a record number of coveted patients and
032a record number of calls from people who believed themselves to be suffering from covet use your personal understanding to important decisions some of you may have first-hand experience with covet or a family member that was infected i hope it was mild at least then you knew you were a risk to others maybe you were asymptomatic if so can you say for certain that you didn't infect someone else who in turn had severe symptoms deal with the long-haul effects or worse let's stop and consider what wearing a mask means compared to the possible alternatives if we're honest with ourselves it's no great burden possibly a minor inconvenience but those who suggest otherwise are manufacturing outrage is it worse than the disruptions our children face when ping-ponging between in-person hybrid or virtual learning models much like contraceptives
033and family planning there is no one method that protects our children and our massive proven barrier transmission and one of the easiest tools to implement the agenda item as written has no teeth because some board members feel that there are no sufficient mandate delivered by the state if you feel compelled ask the solicitor if there are legal considerations where masks are required in absence of a mandate spoiler alert there's already a dress code my elementary school son can't wear shorts in the winter because it's too cold girls of all ages can't wear a tank top springford can't be a leader since neighboring districts have already taken the initiative but you have the opportunity to ensure we don't fall far behind what can we do tonight i ask the board member of the board to submit
034a motion amending agenda item 2a requiring masks to conform with the prevailing guidance from the cdc the american academy of pediatrics and child policy lab thank you you i just want to make an announcement before we continue um with public comment and that is at 8 30 i'm going to move over to zoom for anyone that is on the zoom that would like to make a public comment so if you could keep your um comments as short as possible as we move through the group that's in here now but at 8 30 no matter where we are that's where i'm cutting it off inside the room so i can balance that time with with zoom thank you no no no we can no we put it down there they signed their name hi ed kushinsky
035100 ospreyway phoenixville um i would like to start by letting everyone know that i am a veterinarian who has spent the greater part of almost the last 30 years involved in research all of which has been involved with live viruses and 14 of those years were spent in the development of live viral vaccines i am going to say that you know i'm not going to dazzle you or give you anything but what i am going to tell you is that the cdc is a political tool that can't even follow its own directions okay this the cdc puts out a definitive biosafety guide that we refer to as the bumble it is called the biosafety and microbiological and biomedical laboratories it is the definitive guide used by pharmaceutical labs biotechs research organizations to provide safety not
036only for the workers working with these viruses but for everyone in the building and nowhere not one time in that guide does it mention wearing a mask as a protection for viruses in fact they define a mask in that guide as quote a covering of the mouth and nose not certified to provide respiratory to protection so what in god's name is the cdc telling us to wear a mask for okay in my entire years in research i have never worn a mask i have never seen a single scientist working with live viruses wear a mask we wear fitted respirators that ehs provides for us or we wear papers self-contained breathing apparatus we do not wear a mask you want to follow science you want to follow the curve slow the curve what have masked and
037social distancing actually done the covid tracking project you can look it up provided the most extensive covet data for well over a year 1.8 of all infected individuals in the united states died from covid that's it i have friends that died from covet i am sorry i grieve with them but 1.8 percent of people who got infected died that's it school age children 0.08 percent okay that's it we have irrational fears i am sure that everyone here got in a car and drove here tonight do you worry about putting your kids in a car you have a 1 in 106 chance of dying every time you get in the car does anybody worry about getting in the car does anybody worry about putting their kids in the car putting your kids on a bus one
038in 106. your odds of dying from code are one in one hundred thousand that's one thousand times more than getting in your car but we carry on we have this rational fear i'm not saying it doesn't exist it does the delta variant inflated numbers the only way to test for the delta variant is complete genomic testing you cannot test it by pcr or any other method so there's no way that the numbers that they're saying there are true of the delta variant and if you want to follow the science i urge everyone in this room to look up the greater barrington declaration most people don't even know what it is written and signed by over 800 850 000 people including medical professionals all over the world covering every aspect of medicine all right thank you
039um hello my name is jacob erickson 61 mountain view lane an emergency medicine physician uh we've had a lot of data thrown at you and i'm not going to give you too much more um everybody's done their research in this room everybody's made their decisions their choices all right i know it's a hard choice for you guys to make and the majority is here letting you know what they want we're here to tell you that we're here to carry that burden with you all right the majority wants mask optional all right that's all i want to say to you i can keep giving you all the data from my perspective but the majority here wants mass optional please follow we're here to make that decision with you all right we're here to carry that burden
040again that's it thank you hi kim anderson 123 patriot drive college bill why am i speaking tonight we are entering the third school year being impacted the coveted 19 another year putting mass requirements on students and staff now regardless of vaccination status my seventh grader will not even know what normal is at the 567 building before he has to move on to the eighth his entire middle school experience tainted with masking social distancing and virtual learning my fourth grader will likely have his final year at upe diminished by more restrictions people continue to scream follow the science listen to the experts dr richard lorraine medical director of montgomery county office of public health offered a presentation on june 3rd to give you context he was speaking to the reasons why the cdc stated vaccinated individuals
041could begin going maskless indoors quote people are reluctant to give up their masks at this point there's been a psychological sociologic development in terms of almost a dependency on the masks it's a form of comfort for a number of people and believing that this does help protect them against a coveted infection end quote he goes on to discuss how well do these masks work dr lorraine states that cloth and surgical masks only improve a decrease in transmission of anywhere from zero to fifteen percent in varied studies but the highest that he found was fifteen percent we're talking about this for zero to fifteen percent we're putting our students and staff through this for zero to fifteen percent efficacy i believe dr lorraine would be considered a medical expert by most correct our k-12 children are
042the least vulnerable in our population with respect to covet 19. using recent figures reported by the cdc the risk of mortality and the age group 5 through 18 is roughly .0047 now let us address how many children are going to live with adverse effects of masking policies and more importantly this perpetuation of fear in their schools how many felt isolated mom and dad kept them virtual while their friends went back to school how many develop anxiety am i going to get sick am i going to get someone else sick how is our district monitoring these very negative side effects on our children given the mitigation tactics being used i do not think enough consideration is being placed on the mental health of our children nor their physical and social well-being it will likely not even
043be discussed by the board if a k-12 mask requirement does come up for a vote tonight i implore board members to make certain motions tonight that other districts in the country have made one any mandate should sunset at midnight of the next board meeting requiring a new vote to extend two consider mass optional for through twelve like we did in the last vote three allow all teachers to remove their masks while teaching their classes if allowed a safe distance from their students so the students can see and hear them properly four except last year's extension forms into the current school year as likely nothing has changed in the circumstances of the students and by please formalize indoor mass big policy with that said i hope you voted optional thank you thank you hi my name
044is sienna johnson 33 sunset road i'm speaking here as a student and as behalf of many other students who i know have the same stance as me during the entire year of covid i was dealing with a lot of health issues and the fact that a lot of my appointments were online instead of in person i was not receiving the best care that i possibly could while i do believe that yes there are a lot of people that are taking covid restrictions too far i do not see the problem with mask squaring yes as stated earlier it can cause acne breathing through the nose etc etc i don't think those are i think those are things we can accept in order to be safe in school yes they may be low mortality rates but we
045do not yet know the long-term effects of cobit there have been people who have had coughing for months and who have had so many other long-term effects muscle fatigue fainting even in some situations which kids kids have not been able to get back to the things they like even with our vaccinations we saw a covered outbreak in massachusetts in which 74 percent of the people who were infected were vaccinated we aren't there yet just with vaccinations and high risk is not just the elderly it's not just people with cancer it's several other groups such as people with high blood pressure heart disease lung disease epilepsy chronic migraines of which i am part of multiple of those groups and i do not feel safe going back to school if no one's going to be wearing a
046mask yes wearing a mask may protect me to an extent but if i'm in a classroom where barely anyone is wearing a mask i am not protected so i just ask on behalf of me and many other students i know who are at higher risk to please mandate masks at least when we are not fully social distance because i was promised social distancing in the hallways yet to show up to being back to back with every single person i was never social distance in any classrooms when i was in school i was immediately quarantined after my second day back so i just ask you to think on behalf of the students as well as the high-risk individuals here thank you my name is carly glickmann collier 109 rosemont lane royersford and i'll be speaking on
047agenda item 2a i think we can all agree that our common goal is for students to return to the classroom in order for that to occur it needs to be safe for all students and staff there needs to be a change from optional masking for adults and students to a universal requirement for all persons k-12 and staff are masks normal nope can they be annoying absolutely do i wish that my three vaccinated children didn't have to wear a mask sure but they will if it means keeping their classmates teachers and themselves safer i'm not understanding how so many people have become complacent when it comes to our children's health the reality is kids do get sick from covet some have gotten very very sick serious illness could be potentially be potentially preventable if we all
048do our part this summer began and i started to have a glimmer of hope for a more normal time but the delta variant has changed things if we don't make hard choices right now we can be in the same position as schools in the southern united states the springford community should care for one another the reason that in-person education was so successful last year was because of mitigation strategies such as universal masking and distancing it is absolutely impossible to abandon these strategies and expect the same results we know that our choices have consequences we also have responsibilities with our freedoms we need to think about our population of students that is unable to be vaccinated at this time and wear a mask we need to set the bar high and our children will rise to
049the challenge thank you just give you a time check we have about 15 minutes left for in-person comments and then i'm going to move to the to the zoom to give those people the opportunity to comment also if you want to fill out your name and things after you speak then and then pass the mic to the next person and that person fills it out at the end just to try to move things along quickly hi my name is brett grossman my address is 64 page lane phoenixville pennsylvania 19460. i wasn't quite sure what to expect coming here tonight it's nice to see that the majority are here uh with the same common goal which is to bring everybody together and find a common ground to where we should have the choice whether or not
050our children under the age of 18 should wear a mask to school sitting in a desk for more than six hours every single day and i hear a lot about science but i have to go off logic and i can share with you that just over this past weekend i've seen some of you at shenandoah and i've seen some of you over the summer at the beaches and i've seen you around at the playgrounds and i've seen you and your kids aren't masked and they're all playing together and you want us to then turn back around a few days later and then put masks on these children like a muzzle like a dog is what you want to do to my child i i don't i'm not a scientist i'm not a teacher i'm not
051a doctor i don't claim to have all the the knowledge and statistics but i know this i know that as a 45 year old man and as my 14 year old daughter and my 9 year old son have been going to school never ever have i seen a time during that flu season where we messed up these children we're going to force these children to wear a mask for fear of a virus that poses no threat to a child this is child abuse it's going to cause psychological damage my seven-year-old excuse me my nine-year-old son he's already been asking questions about do i gotta wear the mask my 14 year old daughter and her girlfriends who's an honor student straight a's all nine grades honors she is the sharpest young girl that i know and
052when that mask was going around last year it was as if she couldn't it was like i can't take it off i'm not supposed to that is psychological damage and the health effects my son comes home boys are a little bit more messier than the girls yes and these boys come home and that mask is dirty on the inside and they and they're breathing it and it's filled with dirt and it's filled with sweat you're asking these kids to sit at that table like that no way i'm not going to train my kids like okay thank you okay so if you state your name and address and then at the end go ahead and write everything down after you pass the mic please okay hi my name is paige nicole basswell 227 egypt wrote commenting
053obviously on agenda qa which includes a proposed math policy alteration from required to recommended for students patient 12. i'm an introverted person i don't like public speaking i'm also frankly nervous to be here in person when we are in high community transmission my presence here should convince you i hope of the utmost importance of this issue as i am putting personal risk aside to be here for an issue that is and not to be dramatic a life or death matter that said a mere recommendation to wear a mask is not in line with cdc recommendations nor the line to most of the nearby school districts optional masking is certain to place our students teachers and staff at risk of povid19 infection fuel transmission in our community and increase the inevitability of quarantine outbreak and general
054disruption one of the best defenses against covid19 is of course the vaccine but children under 12 can not yet receive this they are literally sitting ducks for infection the data about the delta variant debunks the oft-discussed argument that children do not get severely ill in cloven 19. the pediatric iu is full in some regions of our country that's the reality thus social distancing and masking remain our best defense against infection and suffering from children we can see right now school buildings in the south for a few weeks what's going on there it's not pretty infection is spreading like wildfire in schools and besides the bodily harm this is causing our children once again are experiencing educational disruption due to mass quarantines i desperately want my daughter to attend school in person with basic safety precautions
055in place we haven't been in person since march 2020 and this has caused much hardship for my family we took on the hardship for the safety of both our family and the people in this community we care about others and see ourselves as part of a community we reject the selfish notion that so many among us seem to have taken i can do whatever i want when i want i won't consider other people it is our understanding that spring ford fostered this belief too after all in your mission statement it says have a priority on people so that students are fully prepared to positively contribute to our society positively contributing at the bare minimum is having care and empathy protecting public health especially for our most vulnerable populations so now i implore you board do
