001to call this meeting back to order thank you okay thanks picard i recommend that minutes pertaining to litigation robinson green beretta remain sealed there's a motion and a second to recommend that minutes pertaining to litigation ron robin green beretta remains sealed any discussion those in favor those against any abstentions or recusals that was a unanimous vote thank you very much i recommend that minutes per chain to the matter of security including but not limited to the deployment of security personnel or devices approval of emergency operations plans remain sealed second there was a second and then um there was a motion and a second to recommend the minutes pertaining to the matter of the eop of the emergency operation plans remain sealed any discussion those in favor [Music] those against and any recusals of abstentions mr
002stahl's not present thank you very much for vote here's mr stone okay next one i recommend that minutes which relate to the privacy of students and their records approval of home instruction requests remain sealed second there's a motion in a second to recommend that the minutes which relate to the privacy of students in their records remain sealed any conversation any discussion on this [Music] no those in favor those against any recusals or abstentions that was unanimous thank you very much miss giusti disclosure for the votes please sure we had five votes in executive session the first was executive session minutes of july 13th an ea esp negotiation update um approved by abbott chambers day juicy lagorie luzon lyle and stahl of stanny callahan the next vote was executive session minutes july 13th potential litigation approved
003by abbott chambers day juicy laboratory luzon lyle mcallister and stahl of spain callahan um discussion of emergency operation plans approved by abbott callahan chambers j juicy libori luzon lyle mcallister install home instruction requests from tonight approved by abbott callahan chambers day juicy libori luzon lyle mcallister and stahl and finally to return to open session approved by abbott calihan chambers day juicy libori luzon lyle mcallister install thank you miss giusti recognitions please join me congratulating the following students for our skills usa national award winners mitch daniel silver medal electrical colby elworld fourth place marine tech madeleine st peter lindsey o'leary madison chelsea and jillian gere fifth place health occupations and mason payne 10th place automotive we also are awarding the postseason awards high school wrestling james dardy 170 pound state's champion first team all-state first team
004all division and academic all state noah dinucci placed six in the state championship 106 pounds academic all state gary gardner placed fifth in the state championship heavyweight second team all division corbin mariah academic ball state and mitchell daniel academic fall state we also have we also have we also have rico thompson freshman state champion shop freshman state champion discus and tonight we do have a special recognition of our performance of our character high school theater group who did freaky friday i was on opening night it was absolutely amazing so i'm very thrilled to have them share with you the um a little sort of snippet of what they performed for freaky friday i'm gonna ask the school committee to step down into the front row so that they're gonna come up to the stage and
005perform a little skipper i misspot if you could come to the mic and introduce them okay all right it's my honor tonight to introduce to you our charitable performing arts theater company i also have the great honor of being able to experience your freaky friday i'd like to first talk a little bit about all that our spirit company has done over this past year to be able to perform so we are one of the high schools in the state that has been able to perform two performances um during the movement throughout every year so even since proven kid we were able to do two performances each year so we did once back in something really neat we have 16 actors present for that uh and then everything friday was just past a couple of weeks
006ago it was a another great performance some of the challenges that our company had to go through it's really interesting adapted with cobit oh thank you mike's on now appreciate that um so they had to start out by six feet apart for distance with masks and we can only have 21 actors perform and then we were able to adjust and we had to put six actors on a waitlist then they were able to have them rejoin the cast so a lot of adapting there not only that but if you think of the chorus production that goes that accompanies a musical so they had to sing and dance with masks and the chorus had a switch from humming so they were only allowed to hum with coveted protocols then were able to switch to singing i
007can't even sing period so i don't even imagine how they sung through masks and also through zooms where you have the zoom delay so that is quite impressive as well um just also wanted to share that a couple days before the freaky friday production they um got the word that they could sing and and perform without the mask so another quick adjustment there and then all their dance moves on how to be really staged and set up in unique different ways because of cobit restrictions also our pit band we had band performance and they had to have adapted mouthpieces and music to go along with all their their musical performances so this crew has been through a lot and so for them to be able to pull off two performances a year i'm extremely proud
008of them so can we just give them a round of applause before they and then i'm just going to really quickly ask each member to introduce themselves so that you know who they are thank you okay i'm maddie long i'm abby pageant i'm freaking floyd i'm sarah wojcik i'm the king of the gabriel i'm rachel lindelof i'm violet knight everyone is freaking out because fletcher is missing now all the wedding guests are out searching my grandma and grandpa are offering advice and mom called the police everyone is asking me questions and i don't know the right answers i was ready to be grown up just waiting for the day and now i am i'm freaking does mommy feel this way see they think that i have answers they look to me too they see this
009old old woman but there's a little girl inside well feel free to run away now sorry i'm not myself today i'm in a funny way i'm not the thing they think they see this alpha mommy she's not me they want a woman i can't be in words that i can't say i'm not the woman i thought i was i'm not myself today [Music] is [Music] myself [Music] is [Music] tonight if i had a kid and the kid ran away i'd hunt him down and kill him my god what a thing to say if i had a kid and the kid ran away i would find him i would hold him and then okay i'm sorry [Music] are you all okay are you okay i'm not okay [Music] together i am today [Applause] [Music] [Applause] myself
010[Music] foreign [Applause] he's i want [Applause] up tonight [Applause] thank you that was awesome it was a nice nice decoration thank you so much we're now part of um our meeting uh which is called the public forum this is a chance for the public to weigh in or share with us their thoughts um the only um it has to be on a topic that's not on the agenda because that would be discussed at a later time our goal is to try to adhere to the 30 minutes obviously you know we will try to get as many people as possible to speak um we will ask you to limit your comments to two minutes and so that everyone can have a chance to speak if there's more time at the end we can also ask for
011a second comment um and we would like you to come down to the podium and speak if you're ready to um have a comment for the school committee um i apologize because i see someone coming down and thank you sir thanks for bringing the kids up so we sometimes forget that we're here for them um germany has a pretty dark history so what's your name please oh i'm sorry no it's just i need it donna needs it um so scottish needs it for the minutes crispy and the town please um the germans uh make a point of teaching their children about the dark part of their history um because they don't want it to happen again um they cover the rise of nazism the causes for it and they paint the allies as the heroes
012they make no bones about the fact that the nazis were bad it baffles me why people in this country are afraid of history america's history is not squeaky clean we're not the greatest country in the world anymore sorry but we're not and there's large parts of our history that were horrible to deny our students access to all of history not just the stuff we like not just the stuff that makes us look good they need to have all the facts at their command and i commend the people who've been working on this for a while because we need it um this is one of the the best school systems in the in the state if not the country and i i think to deny our students the right to critical thinking skills based on everything
013not just the shiny parts um there's this is not a secret there's a movement in this country to disassemble public education that's a fact and the uh anti-crt folk that's just one aspect of it they want to eliminate public education because they don't want us talking about certain things there are four states now with laws on the books that for forbid teachers from using certain words in the classroom that's orwellian and i don't understand how people can can think that's a good thing this isn't a political issue um it's it's just history with all the lumps and bumps and um that's all i have to say thanks [Applause] yes sir downtrend can you hear me now yes sir okay i love that entertainment by the way it was great nice job my name is jim
014sullivan and i've been a school teacher and a school committee person i've been a school administrator for over 35 years and one thing i know for sure and i'm here to say it and i hope many of you say the same thing uh as we go along and that is i'm definitely against critical racism being taught in this school system and it's not it's not good for the students it's detrimental and i don't want to see it happen so that's one of the reasons why i'm here i also want to have you call attention and i gave everyone on the school committee a copy of a bill actually this is my letter that i sent as a seat as a concerned citizen to these state representatives and let let them know how i feel and
015i hope you read it and feel the same way but anyway the bill is going to be before the house this early fall and they're going to vote on it they've already had it in march there and they tabled it but now it's coming before them again and the bill actually says it prohibits the state from funding or granting monies to school systems or that teach critical places so again i'd like to have as many segments of this community uh support that bill because if you let the congressman know how you feel it's going to go a long way and i believe that if parents again call attention to it and the school committee supports it and i hope that i can have a vote of confidence from school committee people and make it known
016to the public how you feel and also the union teachers union head i think would be very helpful so uh as many segments of the community mr sullivan could you please wrap it up sir yes oh thank you very much i'm about i'm about ready to finish thank you and say that god bless america god bless the school system thank you yes okay see the person over to the right thank you you'll be next yes you please come to the podium hi my name is jess purcell i live in richmond and i have two kids that are four and seven i've never personally called someone a racist nor have i been called one and yet i've seen evidence of racial division through my life although i did not always have the vocabulary to name it
017despite the diverse demographic in newport where i grew up i noticed that housing segregation was a persistent issue why is that when i was pregnant with my first child i learned that there are significant disparities in maternal health outcomes based on rape race why is that these are not questions that belong only to one political party or one race i acknowledge that these instances of systemic racism make me feel uncomfortable but i can feel that without identifying solely as the oppressed or the oppressor as stated in the chair host social studies curriculum i see myself as a participant in a diverse democratic society and interdependent world i oppose attempts to censor the curriculum based on concerns that discussions of race and gender are harmful to students censorship is not a solution i believe that social
018and cultural lessons in the context of history and the present moment are necessary i have faith that our public school works to the benefit of the greater public much like our local libraries and post offices i support the continued diligent attention of the current chair anti-racism task force in collaboration with the school committee and superintendent this work seeks to decrease forms of discrimination and encourages equitable access to school resources and opportunities this is not the work of radicals it is the work community members informed by the needs of our district and the students it serves i stand unwavering in my support of this district and its teachers especially now as they begin another school year under the increased demands of a global pandemic i appreciate the trained professional to shoulder the responsibility of building bridges
019between our children and the future we should not place barriers on their work thank you thank you hmm goldie williams from richmond i'm here to talk against indoctrination and the crt in the chattahoo school district and mental health the diversity is fine but when you say white privilege causes mental health i have a problem you're indoctrinating the kids in this school district like they do in china and in russia my father escaped under a train so he they wouldn't be any communist or marxist or anything it's a forum or so he's not alive he wrote a book and this is what he escaped from my son lived in hell when he was in character he had graduated in 2017 out of the rise program and now kala kala shouldn't exist because the kids who bullied
020him are still there and they bring drugs fentanyl and heroin into the middle of high school and they bully the kids in the camera program plus the middle school kids i got this from students um he was even bullied by the director mrs garr to graduate at age 18 when he wasn't ready he flunked out of ccri the first time because he wasn't ready to go to college because they never transitioned him to work or college now he's going a second time around he's taking it online and he made the deals list he's working now at charles as a bagger and a cart person but not for long after he graduates he wants to do computer networking and it but we had to spend tens of thousands to get them there and shout out if