056the right thing for our children they depend on us as adults to make decisions to protect them to make masks optional is not protecting them it is cow towing to a vocal minority that doesn't believe in basic scientific fact and making a positive thank you thank you thank you if you could please remember name and address in there and if the next speaker will come up if you could just move aside with that while the next speaker gets started if you're not finished no no no no no no absolutely not sorry go ahead 24 woodley drive i spent the past two weeks researching for this meeting um i sent my speech to the board earlier today because i didn't know if i'd get a chance to uh to speak better there we go um i'm
057not gonna read it you guys have heard data from everybody anyone can make data mean whatever they want uh it doesn't matter what i say i'm not a college professor okay i'm not a scientist um but i'm with coach back there who spoke a little bit earlier about we can do logical things to help protect our kids i know my children are in k-6 they were in school since november you're able to space them out five to six feet in their classroom similar to how they're spaced out in the cafeteria where they can take their mask off have them wear the masks when they're in the high uh capacity areas in the hallways moving out to the bus but once they sit down at their desk let them take it off they're spaced out from
058the other kids continue the hand washing the hand sanitizing in the intermediate school my son was in a pod so in recess they only played with their classroom continue all those measures we have become so tribal i've been watching it here today even as people are walking in half of us are on one side of the room half of us on the other like it's a wedding okay and we're not allowed to cross over we can find compromise for the sake of our children i think we need to step up and find that amongst ourselves thank you thank you if you could come on up i just i'm trying to get everybody in so you want to get started with your name and address hi my name is jennifer grossman i live at 64 page
059lane phoenixville pa 19460. okay so i'm here tonight talk about all this stuff that's going on with the mass i personally think that i'm the best equipped to decide whether my kid needs to wear a mask and not some dc bureaucrat or local authorities no disrespect to you guys um what i do hear is people talking about their neighbors the neighboring schools the neighboring schools i don't know where they're coming from what they're listening to all i'm hearing is confusion everywhere how about central bucks central bucks decided to have their kids have optional mass nobody mentioned them tonight and i also would like to point out every one of you who spoke with the mass tonight i could barely make out one word that you said how about my kids how are they going to
060understand what the hell their teachers are saying if they okay okay sorry sorry um because if we can't understand you here in a conversation like this how are the kids going to be able to learn when the muscles like that's what i heard today and that's what my kids are going to hear another point i'd like to make is you know the restaurants okay you have to take your mask off at a restaurant to eat why can't my kids sitting at their desk for eight hours a day take their mass off if they're if they're spread out if you can sit at a restaurant and eat and drink your wine and your beer and your alcohol sitting there without a mask on my kids should be able to sit in a classroom without a mask
061on tennessee louisiana florida texas all banned mass mandates you know what i'm hearing on the news oh my gosh oh my gosh the variants there they're you know they're going to get everybody then you know what the next day it is very quietly they're retracting everything they've said the hospitals aren't filled kids are not getting sick i have friends and family members that live in these states it's lies we're being lied to okay another thing i'd like to make a point on okay let me just let me just redirect you for a second yeah i just want to remind you that you're making a comment to the board so if you could kind of move in our direction with that i would appreciate it okay sorry sorry every day we're hearing that this delta virus
062is spreading where's the test they're getting rid of the pcr test as of december 31st 2021 because they can't decipher between covet and the flu i've yet to see a test for this damn delta virus that's coming and taking over the world and ruining our lives again i think it's very suspect that all of a sudden when we got our lives back and we're happy and we're moving forward this delta variant comes out and takes everything away from us i don't believe it i just think it's something to control us um okay i i've lost my train of thought here um i got 10 seconds i don't know i just think that we should have everything optional or no mask at all thank you hello good evening mary jo mcnamara 187 abbey drivers for pa
06319468 so i have a bunch of pages of facts and data here i'm also not going to read them i think you've heard them people can skew data the only the either way that they want to skew it right we can we've heard that all over the place i would like to point out a couple of things though um i want to stress that needs to go back up on the podium please i want to stress the point of parental choice so i understand that putting my child in a school the school's obligation is to keep my child safe my obligation is to keep my health choices for my child that's my obligation to my child there are other local districts that have supported parental choice concerning mass boyertown daniel boone twin family oxford actuaria
064avengrove i think bucks we know that schools aren't going to have punitive consequences from the department of health we know that funding won't be withheld we know that schools choose if schools choose not to mass students or test students for covit or have vaccine clinics they won't be punitively damaged but there could be evidence and it looks like there could be evidence that schools would be likely suited for wearing masks and what the obligations and what the um what the damages caused by max could be if there's more harm perceived lack of mitigation protocols which is much harder to prove um the other thing i wanted to point out is the plan that the cdc recommends we all talk about taking the cdc recommendations the plan the cdc recommends to quarantine unvaccinated versus vaccinator i
065don't even know how you would implement that right vaccinated doesn't get quarantined even though they're exposed unvaccidated gets quarantined if they're exposed if they have it the rules are like spaghetti worse than last year that you can take apart i actually think it's almost discriminatory um it exposes kids private religious and medical information to the class it just feels discriminatory to me we're all in it together i i admire folks that want masking i admire folks that don't want masking i need masking as an optional choice for my child i think it's the right thing to do i don't think that there's anything out there from a data perspective from a findings perspective i just put my kid in a college in louisiana which most of you know is the highest coveted 19 state in
066the union and his school is mass optional and they are going for vaccination mandate as soon as the fda approves it and people are already exempting out of it so i would just urge the board we're all in it together we respect the board immensely over the past couple of years further back i wasn't really as engaged but i do respect all of you and i just would urge you to listen loud voices or not your parental community wants masks optional and are willing to take that risk for our children thank you [Applause] thank you okay at this point it is 8 30 and as i had said that i would switch over to zoom at this point to allow the people on zoom to share their thoughts with us uh if we can come
067back to you after we go to zoom then we will i believe there are five of you that are still in line there if i'm i'm counting right okay so you could just remember your positions there and either feel free to stay there it could be a while or return to your seat and we'll try to get back to you after i hear from some of the people that are on zoom thank you i understand that i i did say 8 30. thank you so rich are you ready to go with comments there thank you leanna schuster you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address we're gonna have to do this where you know there's maybe a five second countdown
068if somebody doesn't come on we need to move on to the next there are a number of hands raised and i don't want to short other people okay i apologize i thought i was unmuted i was um pressing on your timer not on my screen i apologize your name and address leanna shuster 409 nottingham wade collegeville you're being asked to make a difficult decision today i urge you to keep the health of our students and if the surrounding community is your number one priority let's be honest here i don't like masks i don't know anyone who likes wearing a mask i don't always enjoy the feeling of a seatbelt but i wear it every time i get in the car masks may be annoying but they're not difficult to use and are a very small
069price to pay to protect our community and get our children back to school safely the delta variant of copa 19 transmits more than twice as easily as the original strain many studies have verified that the safest scenario in case of accidental covert exposure is for both individuals through wearing masks we're not just talking about preventing the most serious cases that prevent hospitalization at least half of covet patients have experienced lingering physical effects for at least three months lung damage heart damage loss of taste and smell chronic fatigue dizziness insomnia just a few of the potential health effects that i do not want to see my friends or family members suffer this board has the power to mandate mass in the schools just like it has mandated a dress code about hats and spaghetti straps for
070decades and just like many of your neighboring school doors have already done this is not about politics it's about public health and safety mandating masks for all students and staff k-12 gives us the best chance of schools remaining open in person the best chance of sports teams completing their full season and the best chance of our children remaining out of the hospital please vote for full masking throughout all springford schools thank you next deburraty roy you may not make a public comment please don't mute yourself and state your first and last name as well as your full address can you hear me yes we can hi my name is debarti roy from 203 holstein drive collegeville pennsylvania my comments are related to the same agenda item as everyone else when someone gets sick and visits
071a doctor the doctor evaluates the medical issue and writes up a prescription script the patient does not write the prescription so i am surprised to see a survey asking the parents whether mars should be optional or mandatory in schools medical experts epidemiologists school nurses should be assisting the administration in deciding the appropriate mask policy not non-medical parents most of us here may disagree on many things but we all agree that kids learn best when in school with other kids and face to face with their teachers not via zoom to keep schools open safely based on experts if universal masking is one of the tools at our disposal that's exactly what you need to mandate let's focus on the end goal here send kids to school and keep springford open those parents who feel kids will
072not be able to handle masks all day remember how you taught your toddler to be in the car seat with seat belts on sometimes for hours on the highway they got used to the idea because you as parent taught them the importance of seat belts with a positive mindset and explained to them the benefits of the same no one really enjoys wearing a mask but a good fitted mask reduces the virus spread drastically that will mean that schools will be less restructured when someone gets sick without any asynchronous virtual option sick kids will need quaran to be quarantined for days missing out on education and sports it will be a big hustle for the administration for even contact racing i implore all of you with voting power please listen to your conscience follow the data
073forget politics for the greater good and vote for universal masking across all grades and k-12 and the staff so we can all keep springford open and do the best for our kids thank you for hearing me out thank you rich next jennifer b you may now make a public comment please don't mute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hello i'm jennifer brevort my address is 351 woodland drive collegeville pennsylvania 19426 i'm asking today that you make mask wearing mandate mandatory for k-6 grade students i know that all of our educators at springford are working to support the development of young citizens who can listen to other community members with empathy and compassion this current debate over masks is one of those real-life moments adults and elected officials
074can model the self-sacrifice it takes to lead in a community please make masks mandatory because it shows kindness and support for the most most vulnerable of our community it models for springford children that small actions like wearing a mask do make a big difference to their friends and classmates and most importantly it will show our children how to be brave empathetic and compassionate in these uncertain times thank you for all the work you do on behalf of our community thank you we are not doing this from the audience we were not doing this from the audience okay thank you officer please see him out thank you we're moving on to the next speaker please allison o'brien you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last there's gonna be
075noise from the room then i will adjourn the meeting otherwise we will have an orderly meeting and we will hear additional comments thank you hi my name is alison o'brien 505 andover lane collegeville19426 i'm just wondering if someone could please make it make sense to me why the board is just recommending masking and not requiring it in june when federal and local mass mandates were lifted the board voted quote masks would be required for k-6 students and staff until vaccines are approved for this age group and or health recommendations change to support unmasking for all students and staff regardless of vaccination status end quote well last time i checked there is no vaccine available for kids k through 6 and no health recommendations have changed to support unmasking in fact now the who cdc pa
076department of education pa department of health montgomery county department of health and the a american academy of pediatrics are all stating that children and staff should all be masked regardless of vaccination status so please explain to me why the school board is now just recommending masks and not requiring them when no vaccine is available and no real health recommendations have changed since june we know universal masking works the cdc put out a study from schools last year that showed that universal mask wearing is an effective prevention strategy and when universal mass use is inconsistent outbreaks occur school has been in session for several weeks in other states and we're already seeing outbreaks at school and schools closing in districts where masks are optional however in the same states where masks are required schools are going
077on without interruption with the delta variant spreading now more than ever is the time we need to protect our kids all last year we heard at the board meetings how unaffected kids were by covet but now more than 90 percent of coveted cases in children are due to the delta variant a variant that is largely affecting the unvaccinated and therefore our children estimates show 10 percent of kids who get coveted will have chronic symptoms which may include cardiac conditions decreased lung function and functional abnormalities please make this make sense to me explain to me how now when cove is affecting children we're going to unmask children and make school a less safe place to be explain to me how people fought last year to have kids in school but now we're going to continuously interrupt
078the school year with outbreaks and closures make it make sense how the board agreed to protect our kids in june when cases were relatively low and now that we have a variant dangerous to kids we have a board that seemingly changes their mind for no reason and has anyone asked what the nurses think or what the staff thinks please protect our children and don't make this year a disruptive one thank you thank you next christine d you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself and state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is kristy jambowski um 310 fourth avenue montclair i am asking you to please change the health and safety plan to require not recommend universal masking for all students and staff k-12 i'm disheartened
079at how politicized a safety protocol against a deadly virus has become the virus is the enemy here and we must do everything we can to keep our students safe from getting sick we see what's happening in other parts of the u.s and schools or masks are optional closures within the first week no staff or subs to teach hundreds of students and staff quarantining and students getting sick being hospitalized and sadly both students and staff in some cases dying we are seeing an overall increase in youth hospitalizations and deaths with a delta variant we are not special any opportunity that we give to this virus to spread it will take especially in our elementary buildings where the entire student body is not eligible yet for vaccination it is our job as educators administrators parents and community
080members to do all we can to keep students safe and in school in this season universal masks are the primary part of the safety protocols that have been deemed essential to keep students healthy the same as a mouth guard for field hockey or a helmet for football we know these things in sports work and that kids need to wear them in order to play and prevent serious injury we don't question this we follow the experts no parent wants to have a sick or hurt kid and look back and say man i wish i would have just done this one thing universal masks are our safety gear this fall and the school year for all so please i urge you to protect our children and please change the health and safety plan to require masks for
081all students and staff k to 12 this school year thank you thank you next kim kim stockay you may not make a public comment please don't mute yourself and state your first and last name as well as your full address hi kim's decay for elliott court warriors ford speaking on agenda item 2a as we go into this next school year we all had hoped that the pandemic situation would be under control and we would have a semblance of normalcy well that's not the case unfortunately and we cannot open schools with plans that do less to protect our kids staff and community as compared to what was implemented last year especially with what we know and also what we don't know about delta we must do the same or more as we did last year including
082universal masking and also bringing back the flexibility for families to choose between in-person and virtual learning implement anything less than what was in place last year is unconscionable and i plead you that you err on the side of caution and doing too much to protect our kids staff and community rather than doing too little and regretting the decision later with regard to item 2a on the agenda as an action item tonight i have to point out that it needs to be updated before you act on it as written now with the words recommends that student staff in kindergarten case are papers through 12 where appropriate phase comic coverings while indoors during school activities you must change this language to state that these coverings are required not simply recommended this and this needs to be extended
083to all school related activities such as marching band or other school sponsored activities covered by the best practices of athletics and marching documents if this action item passes as is written now you're essentially saying that maths are optional for all students since staff k-12 which is a step backwards from the vote that you took in june that required maths for students and staff in k-6 as this population of kids cannot be vaccinated yet do not take this step backwards and do less just because our state and county governments have not set any mandates to prevent or control this current surge and have instead pushed these decisions down to the school board level yet again this does not absolve you of the duty that you have to provide the safest possible learning environment for our students
084and safeguard our community you can and you must step up to do more in the absence of leadership at the county and state levels we see firsthand the results of the recommendations versus requirements the softer language of recommended as opposed to required has gotten us to where we were in from late may and early june with low numbers to where we are today with 90 percent of the country in substantial or high transmission levels including montgomery county numbers are continuing to rise and health care systems are on the brink of collapse the honor system has clearly failed and there is no reason to believe it will somehow magically work here within the springford district boundaries please change and strengthen the language in the action item state masks are required for students and staff k-12 apply
085this to okay thank you emily you may not make a public comment please don't meet yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hello my name is emily lucier i live at seven long meadow blue roseburg i'd like to speak on section 2a i'd like the board to consider a motion to revise the language so that it says masks that are required i'm asking this because it is not only recommended by the cdc the american academy of pediatrics but also the pa doh and we must consider our community of k-6 and also all of our communities our most vulnerable students and also all of our individuals in our community will be more vulnerably exposed if we do not have not masking there have been studies done that show there
086are lower chance of incidents when schools require masking that is a huge huge rate so we must consider what we can do to improve and i have not heard from the board what are we are planning to have in place when all students require are required back in school last year we had both virtual as well as in person now we heard from a student earlier and she said that she was not able to maintain social distancing if we have all students back without the option of virtual it's clear that there will be even less ability to maintain that six foot distance and without the masking how are you going to be able to maintain contact tracing social distancing we need to be able to have safe measures in place to be able to work
087together to make sure that our children feel safe and stay safe i urge you to consider masking as a top priority and then work on the ventilation the social distancing the crowding in the hallways the steps to ensure that all students and staff the nursing the athletics can do what they need so that the mental health is there because the mental health is important too making sure that the students who are not feeling comfortable because now they have to wear masks can take breaks when they need breaks so that we can all work together to ensure that the students say stay safe but most importantly stay healthy and mentally healthy thank you next lauren day you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as
088your full address hi this is lauren day 57 greenberg drive in phoenixville i want to first thank the board for serving during such a difficult time i want to say that i know all parents want their children back in school in person safely the only way to accomplish that is by universal masking for all students and staff and at least k to six i know some parents who are against masking want to say i should keep my child home i'm saying this year i want to send my child maybe they should keep their kids home if they don't want to wear a mask we're following the rules by career medical professionals we should be able to send our kids into school safe montgomery county is now a substantial spread and has a mass mandate in
089county buildings this tells us we should have a mass mandate in our schools for the children are not vaccinated if you look at the numbers for spring for school districts specifically we are in a worse place than at the end of the school year when the board voted to require mass for k-6 data specific to spring forward can be found on montgomery county's website here are some of it weekending 617 limerick royersford zero cases per 100 000 people up for providence 16.96 cases per 100 000. weak ending 624 limit wears for the upper providence zero cases weak ending 7-1 limerick 5.3 cases where is ford zero upper providence zero then from week ending 729 landmark 31.79 per cases per 100 000 people foreign 62.8 62.85 per 100 000 people upper providence 16.96 and weak ending
090eight five limber 21.19 words for 2095 and upper providence 46.63 per case is per 100 000 people as you can see it would be negligent to put our students in a situation where the spread in springboard alone is high let alone in montgomery county i ask you to please make the choice that keeps students safe my mass protects you when your mass protects me if we allow mass optional in school we will have outbreaks we are seeing outbreaks in schools that mask optional are now virtual after their first weeks of school having universal masking will keep the kids in school and not virtual lastly all of our neighboring districts are requiring mass for the upcoming school year these districts include pv methachton norristown pottstown phoenixville abington lower marion springfield cheltenham colonial upper dublin west again
091great valley and westchester please give our students the opportunity to return to in-person learning safely i think all parents can agree on that thank you thank you you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself and state your first and last name as well as your full address good evening my name is aparna tula address 49 goldfinch circle in phoenixville i'm speaking regarding agenda item 2a i urge the board to amend 2a and work on requiring mass and not just recommending mass especially while being indoors let's keep our decision making simple here let's bring our focus back to our priorities we need to get back to in-person schooling this year with minimal interruptions while keeping in mind the safety and health of all individuals all neighboring school districts including pva methactin and phoenixville are
092requiring mass for these same reasons given the circumstances getting back to some normalcy is only possible if we reinstate mass for everyone when we can't social distance while indoors regardless of vaccination status staff and students k to 12 must be required to wear masks while indoors i understand there are exceptions for students that have mental health issues or disabilities that prevent them from keeping masks on let's put in a process where we allow exceptions for others that simply choose not to wear masks they can choose the child they can choose the cyber option but if we don't take every precaution um this school year this then students will need to quarantine frequently the buildings will need to close often increasing the need to bring back virtual options on a consistent basis and we will have
093yet another year of chaos so please note masking isn't a question of personal choice it is a matter of public health everyone should be taking precautions to stop the spread and that is the only way to get out of this as a community montgomery county is back to being in the substantial category for community transmission also note that the delta variant is more contagious than the original virus individuals infected with delta could be could have viral loads that are over a thousand times higher than those in people infected with the original struggle this is the reason why the vaccinated and the asymptomatic as well are able to spread this variant faster everyone wearing masks will only help i believe masked individuals are excluded as closed contacts so that should help as well once again let's
094focus on keeping the schools open let's have extracurriculars and events like we did in prior years um so let's require mass for everyone and where we can social distance while indoors regardless of age or vaccination status we can revisit this mandate when the transmission is back to low in montgomery county thank you next jason shahan you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address jason sheehan 650 doe court royersford i didn't really want to have to call in tonight i thought that with the rising case positivity in the county and the rising numbers of coveted patients in the hospital that a school board any school board would be falling all over itself to try and protect the children in the community
095it serves but here we are i know you're all smart people i know you've already spent more time thinking about this pandemic and its effects on our community than anyone would want to you all know what needs to be done to protect our kids a universal mask requirement for all students to cut down on infections that will spread and be carried back into our homes in our neighborhoods you know this is the safest sanest way to proceed and that's what bothers me because if you know the right thing to do but still do something else that's a choice and if you make that choice then the absolute moral cowardice of caving to the bullying threats and loud voices of the few will be the legacy of your time on this board the science is clear
096the threat of the delta varian is inarguable that some of you on this board might choose to spend the lives of our children for your own political benefit is reprehensible but you still have a chance to do the right thing to protect this community and i know it's a hard choice the choices that really matter are never easy so what you have to ask yourself tonight is are you brave enough to stand briefly against those who will whine and threaten you over a decision to protect even the children of those who disagree or will you spend the rest of your life haunted by the sound of hospital respirators and the names of the children you might put there with your vote tonight please do the right thing require universal masking our kids are depending on
097you thank you next please kathleen russo you may now make a public comment please don't mute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi katie russo 160 oak creek drive royersford commenting on agenda item 2a regardless of how you personally feel about coven 19 vaccinations or masks the reality is that universal indoor masking will provide consistency for our students and teachers based on the current montgomery county covid19 exposure quarantine procedures masking is our best bet to get the most students back to in-person learning and keep them there with limited disruption if you support the physical and mental well-being of springford students providing a consistent in-person learning environment is key for those who prefer not to wear a mask who do not see it as a way to help
098protect the community especially those of the community who cannot be vaccinated there are alternative educational pathways that allow a choice in masking for those who cannot ask for legitimate medic medical reasons i expect they will be accommodated through the existing protocols as for the eternal question is it a mandate it's true there is not currently a state or cut or county mandate for indoor masking in schools it has been left up to you to make the mandate for the district based on the expert guidance please consider all of the families that opted for virtual and cyber learning last year they never really wanted to be out of the classroom but made that difficult choice for their families during such an uncertain time please choose to get all the students back to in-person learning in a
099consistent and safe environment thank you thank you next sean day you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi good evening this is shaun day 57 greenbriar drive phoenixville pa 19460. i would like to speak to the agenda item 2a uh my uh my family and i live in region one my daughter is entering into second grade at oaks as well as my son who's entering into kindergarten like the first thank you all board for contributing your time and talents to guiding our district i know that this is difficult and being a public servant is never easy especially during a time like covid if you don't know where you are going any road will take you there is a well-known
100lesson from alice in wonderland that i rely upon in my in my professional life as an attorney as well as a compliance executive and then in my personal life as a husband and a father and so one of the things that i always ask uh is is what is the end goal or what does success look like when it comes to the safety plan the goal is not for one political philosophy to claim victory over another and success is not achieved if one convinces anyone that their viewpoint is better than another's viewpoint the goal that the end goal is to have all of our children teachers and support staff return to school in person and to do it safely anything that doesn't move us closer to achieving that goal is a distraction and frankly a
101waste of time with this being the goal how do we achieve our goal again and i emphasize the again because we did this last year i had to look at the calendar to make sure it wasn't august 2020 instead it's 2021 but yet we're still still doing this again let's not forget we figured this all out last year we did not have the benefit of experience or the hindsight to know if safety plans would help or undermine our ability to achieve our goals we didn't have any vaccines we were shut down we were stuck in our houses couldn't even get grocery toilet paper or paper towels think about that guys despite all of this we still achieved our goal which was to get our kids in school in person and safely and for this year
102we have the benefit of seeing how other school districts around the country have enacted their 2021 plans and see how they're playing out and whether they took advantage of their own hindsight and experience i'm not advocating for anything except for the school board to roll forward the strategy that was employed at the beginning of last school year and where there were improvements that are needed you know make those improvements it achieved our goal let's exploit our experience and the plan already created and show everyone why spring ford is such a highly respected and sought after school district thank you thank you next kate doyle you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address can you hear me kate doyle can you