021it wasn't for one teacher telling me he had it was going for a nurse breakdown in the junior i wouldn't know about that but i knew he was meant going downhill mentally he went into the cad program for 30 days ma'am could you wrap it up please what it's two minutes wrap it up please oh i'm gonna thank you uh he went into the caterpillar best program he went into rides downhill and they would not let him out rise even if he wanted to mr richie would not let him out in conclusion i am against crt that power program should be closed up because of the kids who belong at the aci and the juvenile hall thank you thank you [Applause] i'm in front please and then the person in the back thank you i'm
022sorry i'm just the lights are hard to see so i thought that when i looked at them well they're going to have a headache by the end of the night i my name is polly hopkins i'm from hopkinton right here i'm going to read a letter that a parent had written um instead of my own personal comments so i think this encompasses a lot of us in the community so um it's a little harsh in previous meetings i've restrained myself i and others have respectfully presented researched information opposing your plans on a national level we have heard from people of all ages and races decry dei crt and crp as dis discriminatory divisive dishonest methods and rhetoric that uses children in a socio-political war political even the supporters have admitted that their goal is active
023discrimination and segregation it doesn't matter how many times you change the name or move the goal post it's still the same ideology despite all this you refuse to listen and your rebuttals are simply emotional regurgitation of mainstream media talking points with no proof or fact to support your decisions ms picard claims that the charitable regional school district is focused on communication transparency and equity however i do not see any intention or proof of those first two you have forced me to come to the conclusion that regarding crt either you're stupid or you're lying in either case people who are incapable of seeing both sides who choose to remain willfully ignorant or are intentionally dishonest do not belong on this committee and you should tender your resignation effective immediately numerous courts have ruled that this first
024amendment does not mean i am required to be nice you can't prohibit speech because it disparages or offends and important topics require robust uncomfortable and sometimes heated discussion so once again we are discussing policy being developed that will introduce crt methodology or dogma this time it's the vision 2023 district the strategic plan miss hopkins which lists among its goals to revise required reading lists to increase cultural competency and to offer among its goals to coursework that is culturally affirming i'm not a teacher but i question the educational effectiveness of these goals the use of ambiguous statements like cultural proficiency or cultural competence competency are proof that even as far back as 2018 when vision 2023 was developed the intention was to bend this district's curriculum to suit a political agenda there's more thank you very
025much excuse me sir i have somebody that i acknowledged first no sir i i said if there was time at the end that probably happened excuse me out of order [Music] sorry sorry [Music] my name is lauren kessler i'm from richmond um i'd like to like talk about critical uh thinking instead of critical race thinking critical thinking is allowing people to get the education that's what we're doing and use it to make up their own decisions we have kids in the audience we have students in the audience i work as a behavioral tech in a school we are teaching kids by dividing us is affecting everyone's mental health we should be focusing on what is most important and that is the well-being and safety if these parents out here are talking about critical race theory
026what do you think it's projecting onto our students like i said we should be worried about other things that are going on in our community the rising case numbers we need to worry about that more than this issue without that without worrying about that we are defeating ourselves thank you hello i'm eva sasloff retired teacher from chair ho i'm from hopkinton and i just want to start by saying that i am so proud to be living in america and and and i see it as a country that aspires to provide all men certain alienable rights specifically to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness but i'm also extremely shamed and concerned by the fact that 245 years later we still cannot live up to those ideals and one of the ways that we can do
027this is by teaching history correctly and owning what's happening in the world today this is not something that the education system is devising to divide us it is the movement that is has brought all this to the surface is something that is meant to distract i agree with chris b that there is a concerted effort to undermine public education i retired with 44 years in public ed and am committed to educating our population that's the only way we can hold on to democracy so there are many ways that we can do this without shaming that seems to be one of the biggest criticisms of teaching honest history is that it's going to shame white americans and i'm sure that germans felt shamed or feel shamed when they hear their history and we're going to feel
028some of that and we should and um you know shame has its place in some things it doesn't mean that we're not a good country it doesn't mean that we can't aspire to do better so i'm just here to support the school committee in looking at the curriculum honestly and not caving into this distraction that we keep hearing the letters to the editor the testimony that just goes on and on this exact same rhetoric that we're hearing from everybody i hope that you will listen to something different thank you thank you hello my name is courtney morrison richmond i am the mother of a kindergartner going into richmond elementary and a sixth grader at the middle school i am here this evening to support the process of identifying the policies practices and conditions that allow
029racial inequality to persist through education i understand that many people would like to just choose to ignore the existence of racial inequalities and hope that it will go away that has not worked for this country at all so far so to make argument that a change is needed is at the very least a reasonable notion i would like to note that i truly believe that the majority of those opposed to crt have grossly mischaracterized it and do not really grasp what it is about if they did then there would be no need to speak out against it unless of course they truly have the goal of seeking to perpetuate the practice of framing acts of violence and oppression against people of color as benevolent or justified mistakes that were corrected a long time ago it
030is my understanding that at this time crt is not part of the curriculum at cherry high school district so as to why this topic is even even taking up so much of the valued school board's time is strange to me but if crt or any form of inclusive history ever be implemented in our school district i will stand a continued supporter i strongly believe that education for all children should never be limited to what some white people are willing to admit to themselves as american american historian arthur m schlesinger jr said honest history is the weapon of freedom thank you is hello my name is ryan virgin mama dean of students at the high school i taught in the history department for 14 years before becoming a dean um and i you know i i
031just want to peek back on some of the things that you know the lady said right before me i am completely blown away on that this is taking up so much time when it comes to these meetings and i question if people really know what's happening in the classroom i mean where's the faith in the educators the history department one of the things that we teach first and foremost is how to identify bias and all that i'm seeing for these meetings is bias you know one way or another we want to teach kids critical thinking skills so when information comes across to them from whatever media source or instructor parent you know religious uh leader that they will be able to digest that information in the context of their own upbringing in education and make
032informed decisions as informed educated students and for really anybody to believe that any staff member would allow another staff member to be teaching history with a bias or slant when that's actually what we're trying to not do i i really think is misinformed and really needs to know um in a greater context of what we're trying to do with these children we're creating informed educated students that can identify bias and make their own decision our country is neck deep in bias right now and it's really unfortunate but it's one of those things that we're founded on freedom of speech freedom of the press even though that's uh really a joke when you figure out who uh peaceful of the press you know i hear you back there chris love you too um you have some
033faith in the educators that we would not allow that to happen in our classrooms thank you thank you [Applause] this will this will be the last comment 30 minutes we're almost done my name is leslie stropalino i'm from charlestown and i would like to just reiterate that we should also have some faith in our children that if we give them all the information they can process it and come to opinions of their own the next generation as i'm sure all you educators know is way smarter than us [Applause] [Music] thank you all for your comments we'll move on to um the next agenda items mister oh miss miss uh mr do you have your hand raised um chair i make a motion to move business item a ahead of the policy discussion okay so there
034was a motion by miss giusti to move business policy a mental health awareness club uh before the policy section and there was a second by mr luzon and the conversation of discussion i'll take it to a vote those in favor okay and those opposed abstaining recusals okay did you get you did you get that thank you okay um you want to introduce yes um i'm actually going to call it miss spas and emma elderkin uh the mental health awareness club presentation this item was tabled at our last meeting and both principal spas and emma elvigan will present an update and i do recommend approval of the mental health awareness club second there's a motion in a second to approve the um uh mental health awareness club as a approval of a club in the high
035school any i guess we should wait for a presentation first and then we'll have a discussion if that's okay with everyone okay thank you um like for us we're not gonna those there would be a presentation okay hi everyone thank you for having us back um as you know at the last school committee meeting emma and myself presented on our mental health awareness club proposal so i just wanted to remind everyone why we're here today our main focus is to shine light on us putting forward a mental health awareness club as a reminder emma brought this proposal to me back in april of this past year and acknowledging mental health as an important topic for our students and once you want to promote some awareness around this and to offer students an opportunity to have
036this club so we were asked to come back and to um revisit this club in front of the school committee so that's why we're here today before i get into the presentation i just wanted to take a quick moment to acknowledge emma and her amazing presentation that she put forward before us last school committee meeting i thought she did such a nice job putting this together i just wanted to take a moment for us to all recognize the work that she did all right now we're gonna get down to some some facts here so emma had presented this data to you at the last meeting according to the us department of health and human services one in five children and adolescents experience a mental health problem during their school years so this is a quote
037from the national association of school psychologists if you go to any psychological association or even um the national institute on health they'll recognize this number one in five that's a well-known number so let's just take a second to think about that one in five that's 20 if we look at our high school which is the size of roughly 1100 students depending on the year that's about 220 students who may face a mental health challenge that's important for us to know 20 of our population we know that this year has been a challenge and looking at some of our internal school data we had over 60 students who were referred for clinical support due to a self-harm risk assessment or threat to themselves or others that's pretty significant when you have 60 students that present with
038such a pressing need so that's why we're here today mental health i just want everyone to remember that's our focus of this presentation is mental health awareness emma's going to give us a little reminder of some of the reasons why we're here so this is just a reminder of kind of what we went over last meeting um the reason for this mental health club is to encourage others to advocate for destigmatizing mental health we want to provide a safe place for students who want more information on how to take care of their own mental health as well as be a part of a community that's based on acceptance and empowerment and uplifting to those who may be struggling we want to expose students and staff to the importance of mental health as well provide students
039with the resources so if they are struggling they can get outside help and overall we just want to promote awareness around mental health in total thank you emma um this is another quote from the national institute of health like other chronic diseases mental illnesses arise from the interplay of genes our environment and many other factors there's different models of mental health one of the most accepted and one of the one of the models that we're hearing a lot of is the biopsychosocial model of mental health which recognizes that mental health stems from our biology for example our genes um our neurochemistry but also psychological our coping skills our emotional well-being um our ability to handle stressors and then also social factors so environmental structures and social factors that come into play and this is the
040biopsychosocial model of health you may also see this i'm sorry yes you may also see this transfer into healthcare as well where some uh medical practices incorporate um this type of model excuse me just for an introduction mr day sure what i was saying was that we not did not have a problem with this program the problem we had was with the affiliation of the group yep we're going to get to that part definitely i was hoping that we would get a better understanding of the group that uh mr stahl and myself have some issues with when we did a little research we're going to get there because we just wanted to again paint the picture of why we're here it's about the mental health awareness we're almost there and we're going to get to