103hear me yes we can okay kate doyle 310 woodland drive collegeville pa um i'm commenting on agenda item 2a per the american rescue plan act the district is required to document how it will support the prevention communication policies in line with the most up-to-date guidance from the cdc to continuously and safely open the district must also review and update their plans whenever there are significant changes to the cdc recommendations for schools on august 4th cdc guidance was updated to recommend universal indoor masking for all students staff teachers and visitors to schools regardless of vaccination status a significant change tonight's proposed amendment to the health and safety plan is in direct conflict with the requirements of the arp ester grant that requires the district to be in line with the most up-to-date guidance of the cdc
104not mandate guidance of the cdc why is the board proposing to institute less preventative measures now that our region has higher transmission rates than when the board required masking in k through 6 for k-6 in june the layered approach to use last year was effective at limiting in-school transmission the demonstrated success of those mitigation strategies as mentioned by the previous speaker in our own buildings provides significant evidence in support of implementing now that we have returned to higher transmission rates in addition the repo proposed revision will keep students i'm sorry will prevent students from in-person learning only recommending maths will result in a higher number of students required to quarantine per the montco updated quarantine guidance if students are wearing if a student is wearing a mask during an exposure they do not need to
105quarantine as long as they are they were three feet of separation and are not symptomatic universal masking will keep the most number of students in the building for in-person learning please demonstrate bravery and commit to the health and safety of the students you are the governing body i'm sorry that it hasn't been mandated and they've put this decision on you but you are the governing body that has the authority to implement all of the mitigation strategies to ensure the greatest level of protection to students and staff in a consistent learning environment and please at a minimum maintain the current health and safety plan that requires masking for the most vulnerable k-6 students until vaccinations are available thank you i just want to comment it's 904 i believe right now we're going to wrap this up
106at 9 25 because we started at 8 30 and we had done the first segment of public comment from 7 35 to 8 30. so i just want to be fair we're going to wrap it up at 9 25 and then i'd like to take a five minute recess um for us just to stretch and refresh before we come back to the agenda hebrew khalifa you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi how about khalifa 202 spring lane in royersford um i'd like to echo what many of the other parents have stated we need to reword them the agenda item it needs to be mandated the mask they have to be mandated uh my family personally we're hiring all
107of us we cannot take the vaccine for health reasons and last year we opted for cyber schooling for our kids which [Music] uh let's say it failed miserably uh in part for my fourth-grade son who was discriminated against for his religion and we went with a virtual uh as our alternative which is now not even an option for us uh and that worked out fine but again it's not an option this year uh wearing a mask although it is of course ideal of course it bothers our kids it bothers us as adults as well but it's the safe thing to do it's better to be safe than sorry that's the way i see it uh the current you know three foot social distancing situation it's not that's to me that's personal space it's not really
108social distancing uh you know when i'm interacting with anybody i don't stand anywhere closer than three feet from them uh numbers as we know since june and now if we're comparing now much worse delta virus affects kids way more than the original i'm gonna say strain did um we need to try and prevent our kids from ping-ponging between in-person and virtual learning where you know if if there's a case or more we're gonna have to go virtual and then come back to school and then go virtual and come back to school that's unreasonable um i personally have had several family members die of kovid over the past few months and it's been horrible to say the least so i don't want to see this happening to any of my two kids or any of your
109kids either and the schools that have gone the states have gone back to school over the past couple of weeks i personally know a lot of kids who got ill they're my friends kids in other states they have gotten ill and it's very serious and some of those kids are high risk or their parents are high risk so we don't want to be in this situation the way i see it wearing a mask helps those of us who need it and if you don't need it or you feel like you don't need it or you believe that it's unnecessary it won't hurt and if we're talking about the emotional aspect well yeah of course it's not ideal but like i tell my son you have to wear a helmet you know during the hot summer
110months while you're biking and he does we wear our seat belts when we go out in the cars you know it's it's it's not ideal it's necessary you know ideally you don't want to be restricted but that's not the case here um masking in my opinion as a matter of public health and responsibility is not just a personal choice it's a very very selfish thing for everyone to say or you know some people to say that we don't need those masks you don't need them maybe this year you should be the ones okay thank you next please matthew blank you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi matthew blank five crestwood court phoenixville pa i'm a new dad in
111the spring forge school district uh my my daughter's going to kindergarten next year and and and and i believe in freedom and the right to choose and and knowing what happened to my daughter going through uh pre-k with wearing the mask and the effects that it's had on children psychologically have been uh very detrimental to non-verbal communication and learning cues so i i please ask the board to keep the recommendation but not ask for a mass mandate because of what we're doing to teach our children to communicate with each other and and the ability to read faces and understand non-verbal communications i do not believe that the masks uh universally will help and i believe that if you if you are afraid and you'd like your children to wear a mask please do so however
112don't make the rest of us too thank you next please decast you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi doris casino 121 ramsgate drive in phoenixville i also want to re-radiate reiterate what the last person said i'm a pediatrician i've got 20 years of experience i worked as a hospitalist this past year i mean i've worked for many years as a hospice i can tell you what we've seen in the past year in my hospital the absolute worst impact of the pandemic has been on children and has been with social isolation depression suicide and not coping um so much so that kids have wait had to wait up to three or more days in our er for an open
113mental health hospital bed or even psychological evaluation this year i've seen kids as young as eight coming into our er with suicidal intentions wearing masks is incredibly socially isolating for them kids need to see faces from the youngest through teenagers facial expressions and smiles are a core necessity for emotional and social development and even more important for our kids with special needs so another year without that will be devastating for our children we can't ignore the needs of the social needs of our kids a mass mandate is not without harm i hear a lot of that and it is not without harm so i'm asking you let us make the choice that our let the parents choose what they want which is best for their children that's all thank you thank you next please lisa
114dianzio you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address yes good evening my name is lisa denzio 911 mennonite road roarsford19468 in regard item 2a i am imploring the board to please mandate the man squaring all grades k to 12. talking about anxiety social depression and withdrawal my kids were at the height of it last year with the hybrid learning it just didn't work they need to be back in school if we have any hope of keeping our kids in school five days a week this year we need to mandate the mass the virus is no joke i lost a friend to it in january and i currently have a friend stick with it now so in order to keep it
115at bay we're in this together whether we want to wear a mask or we don't let's do what's good for the common community and all of us mask up and do the right thing we have to protect students teachers and bus drivers thank you next manish valhalla you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself state your first and last name as well as your full address hi can you hear me yes i can yeah this is manish fahal i am a resident of 370 wheat chief way collegeville pennsylvania and i'm commenting on agenda item 2a i'm recommending that we change the language to read mask mandatory versus recommended when did physical and mental health of children become debatable and political it is a new law when we clap if we hear an opposing
116view and if we have an appeasing view and laugh when we hear an equally strong but opposing view signs should prevail and no one should be allowed to twist facts or personal or political gains fact is it is beyond doubt that mass mandate is as much for protecting you as it is for protecting others that is an irrefutable fact and here we are debating about 15 percent versus 85 percent efficacy rates fact is researchers have predicted that 80 to 90 percent of population varying mass would do more to reduce covert 19 spread than a strict lockdown the latest forecast from national institute of health metrics and evaluation suggests that so many deaths could have been prevented if 95 of the people wore mass in public and so we can keep on arguing about facts we
117can keep on um giving facts or throwing facts at each other and is this now coming down to whose facts have a stronger um vote bank i think we should just let science talk we should let um the schools open up with mass mandatory from k to 12 to protect the children and say safely allow them to have a safe passage through school system thank you bye thank you next please shane o'brien you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is shane o'brien uh 505 andover lane college bill pa19426 i'm commenting on 2 agenda item 2a as a scientist i have reviewed several peer-reviewed journal articles investigating the efficacy effectiveness of face coverings the majority of the
118studies conclude that the masks are part of the effective strategy to prevent spread of sars cov2 while they aren't perfect high compliance of mass wearing along with other preventive measures provides the best chance for a non-interrupted school year and protection from a virus where the biology is still not fully understood the previous guidelines established in june provided the most protection for the group that are currently ineligible for vaccines thank you thank you next row hit g you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hey are you able to hear me yes we can hear you all right uh hi good evening everyone i'm rohit kasami uh 58 hunt club drive college well uh i'm commenting on agenda item 2a i
119want to bring talk about three pointers uh one of them is what has changed since last year and now um with respect to kids under 12 years of age nothing has changed for them there was no vaccine when we debated this on 28th of august last year and still there is no vaccine number one and that's a fact number two uh virus has mutated and as we speak and as we stand here we do not have much confirmed information about delta variants and how how how it is impacting it is still evolving we are in very early stages there are countries who have the data to say how much contagious uh delta variant is so we are basing our decision at this point uh on not too much confirmed information and third point one good
120thing that boat gave us last year was uh it gave a power to individual parents to choose what they want right uh you guys gave virtual you guys gave hybrid and in person so individual parent have that choice we have taken away that choice i am surprised this year remember how how much we debated and voted for technology acquisition how we are requiring canvas to support future needs of hybrid learnings and things like that please don't get me wrong i am not opting for hybrid learning but at the same time what i'm saying is we have taken back something from parents of kids under uh 12 years right and with no vaccine available i am requesting board to mandate uh masking policy universally uh other point i want to talk about is lack of policy
121around anti-bullying for the kids who are wearing masks versus what the ones who are not wearing it there is no consistent policy at least what i have seen we want a universal consistent policy to protect our kids no matter they are under 12 or they are over 12 and it's a community has to come together and protect each one numbers between june and now have gone up to an extent that cdc also recommending recommended indoor masking policy we are not here to listen to individual emotional comments it's a matter of life and death i'm surprised and shocked hearing individual comments that went public half an hour back saying majority obviously want optional none of the audience should be saying okay thank you next please john clements you may not make a public comment please unmute
122yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi this is john clements at 31 starmont way collegeville 19426 and i'm commenting on agenda item 2a i'd like to thank the board for their efforts in making policy that affects the safety of our children especially where local governments have abdicated responsibility the shortage should the board should please unambiguously unhesitatingly and consistently follow the guidelines of the cdc in the american academy of pediatrics the board should require universal masking of all students staff and visitors ages two and over and i can see how upset many parents are that their children should have to wear a mask for what is actually two-way protection themselves in the community and therefore i'd like to see if there are options uh proposed to the board
123that they consider uh synchronous virtual schooling this year for students of parents who don't want their children to wear masks and for students of uh and for students whose parents feel that they may have a high-risk child who should not attend in person thank you very much thank you next giave you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address jaya v you may now make a public comment please don't meet yourself then state hi it's kavita jeralam jala i am from 103 caitlyn drive collegeville pennsylvania i'm commenting on agenda item 2a i'm not going to quote from any studies but i would like to say only a couple of things without mask mandatory we are going to increase the chance of
124kovid spread as the kids will be indoor and with minimum social distance this will increase school disruptions impacting these grades as we all want our kids to be in school and complete this school year successfully i request both to make mass mandatory not optional looking back as last year with the mass mandatory we have seen only a few students and staff members getting affected if uh without masked now uh or optional masking we can see the you know option of increasing those cases higher so my mask will protect you and yours will protect me so let's be protect each other and stay safe thank you thank you next usha you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hello yes we
125can hear you this is um i'm yeah thank you i'm commenting on agenda item 2a i'm usha galapali from 111 kaitlyn drive college book um i have a child in intermediate school that's not vaccinated and one i have one in high school that's vaccinated i want my intermediate schooler to wear a mask so that he can protect himself and his friends and i want my high schooler who's vaccinated and i think well protected also to wear a mask because that would uh so that she can protect her friends um we cannot fight this virus if we don't work together to protect each other there should not be a political discussion this is about our children's our teachers and our school staff safety i implore the board to mandate math so that we can protect our
126children and give them an opportunity to attend classes in person thank you okay at this point we'll take one more comment from the zoom please heather staley you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is heather staley 412 news street spring city pa i just wanted to pose a question i know i'm not going to get an answer but if the summer schools and other things have been going well with this as well as some of the extracurriculars banned football and other things and they've been able to be handling this with a mask optional situation then i'd like to know where the board stands with that i know i'll get an answer the other thing i would