041exactly that that part for you we'll skip over that one okay all right so um i just wanted to we wanted to share this with you as well again a reminder of why we're doing this mentally healthy children are more successful in school and life good mental health is critical to children's success in school and their overall life okay research demonstrates that our students who receive social emotional and mental and behavioral health support achieve better academically so the world health organization talks about how mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders mental health is an integral part of health which means there's no health without mental health you can't just have physical health and no mental health mental health is determined by a range of socioeconomic biological and environmental factors mental health also
042as a promotion involves actions that improve psychological well-being and this may involve creating an environment that supports mental health so this is the part mr data that we're going to get to here so so last meeting we presented a program that we were going to vet under however we kind of reconsidered that and this is a different proposal that we're offering the we'll get to the other vetting idea as well so for the year one proposal the whole concept is to develop a mission and vision statements we want to conduct research and explore potential programs as well so not just limiting to that one program we want to work alongside mental health clinicians in resource review and development and the students as us we want to do the initial work of the program and the
043research resource vetting and develop a plan for the club promotion over the years so what emma's looking at here is is a pretty much a three-year plan with a lot of the work being done in year one around creating their own vision and mission associated with their club and doing that work of researching different programs that's year one year two we would see on implementation of that and well as well as our mission coming to play and then year three we would implement and then assess any good program we want to assess after a few years to make sure it's still in the best interest and that the resources we're using are still relevant and then and that's the work that emma and the students want to do is to really explore what is their
044mission what is the vision develop that and come up with what resources best meet their needs and the question is is there a resource so do we want to use a program maybe the students come up with the idea we don't want a program that we have mental health clinicians already that we want to use here as a list of programs so for the potential programs that we did some research on we have the national alliance on mental illness mental health first aid bring change to mind active minds reach out time to change headstrong and then also consider experts in the field so do we want a vet under a program or do we want this to be our own program where we bring experts in during the meetings um i would like to say
045that you can do your research on all these programs you are going to find stuff about gender and race but you can't talk about mental health without incorporating those two as well because they do play a big factor into mental health and not talking about mental health only increases the stigma around it and the issue around it as well so emma presents before you some potential programs that she and her colleagues will look into i know mental health first aid was brought up at the last school committee meeting that was a program that when i was assistant director of special education we we brought that program forward and trained a lot of our administrators our teachers and our faculty our secretaries we do a lot of training around mental health first aid there's also a
046youth component that we would like to explore and to see if that's a good fit so we thank you for that recommendation mr day um so we are definitely it's it's the job to look through these and to see what's the best fit and like emma said maybe it is a program maybe not maybe we tap into our school psychologists and our school social workers who are um who can provide this type of support but that's going to be the work in year one and also the main point is what best meets our needs in our mission what best needs meets the needs of the students in our building um i know for time purposes i'm not going to go through all this but i did want to bring your awareness on the focus by
047the american psychological association of coven 19 and its repercussions so mental health was already having a spotlight the there's articles coming out showing us that with the pandemic there's even more of a need for a focus and this is a quote from the apa if you look at the prevalence of kids who have school adjustment difficulties and mental health problems it was too high before the pandemic and it's going to be higher now pre-2020 there was already evidence that mental health problems in young people were on the rise the 12-month prevalence of major depressive disorder in u.s adolescence increased from 8.7 that was in 2005 to now 11.3 that's a significant growth in 2014. suicide rates also increased among people ages 10 to 24. that's our population that's our high school students in light of
048such trends more than half of u.s states have passed laws or enacted policies requiring schools to have mental health curriculum or include mental health in their health or education standards we're seeing increased awareness of the value of bringing mental health into schools which is step one and that's what we're here for we'd like to put forward a mental health club for our students to promote awareness around this important topic so i just want to leave off with one reminder our school the motto is pretty much all kids all the time so if we really are about all kids then i would really take in consideration bring in this mental health awareness for the safety of the kids and their mental state as well so we have a motion in a second so now we're open
049for discussion and questions um i know it's hard because i don't know who went first but can i just start at the end and work my way so we'll start with mr lagorie and then catherine emma thanks thanks so much for revisiting this and for your advocacy for this i want to make a few suggestions one don't of course limit yourself to that list you showed us there's many many resources out there i think mental health services are a critical need and now that you have a partner in mrs spas and superintendent picard i would suggest you start working on them on increasing the resources within the charitable schools for professional mental health services i think what you're doing is really outstanding but that's a lot of responsibility being put on the backs of students
050and i encourage you to continue on with your efforts but work with your leadership to see if we can all work together as a community to increase the resources of professional work so thank you very much uh miss trusty hi very good job that was a very impressive two times you've had to come up here and present to us so we appreciate it um do you have an advisor picked for this club yet um and also just to reiterate this is a voluntarily joined club this is not something that is going to be presented in classrooms it's not something that every child is going to be required to be a part of it's a club that you can join after school like other clubs and do you have an advisor okay so yes it's voluntarily
051no one has to do this it's completely if you'd like to um for the club advisors we have dr o as well as miss lafour and miss castor excellent thank you and dr o is a licensed she's a certified school psychologist and megan laporte is a school social worker thank you anyone else mr stock please i appreciate emma coming back to present on this again i continue to be disappointed however in the oversight the issue last time was that we had a presentation ahead of time and i had time to look at the presentation and look at the websites and i had to dig several layers in to find things that i found were really objectionable content so the approach and i'm allowed to think it's objectionable content uh the approach tonight was to not
052provide a presentation ahead of time and to have appreciate presentation very quickly and very hard to see so that i don't really know what we're asking for my other issue is that doesn't build trust for me in the process i think that mental health awareness is incredibly important and i agree with you on that absolutely i think to say that we you understood that we didn't like the the program and the affiliation that was presented last time and to suggest then that well we're not necessarily going to use that program or maybe we will or maybe something very similar um it's an unknown i would have felt much better if you'd brought an alternative that was a more agreeable alternative rather than an unknown the last point that i make is that you know the
053the people we've mentioned the school psychologists and social workers are people that we have here in the district on staff and on hand for these reasons i think we're providing these services in a lot of ways and i think we need to continue to provide those services and even see if we need to increase those services under the circumstances but the after-school club to me is still i think a little bit dangerous to tackle this mental health awareness and with unknown curriculum in an unknown direction i know i shouldn't use the word curriculum because it's not educational materials something we're providing is a school district however so i'm i'm as uncomfortable with it as i was uh last month george i'm sorry mr yes have you formed a liaison with the south shore mental health
054clinic in charleston we have not formed any liaisons with uh local south shore mental health is that um that could be again that's part of that year one you know i would say keep that year one work is to explore if there are um good partners and how to tap into our local experts i'm all in favor of using existing resources in the community i think that would be a good area for you to explore and like mr saul said we also recognize that we have valuable mental health providers within our schools and so and we already have them connected to the the club so that could absolutely be something that that's what you might be exploring with that you will be exploring a liaison with south shore we can i'm not saying that one
055specifically but i'm saying that that's the work of year one is what emma has proposed that that the students do that work in terms of exploring what's out there in terms of resources to support the mental health awareness so you'll be looking into it we can look into it yeah we will be looking into local resources and if that's a recommendation south shore we'd have to explore and look into that to see if it's a good fit thank you yes mr day as i said last meeting being in the emergency services i know how desperate we need something like this i will trust you as a principal of the school to do what's right and i'll support it but i i have this similar concern that mr saul had that it would have been nice
056to see this black and white in front of us instead of trying to follow this but what i probably should have did it's got out there in the audience so i could have i could could have followed this along and as george alluded to you know i apologize i thought you'd be able to see the screen sorry about that i would like to heard you say that we will investigate all uh possibilities to make this program work right but i will i will request you as the administrator of this building to uh to carry this out in a professional manner but uh i i have questions as to presentation here and you know whether you're gonna involve south shore you know i have a scanner i i pick up all of the chatter between ashwa
057hotel uh valley carolina and wesley as far as the individuals that they're taking and they're not taking 45 or 50 year olds to a lot of these places so i know i know there's a need but uh to not incorporate the people in the in the cheruhou and wesley district that are dealing with this because some of these kids that are being dealt with in wesley are childhood students i'm sure so uh i would hope that uh you reach out to all the local organizations and and see what they've offered what services they can offer to make this thing work thank you mr luzon you had your hand um can you hear me yes we can hear you emma fantastic all right you know some of us are reading more into this than what is
058really there it's just an awareness club okay and if we can teach the eighty percent to have compassion for that twenty percent and the eighty percent just said listen to that twenty percent then you've succeeded clubs coming up it's what you make of it so you know what you've got my vote just a note to the to the principal and to anyone else bringing presentations to the committee when we get a presentation ahead of time i read it and i study it if i don't get a presentation ahead of time it's generally getting a no vote because i don't have time to vet it thank you mr stone if we approve this emma if the committee approves it would you agree to come back in a year and share your work and where where you
059are like after your first year yeah after a year after we kind of try and figure out what we want to do we would come back and share what we find with you guys thank you okay mr callahan thank you chair i think that's a great idea to since there's not a lot of content it looks like you're you're you're doing a lot of searching for you know the vision and how it's going to be best suited for terre haute so i'm looking forward to seeing you in a year and and hearing what progress you've made i thank you for bringing this to us thank you any other comments yes um excuse me you need to yes because you have to be on the audio part of it thank you i think she's doing a
060great job but i also think you guys are missing an opportunity here to blossom something in this school she can work directly with the professionals we have on staff for some credit she she you could grow a program here where these kids could go off and and follow this career path you don't have this at charohome and obviously it's in great need now she seems like she really is interested in helping i say i think maybe she should be rewarded with a little credit towards her schooling or something of that nature if she's going to establish this but just in my opinion i think it should be done with the professionals in the school too so maybe we can establish a foundation of that within the school and maybe get more kids to join it
061kind kind of like they do in the tech school so you could utilize more of the professionals experience within the school and the other kids that you work with that was just my thought thank you miss hopkins you just did a really great job pitching our independent study where students earn credits for following a passion that they're really passionate about so thank you for plugging independent study for any student who's interested in earning credits of a passion they're interested in thank you thank you there's some there's been a motion in a second to approve the mental health awareness club if there's not any other discussion i will take they'll ask for a vote those in favor approving the club those against mr still any recusals or um sorry okay uh the motion passes thank you
062very much [Applause] thank you emma thank you miss pass back to policy i recommend approval of revisions to the attendance policy as submitted there's been a motion and a second to approve the revision to the attendance policy any discussion or questions with regards to this policy i don't see any so i will take that to a vote those in favor of approving the policy thank you anyone any against extensions are recusals and that was unanimous thomas thank you the attendance policy amendment i'm asking for a deletion of the amendment somewhere else behavior this time i realized that we have this saturday service days or saturdays and school day time um my request with that is simply that you know it says you can miss the saturday time that you know there's a time when you're
063in the next school week or the next school day or something like that or saturday it mentions that the only option to miss is medical um with notification worship day that we allow or make an exemption there so i would prefer if we had nothing on saturdays um but understanding that it may work well for some folks in the system at least everywhere from us if someone will find it [Music] my second uh question on the bus code is i have listed number nine it's under the discipline [Music] uh so this is on page four um under discipline and we have the class three um discipline items number nine as a class iii offense we have making racial slurs or other bias based infractions see charitable policy for definitions so the definitions under the charitable
064policy covers the bias-based infractions definition doesn't define racial slurs but i think that part is pretty straightforward and i think it's good that we have um making racial slurs as a class three offense here for discipline the wording i'm concerned with is other bias-based infractions the cherijo definitions under the charitable discipline policy says bias-based infractions are motivated by prejudice and occur when an individual or group of individuals are targeted because of their membership or perceived membership in a certain group this includes infractions based on hate um the difficulty i have with that is i have no idea what it means and i have no idea how to enforce it or who decides if something is a bias-based infraction we had a a community member speaking on bias and how we're educating for students to not
065have bias and how we need to not be biased but his bias was that the only people without bias are educators and that educators are exclusively not biased so there's bias everywhere so i don't know i don't know how we how we define that how we interpret it how we enforce it somebody could decide that anyone else's speech was biased based if a discussion happens about religion or politics or yoga in gym class if whatever the conversation might be that would end up having people on different sides or in different camps someone may make a statement and someone decides that it's biased based so i have a problem with that phrase and that word i'd love to see a change i'd love to hear what other people could say or give input about this bias-based
066infractions term if we can change it to something then it would work for me and it would make sense i think the the racial slurs is is the intent there that we want to make sure that that there's not um um hate speech in terms of racial slurs and that kind of thing so it's just this bias based infractions that i have issue with and i'd love an alternative to it or a correction or a change something that's more understood or enforceable donna yeah um as far as saturday observation of religious holidays when we talk about community service i think i mean my children had to do community service a lot for their various requirements in school and honor societies and all that and i do believe that someone can creatively incorporate a community service
067into a saturday if that's the day that they religiously worship i think that they can do it on a saturday or a sunday with and incorporated within their their worship um within the church okay so i don't see where a saturday is a problem i think that the student could if he needs to be disciplined or she needs to be disciplined can say okay i'm going to do my community service by babysitting at the church in the nursery that we have or helping the minister or whatever i think that can be incorporated and as far as bias is concerned and the terminology of what you're asking i think that was pretty clear to me when i read it i know bias when i hear it or see it and i think that others who are
068going to discipline or provide the discipline will know when they have the circumstances of what they comments were whether that was bias or not so i i don't understand your objections to this wording in this so with all due respect thank you mr callahan thanks chair so uh i yeah i'm fine with the religious exemption uh definitely but uh with respect to the bias-based infractions um there it's it is big and it's a little bit interpretive but it's intended also to give the bus driver um an opportunity to report to the principal so that the principal can dig into and explore whether or not something actually occurred so i if we need to refine the wording or something like that i just don't think you're ever going to be able to document it to the
069nth degree so that every bias is listed out i think there's some interpretation there so i'm fine with the language as it is i'm fine with the policy as it is it puts the discipline in the hands of the principles it puts due process into our process if there is some problem with the recommended um discipline from the principal there is an appeal process that ultimately comes to us and rides and so on so um i i'm i'm fine with it as it is okay thank you thank you um [Music] so i would like to make a motion to amend the policy and uh i guess it's the number of rights it's a roman numeral b so fail i'm sorry so i'm making a motion to amend the policy number b general information failure to
070serve as saturday community service or detention with a medical or religious excuse will result in an assignment of one extended school day okay okay well we have a motion second and there's a second on the floor to amend the policy to include the religious exemption into the the bus policy for the saturday that was ryan yes ryan made the second any further discussion on this matter on this motion no i'm sorry share what is there anything you want any more questions further discussion on the new motion on the amendment the amendment yes so if a student is able to waive it due to religious concerns or not when do they do their their time there's no more discussion or questions i'd like to take the amendment to the motion to a vote those in favor
071to approve the policy as amended thank you those against any abstentions or recusals looks like that was unanimous donna thank you okay okay um the next policy is the faceback i'm sorry point of order you're the primary motion yeah we gotta know are there any keys on this table keys like real keys the gentleman oh mr sullivan [Music] oh no that's okay that's important so point if i had a point of border here um you know about what i did we vote on the first one i'll take a vote thank you okay so thank you thank you craig [Music] do we want to take three minutes [Music] he didn't set him in the podium did he they just checked him up here [Music] so we need to go back to the original motion and the
072original yep to um see yeah to approve bus behavior code c with the amended parts to it amended thank you so those in favor those opposed must be any recusals or abstentions no okay thank you thanks for that reminder now we're on to d so the next item is the policy for face masks and face coverings um donna january vision there was inadvertently a tv on page two after a sentence so we removed that in the revision you received that would be only revision so you're recommending i'm recommending approval of the policy for face master face covering revision second okay there's been a motion in a second to approve the policy for face masks and face coverings revision discussion questions anybody from the school committee first chair yes i know i was making sure there
073was wasn't any school committee members okay sir whoever's wants to come down please come to the podium and state your name and where you're from thank you i think i would wear sunglasses my name is taylor rabbit i'm from ash away hi mr clark um i'm just curious what the mass guidance is going to be what's the what's the ruling on that and if um mask exemptions will be honored this year as our child's mass exemption from his doctor was not honored last year that's all thank you sir do you want to answer that yeah um so the updates to the mass policy um there's a revision in may so the new update uh revises the cdc language which says strongly recommends that people regardless of vaccination status where cloth face coverings indoors in public
074settings went around people outside of the household a change is required to strongly recommend it to be won indoors regardless of vaccination status but to be clear in the first paragraph in may the school committee approved the last sentence which was as guidance is updated the district reserves the right to implement and update mass guidance as necessary and then um to your question on the mass exemption which goes through our special education office with miss durkin she reviews all those with um with her team and then if typically i don't want to speak speak for her but they reviewed and then um based on if we could make accommodations and then she would coordinate with you and your and work on the accommodations with your child and their providers and then obviously the other um
075there's removal of any terminology regarding um previous things around distance learning as well as um there is a mass mandate still for the busing and public transportation for federal order so that's clarified as well as the existent circumstances clause which was created um by uh legal counsel and for the violence association of school superintendents and reviewed by our legal counsel who's also a part of that law firm which basically explains to our families that and a circumstance regarding like executive orders from the governor changes in the district state region um that there could be updates and amended as necessary thank you that was a good overview state your name and where you're from and then mr good evening members of the cheruhou school committee my name is louise dinsmore i live in richmond rhode island
076i have a son going into the fourth grade of richmond elementary school first i want to thank each and every one of you as elected officials elected by we the people of our community to ensure that our kids receive a solid education so thank you for that thank you for your service thank you for your leadership i'm here tonight to speak out in favor of a policy being instituted by this school committee not a policy instituted by the rhode island department of health not a policy instituted by the rhode island department of education not by the cdc not by governor mckee not by the local superintendent not by the charitable teachers but by you who are representatives of we the people of a parent's choice mask mandate pertaining to the 21-22 school year i feel
077very strongly that you should make this decision about masks based on the local data for example when you look at the data provided by the rhode island department of health on their website which i could find today which was cited from september 14th of last year to may 29 relative to the numbers of coded cases broken down by school broken down by students and then by staff the charitable elementary schools had very low incidences of covet cases last year specifically richmond elementary school with a student population of approximately 387 students had between 10 and 14 students test positive for covid when you look at that that's a 3.62 infection rate if you say that the high end of students which was 14 students were infected according to the data there were under five cases reported
078for staff for the entire year at richmond elementary school when you look at hulk valley elementary the incidence of covet positive cases there was about 6. 6.45 percent infection rate for students and charles elementary had an 8.12 infection rate for students this mask issue should be a local decision i feel very strongly that this is a local decision you are elected by local voters i think it's your obligation as members of the school committee to represent we the people locally quite frankly and i'm sorry if this sounds selfish i don't care what's going on in providence when socket lincoln cumberland it's the local metrics that i think that we need to be concerned about finally i would like to know what are your metrics by which you will examine to make this decision about masks
079in school what is the local data and are you going to going to be reviewing the local data when making your decision so what are the metrics going to be about masks and masks in school this year what's the level of the covet infection rate locally that's your thresholds by which you will institute that all kids wear masks is it the covert infection rate by town by school by numbers of students or all of the above it would be helpful to know what those metrics are when you're evaluating this decision please don't keep moving the goal posts let us know what the metrics are and be transparent about it again thank you so much for your time tonight and for listening now my son giovanni wanted to say something he's right here he's a little
080gun shy and i was just wondering if i could read his statement to you it's under two minutes is that okay hello members of the character school committee my name is giovanni dingsmore and i'm going to be a fourth grader at richmond elementary school i'm so grateful to all of my teachers this past year for their dedication and for working so hard to give my classmates and myself an in-person learning experience i'll tell you what i loved about last year and i'll tell you what i didn't like so much about last year i loved learning how to play the recorder and going to the library in school i didn't really like learning division and wearing masks i didn't like to wear a mask because it was hard to breathe yes they would give us mask
081breaks but then you know we didn't get a lot of them during the day the mask was really itchy on my face my glasses would get foggy and i would have to adjust my mask every few minutes because there was so much fog on them i would easily get distracted from my work because i had to adjust my mask what seemed to be like a hundred times a day i missed seeing the faces of my friends and my teachers i didn't know if they were happy having a good day or sad and having a not so good day i think you're a meeting tonight to decide whether or not kids should have to wear masks in school this year i know we all have to be safe because of coven but what is the solution