127also like to speak to is something that the hospitalist broke brought up someone who works on the front lines like myself i'm a paramedic i have seen so many kids who have horrible depression have been cutting themselves taking drugs overdosing suicides it takes a toll on us frontline employees as well when we have to see kids who shouldn't be dealing with these things telling us how isolated they feel because of masking social distancing isolation yes i understand that people are afraid of the virus yes i understand the delta variant is more contagious but it's less virulent a lot of the things that people are saying like someone said recently is that you can make numbers say anything you want them to what i'm telling you is what i'm seeing a lot of the things i've
128been seeing are things that are not related to covet croup rsv are coming back for kids that are much older than they should be and it's because they've been away from it most people have the ability to fight it off because they've been around it and we get an immunity to it we've all been inside for a year now we're seeing things that we used to fight off that we're not now it makes you wonder maybe the masks will help in some people's mind for this but what about some of the other things that are now coming up not everything is covered when it comes to hospitalizations not everything is related to that but what we also need to do is think about the entire child the mental and health aspect of this is huge
129suicide rates have gone up if you don't believe me please research it i implore you to keep this optional for the parents the parents know their kids they know the risk and they should be making the choice for their children as far as i know we still live in a world where that should matter thank you all right thank you and and with that i appreciate everyone's comments and for sharing your thoughts and concerns both in person and on the zoom i would ask at this point with the agreement of the board that we take a five minute recess to stretch and refresh and then come back to get through this agenda this evening if the people that didn't have an opportunity to speak would like to be the first people that speak during the
130later public comment that's okay but we do need to move on to the agenda when we come back from our short break also to note there may be some um comments amendments adjusted emotions what have you um at the table here and i believe that and i'm informed with ms luke's agreement that we've taken very much public comments so that we will not be revisiting that part of it as we continue on through this process and through the motions on the agenda so with that i'll see everybody in in five minutes thanks all right so having heard as much public comment as we did this evening we now have an action item and i'll coin it this way that we are in this action item recommending the recommendation is there a motion to support the
131action item as it stands is there a second second questions or comments um yeah i'd like to make a comment uh this is linda fazzini i'm not there at the moment i'm in utah uh uh public schools need to align with local state and federal health guidelines even if we're not mandated or required i believe it's our responsibility to get as many children back in school as possible as safely as possible following the recommended best practices springford school district needs to provide the best possible learning environment for all children the medical and educational experts the cdc the aap the ama chop the pennsylvania and the montgomery county departments of health all recommend reinstating indoor masking from k to 12 and returning children to in-person learning we know from research and our own personal experience that
132we can effectively plan prevent transmission in schools using mass so i would like to make a motion that we require universal indoor masking for all teachers staff students and visitors to k-12 schools okay i believe wait i'm not done i believe it is the correct way to return to school at this time and this is why i've spent the past months keeping up with recent virus statistics evolving research uh the delta variant recommendations from medical and educational experts i'm not an expert but i've spoken to countless physicians read scientific information they've given me i've also reviewed peer-reviewed articles and spoken to several pediatricians specifically about masking recently five as recently as in the past two days there have been many public comments at meetings and i've received emails stating masks are harmful to children so
133i want to clearly state medical experts that i talk to say the best thing to do by far to improve all students social and emotional well-being being is to get them back to in-person learning and keep them there i'll repeat that medical and educational expert experts are adamant that being in person in school wearing a mask is the safest thing for all students at this time physically and emotionally viruses have one job to reproduce and spread and covid19 constantly mutates attempting to improve on that job last year we were here in august arguing over many of the same issues masking how to return to school parents and students wanting to return to normal families wanting the freedom to choose what they want for their individual child now this school year we're still dealing with the
134same issues covet 19 is not going away it's a part of our lives and the school year we need to stop denying reality i understand everyone is sick of wearing masks and tired of dealing with the virus but it is our job as a board and as a community to educate children and our responsibility to deal with the difficult unchanged reality of this situation if we allow everyone to deal with this individually we have no real chance of controlling transmission only as a community can we address public health and prevent transmission having the school be masked optional set especially at the k-6 level at this time introduces the real possibility of several things that i am greatly concerned about one it allows for the potential shutdown of a building if if in-school transmission causes an
135outbreak two it raises the possibility that we will be unable to properly contact trace the virus within our community three it further will further disrupt in-person education because a great number of our students will be required to quarantine and four it will cause staffing issues like last year if teachers and staff get coveted and need to quarantine i understand that this is not a popular stand i'm taking but i believe it's my responsibility as a school board member to govern in the best interest of each and every student i need to make decisions not on what's best for myself for my child for a group of students or for a group of parents but on what is the best interest in the best interest for all students that's my job i fully respect and support
136your right to state your position and disagree but i please ask you attempt to be respectful to myself my fellow board members and not attack us or our families thank you we have a motion and a second don't we have to deal with that before we can yes take another motion um alicia do we need to deal with the motion that was first on the table and the second and then mrs fazzini um had a motion during her comment section but do we we need to deal with the first one correct yeah i mean you could do it two ways i think you could either deal with the current motion that's been motioned and seconded finish deliberating comments and vote on it and then move to the new mission or if there's a second to
137amend the agenda you could do it that way too but the way that she did it was that as a new motion as a new motion but then that would be silly for us to vote on hours and then go to that so maybe yeah i i think it would do we amend it or what do or do we go then we go forward okay we have a motion in a second is there are there other questions or comments then from other board members before we take the vote on the existing motion uh yeah i have a comment that i would like to make um i i and i appreciate tonight the respectful way that the questions were comment and comments and from the community we have all um listened and heard how some communities
138have not been as respectful so i do i and we didn't know what to expect any of us tonight so i do appreciate that and i'm very proud um of springford for that um and and in the emails that i received also as we all received this is a difficult situation which we've been tasked with um then and i've heard people comment that the governor and the medical officials should have passed should have taken responsibility for this and they have not i actually don't necessarily agree with that school districts schools were meant to be run at the local level and i respect the fact that um we are being allowed in our community to make the decision that we feel is in the best interest of our students so i i'm i'm comfortable with that
139um so there was a recent report in education week that 1.4 million students did not enroll during the pandemic and i'm concerned about getting them back that's that's approximately um three percent of students and it's the greater concern is with our younger students our lower our lower grades this is this is what really concerns me and i and i believe that many children are afraid to come to our schools and i believe that many parents are fearful to send their children to our schools because of the the potential of contracting the virus because we do know that it it's scary so um and and if masks wearing masks if nothing else if that makes um our students feel more comfortable because we do things every day to make students feel comfortable to come into our
140buildings and feel safe so i um i do recognize that we had a successful summer plan a summer program that uh but but there that was a smaller group of students and it was was optional um everybody has to send their kids back to school in the fall they don't have that option to keep them home and we know when there are more children the potential we're not going to have that while board members are talking i will have to ask you to leave so please don't do that um there's a potential with more children for there to be to be transmission regarding the mental health issue that concerns me greatly um you know as as an educator i i having you know worked in in schools and currently my biggest concern with the mental
141health issue is the students that are isolated that are our home that are not in school and and um though i'm certainly concerned about everybody's mental health that's where i saw personally and professionally the the greatest concern i want those students in school in person so that we can help address mental health issues we have resources in our schools for that um so if if we shut down the school without a virtual option just as mrs vithini had said i wonder about how our students will learn you know if students are not reading on grade level by third grade their chances of graduating are um you know significantly diminished and um we've already lost a lot this year and i want to get them in school i want them to feel safe i want our
142schools to continue to operate um you know according to the cdcs i think someone had said tonight if um students both students are masked and are three feet apart then we don't need to quarantine them it doesn't say that about teachers but it does state that about students and so that would significantly help with um keeping our schools open um so i'm not even so concerned about whether masks are effective or not and who believes that if my students again if i hear it again i'm just going to end the meeting and then we won't get anywhere or you'll be asked to leave so please you were given the respect when you were commenting not one of us sat there and scoffed at anything that you said and i would appreciate that every member of
143this board is respected in that same fashion thank you thank you so as i said i'm not so concerned about whether you know masks are effective or not what i'm concerned is how my students and their families feel about that if they feel that they are safer with the mask and they're more they are willing to come in with masks as opposed to staying home that that's what's important to me at this point i want to get them into school so so currently we do have masks that are required for k to six and optional for seven to twelve um this was pending three things a vaccine becoming um widely available for for children under 12 additional new information or recommendations and and the the parent survey and so i don't see at this point
144um knowing that our students need to feel safe to come to school that keeping our students open our buildings open for in-person instruction that the majority of um i'm sorry that that this is i can't could not vote for anything less than having our students in in having mass mandated um i do consider it this is what i like mrs fazzini this is really what i was elected to do um i feel very strongly that um this is truly that mass mandate is truly in the best interest of our students i'd like to say that i really don't want to give a medical opinion because i don't have that education um unlike our paid federal state and county health officials who are paid to make these kind of decisions and who have abdicated that over
145the last year and a half and shoved it down to our level so we have to stand up and take the responsibility and the abuse and everything else that goes along with it i say if they say they recommend it then we recommend it when they mandate it i'm all for that thank you mrs earl dr wright and mrs fazzini i i hope that you all know that i value all of your opinions and all of your comments colleen can we possibly get the input from trish smith about this before not yet i'm going to make my comments at this point and um just as you did linda and and dr wright and mrs arles so as i respect everything that you're saying and i think there's value and and met much of what you've
146said and much of what i've heard tonight i have a couple of thoughts on this too that that i want to share one is i want the kids in school and i want them to stay in school that hands down that's what i want as i started off this meeting tonight i said i think that we all want this to be the start of a successful school year so whatever it's going to take to keep them in school is what i want to do but it really depends on what you believe about the mask and the mask that there is just a lot people aren't even close on the spectrum you know polar opposites polar ends of the earth is where they are on the masking what i do know though is that if our
147paid elected officials or the montgomery or the um medical experts that they consult with for their advice want us to wear masks they should mandate it that's just how i feel there is no mandate i have read and re-read and re-read everything from the cdc from montgomery county office of public health from pde from the american academy of pediatrics and there is nowhere in there where they use the word mandate or they use the word required nowhere in there they recommend universal mint please let me finish they recommend universal masking and we in turn should recommend the universal masking we're not closing the school buildings again unless they mandate us to do that so why would we say you have to wear masks we're also at the same time not saying you're not allowed to
148wear a mess wear a mask where two wear three wear five we're ten please let me finish i don't care how many you wear whatever you need to wear to feel comfortable wear a mask and a guide wear it if that's what makes you feel my kids are going to wear their masks and i say that and they won't be happy my kids are going to wear their masks why because i don't know what i believe a hundred percent about the mess i don't know if i believe some of the literature that talks about their efficacy or or not but what i do know is that i don't want them to get coveted i don't want any of your kids or our kids to get covet i don't and that is from my heart if
149you know me at all you know i speak from my heart i don't want anybody to get it i don't want anybody to get sick hospitalized die i don't want any of that so if you think the mask works wear it by all means wear multiple it's okay and and i will be the leader that will make sure that nobody is bullied for wearing a mask or for not wearing a mask but i'm telling you this is this is firmly where i'm planning i'm planning that these people need to step up we didn't take away wolf's rights with that constitutional amendment of it was a matter of checks and balances is what it was they have 21 days 21 days to decide if they're going to continue a mandate that he makes or change it
150do we get 21 days to make our decisions as volunteers on the school board i don't think so so step up do it if you want it mandated i'll also be the first one to say i'm not going to fight it mandate it and we'll go with it but but that's that's really my passionate position of where i am the masks are not banned they're recommended i highly recommend you wear the mask you want your kid to stay in school and if that's there's a chance that that could help have your kids wear the mask mine are wearing their masks but can i say here can i sit here and say that that you should that it should be mandated by us no i can't so that that is that is those are my comments
151does anybody else have anything to say at this point i do i i've spent a lot of time going back and forth on this um i'm a parent but my you know my children i are a little bit older and make their decisions and i have to live with that um i look at this from so many different angles i think the one angle i look at it most from is risk and every single person in this room is going to fall on a different place on the risk spectrum and that's okay and i don't know how this vote is going to go and that's also okay because i also know that every member of this school board at this table and on zoom wants to do the right thing for the right reason and