082maybe you would think about having all the kids who didn't want to wear a mask sit near one another in their classroom and the kids who did want to wear a mask sit near each other in their classroom to have some perhaps some separation thank you for listening and have a good night thank you [Music] so i'm happy to um talk about the metrics that we've been talking about with the department of health um while right now um there is cdc guidance and rhino guidance that talks about regardless of the transmission rates and they're looking at the state uh we're also looking at the rates um in our district right now richmond is the lowest in the state and at um a low to moderate rate hopkinton is the highest for our three towns and
083charlestown is right in the middle our cases are on and they fall just above in moderate so they just hit moderate um out of 12 to 15 cases the department of health has not updated that data since the last week of july and there were there were almost no cases for the month of july they have asked us to um really think about like you said our local data we had two events happening that they have asked us to keep our eye on which was the charleston seafood festival and up the upcoming washington county fair um because that could shift our data so it's um it definitely is something that we're taking into consideration our thinking is that similar to last year if you remember the letters that went out when we had a covet
084case um we would tell you the school that it happened at how many and we wouldn't let you know that the close contacts were being notified and we would sometimes know if you're in elementary school that we were moving a classroom to distance learning as an example um our expectation right now and again i'll see right now in our current state would be that we would use a similar format in that letter and something like you know charleston school has three cases while we look to mitigate spread we're going to ask that masks come on starting tomorrow uh while we contact trace and and work so it could be school by school it could be district and again uh we're working with dr minlov who's our district physician we were um on a call this
085morning ryde gave us a new template we met with all the um with rydo ride and superintendent thursday afternoon to go over the new back to school planning session to have those conversations uh we waited we had the governor's press conference today at two we were not given additional information to see if there was any shift in that guidance we met as a district team this morning with our nurses and admins and then right after that with our back-to-school planning team which is about 60 individuals that incorporates parents students school improvement team members admins teachers support professionals so that's what we're looking at right now we're not ready to say exactly what's going to happen on day one because we're monitoring our local data and we're not looking at this point to put in a
086requirement based on what we're seeing mr truth and then the people you know it's this is all these you have before so um i i wanted to address the the point that was made by a parent about the medical exemptions um there is something confusing in this policy and i read it and it confused me and i didn't i didn't remember it um from when i read it this morning until his comment in on page two in the third bullet point from the bottom we have the section and that's including the one that's that's crossed out because we've we've changed it um it says it's regarding the buses the buses that mass need to be worn on the bus buses by everyone for federal mandate it says masked face coverings are required to be warned
087by everyone on the bus during school bus transportation by federal order unless guidance is updated and provided by the district cdc guidelines state that a mask may not be worn for the following reasons one no no one under the age of two should wear a mask two if it would medically compromise and three developmentally delayed population if they are unable to remove a mask themselves then the next sentence says a physician's note cannot excuse math clearing however it can indicate the condition disability and the impact it would have on the individual so for me reading that i think for any parent who's concerned about a medical exemption there's a confusion and if not a contradiction there that if it would medically compromise is uh a reason for exemption from the federal mandate but then to
088have the two sentences later say a physician's note cannot excuse one from mask wearing so i don't know how you can determine that it would medically compromise and honor that if a physician's note is not sufficient so i i find that perplexing and troubling about the policy i don't like that piece um maybe uh mrs picard you can give some clarification on what that means or how we interpret that because if i was a parent i would certainly be confused by that part and while i have the floor i just like to say my my other uh personal opinion on this not not relating to the parents comment but i i would advocate for for schools where everywhere in the district for the entire year masks are entirely optional for everyone i know that i'm
089not going to lean on that no one ever agrees with me that's wonderful no i i understand why that's difficult but i advocate for that but i want i want to be sure what i'm going to be watching for as a parent and what i know other parents are going to be watching for is that when we adopt this policy saying it's strongly recommended that kids aren't feeling students aren't feeling pressure or coercion by staff members or teachers or other students that's very important to me this is our policy that we're only recommending that when my children go to school without their masks and choose not to wear them that there's not a coercion or stress or pressure put down put on them especially by staff or adults in the building so the language that
090you see actually comes from our department of health and it was um in last year's guidance as well and it was because of the just a simple note you know my child cannot wear a mask um and it was to ensure that we did our due diligence that people were not just utilizing a blanket note and that we understood what the need was so we could make an appropriate accommodation mr lagorie well my comment was similar a physician's note doesn't necessarily imply someone's medically compromised there are two potentially distinctly different things so a physician could in theory just write a note saying child should not wear a mask that doesn't provide a medically compromised reason so they they are in fact quite different in my opinion any other questions yes please so just to address
091what you just said um i furnished yes yes cassie rabbit i'm so sorry from ash away um i did furnish a note from my son's cardiologist and his primary care doctor and they were both denied and specifically said that it would be harmful for him to wear a mask so i just wanted you to maybe keep that in mind um we did pull my son out and homeschool him for that reason um and i just want to let you to offer some information this is um actually can be found on the cdc website it's just released by the biden administration um so according to the american conference of governmental industrial hygienists otherwise known as ac gih according to their newly released study an infected person can infect an uninfected person after 27 minutes of wearing
092of both people wearing cloth masks so and there's different i can i'll be happy to share this little chart with you um like i said it's been just released you can find it on the cdc website and i just think that um it is absolutely ridiculous to allow kids to go six hours um with maybe a ten minute break of masks um especially you know knowing this information that's just come out so i just hope you can take that and just um you know upcoming flu season i'm sure is going to come and change a lot of people's minds um but i just hope you keep that in the back of your mind so thank you so much i know it's a lot of hard decisions um thank you all for your time thank you
093[Applause] um i had a question about um what would supersede a charitable policy so for those of you maybe who haven't read it our policy right now says strongly recommended which does not say mandatory so strongly recommended um so i'm sure there will be parents will exercise their right to not send their child on a mask the bus policy though is a federal mandate so from my understanding it doesn't matter if i like it or not a kid is going to have a mask on a bus correct okay so i just want everybody to understand that if we pass this policy as a state strongly recommended it does not mean that there isn't going to come a higher governing body that's not going to come and supersede whatever this policy is so i just want
094everybody to understand that that our power only goes so far um so whatever we pass tonight we will certainly have in place at cheruhou but if something comes down from the state level or the federal level that's going to supersede what our policy is yeah and our policy has that clarification so it's clear and it also knows that the district can shift based on current numbers and data that we received if you want to speak come to the podium please unless you want to come to unless you want to come to the podium and speak please because you have to be on audio thank you mr stahl is proposing something with real leadership behind it when he says let's make it uh optional for the entire year no matter what we deserve to have freedom
095of choice in this country no matter what changes no matter what the cdc says tomorrow or the next day or the day after that these people have no more credibility in my eyes they have no more credibility in a lot of your constituencies eyes either you guys will only have credibility in their eyes for as long as you listen to them listen to us okay we know what's best for our children period okay if you guys are going to mandate us and force us to do things that we don't want to do we're not going to send our kids to your school we're going to it is going to break down understand that the freedom of choice needs to be protected it needs to be protected yes yes you have to come to the podium
096please state your name thank you i guess it's more of a question if parents come to you with doctor's notes who determines that those should not be fulfilled that kind of boggles my mind that you know on one hand your a parent comes to you with a an exemption for a child wearing a mask it's just a mask it's a thin piece of fabric and you deny it a doctor's note but you're running vaccination clinics in the school which are supported by that so like what doctors are we listening to just some that i i'm having a hard time understanding that parents have brought exemptions to you and you've denied them did that's a real issue so i would like some information on like one side or the other if parents are going to bring
097exemptions from local doctors are they going to be acknowledged so any time parent would bring a doctor's note for anything sometimes we would see them for you know my child needs an individual education plan it doesn't mean they would automatically get an individual education plan so that a team is brought together led by our special education department our special director ms durkin and the principal and the team at the school to review the need of the to the child to ensure that we can make the appropriate accommodations just simply putting it in writing does not automatically give an exemption and that's a statement and if you contact the state that's that's a process you'll see similar across different districts all districts yes ma'am hi goldie um from richmond i have a note from my doctor
098down pat from the disability rights center if any parent wants to go there it is a amer against the american with disabilities act to make them wear a mask i wear a face shield mess for my breathing issue and i still give trouble with my some doctors but it is against the american with disabilities act and as for doctors evaluations you ignored my son's evaluation when he went here doctor wine cooler how he said he needed an extra year ma'am yeah man could you say could you stay on top no it has to be about the mass i am you were just talking about you were my son's case was the most atrocious case in the history of all the schools in all the schools in rhode island so you don't listen to the doctors
099all the time thank you thank you mr david mr day thank you i'm trying to follow this conversation once i can but i think we're talking about two different things and that same page it says they're strongly recommended by individuals regardless so a doctor's notehead would have no impact on that because we're only recommending but when they get on a school bus we don't have that choice and that choice means that if we choose to violate the federal government the government can come after us in ways that you're not going to like because they will hold withhold federal money and if they withhold federal money that goes back on individual taxpayers to make up that difference so we're talking about two different things during the school day it's it's parents choice on a school bus
100from 15 to 45 minutes of a bus ride they don't have a choice so i i don't understand what our big problem is yeah see rabbit ash away what i'm trying to say which maybe i didn't make clear is i'm saying with with the idea that we're going to follow cdc with the idea that we're going to follow rhode island department of health ride all these other factors flu seasons coming up the numbers are expected to go up in that case when the policy changes okay because you have the it says there you have the right to change policy when the policy changes to mandated mask wearing maybe school by school maybe the district okay i get a call saying my i have to mask my son at school for the rest of the week
101will you honor his medical or any medical exemption because last year i got an email from mrs picard saying that no medical exemptions would be honored okay that if you needed to wear a face shield which was what was recommended by my son's doctors you needed to wear a cloth covering under the face shield so what i'm i'm just bringing that as a uh an example of what happened last year i'm just hoping that that's not gonna happen this year so on the bus i i know i don't mean to sound selfish i don't care what happens on the bus i'm gonna bring my kid to school drop them off and pick them up um and it is for 30 minutes which is within that cdc timeline that the mask will be effective for that
102half hour after that it seems though they're not very effective so i hope that i clarified that for you mr day um and i oh and we take a case by key so i'm happy to look at that case specifically with you and miss jerkin too yes okay thank you mr abbott yes it's my understanding that mass reduced the number of viruses in any given air stream there's no question about that it's scientific [Applause] that's uncalled for but it's just it's just that's uncalled for sir do you believe it no it's fact it's scientifically proven wearing mass reduces the number of viruses anybody else would like to speak school committee members discussion of questions i'm going to take this to a vote um there was a motion and a second to approve this revisions of