152we all have different risk thresholds and we are going to invite vote with our hearts and we're going to vote with what we truly believe not out of fear not out of bullying not out of pressure we hear you we hear all of you we hear the concerns for our children for for our community we hear the desire to be able to make our own decisions as parents and and implement those decisions but whatever happens at the end of this vote i ask that we be respectful of one another we be respectful whether you have a mask on or you don't have a mask on please be respectful to one another both in the audience and with those of us at the table um i asked that but um dr wright you you raised a
153very good point one which was in june a decision was made by this board by a vote of if i recall five to four that we would um masking would be mandated for k-6 and would be optional for seven through 12. and so that's where today our health and safety plan sits so i want to make that very clear okay so that's where our plan sits as of today prior to this vote one of the things that we did talk about is we wanted to understand what was happening through the summer and with this you know emerging delta variant that we kept hearing about and you all and many of you you know very well educated both who prefer masks and who don't prefer masks have shared great information with all of us and we've
154digested much of it you know through emails but much of it tonight too as quickly as we could and we thank you for for that and for sharing that um with us the third piece of that was a survey that was issued throughout the springford community and and so mr rizzo i'm wondering before we get to a vote before we move forward could we look at discuss and talk about a little bit what did we see out of that survey and and how will that potentially lead whether we continue to move forward with the current health and safety plan that we have in place that was voted in in june or whether we you know kind of move with with some of these changes that have been recommended and mandated i don't know so sure
155i'm happy to provide that information excuse me so the survey um that we sent out was through skyward which allowed for one response per child so multiple children in one family yielded multiple responses possibly if a parent completed it the the data was broken down by elementary and secondary so at the elementary level which is k-6 the survey results had yielded a 79.76 response rate a percent response rate 36.67 optional k to 12 42.91 required k-12 and 20.43 required k-6 optional 7 to 12. at the secondary level with the 75.12 response rate 41.68 optional k-12 masking 41.19 required k-12 masking and 17.13 required k to 6 masking with optional masking for 7 through 12. so that's that's the the quick breakdown of the data um i do want to share while we're talking about data
156because then a lot of numbers have been shared in terms of high and substantial and just while i have the mic prior all last year we had three levels we had low moderate and substantial this year we now have four low moderate substantial and high so it's important to know that because what was substantial last year was 100 and greater what is now substantial is 50 to 50 to 99 and then it goes to high for anything over 100 having said that i also last week or a week and a half ago found out that there's a difference in the way the numbers are reported between the cdc and the pennsylvania department of health and i caught that many of you know i was interviewed on fox 29 and i found out at that interview
157that we were in high based on the cdc but our numbers said we were in moderate based on the pa department of health so i rolled with it and then i went and started looking into it so i did reach out to montgomery county office of public health the cdc's numbers are however you define this unclean or not clean numbers and pa department of health montgomery county said is a more reliable number to go by so having said that cdc reported that we are 104.46 per 100 000 with a 4.34 positivity rate which puts us in that high category that i mentioned there's a two-day difference in cdc's reporting window and pa department of health's reporting window pa department of health which is what i've been sharing with the school board ever since we started
158pulling these numbers together um that is 68.2 per 100 000 with a 4.3 positivity rate putting us in a substantial category again two day difference don't know if those numbers make the difference those two days make the difference or not um the last time we saw 68.2 uh per 100 000 was that beginning to mid may range last year interestingly enough montgomery county's initial guidance prior to switching and following cdc was to base their recommendations on school district transmission rates um so that statistic emerged three weeks ago so we now have that statistic available to us i just want to share that in month in springford's footprint is our numbers are 33.87 per hundred thousand with a 3.44 positivity rate which then puts in moderate so this week i found out we are in high
159substantial and moderate um so but according to pa department of health and according to montgomery county office of public health we follow and what dr arkoush said today during her press release was the doh numbers so that's the numbers we have been using we'll continue to use just as an added metric i provide spring force numbers as well so just to give you more data so you know where we are um that's it that's all i got thank you thank you mr rizzo are there any other questions or comments i actually could have clarification on those those numbers um you kind of went through them quickly was there can we i'd like to know with the elementary school what the total of elementary parents wanted um masked mandates for k to six and of the
160secondary what wanted mask mandates for secondary um so of of the three the three options so the three there were two three options well one option that they had was if they wanted optional mass k to 12 then they had for el um they both groups had a mandatory masking for k-12 then elementary had the option of optional masking for secondary and mandatory masking for elementary and secondary had the flip of that so as an elementary parent what i wanted how many of my elementary parents wanted mandatory mask wearing for k to six because that would be k to six or if they put the k to 12. so those parents that chose either k to 12 mandatory or k to six mandatory would both have wanted k to 6 mandatory and the same thing
161with secondary those that picked k2 12 mandatory and 7 to 12 mandatory because that would be both for the secondary am i making sense yes thank you you got it so to answer your question so if you're combining essentially elementary requiring k to 12 and then elementary requiring k to six an optional seven and twelve those numbers okay yeah so at the elementary level um 63.63.34 required percent required optional 36.66 at the secondary level 41.19 required 58.81 optional so right so so what that was saying in our results is that the majority of our k-6 parents wanted a mandatory mask wearing and the majority of our secondary wanted an optional that's correct i'm just going to make a brief comment on my perspective on this i'm going to lean more towards the safety of the
162students i am medically trained with 32 years in clinical research and development 14 of which were in the development of pediatric vaccines worldwide i have seen and witnessed in the united states and other countries what a devastating virus can do so i would hate to see this turn the wrong way and we don't really know which way this is going to go so i'm going to air to protect children until we have more information and perhaps more or better vaccines there's a motion on the table there is are there any more questions or comments from the board okay so with that then all in favor say aye of the motion as it stands all in favor say aye yes i i can do that and that's fine i can i can read the motion out
163so that everyone can hear it the board of school directors hereby authorizes an amendment to the district's 2021-2022 health and safety plan effective immediately to align with recommendations of the montgomery county department of health the center for disease control and prevention the cdc and the pennsylvania department of health and recommends that students and staff kindergarten through 12th grade wear appropriate face coverings while indoors during school activities this amendment herein does not otherwise change mask requirements on buses as a result of the mandated order of the cdc further nothing here in chile nothing herein shall limit the administration's requirement to adhere to mandatory mitigation strategies that may be required in the future by the montgomery county department of health or other applicable agencies with oversight over the district that is the motion as it stands we
164have a first we have a second we've had a number of comments made and at this point then we'll take a vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed opposed yeah opposed nay okay so with that we're gonna do roll call well we'll go around who said who said no at this point okay so so we're gonna go around and do a roll call okay yeah that would be cleanest okay that's fine so wendy or mrs earl what is your position all right mrs sullivan mrs fazzini you would be see that they're next no mrs fizzini did you respond i'm sorry i can't hear you oh yeah that was a no from linda fazzini yep mrs melton no okay mr davello can you use your mic yes mr jackson yes dr wright no mr
165schaefer yes and then my vote would be last and that's a yes also so that motion does pass so um miss luke what do we do about the is there the motion that mrs fizzine and fazzini made i'm assuming would override the motion we just passed if that was to go through correct and the if both motions had failed the reason that i was uh said what i said last time is if those motions had failed it would have been the status quo if the motion it was currently written had failed then there could have been the motion because that would have been a different course but obviously at this point the board has voted not to mandate masks with the vote that they just passed then i i misspoke i think it was still
1666'3 if my math was right i just i just wanted on the record i just wanted on the record right and i i i did i appreciate that clarification but it wouldn't have changed it wouldn't have changed the outcome okay so we move on to the rest of the agenda or do we have a second for the motion you could you could have the motion and if there's a second vote again i think it's there's it's been voted on um but if you know right because there's six that were against five that were against the mandate please please let us get through the business okay so so you can move on we can move on through the agenda correct okay thank you so we'll move on to boarding committee reports we have mr debello for
167finance mr jackson for property do you have yours up sure thank you property committee met on august 10th um just a point of clarification um miss board member wendy era was in attendance even though it doesn't reflect um in the documentation business items that were discussed were summer operation updates for the rogersford workers for library structural repairs the 9th grade center phase 1 root proof replacement the limerick elementary boiler replacement the 567 center boiler replacement mcnally stadium egress expansion update and we also discussed some cleaning status for the for the building readiness for the opening school um there would be an item that will be placed on the agenda or that is on the agenda for board approval and that is the chiller that was replaced at the royal short elementary school another business that
168was discussed was the delivery and restocking of ppe for each school as we prepare to open for the new school year uh chief warrior will be applying for pde grants for safe and security communications equipment 37 digital radios and it was a short meeting 17 minutes and at the end of the meeting it was determined that all ppe is ready it has been received and ready for the new school year that includes ventilation cleaning protocol and sanitation protocol for all schools thank you thank you mr jackson mr debell do you have your finance report finance committee meant dues august 10th at the high school conference room and virtually through zoom meeting we didn't do our typical review of monthly reports because we're in the process of closing out the budget year we do know speaking
169mr fink that uh the numbers and the projections that he provided in the may meeting are uh looking like they're going to hold uh true as far as what we see on the budget items both uh items that will come in as a deficit or items would be coming as a surplus we will have a full report uh related to the closeout of the budget for the 2021 20-21 school year um probably september october timeline uh because they will be going through the budget close out and they're out of process we did really want to get together and have a meeting just to really make sure that we're in more alignment with the spending related to the start of the school year so the rest of the evening was basically focused on that we just
170did a quick review of cash and reserves as of the end of july was approximately 50 million with another 50 million real estate taxes expected to come in by the end of august real estate assessments previously reported assessment growth estimated for 2021 school year fell short by 11.9 million but mr fink had estimated that this would be made up by the end of august as of 7 7 31 10.9 million of that shortfall has been made up so far so we are on target probably to be within what we projected for the real estate assessments for that school year the bus patrol stop arm camera installation is proceeding well and should be fully installed and operational by 9 15 with 80 completion by the first day of school food services operations will be utilizing the
171sso closed site option this year as directed by the state and federal government under these new rules for the 2022 school 2021-2022 uh your reimbursable lunches and breakfasts will be free to spring for registered students only and only for the school days no weekends or holidays any school meals or a la carte items will be charged to the student's account or paid for by student with cash uh mr jackson did bring up an interesting point which i think uh i want to discuss a little bit further at the next finance meeting and if there is a child in need like last year that did receive a lunch or breakfast uh from the district uh if they may not necessarily bring for springford student but if they are in need um we don't necessarily want to
172feel the need to turn them away so we're going to look at that closer we did review the covet 19 relay expenditures and graph grants graphs grants we reviewed the status of each covet-related federal brands know that all been submitted all been approved except the sr2 and sr3 which are both under review and should be approved in the next few weeks i did ask as a follow-up about the allocations for psychological services previously requested by me towards the april may of last year of the last school year and there is with the dsr3 includes about one million dollars for allocation of these services uh with allocate with additional allocation which includes allocations for learning loss and service program as well with that the meeting ended and we we went to property already had that report
173so that's the end of my report thank you um western did have their first meeting in august i was not there for that um mr developer mrs earl do you want to comment on the body of that meeting huh oh thank you um it was it was really it was a pretty fast meeting we we did a lot of preparation for the start of the school year making sure everything is alignment once again uh as we talked about in finance here in property that was making sure that the western center is ready to go with the starter school year we did have to approve the health and safety plan uh with that uh the vote was taken and within that health and safety plan mask were recommended as optional as well at the western center
174unless there's a change by the county or state in the future so that was pretty much the gist of the meeting there wasn't anything else beyond that i don't recall is it also true that um upper perk and pots grove the schools that we're in the tech school with at the vocational school that they're aligning with the same mass optional position as well yeah i mean uh potts grove upper border town all all voted for quaker town that well but within our in our neighborhood potts grover uh upper perkham and uh boyertown have all voted and they're moving forward with mass optional thank you mciu we haven't met this month mr schaefer psba liaison nothing to report this evening thank you and mr rizzo you want to continue with your superintendent's report sure uh seems
175a little strange at the end of the third hour of our meeting together to welcome people back uh but welcome back uh we are excited that this wednesday we do welcome back new staff on new hires throughout the summer we do welcome back all of our staff next wednesday the 25th and then our students will be back in our buildings on monday august 30th i'm very excited to bring in our new class of kindergartners as well as our graduating class of 2022. so really excited about what this year could bring for us um we're really excited for uh the opportunities as we move forward so thank you for that the next part was school safety and i did give you most of that i do there was a question about three feet versus six feet
176etcetera i just want to remind people that we are in all of our settings three feet and uh that is measured nose to nose or center to center um and that is verified by mr hunter and his team that we're able to achieve that in all in all environments equity diversity and inclusion committee i want to give you an update on that um critical race theory or crt has been brought up in our community and i want to make just take a minute to just talk about that a little bit based on our consultant and the work that he has done uh he defined crt as an intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human
177beings but a socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color having said that critical race theory is not something that springford is adopting in our schools there is not a crt curriculum that we are teaching to our students uh it is something that is out there and being and being discussed in the community that we are not that is not happening in our buildings our the work of our um equity diversity and inclusion committee in in consultation with our consultant carlos wiley is to provide professional development to our staff on culturally responsive teaching inclusive practices collecting data and analyzing that data and then planning for whatever improved practices might be needed based on that data analysis those are really the things that we're looking at and that we're excited for
178that work to continue uh moving forward but i wanted to dispel some of the comments that we've been hearing and some of the concerns from our community members that's really all i have this evening thank you mr rizzo any questions or comments from mr rizzo do we have a solicitor's report this evening i don't have anything to report thank you uh marca oh i'm sorry i i i'm probably still not going to have anything to report but thank you thank you you just looked like you wanted to say something so i just jumped right over christmas sorry about that can you can rich can we have trish or aaron hi there thanks for joining us tonight thanks for being back hello thanks for having me um it's the end of summer i don't have a
179lot to report right now um i had hoped to speak prior to your vote and it didn't work out that way so um the only thing i have to say is and and some people alluded to it my concern with the way the vote went is that we are required it's not a recommendation it's a requirement that we will have to contact trace and quarantine so unfortunately this year let's hope that it's not a high number but if all parties involved aren't masked we will need to contact trace at six feet if all parties were masked we would be allowed to keep people as long as they were three feet um distance so it's going to take a little extra time because we're going to have to determine who was wearing masks and when um
180but i guess my request is that as we start to see how this year looks and we navigate through um these changes as more students come in that the board um is willing to work with us if we have extra needs or get overly burdened i'm hoping it doesn't happen but we need to be a little realistic absolutely that we can not nothing is set in stone right i think we learned that last year in the last week right so if they're if you're seeing a problem please bring that to our attention so that if we need to adjust or modify that we do that we will definitely do that thank you so much thank you okay we're going to move on to the minutes uh or to the rest of the attendance minutes a
181and b questions or comments personnel a through p questions or comments finance a through j questions or comments property a question or comment on that program programming and curriculum a through d any questions or comments there conferences and workshops a through d questions or comments there other business under a we have a number of policies on the agenda for a second read are there any questions or comments and then b through f questions or comments okay with all of that done is there any more board comment this evening okay then we'll go back to public to be heard we'll start in person and i would like to start with anyone that did wanted to speak to us that did not have the opportunity to do that during the first um public comment session is anybody
182in here that was here at that time that didn't get a chance to speak okay then hi i'm abby deardorff 704 collin court in reuters ford uh the comment that i wanted to make earlier tonight prior to the vote um was that we have a amazing opportunity to make sure that the kids are in school and to make sure that they stay in school and masks are part of that whether you like them or not we saw last year the amazing work that all of you did and it was successful and kids were able to get into school and stay there and we have an opportunity to continue to do that and you guys in the vote promote that um the data on masks is anecdotal there is no scientific study that shows what the
183benefit of them outweighs the potential problems so yes masks get dirty it's not they've died and should they be wearing the same mask for six hours a day um but i wanted to share a personal anecdotal story about masking in my family so my daughter who was four weeks old almost two years ago got rsv and as you guys know that's the common cold um that can just be passed around very very contagious and it's normally not a really big deal for the older population but my daughter was four weeks old and she was in shock for ten days and struggles and as a nurse as a parent it was one of those terrifying things i've ever experienced and i know firsthand you can give me every scientific fact that you want but i know
184that masks work because of the rsv rates this year and now you take them away and the rsv rates are back you can't give me any youtube video anything that will change my mind on that and our kids we all agree that the kids do best in school for all the reasons medical reasons social emotional all of it and you had an opportunity tonight to stand up and be a leader in the community about this i commend dr wright i commend linda cizzini um for trying to make it to make an amendment on this and i appreciate that and you know i i hope that we do have a great start to this year in person thank you john uh 12 john yanchuk 12 edmonds drive um i'd also like to commend mrs sullivan mrs
185melton dr wright and mrs fazzini for trying to stand up for all of the children in this district i'm really tired of hearing about choice you are a public entity charged with spending public funds with the mandated right by the state constitution the pa school code to educate every single child in this district in a safe and responsible manner i'm really tired of hearing about the most selfish and ignorant in this room and this community try to talk about what they want you are a public entity you are spending all of our money and you owe all of us the opportunity for our children to feel safe in these schools if you cannot do that if you are tired of all the problems that have been created by a once in a century pandemic then
186the door is right there you are welcome to resign tonight because what you did tonight was just an act of total public abdication of responsibility thank you 212 walnut street spring city pa i debated very hard whether or not i would talk tonight um being called ignorant my choice and my decision the name calling it all needs to stop we all have free choice that's what that vote was about it's an option it's a choice there's too much information everybody's on information overload i really highly recommend that people get off their phone get off the internet turn off the tv go out and experience life a little bit you're tearing each other apart for no reason at all if you're at risk wear a mask if you feel that it helps you it hurt my
187kids i saw my six-year-old be afraid of other kids and other parents and other adults when they weren't wearing a mask kids should not be taught to fear other people their bodies are made to fight viruses immunities some are immune immune deficient i understand that that's a fact i get it that's a minority not a majority and your immunity gets stronger when you're exposed to viruses that's how the body works that is science that is fact the reason that kids are getting infected with rsv in the common goal is because they were shuddered that is a fact that's what those doctors are telling you i feel for you i understand your situation and i understand your fear but you don't make decisions based on fear you make them on fact and yes mass don't work
188the cdc says they don't work for 20 30 40 50 years they said they don't work ask the people that are in california and in the west where all they do is smell the smoke from fire they can smell the smoke it can breathe in the particles of the virus but we you guys have a choice we all have choice that's the whole point here's a quote from the cdc back at dorney ebola virus experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements if either of these seem to be less than optimal a
189manageable epidemic could move toward a catastrophe what we're witnessing with this fear is going toward catastrophe you understand when we managed epidemics in the past we were calm we took necessary precautions the rest of this is not necessary as somebody who has survived coded and experienced it myself in my family with my children before we were not allowed to go to school in november you made the right choice thank you hi everyone my name is karen weingarten i'm at six dorothy circle and rory's four earlier i wanted to mention a lot of people kept saying no one is dying i get it no one is dying but there's a huge gray area in between infection and death right we have active shooter drills nobody's dying our athletes wear helmets mouth guards tin guards nobody's dying
190we take these wise precautions with safety in mind so that nobody's dying but no one's dying argument doesn't really work masks were a precaution if your child is experiencing issues wearing masks imagine the issues your child would have experiencing some of the lesser yet long-term effects of this infection intense fatigue sleeping or napping for weeks after the infection you're healthy you're fine but you cannot get out of bed i had coveted i slept for three weeks i had the most mild case of it it took me four months to recover to be able to work out yes i'm not a child but some of the other things that are affecting children are loss of smell and taste can they still go to school can they still function yeah but it's a hell of a way
191to get back to explain to a six-year-old why they can't taste ice cream anymore tinnitus which is ringing in your ear i've had that february again mild case i thought i was having hot flashes didn't realize i had covered until i got the test done imagine explaining to a third grader what tinnitus is constant ringing in your ear i hope that nobody gets that these are the kind of things i'm not talking about ending up attached to a respirator i'm not talking about death i'm talking about these are the side effects even a mild or a case that you have no symptoms from you can get these things so that recovery is really difficult for an adult it's really difficult for a child when you're actually sick with it even for a day or two
192the mental anguish you go through wondering if you're going to recover wondering where this is going to go wondering if you're going to go to the hospital did you infect your friends did you affect your teacher did you infect your friend's grandmother that happened in my situation what are you missing in class these are all things that are really difficult for an adult to deal with so i imagine for a child it has to be incredibly difficult to deal with so when we talk about the mental wellness in this that's a part that i want to make sure we understand and it's not just the child it's the child whose parent has it who's going through this i saw my own kids slipping my dinner under the door because i had to quarantine for an
193additional seven days and them asking me am i going to be okay am i going to have to go to the hospital these are the kind of things that a mask can help prevent so i understand i totally understand what you had on your plate today and i respect all of you and appreciate everything you did except that we do follow a lot we take a lot of the recommendations from the american academy of pediatrics and we turn them into requirements we use their recommended vaccine schedules and their requirements we follow things like car seat car safety nutrition baby feeding all of those things come from the aap and we follow it i want my kids in school my kids are vaccinated but i also think it's really unusual that 60 of the k k-6
194parents wanted masks and you ignored it thank you yeah i'm just going to remind you that we're keeping it totally and calm okay thank you 12 11 i want to thank you all no matter how it was voted and also to not take this personally how well do we understand freedom are you obligated to answer questions of law enforcement no the fifth amendment of the constitution provides us the right to remain silent but we must say we are invoking the right that remains silent when in a public area or building open to the public is it unlawful to not comply with their mask required sign no it is a request that i can choose to comply or not we do not need to disclose to anyone our reason or medical condition for not wearing a
195mask does law enforcement take an oath which includes protecting and serving the general public not at all their all is to protect and ensure citizens free exercise of their constitutional rights can i record anything i see when standing in the public or publicly accessible area no expectation of privacy exists when in public do i need permission or do i need to tell someone if i'm oh they are recording them delaware pa nj are one party consent states maryland requires both parties during school board public comment time am i prohibited to say a public figure's name including a board member negatively and even vehemently no i'm not prohibited the united states as the supreme court noted in new york times versus sullivan is founded on the profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public
196issues should be uninhibited robust and wide open and that it may well include vehement causing and sometimes unpleasantly sharp tax on government and public officials the scoopers are not allowed to enact a public comment policy that supersede a higher law and that there is no higher law than the united states constitution these government officials at many school boards mistakenly believe that all power is inherent in the government that is wrong in the united states of america all power is inherent in the people under the principles of the declaration of independence constitution provides for a government operating under the authority of the governed this achievement is unprecedented in history under the guise of public health an individual inalienable right to his body is infringed upon so here i inform the world of such impressive infringement if
197covet related restrictions such as mask testing quarantine and vaccination are required in public places such as schools thank you any other comments in the room evening anthony frigo um 1003 main street linfield pennsylvania i circulated a letter amongst you july 30th apparently it had some effect could i just ask you to speak into the mic a little bit so we can hear you very clearly thank you i circulated a letter amongst you on july 30th apparently it had some effect uh you are i believe going to remove the black lives matter stickers from the school am i correct this is public comment though so yes you're correct but mr rizzo can answer that question he still chooses that's correct okay i i just wanted to thank you for uh taking the time to consider my
198position and to i know that my last mistake was uh rather lengthy i would appreciate i appreciate your time and i hope that some attention will be given to the my comments on the edi committee um in the future uh thank you very much thank you is there any other comments in the room then are we no no you're only allowed one time in the beginning and one time at the end so thank you we're going to move on to the zoom now please how many hands are raised okay okay can we start with those please lnw you may not make a public comment please downlandski 416 navajo drive rares for a pi i just want to thank the majority of the board for their vote tonight i am elated to tell my daughter of
199seven years old um that she will be able to lower her mask when she feels she's having a panic attack uh she described to me a day where she could not understand her teacher and what her teacher was saying she got a panicked feeling because she was falling behind and what happened was she became so panicked she began to breathe heavily the mask became obstructing to her as she breathed in the mask she panicked and raised her hand to go to the bathroom where she sat on the toilet and breathed freely without her mask without the fear of getting in trouble for removing it my daughter will go to bed go to bed and rest easy each day knowing that she can remove her mask when she needs just like i watched the woman earlier
200pull down her mask due to a medical condition while she explained that masks should be mandatory and that you should lead with control and be steadfast with your decision of mandating masks why can she remove her mask and make a decision for her medical condition to lower her mask and be able to speak but my kid can't so i really appreciate the board and the majority that have made the decision tonight and i hope that this is something that will prove to be effective and that we can move throughout the school year with this decision thank you so much [Music] next lauren day you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi this is lauren day 57 greenbrier drive phoenixville