103this face mass policy those in favor you those opposed abstaining recusal motion passed thank you the next policy is a secondary grading policy this is a revision and i recommend approval of the visions to this policy there's a motion and a second to approve the secondary grading policy um any discussions or questions with regards to the policy that doesn't look like it i'll take that to a vote those in favor opposed abstaining refusals motion passed thank you the next policy is the standards for student behavior the high school and the childhood tech revision i recommend approval of the revisions to this policy second there's a motion in a second to approve the standards for student behavior policy high school ctc revision questions discussion anybody mr stahl uh i won't restate it all again for the
104same reasons earlier i'd like to ask for the same amendment to this policy for the religious exemption for saturdays second there's a motion and a second to add the revision for the exemption for religious reasons on saturday those in favor thank you anybody opposed to recusal of sentence no that was unanimous so now we go back to vote on the policy as amended do we need a motion for that no we don't we've already got that right yeah so okay any yes mr stone um two points on this one one it it has under letter g under the discipline the same bias based um i still have a problem with that terminology i have a same problem with it because the definition is in this policy that the other one refers to uh we've acknowledged
105that's vague and subjective i don't like policies that are vague and subjective another issue i have in this policy is under the substance abuse um under the uh the discipline and how they will be disciplined for first second violations etc when we get down to the substance abuse section and we went over this when we did this policy i guess it was about a year ago um it's letter b this is on page eight the top of page eight letter b possession use and or unfor under the influence of controlled substance including unauthorized prescription drugs drug derivatives i.e edibles natural or synthetic synthetic substances or alcohol interpossession use of paraphernalia we have the first violation and then the second in subsequent violations the first violation for this says possible police contact i voted no for
106this policy a year ago because it said possible police contact for possession use or being under the influence of illegal drugs and narcotics that's absurd it's illegal um and so the idea that we would have a first offense where we would not necessarily contact the police but that is left up to discretion of the administrators i lost the battle a year ago but i will vote no again unless we change that from possible please contact in fact just remove the first violation treat the first violation the same way as second and subsequent violations i referred to this with parents and in conversations over the last year since this policy went out they said you know all these other all these other offenses and infractions we first violation contact the police and that's in the policy
107in the protocol without question but when it comes to illegal drugs and narcotics and someone possessing or being under the influence in the school we may or may not contact police and that is that is absolutely criminal to me it's wrong and uh the school district deserves to be sued if they don't contact the police in that case um so i will vote no for this so i'm off the hook thank you mr staff unless someone wants to amend to change to to remove the first violation there miss lagorie and then miss chambers mr glory had his hand up and then donna david i don't disagree with your rationale however under b i don't see where the word illegal is in there illegal you said illegal multiple times and it says under the influence of
108controlled substance including unauthorized prescription drugs etc so i'm struggling to see the illegal part so the illegal is is uh appreciate the point it doesn't say illegal the possession of unauthorized pharmaceuticals or being under the influence of them or alcohol or possession of drug paraphernalia would be illegal for students of school age so that's not that word is not there gary but it's certainly a reality no 21 year olds in middle school donna chambers donna chambers i i was going to suggest amending it because i agreed with david that it should not be possibly police contact i think there's no harm in contacting the police in this situation so i would i would recommend amending it i make a motion to amend or just take out the word possible second we have a motion to
109take out the word possible from the possible contact of the police yeah well it's a motion to amend this is an amendment yes thank you and donna by taking out the word possible in the contract made the motion and david stahl seconded okay so i have some hands raised um mr abbott and then catherine ducey and then mr day and mr luzon i'm sorry you had your hand up earlier with the students that are eligible to receive medical marijuana be excluded from this if they had an exemption it wouldn't um we wouldn't be able they would they would have it would you ask them to put the rest before you proceed typically during the investment because they have to have due process there would be an investigation you'd contact the family etc ask for the
110documentation that would hopefully come out because they had a yep during the investigation correct and the police would follow up and we worked very well with her with the police um miss suzanne you had your hand raised first i'll have miss luzon then miss juicy and mr day i'd just like to know if john could answer why it's written in this way because i was shocked oh john's here yeah no i will be i'd be happy to answer the question and that is that sometimes it does need to be some discretion for the administration for example i have spent countless hours in another school district dealing with the situation cbd which is um included in this district that really are a drug-free school i have a parent who sends her elementary child to school with
111smoothies that have cbd because the pack believes that it is medically helpful for her um in terms of calling the police for something like that um the police have got you know bigger things to do with dc riot has bigger things to deal with therefore but that's uh an example of why that in all of these policies there needs to be some discretion for the administration to use common sense if the administration doesn't have common sense you should find different administrators um so can i follow up yes sir my wife will attest to this my hearing's starting to go i only heard half of what john just said so could somebody repeat what john just said i think he said he wanted i think because as a former administrator you want the discretion to decide
112whether or not you need to call the police and he's saying in some instances say for instance a small child at an elementary level brings edibles not knowing what he's bringing into school absolutely you may not necessarily want to call the police on that because it's not a you know it's not an illegal thing and dude in in the investigation there may be some dcyf and you know investigation with parents you know something more might come of it but you know you don't want to really call the police on a six-year-old you know for not knowing what he actually or she actually participated thank you very much linda okay that was a paraphrase but yes um miss juicy and mr day yeah i think john just kind of made the point that i was going
113to make is i don't want to tie the administrator's hands i think if there is a first contact calling the police right away isn't necessarily um always the best course of action so i don't want to take away for our first offense the administrator's right to handle it the way that they think is appropriate mr day my uh concern would be that there's got to be consequences of actions that students and adults take and we need to uh be assured that the consequences will be handled in a professional manner so if we start relying on police to come in and solve all of our problems uh we're going to be farther down the road to things that the people are objecting to now so uh i think we should leave it the way it is
114thank you mr day linda i'm sorry yes sir brian yes just a couple clarification that ryan bergen dean students at the high school um any time that there is contraband the way that we disclose it is to give it to the sro or the police so they're automatically notified when there's any physical potential contraband um where that starts to become sticky is when you have a student that is potentially under the influence we never really know what they're under the influence even if we send them the ambulance to the hospital for their safety because we believe that they're under the influence we never truly know what they're under the influence quantity so on and so forth so to turn around and do we notify the sro that we had an ambulance and student you know
115depart for possible um ingestion of a country absolutely we do that as part of our protocols anyway but to notify the police we're never 100 sure that the student is under the influence we're calling the nurse to do an evaluation call them parents calling the ambulance but to call the police and say somebody's under the influence that's really subjective and a parent could then turn around and say why'd you call the police you know my [Applause] suspicion of them being under the influence so that's where it becomes a little bit sticky thank you my comment was very close to his um maybe that first offense should just thoughts that call the sro i mean you're still reporting it to a police officer and some of that the visual of the police officer taking care of
116the situation for the child and in that situation there is a bit of authority without having to call the police but you still have that reassurance that an official is there to take care of it second offense would be different but i like that having some official capacity and you guys are on the mob that way that's our nose these children personally you can speak to them during the day thank you so this is uh almost word for word with some different voices the same conversation we had a year ago and i understand that there's numerous sanitaries where you're not sure if a student is under the influence of the substance we don't call the police without knowing that equality but the same thing was said last year contact it always says there would be
117possible police contact so you're leaving the discretion here for the administrator to possibly contact police my issue is again when policies are vague or subjective and you say sometimes you may call the police i'm not saying that this would happen but i'm saying the opportunity then for somebody to have a case that is very simple or very kind of that this person has so that would be uh the problem for me i'm not suggesting that for possible police contact is seen minor then those that see me less threatening like a gambling violation says police contact not possible video affairs such as police contact i don't understand um thank you okay so that's what we're voting on now the amendment goes in favor again to approve the policy as recommended many other conversations you have no
118paint those in favor those posts abstentions are recusal that motion also passed thank you very much we're on g the next item on the agenda is standards for student behavior the character alternative learning academy revision and i recommend approval of the revision to this policy there's a motion in a second to approve the standards for student behavior for the charitable alternative learning academy any questions or comments with regards to this policy no anybody no mr stahl you have a question or a comment thank you chair letter welcome f let me find a page for you what are you referring to please uh he's looking for the page letter f i'm trying to find a page number for you do you remember which area mr stalls yes it's it's under the uh it's regarding the matter
119of restorative practice and discipline that's g okay yeah j right is it g okay so uh right at the top of the policy then under behavioral standards in the overview we've added this um paragraph the restorative practice will be used at cala in lieu of or in conjunction with consequences of the behavior code restorative practice is a strategy that seeks to repair relationships that have been damaged violet by violations of the behavior code restorative practice represents a positive step forward in helping all students learn to resolve disagreements take ownership of their behavior and engage in acts of empathy and forgiveness this course of action can empower students to learn from unacceptable choices to understand their impact and to grow personally in their ability to make sound decisions and resolve problems the benefits of restorative practice
120also include building respectful relationships providing the opportunity for equitable dialogue and decision making involving all stakeholders and encouraging the need to take responsibility for inappropriate actions i think all of those words sound nice to me in terms of uh you know damaging relationships and helping students learn to resolve things taking ownership of behavior empathy forgiveness those are all things that i teach in counseling and have taught in education they make sense to me i understand that what i don't love is the very first sentence says that this practice this is a new practice the restorative practice will be used in lieu of or in conjunction with consequences of the behavior code so essentially we have a whole behavior code that says if you if you commit this sort of offense you have this sort of
121consequence and it's very specific just like all the others with first offense second third subsequent violations very specifically defines what the incidents were very specifically defined what the disciplinary actions would be and this first sentence in my opinion undermines all of that and makes that very confusing and again very vague and very subjective because it says sometimes when there is a particular infraction or a particular bad behavior sometimes there will be a consequence as outlined by our policy and you know exactly what that consequence is but sometimes there may not be because sometimes we may just use this restorative practice and talk about it and we may not use the discipline code that we have so why do we have a discipline code if we're going to undermine it or only use it some of
122the time and again when it's subjective it's going to lead to a lot of problems i'd hate to be an administrator in this context and have one parent say last week my child committed this offense and they were given these consequences according to the behavior code today another child committed that offense and they were the restorative practice was used to talk about repairing relationships and there was no discipline for the conduct so um i i have an issue with that because it's vague i have an issue with that because it's sometimes and it's a subjective i also have an issue with it in general i think you know it's it's been talked about that that cal can be a tough environment and i'm a fan of clear discipline and consequences and clear cause and effect
123and having some real boundaries and parameters for the good of the body as well as the good of the individuals so i think it undermines good consistent discipline and i think it's too vague so i don't like this whole section on restorative practice and would vote no if if it's presented as stands any other comments for mr callahan yeah thank you chair uh just a question for dave is your opposition the in blue of portion of it only or is it the entire paragraph it's that it says it will be used in lieu of or in conjunction with right so we have no idea if we if we throw out the whole discipline code and say we're just going to use restorative practice right yeah so if in lieu of well and the word war
124was removed then you'd be okay with this who said restorative practice will be used at cala in addition to the consequences of the behavior code i would have no issue okay that's good that's why i wanted to understand the second question then is um how how would restorative practice be used in lieu of the behavior code i can answer that i can almost scare my head thanks john please yes please yeah um very simply mental health um and as a result of them having mental health disabilities if their team determines that their conduct is not their conduct is a product of their disability under federal law you can't encourage discipline you can do something to address the situation by using restorative justice if you do not like that i encourage you to contact the federal
125government but that has been federal law for 25 years now again for kids who have disabilities where they have limited where they have limitations in terms of their ability to control certain types of behavior thanks john i appreciate that that clears it up for me sure i'll give you an example a very specific example i grew up with inappropriate to discipline him for using that word because he could not control his use of that word on the other hand it would be perfectly appropriate to try to teach him to say i'm sorry after he used it that the word came out of his mouth but because it was tourette's he couldn't control it and we have kids with tourettes thank you yes yeah john thank you that that makes perfect sense to me and i
126understand that and i think that's the environment of keller understanding all of the needs and all the disabilities and and all of the the situations that go along with it i think my question then is what does that mean for the rest of the um the discipline code because we still have here pages 10 pages of discipline code that talks about um all sorts of violations um and some of them would include the exact things that you've referred to as examples john and or things similar to them um vulgarity or behavior that someone perceived as threatening or refusal to follow directions we have a code of conduct and then we have first violation second violation all violations subsequent violations and discipline is that not all federally have to look at illegal with disabilities on an
127individualized basis so again if i use that vulgarity um over and over again during this meeting it would be totally inappropriate that it would be totally appropriate for the church called me out of order on the other hand if i use that vote because i have tourette's it would not be so again this is a situation where it affords the administration the ability to address situations on an individualized basis which is particularly an issue at cala based on the population that it serves comes up from time to time in school-based situations for example a school wishes to suspend a student or two students who are involved in a fight one student has a disability one student doesn't have a disability better makes it very clear that we cannot suspend a student with a disability beyond
12810 days whereas it certainly is more flexible um in those situations for kids who don't have disabilities it's a question of what federal government has equipment and individuals with disabilities education yeah so again very helpful clarification um the policy as it's written doesn't tell me all of that doesn't doesn't give us that explanation so i i'm gonna i'm gonna wait for donna or ryan to have a brilliant rewording but if it's said uh in lieu of conjunction with consequences of the behavior code with some sort of wording about with individual application based on need disability etc individual factors whatever the case may be i i just read and i understand everything you're saying john i just read the policy is not being that specific to tell me that if i read the policy it just
129looks like um sort of on a whim or in a very subjective way someone could decide today we'll just use restorative practice tomorrow we'll go to the code so i'd love it if it was somehow more specific to explain that based on individual need based on individual something perhaps john has wording that could clarify that with regard to your suggestion i don't think that your suggestion changes the circumstances all because somebody will say well i don't know what individual need means again all of this is laid out in um federal and state law in the special ed regulations but if it's a manifestation of the child's disability we are not allowed to use a child's disability against them to punish them for having a disability mr stahl we um if you look at the first
130paragraph the overview it does state that it's an educational facility designed to meet the unique individual needs of students requiring both clinical and alternative educational settings so it sort of does address the fact that these students are a unique individual's unique learners and and require a different approach yeah i understand that my point is simply john's up here with federal and state law and we have a school population and we're in between somewhere trying to make policies that accommodate everything and it makes sense i just wish it was worded in a way that helped do that okay so um right now we have the um policy as it stands there's been no changes or amendments so i would bring this to a vote those in favor of no i'm done we're done we're done you
131already have and we're moving on [Music] uh we have this covered in ieps i can speak from experience my son has an iep there was an infraction mr zenion wanted to suspend him and he couldn't because it's on his iep so we work together just so i know i know what i'm talking about do any of you know what restorative justice is and restorative practices i i've been reading a lot about this from both sides i have a really good document that i'll send to you guys after this it's a you know a promotional all the good things about restorative practices and restorative justice but as i was reading through it it's an instruction manual to start in schools in policy changes which i'm seeing here and as i read more about restorative practices and
132restorative justice it's a whole curriculum training a lot of money and they recommend taking all of the money from title one and putting it into restorative practices in school this is a lot more than just a policy change this is opening a door to a social emotional learning curriculum in the cali school i from my experience um miss hopkins is um we have um we have a cala uh cab it's called and we're we're uh i'm on that i'm on that committee and there's a grant it's a csip grant that was approved by the state of rhode island that we have the monies to be able to to put this restorative practice how long is that grant determination for if i may ask um right now it's until they get out of status with the
133state right can i ask how much that grant is yeah we know um i don't know off the top of my head it's a couple hundred thousand dollars okay for instance i i do have some figures la unified school and all the all the restorative justice programs that i've read about are inner city so it kind of doesn't fit here i understand the where the cali school sits my son was in that school for quite a while and is now in the middle school i'm very aware of it i like what they're selling but when you look at the details and you find out that these programs have no empirical data they're not showing any improvement the very first year they're implemented in schools math scores went down 14 because okay so yeah this is
134you're sort of out of order but to answer you miss hopkins to be able to implement this the csip to be able to to use the money for the c-step we had to show that these were vetted and um interventions that were tier what they call tier one and tier two which are highly that they have um research behind the space they have their evidence base thank you i was looking for the right word so so could i request that we table this discussion and have a more formal discussion about can't make that request this is another issue only a school committee member can make that thank you yes mr um um i guess i've been dismissed mrs hopkins yes we can request at any time any policy to be discussed in a future agenda
135item if we're not happy with what's happening with that policy so if we approve it which i suspect we're going to be approving this that doesn't mean a month from now a year from now we can't have a discussion about this again if it's not fulfilling what we expect it to do my concern is you're changing the verbiage in the policy to accept this terminology without fully knowing all of the meat behind what restorative justice is and how it's implemented in schools so for instance really quickly la unified is a huge school they spend two and a half million dollars every year on restorative practices thank you so it's a it's a continual amount an allotment of money thank you for your and it concerns the taxpayers of this community to know what those monies
136are being spent on grant point of water usually means cease and desist yes grant or not um i'm sorry um mr abbott and then miss chambers so i just i just really want to move the question i was going to ask yeah mr abbott has a and how about the drugs going to the school okay mr abbott has a question and then we're moving this to a vote just so i understand this a little better is this being done to comply with the federal policy or procedures in any way this no no no no this was my understanding is um was part of the comprehensive school improvement plan the community advisory board worked with the teachers and the school to be able to implement what was necessary to be able to move the school out
137of status which is part of what they're in there because of graduation rate but this was vetted through the department of education because their plan has to be approved through right okay and the feds don't have anything to do with the federal government gives the funding for the csip monies that's that's my point i mean they give us very little money but they swing a lot of weight in terms of our policies and requirements that's that's the point that i'd like to make okay thank you mister okay i'd like to move this to a vote um those in favor of uh accepting the standards of student behavior to our alternative learning academy policy as is those approve those against mr stahl uh recusal or uh abstention ascension mr day i'm sorry mr day doesn't know
138who they voted did you get bill's vote oh it's opposed i'm sorry mr d i'm sorry okay misunderstood okay we're on to h okay substitute rate of pay during cover 19 if this is a deletion i recommend deletion of the policy which was put in effect um during the beginning of the pandemic year so move second okay there was a motion in a second to um delete the substitute rate of pay policy during coven any 19. on that one questions those yes donna i just uh want to ask the superintendent if there is any concern about getting subs because that's why we initiated this pay raise we actually you if you remember you revised our current subpay so we fixed it in the original policy which is why the additional policies no no longer needed
139but to your point the concern we have is the long-term certified substitute so we actually have a nice pool right now of the per diem subs but it's a statewide concern there's actually a meeting august 18th and kristen merritt will be attending our human resources administrator because the problem across the state is certified subs verified okay all right thank you okay i'll move this to a vote those in favor of deleting the substitute rate of paid during cover 19 policy those in favor of deleting it thank you any opposition ascension or recusal okay that was unanimous donna okay okay the next uh item on the agenda is the harassment policy revision um john did review this policy the only update needed to be uh the removal of jane's name to michaels thank you second okay
140so we may have a motion in a second to update the harassment policy to add um mr come out dr camilla's name to the policy yes that's mr which who is oh miss dr camilla is our new assistant superintendent well that's my report i thank you mr luzon um did we vote no we didn't okay those in favor okay thank you those opposed anybody extensions are recusal okay thank you very much now we're on to business b which is this is the legal counsel agreement i recommend approval of the legal counsel agreement between the charitable regional school district committee and brennan recouper cashion scandio mcallister llp from july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022. so there was a sec a motion and a second to recommend the approval of the legal council agreement between the
141gerald regional school district committee and brennan recuperate castillon scungio and mcallister llp from july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 i opened for a discussion of questions at this point mr stone although no it will not be a shocker i don't i was not amused or impressed with the mocking and poor legal opinion when i asked for one regarding yoga and mindfulness or uh mr anderson's approach to several other issues we've discussed so i won't know thank you sir anything else no okay i'll take it to a vote those in favor of uh recommending the approval equal council agreement thank you for those wholeheartedly from this end of the table oh supposed mr thank you also on this end of the day abstentions or recusals and i'm there okay the motion passed thank you very
142much thank you you're welcome john thanks john okay so here's the interview i recommend uh approval of our 2020 2021 district annual report and it goes without saying but i'm going to say it donna scavenge and katie care explosion were instrumental in putting this together every year again i don't know for this live stream yeah that's true but um just the amount of effort the time and the thoughtfulness that goes into this it's greatly appreciated and thank you for that okay so there was a recommendation to approve the district annual report so thank you right but we moved in second okay thank you um any comments or no no no one again yes i love the format donna i don't know you know yeah okay i just like the way that like the individual schools