201i first want to thank dr wright mrzini ms sullivan ms melton for trying to get the survey data for everybody to hear and make a motion for k to 6 to b mass i sort of don't understand what happened we have 63.34 percent of parents and k-6 want mass 36 were optional seven to twelve most parents were optional i think you had a compromise there where you've masked k to six and you went optional for seven to twelve and you just didn't take it we also had majority of parents there on zoom and in person that we're advocating for mass we just heard from the nurse she's hoping that we don't have to quarantine and shut down schools but that's most likely what's going to happen i'm hoping possibly at the next board meeting you
202can have an amendment to do it for k-6 our children are not vaccinated and they are at risk and this is in your hands to make it a mandate for k-sex they are not vaccinated when they are vaccinated i'm sure we'll all be okay with it but right now other kids not mask are putting my kids at risk and it's unfair i kept mine home last year to see if mass worked they did i sent her back i shouldn't have to keep her home again this year it's unfair follow the science take the compromise k-6 wants the mass 7-12 was optional take the compromise thank you before you go on since we're commenting on some of these um comments that are being made you know i would like to add to please reach out to
203your legislators you want masks mandated reach out to them and and you know call them get them to hear you we've heard you we've heard you for the last several weeks and believe me we've read the emails we've heard you we've read them hit your legislators hit the county the department of health pa department of health the um cdc you know hit the county send your send your messages to them please also if you want them mandated once they're mandated you know i i believe that this board will go that way that's the way the motion is written that we will follow that go ahead allison o'brien you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address allison o'brien 505 andover lane
204collegeville19426 um i'm fuming over the decision of most of the school board members and i'd like to thank those that voted on the side of science over 63 percent of k-6 parents voted that they wanted masks required for kids but i guess that doesn't matter to the board what is the point then of pulling parents does the board understand that the cdc and the aap have don't have the authority to mandate masks i still want to know why in june the board voted five to four for mandated masks for k-6 when cases were low and delta wasn't prevalent in our area and now that delta is prevalent in our area and is mainly affecting the unvaccinated i.e children we reverse this two weeks before school starts no vaccine is available and no health recommendations have
205changed so why was there a complete reversal regarding k-6 why didn't we let nurse trish speak on behalf of the nursing staff prior to the vote and why aren't we asking about what the teachers and staff want and what their concerns are the chance to make this a successful school year was right in the board's grasp and you let it slip away based off of other schools that have opened in other states with optional masks we are headed for mass quarantines and closures resulting in an interrupted school year you want the kids in school but you just voted for a policy that's going to skyrocket quarantines and closures and when this happens we'll remember that it was caused by the school board's unwillingness to step up for what was right christine d you may not
206make a public comment please unmute yourself and state your first and last name as well as your full address hi christy jambowski 310 4th avenue montclair um i just want to share that i just feel really um disheartened and disappointed at the vote and i'm sorry that i sound upset it's just it's really hard when the similar what other parents said i just feel that we talk about giving parents choice and you did a full survey and parents in the elementary age said that they wanted mass for their kids we don't have any other tools to protect them and it's just it's really really upsetting that you are saying you're endorsing choices for parents and the majority spoken said we would feel safe until our kids are vaccinated and that was passed back in june
207when we were at the lowest cases and the world is very different now where we live than it was in june and it's just very disheartening i don't know if that can be revisited before the start of school but i think i speak for many parents that kept their kids home last year that we really want to send our kids back and we really want them to feel safe in school and not at risk and the safest way to do that is universal masking especially for kids until they can get vaccinated which is as it stands right now all of our elementary kids so i just desperately urge you to please just possibly entertain that before the start of school thank you kate doyle you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself and
208state your first and last name as well as your full address kate doyle 310 woodland drive collegeville um i'm extremely disappointed in the final vote i will thank the board members who made the case um and i appreciate you taking a stand and your courage i'm extremely disappointed in those board members especially those that are saying if you want masks mandated go to your state talk to the cdc et cetera you are elected officials you are our governing body you have the power to make this change so you are choosing to ex to decrease the amount of school opportu i'm sorry your vote to make mass optional will now require every student exposed to a student or teacher who tests positive for covid to quarantine i say every student exposed because how can you determine
209if both students were wearing a mask at the time of exposure the nurse that spoke made the comment that will be very difficult because they'll have to figure out who's wearing masks so how will you know if both students were masked at the time they were exposed if masks aren't mandated will the teacher take mask attendance at the beginning of each class will she need to take track if keep track of the student removes their mask for a total of 15 minutes most contact tracing occurs after transmission several days when a student tests positive will you rely on asking the students if they're a mask the only way to to comply with the contact tracing will require you to quarantine every student exposed those students will not have access to teacher instruction only assignments on
210canvas students without devices k through four may be unable to access canvas or even have the skills to utilize the platform parents and guardians will need to make agreement arrangements for child care and may jeopardize their employment status and or income students that have jobs will need to call out and also jeopardize their employment status or income students involved in sports or other extracurricular activities will be unable to participate in practices games and or performance that could lead to game for forfeiture or performance cancellations that could then possibly impact their college and other post school job opportunities and education opportunities finally i wanted to address the fact that it's often stated that mass caused the emotional and psychological the mental health issues however in most studies the reason for the depression and suicidal thoughts and
211other challenges mental health challenges that students have had especially the teens and and children who require i'm sorry especially the teens has been due to the fact that they've been socially isolated due to quarantining and constant in and out of the schools and also the uncertainty not knowing whether or not you may have infected a friend so i please like others here request that at a minimum you return to k through 6. they do not have the extra protection of the opportunity like you've some your e you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is samuel okashutti and i live in 202 spring lane rorysford i'd like to say i've been following all the comments all evening
212today and uh i'm greatly disappointed in the board's decision i didn't really think that our children's health should be something that we should be talking about or kind of putting it up for vote um i think the school should be a place where kids should always feel safe no matter what happens and as a parent i personally feel anxious and worried for my kids [Music] [Applause] not only that that's going to make my uh enforce my decision to not bring him into school because i don't think it's a safe area for the kids to go to school [Music] that said the only center that keeps on going on my head all evening since this whole thing started is what if a kid walks into the classroom and sneezes and infects another kid and then we
213have a case of spread in the school how is that going to be addressed how is that going to be fixed and we're dealing with a virus that we know very little about we have a few defense options that we knew about the last couple of years one of them is a mask so if we're going to use a mask to as a defense mechanism until we find something else like a more effective vaccine for for the younger kids um then that's that's the way we should really go because there's no other way we don't have any options we don't get to pick and choose in this scenario and uh that was something else i i heard this evening i mean we should be looking really at the big picture uh where are we going
214with this uh if we're gonna if our plan is to contain this this whole thing and create a safe environment for the kids to go back to school then we should use all the tools and all the options we have in hand and i don't think we're doing that uh i'd like to thank everyone who voted against this notion and uh i believe that nurse trish was also should have been given the option to speak about this before the vote thank you erica hermans you may not make a public comment please don't mute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi erica hermans 204 abbey drive i just want to quote and really reinforce a promise that was made tonight um our board president commented quote i am
215going to be the leader who ensures no child is bullied for wearing a mask and i really hope that this promise is kept and that parents hold the district accountable to that because it is wonderfully aspirational but unfortunately it has already failed the school district's zero tolerance policy has already failed and it failed in those last three days of school i am not going to share the anecdotes and the stories of other parents but i am sure that there are some board members that received emails on this issue and so to the woman who cited my lowering of the mask for a medical condition i should not have to defend myself and disclose medical information to justify actions no one said that accommodations could not be made it is not black and white and yet
216we treated this issue tonight black and white even though the board um even though the board voted you know not to entertain any compromise and was you know provided us the data at the k-6 level if adults can make comments like this it is an indication that our children will face the same experience so please i hope that your promise is kept okay do you have any other a johnson you may not make a public comment please don't mute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi my name is alana johnson my address is three hero floyd drive and royer sword as many parents i wanted to mention the survey when i received it i emailed all of you to tell you that i thought it was ridiculous
217that we were being asked what we wanted when your plan was already written to keep students safe as your the oath you took as a school board member um stated that it was your job to do um tonight i asked again what was the purpose of the survey because you asked what we wanted and then ignored it also and reversed um the mitigation strategies that you had put into place i'm disappointed that you voted to allow others to put my child at a higher risk of developing and being a carrier of the virus to his siblings and other immunocompromised family members based on this reversal of strategies that you outlined in the health and safety plan that we had been given and had lots of time to look over now with only 14 days left
218until school store it starts i implore you to reconsider a virtual environment as the current program that you're offering is not appropriate for elementary students if you won't revisit the masking for k-6 i beg that at the next meeting you re look at your virtual offering for k-6 thank you hey thank you do we have others bethany stein you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address yes hello this is bethany stein 149 hunt club drive collegeville i thank you for your time tonight and my comment is in june the board voted for mandatory masking for grades k-6 according to the survey 63 of k-6 parents surveyed wanted mandatory masking for the past two months the expectation given to k-6 parents
219of what the health and safety plan entailed was made clear that masks would be mandatory and parents made their school plans accordingly now two weeks before the start of the school year that decision is changed and now parents have to decide if the school plan that they had put into place all summer aligns with their families needs i ask the board to reconsider and go back to the original decision made in june to have masking mandatory for k-6 thank you maggie why you may not make a public comment please unmute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address my name is maggie youssef i'm at 69 page lane in oaks 19460. i am living through quarantine right now and i'm going to try to be brief with these comments
220forgive me if i say something that was addressed that i missed but i am living through quarantine right now and i assure you that the social isolation from being quarantined is more damaging to the emotional well-being of a child than wearing a mask and being surrounded by their friends and their wonderful springford teachers i'm living it right now i have a few questions where was the superintendent's input and recommendation for how to proceed with the masking mandate or choice last year the previous superintendent gave their his recommendation it was asked and he gave it where was the teachers union's recommendation for input where was the nurse's input from the start one of the board members requested the nurse's input and it was not given do they not matter just like my vote in the survey
221did not matter as many other parents feel it is highly suspect that the most verbal members of the board sat there quietly today there was no back and forth but for the board president it is highly suspect and shame on you for your premeditated agenda you did not come here looking to be coming to listen to what the people have voted for you came in with your own agenda that's how i perceive it shame on you you frequently ask well what do the neighboring school districts what are they doing what did they vote for that was not mentioned once by the person that usually asks for it i'm very disappointed and i will be looking for other options for my children and i hope as other people have asked that you will revisit either a
222virtual option or some sort of plan for when all of these children will be quarantined because it will happen listen to your nurse for once there is no mention for what happens to our kids when we're quarantined what if a whole class is quarantined what if half the class thank you do we have any other comments next kiba khalifa you may not make a public comment please don't mute yourself then state your first and last name as well as your full address hi habba khalifa 202 spring lane in royersford i'd like to thank the board members who were compassionate and understanding and wanted to vote against this motion i like many of the other parents i do not understand why although a request was made by mrs fizzini for the nurse to speak she was
223not allowed to um i think that would have been very important i don't understand why our input for the survey was not taken into consideration it seems like a waste of time and resources to have posted the survey if it was going to be trashed just like other parents have said my children a 5th grader and an 8th grader who were already virtual and cyber last year will not be returning to school this year based on your vote i'd rather they be safe and to address any issues that arise from them being isolated from their friends you know i'd rather that than them being dead honestly so and my kids wearing a mask will not help if other kids are not wearing a mask and we all know that it has to be both ways
224so i implore you to please bring back the virtual option at least my kids will have consistency from the beginning of the year um cyber does not work for us there's very little to no teacher input uh questions about curriculum i've had teachers respond back with we don't know we're not the ones who put the curriculum and it took weeks for me to get answers about certain classes so at least in the virtual they get to see their friends from time to time their teacher on a daily basis um so please bring back the virtual option uh you know we care about our kids and we're not okay with with what happened today thank you at this time there's no further public comments to be heard on zoom