143i it was something that i wanted to you know kind of notice is that you know the highlights and then the goals of the upcoming year it's it's it's really it's very appealing and loves the eye and stuff i don't know if she's here thank you for all your work katie it was awesome oh and i also like the way you included the um the bus the bus and the car wows i thought that was nice too as a good way to point out those people that that work you know that they came to work turned it off right exactly so that was awesome okay so now there's a recommendation to approve the 2021 district annual report um those in favor pull hardly who are and those against are opposed any abstentions or recusals that
144was unanimous vote thank you so much thank you katie and thank you donna for all this awesome work it's okay now are you up there i don't know okay um so the presentation wasn't in your packet um and full disclosure we had our meeting with ride thursday afternoon um and we met at the district this morning there was no school yesterday so um but i will i'm gonna talk through and happy to stop and do you want them to move if they if you want us to see do you want to see the presentation if it's is it up shawn eric they leave us oh presentation okay and then the governor's press conference at two we weren't sure if we needed to make any updates okay great okay so um for all schools and this
145is a draft the plan to ride needs to be completed and on our website by august 27th and like i said districts just received the template and guidance and input with rydo and the department of ed to be able to understand the questions necessary so basic information that it's important to know as we're starting school september 2nd it is a full in-person learning schedule for all students pre-k through 12. like i said it will be posted on our website august 27th the finalized draft it will need to be updated per federal guidance every six months it will be attached to our sr3 funds however i'm very proud to say as a district we did this monthly so our plan was in a very good place um and in just another point of context our uh
146district we created a frequently asked question document when we put out our survey with our august e update we have been gathering questions from our community parents students and as we get those we update that faq so if you have a question and you don't see it answered please feel free to let me know and we're happy to add that so um i think actually miss dinsmo went over this data a little bit i don't know if she's still here but i thought it was important to share the data from last school year and just to be clear this data incorporates all students and staff so students even if they were full distance learners home instruction they were attached somehow to the district they're incorporated in these numbers this is information that was on the
147link as our opening plan last year we shared with all our families multiple times so it just gives you perspective about what our rates look like as you see we were um well some days it felt like we had a lot of tracing to do our cases were not as high as many other districts we did a lot of work and that was thanks to the community support our admits our teachers and our students are complying with our mitigation and prevention strategies um some of the questions parents have asked is our screening will i have to do that daily self check every day you will have to do it at your home but you will not have to do it on powerschool every day there will be a one-time self attestation form for all staff
148and students that is embedded in powerschool and there's a one-time fund that says you understand that we're asking you to check for symptoms daily so that's a one-time sign-off and that was a shift from ride's guidance and the pre-k through 12 guidance if if a family cannot get onto power school they would just contact their school clinical staff or admin and they can support them and walk them through how to do that and if they need a further assistance for our technical pledge it's always there to help um and then we're just again we have we have the same corporate symptoms noted in our attendance policy and we're asking anyone with two or more symptoms to remain home for the guidance so this is just a table that shows the current prevention strategies many we
149did last year as well we asked to do the screening every day prior to coming to work or school we have physical distancing for students who are not eligible to be vaccinated that's uh lebanon under population we have a policy that strongly recommends face coverings regardless of vaccination status we have hepa filters in every one of our classrooms we are continuing with our school-based testing when possible that is parental consent that doesn't happen without consent from parents we have our cleaning disinfecting and hand-washing hygiene that will remain in place just as it was last year we continue to promote vaccinations for the state requirement that is part of our plan and um we were asked to hold a vaccination clinic in august in coordination with our town emas and that is happening monday august 16th
150and that email went out to families today we are utilizing outdoor spaces whenever possible and we invested in outdoor wi-fi using our um ticket outside grant last year so that was funded through that and we are continuing with stable pods part of the pre-k through 12 guidance in um in k-8 so the other um highlight that parents wanted to double check was the quarantine plan we are sticking with the seven days from the last day they were in contact which means that on day five at the earliest we would ask our students to be tested and then return on day eight and then monitor for symptoms and this quarantine plan will be the same for our travel we we you just deleted tonight the policy that had the 14-day travel policy embedded so now it
151provides the district with the flexibility to use the same guidance we've been using for close contacts the other question parents have is about vaccination if a child or staff is vaccinated they do not need to quarantine as long as they are asymptomatic so if they're symptomatic they should stay home and get a test and if they are asymptomatic even if that household member um is the one with covert you would still not need to quarantine if vaccinated and this just goes over the same thing and right now this is right out of the playbook from the department of health which um explains what does it mean to be fully vaccinated and that um anybody who's identified as close contact does not need to quarantine transportation um does have a federal order as we discussed when
152we discuss mass policy so that's required um buses can be at 100 capacity uh um all students again we're reminding them to be at their bus stop five minutes before scheduled arrival they will have assigned seats they will be asked to wear their masks at all times and they may ride only their assigned bus and must not get on and off at different stops every day that was also in our pre-k through 12 guidance so those are the big highlights those were the um the topics of uh conversation many of our families were looking to have but um we continue to work on the plan like i said we met with our district-wide team this morning and continue to meet with them to talk through and prepare our finalized plan which we posted i think
153will be posted earlier than august 27 because we're really in a very good place uh that will be posted on our website correct okay and i'll send out an email when that happens so people uh our families including no know that it's there any questions hopkins yes attempted podium please there's no i may have missed it is there any leniency with the absences since parents are making calls if their kids are feeling ill and for the corporate symptoms yes it still has an excused absence okay um i guess we're at the consent agenda items how are we doing on time yeah pretty good okay um so anything that needs to be pulled from consent agenda items a one two and three a one two and three will be pulled and voted on any other things
154that need to be pulled from consent agenda items are you ready yes sir i gather madam chair i make a motion to move the remainder but before i do i would like to recognize a donation from staples in wesley for four thousand and nine dollars and 28 cents for our miscellaneous supplies which they do give us which i don't have in front of me i should have a lot of stuff so here's my motion very good thank you staples second that can emerge the motion to um move no where am i going consent is to vote on the consent agenda items um those in favor thank you all those opposed abstention of refusal okay all right now chairman i tried to try to do this quick so 10 o'clock yes sir um at this time
155i make a motion to approve a1 executive session minutes of july 13 2021 approval of the executive session minutes of june 22 2021 minutes not sealed second there was a motion in a second to approve the minutes the executive session minutes of july 13 2021 approval executive session june 22 2021 minutes not sealed those in fact oh any discussion on those minutes no those in favor to approve the minutes those opposed abstentions okay that's ryan and mr abbott was abstaining madam chair i make a motion to approve a two executive session minutes of july 13th 2021 nea character contract tentative agreement unsealed july 13th 2021 second you spent a motion and a second to approve the executive session minutes of july 13th 2021 nea terre haute contract tentative agreement unsealed july 13 2021 any discussion
156or questions on this matter in these minutes i'll take a vote those in favor thank you any opposed abstentions and recusals so one abstention madam chair yeah make a motion to approve a3 regular session minutes of july 13th 2021 page 10 revised to include linda mcallister's vote there's been a motion in a second to approve the regular session minutes july 13 2021 including mrs mcallister's vote there wasn't any discussion on that question of those in favor those opposed abstentions mr callahan's abstaining any refusal is done okay thank you okay now we're on to reports so there are no subcommittee reports at this time and and for my report we have a few things appointment of our assistant superintendent dr michael camilla who just completed his first week as of tonight dr camilla comes to us
157with well-rounded experiences through his 29 years in education he began his career as a middle school mathematics teacher his experiences have involved many levels of school leadership administration supervision curriculum finance and technology about school and district levels he's a graduate of the national institute of school leadership and the national superintendents academy two very rigorous programs designed to develop and grow leaders as well as receiving his doctorate in educational leadership he has an extensive background in curriculum design and implementation as well as instructional coaching with both teachers and leaders and he comes to us with glowing recommendations and will be greatly missed by his community and his colleagues we are very excited to have dr camilla as part of the character for our um kindergarten registrations our updates are as follows we have 37 registered at
158ashway 65 students at charlestown 36 students at hope valley and 82 at richmond and as i know you all aware we will typically receive this up to the very last day before school begins thank you we are monitoring the numbers closely uh the flu clinics have been finalized and will be posted in our september e update they are taking place in the month of october and uh the finalized dates will be in that update and our upcoming events is our new teacher orientation on august 26th recently added as our vaccine clinic open to all community members staff students family etc on august 30th staff conversation convocation is building based on august 31st we have fifth grade open house and welcome nights as well uh at six to eight pm we have district pd days on
159august 31st and september 1st on september 2nd students will report for the first day of school uh and september 6th and september 7th we have no school on for staff and students on the 6th and no school for staff and students um staff for 180 days and that ends and concludes the reports thank you yes i'm sorry mr day would you like to comment on the uh uh vaccination we've got coming here yeah well i mean you know i was looking on a website and i noticed it wasn't there was like 90 some spots still open so you know it would be nice if we do have a little bit of an audience here oh yeah august 16th if you're not vaccinated please come we have actually also called ema the town i've notified all
160of the town managers and they've all posted it to their facebook pages and websites but yes if you want to get vaccinated you don't have to wait for that clinic but if you want to come sign up on the prep mod the link was sent out to all families today can you explain building based convocation or by buildings so it's no more at all everybody here probably not this year okay okay okay um we're on to school committee quest for future agenda items or legal opinions i'm open to mr mr abbott please yes i'd like a report from the administration and discussion about where the functions of a facility improvement team end and a building committee is formed it seems to be a bit of an overlap it seems to me especially with this issue
161regarding the architectural firm that some of that issue could have been prevented by a building committee it would have afforded more more scrutiny in that particular case okay so and could i add to that sure we still have a facility right committee yes there is are we done no no i i still don't know i i'm just saying that committee it hasn't been changed it still isn't it overlaps with the building command infringes on you know issues that might be addressed by a building committee i think the taxpayers have to vote to implement a building committee right so there's we it's two different entities right facilities okay thank you mr abbott so that would be something for future agendas thank you for discussion mr stahl yes i have a few agenda items and i've emailed
162them to the clerk and the superintendent at this before we started our meeting number one i would like to discuss removing the community tab and all non-cherijo school district organizations from our cheri ho district websites number two i would like to have the two resolutions against critical race theory from the rhode island coalition for israel and the hopkinton republican town committee on our agenda or a discussion about why we won't discuss them and number three i would like an analysis of the financial and other impacts of a large-scale student withdrawal for homeschooling for example dollar amount lost per student budget programming staffing impacts etc an impact of home schooling i would add that the uh the first one is a a redo of a glitch we seem to have in wording so we couldn't apparently
163make a legal motion last time the second is a third meeting um looking for that item to be addressed and the third is a new one thank you mr still any other future items is unanimous thank you we are jared thank you very much